‘A Jewish and Democratic State’? Murray Rothbard on the Inherent Contradiction

For if someone contends that the majority in Country X should govern that country, then it could be argued with equal validity that the majority of a certain district within Country X should be allowed to govern itself and secede from the larger country, and this subdividing process can logically proceed down to the village block, the apartment house, and, finally, each individual, thus marking the end of all democratic government through reduction to individual self-government. But if such a right of secession is denied, then the national democrat must concede that the more numerous population of other countries should have a right to outvote his country; and so he must proceed upwards to a world government run by a world majority rule.

In short, the democrat who favors national government is self-contradictory; he must favor a world government or none at all.

Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1283

(We have written elsewhere of another contradiction discovered by Rothbard in political democracy here.)