To outline the principles and reasoning which justify the abolition of democracy and the transition to a free market form of government--
The Age of Enlightenment Brought Freedom
The Age of Enlightenment brought ideas that freed humanity from the assumed divine institution of monarchy. Individuality and reason were to become the new authority which would smash thrones and humble tyrants. A King’s right to rule over his subjects now bowed to the simple idea of individual rights to life, liberty, and property. No man, regardless of how noble, had any inherent moral claim over any other man, regardless of how lowly. The consent of the governed was dissolved away with a few drops of truth. The rule of tyrants was destroyed, not with armies and navies, but with a simple idea – all men are created equal.
Freedom Brought Prosperity
This enlightened idea of individual sovereignty gave birth to a new form of government – a government of the people, by the people and for the people. No longer were rulers free from accountability, nor rules above scrutiny. Now, a tyrant could be voted off his throne and abusive policies scratched from the social contract. The government which bound its citizens was now fluid and alive, able to change according to the vote of the majority. What followed was an era of freedom which brought unprecedented prosperity.
Social Interactions Impact Prosperity
Whether we like it or not, we’re all stuck here together. We’ve got 3 choices on how we approach our cohabitation of planet Earth:
· Isolation - Remain isolated to attempt to avoid potential conflict.
· Aggression – forfeit our precepts for cooperation and handle all interactions with force.
· Cooperation – attempt to benefit from negotiation, compromise, and peaceful association.
Isolation: Complete and total isolation seems a near impossible task. To never have any impact on the environment of another human being is what total isolation would require. As soon as one person’s actions influence the environment of another person, these people are now forced to associate – they must now decide between option 2 or 3, to fight it out or to negotiate an understanding.
Aggression: All human interaction involves some form of compromise. Individuals may attempt to resolve these compromises via aggression, but the behavior is quickly realized to be counterproductive. There may be short-lived benefits from aggression and expropriation, but the binge cannot last. The costs of aggressive resolutions are simply too high – much higher, in fact, than the opportunity costs associated with alternative 1, isolation. What starts as a plan to muscle one’s way into a higher standard of living quickly proves to do just the opposite.
· More effective aggression requires more effective weapons, thus misallocating resources from useful production to industries of war, thus lowering the standard of living of the predator.
· Protection against potential invasion pushes resources from useful production to industries of defense, thus cheating both the prey of an otherwise higher quality of life and the predator of an otherwise more lucrative plunder.
· The expectation of anticipated spoils lowers the useful productive output of the predator.
· The fear of invasion and the uncertainty of enjoying the fruits of one’s labors discourage maximum productive output of the prey.
· Both predator and prey must pay the price of lost life, the result of which is an obvious blow to quality of life.
So while aggression is an alternative, it is not a smart alternative, even for the strong and dominant. Aggression hurts everyone involved.
Cooperation: The Law of Association is one of the most beautiful laws of the natural world. The Law of Association is the economic and mathematical surety that all parties benefit from cooperation and trade, regardless of how skilled and rich or how lame and poor. An extremely rich and skilled businessman will become richer through trading with even an extremely unskilled and poor laborer. Consider the following simple illustration as an example of the law of association.
Desert island survivors Alice and Bob survive off of coconuts and fish. Alice is far more productive than Bob, and yet they both become richer through cooperation. The table below runs through an example scenario.
Alice gains 4 coconuts and 12 fish by agreeing to trade 1 fish for 1 coconut with Bob at the end of their work day. Alice gained the equivalent of 1.5 hours of work and Bob gained the equivalent of 6 hours of work. Cooperation elevates all parties involved.
Cooperative Compromise Clashes with Individual Sovereignty thus Giving Rise to Government
There are two conflicting ideas:
· All men are created equal with inalienable rights to life, liberty and property.
· Men are free to act insomuch as their behavior does not infringe on the rights of others.
But what behavior does not infringe on the rights of others? A man’s mere standing in place restricts the ‘freedom’ of another man who wishes to occupy that same spot. If person A claims ownership of thing 1 or abode in location 2, he is denying those rights to person B. Every human action has an equal and opposite reaction. Any situation involving more than 1 person must restrict behavior; a compromise of individual rights must be arranged. When two sovereign individuals decide against aggression and for cooperation, government is born.
Government is Born of Volunteerism
Government, in the most general sense of the word, offers set patterns and rules by which individuals can weave the infinitely complex fabric of compromises and compensations which knit society together. Sovereign individuals voluntarily seeking to benefit from peaceful association in society – this is the essence, the very life-force of Government.
Government Cannot Claim to Morally Collect Non-Voluntary Taxes
An institution born of volunteerism cannot pretend to claim the moral right to violate individual sovereignty while claiming the purpose to be to protect the same.
“But taxes are voluntary”, some might say. “They are part of the social contract. When a person lives within the borders of the government, they have bound themselves to that contract, and now they are committed to the rules and payments.” Keep in mind that this social contract of which people speak is literally thousands upon thousands of pages of ever-changing rules and taxes which are left unsigned and largely unread, and unscrutinized. Most people know how much their phone bill, cable bill, or car payment are, but are clueless as to how much they pay toward property taxes, road taxes, public education taxes, local law enforcement taxes, military taxes, fire department taxes, city hall maintenance taxes, non-profit organization taxes, or public office salaries and benefits taxes. Our social contract documentation seems to be almost deliberately complicated and convoluted. Many of the interesting details of our social contract are hidden behind secrecy and elevated security clearances. Consenting signatures to this social contract, a document which we can only hope to change via infrequent popularity contests, are assumed by one’s mere existence. This hardly seems a solution worthy of human genius and ingenuity.
Consequences Are Non-Voluntary by Nature, Not Governments
It is true that consequences and accountability are by their very nature non-voluntary, but this does not negate the fact that government is born of volunteerism. It is true that virtually no human action can be performed in isolation, yet this does not detract from individual sovereignty. To conclude that a non-voluntary tax is justified because of the non-voluntary nature of the consequences of one’s actions is to preemptively strike at sovereign men for their mere existence. If such a practice could be considered honorable, who could be entrusted with such a responsibility? This preemptive strike of a non-voluntary tax is a practice that would decimate our quality of life and thrust society into the trenches of war. And so it goes.
Contemporary Examples of Government
If civilized government must truly derive its powers from the consent of the governed, then surely no such government has, can, or ever will exist, right? Actually, there are millions of such governments all around, and you cross into their borders every day.
You cross into the borders of your local grocery store, and agree to abide by their laws (e.g. no streaking, throwing food, cutting in line, or lighting bon fires) and to pay their taxes not because you must, but because you wish to benefit from such a service. It is the grocery store’s job to offer an agreeable set of rules, a fair tax structure, and a high-quality service all worthy of enticing you to voluntarily fork over the cash once at the checkout.
You agree to obey the rules of your phone contract and to pay your phone bill not because you are threatened with jail time should you refuse to enter the contract, but because you desire the benefits of a phone. It is the phone company’s job to offer an agreeable set of rules, a tax structure, and a high-quality service all worthy of enticing you to bind yourself to an expensive 2 year contract.
The story is the same with any business. It is the entrepreneur’s job to make you an offer you can’t refuse. If successful, that entrepreneur is voted into the respective public office of providing that service for society. Should an entrepreneur fail to satisfactorily enforce decent rules, or to collect fair taxes, or to provide quality services, he is kicked out of office and replaced by one who will deliver. The voluntary interactions of the free market embody the very essence of good government – individual sovereignty is honored in the midst of compromise, and mutual benefit is realized in spite of potentially conflicting self-interest.
Free Market Government Improves Upon the Feedback Mechanism of Democracy
The predicament in which we now find ourselves is the result of human corruptibility. Free market government acknowledges this corruptibility and attempts to maximize the checks, balances, and incentives against it. Democracy makes an attempt at such checks and balances, but they are comparatively weak and slow. Free market government, like democracy, is very much a government by the voice of the people, but more so. The table below compares the feedback mechanisms at work in both systems.
| Social Contract Feedback Mechanisms | |
| Democratic Model | Free Market Model |
| Federal/State/Local Governments offer services | Big/Medium/Small businesses offer services |
| One's feedback into the social contract comes at every vote | One's feedback into the social contract comes at every purchase |
| Elected Officials run their office | Successful Entrepreneurs run their business |
| Candidates campaign for office | Entrepreneurs venture to start a business |
| Beaurocracy makes promises in an attempt to earn votes | Businesses offer quality services with a fair set of rules at a reasonable price in an attempt to earn dollars |
| Political platforms, campaign slogans, and public debates are the tools used to influence citizens' votes | Pricing, marketing, and consumer reviews are the tools used to influence citizens' dollars |
| The social contract is difficult to improve as the majority makes a single decision that is locked in place until the next election | The social contracts are quick to improve as markets offer a virtually infinite selection based on personal preferences and efficiency, adapting at real-time |
| The social contract is decided by the majority, thus violating the rights of the minority | Each individual decides which social contracts to enter into, thus honoring individual sovereignty |
| Leaving the country is the only option available to one who wishes to escape the social contract | Escaping a social contract is as simple as refusing an offered contractual agreement, or canceling the respective membership, or moving neighborhoods, or returning the product for a refund, or whatever the case may be. |
In every case the free market feedback mechanism is more streamlined, more responsive, more adaptable, and less susceptible to corruption.
Democracy Suffers from a Poisonous Incentive Structure
The democratic feedback mechanisms are fundamentally crippled from a poisonous incentive structure which is inherently built into such a system of government.
Incentive to maintain and cause problems: Government programs get more funding based not on how effectively they solve problems, but on how desperately convinced the public is that that service is necessary. Zero competition and the illusion of oversight are a recipe for disaster as government programs best guarantee job security and solid growth by being efficiently ineffective, or worse. The more desperately American’s are convinced of the necessity of a particular service and the more our current funds prove to be insufficient, the more funding that public service sector is guaranteed to receive. Thus it is by maintaining and creating problems that democratic government programs best thrive. Businesses, on the other hand, can only persuade a profit out of their customers by solving problems.
Incentive to misallocate resources: A democratic system naturally clings to and misdirects resources toward its dead wood programs. It is never assumed that the program ideology itself is failed, but that the program suffers from insufficient funds. The self-cleansing process found in the free market is virtually non-existent in democracy. Healthy spending cuts are virulently attacked by those few citizens and bureaucrats who stand to gain from the relatively small disseminated costs. The individual citizens footing the bill may have a $1 per year incentive to cut a particular government program, while the direct beneficiaries have thousands, or perhaps millions of incentives per year. Complex resource-allocation decisions are based on trite campaign slogans instead of prices, candidate charisma instead of productivity, thirty-second commercial slots instead of comprehensive market data. These are some of the specific reasons why governments can only grow.
Incentive to initiate aggression: The societal tendency becomes to instinctively dart toward an aggressive solution. When possible solutions to a social problem, such as the unhealthy habit of marijuana, are being considered the answers almost come as a convulsive reflex, “Pass a law. Make it illegal. Regulate it.” This actually means, “Let’s hire the government to shoot people if they have the wrong type of plant in their pocket and insist on their right to keep it there.” The result is a country consisting of 5% of the world’s population housing 50% of the worlds “criminals” in a never ending civil war.
Incentive to plunder: The free market lives by the golden rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules. “ Democracy lives by a different golden rule: “He who makes the rules gets the gold.” In a free market, businesses cater to those with the gold – their customers. In democracy, businesses cater to those who make the rules – the government. Laws and regulations, which are violently enforced by the government, are considered the moral and responsible approach to solving societal problem in a democracy. Laws and regulations become a tool for powerful groups to legally plunder other citizens. Big business will lobby for stricter regulations in the name of consumer safety to serve as heightened barriers to entry to choke out their prospective competition. Large unions will push for minimum wage laws which make it illegal for any prospective worker to volunteer to work for less. Rich banks will lobby for government regulation and intervention in the name of economic salvation which are ultimately nothing more than banker safety nets weaved with taxpayer money.
These same threats also exist in a free market government framework, but free market government provides for them via voluntary payment, constant competition, free-flowing information, and intolerance for initiated aggression
Contemporary Examples of Slavery
Most people assume that slavery officially ended with the passing of the 13th Amendment in 1864. But the parallels between political government and slavery are disturbing.
| Business Models Compared | |
| Slavery | Political Government |
| Master owns the land | Government owns the land (property taxes) |
| Slaves work the land under the supervision of their master | Citizens work the land under the regulations of their government |
| A slave worked at the threat of force | Citizens pay taxes at the threat of force |
| The slave's labors supported both himself and his master | The citizens' labors support both themselves and the government |
| Masters fed and housed slaves | Government provides public services |
| Masters protected their slaves from slave thieves | Government protects their citizens from invasion by other governments |
| Masters kept their slaves healthy | Government keeps its citizens happy |
| Arguments Against Abolition Compared | |
| Slavery | Political Government |
| Slavery is a natural part of society | Political government is a natural part of society |
| Every civilized society has had slavery | Every civilized society has had political government |
| Slaves can't take care of themselves | People can't take care of themselves |
| Where the common people are free, they are worse off than slaves | Where government does not exist, people are worse off (Somalia) |
| Abolition would result in dangerous ex-slaves roaming the streets and causing mayhem | Abolition would result in dangerous criminals roaming the streets causing mayhem |
| Abolition would be a death blow to the agricultural business as we know it | Abolition would be a death blow to business as we know it |
| Abolition would result in throwing poor, unskilled laborers into a cruel world of survival of the fittest | Abolition would result in throwing the poor and downtrodden into a cruel world of survival of the fittest |
| Abolition is a naïve, impractical, utopian ideal | Abolition is a naïve, impractical, utopian ideal |
No comments:
Post a Comment