Crossroads:
Liberty or Statist
Introduction: Establishing a Crossroad
For several decades we fully have embarked upon what F. A. Hayek called the road to serfdom
(1). The problems we face today, particularly the collapse of our economy and the destruction of the dollar did not
begin with Bush and Obama. Yet because the last couple of administrations have so blatantly expanded the role of the federal
government and its intrusion into the daily lives of people, perhaps people in the United States are beginning to awaken to
the dangers of statist control of their lives. If such conscious awakenings bring this country to a crossroad where liberty
is pitted against statist policies, such a shift in attitude questioning statist power would be a welcome sign indeed. But
at that point, to eliminate the political morass that has been brought to fore will require embarking on a completely different
road than most people might think. The road to liberty is not found in choices between the two political parties. It is found,
instead, in undermining the monopoly on political dialogue captured by the two-party system and supporting those individuals
with the courage enough to uphold the spirit in which the Constitution was written. More importantly a proper response to
the present zeitgeist calls for all of us to find the courage to exorcise government from our lives.
Changing Attitudes: Government’s
Undoing Itself
Some tell-tell signs are emerging that
appear to indicate that individuals are beginning to question the role of government in their lives. First, people are beginning
to question the two-party system and its monopoly on political dialogue and action. Because of voices like Ron and Rand Paul,
Peter Schiff, and Judge Napolitano, libertarian thought has infiltrated political discussion and debates. People are waking
up to the idea that the Republican and Democratic parties are not the only game in town. Indeed people are becoming clear
on the fact that the two parties are indeed the same game. In terms of expanding government, there is not a dime’s worth
of difference between them, especially over the last three or four administrations.
Second, because of the technological explosion of the Internet, websites that address a variety of issues are competing
for readers and support. Once again such information flies in the face of the two-party monopoly on political ideas, and websites
such as Lew Rockwell and the von Mises Institute have introduced people to libertarian thought, Austrian economics, and anti-statist
politics. Discussions about the business cycle, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the central banking system have become serious
topics among many people. Individuals are beginning to realize what government spending does to the dollar and the value of
their future saving’s accounts and retirement. Discussion of private property rights has entered the limelight, and
people are once again talking about the role of the Constitution to protect natural rights and property rights by restraining
the power of central government.
Third, grassroots movements have emerged
comprising individuals who are fed up with the government and its intrusion into their lives. Most politicians do not get
what is going on. The Tea Party Movement, for example, while a republican movement, is not a Republican Party movement. Many
of the people involved realize the difference, and they are calling on both political parties to stay out of their lives,
their daily business, and their pocket books.
Fourth, government
actions in-and-of-themselves have spawned concerned on the part of taxpayers and have brought to light ways in which their
money is spent, ways that they do not appreciate. Bailouts, stimulus packages, and subsidies for Wall Street firms and big
business as well as massive spending on the Welfare State have angered people who see trillions of dollars of their money
spent on cronyism, Unionism, and class warfare ideology. Add to this monstrous amount of spending the amount of dollars thrown
toward spreading democracy around the world via our military in the name of national defense, people have begun to question
the competence, integrity, and use of power in the hands of government. Both political parties had better realize that movements
such as those generated by the Tea Partiers seek to rid government from their lives. When Democrats believe that the Tea Party
Movement is a Republican Party generated idea, and when Republicans believe that the Tea Partiers want to simply replace Democrats
with the same old tired neo-conservatism representative of the Bush family, members of both parties are displaying gross ignorance.
Whether it is domestic policies or foreign policies, people are growing tired of government interventionism – statist
politics.
Crossroad: Radical Pathways
If people’s
thinking can seriously begin to entertain the idea that government is not beneficent, and that the best response to government
is to severely restrict and restrain its power, then perhaps we in this country can bring thoughts about government back to
a crossroad so as to imagine what path we want to take. What needs to happen if we want to establish individual liberty as
the ultimate value in this country? I believe several radical changes must occur so as not to fall back into the politics-as-usual
inherent both in the Democratic and Republican Parties. All these changes target the annihilation of government power over
the individual’s life.
Radically Slash Government Spending Both in Domestic & Foreign Policy
The debate around cutting government spending is typically couched in demagogic terms about the less fortunate, the
poor, and the destitute. However, it should be no true surprise to anyone that seventy plus cents of every dollar the government
spends on the Welfare State goes to the payroll of government bureaucrats. Additionally, cronyism generates payback for the
unions, subsidies for big business, and the purchasing of votes via class warfare ideology.
The impact of slashing government spending will be felt immediately by those on the federal and state payrolls, no
doubt about it. But more money left in the hands of individuals who make it and businesses, particularly small ones, who generate
productivity and jobs for others will mean a boost to the makeover of a real economy. Given that government employment now
makes up over half the GDP, we are a nation that is no longer based on productivity. To remake an economy means that production
much increase. Businesses must have the incentives and the capabilities to generate production and real jobs.
Government spending not only squelches business production, contrary to what Keynesians say, but
it also destroys the dollar. Inflation, hyperinflation, and a currency crisis await us if the government continues with deficit
spending and increasing the debt. We have witnessed such currency crises in Greece, the Scandinavian countries, and Iceland.
For far too long we have lived by the idea here in the United States that government expenditures will not take us down the
road of those countries. But the cranking the printing press, flooding of the economy with fiat money, and the continued promise
of entitlements cannot help but lead to a devalued dollar.
Politicians
seek election by making promises to their constituents with other people’s money. A radical change will mean that such
promises and entitlements will be eradicated. The spending of trillions of dollars for ideology and pet projects cannot continue
without damaging the economy, eventually destroying it altogether. America must get past the idea that there exists an endless
well of money to confiscate from “rich” people so as to promise entitlement upon entitlement for voters. Voters
must take on a radical shift in terms of the way they view government. It doesn’t exist to provide them a life. People
must also come to understand that government itself has nothing by which to make such promises in the first place. It can
promise someone something only by taking that something from someone else. Governments do not create economies. Entrepreneurs
do. If this nation does not return to production that begets more production, soon the parasite – the State –
will kill off the host.
Repeal the 16th Amendment and Abolish the IRS
The federal government will not police itself to balance its budget or be accountable for what it
promises and what it spends. One only has to recall the impotence of the Gramm-Rudman Act. As long as there is a public purse
from which to draw funds as it sees fit, the government will continue to have a stream of income until they have taxed the
economy to death. Politicians have no understanding of what their fiscal and monetary policies do to the economy, nor do they
care. As long as the 16th Amendment is in place, the government has first dibs on any individual’s income. There is
no amendment that is more unconstitutional than the one that provided for the income tax.
Unfortunately, the Constitution itself allows for amendments and reinterpretations that contradict the spirit of the
Constitution. The fact that an amendment can be made and a reinterpretation proffered does not mean that either the amendment
or the reinterpretation aligns with the spirit of individual liberty, which the founders originally ratified the Constitution
to protect. Unfortunately, legalese takes precedent over defending the spirit of individual liberty. Radically, we need to
step forward in this country and defend personal liberty, and annihilate and eradicate any laws that oppose liberty.
The 16th Amendment assaults an individual’s basic right to live, extending government control over
ones property rights, income, and pursuit of life as one sees fit. The amendment provides government with carte blanch power
over peoples’ paychecks. There is no amendment or idea that politicians have contrived that more flagrantly contradicts
the Constitution and its purpose of curtailing centralized power.
Along with repealing the 16th Amendment, the office of government henchmen, known as the IRS, should be abolished. Although,
not as powerful as they actually think they are, they can reek havoc on individual’s and business’s livelihood.
By refusing to pay taxes, individuals become outlaws in the government’s eyes. The IRS can willfully and arbitrarily
audit, intrude upon, and confiscate ones productivity. They are hired as government employees to carry out the government’s
dictates to confiscate the productivity of others. They epitomize the notion of the political means of making a living in
contrast to the economical means of making a living described by Franz Oppenheimer in his work The State (2).
Unfortunately many of the political and economic debates today revolve around tax rates and reforming the massive
tax code. I believe we need to move beyond discussions about rates and reform. The radical solution to such intrusion into
our lives perpetrated by the government is the outright repeal of the 16th Amendment and its corollary, abolishing
the IRS.
States Rights & Nullification
In contrast to the 16th Amendment, the 10th Amendment must be strengthened and reestablished
as a basic right in the United States. Unfortunately, states’ rights has been linked historically with slavery
and segregation. In true non sequitur fashion, anyone who broaches the idea of states’ rights immediately
is set upon as a racist, neo-confederate, and/or Nazi.
However, one
of the more powerful weapons against the ever-encroaching centralized State can be found in a proper understanding of the
10th Amendment and its application in challenging the federal government when it oversteps its boundaries.
The 10th Amendment basically states that those powers that the Constitution does not enumerate for the federal
government are left to the states. In other words, if the Constitution does not specifically delineate a particular power
for the federal government, then the federal government cannot take such a power to itself. All other powers are left to the
several states. The individual states have the right to prevent the federal government from intruding into any business that
remains the purview of the states. When the feds pass laws that the states believe are unconstitutional, the states then can
take action to nullify such laws for the particular states.
The northern
states, previous to and during the Civil War utilized nullification to stand against the Runaway Slave Act, where federal
law mandated that free states should apprehend runaway slaves and return them to their rightful owners in the slave states.
So the notion that states’ rights inherently support slavery and segregation is based on a faulty view of history (3).
Today, the federal government has taken upon itself power that the Constitution never permitted
it to have. From waging unconstitutional wars to providing universal healthcare, the federal government has overstepped its
bounds. The one remedy, and a radical one, can be found in the 10th Amendment for the states to say no to the federal
government, to nullify federal laws that unconstitutionally allow the feds to take actions for which the federal government
was never enumerated. The reclaiming of states’ rights and nullification, the strengthening of the 10th Amendment,
and the right to secede from the Union provide protection for the states from encroaching centralized power. These powers
must be activated and utilized in a radical fashion.
Abolish the
Federal Reserve Bank
The Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) and central
banking in general are sources of constant economic turmoil. The Fed is the major impetus behind what Austrian economists
call economic bubbles. Supposedly the Fed stabilizes the dollar. But if that’s the case, it’s doing a terrible
job these days given that the dollar is declining in value and taking America’s economy down the toilet as it plunges
into a sewer created by the very actions the Fed perpetrated. The Fed, operating on Keynesian-like principles, manipulates
the prime interest rate so as to generate or restrict the amount of money that is in the economy. As such the Fed demonstrates
its ignorance of, again what Austrian economists call, the business cycle. By lowering interest rates, the Fed pumps artificial
money into the economy that sends mixed signals to businesses who believe that people have the savings to purchase goods.
Consequently, these businesses generate production projects only to find that the amount of discretionary spending dollars
that people appeared to have was artificially created by the actions of the Fed. Malinvestment ensued that then produced inventories
that need to be liquidated. The bubble created by the Fed’s action eventually pops and we have a full throttled recession
in store, if not worse. During times that the economy was relatively strong, it absorbed the actions of the Fed. In other
words, the economy worked in spite of government intervention rather than because such interventions were made. But as government
spending increases, and as the Federal Reserve cranks more and more money into the economy, the offset by a productive economy
continues to decrease until we are at the point that the economy is so weak that it can no longer offset the actions of the
Fed. Bubble follows bubble as government spending increases and lowered interest rates fall to about zero. The absurdity of
the situation is seen in the fact that today we have people who claim that the stimulus packages have led to an economic recovery,
which in fact is just another bubble ready to pop. All one has to do is look at the unemployment rate and realize we are in
what some economists call an “unemployment recovery.” The only thing that politicians can do is to blame the banks
for not lending and the people at large for saving rather than spending. The real economy can no longer offset consequences
of actions perpetrated by the Fed and government spending.
Return to the
Gold Standard for the Dollar
Historically the setting aside of the
gold standard allowed government the possibility to crank the printing press and spend to its dark heart’s content.
By taking the dollar off the gold standard, it is no longer tied to an objective measure that gives it value. Up to the point
that the gold standard was revoked, government had to stay the course based on a ratio of dollars to gold. With the gold standard
out of the picture, the dollar is floating over a psychological abyss. As government spending increases and as the Federal
Reserve continues to lower interest rates, the economy is flooded with dollars. No longer does the dollar represent the currency
that people want to own. Its value and purchasing power has drastically declined since the original bailouts under the Bush
administration and the continued bailout programs and stimulus packages under the Obama administration. Both parties have
killed the dollar. And the absence of the gold standard is one reason the government can continue to spend like there’s
no tomorrow.
A radical solution to this problem is to reinstate the gold
standard, leading to a dollar that possesses real value on the basis of a precious metal that backs its true purchasing power.
In alignment with slashing government spending, a gold standard will restrain government as to how much money with which it
can flood the economy. Congress would be held in check as to what it can do with the dollar.
Reestablish Laissez-Faire in Business Practices
If we can slash
government spending, abolish the IRS, strengthen the 10th Amendment, and reinstitute the gold standard, then we would
be on the road, not to serfdom, but to laissez-fair capitalism. Small businesses could welcome competition without government
interference and the cronyism that exists between the State and big business and unions. Arbitrary and unfair tax laws such
as the windfall profit tax would be eradicated. And businesses would be allowed to succeed or fail as they would.
The upside to laissez-faire is that big business, corporations, and unions would no longer have
government running interference for them via tax laws and subsidies that favor one business over the other. No longer would
corporations be subsidized to explore foreign markets. Like any business, whatever market into which they wish to tap, they
would do so at their risks and must assess those risks like any business in a free market.
Unions would no longer have government force behind their desire to corral businesses. The AFLCIO would cease to be
a monopoly on labor. Right-to-work states would be left alone. Tariffs and other protectionist measures would be eradicated
that favor businesses and unions here in the United States. Export-import business would be allowed to compete on the basis
of supply and demand. Prices and wages would be established via the mechanism of the free market. Minimum wage laws would
be eradicated. There would be true free market competition both for capital and labor. The economy would be based on innovation,
creativity, and real production.
Through the 19th and 20th Centuries in
the West and particularly here in America, capitalism produced more wealth and raised the standard of living for more people
than the previous Centuries combined. The Pharaohs of Egypt would have welcomed and relished what the Western middle class
of the 20th Century achieved. The only thing that undermines such wealth production is government interference. From the New
Deal to Nixonian Price Controls to Obamaism, both the Republican and Democratic Parties have pilfered a once thriving economy
and are on the brink of destroying the dollar the economy produced. So the person who believes full-heartedly in individual
liberty cries out: laissez-faire.
End the Foreign Policy of Interventionism
The military industrial complex is an economic drain on America’s day-to-day living. I do
not argue against the need for legitimate national defense. But at least, if not before, since the Korean War, the United
States has engaged one unconstitutional, undeclared war after another. And if we have not been engaged in outright war, we
have been entangled in conflicts around the globe that neither serve our national interests nor have anything to do with national
defense. Presently, America has troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Korea, Japan, and Germany. We spend billions of dollars
per year carrying out the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan when 9/11 was an act perpetrated right here on our shores under
the noses of those supposedly engaged in our national defense.
In his Farewell
Address, George Washington warned America about becoming entangled in the conflicts of other nations. Just as laissez-faire
befits business practices, it equally befits our foreign policies. We should be friends to all so that businesses can be free
to trade and engage in mutual beneficial exchange. If the policies and politics of other countries are too unstable, then
businesses here in this country need to take such risks into account when and if they choose to do business in those countries.
The taxpayers owe them no subsidies, bailouts, or military protection to carry on their business operations around the world.
The military industrial complex impacts us in other ways that counter laissez-faire. The Patriot
Act is blatantly unconstitutional. It allows government to intrude, infiltrate, and monitor the daily lives of American citizens.
The Act should be repealed.
In no way is such a take on non-interventionist
foreign policy a statement against our military men and women. The best way to show support for our troops is to bring them
home, removing them from political entanglements around the globe that are perpetrated by statists but are none of America’s
business. Although it may sound trite by now because it has been stated so many times, America is not the policemen for the
world. The notion that we are is more representative of an empire than a republic.
Conclusion: A Different Road
Make no mistake about it. I’m not
going to pretend that what I’ve outlined here aligns with much of the thinking in politics today. Indeed it most likely
is too radical even for those now who have witnessed the road down which neoconservatives and progressive liberals have taken
the nation.
I do not believe that a proper response to the pilfering
of our economy and the destruction of the dollar is a mere change in political parties. We’ve had enough of that game.
Being more moderate or somewhat conservative doesn’t cut it. We can’t laud Bush for tax cuts but remain silent
about his expansion of the government, the Patriot Act, and his Wilsonian vision of empire. The issue is not a choice between
Democrats or Republicans.
We need to pave a completely different
road. Both parties have taken us down the road to serfdom. We need a road to liberty, a pathway that rids our lives of those
who parasite our productivity for their political gain. We need a realistic look at this economy and what politicians have
done with it. Presently as I write this, Obama and his minions continue to tell us that spending the country into oblivion
will make everything better. Simply saying that we need to keep the Bush tax cuts in place and that we need to be a little
more fiscally conservative doesn’t answer the call.
The only proper
response to the politicians who have economically raped this country is a radical one. A legitimate understanding of the illness
the Washington parasites have caused calls for a cleansing ourselves of the notion that politicians know better how to design
our lives for us. Such a belief has enthroned them with the greatest centralized power the country has known. That power should
be undermined, diffused, and eradicated in the most extreme terms.
Today, thoughts are emerging that may signal that we can begin carving a new road. Nullification, secession, eradicating
the Fed, and repealing the 16th Amendment and abolishing the IRS, while once viewed as beliefs held only by fringe elements, are
beginning to be considered worthy steps to take in the face of an empowered centralized bureaucracy that has destroyed one
of the most formidable economies known in the history of mankind.
But such steps will take courage. We must believe that we can carve a life out for ourselves apart from and better
than what government bureaucrats can do for us. We must fight the temptation to look to people in power to guarantee our existence.
We must be willing to live with the fact that creating a worthwhile life involves risks with little to no guarantees. We must
undertake the steps necessary to take care of our own households, checkbooks, and communities. And we must summon the courage
to stand against federal power that has flooded in waves over its Constitutional boundaries. Living free begins with the individual.
Maintaining liberty means saying no to self-appointed designers of life who approach us with a handful of promises if only we surrender
our productivity and freedom to them.
References:
(1) Hayek, F. A. (1994). The Road to Serfdom (50th
Anniversary Edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Originally Published in 1944.]
