Introduction and Preview
After discussing the various definitions of democracy, the chapter laments the paucity and inadequacy of the literature on anti‐democratic thought. Hirschman's three categories of ‘reactionary’ thought—perversity, futility, and jeopardy—are then introduced and defended. The perversity thesis holds that progressive reformers will achieve the opposite of what they intended; the futility thesis claims that they will achieve nothing at all (owing to the refractory nature of reality); and the jeopardy thesis expresses the fear that any success they might have would be at the expense of cherished values. The chapter maintains that all anti‐democratic thought can be fitted into these categories, and that anti‐democratic arguments rely, in the main, on the idea of unanticipated consequences.
Keywords: anti‐democratic thought, democracy, futility thesis, Hirschman, jeopardy thesis, perversity thesis, reactionary thought, unanticipated consequences
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