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Doug Casey Reveals 3 Ways You Can Opt-Out of the Rising Insanity

Posted by M. C. on September 30, 2021

There are basically two types of people in the world—people that like to manipulate the physical universe and create things and people who like to manipulate other people and control them. The people who go into government, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, are the latter. They’re dangerous.

https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-casey-reveals-3-ways-you-can-opt-out-of-the-rising-insanity/

by Doug Casey

International Man: Ever since the outbreak of the Covid hysteria, government control over everyday life has reached unprecedented levels. Petty bureaucrats now exercise control over who can open their businesses, whether you can go to a restaurant, and even whether children can go to school.

Where is this all going?

Doug Casey: There are basically two types of people in the world—people that like to manipulate the physical universe and create things and people who like to manipulate other people and control them. The people who go into government, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, are the latter. They’re dangerous.

The problem is that the average citizen in every country around the world has come to think that the government is the most important entity in society. It’s not; it’s a coercive fiction, a parasite that produces nothing. The wrong kinds of people are being given even more control.

Once people with a certain psychological mindset—that second type of person I just mentioned—take control, things inevitably get worse.

In Washington, DC, as well as in many state and local governments, we now have genuine Bolsheviks and Jacobins in control. That’s not to say that they’re necessarily believers in those philosophies, but they’re exactly the same psychological types. In other words, they’re exactly the kind of people who once destroyed France and Russia, reincarnated in today’s America.

Once these types get control of the machinery of the State, they won’t give it up. Power—the ability to coerce and control others—is central to their very beings. They’ll try to cement themselves in place now that they feel they can get away with it.

They’ll use their power aggressively, installing counterproductive and destructive policies. The worse things get, the more the public will look to the government to save them. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

The chances of getting a genuine lunatic as the president are very high. I’m very pessimistic because trends in motion tend to stay in motion—and this trend is accelerating rapidly.

International Man: As a result of this trend, more parents than ever have opted for homeschooling.

What’s your take on this?

Doug Casey: It’s cause for optimism.

See the rest here

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Watch “Separate Healthcare and the State” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on September 4, 2021

FFF president Jacob Hornberger gives an update on the current status of the country’s healthcare system. COVID-19 has made a centrally planned system even worse. The only solution is get the state completely out of the healthcare business.

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How America Abandoned Decentralization and Embraced the State | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on September 4, 2021

Bassani sees in the states’ rights tradition the primary focus of resistance in the American context to the Leviathan state. “Whatever else might be said about the states’ rights tradition, one thing is certain: Over the course of the modern era it has shown itself to be the most potent intellectual restraint on the growth of Leviathan. . .

https://mises.org/wire/how-america-abandoned-decentralization-and-embraced-state

David Gordon

Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government 1776—1865. By Luigi Marco Bassani. Abbeville Institute Press, 2021. Vii + 356 pages.

Marco Bassani is a historian of European political thought and it is from the perspective of his discipline that he looks at the American political system that came to an end in 1865. As he sees matters, the United States from its inception as an independent country resisted the dominant trend of nineteenth-century Europe, the rise of the all-powerful state. Before the Civil War, the United States, as its plural name suggests, was federal and not central in form, and sovereignty resided ultimately in the people of the several states, taken separately, rather than in a unified entity. Bassani’s book is rich and complex, and, rather than attempt of a summary of its many valuable ideas, I’ll discuss only a few of them.

The state, he tells, us is a modern invention. “In fact, the state is modern. Indeed, the term ‘modernity’ itself makes very little sense politically except in relation to the state. . .The state is European in the sense that it originated and developed in Europe (thought it then became highly exportable). It is modern because it began its history during a period which more or less coincides with the modern age. And it is an ‘invention,’ not a discovery.” (pp. 12-13)

This puts him at odds with Franz Oppenheimer and Albert Jay Nock, and Bassani is explicit about this disagreement, but I do not think admirers of these authors need be too disturbed by this. Bassani does not deny that predatory bands that permanently settled in a territory extracted resources through the “political means” from the subject population. What he argues is new is the state taken in the Weberian sense, an entity that claims to be the sole source of legitimate authority. “In short, the first item on the agenda of the modern state was the centralization of power. At the dawn of the modern era the state began its long journey when absolute monarchs created a single decision-making center of command, which gradually imposed itself on all other decision makers. The centers that constituted the ‘medieval cosmos’ were obliterated. The state asserted itself as the sole, overriding and exclusive focus: In due time no other political power remained.”(p.24)

America took another path, though centralizers, most notably Alexander Hamilton, would have been happy to follow the European pattern. But though the Constitution increased the power of the central government over the weak arrangements provided for in the Articles of Confederation, it did not enact the plans of the centralizers. Moreover, the Constitution was ratified only after a bitter struggle. Bassani stresses the continuing influence of Antifederalist opposition to the Constitution on the Jeffersonian party, the principal opposition to the Federalist centralizers whose greatest figure was Hamilton. “The Antifederalists absolutely did not disappear from the American political scene; rather they simply became less visible for a few years. . .The divergent views of society—essentially, whether it directs itself or must be directed by the paternal iron fist of a national government—were at the heart of the divisions over power between the newly emerged Jeffersonian party and the Federalists in power. And these in turn were but the further development and the ideological crystallization of the political issues raised during the ratification debate. “(p.119)

Bassani devotes a great deal of attention to Jefferson and Calhoun as leaders of the opposition to the centralizers. Calhoun, in particular, he regards as the greatest American political theorist since the Constitutional debates, an opinion also shared by John Stuart Mill. “John Stuart Mill’s judgment reserved for the Disquisition [by Calhoun] is much better known. Calhoun, he wrote, ‘has displayed sharper powers as a speculative political thinker superior to any who has appeared in American politics since the authors of the “Federalist”’”. (p.233, note 111) But I will leave it to readers to investigate what he says about them, in order to concentrate on something else.

This is the role of Abraham Lincoln as a proponent of the European central state. “Lincoln’s deep political convictions emerged with great clarity and marked the decline of all the conceptions that had presided over the development of the Republic to that point. Lincoln stated that he held the Constitution to be an ‘organic law,’ thus introducing a European idea that had little precedent in America. . .Within the space of a few phrases we encounter all the constitutive elements of the theory of the modern state, expressed by a man who had probably never heard of Machiavelli, Bodin, or Hobbes, but who nevertheless was following in their footsteps.” (p.278)

Lincoln regarded the American national union as a matter of world historical importance. ”As proof of Lincoln’s concept of the Union and its goals, there is no more important document than his message to Congress of December 1, 1862. His impassioned description of the United States as a living being, as our ’national homestead,’ is the premise on which the President erected his argument for union. ‘In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands Union and abhors separation. In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost.’ In short, the Union, being an article of faith and exempt from rational cost-benefit analysis, has no price.” (pp.284-285)

Bassani sees in the states’ rights tradition the primary focus of resistance in the American context to the Leviathan state. “Whatever else might be said about the states’ rights tradition, one thing is certain: Over the course of the modern era it has shown itself to be the most potent intellectual restraint on the growth of Leviathan. . .The Constitution is not enough: The modern state, because it is self-regulating and judge of the extent of its own power, inevitably creates an absolute monopoly. In contrast, in an authentic federal system the government is subject to controls by other governmental powers. The institutional history of America, at least in the time frame we discussed, can be clearly seen as a large laboratory in which Calhoun’s refrain is clearly corroborated: Power can be checked only by power.” (p.311, emphasis in original)

Marco Bassani has written an outstanding book, based on a thorough knowledge of political theory and American history. I noted only a few mistakes. It is not true that “the formidable indictment in the Declaration of Independence targets only George III.” (p.66) The shift in the Declaration from the clauses that begin “He has” to those that begin “For” mark a movement from indictment of the king to an indictment of parliament. The 10th Amendment does not use the phrase “expressly delegated.” I would have preferred also a greater emphasis on the importance of individual rights. But all students of political theory and American history will learn a great deal from Bassani’s impressive work. Author:

Contact David Gordon

David Gordon is Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute and editor of the Mises Review.

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Voting, Interest Groups, and the State | Mises Institute

Posted by M. C. on August 25, 2021

The power of bureaucrats to corrupt governance is artfully captured by Ludwig von Mises in his book Bureaucracy: “Representative democracy cannot subsist if a great part of voters are on the government payroll. If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury then democracy is done for.”

Even more striking is that union members regularly constitute at least 10 percent of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention, making them the single largest organizational bloc of Democratic Party activists.

https://mises.org/power-market/voting-interest-groups-and-state

Lipton Matthews

The implementation of voter ID laws to prevent fraud has led some to argue that voting rights are under assault by the state. But this mistaken assumption is predicated on a false premise, because voting is not a right. Rights exist independent of the political regime, so even though communist states abrogate human rights, this does not alter the fact that people still have a right to own property and express religious beliefs. Essentially, voting is a mechanism implemented by the state for political purposes.

Voting permits citizens to participate in governance by declaring support for various policies. But failing to entertain some opinions could enhance living standards, as economist Bryan Caplan intuits in his provocative book The Myth of the Rational Voter. Caplan rightly argues that politicians fixate on delivering the goods of democracy instead of enabling markets to facilitate the long-term development of society. The average voter rarely appreciates the intricacies of governance, and as a result, succumbing to his demands may prove to be disastrous. After all, it is not unusual for voters to espouse support for economically harmful policies like trade protectionism and occupational licensing.

Moreover, voting offers an opportunity to undermine rights, because individuals are given the prerogative to determine benefits for other people. In 2013, for example, Swiss voters rejected a proposal to cap executive pay. Despite the logic of their choice, Swiss voters really had no business influencing the compensation of executives. Politicians and citizens alike should direct their focus toward elevating the caliber of governance rather than expanding democracy. But ultimately doing so requires a recalibration of our perception of the state.

Like the corporation, the state is a legal fiction entitled to select the criteria for participating in governance. For instance, in a company, board members are not obliged to act on the recommendations of junior employees. Yet this stance does not deter directors from advancing the interests of workers. Hence the fear that voting restrictions ensure that the concerns of some groups are avoided is unwarranted. A case in point is that though children are unable to vote, politicians still champion their cause. Their devotion to children is illustrated by laws against child labor and abuse. Likewise, people suffering from serious cognitive deficits are unable to vote, yet this has not discouraged politicians from lobbying for the mentally disabled. Neither did the exclusion of women from the political arena prevented politicians from privileging their concerns, as Ernest Bax noted in his 1896 publication The Legal Subjection of Men.

At some point, we must confront reality by admitting that prioritizing development by limiting voting is a feasible strategy to promote progress. As such, we should discuss groups that must be barred from voting. Undoubtedly, disallowing lobbyists from voting would protect democracy from becoming enslaved to special interest groups. Such groups exert enormous influence on the political system at the expense of other citizens. When these groups obtain subsidies and political privileges, taxpayers feel the brunt. One estimate suggests renewable energy subsidies will cost taxpayers more than $40 billion from 2018 to 2027.

Another disadvantage of interest groups is that public-sector unions make it costly to dismiss reprobate employees. Richard Berman in the Washington Times details the daunting task of sacking sexual predators due to the rigidity of union protection rules:

Longtime teacher John Vigna was recently sentenced to 48 years in prison for repeated sexual abuse of his students. Cases of teacher-student sexual abuse are all too common. Hundreds occur nationwide each year. What’s worse is that teachers often demonstrate warning signs of perversion before they offend—or before their offenses amplify—but cannot be fired because of union protection rules. In Vigna’s case, sexual abuse complaints were lodged against him as far back as 2008. In 2013, a top district official called his conduct “indefensible, inappropriate, and intolerable.” But he was allowed to stay in the classroom.

Teachers’ unions wield phenomenal power, and according to Education Next, since 1990, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have usually been among the top ten contributors to federal electoral campaigns. Even more striking is that union members regularly constitute at least 10 percent of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention, making them the single largest organizational bloc of Democratic Party activists.

Therefore, if members of these bodies are unable to vote, then politicians will no longer be inspired to indulge their demands. So, consequently elected representatives will have a stronger incentive to govern in the interest of citizens. Similarly, the privilege of government employees to vote should also be rescinded. Officials in the public sector depend on state resources, so by exerting political clout, they can obstruct the course of democracy.

The power of bureaucrats to corrupt governance is artfully captured by Ludwig von Mises in his book Bureaucracy: “Representative democracy cannot subsist if a great part of voters are on the government payroll. If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury then democracy is done for.” Likewise, beneficiaries of welfare should equally be prohibited from voting to deter politicians from becoming susceptible to requests requiring the distribution of wealth. Resultantly, when fewer people are permitted to vote, the political system will be better insulated from the costs of populism.

To foster development, we must recast the state as a corporation preserving society’s resources for the future benefit of the unborn. Hence its long-term outlook will favor development to democracy. The truth is that universal voting is not a positive feature of democracy, but rather an impediment to progress.

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Barbarous Relic: Our enemy is STILL the state

Posted by M. C. on August 9, 2021

Hoppe sums up his discussion of the state with a proposed riddle:

Assume a group of people, aware of the possibility of conflicts between them. Someone then proposes, as a solution to this human problem, that he (or someone) be made the ultimate arbiter in any such case of conflict, including those conflicts in which he is involved. Is this is a deal that you would accept? I am confident that he will be considered either a joker or mentally unstable. Yet this is precisely what all statists propose.

http://barbarous-relic.blogspot.com/2021/08/our-enemy-is-still-state.html

In The Great Fiction, author Hans-Hermann Hoppe starts where any discussion of government should begin, with the defining attributes of a state. 

Why this approach?  Governments that populate the earth are all states, though there is no good reason they should be.  

What are these attributes, exactly? The most salient feature of a state is its self-appointed monopoly powers.  If it declares it can’t be sued, it can’t be sued.  If it or its agents decide to tax its subjects, it will fleece them.  If it decides to go to war, it will unleash its war machine. If it decides to outlaw market-derived money, which has been gold and silver, and replace it with easily-inflatable fiat currency, everyone must begin accepting the state’s money in trade.  Any violation of these laws is subject to punishment, enforced by the state’s badge-carrying thugs.

Those who constitute the state apparatus are a minority in any society, and thus need to convince the rest of the population that their rule is necessary, just, and inevitable.  For this they engage intellectuals, who otherwise would be at the mercy of the market and would largely remain unemployed.  As Hoppe points out, not just some intellectuals but all of them.

Even intellectuals working in mathematics or the natural sciences, for instance, can obviously think for themselves and so become potentially dangerous. It is thus important that [the state secures] their loyalty.  

Thus, during the 2020 presidential campaign we witnessed a major American popular science magazine, among others, endorsing the candidate for whom the state is foundational to his programs. 

In education as elsewhere, the state becomes a monopolist.  Importantly, education up to a certain level must be compulsory, to teach people to think as subjects of the state.   

Have the intellectuals done their job?  Ask people if they think the institution of the state is necessary, and Hoppe believes 99% of them will say it is.  States have been around so long they seem part of nature, like trees and bees, or floods and earthquakes.  One of the great achievements of the statist intellectuals is never allowing the question of the necessity of the state “to come up for serious discussion.  The state is considered as an unquestionable part of the social fabric.” 

But if it is questioned, Hobbes and his “state of nature” argument apparently wins the day.  According to Thomas Hobbes, without a state life is permanent conflict.  As Hoppe writes,

Everyone claims a right to everything, and this will result in interminable war. There is no way out of this predicament by means of agreements; for who would enforce these agreements? 

The only solution is the establishment of a third independent party, by agreement, to serve as “ultimate judge and enforcer,” what has been called a state.  But as Hoppe argues, there’s no way this arrangement can come about peacefully, because a prior state must exist to enforce it.  

States are conquering parties that have imposed their will on its subjects.  

If A and B now agree on something, their agreements are made binding by an external party [the state]. However, the state itself is not so bound by any outside enforcer. . .  The state is bound by nothing except its own self-accepted and enforced rules, i.e., the constraints that it imposes on itself. Vis-à-vis itself, so to speak, the state is still in a natural state of anarchy characterized by self-rule and enforcement, because there is no higher state, which could bind it. 

State has the guns, market has the goods

As states grow their agents make deals with major market entities.  In today’s world it is quite easy for a state to purchase anything it wants.  With a monopoly money producer in its ranks, it can always borrow what it needs if there is insufficient tax loot available.  And as its debt grows no one cares, except a few Austrian economists.  

Why would a nominally private firm deal with the state?  For legislative or other privileges, in addition to the revenue.  A firm that refuses to deal with the state runs the risk of penalties.  Under state rule, laws are made to be broken, and they’re broken every minute of the day.  As Jeff Thomas writes,

The level of governmental dominance now exists to such a degree that literally everyone is a criminal, whether they know it or not. It’s been estimated that the average American commits about three felonies per day, in addition to many lesser crimes. If, for any reason, the authorities wished to victimize you, they’d find their task quite simple.  (My emphasis)

A cozy and broadening relationship with formerly free-market entities develops, often under the heading of state capitalism.  The entrepreneurial spirit that created companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, and others has been corrupted by state interference. 

In our ongoing Covid environment, pharmaceutical firms, social platforms, and government agencies are working hand-in-hand.  How can a vaccine be granted an EUA if other safe and effective treatments are available?  If, for example, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are safe and effective, as well as cheap and plentiful, the vaccines get put on hold.  Therefore, not merely dis vaccine alternatives, but threaten and arrest those promoting their use.

Hoppe sums up his discussion of the state with a proposed riddle:

Assume a group of people, aware of the possibility of conflicts between them. Someone then proposes, as a solution to this human problem, that he (or someone) be made the ultimate arbiter in any such case of conflict, including those conflicts in which he is involved. Is this is a deal that you would accept? I am confident that he will be considered either a joker or mentally unstable. Yet this is precisely what all statists propose.

Links used for this article:

If you find value in the author’s articles, please consider purchasing one or more of his products. George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, a novel about a renegade Fed chairman.  He is also a filmmaker whose works includeDo Not Consent- Think OUTSIDE the voting booth, Last Day, and Risky Pinch Hitter. 

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Consent of the Governed? | Robert Higgs

Posted by M. C. on June 19, 2021

I raise this question because in regard to the so-called social contract, I have often had occasion to protest that I haven’t even seen the contract, much less been asked to consent to it. A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration. I’ve never received an offer from my rulers, so I certainly have not accepted one; and rather than consideration, I have received nothing but contempt from the rulers, who, notwithstanding the absence of any agreement, have indubitably threatened me with grave harm in the event that I fail to comply with their edicts.

To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so.

https://blog.independent.org/2010/06/01/consent-of-the-governed/

Robert Higgs

What gives some people the right to rule others? At least since John Locke’s time, the most common and seemingly compelling answer has been “the consent of the governed.” When the North American revolutionaries set out to justify their secession from the British Empire, they declared, among other things: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” This sounds good, especially if one doesn’t think about it very hard or very long, but the harder and longer one thinks about it, the more problematic it becomes.

One question after another comes to mind. Must every person consent? If not, how many must, and what options do those who do not consent have? What form must the consent take ― verbal, written, explicit, implicit? If implicit, how is it to be registered? Given that the composition of society is constantly changing, owing to births, deaths, and international migration, how often must the rulers confirm that they retain the consent of the governed? And so on and on. Political legitimacy, it would appear, presents a multitude of difficulties when we move from the realm of theoretical abstraction to that of practical realization.

I raise this question because in regard to the so-called social contract, I have often had occasion to protest that I haven’t even seen the contract, much less been asked to consent to it. A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration. I’ve never received an offer from my rulers, so I certainly have not accepted one; and rather than consideration, I have received nothing but contempt from the rulers, who, notwithstanding the absence of any agreement, have indubitably threatened me with grave harm in the event that I fail to comply with their edicts. What monumental effrontery these people exhibit! What gives them the right to rob me and push me around? It certainly is not my desire to be a sheep for them to shear or slaughter as they deem expedient for the attainment of their own ends.

Moreover, when we flesh out the idea of “consent of the governed” in realistic detail, the whole notion quickly becomes utterly preposterous. Just consider how it would work. A would-be ruler approaches you and offers a contract for your approval. Here, says he, is the deal.

I, the party of the first part (“the ruler”), promise:

(1) To stipulate how much of your money you will hand over to me, as well as how, when, and where the transfer will be made. You will have no effective say in the matter, aside from pleading for my mercy, and if you should fail to comply, my agents will punish you with fines, imprisonment, and (in the event of your persistent resistance) death.

(2) To make thousands upon thousands of rules for you to obey without question, again on pain of punishment by my agents. You will have no effective say in determining the content of these rules, which will be so numerous, complex, and in many cases beyond comprehension that no human being could conceivably know about more than a handful of them, much less their specific character, yet if you should fail to comply with any of them, I will feel free to punish you to the extent of a law made my me and my confederates.

(3) To provide for your use, on terms stipulated by me and my agents, so-called public goods and services. Although you may actually place some value on a few of these goods and services, most will have little or no value to you, and some you will find utterly abhorrent, and in no event will you as an individual have any effective say over the goods and services I provide, notwithstanding any economist’s cock-and-bull story to the effect that you “demand” all this stuff and value it at whatever amount of money I choose to expend for its provision.

(4) In the event of a dispute between us, judges beholden to me for their appointment and salaries will decide how to settle the dispute. You can expect to lose in these settlements, if your case is heard at all.

 In exchange for the foregoing government “benefits,” you, the party of the second part (“the subject”), promise:

(5) To shut up, make no waves, obey all orders issued by the ruler and his agents, kowtow to them as if they were important, honorable people, and when they say “jump,” ask only “how high?”

Such a deal! Can we really imagine that any sane person would consent to it?

Yet the foregoing description of the true social contract into which individuals are said to have entered is much too abstract to capture the raw realities of being governed. In enumerating the actual details, no one has ever surpassed Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who wrote:

To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. (P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, trans. John Beverley Robinson. London: Freedom Press, 1923, p. 294)

Nowadays, of course, we would have to supplement Proudhon’s admirably precise account by noting that our being governed also entails our being electronically monitored, tracked by orbiting satellites, tased more or less at random, and invaded in our premises by SWAT teams of police, often under the pretext of their overriding our natural right to decide what substances we will ingest, inject, or inhale into what used to be known as “our own bodies.”

So, to return to the question of political legitimacy as determined by the consent of the governed, it appears upon sober reflection that the whole idea is as fanciful as the unicorn. No one in his right mind, save perhaps an incurable masochist, would voluntarily consent to be treated as governments actually treat their subjects.

Nevertheless, very few of us in this country at present are actively engaged in armed rebellion against our rulers. And it is precisely this absence of outright violent revolt that, strange to say, some commentators take as evidence of our consent to the outrageous manner in which the government treats us. Grudging, prudential acquiescence, however, is not the same thing as consent, especially when the people acquiesce, as I do, only in simmering, indignant resignation.

For the record, I can state in complete candor that I do not approve of the manner in which I am being treated by the liars, thieves, and murderers who style themselves the Government of the United States of America or by those who constitute the tyrannical pyramid of state, local, and hybrid governments with which this country is massively infested. My sincere wish is that all of these individuals would, for once in their despicable lives, do the honorable thing. In this regard, I suggest that they give serious consideration to seppuku. Whether they employ a sharp sword or a dull one, I care not, so long as they carry the act to a successful completion.

Addendum on “love it or leave it”: Whenever I write along the foregoing lines, I always receive messages from Neanderthals who, imagining that I “hate America,” demand that I get the hell out of this country and go back to wherever I came from. Such reactions evince not only bad manners, but a fundamental misunderstanding of my grievance.

I most emphatically do not hate America. I was not born in some foreign despotism, but in a domestic one known as Oklahoma, which I understand to be the very heart and soul of this country so far as culture and refinement are concerned. Moreover, for what it is worth, some of my ancestors had been living in North America for centuries before a handful of ragged, starving white men washed ashore on this continent, planted their flag, and claimed all the land they could see and a great deal they could not see on behalf of some sorry-ass European monarch. What chutzpah! I yield to no one in my affection for the Statue of Liberty, the Rocky Mountains, and the amber waves of grain, not to mention the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. So when I am invited to get out of the country, I feel like someone living in a town taken over by the James Gang who has been told that if he doesn’t like being robbed and bullied by uninvited thugs, he should move to another town. To me, it seems much more fitting that the criminals get out.

Robert Higgs is Retired Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the Independent Institute, author or editor of over fourteen Independent books, and Founding Editor of Independent’s quarterly journal The Independent Review.
Posts by Robert Higgs | Full Biography and Publications

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TGIF: What the State Really Is | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on June 8, 2021

Understanding the state is the first step toward rethinking the state, which is necessary for changing one’s view about its value. If people think the government is nothing more than a well-intended social-service agency–the organizer of huge and benevolent mutual-aid society–their attitude will be favorable overall, even if they dislike some of what the state does. But if people come to see that the state exists to amass power and private resources in large part to distribute it to special interests, the majority who are victims might begin to object and demand change.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/sheldon/tgif-what-state-really-is/

by Sheldon Richman

To better understand the nature of government, one can think of it as an agency that sells or, more precisely, rents power to others. The greater the power and the wider its scope, the more opportunities the state’s agents will have to sell access to it in return for favors. Of course the demand for that power will also be greater. This stands to reason. If the government is allowed to make many important decisions about private activity, people will want to influence or control that decision-making–and they’ll be willing to pay for that influence as long as the price is less than the expected payoff.

In other words, the supply of government power creates its own demand. This answers the concern over the corrupting influence influence of money in politics. If government has nothing to sell, no one will be trying to buy.

This not to say that all that government officials do is rent out power. Many activities can be attributed to their own agendas. Like all people, they are prone to various incentives and foibles that lead them to do things that others who are affected either do not like or approve only because they can’t imagine an alternative.  The motives of state agents can vary: self-regard and paternalism, for two examples. Motives can be tricky to identify: a good deal of self-deception can always be involved, and words often parts ways with the truth.

Nevertheless, much of what state agents do constitutes in effect the renting out of power to well-connected private interests. The renting out of power can also have various motives. Power may be used to benefit special interests as a way to garner political support, financial and otherwise. Campaign finance is the most obvious example, though many more subtle ways also exist. Again, the motive for renting power to special interests could also have paternalist. Politicians could (erroneously) figure that for the good of all, certain people ought to have access to power that no one else has. Motives of course tell you nothing about the morality or effectiveness of any particular action.

Private interests that pay to get their hands on power can have various motives also, but I would guess that most of the time the motive is self-regard.

I should note that I am using the term rent idiosyncratically. Economists use the phrase rent-seeking to label the private pursuit of returns through government favors. By that they mean that private interests seek returns on investment that exceed what they would earn in the market without power being exercised on their behalf. I’m using rent in the colloquial sense in which people pay to use something (in this case) without acquiring ownership.

It’s easy to think of examples of what I’ve been saying here. When business firms lobby for a tariff or an import quota, they are seeking higher prices and profits through the state’s power to burden foreign competitors with taxes and import limits. Likewise, when firms seek licenses, subsidies, and other political favors, they grab for advantages that their competitors don’t have. Similarly, complicated financial regulations that burden smaller and potential upstart competitors are likely to be welcomed (if not written) by large dominant institutions. (When things go bust, uninformed people will readily  blame the private firms without seeing the state’s essential culpability. See my “Wall Street Couldn’t Have Done It Alone.”)

Another source of extra-market advantage is government contracting. Why should a firm take chances in an uncertain marketplace with fickle consumers if it can obtain guarantees by selling things to government agencies? Military contractors come to mind immediately. Billions of dollars of taxpayer money go to such companies every year. Private companies can’t tax anyone, but government contractors in effect can do just that.

The more powerful the state, the more possibilities will exist for favoritism. And notice that favoritism breeds dependence on and support for the state. For obvious reasons military contractors are unlikely to be convinced by arguments for a noninterventionist foreign policy. Likewise, companies that rely on tariffs and import quotas probably won’t find inspiration in the great British free traders Richard Cobden and John Bright.

Understanding the state is the first step toward rethinking the state, which is necessary for changing one’s view about its value. If people think the government is nothing more than a well-intended social-service agency–the organizer of huge and benevolent mutual-aid society–their attitude will be favorable overall, even if they dislike some of what the state does. But if people come to see that the state exists to amass power and private resources in large part to distribute it to special interests, the majority who are victims might begin to object and demand change.

About Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute, senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society, and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies, former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.

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The Six Stages of the Creation of the State | Mises Institute

Posted by M. C. on May 26, 2021

In all places, the same results are brought about by force of the same sociopsychological causes. The necessity of keeping the subjects in order and at the same time of maintaining them at their full capacity for labor leads step by step from the fifth to the sixth stage, in which the state, by acquiring full intranationality and by the evolution of “Nationality,” is developed in every sense.

The need becomes more and more frequent to interfere, to allay difficulties, to punish, or to coerce obedience; and thus develop the habit of rule and the usages of government.

https://mises.org/library/six-stages-creation-state

Franz Oppenheimer

[Excerpted from chapter 1 of The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically]

In the genesis of the state, from the subjection of a peasant folk by a tribe of herdsmen or by sea nomads, six stages may be distinguished.

In the following discussion it should not be assumed that the actual historical development must, in each particular case, climb the entire scale step by step. Although, even here, the argument does not depend upon bare theoretical construction, since every particular stage is found in numerous examples, both in the world’s history and in ethnology, and there are states which have apparently progressed through them all. But there are many more that have skipped one or more of these stages.

Stage 1: Looting

The first stage comprises robbery and killing in border fights, endless combats broken neither by peace nor by armistice. It is marked by killing of men, carrying away of children and women, looting of herds, and burning of dwellings. Even if the offenders are defeated at first, they return in stronger and stronger bodies, impelled by the duty of blood feud. Sometimes the peasant group may assemble, may organize its militia, and perhaps temporarily defeat the nimble enemy; but mobilization is too slow and supplies to be brought into the desert too costly for the peasants. The peasants’ militia does not, as does the enemy, carry its stock of food — its herds — with it into the field.

In Southwest Africa the Germans recently experienced the difficulties that a well-disciplined and superior force, equipped with a supply train, with a railway reaching back to its base of supply, and with millions of the German Empire behind it, may have with a handful of herdsmen warriors, who were able to give the Germans a decided setback. In the case of primitive levies, this difficulty is increased by the narrow spirit of the peasant, who considers only his own neighborhood, and by the fact that while the war is going on the lands are uncultivated. Therefore, in such cases, in the long run, the small but compact and easily mobilized body constantly defeats the greater disjointed mass, as the panther triumphs over the buffalo.

This is the first stage in the formation of states. The state may remain stationary at this point for centuries, for a thousand years. The following is a thoroughly characteristic example:

Every range of a Turkoman tribe formerly bordered upon a wide belt which might be designated as its “looting district.” Everything north and east of Chorassan, though nominally under Persian dominion, has for decades belonged more to the Turkomans, Jomudes, Goklenes, and other tribes of the bordering plains, than to the Persians. The Tekinzes, in a similar manner, looted all the stretches from Kiwa to Bokhara, until other Turkoman tribes were successfully rounded up either by force or by corruption to act as a buffer. Numberless further instances can be found in the history of the chain of oases which extends between Eastern and Western Asia directly through the steppes of its central part, where since ancient times the Chinese have exercised a predominant influence through their possession of all important strategic centers, such as the Oasis of Chami. The nomads, breaking through from north and south, constantly tried to land on these islands of fertile ground, which to them must have appeared like Islands of the Blessed. And every horde, whether laden down with booty or fleeing after defeat, was protected by the plains. Although the most immediate threats were averted by the continued weakening of the Mongols, and the actual dominion of Thibet, yet the last insurrection of the Dunganes showed how easily the waves of a mobile tribe break over these islands of civilization. Only after the destruction of the nomads, impossible as long as there are open plains in Central Asia, can their existence be definitely secured.

The entire history of the old world is replete with well-known instances of mass expeditions, which must be assigned to the first stage of state development, inasmuch as they were intent, not upon conquest, but directly on looting. Western Europe suffered through these expeditions at the hands of the Celts, Germans, Huns, Avars, Arabs, Magyars, Tartars, Mongolians and Turks by land; while the Vikings and the Saracens harassed it on the waterways.

These hordes inundated entire continents far beyond the limits of their accustomed looting ground. They disappeared, returned, were absorbed, and left behind them only wasted lands. In many cases, however, they advanced in some part of the inundated district directly to the sixth and last stage of state formation, in cases namely, where they established a permanent dominion over the peasant population. Ratzel describes these mass migrations excellently in the following:

The expeditions of the great hordes of nomads contrast with this movement, drop by drop and step by step, since they overflow with tremendous power, especially Central Asia and all neighboring countries. The nomads of this district, as of Arabia and Northern Africa, unite mobility in their way of life with an organization holding together their entire mass for one single object. It seems to be a characteristic of the nomads that they easily develop despotic power and far-reaching might from the patriarchal cohesion of the tribe. Mass governments thereby come into being, which compare with other movements among men in the same way that swollen streams compare with the steady but diffused flow of a tributary. The history of China, India, and Persia, no less than that of Europe, shows their historical importance. Just as they moved about on their ranges with their wives and children, slaves and carts, herds and all their paraphernalia, so they inundated the borderlands. While this ballast may have deprived them of speed it increased their momentum. The frightened inhabitants were driven before them, and like a wave they rolled over the conquered countries, absorbing their wealth. Since they carried everything with them, their new abodes were equipped with all their possessions, and thus their final settlements were of an ethnographic importance. After this manner, the Magyars flooded Hungary, the Manchus invaded China, the Turks, the countries from Persia to the Adriatic.

What has been said here of Hamites, Semites, and Mongolians may be said also, at least in part, of the Aryan tribes of herdsmen. It applies also to the true negroes, at least to those who live entirely from their herds:

The mobile, warlike tribes of the Kafirs possess a power of expansion which needs only an enticing object in order to attain violent effects and to overturn the ethnologic relations of vast districts. Eastern Africa offers such an object. Here the climate did not forbid stock raising, as in the countries of the interior, and did not paralyze from the start, the power of impact of the nomads, while nevertheless numerous peaceable agricultural peoples found room for their development. Wandering tribes of Kafirs poured like devastating streams into the fruitful lands of the Zambesi, and up to the highlands between the Tanganyika and the coast. Here they met the advance guard of the Watusi, a wave of Hamite eruption, coming from the north. The former inhabitants of these districts were either exterminated, or as serfs cultivated the lands which they formerly owned; or they still continued to fight; or again, they remained undisturbed in settlements left on one side by the stream of conquest.

All this has taken place before our eyes. Some of it is still going on. During many thousands of years it has “jarred all Eastern Africa from the Zambesi to the Mediterranean.” The incursion of the Hyksos, whereby for over 500 years Egypt was subject to the shepherd tribes of the eastern and northern deserts — “kinsmen of the peoples who up to the present day herd their stock between the Nile and the Red Sea” — is the first authenticated foundation of a state. These states were followed by many others both in the country of the Nile itself, and farther southward, as far as the Empire of Muata Jamvo on the southern rim of the central Congo district, which Portuguese traders in Angola reported as early as the end of the 16th century, and down to the Empire of Uganda, which only in our own day has finally succumbed to the superior military organization of Europe. “Desert land and civilization never lie peaceably alongside one another; but their battles are alike and full of repetitions.”

“Alike and full of repetitions”! That may be said of universal history on its basic lines. The human ego in its fundamental aspect is much the same all the world over. It acts uniformly, in obedience to the same influences of its environment, with races of all colors, in all parts of the earth, in the tropics as in the temperate zones. One must step back far enough and choose a point of view so high that the variegated aspect of the details does not hide the great movements of the mass. In such a case, our eye misses the “mode” of fighting, wandering, laboring humanity, while its “substance,” ever similar, ever new, ever enduring through change, reveals itself under uniform laws.

Stage 2: Truce

See the rest here

Author:

Franz Oppenheimer

Franz Oppenheimer (1864–1943) was a German-Jewish sociologist and political economist, best known for his work on the fundamental sociology of the state. His book The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically was the prototype for Albert Jay Nock’s writing, for Frank Chodorov’s work, and even for the theoretical edifice that later became Rothbardianism.

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Why the State Exists – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on September 23, 2020

The simple answer is this: the State exists as an excuse for those who want to do things they know they cannot morally or legally do on their own, which includes both enriching themselves and “helping” others through the use of force and theft. It is, as Bastiat would say, a way to legally plunder.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/09/derek-dobalian/why-the-state-exists/

By

Why does the State exist? Traditionally, the answer given to this question was that the State is a way to organize common defense. In other words, it is the best way for a group of individuals to join together to provide protection for each other. Now, today nobody pretends to actually believe this is the case, that this is why the State exists. Modern statists tell us the State exists to do us good, to “help” everyone, to make things fair. This view has become widespread because the original common defense justification, while sounding reasonable, completely falls apart when applied to society in reality. Why? Because while this original justification could be true of the original founders of such a state, that does not mean the agreement was accepted by later generations. Why should future generations be bound to an agreement they were not a party to? The answer of course is that they should not be. Thus, since we know the State does not actually exist for common defense (and that this is a mere façade), we must ask why the State truly exists, or what the real motives are behind those who advocate for the State.

The simple answer is this: the State exists as an excuse for those who want to do things they know they cannot morally or legally do on their own, which includes both enriching themselves and “helping” others through the use of force and theft. It is, as Bastiat would say, a way to legally plunder. For example, an individual cannot rob a rich person legally if he decides to give that stolen money to a poor man. But all of a sudden this becomes moral when a collection of people do so? Statists claim that the State can do these things because it represents “us”, or “society”, and that “society” has certain rights. This, of course, is not only nonsensical, but absolutely immoral. For what is “society,” but just a collection of people? Do people gain more rights when they gang up against a certain individual? Or do we all have equal rights? Christians believe God created us in His image and gave us all the same natural rights, not that some are naturally deserving of greater rights than others. How can a Christian argue that God commands an individual not to commit an evil act (such as forcibly taking another’s property), but at the same time say “society” can commit that very act? Does an evil act become moral if it is instead carried out by several people? Not only is there nothing in Scripture that supports such a theory, there is simply nothing logical or rational about it. Thus, “society” cannot have rights. And if society does not have rights, then anything it does (to the extent “society” does anything) is wrong if it violates God’s moral commands for individuals.

In conclusion, the State exists in order to plunder those who do not control it. Christians ought to acknowledge that this is the very nature of the State and that it does not comport with the Biblical view of morality.

The Best of Derek Dobalian

Derek W. Dobalian [send him mail] is a licensed attorney in Los Angeles, CA. His writing focuses on Christianity and political philosophy.
 
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The State: The Deadliest Virus | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on June 25, 2020

The deadliest virus is the notion that the state can guarantee our public health and universal welfare, when economic science has demonstrated the theoretical impossibility of the central planner’s giving a coherent and coordinating quality to the coercive commands it issues in its attempt to achieve its pompous objectives.

https://mises.org/wire/state-deadliest-virus?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=061a028589-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-061a028589-228343965

The deadliest virus is the institutionalized coercion which lies in the very DNA of the state and may even initially permit a government to deny the outbreak of a pandemic. Evidence has been suppressed, and heroic scientists and doctors have been harassed and silenced simply because they were the first to realize and expose the gravity of the problem. As a result, weeks and months have been lost, at an enormous cost: hundreds of thousands of people have died due to the worldwide spread of an epidemic which, in the beginning, the shamefully manipulated official statistics made appear less dangerous than it actually was.

The deadliest virus is the existence of cumbersome bureaucracies and supranational organizations, which did not manage or wish to monitor in situ the reality of the situation, but instead endorsed the information received, while offering constant support and even praising—and thus becoming accessories to—all the coercive policies and measures adopted.

The deadliest virus is the notion that the state can guarantee our public health and universal welfare, when economic science has demonstrated the theoretical impossibility of the central planner’s giving a coherent and coordinating quality to the coercive commands it issues in its attempt to achieve its pompous objectives. This impossibility is due to the huge volume of information and knowledge which such a task would require and which the planning agency lacks. It is also, and primarily, due to the fact that the institutional coercion typical of the agency impacts the social body of human beings, who alone are capable of coordinating themselves (and do so spontaneously) and creating wealth. Such coercion prevents the emergence of precisely the firsthand knowledge the state needs to bring about coordination with its commands. This theorem is known as the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism. Mises and Hayek discovered the theorem in the 1920s, and the events of world history cannot be understood without it.

The deadliest virus is the dependency and complicity shown toward the state by countless scientists, experts, and intellectuals. When authorities are drunk with power, this symbiosis leaves a manipulated civil society unarmed and defenseless. For instance, the Spanish government itself urged citizens to take part in mass demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people while the virus was already spreading exponentially. Then, just four days later, the decision was announced to declare a state of alarm and coercively confine the entire population to their homes.

The deadliest virus is the demonization of private initiative and of the agile and efficient self-regulation characteristic of it, combined with the deification of the public sector in every area: the family, education, pensions, employment, the financial sector, and the healthcare system (a particularly relevant point at present). Over 12 million Spanish people, including—quite significantly—almost 90 percent of the more than 2 million government employees (and among them a vice president of the Spanish government), have freely chosen private healthcare over public healthcare. The doctors and nurses of the public healthcare system work hard and selflessly, and their heroic efforts are never sufficiently recognized. However, the system cannot possibly do away with its internal contradictions, its waiting lists, or its proven incompetence in the matters of universal prevention and the protection of its own workers. But, by a double standard, any minor defect in the private sector is always immediately condemned, while far more serious and flagrant defects in the public sector are viewed as definitive proof of a need to spend more money and increase the size of the public sector even further.

The deadliest virus is the political propaganda channeled through state-owned media and also through private media outlets which, nonetheless, are dependent on the state as if it were a drug. As Goebbels taught, lies repeated often enough to the population can be turned into official truths. Here are a few: that the Spanish public healthcare system is the best in the world; that public spending has continued to decrease since the last crisis; that taxes are to be paid by “the rich” and they are not paying their fair share; that the minimum wage is not detrimental to employment; that maximum prices do not cause shortages; that a universal minimum income is the panacea of well-being; that the northern European countries are selfish and unsupportive, because they do not wish to mutualize the debt; that the number of deaths officially reported reflects the actual number of deaths; that only a few hundred thousand people have been infected; that we are performing more than enough tests; that face masks are unnecessary, etc. Any moderately diligent citizen can easily verify that these are all lies.

The deadliest virus is the corrupt use of political terminology involving misleading metaphors to mesmerize the population and make people even more submissive and dependent on the state. We are told that we are fighting a “war,” and that once we win, we will need to begin the “reconstruction.” But we are not at war, nor is it necessary to reconstruct anything. Fortunately, all of our capital equipment, factories, and facilities are intact. They are there, waiting for us to devote all of our effort and entrepreneurial spirit to getting back to work, and when that happens, we will very quickly recover from this standstill. However, for this to occur, we must have an economic policy that favors less government and more entrepreneurial freedom, reduces taxes and regulations, balances public accounts and puts them on a sound footing, liberalizes the labor market, and provides legal certainty and bolsters confidence. While such a free market policy enabled the Germany of Adenauer and Erhard to recover from a far graver situation following World War II, Spain will be impoverished and doomed to move at idling speed if we insist on taking the opposite path of socialism.

The deadliest virus consists of the deification of human reason and the systematic use of coercion, which the state embodies. It appears before us in sheep’s clothing as the quintessence of a certain “do-goodism” that tempts us with the possibility of reaching nirvana here and now and of achieving “social justice” and ending inequality. However, it conceals the fact that the Leviathan thrives on envy and thus fuels hatred and social resentment. Hence, the future of humanity depends on our ability to immunize ourselves against the most deadly virus: the socialism which infects the human soul and has spread to all of us.

 

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