The Magic of Government

It seems the State is a magical instrument that, simply by existing, magically can do all sorts of things that would otherwise not be possible to do (especially not in a way that is deemed acceptable to the majority of people). To explain I must first define the State (or Government) and then give a few examples.

The State is an entity that holds an exclusive right to exert violence and coercion upon free individuals and their companies and organizations. In Leftist-jargon this means that the State must shape the society of men into some form or another, for example that of equal income or equal access to everything found "basic" in human existence, regardless of everything else.

And what happens once you have the institution of State? First of all, everyone now has access to doctors and hospitals. No free and volunteer work of man can provide that. Only men who can use force to move money, time and energy from one individual to another can figure out how to help the poor and needy to get healing when sick or medicine when feeling bad.

Another magical effect of being paid with money collected with force is the ability to plan and construct roads, residential areas and utility service (such as water, electricity and telephone networks). No institution or company that relies on volunteer payments and employs private companies can provide these products of the magically skilled public officials. It seems you have to be paid with stolen money to organize roads and lay pipelines in the ground.

Also, when you receive stolen money as salary you seem to gain the emotions and skills that qualify you to settle disputes and protect people from fraud and violence. Only public officials can govern over police, courts and lay the framework of day-to-day interaction between free individuals and their companies. This is truly magical.

And last but not least, when you receive your salary from an institution of legalized violence and coercion you are the only one who has the brains and the balls to decide what people must learn to sustain their existence in society of man. Education must be organized and funded by means of public officials, since private companies and the individuals in their service don't have the magic touch it takes to provide education that is any good. And the younger the students, the bigger the need for public officials to be the sole decision-makers and organizers.

There is much to say about the good and bad sides of the institution of State, but the magic effects of its coercive nature are truly remarkable!

Economics of taxation

The effects of taxation? Here's a description:

The price that invariably must be paid for taxation, and for every increase in taxation, is a coercively lowered productivity that in turn reduces the standard of living in terms of valuable assets provided for future consumption. Every act of taxation necessarily exerts a push away from more highly capitalized, more productive production processes in the direction of a hand-to-mouth-existence. (#)

Knowing that a thief will rob you every time you earn a penny might encourage you to work more and harder so that the effects of the robbery don't affect the total income as much. However, this kind of incentive to work is in no way a positive one. Or sure, if you are an employer that does not get robbed of the extra hours your employee puts into your business as a result of the constant thefts. Perhaps the Left is secretly giving employers free labor by encouraging taxation? How ironic would that be?

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

The good people at the Mises Institute are finally putting a little more of Hans-Hermann Hoppe's brilliant libertarian argumentation into the spot-light (buy a book). A short quote:

The state is also not in the same way constrained by competition as is a productive firm. Unlike such a firm, the state must not keep its cost of operation at a minimum but can operate at above-minimum costs because it is able to shift its higher costs onto competitors by taxing or regulating their behavior. Thus, the size of the state also cannot be considered as constrained by cost competition. Insofar as it grows, it does so in spite of the fact that it is not cost-efficient.

Despite all of the masterpieces of Mises, Rothbard and other libertarian writers, few have made such a focused effort to build up the ethics of liberty by strict use of undeniable logic/fact as have Hans-Hermann Hoppe (like, e.g. Mises's "man acts"). Men really have to deny the self-ownership of man to deny the logics of Mr. Hoppe, and today that is not a fashionable thing to deny. Not even for hardcore-socialists.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe is perhaps the most important, living libertarian thinker, or who else could that be? Important of course meaning: Can teach modern libertarians more, better and sounder than any other can.

Osama bin Laden is DEAD!

When will Western media stop swallowing down all those little "tapes" that are supposed to contain messages from Osama bin Laden? Osama hasn't been seen since Afghanistan and anyone can fake a voice. Why isn't he declared dead and the tapes disregarded as forgery?

Perhaps Cox and Forkum explain it best. Western media sells by beating up on the West and adoring the poor, passionate, haunted terrorists of the Middle-East. Hippocratic Western media like never seen before. How would Western media today cover an event like World Wars 2? "Innocent citizens of Berlin bombed by vicious British bombers" or "American troops show brutality against poorly manned SS-troops on the Western front" I suppose.

Bookmarks @ TCS

TCS Daily - A Consensus About Consensus. Related: Climate Science: In Need of Due Diligence.

The End Is Not Nigh?.

Two must-reads from the Mises Institue

I must point out two must-read essays I have recently come upon on the fantastic site Mises.org. Both deal with favorites of the Left - one is on welfare economics, and the other on environmentalism.

Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics, by Murray N. Rothbard is a harsh criticism of the Leftist's welfare term and general way of thinking about society, utility and even economics. Also, and perhaps more importantly, Rothbard offers solutions to our problems when dealing with welfare.

The Toxicity of Environmentalism, by George Reisman (website: Capitalism.net), is, for most part, a strong criticism of the "modern" socialism/anti-capitalism movement, frequently called the environmental movement. A must-read to really understand the debate in our society between the friends of man and prosperity and the friends of death and destruction. There is no need to go into more details with that here. Just read the essay!

The warming of the Left

Is there a small chance that the Leftist-Green is giving up on the global-warming issue? Perhaps so. Here it states that,

the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable.

Well, I guess global warming is on automatic now and nothing to do about it. I guess we can just all continue with our lives, live in warm houses, buy iPods, drive, travel and use refrigerators. Or is this just another scare-tactic from the Left?

The Leftist-faith in some science but not other is quite stunning. Or as one put it:

The environmental movement maintains that science and technology cannot be relied upon to build a safe atomic power plant, to produce a pesticide that is safe, or even to bake a loaf of bread that is safe, if that loaf of bread contains chemical preservatives. When it comes to global warming, however, it turns out that there is one area in which the environmental movement displays the most breathtaking confidence in the reliability of science and technology, an area in which, until recently, no one - not even the staunchest supporters of science and technology - had ever thought to assert very much confidence at all. The one thing, the environmental movement holds, that science and technology can do so well that we are entitled to have unlimited confidence in them is forecast the weather — for the next one hundred years!

Perhaps the best thing to do is ignore the Leftist-Green altogether, both in speech and in funding. They have been wrong until now, and they continue to get it wrong. They seek power of tax-funds and free economies, and the global warming taking place is taking place with or without human assistancence, and is well within control for humans to deal with.

War and statism - friends forever

The love for the almighty "protecting", "just" and "democratic" (in some sense) State is a well known voice in modern politics. The State must provide, support, equalize, distribute and protect. The State must uphold the law, take care of the sick and the needy and show an example. The State must keep the individual from damaging himself with cigarettes, alcohol, racism and excessive spending. And above all; the State must keep the peace. But at what expense?

Without given any consideration for the monetary requirements of the just and all-knowing State, this love for the State has had, and will continue to have, enormous negative effects on all human society. The State created the atom bomb to protect and keep the peace. The State has nationalized the health care and educational system to simplify the amount of service and knowledge people seek for. The State provides us with general guidelines for, in most cases, normally non-violent actions. But at what expense?

The expense is: War, death and destruction.

When the governments of Europe and Asia, during World War 2, decided to push their own citizens into war with citizens of neighboring countries (and well outside that), the power of the State became clear. Economies of free trade and peace were turned into economies of war, many of the institutions of the free market were nationalized "for the sake of the war". By sending your citizens to the slaughterhouse you create a false demand for doctors and nurses - hence nationalizing the health care system becomes a must (never to be returned to the free market again). By sending young men to the battlefield you create an abnormal market for education, thereby creating the need to nationalize, and gradually minimize, the education system. Governments invent atom bombs, Tomahawks, battleships and bombers in the name of peace and protection - investments doomed on the free market but deemed necessary by the State to fulfill its own needs when it comes to protection of its citizens.

And this isn't just an old story from the 20th century. Today the front has been pushed even further, now reaching to the very individual, who can be a terrorist or pervert, both in need of surveillance and random arrests now and again. The "war on terrorism" is perhaps not the war of ground-forces and airborne fighters, but its real just the same, run by the State, run for the State.

Statism and war go hand in hand. Ask Bill Gates if he's willing to use some of his billions to create a new weapon of mass destruction. Even if he'd agree with the need for massive protection and massive strike-power against possible enemies, I doubt he'll go along, or even make the effort to gather his fellow billioneers together to sponsor the project. Why kill your possible customers? Only the State values such a possibility.

A small thought experiment

An undeniable principle of all human existence is: Humans act. This is the basic principle of Ludwig von Mises' book Human Action, and no-one can deny it (thus acting, thus proving the point).

But since humans act, they must prefer one action against another. Only the insane act randomly. People eat when hungry, dress when going out, piss when need to, sleep when tired.

Since humans choose certain action as opposed to other, they must seek actions that satisfy them in some respect. Only the insane work on purpose to destroy their own existence. Even the sickest junky chooses actions that benefit his position (most likely actions that acquire him drugs). In general people choose beneficial actions.

Since humans act to benefits, they don't act so as to reduce their benefits. Violence is a non-beneficial action since it could spur revengeful actions against oneself. Theft too, is non-beneficial, since it could have the same consequences. Peaceful, non-violent behavior is, in general and for most humans, not only a question of good morality, but also of a strong self-beneficial action that minimizes the chances of being beaten up or robbed (that being non-beneficial).

And since humans act for their increased benefit, a force that requires them to act in a different way is non-beneficial for humans, and thus non-preferred by them.

And since force is non-preferred by humans, then forcing them to change their behavior, consumption, their non-violent (=beneficial) behavior, and tell humans to reduce their property so that another entity can take control of it is non-preferred. If this other entity is indeed going to use or spend the value of the property on the same products/services that the original owner was going to (on his behalf), then this moving of property rends itself useless and meaningless.

But by forcing humans to give up property, and then spend the value of the property on something else than the original owners were going to, a non-preferred action has taken place.

And this in all simply translates into the fact that taxes are not only non-preferred, but also non-beneficial to humans

How to avoid this logical error? Abolish taxes, and accept a society of humans living without violence and each seeking to improve his life.

The hypocrisy of a socialist hero

"Capitalism has destroyed the ecological equilibrium of the earth. It is now or never!"
-Hugo Chavez, dictator of Venezuela, January 2006

Government spending [in Venezuela] rose 38 percent during the first 10 months of 2005, spurring a 9.4 percent economic expansion last year. A surge in oil exports to a record $48 billion last year funded the increase in spending in Venezuela, the world's fifth- largest crude exporter. (#)