Once upon a time, democracy was understood as a liberal means, not an end unto itself.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, "the masses" were far more liberal (in the libertarian sense of the word) than they became in the last century. They understood that the ruling class pursued a command economy in their own interest and to the detriment of working-class consumers. British "Radicals" such as James Mill put universal suffrage ahead of laissez faire as a political priority, not because they thought democracy was more important than economic freedom, but precisely because they believed democracy would inevitably lead to economic freedom. They failed to support the Anti–Corn Law movement because they saw it as too middle class and as a distraction from the more immediate issue (for them) of mass majoritarianism. Ironically, the masses they idolized did support the Anti–Corn Law movement. As Rothbard writes, "by rejecting this middle-class movement, [Mill, et al.] rebuffed a successful one, and this refusal to support the Anti–Corn Law League in the 1840s helped eliminate Radicalism as a powerful force in British politics" ("Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire," available in PDF).

Modern libertarians, with our very different take on mass democracy ranging from ambivalence to antipathy, might have a hard time seeing how the process of electoral or legislative rules could ever be more important than freedom or peace, but classical liberals seem to have been as mixed up on this point as are our illiberal contemporaries.

Barbara Tuchman offers another example of this value reversal of means and ends, although, as she makes clear, she agrees with the fetishists:

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