An uncountable number of people have said this or something similar to me about Twitter. I’ve stopped responding. It’s the same kind of faux snobbery that causes people to look down on Facebook, YouTube, Angry Birds, smartphones and the whole of digital life generally.

Of course, these days, hardly anyone puts down the Internet in total, but this was common 10 years ago. Today, it is more common to put down popular applications of one sort or another, always with the message that my time is too valuable, I’m too serious for this kids’ stuff, I don’t go for the superficial fripperies that have enchanted Generation Mindless.

I’ve already discussed Facebook, LinkedIn and Pandora, and why their popularity is not only justified, but they have also made gigantic contributions to human well-being. They all use the power of individual volition and the self-organizing dynamic of free association to offer services, methods of learning and means of connecting with others that break through barriers that have existed since the beginning of time.

Let’s take on Twitter, the service that people love to hate the most. Among the nonusers, the word alone is almost always said with a sneer. It is the most transparently easy of all the popular social applications, but also the hardest one to integrate into your life if you are not already part of a set people using it.

Adults sign up to it and then sit and stare at it. Having no followers and following no one, the thing looks and feels as dead as Marley’s ghost. Of course, you could always send out news of the sandwich you ate for lunch, but what’s the point? In this sense, Facebook provides that much-more-immediate satisfaction that adults (ironically) demand from websites. Twitter is an application that has to be built by you.

But consider… when the unemployment numbers come out, I usually get an email from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This most recent time, even before that email arrived, I knew the numbers before. I knew the grim truth behind the numbers. I had a sense of how several major newspapers were spinning the numbers. I had access to charts that were being posted, showing how labor trends interact with other trends. And I was able to react to the news myself by reposting what I appreciated and then adding my own thoughts. Then, finally, the email arrived from the Bureau.

This is an example of an everyday use of Twitter. But it is only one of an infinite number of possible uses. And once you start and get the hang of it, downloading the app and following things you care about, you begin to realize something absolutely astonishing about this seemingly superficial thing. Twitter has radically individuated, democratized and universalized the consumption and production of all forms of information, turning the whole world into a customizable communications bazaar like no generation in history has ever seen.

This customizability is what gives rise to the caricatures of the tweeter as a superficial twit, wasting time blabbing on about nothing to other similar types. But when you see people in revolutionary political situations organizing themselves, using tweets and evading the boot of the dictator by using Twitter to communicate, strategize and outmaneuver the most-powerful armies, it should make you stop and think.

As a means of producing of information, every user has potentially the same influence as every other user. The only possible difference concerns the number of followers you have (I have 700, while Lady Gaga has 20 million), but even that is not really a final determinant, since every message can be re-tweeted and a message sent to one person can turn into a message sent to 140 million people in a split second.

What this means that is The New York Times and White House have exactly the same technical power to influence as the person who just took my order for beer at the pizza shop. The difference in the reach of messages is entirely determined by other users of Twitter, thus resulting in a crazy meritocracy of distribution.

As a means of consuming information, you have access to the instant thoughts of every star, mogul, institution, official or whomever and to the exact same extent as the big-time reporters or other institutions. And it turns out that people like Lady Gaga really like this. Every public figure does, except perhaps the dictators threatened most by this powerful means of instantaneous truth telling.

Currently, Twitter is handling 1.6 billion search queries per day and being used to send some 340 million tweets in the same period. It’s consistently in the top 10 most-popular websites. The service is offered to every person on the planet at no charge. The revenue model is to charge companies for promoted tweets in search results, as well as to charge large Internet companies for the use of applications that display Twitter feeds on their websites.

There’s a rude awakening, however, for anyone who thinks he or she can jump onto Twitter and make a splash. You cannot invite others to follow you. People have to reach out to you, and therefore, in this sense, Twitter can be a more-difficult nut to crack than Facebook.

Your first step should be to follow institutions or people you care about. They will be notified that you have followed them. One hopes, then, that they will respond by following you, but there is no way to make them do so. If you seek followers, your best approach is to find someone who is already deeply embedded in this world to recommend you to their followers. But even then, it is a long haul to get to the point that you have a substantial number of people caring about what you are saying.

Why should you bother at all? There might be someone who has no interest in what anyone has to say and also has nothing to say himself, and plans to maintain this attitude from now until death. That person has no use for Twitter. For everyone else, it is great source for acquiring and relaying information on anything and everything, and therefore, there are few people on the planet who would not benefit.

For career builders, a war chest of Twitter followers is part of the personal capital that you accumulate and carry with you wherever you happen to live or work. In this sense, this can be an essential part of your freedom and personal empowerment. It reduces your reliance on institutions and helps you gain control of your life.

For public personalities, it is obviously rather indispensable. But the same is true for any business. If you assemble followers (I love to follow businesses!), you can immediately reach them with special deals and announcements and do so at zero cost. What could be better than that?

For any individual, there are always times when you need others and it becomes important to get information to them. You might be in danger. You might have amazing news. You might need to send for help. In those times, you will be glad that you have prepared by assembling a valuable network of people who care whether you live or die. Certainly, the state doesn’t much care, so it is up to us to form associations that do.

This is why I’m most interested in Twitter, in its uses of building a global movement for human liberty against the despotism of the state in every nation. Twitter disregards borders. It disregards states and their pretensions. It follows no one’s plan. It obeys no authority. It proves the capacity of free people to be self-ordering.

It enables individuals to be self-governing units with an important element of empowerment in their hands: the ability for one person to reach the globe in any instant in time with the most-valuable commodity in existence — namely, information.

That’s why Twitter is amazing.

Regards,

Jeffrey Tucker

Why Twitter Is Amazing was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Then the feds got involved. Or so I now gather. I didn’t know this for a long time. Every time I would buy a mower, I would be disappointed in the results. I kept buying mowers with ever-larger engines. Then I would buy them with different bag designs, and then a different brands, and then different features. Nothing worked.

The problem was always the same. I would mow and most of the grass would go in the catcher. But some didn’t. Some landed on the lawn in a line. When the grass was wet, it left an even bigger trail. Or when I would go from the grass to the sidewalk, a big clump would fall out from underneath the mower onto the sidewalk, requiring that I get a broom and sweep it up. Then I would have to empty the bag long before it was full.

It took me many years of thinking to figure out the problem. After all, I never had this problem when I was a kid. Have companies started making lawn mowers that don’t work? Are manufacturers worse than they used to be? It all seems crazy. I would mow with a smartphone in my pocket that could check my blood pressure, make the sound of a flute or surf the Web. Why can’t private enterprise seem to make a mower that works?

I would try to forget about the problem, adjust to the downgraded reality and finish up the growing season. But the next year, it would all come back to me. Grass trails. Clumps on the sidewalk. Emptying too often. Buying a new mower and finding the same problem all over again.

What is the source of the problem? The spinning blade cuts the grass and creates a flow of air that lifts the grass and throws it into the catcher. A flow requires circulation, and where does the circulation come from? It can’t be a vacuum seal. You can’t create a small wind tunnel without a source of air. Where is this coming from? Nowhere. The base of the lawn mower is flush against the grass. The blades spin but create no suction effect.

Why is the base so low to the ground? I tend to mow my grass pretty low just because of the variety of grass and the topsoil level. But doing this causes a perfect seal between the mower and the ground, cutting off all airflow and denying the blade the air it needs to create the wind tunnel to empty the grass.

It is pretty obvious, right? So why have manufacturers not responded by raising the steel casing on the lawn mower? Why would they keep selling mowers that don’t work well? I’m hardly the only person who has the problem. Lawn mower forums all over the Internet are filled with people asking exactly the same questions and having the same symptoms. The manufacturers are shy to mention the real reason. They talk about changing blades, removing obstructions and things like that. Users know better. There is another factor.

I was just looking at the detailed regulations for lawn mowers. In particular, the relevant passage is 16 CFR PART 1205 — the Safety Standard for Walk-Behind Power Lawn Mowers. Here we find that the height of the lawn mower case must be low enough to pass a “foot probe” test. No matter how high or low the wheels are adjusted, it cannot be possible to stick your foot under the case.

Now, when I was young, you could stick your foot under the mower. We didn’t do that, of course, but we could. Therefore, there was suction. The air sucked from underneath and swirled up and out in the grass catcher. It was like running a vacuum cleaner over a floor. It shaved the grass, and not one grass blade was left anywhere in sight. It all went into the catcher.

The new regulations, which apply only to walking mowers that you use at home, went into effect sometime after 1982. I still used my old mower for years after that date. I fact, I didn’t have a reason to buy a new one until about 15 years ago. That’s when my troubles began.

Now I know the cause. The bottom line is that federal regulations have degraded the lawn mower. In the name of safety, the government has forced all manufacturers to sacrifice functionality. They are forced to sell equipment that doesn’t do what it is supposed to do. All the while, I’ve been blaming private enterprise. It turns out to be the fault of government.

The government’s central plan for walk-behind mowers is mind boggling. That bar you have to squeeze and hold on the handle to make the wheel move? Mandated by government. That annoying plastic piece that covers the blow hole for the grass that you have to push out of the way? Mandated by government. The government has mandated the blueprint for the whole machine and thereby frozen its structure in place with an inferior and unalterable design.

It is not enough that regulations have invaded the bathroom, ruined our showers and toilets, degraded our detergent, made it ever harder to unclog drains and made essential medicines hard to get. Now I find that regulations have even made it difficult for me to do something completely American like mow my own lawn!

It is now as it was in the 19th century when Herbert Spencer wrote his amazing work, The Man Versus The State. It remains a powerful explanatory essay about what is wrong with the world and what to do about it.

This also explains why so many of my neighbors are using lawn mowing services that have giant riding lawn mowers. It turns out that these particular regulations do not apply to them. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that lawn services were actually instrumental in lobbying for these safety regulations. This is how commerce works these days: Compete for a while, but when that doesn’t work, turn to the government to wreck the competition.

Government hates lawns — except at the White House, of course. They consider private lawns to be wasteful and vain, a symbol of conspicuous consumption. If they had their way, we would all have rocks in our front yards. Or maybe we wouldn’t have front yards. We would have little window boxes, and surely that would be enough for us.

It’s all in the interest of your safety. And security. What about your freedom? It’s been mowed under, and it landed like clumps of grass on the sidewalk.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Tucker

They Wrecked Our Mowers was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

I think back to the old Soviet days, which to me typify what it means for a society to be entirely under state control. The government put out a magazine called Soviet Life, and it was filled with pictures of happy, healthy people who were living fulfilling and active lives. The contrast with reality couldn’t have been more extreme. Emigrants told stories of a demoralized population turning to alcohol, drugs and suicide — anything to escape the toxic combination of sinking living standards and the absence of choice due to despotism.

Today we know that the propaganda was a lie. What we fail to realize is that this human tragedy is not unique to a fully socialized society. We can get there in small steps by growing the state and expanding its reach year by year until it envelops us in all our life activities. We have to turn to the state ever more. We are blocked by barriers. Everywhere we go, we encounter bureaucrats who demand our papers, riffle through our belongings, forbid what we want to do and mandate what we do not want to.

The sad and tragic story of Andrew Wordes — the chicken farmer who was driven to despair by government harassment and killed himself last month — continues to haunt me. And it turns out to be just one of millions of cases of similar psychological torment caused by government, directly and indirectly. These are wholly unnecessary events, inflicting terrible loss on the world.

Citizens in every country with an interventionist state face a situation similar to the one Andrew Wordes faced. They may have a dream of starting or growing a business, but they are blocked — not because of their own lack of vision, but because of the thicket erected by public policy. The state acts as a dream killer. It becomes all the more maddening when there is nothing that the citizen can do about it. There is no real choice.

Of course, soldiers in war face this reality every day. They are not their own persons. They must obey orders whether they make sense or not. They see things that no one should have to see and they are ordered to do things that no one should have to be forced to do. It is hardly surprising that people who go through such an ordeal have confused perspective on the value of human life.

For every one person who dies fighting in U.S. wars around the world these days, 25 other soldiers kill themselves. Veterans are killing themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. There are than 6,500 veteran suicides every year. That’s more than all the American soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 10 years, according to a New York Times analysis. Being a veteran apparently doubles your risk of suicide.

Economic conditions wrought by government policies around the world have contributed to the suicide death toll. Europe is undergoing an epidemic of suicide in countries seriously hurt by the downturn. In Greece, the suicide rate among men increased more than 24% since the disaster hit. In Ireland, male suicides have shot up more than 16%. In Italy, economic-motivated suicides have increased 52%.

The big aggregates reported here do not convey the level of tragedy experienced in the lives of every single individual here. They leave behind shattered families and wrecked communities. There is an unbearably sad story behind every single statistic.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the same is happening in the U.S and that the broad trend follows economic prospects. The difference between the rising prosperity of a free market and economic desperation caused by government is really a matter of life and death. The desperation and sadness wrought by war — an extension of domestic policy and carried out with much higher stakes — is a symptom of the same problem.

These represent both direct and indirect ways that government is spreading misery around the world. The direct way involves war and its psychological effects. Being harassed by regulators is another direct way: The person sees no way out and is thereby driven to desperate measures. The indirect way results from the economic stagnation caused by government: Its recession-spawning policies; its policy responses that do not work; its regulations that makes people crazy; its poverty-inducing taxes and inflation; and, most of all, its wars have driven millions to despair.

Why the state in particular? It all comes down to the sense of having control over your life. The essence of statecraft is the absence of choice and the inability to escape. Many operations of the state try to disguise these features.

Once you develop a nose for this, you see it everywhere. The faces of people in line at the DMV, the sauntering mass in line to be screened by the TSA and even the blank stares you see in the post office lines. There is something about state policy that demoralizes us all. That takes a toll on our health and our outlook on life and even leads to tragedy.

Oh, they tell us that in a democratic system, we can vote and that this is our choice. We have nothing to complain about. If we don’t like the system, we can change it. But this is wholly illusory. The government completely owns the democratic system and administers it to generate the types of results that government wants. More and more people are catching on to this, which is why voter participation falls further in every election season.

The great thinkers of the libertarian tradition have always told us that freedom and the good life are absolutely inseparable. I think of Thomas Jefferson, Frederic Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Albert Jay Nock, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek and so many others. Even contemporary authors have addressed the theme. They had long warned that every step away from freedom would mean a diminution of the quality of life. We are seeing these prophecies come true.

Too often public policy debates take place on the wrong level. The core point is not to make the “system” work better or otherwise fine-tune the rules within a bureaucracy. We need to start talking about larger issues about the dignity of the human person, the moral status of freedom and the rights and liberties of the individual in society. The expansion of the state is not just wrong as a matter of “public policy”; it is wrong because it is dangerous to the good life and the quality of life.

To kill freedom is to kill the essence of what makes us human.

Regards,

Jeffrey Tucker

Despair and the State was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

In a free economy, where willing buyers transact with sellers who cannot coerce, only services and products that have objective merit – defined by people’s willingness to purchase them – succeed. Products and services that lack merit fail – as defined by people’s lack of interest in paying good money for them.

But most people have difficulty making the intellectual (and philosophical) Great Leap Forward – applying the same reasoning, the same economic discipline, to government.

If, for example, the government really does provide valuable services – as it so often claims – then why is it necessary to force people to purchase these allegedly valuable services? If the services provided by government really do have value, wouldn’t most people eagerly purchase them without coercion?

Consider “law enforcement” vs. peace-keeping.

It is doubtful the current system of “law enforcement” could be maintained on anything other than a coercive basis – because too many “customers” regard it as a service they’d very much like to decline and would decline, if they had any choice in the matter.

What does that tell you about the value of “law enforcement”?

For instance: The guy down the road who likes to smoke pot on his porch (and maybe grows his own pot in his backyard) is in no way causing me or anyone else any harm. Thus I have no interest in paying armed thugs to dragoon him in chains off to prison.

My neighbor who keeps “unregistered” vehicles on his land, out of sight, hasn’t victimized anyone I’m aware of – and without a victim – that is, a real person actually injured in some objectively real way – can there be a crime? Not in my world. And so I resent being forced at gunpoint to help pay for the armed thugs who spend their days “enforcing” laws whose transgressors have victimized no one. I would never freely give a single copper penny to Officer 82nd Airborne.

He and his kind act not merely without my consent, but with my contempt. That I am forced to help finance their activities is a source of tremendous annoyance. Paraphrasing Jefferson: To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of actions which he disagrees with and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

But how about a peace-keeper?

Not a buzz-cut, black sunglasses-wearing steroid-jacked thug itching to exert his limitless authority under color of “the law.” Rather, a person hired for the sole purpose of intervening when a harm is committed. An actual harm or injury to a real person or persons – as opposed to a violation of “the law.” Nothing more – and nothing less.

No harassing people peacefully drinking alcohol (or partaking of anything else) provided they’re peaceful and not impinging on anyone else’s rights. No Gestapo-style “safety” checks. You are free to go about your business – imagine that! Most people’s only interaction with a peace officer would be to say hello – if they felt like saying hello. Most important of all, they’d be free – legally entitled – to say no.

Now that I’d willingly pay for.

Probably you would, too. It’d be nice to know there’s someone patrolling the neighborhood at night, on the lookout for break-ins and so on. And it would be even nicer to know that the peace-keepers’ livelihood depends on your continued willingness to pay their salaries. That in the event they cross the line and you find out they’ve begun pestering peaceable citizens, demanding to see their “papers” or stopping them at random to question/search them, you can cancel your subscription.

The peace-keepers know this, too – and it helps to keep them in line.

It’d never work, you say? In fact it already works. Smaller, rural counties often have an elected sheriff (and deputies) rather than a selected police chief and “professional” police force. The elected sheriff isn’t quite exactly a peace-keeper paid by the voluntary subscriptions of the members of the community – but he’s a lot closer to that ideal than the selected police chief and “professional” police force. He – the local sheriff – is closer to the community because he’s more directly accountable. If he behaves like an ass – or a tyrant – he can be fired come election time.

Good luck firing a police chief.

The point being, the principle is practical. People who make rational choices when it comes to other products and services are just as likely to make rational choices when it comes to the “services” provided by government. If something has value, if it works, then they will freely buy it. If it does not have value, if it does not work then they will not.

And if it does not have value, if it does not work, then why should anyone be forced to buy it?

This is the question we must ask – and demand an answer to.

And naturally, it is the question government most wishes to avoid answering.

Regards,

Eric Peters,

Services Rendered (But Not At Gunpoint) was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The deficits of the major Western governments are now so great as to be irreversible. The governments must now borrow money to be used to pay interest on money already borrowed. In the housing market, this is called a backward-walking mortgage. It invariably spells default. The subprime mortgages were mostly of this type.

The West’s largest governments are therefore subprime borrowers.

Politicians no longer speak about politically viable plans to call a halt to these deficits. They speak as though revenues will come from some unknown sources. They talk of reducing the debt-to-GDP ratios in the distant future. This is subprime mortgage thinking. It always leads to foreclosure and bankruptcy. But this fact did not stop lenders, 2002-2007. It does not stop them today. Lenders lend 90-day money to the U.S. Treasury for eight one-hundredths of a percent. “What could go wrong?” Answer: plenty.

THE ETHICS OF THE WELFARE STATE

The welfare state is defended ethically as a system of safety nets. These safety nets are defended as ethically necessary for a good society, meaning ethically good. Intellectuals see business profits as legitimate mainly because profits provide a tax base for funding the welfare state.

These safety nets require constant and ever-increasing funding. They are going to lose this funding. Why? Because of national government bankruptcies.

There is no question that the deficits will produce a series of fiscal crises. These crises will initially be covered up by central bank inflation, but the end result of that policy will either be hyperinflation, which is a form of concealed default, or stable money, which will be followed by open default. There will be a default. The political fall-out of this default will change the nature of Western politics.

The welfare state is going to self-destruct. It is highly unlikely that we will see the complete destruction of the welfare state in any nation, but it will contract on a scale not seen since the fall of the Roman Empire. That is because we have not seen a welfare state as comprehensive as Rome’s until modern times.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

I know of no studies of the effects of the fall of Rome on the masses of welfare recipients. It took centuries for the system to decline. We know that the central state in 400 A.D. could no longer support the welfare clients that it supported with bread and circuses in the days of Nero. Manorialism steadily replaced the central government in the Western Empire. But for centuries, welfare clients lived and died as clients.

Then the welfare state died. It did not revive until the twentieth century.

THE GREAT DEFAULT

What will make the coming Great Default different from Rome’s will be the speed of its arrival and the magnitude of the contraction.

Birth rates have fallen everywhere outside the United States. The number of aged retirees in every Western nation, including Japan, is increasing relentlessly. The number of children born is falling. The end is clear. So is the politics of kick the can.

Unlike Rome, the West’s intellectuals have defended the spread of the welfare state by means of a system of ethics. It rests on a variation of the Mosaic commandment against theft: “Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.” So widespread has this revised commandment been that the electorates in every Western nation will not tolerate its rejection. Yet the economics of the deficits points to the operational failure of the welfare system.

The defenders of the welfare state will then have to explain this widespread collapse of the programs. How did such an ethically superior system fail? How did it lead millions of welfare clients to trust a self-destructive state? How did it mislead so many addicts to government handouts? How did it lead them into a ditch, devoid of skills to compete in the post-default world?

Answer: because the welfare state was ethically corrupt before it was fiscally corrupt. It is based on theft by majority vote.

We have seen what happens to the false messiahs of the messianic state. Western Marxists had a solid though small market for their fat books until the Soviet Union went bankrupt in the late 1980s and shut down in December 1991. Overnight, Marxism lost its academic defenders. They became as invisible as Baghdad Bob did on the day American troops marched in.

The Marxist system had been seen by Western intellectuals as intellectually viable, one of several legitimate perspectives. Then, overnight, it was regarded as a total failure, and – even worse for intellectuals – a fool’s quest, a bad joke. Marxism was rejected in theory because of its visible loss of power. The ethics of Western Marxism – in contrast to Marx’s rejection of ethics – had always been an illusion. Marxism had always been what Marx had said it was: a matter of power. Defenders who steadfastly had defended Marxism in theory if not in actual practice were no longer willing to do in public. They did not want to be identified with historical losers – losers of power.

If Marxism had been ethically based, it would not have faded overnight just because its power base collapsed. The true believers would have stayed the course. But Marxism was never about ethics. It was always about power.

So is the welfare state.

The defenders of the welfare state have come in the name of a higher ethics. When the system goes belly-up fiscally, these defenders will face the same sort of existential crisis that the Marxists faced in 1992.

They ought to be able to see that the welfare state is a fraud, a delusion, and an ethical monstrosity: charity with guns. They ought to be able to see that theft is theft, with or without majority votes. But they don’t.

So, let us look at something more practical. Let us look at a sign: “Do not feed the dolphins.”

“DO NOT FEED THE DOLPHINS”

It is illegal to feed dolphins in the United States. Federal law prohibits this. I do not recall anything in the Constitution authorizing federal laws against feeding dolphins, but I’ll let that pass. The fact is, people ignore the law. They love to feed dolphins. In Tampa Bay, tourists are big law-breakers in this regard.

Why shouldn’t people be allowed to feed dolphins? Because, marine biologists say, giving dolphins free food addicts them to handouts. People are turning dolphins into welfare bums.

The federal government’s fish police see the threat. Handouts destroy the ability of dolphins, who are very smart fish, to survive on their own. Mothers do not teach survival skills to their offspring. They teach them to live off welfare.

Tourists are creating inter-generational welfare dependence. In a 2009 article in the “Tampa Bay Times,” we read this from a biologist employed by the National Marine Fisheries Service. “We are able to document lineage, from grandmother to mother to calf, all following fishing boats and taking thrown-back fish.”

Marine biologists, who themselves are being fed by the federal government, understand the threat to ecology posed by welfare economics. It is a bad idea, they say, to addict smart fish to handouts. But the logic of this position is not applied to human beings, who are far more clever than dolphins. What is gospel at the National Marine Fishing Service is anathema at the Department of Health and Human Services. What the government’s experts on fish see as a threat to the fish, the government’s experts on human beings do not see as a threat to people.

What is the threat? Creating permanent dependence.

LIFETIME DEPENDENCE

Every system of welfare runs the risk of addicting the recipients to a system of handouts. This is why there have always been restraints to this system of outside care and feeding of dependents. The family has always been the main welfare institution. Parents supply children with handouts. In-laws supply in-laws with handouts. We expect those in charge of this system of wealth redistribution to place limits on it. Why? Because they own the resources. Every asset that goes to one dependent cannot be used by the decision-maker to fund something else.

Churches have also been sources of welfare. The Apostle Paul made it clear that such welfare has limits. In a deservedly famous passage, he wrote: “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). This could be called workfare. The statement provides a model for all welfare programs dealing with able-bodied adults.

Paul used his own life as an example. He did not accept funding from churches. He was a tentmaker (Acts 18:3). He refused financial support because he knew this would compromise his independence.

“Neither did we eat any man’s bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you: Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread” (2 Thessalonians 3:8-12)

Churches, like families, have limited funds. The deacons are to exercise good judgment in using church funds as handouts. Yet few modern churches have formal training for deacons to give them the judgment they need.

I used to belong to an inner-city church in Memphis. The church’s secretary had grown up in the neighborhood. She knew the welfare bums. She would warn the pastor, who grew up in the Bahamas, when one of them showed up, looking for a handout. She knew the distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.

Alcoholics Anonymous is famous for its 12-step program. It has become the model for other organizations devoted to reducing addiction and promoting deliverance. I wish that all people who have become dependent on handouts of any kind would recite these at weekly meetings.

1. We admitted we were powerless over welfare addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to welfare dependents and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The reason why this confession of faith will never be implemented is that we live in the era of the welfare state. The state encourages dependence. It uses funds confiscated from some voters to fund the lifestyles of other voters.

About half of Americans receive money from the U.S. government. Then there are the tens of millions who receive money from state and local governments. When we count the tax-supported schools as welfare agencies, we see that welfare handouts are the very foundation of modern politics. The theologian R. J. Rushdoony wrote a book on this: Politics of Guilt and Pity.” It’s free.

THE MESSIANIC STATE

Why should this be the case? Because, as Rushdoony argued, the modern state is messianic. Its defenders present it as the healing state, the savior state. It has replaced God in the thinking of modern secular man.

A state that does not claim the ability to heal, the legal right to heal, and the moral responsibility to heal is a night-watchman state. It does not make comprehensive claims for delivering men, so it does not make comprehensive claims on the allegiance of men. It is limited government, precisely because it acknowledges that it cannot heal.

Rushdoony had another name for the messianic state: the Moloch state. In his Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), he wrote this.

While relatively little is known of Moloch, much more is known of the concept of divine kingship, the king as god, and the god as king, as the divine-human link between heaven and earth. The god-king represented man on a higher scale, man ascended, and the worship of such a god, i.e., of such a Baal, was the assertion of the continuity of heaven and earth. It was the belief that all being was one being, and the god therefore was an ascended man on that scale of being. The power manifested in the political order was thus a manifestation or apprehension and seizure of divine power. It represented the triumph of a man and of his people. Moloch worship was thus a political religion. . . . Moloch worship was thus state worship. The state was the true and ultimate order, and religion was a department of the state. The state claimed total jurisdiction over man; it was therefore entitled to total sacrifice (p. 32).

The defenders of the messianic state have been successful for a century in persuading the voters that the state is benign in both its intentions and its policies. They have made the case for a healing state indirectly. They present the case for the state as the provider of tax-funded safety nets. One special-interest group at a time, the politicians and their court prophets, meaning the intelligentsia, have extended the safety nets.

SAFETY NETS AS SNARES

Tax-funded safety nets are in fact political snares. These safety are not deliberately designed to create dependence, any more than Florida tourists deliberately plan to addict dolphins to handouts, but in both cases, this is the effect. The welfare establishments are like zoos. The animals are well cared for. They are well fed. They are given medical care. What they are not given is liberty.

Welfare clients are smarter than dolphins. They learn how to work the system. Nancy Pelosi’s daughter has produced a documentary on professional welfare bums. They were amazingly forthright with her about the nature of their ability to work the system.

If they see that they have become ensnared in a system that makes them dependent on the system, they do not show it. They seem to regard their dependence as a badge of honor, proof of their ability to milk the system. They do not see themselves as people wrapped in snares.

CONCLUSION

I end with the words of the newspaper story on feeding the dolphins.

Federal law banned wild dolphin feeding in the early 1990s, but by then the St. Andrew Bay bunch was hooked.

They continue to approach boats three and four at a time. And as YouTube videos attest, people are still happy to provide dinner.

“Grab me a minnow, Patty! Feed ‘em!” yells a man in one video.

“They aren’t going anywhere,” another man responds. “They’ll be here until we stop feeding them.”

What is true of formerly independent dolphins is equally true of formerly independent welfare recipients. Nobody seems to care.

The tourists will keep coming to Florida. Washington’s checks won’t.

“When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.

And down will come baby, cradle and all.”

Regards,

Gary North

When Government Safety Nets Break was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

In an upside down world of tyrants and masses of deluded sheep people, the only sensible thing for an honest soul to do is become an extremist.

In today’s feature article Brandon Smith shows you why you should embrace extremism and tells you how to do it…with panache…

How to Become an American Extremist…In Style!

For most of us in America today, childhood was a time of vast and unassailable dreams. What we could become, what the world could become, was limited only by the strength of spirit setting aloft our ideas, and this strength, as all young people instinctively know, is infinite. While the possibilities of the future seemed boundless, few of us, including myself, ever considered “political extremism” as a viable lifestyle decision. Astronaut? Maybe. Filmmaker? Sure. Enemy Belligerent? Not so much…

Frankly, history has proven over and over again that the majority is usually wrong about most things. Groups and collectives do not create, or discover, or advance humanity. Only individuals are capable of this. All great concepts begin as seeds within independent people, and then spread like wildfire as they educate others. A society that strives for artificial normality and collectivist harmonization is a society on the verge of chaos and death. Only free hearts and minds give man hope of survival.

In my view, that which is extreme is NOT that which violates the boundaries of “normal” society, but which violates the boundaries of inherent truth, and conscience. In an honest society, an extremist is someone who denies the universal foundations of existence, and tries to play demigod in a fantasy world of moral relativism and rationalized criminality. A disjointed freak of nature that seeks to impose his twisted will upon others. Unfortunately, “normal” society is not honest. And the honest definition of extremism is not the most popular amongst the frothing elitists that reside over the functions of our political structure today.

Life is a bummer like that…

So instead, why not embrace the label that the establishment is so keen to pigeonhole us with, and make it our own? I have found that the less I care about the critical eye of others, the more free I am to change things for the better. Certainly, by any standard of our current national leadership and by the throngs that support it, I am an extremist. Luckily, this does not concern me. It is not important to be accepted by the mainstream, it is only important to remain objectively correct in one’s position. In the grand scheme of the world, to be a thorn in the side of so-called “proper society” is a sure fire path to a life without regret. America was founded by undesirables, and built by non-conformists. We are a nation whose blood is thick with defiance and outright knock-out revolutionary badass anti-authoritarian hostility. We cut kings down to size.

At least, we used to…

In modern America, it’s not nice or pleasant or practical to approach political problems with the attitude of a radical. That puts people off. And there’s nothing worse than having people not like you, right? Better to play the game and hope that a better world will simply materialize out of the ether. Don’t rock the boat, especially when you’re in it…

For those of us in the Liberty Movement, this passive approach just doesn’t satiate our ravenous hunger for the bizarre. And by “bizarre”, I mean honest. Our time here is short, and usually ugly, and filled with people and circumstances and disasters and biases and abhorrences and painful moments and sometimes smells that we would much rather not deal with. The least we can ask for is a little truth. If I have to be confronted with crusted wheezing gas-bloated nightmare figures like John McCain or Joseph Lieberman, men who would label me a terrorist if they could, then I should be allowed the satisfaction of a concrete fact or two before I am shipped of to the nearest Halliburton run military sanctioned prison facility for re-education and naked dog-piling (which these men seem to particularly enjoy).

The truth is the first and greatest sin in the dark pestilent pit of any active tyranny. I recommend it highly. Seek the truth, and ye shall be fined…or jailed. This is the first step towards a glorious career as an American extremist, and living such a lifestyle can be fun and exciting, if one follows these simple guidelines:

1) Make A Ruckus

Identify the imperative issues of the day that most people don’t want to be confronted with……..and then talk about them constantly. But don’t just talk about them; talk about them intelligently and with an informative stance. That really drives the willfully ignorant crazy. Make your position and the facts behind it visible in the mainstream, through writing, videos, protest, graffiti, bumper stickers, tatts, whatever…

The establishment’s first line of defense is not necessarily to suppress the truth, but to keep it on the fringe of society, out of sight of the average citizen. Your job is to shove the truth in people’s faces, so that they are forced to at least acknowledge that it exists, even if they don’t want to accept it.

2) Laugh At Petty Authority

Most authority in our modern world is, really, only petty authority. True authority is fostered by a sense of respect that is earned through leadership by example. The greatest authorities are those who teach, not those who command, and political governance is null and void if that governance was attained through subversion and lies.

Of course, this view is a proven fast track to the nearest solitary confinement cell, but hey, living such a rock ‘n roll flavored “extreme” existence is not without risks…

Extremists recognize that a dishonest politician is only a conman in a nice suit, and nothing more. They recognize that a law enforcement official that has no regard for Constitutional liberties, or for human decency, is just a gun toting goon in a badge and costume, and is not due any more respect than a common criminal. They see alphabet agencies as extensions of a system that no longer holds any principles beyond sustaining its own wretched existence, and rightly look down upon those who would sell out to such cancerous bureaucracies for a paycheck and some undeserved prestige. They laugh at such people, because in the grand scheme of things, these “great pillars” of our nation are, in fact, tragically ridiculous.

3) Refuse To Be Pegged With Arbitrary Labels

I once entered into a debate with a long time Democrat over the painfully farcical presidency of Barack Obama. After discovering that I held the same exact views on George W. Bush, he became frustrated and nearly infuriated, because he could not place me into a preconceived political box. He complained that my stance could not be readily categorized, and this interfered with his ability to argue with me.

I replied…. “Good! That’s exactly the way it should be!”

Extremism itself is an arbitrary label, whose definition is shifted by those in power to fit any person or group that happens to get in their way at any particular time. However, to take this label and make it ours, we definitely can’t allow ourselves to be affiliated with hollow and meaningless political parties like the Democrats or the GOP, not to mention all the prefabricated and shallow philosophical platforms they engender. Every problem and situation should be approached as new, and should be dealt with using social and legal methods that WORK, as opposed to those that happen to follow a particular party line. There should be, at bottom, as many political viewpoints as there are individuals, not only two homogenized standards that we are forced to choose from in the hopes that one will be “less destructive” than the other.

4) Prepare For Life Without Window Shopping

A surefire way to become an extremist today is to suggest preparation for any kind of disaster. For the average American, there is no such thing as a tomorrow without Happy Meals and Nikes. To suggest the possibility is akin to dancing naked on the freeway with a Gadsden Flag. Despite the fact that in countries across the planet setting aside goods for survival is as common as mowing the lawn here in the U.S., many in America can’t fathom adopting such habits. This is because many still believe that the system will protect them from harm no matter what happens. The “extremist” thinks differently.

He realizes that there have been too many instances in the past when government was not helpful to those in the midst of catastrophe, and in some cases, was even the cause of greater harm. He seeks to remove his dependence on this system, and procure the insurance necessary to help himself if the need ever arises.

The Federal Government has seen fit to identify the mere act of prepping as a sign of possible extremism, so, let’s get “extreme”, shall we? I would rather be extreme and alive, than a non-threatening and law abiding corpse.

5) Build A Terrifying Gun Collection

If the contents of your house doesn’t scare the living hell out of your yuppie next door neighbor, then you aren’t an extremist yet. Time to pay off the layaway on that 50. Cal!

Firearms ownership is a widespread American pastime, and is growing by the month. However, there seems to be a misconception that this pastime is about our “sportsman’s heritage”, or self defense against local crime. Nope. That’s not why the extremist stockpiles an arsenal (an arsenal is defined as however many guns you happen to have when the ATF shows up at your doorstep). He owns scary guns to defend against rogue governments and the rise of the totalitarian dynamic. Freaky, I know…

Forget all this sportsman nonsense! We own weapons to dissuade oligarchy from getting comfortable on our couches! Our concern is not the wildlife…

6) Question The Accepted Reality Of Everything

You can’t be an extremist if you believe everything you hear from the TV. Actually, you can’t be an extremist if you believe ANYTHING you hear on the TV. An extremist takes absolutely no stock in what the mainstream media says without further investigation, and would rather be caught dead than caught parroting talking points from cable news broadcasts.

Is a certain philosophical or political position suddenly considered “common knowledge”? Be suspicious. Is a particular methodology or debate point appearing in every journalistic outlet at the same exact time with the same exact one sided narrative? Time to pull out the B.S. detector. Is a politician opening his mouth and talking? Have a shovel handy…

The extremist’s job is not necessarily to be contradictory just for the sake of contrariness. It is, though, his job to be critical, discerning, and discriminating against that which doesn’t hold up to the light of candid examination. While there is always room for a certain amount of “interpretation”, ultimately, if a circumstance rings false, it must be exposed. Period.

Even if that exposure is harmful to the state of our country or our culture in the short term, deceit left unchecked in the long term is the single greatest destroyer of entire civilizations, and is absolutely unacceptable, especially to the extremist…

I think it is clear that extremists in an environment of despotism are in most cases people who refuse to abandon that which makes humanity whole. We are, indeed, dangerous, but only to those who would do liberty harm. A life of conformity is a life wasted, and a life of slavery is no life at all. Whatever we may be called today, what we leave behind is ultimately what defines us. Labels are irrelevant.

If I am an “extremist” because I refuse to participate in the delusion that is America in the new millennium, then so be it. I am more than happy to join the long list of insurrectionaries who inhabit this nation today and who have been the legitimate makers of the world for generations. Everything in history revolves not around governments, but rule-breakers. They alone decide whether humanity will live tight in the fist of the authoritarian machine, or live free in the wilds of unbridled independence.

“One man with courage is a majority.”
—Thomas Jefferson

Regards,

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com
You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com.

Alt-Market is an organization designed to help you find like-minded activists and preppers in your local area so that you can network and construct communities for mutual aid and defense. Join Alt-Market.com today and learn what it means to step away from the system and build something better.

A Parting Shot:

We are dying to hear your get your responses to today’s article! Please send them to ggibsonagora@gmail.com.

And be sure to tune for tomorrow’s weekend conversation. Keep an eye out for it in your inbox.

Regards,

Gary Gibson
Managing editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder
ggibsonagora@gmail.com

How to Become an American Extremist… In Style! was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

Last chance, Whiskey Shooters. Gather ye nickels while ye may…

Fellow Agora Financial editor Matt Insley of the Daily Resource Hunter sent us this tidbit:

“NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The U.S. Mint is facing a problem — especially during these penny-pinching times. It turns out it costs more to make pennies and nickels than the coins are worth.

“And because of that, the Obama administration this week asked Congress for permission to change the mix of metal that goes to make pennies and nickels, an expensive recipe that has remained unchanged for more than 30 years.

“To be precise, it cost 2.4 cents to make one penny in 2011 and about 11.2 cents for each nickel.”

Consider, good patron, that while this post-1982 penny costs 2.4 cents to make…it contains only about a half-cent worth of metal, or half the face value of the coin.

During 1982, pennies went from being 97.5% copper to being 97.5% zinc with a mere copper cladding. But even this debased version of the penny had its metal content rocket to nearly its face value back in 2006, when zinc prices hit $3 per pound.

The nickel is similar to the penny in that its production cost is more than double its face value. Unlike with the penny, however, the metal content of the nickel is worth more than the face value of the coin. This has been the case for most of 2011. You could get up to $150 worth of metal for $100 by trading in your paper dollars for nickels.

Of course, it’s illegal to melt down these coins for the metal. But there’s no need to do that at all. People who think that smelting is necessary to trade the coin over face value evince a lack of understanding of markets and of history.

When the price of the metal gets high enough, a market will naturally become established for the coins, and that market will be use the higher content value, not the lower face value. This isn’t just conjecture. The same thing happened to both 90% and 40% pre-1965 silver dimes, quarters and half dollars. These coins have traded for their metal value since shortly after their production ceased. They currently trade around 24 times face value, with silver at $33 per ounce…but they’ve gone to over 35 times face value when silver was around $50 per ounce in 1980 and 2011.

As we’ve often said in these pages, the same thing is guaranteed to happen to the nickel. It could even happen to the debased dimes and quarters (both are 91.67% copper, 8.33% nickel) that replaced the silver ones and the debased pennies that replaced the copper ones (97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper), as the dollar continues to be inflated to worthlessness.

The only opportunity for getting underpriced metal courtesy of Uncle Sam, however, is still the nickel. The penny is as uneconomical to produce as the nickel, but it’s the nickel whose actual metal content is worth more than its face value.

That means when you go to the bank and exchange your paper bills for nickels, you are buying copper and nickel from Uncle Sam at anywhere from a 10-50% discount, with your local bank acting as the broker.

We’ve long said that this situation couldn’t last…that the feds wouldn’t always be willing to subsidize this exchange forever. It looks like the wheels are in motion. This window of opportunity is about to be slammed shut.

Saving in nickels isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a risk-free way to protect your purchasing power. If you save in paper — or in the electronic paper substitutes that comprise your bank account holdings — then you are giving the feds free rein to steal from you via inflation.

Saving in metal coins gives you the protection guaranteed by the minting itself (the coins cannot fall below face value, which would be great if the dollar stabilizes or strengthens in the near term) and protection from inflation (the coins will trade at the metal value if inflation renders the face value increasingly worthless).

This is territory we’ve covered many times before at the Whiskey Bar. We bring it up again because Obama is looking to shut the party down…as we knew he would. There is no date announced yet as far as we know…but we would be surprised if the nickel retained its current composition much past the dawn of 2013.

Now, please understand that you could still get the same sort of protection from quarters and dimes. It’s just that nickels are currently the best deal. The metal content has been consistently and significantly over face value for the nickels. It may take a few more years of dollar debasement before the current version of dimes and quarters are in the same position.

This is Gresham’s law at work. Bad money is driving better money out of circulation.

This erosion of purchasing power by increasing the money supply…this inflation…is, of course, just a sneaky form of taxation (i.e., theft). It’s one you can protect yourself from by proving Gresham’s law true. Just hoard the good money. Simple.

The other more-obvious form of taxation — the kind in which the IRS engages — is not so easy to fight. In fact, it is downright impossible. Jeffrey Tucker explains why in today’s feature article. Taxes may always be immoral, but payment is never, ever voluntary. Read on below…

Is Taxation Voluntary?

Have you ever heard the claim that paying income tax is voluntary? The term “voluntary” is variously used in government documents, including the 1040 form itself, and some very naive people have actually taken this to mean that they don’t have to pay if they don’t want to. They think that “voluntary” actually means voluntary, as in the free exercise of human volition.

It’s an odd position that seems not to comprehend the meaning of the word “tax.” What makes a tax different from a contribution or a trade is that the revenue is extracted by force. You can choose not to comply just as you can choose to resist arrest. But then you must face the consequences. A truly voluntary tax is like a friendly insult, a peaceful war or a healthy cancer. The two words just don’t go together.

By the way, this point doesn’t apply to just the income tax. It is true for all taxes. You sometimes hear that excise taxes are voluntary because no one is forcing you to buy the taxed good or service. This is false. The point is that if you buy gasoline, cigarettes or anything else that is taxed at the point of sale, you have no choice but to fund the government with part of your purchase price. That is not voluntary.

Yet many people, convinced that they should take the government at its word, persist in believing otherwise. The courts have been dealing with these people for decades. They file what the government calls “frivolous lawsuits.” In fact, the IRS has heard this claim enough to actually address it on a special webpage it has created to address these and other far-flung claims made by people who imagine that they have a right to keep what they earn.

The agency writes:

“The word ‘voluntary,’ as used in Flora and in IRS publications, refers to our system of allowing taxpayers initially to determine the correct amount of tax and complete the appropriate returns, rather than have the government determine tax for them from the outset. The requirement to file an income tax return is not voluntary and is clearly set forth in Internal Revenue Code 6011(a), 6012(a), et seq. and 6072(a). See also Treas. Reg. § 1.6011-1(a).

“Any taxpayer who has received more than a statutorily determined amount of gross income is obligated to file a return. Failure to file a tax return could subject the noncomplying individual to criminal penalties, including fines and imprisonment, as well as civil penalties. “[A]lthough Treasury regulations establish voluntary compliance as the general method of income tax collection, Congress gave the secretary of the Treasury the power to enforce the income tax laws through involuntary collection…The IRS’ efforts to obtain compliance with the tax laws are entirely proper.” United States v. Tedder, 787 F.2d 540, 542 (10th Cir. 1986).”

In other words, you are free to comply. If you choose not to comply, you could go to prison. As proof that this is law, the agency cites court cases from 1938-88. Guess what? The courts, as creations of the government, have sided with the government’s right to collect taxes from your income. But you say that this is not fair. This is not just. This is un-American. This contradicts the government’s own claim that its system is voluntary.

Well, if you are writing the dictionary, you get to define words however you want to define them. However the government uses language, the reality is that the money is being taken from you without your consent. The only real difference between the robber (such as what was once called a “highwayman”) and the government, as Lysander Spooner said, is that the robber doesn’t claim to be doing this for your own good:

“The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a ‘protector,’ and that he takes men’s money against their will, merely to enable him to ‘protect’ those infatuated travelers who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road against your will, assuming to be your rightful ‘sovereign’ on account of the ‘protection’ he affords you. He does not keep ‘protecting’ you by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy if you dispute his authority or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures and insults and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.”

What strikes me about the legions of marginalized people who file “frivolous” lawsuits is not that they hate the government, as people often believe. It is not that they have lost confidence in the system or otherwise treat their public servants as their enemies.

My impression is exactly the opposite. They have actually underestimated the depth of the problem with the system. They believe that the courts really are independent and will side against the interests of the government. They imagine that the system is surely and fundamentally just and fair, and once challenged, it will take their side. They imagine that agencies of the government will stick to their word. They imagine that the system is not so corrupt as to not give them a fair hearing.

Keep in mind that there was no income tax in this country for the 126 years after the Constitution was ratified, except for a brief period during the Civil War. Even after the Constitution was amended to make income taxes possible, only a few actually paid. It was much later before it hit most every American. Before that, your income was your own, period. Imagine! Most people can’t.

The 16th Amendment represented a fundamental change in the nature of the American regime. From that point forward, there was a shift in ownership over national wealth. It belonged first to the government, and then to you only as the administrative apparatus permits.

These “frivolous” people who claim taxes are voluntary are doing what good citizens do. They are reading founding documents. They study the American Revolution. They contemplate the words of Jefferson, Paine, Madison and all the others. They take their words and ideas seriously. They look at the current system and see that it resembles the founding vision only in the most superficial ways. And they imagine that it is their right, as Americans and as human beings, to stand up to the powers that be.

What they lack is that critical intelligence to comprehend that the present regime does not agree. There is no real consent of the governed. There is no authentic social contract. The government isn’t really of, by and for the people. To realize this is the beginning of true political wisdom. On this core point, it appears that both libertarians and the tax police are in full agreement.

Regards,

Jeffrey Tucker

A Parting Shot:

Another article on CNNMoney lined up the tax plans of the various presidential candidates for comparisons. They noted that Obama was the only one who clearly wanted to raise taxes. Meanwhile, snowball in hell Ron Paul wants to repeal the 16th Amendment, end the income tax and shut down the IRS.

How do you honestly thing this is going to turn out?

Of course, Ron Paul will not become president. The IRS and the income tax aren’t going anywhere.

But could you just imagine it?

Letting Americans keep what they earn…and a gold standard that guarantees their savings won’t lose value over time…and letting the market do what it does best and drive the price of things downward…

Ha, ha! Forgive us, good patrons. We got lost in our own fantasies for a moment there.

What we will likely get is Obama, he who openly praises taxation and wants to see a bit more of it. This is a man who says with a straight face — and perhaps a hungry gleam in his eye — that 30% is about right for a floor on income taxes for high earners.

How does he know? Why isn’t the ideal tax rate a tenth? Or nine-tenths?

Ah, you see, the political class has learned that 100% taxation — full-blown state communism (voluntary communism is fine) or total slavery to the state — really is too much. The system works much better when the serfs labor under the illusion that they are free. The state collects more taxes when it doesn’t tax too much because the serfs are more productive when they get to keep a certain chunk of what they earn. The less the serfs keep, the more depressed and less productive they get.

Of course the state has a hard time keeping the right balance. The temptation is always to extract bigger and bigger chunks. But that really is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Progress demands incentive, and increasing taxation destroys incentive.

That results first in stagnation…and eventually decline…till society reaches the preindustrial level of comfort it had before the veneration of free markets.

We don’t think it’s going to get as bad as that on these shores, however. Sure, we might get another four years of an openly tax-loving president…but there are forces at work that will turn this ship around. These forces of the market are going to trump those of politics.

It starts with you. Those aware of what’s going on will preserve and provide the capital to carry the world back from the brink.

You can start by shielding your purchasing power with gold, silver and copper (especially nickels right now while you can, but quarters and dimes, too, as the dollar slides more). The next step is to fund innovation…and multiply your wealth by doing so.

Progress demands that people be rewarded for serving consumer needs and improving standards of living…that people be allowed to get obscenely wealthy…that they be rewarded for putting up their capital to fund progress.

For one way to do just that…and create the kind of wealth that would make a commie cry…just click here.

Regards,

Gary Gibson

Is Taxation Voluntary? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The story revolved around the town of Lac-Etchemin, Quebec, which prided itself on being the first Canadian municipality to ban “unhealthy” food from its arena. “Now, in an admission that paninis are outmatched against poutine, the town council has lifted the ban and french fries will return before the end of the month.”

You might chortle at the hubris of a Quebec town trying to ban the delicious French Canadian staple of french fries laden with cheese curds and smothered in gravy. You should applaud the victory of rebellious Canadiens against the Nanny State municipality. In doing so, however, it is important to realize that the attempted ban is neither humorous nor trivial. It is merely one instance of government’s creeping encroachment into what goes onto your dinner plate. In the ’80s, people protested under the slogan “Get government out of the bedroom,” meaning that the state had no proper business monitoring or punishing the consenting sexual choices of adults. Today, the protest should read “Get government out of the kitchen.”

FOOD AS SELF-EXPRESSION

The governmental censoring of food choice is often viewed as a trivial, or even benevolent, matter. After all, what is one french fry more or less? And the goal as stated seems well-intentioned.

There is nothing benevolent, however, about state-imposed control over one of the main ways in which human beings express themselves. Food choices are personal; they define our identity as surely as our choices in attire or reading material. “Food is love” is a hackneyed saying that conveys the basic truth that eating is about far, far more than sustaining life.

Food is an integral aspect of transmitting culture and ethnicity. From Italian pastas to Indian curries, from poutine to falafels, a rich array of dishes form a part of your family’s history and the background of who you are. Often the mere smell of a dish as you walk by a restaurant can elicit a flood of childhood memories, including how recipes or cooking techniques were passed down from one generation to the next.

Food is also a form of cultural exchange through which diverse ethnic groups can automatically appreciate each other’s heritage. The appreciation happens spontaneously, without tax funding, laws or government programs. It happens every time someone chooses a Chinese restaurant or expresses preference for a Jewish deli. During World War II, sauerkraut was widely banned in North America as “unpatriotic” because of the deep hostility toward anything German. Equally, the approval of ethnic food is a form of acceptance of a culture, or at least one significant aspect of it.

Food is also a moral choice, as every vegan knows. It is a religious choice, as Orthodox Jews will attest. Food is also a political statement, as any farmer who produces raw milk will tell you.

One of the most important functions of food choice returns to the saying “Food is love.” When a spouse or mother celebrates your birthday, it is through making “a favorite meal” or baking a cake. When a man proposes, it is over a romantic meal at an expensive restaurant. When you express sympathy at a post-funeral gathering, you do so while holding a casserole that you’ve brought over. It is commonplace for those who are emotionally distressed to seek “comfort food” that allows them to “feed themselves” when the world is not. How many women have recovered from a broken heart over tubs of ice cream?

Precisely because of its strong emotional pull and roots in culture, food choice has become one of the most important rituals in our society. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, from Halloween candy to chocolates on Valentine’s Day, food and ritual are inextricably linked.

Ultimately, food is also one of the main forms of self-control you exercise over your own body. Through these choices, you express a personal judgment on what benefits your body and/or fits your lifestyle; for some, the judgment leads to an Atkins diet, while for others, it is organic lentils. Even people who make allegedly ‘bad’ choices are expressing themselves.

The bounty and diversity of food available in every grocery store and on each passing street corner should cause joy because it demonstrates the richness of society itself — not merely in terms of prosperity, but also in terms of choice.

Thus, when government dictates what you may or may not eat, it is restricting your heritage, your religious and political choices, the control over your own body, telling you that a choice every bit as personal as freedom of speech or the art you view is not yours to make. That decision is theirs.

Why? For your own good. Even as an adult, you cannot be trusted with choosing the food that goes into your own mouth at your own expense. That’s what government experts are for.

ARE THE EXPERTS CORRECT?

Politically speaking, it does not matter whether the food “experts” are correct about poutine any more than their opinion on a specific work of literature should matter…at least politically speaking. You have an inalienable right to read graphic novels about a dystopian future rather than be force-fed Ibsen’s writings on dysfunctional families. You have a similar right to eat food bought at your own expense.

Nevertheless, almost all discussion of government’s censorship of food choice revolves around whether or not the claims being made are true or false. This would be a fascinating and valuable discussion if it did not always seem to end at the conclusion “There ought to be a law.” Thus, otherwise interesting discussions about the value and risks of raw milk result in farmers being arrested and driven out of business by huge fines. Otherwise interesting discussions about the calorie count or artery impact of poutine end in the banning of a cultural choice. This is akin to banning literature because a government book reviewer finds the contents to be “unhealthy.” Society should cease to have discussions that end in such conclusions.

Those who are in the “there ought not to be a law” camp often encounter the following argument: We live in a society that offers (to varying degrees) free health care. This means that taxpayers bear the consequences of providing health care to those who are reckless with their bodies through drugs, alcohol, smoking or unhealthy diets. In short, your neighbor has a vested and financial interest in what goes into your body.

This line of reasoning — rather than justifying a Nanny State or a nosy neighbor dictating your personal choices — constitutes a powerful argument against socialized medicine. If socialized medicine had been “advertised” decades ago as a government mandate to control the minutia of your daily life, then it would probably have never been implemented. If socialized medicine had announced itself as the right to usurp parental control over what to feed children, then it would have met the same “rink-revolt” that occurred in Lac-Etchemin.

Tell the government that it is not a welcomed guest in your kitchen. There is no room for bureaucrats at your dinner table.

Regards,

Wendy McElroy

All Power to the Poutine! was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

An unhealthy cultural myth has flourished that says everyone must go to college and get an advanced degree, even if it’s something for which there is virtually zero market demand. Meanwhile, below-market interest rates and government-backed loans have lured a couple generations of Americans down the road to higher education.

Further, the kind of education colleges provide — indeed, all of American schooling from kindergarten onward — doesn’t produce innovators, entrepreneurs and job creators.

In a recent article for The New York Times titled “Will Dropouts Save America?” Michael Ellsberg writes:

• “American academia is good at producing writers, literary critics and historians. It is also good at producing professionals with degrees. But we don’t have a shortage of lawyers and professors. America has a shortage of job creators. And the people who create jobs aren’t traditional professionals, but startup entrepreneurs.
• “No business in America — and therefore, no job creation — happens without someone buying something.”

Wealth is only created when value is added (You didn’t think it was when money was printed, did you?) The Austrian school of thought reminds us that value is subjective. People, ultimately, buy what’s worth buying to them with the money they’ve earned.

We cannot put too fine a point on this. It doesn’t matter what the seller thinks the item is worth. It doesn’t matter how much time, energy and material went into making the product or service. You can waste a lot of time, energy and material producing something no one will want to buy. The buyer determines the ultimate value…and whether he will part with his money for it.

There can be misallocations of resources. And when the central bank and government get involved, these allocations can grow very large and go on for a very long time before violently correcting.

So it is that, increasingly over the past couple of generations, there has been a gross misallocation of time and resources into higher education, aided and abetted by the central bank and the federal government.

Millions have been misled into pouring their young adulthood into endeavors that won’t pay off…and going deeply into debt for it. The federal government has encouraged this higher “education,” much like it did home “ownership.” The central bank made the borrowing easy with low interest rates — which powered the real estate bubble as well as the higher education bubble — while government entities backed the loans.

Now the education bubble is bursting. The bubble’s start can be traced to the GI Bill, whereby the government got into the business of shoving more people into college than the market would bear. Over time, the same easy loans and guarantees got extended to most of the population.

Over time, some bad notions gained traction. College came to be seen as the ticket to the good life as opposed to something that people already destined for greater things might undertake to help get them there. As often happens, causation became confused with correlation.

In the last 30 years, higher education has come to be viewed as a human right, something that governments are obliged to guarantee. Lost is the notion that a higher education is a path for the exceptional, particularly those exceptional people going into the hard sciences.

Of course, this doesn’t do anything to change the essential ability of the people now being shoved through the system. All it’s done is water down the quality of what’s being offered so that everyone can join in.

Exceptional people still become scientists and engineers. Everyone else gets a master’s in some field that was recently invented to meet the artificial demand for advanced degrees, for people who couldn’t be scientists or engineers, but who had a head full of misguided notions and a boatload of borrowed money.

Worse, this “education” came to supplant things like entrepreneurship, initiative, the willingness to take risk, to accept and learn from failure. As Ellsberg says in his article:

“But most students learn nothing about sales in college; they are more likely to take a course on why sales (and capitalism) are evil.”

Indeed. We hate to keep turning to the Occupy movement, but it is full of the poster children for this. They came out on the other side of the system unemployable and in debt. They feel lost and angry, unable to think of life past the burden of their student loans. And many of them (not all) feel that “capitalism” is somehow to blame, that the world of profits is somehow divorced from the well-being of people.

It’s criminal when “profits” are doled out to banks and “too big to fail” businesses by the government, with money taken from the taxpayers. But what about the real profits — not stolen goods — in which entrepreneurs take risks and business people add value, when the profits are the reward for serving people’s needs?

So the bamboozled have taken to the street. They would like their student debts to be wiped out, that “the people” be bailed out like the bankers and crony big businesses were. Or even worse, they get it in their heads that all higher education, henceforth, should be paid for by the government. It doesn’t matter whether there is a market demand for expertise in a course of study or not.

Here at the Whiskey Bar, we often rib today’s grad students for having expensive but, essentially, financially worthless degrees in things like transgender studies. We’re often accused of right-wing/conservative close-mindedness for it, too…

But we joke to underscore the point. We’re not disparaging such courses because of cultural bias, but because of economics. We suspect that without the inducement of easy money from the central bank, and the channeling of debt expansion into wrong-headed zeitgeists, the price of a course of study would reflect its inherent economic value. Art history and gender studies would be a lot cheaper to acquire expertise in.

A system has grown up that encouraged enormous debt for nonperforming assets, namely, schooling in things that won’t pay off. People are still falling for it. But markets aren’t mocked forever. There has to be some painful write-down in central bank-distorted asset values before the economy can regain solid footing. This is just as true for higher education as it is for real estate.

It won’t be pretty. We’re not sure how this will play out for those who’ve misallocated their time and energy based on false signals, and with nothing but debt to show for it. But the stories that we told ourselves about what’s valuable were built on distortions that are now coming to an end.

Reality is asserting itself. And the reality is that entrepreneurship is what drives wealth creation, not going into debt to be taught that wealth creation is secondary to cultural studies or worse, that wealth creation is downright evil.

Regards,

Gary Gibson

How College Has Killed Wealth Creation was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

In the first place, we may ask, “public sector” of what? Of something called the “national product.” But note the hidden assumptions: that the national product is something like a pie, consisting of several “sectors,” and that these sectors, public and private alike, are added to make the product of the economy as a whole. In this way, the assumption is smuggled into the analysis that the public and private sectors are equally productive, equally important and on an equal footing altogether, and that “our” deciding on the proportions of public to private sector is about as innocuous as any individual’s decision on whether to eat cake or ice cream. The State is considered to be an amiable service agency, somewhat akin to the corner grocer, or rather, to the neighborhood lodge, in which “we” get together to decide how much “our government” should do for (or to) us. Even those neoclassical economists who tend to favor the free market and free society often regard the State as a generally inefficient, but still amiable, organ of social service, mechanically registering “our” values and decisions.

One would not think it difficult for scholars and laymen alike to grasp the fact that government is not like the Rotarians or the Elks, that it differs profoundly from all other organs and institutions in society, namely, that it lives and acquires its revenues by coercion and not by voluntary payment. The late Joseph Schumpeter was never more astute than when he wrote, “The theory which construes taxes on the analogy of club dues or of the purchase of the services of, say, a doctor only proves how far removed this part of the social sciences is from scientific habits of mind.”

Apart from the public sector, what constitutes the productivity of the “private sector” of the economy? The productivity of the private sector does not stem from the fact that people are rushing around doing “something,” anything, with their resources; it consists in the fact that they are using these resources to satisfy the needs and desires of the consumers. Businessmen and other producers direct their energies, on the free market, to producing those products that will be most rewarded by the consumers, and the sale of these products may, therefore, roughly “measure” the importance that the consumers place upon them. If millions of people bend their energies to producing horses-and-buggies, they will, in this day and age, not be able to sell them, and hence, the productivity of their output will be virtually zero. On the other hand, if a few million dollars are spent in a given year on Product X, then statisticians may well judge that these millions constitute the productive output of the X-part of the “private sector” of the economy.

One of the most important features of our economic resources is their scarcity: land, labor and capital-goods factors are all scarce, and may all be put to various possible uses. The free market uses them “productively” because the producers are guided, on the market, to produce what the consumers most need: automobiles, for example, rather than buggies. Therefore, while the statistics of the total output of the private sector seem to be a mere adding of numbers, or counting units of output, the measures of output actually involve the important qualitative decision of considering as “product” what the consumers are willing to buy. A million automobiles, sold on the market, are productive because the consumers so considered them; a million buggies, remaining unsold, would not have been “product” because the consumers would have passed them by.

Suppose now that into this idyll of free exchange enters the long arm of government. The government, for some reasons of its own, decides to ban automobiles altogether (perhaps because the many tailfins offend the aesthetic sensibilities of the rulers) and to compel the auto companies to produce the equivalent in buggies instead. Under such a strict regimen, the consumers would be, in a sense, compelled to purchase buggies, because no cars would be permitted. However, in this case, the statistician would surely be purblind if he blithely and simply recorded the buggies as being just as “productive” as the previous automobiles. To call them equally productive would be a mockery; in fact, given plausible conditions, the “national product” totals might not even show a statistical decline, when they had actually fallen drastically.

And yet the highly touted “public sector” is in even worse straits than the buggies of our hypothetical example. For most of the resources consumed by the maw of government have not even been seen, much less used, by the consumers, who were at least allowed to ride in their buggies. In the private sector, a firm’s productivity is gauged by how much the consumers voluntarily spend on its product. But in the public sector, the government’s “productivity” is measured — mirabile dictu — by how much it spends! Early in their construction of national-product statistics, the statisticians were confronted with the fact that the government, unique among individuals and firms, could not have its activities gauged by the voluntary payments of the public — because there were little or none of such payments. Assuming, without any proof, that government must be as productive as anything else, they then settled upon its expenditures as a gauge of its productivity. In this way, not only are government expenditures just as useful as private, but all the government needs to do in order to increase its “productivity” is to add a large chunk to its bureaucracy. Hire more bureaucrats and see the productivity of the public sector rise! Here, indeed, is an easy and happy form of social magic for our bemused citizens.

The truth is exactly the reverse of the common assumptions. Far from adding cozily to the private sector, the public sector can only feed off the private sector; it necessarily lives parasitically upon the private economy. But this means that the productive resources of society — far from satisfying the wants of consumers — are now directed, by compulsion, away from these wants and needs. The consumers are deliberately thwarted, and the resources of the economy diverted from them to those activities desired by the parasitic bureaucracy and politicians. In many cases, the private consumers obtain nothing at all, except perhaps propaganda beamed to them at their own expense. In other cases, the consumers receive something far down on their list of priorities — like the buggies of our example. In either case, it becomes evident that the “public sector” is actually anti-productive — that it subtracts from, rather than adds to, the private sector of the economy. For the public sector lives by continuous attack on the very criterion that is used to gauge productivity: the voluntary purchases of consumers.

We may gauge the fiscal impact of government on the private sector by subtracting government expenditures from the national product. For government payments to its own bureaucracy are hardly additions to production; and government absorption of economic resources takes them out of the productive sphere. This gauge, of course, is only fiscal; it does not begin to measure the anti-productive impact of various government regulations, which cripple production and exchange in other ways than absorbing resources. It also does not dispose of numerous other fallacies of the national product statistics. But at least it removes such common myths as the idea that the productive output of the American economy increased during World War II. Subtract the government deficit instead of add it, and we see that the real productivity of the economy declined, as we would rationally expect during a war.

But how is it that only government agencies clamor for more money and denounce the citizens for reluctance to supply more? Why do we never have the private-enterprise equivalents of traffic jams (which occur on government streets), mismanaged schools, water shortages and so on? The reason is that private firms acquire the money that they deserve from two sources: voluntary payment for the services by consumers, and voluntary investment by investors in expectation of consumer demand.

If there is an increased demand for a privately owned good, consumers pay more for the product, and investors invest more in its supply, thus, “clearing the market” to everyone’s satisfaction. If there is an increased demand for a publicly owned good (water, streets, subway and so on), all we hear is annoyance at the consumer for wasting precious resources, coupled with annoyance at the taxpayer for balking at a higher tax load.

Enterprise makes it its business to court the consumer and to satisfy his most urgent demands; government agencies denounce the consumer as a troublesome user of their resources. Only a government, for example, would look fondly upon the prohibition of private cars as a “solution” for the problem of congested streets. Government’s numerous “free” services, moreover, create permanent excess demand over supply and therefore permanent “shortages” of the product. Government, in short, acquiring its revenue by coerced confiscation rather than by voluntary investment and consumption, is not and cannot be run like a business. Its inherent gross inefficiencies, the impossibility for it to clear the market, will insure its being a mare’s nest of trouble on the economic scene.

In former times, the inherent mismanagement of government was generally considered a good argument for keeping as many things as possible out of government hands. After all, when one has invested in a losing proposition, one tries to refrain from pouring good money after bad.

Most economists have two basic arguments on behalf of the public sector, which we may only consider very briefly here. One is the problem of “external benefits.” A and B often benefit, it is held, if they can force C into doing something. Much can be said in criticism of this doctrine, but suffice it to say here that any argument proclaiming the right and goodness of, say, three neighbors, who yearn to form a string quartet, forcing a fourth neighbor at bayonet point to learn and play the viola, is hardly deserving of sober comment.

The second argument is more substantial: Stripped of technical jargon, it states that some essential services simply cannot be supplied by the private sphere, and that, therefore, government supply of these services is necessary. And yet every single one of the services supplied by government has been, in the past, successfully furnished by private enterprise. The bland assertion that private citizens cannot possibly supply these goods is never bolstered, in the works of these economists, by any proof whatsoever. How is it, for example, that economists, so often given to pragmatic or utilitarian solutions, do not call for social “experiments” in this direction? Why must political experiments always be in the direction of more government? Why not give the free market a county or even a state or two, and see what it can accomplish?

Regards,

Murray N. Rothbard

The Fallacy of the Public Sector was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.