I was reading a meme on Facebook that was posted by a friend of mine. The meme falls under the general category of “If we would just elect the right leaders we could fix our problems.” He thinks Trump better than Biden. I agree that some politicians are better than others but I do not believe that politics is the solution. I believe the solutions lie outside of politics. As a matter of fact, I believe that politics is part of the problem. Why? Because a belief in politics implies a belief in government and government is not the solution; it is the problem. The following paragraphs are my thoughts in response to the post.
What we need is not new rulers but self-governance and I’m not talking about democracy. Democracy increases conflict by encouraging the 51% to impose its views on the other 49%. The conflict pits the masses against each other and empowers the ruling class. See the Hans-Hermann Hoppe book Democracy- The God that Failed for a thorough discussion. Don’t expect democracy to end your enslavement. Democracy merely gives us the illusion of control. How many times have we seen a politician say one thing on the campaign trail only to do the opposite after elected? In the 1932 presidential campaign FDR attacked Herbert Hoover for being a big spender, then enacted the New Deal after election, the biggest spending campaign in American history.
The answer is for everyone to stop believing in the need for rulers. Every government in human history has had and forever will have but one goal: to expropriate the populace. Statists give the robbery a fancy name: taxation. If 30 to 40 percent of your income goes to pay taxes you are a slave 30 to 40 per cent of the time. We are the slaves. The overseers working for the slave masters go by the name of president, congressman, senator, etc. The slave masters stay out of view but they pull the strings of the overseers by contributing large amounts to their election campaigns. The overseers are paid handsomely for creating laws that allow the extortion to continue. The professional extortioners go by the name of IRS agent or tax collector. For an excellent essay on the real reason governments exist see Murray Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State. You will never view the state with reverence again. You can find a free copy at Mises.org.
Why do we rarely see points of view such as mine in the newspaper or television? You won’t find this discussion on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. Why? Because the news media are in bed with the slave masters. Today’s “news” is pure propaganda. The only reason to pay any attention to this propaganda is to gain insight into how the ruling class wants you to think. And have you noticed how much of the “news” centers around politics and government? That is not a coincidence. The ruling class wants you to think the solutions lie with them. It does not and never will. The Democrats and Republicans are just two sides of the same statist coin; they work for the same masters. The cruel trick of democracy is to make the slaves think they are the masters. It is a brilliant sleight of hand. For a detailed analysis of how we enslave ourselves by our own thoughts read The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose.
A brief survey of the twentieth century alone reveals the handiwork of governments. An estimated 40 million dead in World War I; an estimated 70-85 million dead in World War II . This does not include Vietnam, Korea, and the first Gulf War. Did the citizens of the combatant nations hate each other enough to individually travel to other countries and go on a killing spree? No, they were conscripted and made into soldiers. That’s “government speak” for they were enslaved by their own governments and forced to commit mass murder. And how about the dictators that sent an estimated 120 million or more of their own citizens to death in the twentieth century alone: Mao Tse-Tung, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot. These monsters were the results of our belief in authority yet that belief has been so firmly implanted into our minds we never question it.
So how would we survive without the mass murderers and extortioners “protecting” and “regulating” us? For a detailed discussion of how that could work, including the provision of education, policing, and national defense, see Market for Liberty by Linda and Morris Tannehill. There is nothing government does that cannot be done better and more efficiently by free markets. We all know that competition makes sports teams and businesses better, yet we have a government imposed monopoly in vital areas such as education, policing, and the courts. Why should a school continue to exist if it is not satisfactorily meeting the needs of its “customers?” If the police in Minneapolis during the summer of 2020 had been working for a private policing corporation that had been hired by the business owners in that city to protect their property would the looters have been allowed to destroy so many businesses? I doubt it. But the police weren’t working for the business owners; they were working for the city, and they were told to stand down by the politicians. The same thing happened in Portland; the thugs were allowed to take over multiple city blocks. The government courts have already ruled that the government police are under no obligation to protect you. You can’t sue them if they don’t protect you. If you contracted with a private policing agency to protect you and they failed to do so could you sue them? You betcha. Could you fire them after they failed to protect your business? Yes. Can you fire the city police? No. They are a government sanctioned monopoly and you can’t sue them for breach of contract or fire them. And if they beat you to a pulp for no good reason you have little recourse. Our government courts have created a special privilege called “qualified immunity” to protect cops. All they must do is utter the magic words “stop resisting arrest” (even if you are not resisting) just before they beat you. No such immunity would exist for police working for a private company. The bullies amongst then would soon be weeded out. They would be fired AND tried in court. And they would be tried in a free market arbitration court and the judge would not work for the policing agency. Are you beginning to see how this would work? We already have free market security companies and free market arbitration courts; we just need to move the criminal cases into these courts and out of the biased government courts.
Contrast that with our current government run system. In the highly unlikely event you were able to get a bully cop into court keep in mind that the judge, prosecutor, and cop all work for the same boss: government. That’s not a neutral court. Qualified immunity is a license to kill. The guilty verdict in the George Floyd death was a very rare exception (and Floyd did himself no favors by truly resisting arrest). I am not anti-cop. We need police but they should be working for us and not the state. We need free market policing.
Free markets are just people making voluntary exchanges with each other, without coercion. Voluntary exchanges benefit both parties. If I go to the Dollar Tree and buy a candy bar for $1 I value the candy bar more than the $1; the Dollar Tree values the $1 more than the candy bar. It’s a win-win exchange. The government prevents many win-win exchanges by the use of regulations. Regulations are not really there to protect the consumer. Regulations benefit special interest groups at the expense of everybody else. Regulations can either prevent a wanted exchange or force an unwanted exchange. For an example of an unwanted exchange ask yourself the following question: “Do I really want ethanol in my gasoline?” The ethanol requirement in gasoline is an extortion from your wallet into the the wallet of the special interest group agriculture. It is a win-lose exchange. The consumer loses by paying more for fuel. The winners include big agriculture and the politicians who receive large donations from big agriculture. The purpose of regulations is the same as the purpose of government in general- to enrich the few at the expense of the many. The rules that do make sense would be retained by the free market. Did you know that in some states you must be credentialed to braid hair or to create a flower arrangement? Whew! Sure glad they are “protecting” us. Think of the carnage inflicted by a bad flower arrangement!
But how would we keep pollution from the air and poison from our food without government? I will leave you with a little homework. Read the Tannehill book Market for Freedom and you will understand how the free market could solve this problem and every other problem government “solves”, and without the aid of coercion. Let’s end our enslavement. It is time to free our minds from “the most dangerous superstition,” the belief in government authority. Let’s look in the mirror and see the new boss.