Why Democracy?--Question 2 from Bob A., age 18

Bob A., previously introduced as "Johnny Public," poses the following multi-farious question. Please help me assemble some sort of answer. (Rome wasn't built in a day, and an Amish barn-raising takes the whole town, and I can't reassemble the cathedral that is Western Civilization alone.) I've edited this a little, but left it mostly hairy and complex. In response to my asking what could be better than democracy, Bob writes:

There is monarchy, which history has shown is far less cruel than democracy. prior to world war one, no states were democratic, with a few exceptions such as athens, the roman republic, the u. s., and the french republics. after that, most states have been democratic, and there has been a tremendus increase in taxation, inflation, (real) interest rates, legistlation, ideological war and genocide, and immorality. democracy has been the fountain head of every form of socialism, notably that of nazi germany and soviet russia, not to mention the roman empire. the democratic revolution of france was also particularly brutal. this is consistent with the theory of government.

kings have a perpetual monopoly on the ability to plunder and loot their realm, and can pass that along to their children, so they have an incentive to preserve the value of their rule and not engage in reckless behavior such as excessive taxation and war. democratic rulers have exactly the opposite incentive. in order to be relected, politicians must engage in redistributing wealth, ideological war, useless legislation, and whatever else the voters want (or that they can dupe them into thinking they want). in other words, the incentive of politicians is to loot the country as quickly as possible, because what they don't loot now, they won't be able to in the future. the other alternative, which i think best, is anarchy (that is, the lack of a state). this in various degrees has worked in ancient america, ancient iceland, and modern somalia. the most notable example is ancient ireland.

in theory, though, the state is simply unnecessary, because it provides no service which couldn't be provided more efficiently by the free market. it is a law of economics that monopolies are never more efficient than competing companies. utilitarian arguments are morally flawed if they violate natural principles of justice.