Category Archives: Political Philosophy

How Do We Defeat Racism and Discrimination Once and For All?

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We haven’t heard a lot lately about discrimination in the job market. Perhaps the economic crisis has pushed it into the background. “Progressives” may be too busy promoting their economic gibberish (Keynesianism) to fall back on this tried and true “divide and conquer” issue. However, as surely as night follows day, there will come a time when our friends in Congress will again need a different reason to try to tell people how to conduct their business, and nothing garners more support than railing against discrimination. When that shoe finally drops, I have a suggestion. Let’s not go back down the road of affirmative action, quotas, or any other idiotic idea that our retro-liberal Congress is likely to resurrect. There is only one remedy for discrimination in the workplace: free market capitalism.

I can speak from personal experience that this is true. I have interviewed thousands of people for jobs over the course of my life. The candidates were black, white, Hispanic, male, female, young, and old. How did I decide who to hire? I chose the same way every time. I picked the candidate that I believed would make me the most money. When I chose a black candidate or a woman, I did not do so because I wanted to promote diversity or equality. I did not do it out of altruism or for women’s rights. When I made those decisions, I had one thing and one thing only on my mind – profit.

Sometimes, I chose a white male over a black female and didn’t give it a moment’s thought. Sometimes, exactly the opposite was true. Nonetheless, in each case I chose based purely on my own self-interest (or that of my employers). I did not hire people to help them and they did not come to work for me to further some missionary cause (or even because of my sparkling personality, believe it or not). They came to work for me because the opportunity I offered them would benefit them personally more than any other available to them at the time.

The people that have worked for me in the past and who work for me now are my equals. They have skills and services to sell and I am their customer. We deal with one another in the same way that people deal with one another when buying or selling a house. I am looking to get the highest quality work that I can for the best price. They demand the highest price that they can get for their services. They choose to sell those services to me because I am willing to meet their price. If they call me “Mr.” or “Sir,” it is not out of subservience any more than the owner of an exclusive restaurant is subservient when he calls you “Sir” or “Madam” while you are paying him $150 per plate. When someone buys your product, you show gratitude for the high compliment they have paid you. They have chosen what you have to offer over all other alternatives.

Were I to make hiring decisions based upon anything other than the profit motive –based upon racial discrimination for example – the market would punish me. It would reward my competitor with a more talented employee and an advantage in the market. If I were to do this habitually, my competitors would soon have more talented employees throughout their organizations and I would be forced out of business. Anyone who has run a business knows that one cannot afford to discriminate based upon anything but profit. The market forces me to ignore race, creed, or sex for my economic survival. Only politicians remind me that I should consider demographics.

The plain fact that no politician in history has ever understood is that the market requires no altruism for everyone to benefit. Competition for employees creates higher wages and better benefits. If competition for jobs drives wages down, then the cost of production drops with wages and real wages rise despite the nominal decrease. There is no need to “balance” profit and social justice. The profit motive creates social justice. People exchanging their goods or services with one another by mutual, voluntary consent is social justice. It is only coercion that is unjust.

When people are left to themselves to deal with one another by mutual, voluntary consent, the profit motive will trump racism and discrimination every time. Show me a firm that passes on superior talent because of race or sex and I will show you a firm that is not going to be around for very long. Show me an entire industry that has put the best talent on the sidelines due to race, sex, or age, and I will be open for business in that industry the very next day. Within six months, I will be that industry’s next billionaire. The company with the most talented employees wins – every time.

This relationship between employer and employee – between buyer and seller of services – is one based upon all parties acting in their own self interest. My employees do not need my help or my altruism – they need my business, just as I need the business of my customers. They strive to perform at the absolute highest level that they can so that they can demand even more money from me for those services. I happily pay it when their improved performance increases my sales or my profits. I offer less when I can get the same performance at a lower price.

The beneficiaries of all of this are our customers. I am constantly trying to lower my costs and raise the quality of my products. I do this to gain market share and increase profits. My employees continually improve their service to our customers so that they can make more money for themselves. Higher performance from my employees is what raises the quality of my products.

Neither I nor my employees bother to stop and take note of the color of anyone’s skin or whether they are a man or a woman. We cannot afford to and, quite frankly, we just don’t have the time. This is the way the real world works. Just ask anyone who has to make a living in it. Only politicians and the people they are able to confuse see it any differently.

So, the next time your politicians bring up discrimination in the workplace, try to explain all of this to them. Tell them to put away their pamphlets and spend some time with you – working for a living. Six months spent actually earning a living rather than living off taxes collected at gunpoint would make capitalists of them all. You may say I’m a dreamer, but just imagine the freedom and prosperity that would result.

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

 

>A Nation of Hyenas

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>One never knows where one will find profound metaphors for human existence and society, and I certainly wasn’t looking for one while channel surfing last weekend after a morning of yard and house work. However, I had the good fortune to flip on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and observe a perfect analogy to what our once-great society has become.

That episode was about the cheetah, the fastest land animal on earth. The cheetah is a beautiful creature. As the show pointed out, it is literally built for speed at the expense of brute strength, of which it has relatively little compared to other predators in its habitat. While unfortunate for the antelope, it was nonetheless quite inspiring to watch a high-speed pursuit of that animal by the cheetah, exhibiting gracefulness which rose to the level of poetry. Having made her kill, the cheetah brought the antelope back to feed herself and her young.

However, the story was not to end so happily for this family. The smell of blood in the air had attracted a pack of one of the cheetah’s competitors, the hyena. While the aforementioned lack of brute strength would probably not allow the cheetah to fight off even one hyena, that fact was irrelevant in that it was ten or twelve hyenas which now threatened her. Why? They were after the antelope – the fruits of the cheetah’s labor – and were going to use their greater numbers to take it from her by force. They weren’t intent upon killing the cheetah or her young, but were willing to do so, if necessary, to obtain her property without her consent. The cheetah weighed the risks to herself and her cubs and retreated, left to try to make up the loss elsewhere to provide for her family.

A few nights later I broke an embargo of sorts and actually watched a “news” program. I tuned in Cavuto on Fox News[1], which is one of the few shows where actual journalism seems to occur occasionally, despite its network affiliation with right wing propagandists Hannity and O’Reilly.

Cavuto’s regular panel of guests is arguably the most libertarian one can find anywhere in the “mainstream media,” regularly featuring Jonathan Hoenig, Peter Schiff, and even Yaron Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute.

That night, the auto company bailouts were again on the docket, and familiar arguments were made by Hoenig and the other panelists about why the results would be worse if the government took control of the auto industry. Cavuto’s token panelist from the left[2] (a female panelist whose identity I have been unable to verify), made the now also-familiar argument that “we bailed out Wall Street and now Main Street is demanding that the government do something for them.” Most of the panelists answered correctly that they were against the Wall Street bailouts as well, a point that was left unemphasized due to several people talking at once. However, the real chance for a meaningful debate still lay ahead. The boisterous Cody Willard set the stage when he said, “if you want to help them, send them your money, but don’t hold a gun to my head.”

The reply from the panelist arguing the liberal perspective was monumental:

“That’s why we have a democratically-elected government and the people want the government to do something.”

When she gave that answer, it was time to stop the quips, the witticisms, and even delay going to a commercial, if necessary. Despite the fact that the host trivialized the exchange by talking over part of both her and Willard’s comments, the exchange between the two was enormous beyond what most viewers probably realized.

There are many who would probably consider Willard’s statement a half-facetious exaggeration for effect. It was not. It is the horrifying reality of what any government bailout or other redistribution of wealth represents. We as Americans have forgotten that all government action is exercised under exactly these circumstances: at gunpoint. That is the purpose of government, to exercise brute force on behalf of its constituents when it becomes necessary to do so. That is why our government was originally so limited. The founders of our nation believed that brute force was only justified in self defense. Therefore, government action was limited to protecting its constituents from harm by other people, whether it was harm by a fellow citizen or a foreign army.

However, when the government undertakes to “do something” about a failed bank or auto company, it really means that We the People have decided to apply brute force to the problem, even though it is not a matter of self defense. Willard was completely accurate: a government bailout of a distressed auto company, whether it saves jobs or not, is really the people using their collective means of brute force (the government) to take property from one group of people and give it to another. This exchange is done at gunpoint – there is no consent by the party being taken from. Had the managers or the employees of the auto company armed themselves and sought to raise the funds themselves by stealing them at gunpoint from the people directly, they would have been arrested and prosecuted for armed robbery. However, Willard’s opponent in the debate argues that there is some ethical difference because a “democratically-elected government” acts as the armed robber in their stead. What can the difference possibly be?

This is the fundamental question that we as a society must answer if we are ever going to reverse the downward spiral we find ourselves in. Do we believe that individuals have inalienable rights or do we believe that a majority vote can take those rights away?

If one takes an objective look at our society as it has evolved over the past century, one must conclude that we have already answered it. Stripped of euphemism, almost every government institution in our society amounts to us using the brute force of government to violate the inalienable rights of our neighbors. Let us consider just a few examples.

Government involvement in healthcare has driven the price so high (through the artificial demand it creates) that the poor and elderly cannot afford it. Our answer is to apply the brute force of government to steal the money at gunpoint from one group of people to provide healthcare to another. In a truly bizarre development, that practice has now resulted in such high prices that almost no one can afford healthcare. So, we will now steal from everyone to provide healthcare for everyone. Lewis Carroll couldn’t have dreamed of anything quite so mad.

In order to be able to stop working but still enjoy the quality of life we feel we deserve after a certain age, we use the brute force of government to steal from those who are still productive to support those who are not. We could save for our retirement, but we choose instead to steal. We call this “Social Security.” It should be called, “Anti-Social Insecurity.”

Similarly, in order to afford to buy a house without saving the necessary down payment and establishing superior credit, we use the brute force of government to compel our neighbors to guarantee our mortgage loans with their money. When the inevitable tsunami of defaults occurred last summer, some objected to the government stealing the money to cover the losses of the banks. In truth, the money had been stolen decades ago, the minute that Fannie Mae was established.

Rather than saving the money for college tuition or allowing our children to work their way through college if we cannot afford to pay the tuition in full, we use the brute force of government to compel our neighbors at gunpoint to guarantee our student loans with their money. As with healthcare, this evil practice has driven the price of college tuition so high that not only are students going into long-term debt just to pay for their education, but their parents are taking out decades-long loans as well.

Should fortune not smile upon us or should we not develop marketable skills with which to obtain employment, we use the brute force of government to steal the money needed to sustain us from our fellow citizens. We call this the “social safety net,” but it also should be recognized as “anti-social.”

If we believe that we have a scientific theory that could lead to a new discovery that will benefit society (and enrich ourselves), we do not seek out capital to research it from those who can provide it voluntarily. We use the brute force of government to steal the money from our neighbors with the flimsy justification that “federal funding of research” will “benefit all of society” with a new medicine or a new technology.

This is by no means the length and breadth of the ways in which we violate each other’s rights on a daily basis. Every program funded by government, besides those that have the express purpose of defending our rights (police forces, the courts, the military), amount to the same thing: using our collective means of brute force to extract money from one group and give it to another.

What should be obvious is that it is not one evil group (the poor, the elderly, the corporations, Wall Street, etc.) that engages in this morally repugnant practice. Politicians will pick their scapegoats to play to their own power bases. The Republicans will blame the poor to get votes and campaign contributions from their base, the corporations and the rich. The Democrats will blame the rich and the corporations to get votes and campaign contributions from their base, the unions, average Americans, and the poor (the poor have only their votes to give and get back only the most miserable portion of the loot).

However, we must wake up to the fact that we all have a hand in this. The steady growth of one redistribution scheme after another has made it virtually impossible to function in our society without in some way participating in the looting of our fellow citizens, while we are at the same time looted ourselves. We have established all of these redistribution schemes through the democratic process. This past century has not been a progressive century. It has been a regressive one. We have regressed from a society of free people that respect each other’s inalienable rights to a society that is based upon competing groups stealing from one another through the brute force of government. We use only the support of greater numbers (majority vote) to justify the institution of each new crime. We have regressed to the brutal law of the jungle. We have become a nation of hyenas.

This has all followed logically from one fundamental break we made from our founding principles. We have elevated democracy to an ideal, at the expense of the individual rights that our government – and any government of free people – was constructed to protect. We have convinced ourselves that anything a majority vote sanctions is just, even if it violates those rights. Once we accepted that premise, the seeds of our destruction were sown.

As one might expect, this is something that the founders of our nation warned us specifically against. When one takes an objective look at our founding documents, the first thing that should jump off the pages is how little democracy there really was in our original government. Only the House of Representatives was chosen directly by the people, with the president and senate chosen indirectly by electors or the state legislatures, respectively.

More importantly, it is vital to realize what all of the limits, checks and balances, and even the Bill of Rights were intended to protect us from. They were intended to protect us from democracy.

One does not need to engage in interpretation to support this claim. The founders said it explicitly on more occasions that one could count. Here are just a few examples:

“Democracy is the most vile form of government … democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths,”[3]

“The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”[4]

“There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.”[5]

These vitriolic attacks upon democracy and majority vote from the founders of our nation would probably surprise most Americans. Nevertheless, there they are. The founders understood that democracy was a means, not an end. Their end was protection of the inalienable rights of each individual. Democracy was only good and just insofar as it helped to defend those rights. Furthermore, it must be prevented from being used to violate them. Again, the founders said this explicitly.

“In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”[6]

This passage elucidates another conclusion that proceeds from natural law. Not only is each individual prohibited from using the majority vote to violate the rights of his fellow citizens, he is prohibited from using that vote even to relinquish his own rights. That is because rights are not granted by society. They are inherent in man’s nature itself. They are non-transferable. They cannot be taken or even given away. That is the meaning of “inalienable.”

It was at the turn of the last century that we made the fundamental change in our philosophy. Since that time, we have held democracy up as our ideal at the expense of our natural rights. We did this primarily to justify the routine violation of one specific right: property. It is no accident that as democracy has become more and more extolled as an ideal, property has become more and more reviled. We have even had professors in American universities teach their students that “property is theft.”

Of course, like the hyena, we really do not care what our fellow citizens say or believe. We will not expend much energy in violating their rights to free speech or freedom of religion, because in the end we have nothing to gain from violating those rights. However, by violating their rights to the fruits of their labor, we do gain enormously at their expense. This is the true danger of democracy. We must face up to this plain fact and stop talking about everything but property. As Adams also said, “Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent?”

We are at a crossroads. The system we have built upon the brutal law of the jungle is about to collapse. We are presently suggesting even more brute force (government) to try to preserve it. If we continue on this course, the relationship between predator and prey on the African savannah will seem civilized compared to the state of our society. Unfettered democracy – not unfettered capitalism – has brought us here. We must choose respect for our inalienable rights over the loot that unfettered democracy can provide us with. If not, we must admit to ourselves that the way in which we live and deal with one another is no different from that of the savage beasts of the jungle. A return to our founding principles is our only hope.

Are we not men?

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

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[1] “Cavuto” Fox Business News May 27, 2009.
[2] While hard-core progressives might call her a “Fox News Liberal” for even appearing on the hated network, her role on this telecast was without question to argue the liberal side of the issue.
[3] Madison, James Federalist #10
[4] Jefferson, Thomas To Dupont de Nemours Washington ed. vi, 591 1816
[5] Madison, James Letter to James Monroe October 5th, 1786
[6] Samuel Adams The Rights of the Colonists (1772) The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772 Old South Leaflets no. 173 (Boston: Directors of the Old South Work, 1906) 7: pg. 419.

The Myth of the Laissez Faire President

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P20315-10a.jpgIt is generally accepted that one must wait several decades before looking back at an event or an era with sufficient “historical perspective.” Only from that vantage point can the significance and long-term effects of any piece of history be objectively observed, quantified, and analyzed. However, there is a dilemma inherent in this long-standing tradition. It is that there are always interested parties who wish to characterize significant events or eras in history in a way that suits their own agenda. As a result, by the time sufficient time has passed to satisfy the need for “historical perspective,” these interested parties have created an official story regarding the events in question and have had time to convince the majority of people that this official story is the truth. By the time a generation has passed, the official story has become both accepted history for academia and “conventional wisdom” for average citizens. Regardless of facts, reason, or any perspective whatsoever, the official story now is the truth.

Such has been the case countless time throughout American history. It is universally accepted that America’s Civil War started over slavery, and credits Abraham Lincoln with “freeing the slaves.” History and conventional also wisdom tells us that the quality of life of the working class in America declined during the industrial revolution, and credits the “progressive movement” for instituting needed reforms that saved the working class from capitalism. Most relevant to our situation in America today, history blames the Great Depression of the 1930’s on Herbert Hoover’s “laissez faire capitalism” and “unregulated free markets,” and credits FDR’s New Deal with ending the Depression and restoring prosperity.

When presented in the textbooks of high school history or college survey courses, there is a certain logic and reasonableness to these versions of historical events that makes them very easy to understand and accept. There is only one problem: none of them are true.

Americans are already familiar with the official story of our present crisis. Too much laissez faire capitalism” has resulted in an unprecedented crisis caused by predatory lenders, irresponsible borrowers, speculators, and other market participants acting in an environment with too little regulation. Without oversight, “unregulated free markets” naturally resulted in market players choosing short term profits over long-term prudence. This process was fueled during the past decade by George W. Bush’s “laissez faire policies.”

There is only one problem with this story – none of it is true, either. None of the problems we face today were caused by unregulated free markets and the policies of George W. Bush were in no way “laissez faire.” This is much more than an academic argument. The premise that unregulated capitalism is to blame for our present economic crisis is the basis for every action that our government is taking right now. If that premise is incorrect, then the results of action taken based upon it could be disastrous.

It is probably a good idea at this point to define some terms. Assuming that “laissez faire capitalism” and “free markets” mean the same thing, what I mean when I use those terms is this: a market economy where all exchanges of property are made with the mutual, voluntary consent of all parties to those transactions. While government’s role is limited in such a system, it is nevertheless crucial: to ensure that all transactions are made with the mutual, voluntary consent of all parties. To put it most succinctly, government’s role in a free market is to protect the property rights of each individual.

Is this what George W. Bush did or at least attempted to do? Let us examine the Bush economic policies and see for ourselves.

Bush campaigned on and did follow through upon a promise to cut taxes. He did this by reducing the income tax on the highest income earners and by sending each American family a “refund” of several hundred dollars. One might be tempted to argue that this was a move in the direction of free markets, as the returned money represented reductions of a government that had grown far beyond its role of defending life, liberty, and property. Thus, the tax money collected for these illegitimate functions was a violation of the property rights government was supposed to protect and the tax cuts were a partial remedy for those violations. This is what any self-respecting Republican would have you believe.

There is only one problem: there were no reductions in government. In fact, Bush greatly increased the size of the government with military and new entitlement spending. As a result, he ran huge deficits and doubled the national debt. Looked at objectively, there was a tenuous relationship at best between the money taxpayers had previously paid in taxes and the checks sent out by the government after all of that tax money was already spent. Furthermore, millions of Americans who hadn’t even paid taxes received “refund” checks anyway. Seen for what it was, this “tax refund” was merely a ploy to buy votes with other people’s money dressed up in Republican rhetoric, as well as a way to perpetuate debt-fueled consumerism for the benefit of President Bush’s friends in corporate America. Handing out money to people to whom it doesn’t belong has nothing to do with free markets, whether that money is borrowed from other nations or printed out of thin air. It represents complete distortion of the markets by government, along with a fundamental violation of the property rights of present and future generations.

Amidst this confusion we seem to have forgotten one major contributor to the aforementioned deficits: the Medicare drug plan. The Medicare drug plan was the Bush administration’s program from start to finish, and it was rammed through the legislature despite its dubious administrative plan and complete lack of funding. While it was rightly criticized for both of these faults, no media outlet seems to have recognized its complete antagonism toward free markets. In addition to violating property rights by forcing one group of individuals to pay for the healthcare services of others, Medicare and other government health care programs completely distort the health care market, creating artificial demand that inflates prices and suspends market forces. Here we have another major component of President Bush’s policy that is the complete antithesis of laissez faire capitalism.

The mass illusion about this president’s policies doesn’t stop there. The American public also seems to think that major deregulation occurred under President Bush, but actually the exact opposite is true. Even the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (repealing the Glass-Steagall Act), often mistakenly blamed for  the massive expansion of derivatives that helped fuel the housing bubble, was actually passed when President Clinton was still in office. Bush’s only significant effect on the regulatory structure was to increase regulation, not decrease it.

Due to the political fallout from the accounting scandals during the early years of Bush’s presidency, especially the Enron scandal, Bush championed new, completely unnecessary, and profoundly destructive regulations under the Sarbanes-Oxley act. Despite the fact that the accounting scandals were clear cases of fraud, which was already illegal and which was prosecuted without a single new regulation, President Bush had a political need to show that he was “doing something” about corporate crime.

So, again in complete opposition to “free markets,” Bush signed Sarbanes-Oxley into law, saying as he did so that the bill represented “the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”[1] Invoking FDR should have been enough on its own to erase any perception of Bush as a champion of free markets, but the hated “laissez faire” moniker seems to be a tough one to shake. As we now know, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has been terribly destructive to American markets and has contributed to a migration of new investment away from America and to more business-friendly countries. Chalk up another victory for Bush against free markets.

Finally, there is Bush’s role in the housing bubble, the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back regarding America’s borrow and spend economy of the past several decades. Here it should be noted that the lion’s share of the blame for this debacle should go to the Federal Reserve System, which kept interest rates artificially low and expanded money and credit to counter what would have been two recessions in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Remember, the private Federal Reserve System does not answer to any branch of the federal government. One could certainly argue that both Clinton and Bush merely happened to be in office while the Federal Reserve blew up two massive bubbles during their presidencies (the NASDAQ bubble and the housing bubble).

However, it was not just low interest rates or the expansion of money and credit that caused the housing bubble to inflate. There was also the role of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which guaranteed mortgages that would not have been written in a free market. Starting with Clinton and continuing with Bush, the executive branch played cheerleader to the “ownership” society whereby every American was entitled to own their own home, whether they could afford the mortgage that went with it or not.

The mortgage debacle is often cited as an example of the “unregulated free market” producing negative results. Since both the “predatory lenders” and the “irresponsible borrowers” were acting voluntarily, the millions of subsequent defaults are characterized as the result of too little regulation on the market, allowing these freely-acting participants to eschew prudence for short-term profits. However, this analysis omits one very important fact: there were not two parties to most of these mortgage transactions, but three.

The forgotten third party was, of course, the taxpayer. It was the taxpayers’ money that was put up as collateral for the loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the taxpayer was not acting freely. The taxpayer was forced by government to back these loans without his consent and against his best interests. Had the government not committed this crime against property rights to serve its goal of an “ownership society,” none of the defaulting loans would have been made.

In a truly free market, the desire for profit is balanced by the presence of risk. When one is lending one’s own money, the possibility that the borrower will default forces the lender to adhere to high lending standards to avoid making a bad loan. This is not done out of some civic duty or professional integrity (not that many lenders don’t possess both of these qualities), but out of recognized necessity for economic survival. The balance between desire for profit and risk is a naturally occurring market force when all participants are acting voluntarily in their rational self interest. However, by allowing lenders and borrowers to use other people’s money as collateral, this natural market force was suspended. To go on to call the resulting disaster the result of “unregulated free markets” is nonsense in the first degree.

Ironically, Clinton and Bush each pursued the exact same policy regarding the housing market for very different reasons. Clinton pressured Fannie Mae to take more and more risk in order to play to his base: low-income Americans who would not qualify for a mortgage in a truly free market. Bush went right on encouraging the process in order to appease his base: Wall Street investment houses that were making a killing securitizing mortgages. Regardless of the motivation, what is important to realize is that this policy is completely antithetical to the concept of free markets or laissez faire capitalism.

Of course, once the crisis began, most people recognize that nothing President Bush did could be characterized as “laissez faire.” Bush himself admitted that he was abandoning free market principles because “the market is not functioning properly,” a bizarre statement from one who supposedly believes in free markets in the first place. His massive intervention into the economy and egregious redistribution of wealth are characterized by the media as a departure from his previous “laissez faire approach.” Yet, anyone can see that this “laissez faire approach” was complete fiction. So why do all but a few contrarians keep saying it anyway?
There is an answer to that question. Characterizing Bush’s policies as “laissez faire” does serve a very useful purpose for politicians. It provides them with justification to loot more property and seize more power. The all-out war on free enterprise presently being waged by President Obama and his cohorts in Congress would not be possible if most Americans did not believe the official story that Bush’s presidency was an era of “laissez faire capitalism” or “unregulated free markets” and that these policies caused the economic crisis. Only the continued willingness by the majority of Americans to swallow this economic gibberish allows the destruction of our liberty to march forward.

To my fellow Americans, I say this: No politician (save perhaps one) is going to come forward and tell you the truth. Most of them don’t know the truth, and those that do have figured out that this official nonsense serves their own ambitions, just as saying that the world was flat once served the ambitions of medieval rulers. It is up to you to rub your eyes and look at the world as it really is. Two plus two does not equal five and you know that. Similarly, people voluntarily exchanging their own goods and services with one another can never cause anyone harm and deep down you must know that, too. It is time to reject the idiotic history that is being written about our present difficulties and demand that the evil incursions into our liberty cease immediately. You have enormous power when you know what to demand. It all starts with recognizing the obvious despite the well-funded efforts of those who wish to deceive you. As the good book saith, the truth shall set you free.[2]

[1] Bumiller, Elisabeth (2002-07-31). “Bush Signs Bill Aimed at Fraud in Corporations“. The New York Times
[2] John 8:32

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

>A Century of Bipartisan Tyranny

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>“Americans are tired of partisan bickering. They are looking for their representatives in Washington to put partisanship aside and get to the work of the American people.”

Statements like this have become a mantra over the past few decades. Like Democracy, “Bipartisanship” is now held up as an ideal and an end in and of itself. It would seem that no matter how ludicrous or destructive a policy might be, it must be just and beneficial if both major political parties agree that it should be law. Implicit also in this reasoning is that a truce between the two rival gangs in Washington, D.C. on any particular issue represents the consent of the governed for that policy – a fallacy that is becoming increasingly exposed as the American people begin to take to the streets.

The first question that comes to mind when hearing the bipartisan mantra is “who are these Americans that are tired of partisan bickering?” I haven’t been able to find any of them. In my own experience, Americans seem to be divided into two groups. The first and largest has no idea what their representatives are doing or what they stand for (or even who they are in many cases). They have no interest in the political process and regard any broach of the subject as in slightly bad taste. The second, smaller group is rabidly partisan; they will back whichever side they associate themselves with no matter how wrong their side might be on a particular issue and attack the other side no matter how right it might be. They associate left or right with issues that largely do not affect them, like gay marriage, abortion, or stem cell research, while entirely failing to evaluate either party on its core purpose: to secure their unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property.

Reality aside (a prerequisite for politics in Washington), this mantra is repeated ad infinitum at every opportunity. Whenever the two parties reach some dubious consensus, as they currently have on Keynesian economics, we have to endure the typical gloating about how “Republicans and Democrats came together in a bipartisan manner” to “get the work of the American people done.” There is the implication that these parasites somehow made some sacrifice in putting aside their differences to agree upon what usually amounts to another scheme to loot more of the American people’s rightful property. In reality, the destruction of our republic that has occurred over the past century has been completely bipartisan.

While one can find examples of these two parties collaborating against us every single day, let us consider some of the more egregious milestones over the past century and what part both parties played in each.

The seminal moment was, of course, the bloodless coup of 1913. During the first year of the Wilson administration, the federal government established the income tax, the Federal Reserve System, and passed the 17th Amendment. All of these changes were indicative of the change of philosophy in Washington about the role of government. No longer was the government’s purpose to secure individual rights, as the Declaration of Independence said it was. Instead, the role of government was now to achieve societal goals of social and economic equality and a world safe for democracy – all at the expense of individual rights.

We associate these ideas and these changes with Woodrow Wilson, but the “progressive movement” certainly did not start with him. In fact, it was Republican Theodore Roosevelt that began the assault on free enterprise with his “trust-busting” and other incursions into the markets that set the stage for Wilson. Remember also that Wilson was only able to get into the White House with 42% of the popular vote because Roosevelt jumped into the 1912 election on the Progressive ticket. Why did he challenge his former protégé William Howard Taft? He did so because Taft turned out not to be progressive enough – especially in withholding support for a central bank. The bloodless coup of 1913 – which planted the seeds for the destruction of the American Republic – was a completely bipartisan effort.

Moving forward a few years, let us look at the next massive move away from liberty – the New Deal. Here again history grossly distorts reality in characterizing Democrat FDR’s policies as diametrically opposed to those of his Republican predecessor, Herbert Hoover. Ironically, Roosevelt the Democrat actually ran on a platform criticizing Hoover’s policies as fiscally irresponsible. However, just like the Obama bailout/interventionist policies of today, much of FDR’s “New Deal” was merely an expansion of the policies of his Republican predecessor. By the time that FDR took office, Hoover had already worsened the depression with his own bailout program via the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, set up a Public Works Administration to
expand federal public works, created the Home Loan Bank discount system to reflate the deflated housing bubble, and perpetrated other crimes against free enterprise and property rights that FDR would merely expand upon. To be fair, FDR made much more fundamental changes in establishing Social Security and the vast regulatory system that continues to strangle our economy and violate our rights, but the underlying philosophy was shared by both Hoover and FDR. Therefore, score the Great Depression and the resulting destruction of liberty as another great victory of “bipartisanship.”

Let us move on to the next fundamental shift – Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.” It was during this administration that the other of the two entitlement giants that will eventually bankrupt America was born – government-provided healthcare under Medicare and Medicaid. Johnson actually pursued his “War on Poverty” and other “social reforms” at the same time as he tried to prosecute a permanent war in Viet Nam. This was the infamous “guns and butter” philosophy that led directly to the collapse of the U.S. dollar and the rampant stagflation of the 1970’s.

Again, conventional wisdom or perhaps intentional spin characterizes these destructive policies with the “big government Democrat” Johnson, but he did not emerge out of a vacuum. History seems to have forgotten that it was the Republican Eisenhower that created the massive Department of Health, Education, and Welfare within the federal government, setting the stage for federal government involvement in healthcare. Similarly, the Republican Nixon ran on a platform to end the Viet Nam war, but managed to take almost six years to do so, while assaulting free enterprise himself with wage and price controls to address the inflation that he helped perpetuate with his own spending on top of Johnson’s. In retrospect, it is clear that both the “Great Society” and the “guns and butter” disasters were completely bipartisan efforts.

This brings us to the present. Another depression is upon us, and the similarity of the Bush/Obama dynamic to that of Hoover/Roosevelt couldn’t be more striking. Again, we have a Republican president that is criticized for being “too laissez faire,” when in fact he was a massive interventionist both before and during the crisis. Just as in 1933, we have a new Democratic president that is merely continuing or expanding the interventionist policies of his Republican predecessor, yet is credited for bringing some ill-defined “change” to Washington. Like FDR, President Obama seems intent upon using the crisis to make even more fundamental changes to American society – among them universal government healthcare – that will further destroy our liberty and prosperity. However, whatever destruction Obama brings upon our Republic can only be seen as the result of a completely bipartisan effort. Clinton and then Bush created the crisis with their policies encouraging home ownership at the expense of responsibility and property rights (remember the loans were guaranteed with other people’s money through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), and Bush and Obama responded to it with further violations of property rights that turned it from a recession to a depression. Score another “victory” for bipartisanship.

The fact that any substantive difference between the two parties is an illusion was never more apparent than during the last presidential campaign. It astounds me how anyone could have perceived any difference in the platforms of these two candidates. By the time he was nominated, Obama had completely abdicated his anti-war position, now campaigning that America is merely in “the wrong war,” and that he would get us into the right one. For both candidates, the vast overseas military empire was going to grow. In addition, both candidates supported the bailouts, more intervention into the economy, more regulation on commerce, and even the idiotic idea that American young people are somehow obligated to do slave labor for their government (yes, McCain also supported a “national service” plan – a fact the right has conveniently forgotten).

The similarity of these positions is rooted in a similarity of philosophy shared by both parties. In contrast to the most important of our founding principles – that the rights of the individual are unalienable and cannot be taken away – not even by majority vote – both of our political parties believe that the state and the state’s needs take precedence over the rights of the individual. After a weak appeal to traditional Republican rhetoric about individual liberty, John McCain went on to advocate a philosophy at least as collectivist as Obama’s, continually appealing to Americans to sacrifice the pursuit of their own happiness for a cause “greater than themselves.”

Likewise, Obama continually reminded Americans that they had a duty to “service and sacrifice.” Like most of his platitudes, he never answered the most crucial questions. Sacrifice What? For Whom? Allow me to answer them now, on behalf of both Obama and McCain. “Sacrifice your individual rights, especially the hard-earned fruits of your labor, for the needs of your country – “country” and “government” being synonymous for both of them.

It should be abundantly clear that the left-right, Republican-Democrat dichotomy that we have been divided by over the past century has been one, vast Jedi mind trick. Over and over, the political ruling class has divided us with acrimony over meaningless, fringe issues while the two parties have consistently collaborated to loot our wealth, rob us of our liberty and dignity, and transform American society from one built upon self-reliance, personal responsibility, and the rule of just laws to one built upon dependence, fear, and legal plunder. It is past time for a third party movement. It is time for Americans to reject the paradigm of political party altogether. The answer to the problem of political gangs using the brute force of government to rob its people is not to form a rival gang and try to compete for or share in the plunder. The answer is to dissolve the two rival gangs and replace them with nothing.

As Americans, we have it in our power to do this in just eighteen short months. As Thomas Paine put it, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”[1] What is imperative is that we do not allow ourselves to fall for the same trick that has been played upon us in the past. We cannot continue to vote one political party out and vote the other one in and expect any substantive change. Instead of succumbing to voting for the lesser of two evils, I would suggest a third alternative. We can select representatives from among ourselves, affiliated with no political party and committed in writing to what most Americans truly want – a government that protects their life, liberty, and property and otherwise stays out of their lives.

No special training is needed for this job. If there was any illusion that the members of the entrenched political class in Washington, D.C. possess some special skills that make them more qualified for the job than average Americans, their performance over the past year and a half should have dispelled that falsehood completely. Not only are they not qualified for leadership, but they are beholden to interests that conflict with the interests of their constituents. There is absolutely no way we can improve our lot while they remain in power.

Americans are waking up to this. The consistent message from the recent Tea Party protests, despite media spin in contradiction to observable reality, was that Americans are fed up with BOTH Republicans and Democrats. While these events were characterized by media outlets on the left as “right-wing extremist” rallies, one need only watch video of Republican Gresham Barrett’s reception in Greenville, South Carolina, where attendees booed and even turned their backs upon him, to see that this couldn’t be farther from the truth. I doubt that Mr. Barrett will be returning to Washington after the next election. One down, 534 to go.

Eighteen months. During that time, let us not forget the outrage that has driven us to the streets. Let us remember the BIPARTISAN destruction of our Republic over the past century. Let us remember that there is no way to restore our republic while these rival gangs remain in power. We do not need violence – our founders gave us an easier method. In eighteen months, let us demonstrate that we are no longer fooled by the left-right, Republican-Democrat illusion. In eighteen months, let us once and for all throw ALL of the bums out. Instead of a third party, let us replace them with representatives of the only legitimate special interest – We the People.

[1] Thomas Paine Common Sense (1776)

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>Claire Morrissey Interviews Tom Mullen

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>A Crisis of Legitimacy

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>There came a point between last year’s criminal bailout of the financial sector and the latest theft of $30 billion more to throw on the AIG bonfire that further acts of armed robbery by this government against its people ceased to matter, at least for me. It is not that I have thrown up my hands and given up. Far from it. Rather, I see the acceleration in both the frequency and the size of the bailouts for what they are – the death struggle of a drowning regime, flailing its arms as the water enters its lungs. With each new bailout and subsequent addition to its mountain of debt, the regime loses a little more of the only oxygen it has left – its legitimacy in the eyes of its people.

Legitimacy is the recognition by its people that their government is their rightful government, that the power it wields is legitimate power. In a free society, our Declaration of Independence tells us that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed. As I’ve discussed before, the philosophy that inspired the founding of our nation asserts that such consent is given by a free people for only one reason: protection of their property. Thus, the legitimacy of the government of a free people only endures as long as that government continues to protect the property of its citizens. Once it ceases to protect property – or begins to attack and plunder property – it ceases to exercise legitimate power, for it no longer has the consent of the governed.

For those who understand these simple principles of liberty, the government of the United States lost its legitimacy decades ago. While there are many convincing arguments for an even earlier date, certainly after 1913 the matter was settled conclusively. It was in 1913 that the United States ceased to be a republic with a government whose purpose was to protect the property of the individual and became a social democracy with a government whose purpose was to plunder the property of the individual for “the good of society,” or “the general will,” if you prefer the language of the statist Rousseau. The good of society was, of course, defined by the state – the plunderer – eliminating any possibility that some inadvertent benefit might befall the governed. The good of society was defined as the twin statist pillars of tyranny that still dominate our society today: to achieve economic equality at home and to make the world safe for democracy abroad. These remain the two goals of the America democratic empire, espoused by both major political parties.

In order to achieve these ends, individual liberty – the only liberty– must be sacrificed. Why? Because in order to attempt to achieve the two pillars the state must attack the means and the tangible stuff of liberty – property. That is why in 1913, along with the new philosophy, came the insidious Income Tax, the Federal Reserve, and the 17th Amendment. These were the tools with which the new social democracy plundered the property of the individual in order to achieve its goals. Once the individual lost the right to the fruits of his labor, he lost his liberty, for there cannot be one without the other.

Certainly, the free enterprise juggernaut that was created by the former republic continued to thunder forward. However, it was now progressing under the weight of the coercive power of the state, which constantly attacked it, rather than under the rightful protection of the state, which had previously acted only in defense of property. The drag on free enterprise was light at first, but relentless in its growth. While America enjoyed good decades and bad after 1913, the seeds of systemic failure were sown, and the end to which we have now come inevitable.

This argument certainly begs the question of why the 1913 coup was a bloodless one. Why would a nation “conceived in liberty” quietly allow the very core of their liberty to be taken from them? The answer is that it was not taken from them, but given away. One must remember that the power in a democracy lies in the majority. This is where the significance of the 17th Amendment comes into play. This was the masterstroke of the new social democracy. By giving more “power to the people,” and eliminating the key check on federal power that the state legislatures possessed when they chose U.S. senators instead of popular vote, it was then a simple matter for the federal government to buy the liberty of the people. They deftly picked the pocket of an unsuspecting public by relieving them of their property (and therefore their liberty) by promising them other people’s property. This was the deal with the devil that was offered to the American people, and they took it. For those who objected, the two pillars were there to be thrown in their faces, with a hundred million voters to shout them down. As the Star Wars III character so eloquently put it, “So this is how liberty dies – to thunderous applause.”

So, at that point, the link between legitimacy and property rights was broken. Legitimacy remained dependent upon the consent of the governed, but after 1913 the American public no longer consented to government for protection of their property. Increasingly over the ensuing decades, that consent was given in return for the promise of other people’s property. Inevitably, “progress” for society became defined as the extent to which property could be stolen from one group and redistributed to another – at home through social programs, regulation, and other “economic policy” and abroad through military adventurism and empire-building. It should be obvious to the reader that this type of “progress” can only lead to the prospect that we may soon face ourselves: no property, and thus no liberty, at all.

One might be tempted to despair that a thousand years of tyranny awaits us. However, there is one flaw in the social democracy’s model: it is unsustainable. It has lived off of the productive capacity of the former republic for almost 100 years, but in that time the parasite has killed off the host. There are now a few in the minority that argue that government shouldn’t destroy the property rights of the individual in pursuit of the two pillars. What will become obvious very soon is that government cannot achieve its goals in this way. The model depends upon a productive element in society supplying the property needed for plunder, but without liberty there is eventually no productivity either. This is why empires fall, and for no other reason.

Thus, since the government’s legitimacy is now based upon its ability to provide its citizens with other people’s property, and because it will soon no longer be able to do so, it will obviously soon lose its legitimacy. Without legitimacy, regimes fall. If the surrealism of a government spending staggering sums of money in its last death throes has not hit home to the average American, the first medical claim unpaid for lack of funds under one of its socialist medical programs, the first Social Security check that bounces, or the first time a local welfare department closes its doors will spur this epiphany. If nothing so dramatic occurs (we do, in the end, have a printing press), then there will come a day – and that day is months or years away, not decades – that tens of millions of unemployed Americans are going to wake up and realize that the government’s promise of security via other people’s property was false. Then, the regime will fall.

Lest one assume that there is no work to be done by the majority of Americans, let us not create new illusions to replace the old ones. History shows that a corrupted people that throws off the tyranny of an oppressive government can only create something worse in its place. We must face the fact that the American people are corrupted – not because they drink too much liquor, have too much sex, or don’t go to church – but because they have lost all recognition of the rights of their fellow human beings to the fruits of their labor. The French Revolution should serve as a perfect example to Americans at this point in history. While the French rightly threw off the tyranny of a government that plundered their property, they merely transferred the privilege of plunder to themselves, all for the misguided cause of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” The result, as we know, was a bloody reign of terror.

We will achieve similar results with our own revolution without a change of ideology. We must reject entirely the notion that we have any right whatsoever to the property of others, and restore our founding principles as the organizing principles of our society. Should we again base our government on its original purpose of protecting property, we will once more secure the blessings of liberty and resume the pursuit of happiness. The true “time for choosing” is coming soon.

Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

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>The Forgotten Right

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>“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”

– John Adams (1787)[1]

It is starting to become apparent to even the most disinterested observer that something much bigger than even a worldwide recession is happening. The seeds of revolution have taken root. Iceland led the way by taking to the streets to force regime change through peaceful demonstration. The French are currently protesting en masse against their government’s bailout of the banking system. One would be naïve to think that these are isolated incidents. It is apparent that these are just early warning signs of a worldwide cauldron that is about to boil over, catalyzed by the financial and economic cataclysm that will plunge untold millions into poverty and desperation.

While I applaud the peaceful demonstrations going on in France and Iceland, I also recognize that they are premature. As did Americans in the last election cycle, these Europeans are demanding “change.” However, also like Americans in the last election cycle, they have failed to first answer the crucial questions, “From what? To what?” They have not looked within to assess who they are, what their society is, and what they want it to be. Therefore, they run the risk of simply replacing one oppressive tyranny for another.

Likewise, we will never regain our freedom in America until we address the fundamental problem in our society. I say “the problem,” because at the root of all of what we perceive as a myriad of problems, including the police state, the welfare state, the warfare state, the military industrial complex, the Wall Street oligopoly, the high cost of healthcare and education – everything – there is one philosophical problem that ultimately leads to them all: the repudiation of property rights.

It is likely difficult for most 21st century Americans to absorb this statement, based upon the fact that they have been told now for generations that property is about greed, that accumulating property is oppression, or even that “property is theft.” However, let us look back at the philosophers who inspired our founders and see what they have to say about property. Of course, as I have written here, the primary philosophical basis for the American Revolution came from Locke. What did Locke have to say about the purpose of government?

““The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.”[2]

Certainly this statement must be startling to most 21st century Americans, who believe that they are supposed to look to their government to fight unemployment, manage the economy, ensure access to healthcare, promote democracy abroad, and pursue a myriad of other ends outside of protecting property. Surely, Locke has over-emphasized property rights here, has he not? Certainly he is alone in his simplistic assessment of the role of government, is he not?

He is not. In seeking guidance on how to construct our government, the American founders also looked to the ancients, particularly the Roman Republic. There, we find Cicero writing,

“For the chief purpose in the establishment of constitutional state and municipal governments was that individual property rights might be secured. For, although it was by Nature’s guidance that men were drawn together into communities, it was in the hope of safeguarding their possessions that they sought the protection of cities.”[3] [emphasis added]

The conditioned response of Americans today is to view these ideas as a defense of one class of people at the expense of another. We have been trained to associate “property” as a concern of the “property class,” or in more common American terms, “the haves,” as opposed to the “have nots.” This is a great deception that has lead directly to our ruin. In fact, it is the poor and those of modest means for whom property rights are most important. It is they who, not possessing significant material wealth, must all the more jealously guard the property that they do have. In the end, however, we are all property owners when one considers the most fundamental, most important property of all: our labor itself.

We learn from Locke that all property has its roots in labor. In order to survive, man must work to produce the means of his survival. This is true for people no matter what their financial circumstances. The doctor, the lawyer, the construction worker, the janitor – yes, even the Wall Street financier – must sell his efforts to his fellow man in order to acquire the means of his survival. Therefore, whoever has control over the individual’s labor has control over the individual’s life, and control over the individual’s future. If I steal all of your possessions, you can acquire more. However, if I appropriate your labor, I own all of the property you can ever or will ever acquire. This is an undeniable reality that we have lost sight of, to our peril.

America was founded upon the idea that each individual had an unqualified right to the fruits of his labor.[4] This more than anything was what the founders meant when they spoke the word “liberty.” It was the extent to which this right was respected that made America different than every other society in history, before or since. This was the great secret that made America the engine of prosperity and innovation that it was. This is what made America the land of opportunity to change one’s lot in life. It was this right that gave birth to the American dream.

However, we no longer hold this right up above all others. Instead, we have become a society that is based upon competing groups seeking to plunder each other via the force of government. The rich plunder their neighbors with corporate bailouts, subsidies, and regulatory fascism. The middle class plunder their neighbors with Social Security, Medicare, and criminal unions. The poor are forced to accept legal plunder that they do not want and which provides them with the most miserable quality of life, when the stolen capital that underwrites it could employ them all if it weren’t seized from its rightful owners. Of course, these examples are only the tip of the iceberg; there is much, much more. Virtually every political movement in America is based upon a promise to provide its followers with other people’s property.

This scenario is neither unprecedented nor has it been unrecognized by the great lights of liberty. Bastiat wrote,

“Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.”[5]

This vision of Bastiat’s has become reality in America. However, it cannot go on forever. Fortunately for humanity, a society based upon legal plunder is ultimately unsustainable. Just as respect for property rights provides the means to prosperity, violation of them leads to poverty and want. As force replaces voluntary exchange, productivity decreases, and subsequently more force is required to plunder even more. This cycle repeats until society is reduced to an authoritarian nightmare, the first signs of which are becoming apparent in the former “land of the free.” If the people wake up, the nightmare can end. If they continue to slumber, the nightmare can get much, much worse.

This is the great truth that we must rediscover before any revolution can be successful. Before we commit to “change,” we must answer the questions, “From what? To What?” The answers to those questions must be “from a nation of looters to a nation of free individuals who acquire property in the only civilized manner: via voluntary exchange.” We must reject the use of force as the means to pursue our happiness, and renew our faith in freedom. Once this great work has been accomplished, let the revolution begin.

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[1] Adams, John A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787)
[2] Locke Second Treatise Ch. IX, Sec. 124
[3]Cicero, Marcus Tullius De Officiis Book II Chapter XXI
[4] “Individuals” who were included in the system. Of course, the founders recognized but did not remedy the obvious contradiction to this inherent in slavery.
[5] Bastiat, Frederic, The Law

The Lost Philosopher

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John_Locke_by_Richard_WestmacottFor high school or undergraduate college students, it is probably difficult to imagine how the dusty old books they are forced to read are relevant to their lives. Who can blame the average teenager for caring little about what lights up the face of his eccentric professor, regardless of the passion said professor may exhibit for Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, or Locke? Yet, despite the understandable lack of interest in the worldview of philosophers of several hundred years past, this is probably the last real chance the young student will have to consider them. Once out of school and faced with the realities of life and making a living, there is little time or motivation for one to go back and explore the world of ideas. Ideas and philosophy are for dreamers. This is how a society forgets what it is trying to do.

The enlightenment that inspired our founding fathers was a period of explosive creativity and learning. Newton, Bacon, Sidney, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Smith – these giants were all children of the enlightenment that inspired Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and the rest to create a society based upon reason which recognized that all men were created equal. Today, we tend to think about both the enlightenment and our founders as if they all shared one, homogenous philosophy and one vision of man and society. However, this is far from true.

“The enlightenmnet” did not produce one archetypal philosophy, but three. They were all quite well known to our founders, but only one of them informed the philosophy of liberty that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in history.  It has been the gradual erosion of those founding principles and their replacement by tenets of the rejected philosophies that has led America to the edge of ruin.

The first to talk about “the social contract” during the enlightenment was Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes believed that man in the state of nature (the absence of government or any higher authority) was in a state of perpetual war, or as he put it, “war of everyone against everyone.” This was the result of Hobbes assertion that in that state, man had “a right to everything,” following from his opinion that reason dictated only that man is restricted from doing anything to harm himself. Thus, for Hobbes man was ultimately a depraved creature who needed a strong government – an absolute ruler – to save him from himself. While for Hobbes the law of nature dictated that man should seek peace, man would never find it by employing reason, which would only ensure that he tried to preserve his own life against the “violent death” that threatened his every living moment. The purpose of government, then, was to protect man from his own depraved nature and that of his neighbors with a strong, paternal hand, sanctioned by God.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s vision of man and the purpose of government was quite different from that of Hobbes. Rousseau asserted that the idea of a “state of nature” was a purely academic one, having likely never actually occurred in human history. However, he did use the idea of a state of nature as a philosophical tool to develop his ideas about man in society and the purpose of government. For Rousseau, man had to give up his natural rights when entering society, and while society granted him individual rights, they could be set aside when the needs of society outweighed them. In his own words,

“Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our coporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”

Therefore, government’s purpose for Rousseau was to accomplish the “general will” and achieve the common good, which included economic equality, as Rousseau recognized man’s property rights to end at what he needed to survive. “Having his share, he ought to keep it, and can have no further right against the community.”

John Locke represented yet a third philosophy of man and society. Locke’s view of man in the state of nature was vastly different from that of Hobbes, as was his definition of reason. As he said,

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

So, for Locke, reason did not merely dictate self-preservation, but the Non-Aggression Principle as well. While Locke recognized that man was not safe from harm from other people in the state of nature, he believed that the laws of nature preceded man and society, and thus individual rights were inalienable. Man did not give up those rights when entering society, but instead entered society solely for the purpose of defending them. He had a right to as much property as he could legitimately acquire, whether that resulted in more property than possessed by his neighbor or not. So long as he did not harm another in their “life, health, liberty, or possessions,” he was free to “order his actions as he pleased.” The purpose of government for Locke was to protect life, liberty, and property as the societal extension of the individual right of self defense.  This was also government’s strict limit.

It is interesting to consider how these three philosophies played out during the 18th century. In America, our founders chose the philosophy of Locke, specifically excluding the other two in writing our Declaration of Independence. However, our founders were not of one united mind on their vision of the most effective form of government. In fact, there was a deep divide between two factions, led by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, respectively.  Jefferson believed in the philosophy of Locke, whom he on more than one occasion named (along with Newton and Bacon) “one of the three greatest men who ever lived.”

Hamilton’s view of man and society was much more Hobbesian. As Jefferson put it, Hamilton was “honest as a man, but, as a politician, believing in the necessity of either force or corruption to govern man.” To Jefferson’s assertion that Locke, Bacon, and Newton were the greatest men the world had ever produced, Hamilton replied, “the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.” While Jefferson asserted that the power of the government was limited to defense against aggression, Hamilton advocated a “more vigorous government,” with the ultimate instrument of control at its disposal – a central bank.

This was the great struggle of ideas in early America. Very generally, it was a struggle between Hobbes and Locke. While Hamilton was able to accomplish many of his goals while serving in Washington’s cabinet, Jefferson’s vision ultimately prevailed by he and his successors winning the presidency, paying down the national debt, and eliminating the central bank (an accomplishment that had to be repeated by Jackson a few decades later). It was his Lockean vision that dominated, albeit under constant challenge, during the great century of innovation and prosperity that followed.

Rousseau’s philosophy did not find footing in early America, but did in France. While America’s revolution was based upon Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, drawn from Locke’s Life, Liberty, and Property[1], France’s revolution was based upon Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. It is no accident that one revolution was wildly successful and the other devolved into a bloody reign of terror and eventual despotism. The French had the same results trying to achieve economic equality through the force of government that later collectivist societies would under communism.[2]

While America lived by Locke’s principles, she enjoyed a meteoric ascent, leading the industrial revolution and creating much of what we now call the modern world. The explosion of prosperity for common people that occurred during America’s first century has been unequaled in human history. Indeed, while many are quick to point out that mass production was invented in America, let us not forget mass consumption – the enjoyment by the common people of the bounty that living by Locke’s principles of freedom and individual rights had provided.

By now, the relevance of these three philosophies should have jumped off the page. While all three competed during the enlightenment, only two have informed the political parties in America for the past century. It is no coincidence that today virtually all Americans feel that they must vote for “the lesser of two evils” when choosing representatives in their government. It is because they are choosing between the Hobbesian Republicans, with their strong, central government, sanctioned by God to save people from themselves, and the Rousseaian Democrats, still striving to use the force of government to achieve their perverse vision of economic equality, despite the tens of millions that have died as a result of that same vision. Gone are the individual rights, liberty, and Non-Aggression Principle of Locke, and with Locke’s philosophy has gone America’s greatness.

Most ominously, the two parties that previously followed either Hobbes or Rousseau are now merging together into a terrifying hybrid, finding common ground in their mutual belief in the absolute sovereignty of the state over the individual. While they may have appeared radically different in decades or centuries past, these two philosophies have always had this in common. In the end, that makes them for all practical purposes the same.

However, all is not lost. While Locke has completely disappeared from the American ethos, his philosophy can never really die. Very soon, the artificial society created by the Hobbes/Rousseau hybrid is going to collapse upon itself, a victim of its own systemic flaws. The supreme justice in the universe is that society cannot violate natural rights indefinitely. Just as market forces eventually reassert themselves in economics, natural law eventually does so in the organization of society as a whole. When the use of force can no longer sustain society, as it ultimately never can, voluntary exchange will take its place. As the illusion of legitimacy disappears from the present paternal state, the Non-Aggression Principle will reemerge to replace it. Do not fear the coming collapse. Embrace it. When the moment comes, let us seize it and shout joyously, not for equality or security, but for liberty.

[1] Property being implicit in “the Pursuit of Happiness”
[2] Tragically, the cause and effect relationship between the economic policies that accompany a government striving to achieve economic equality (at the point of the sword) and the subsequent famine, war, and destruction that result still eludes us. It was demonstrated in France in the 18th century, Russia in the early 20th and China later in the 20th, yet history seems to have taught us nothing. The voices crying for government-enforced equality, perhaps this time under the guise of “spreading the wealth,” are louder than ever.

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

>A New Declaration of Independence? No You Can’t!

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>I knew that there would come a day when I would not just roll my eyes at something our new president said, but instead would be gripped by genuine, cold fear. I thought that at least the traditional honeymoon period would go by (the first 100 days in office – when we would be treated to meeting the new president’s dog, watching him wave during cornball photo ops, and generally doing nothing of real substance) before he said something that truly terrified me. However, if I have to find something good to say about “the savior,” it is that he has certainly hit the ground running. The only problem is that he is trying to get us all running toward our mutual destruction.

In a speech on Saturday in Baltimore, he said words that should be sparking mass protests all over the United States. President Obama has called for “A New Declaration of Independence,” which of course would provide the ideological backdrop for his plans to try to “perfect our union.” So that I am not taking his words out of context, I will quote him verbatim based upon the official transcript provided by his staff.

“And yet while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that those first patriots displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives – from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry – an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.” [emphasis added]

It will certainly be argued that this was just a rhetorical figure of speech, as Obama did not actually call for the drafting of a document. The dreaded words are certainly watered down by what follows them, making the statement seem more like an appeal to each person to make some sort of personal commitment to help make a better world. However, I here and now warn the reader not to write this statement off as just another speech. During his campaign, Obama repeated the words “service and sacrifice” so many times that it is likely that most Americans now feel that service and sacrifice are now required of them. Of course, the questions, “Serve whom?” “Sacrifice what?” and “For whom?” were never answered, but they certainly will be when our new emperor begins dictating policy to his rubber stamp Congress.

It should come as no surprise when we hear these new words from Obama again and again, until one day a story breaks that someone is actually working on a new declaration. Likely we will be told that this person – maybe a Congressman, maybe some other servant of the empire – was “so inspired” by Obama’s ideas that he decided to take him up on this one. It will of course be served up as the spontaneous action of this inspired person, and will be lauded as one of many wonderful results of Obama’s “transformative presidency.” Whether the official story is true or not will not change the disastrous results.

Most Americans reading this would probably wonder why a new declaration would be such a big deal. After all, the original Declaration does not have the force of law. Why would a new one constitute any substantive change?

While it does not have the force of law, the Declaration of Independence is monumentally important. It is not law itself, but the declaration of what the purpose of every law passed is supposed to be. As that document says, our government only exists to secure our individual, unalienable rights. Therefore, we declare in that document that we shall only pass laws whose purpose is “to secure these rights.” Implicit in “the Pursuit of Happiness” is the central, most important right: the right of each individual to the fruits of his labor.

As I argue in my book, this is the right without which no other rights can exist. This was the central theme in Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government, which was the direct source for our Declaration by Jefferson’s own (repeated) admission. This was the true reason that our American Revolution was fought. We have ignored this plain fact for too long, as our increasing loss of liberty proves.

Unlike our last president, President Obama does not have the dubious freedom that a more limited intellect can provide. He knows how troublesome the original Declaration is to his agenda. While it still stands as our declaration of what our government is supposed to be doing, it stands in the way of what he wants our government to be doing, regardless of the fact that our government already violates its principles in so many ways.

Like the United Nations “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” I would anticipate that Obama’s new declaration would grant additional rights to everyone, including a minimum standard of living, healthcare, unemployment benefits, and the rest of the entitlements granted in Article 25 and beyond in the U.N. document. At first, that might seem like a great idea. How can more rights be bad?

The answer is that the price of these new “rights” is the surrender of the most important of the true natural rights – the right to the fruits of your labor. For example, “healthcare” is nothing more than the fruits of the labor of healthcare providers: doctors, nurses, technicians, hospitals, etc. Therefore, no one can have a right to healthcare. If the doctor has a right to the fruits of his own labor, then other people cannot have a right to that same labor. It is a logical contradiction. In order for everyone to have a right to the doctor’s labor, either the doctor – or whoever is forced to pay the doctor’s bills for “everyone” – must give up the right to their labor. No one can have a right to something that someone else must be forced to provide – at least not in a society that wishes to be “the land of the free.”

Of course, I am certainly not the first to point out that the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights was modeled on the Soviet Union’s Constitution, not ours. That is why it grants the “non-rights” that it grants – because it is based upon communist philosophy. Granting everyone a right to the fruits of everyone else’s labor is the definition of communism, and almost all of President Obama’s rhetoric is consistent with it. He never talks about protecting the individual. Instead, he says “out of many, we are one.” We all have a responsibility of service (to the collective) and sacrifice (for the collective). We have no protection from the collective, no matter what they demand out of our labor or out of our hides.

However, our Declaration of Independence stands in the way of all of that. Unlike his predecessor, President Obama is an intellectual and he knows that the Declaration can still provide an impregnable defense against his monstrous plans, if only the American people would rediscover its meaning. Once a new declaration is in place, he can make the argument that the old one is outdated and that “we have all agreed” that “the challenges of the 21st century” demand a different role for our government.” While rights are unalienable and therefore cannot be taken away, they can certainly be violated. A house resolution recognizing a new declaration of independence would provide strong support for just that.

This is a line that our government must not be allowed to cross. From this day forward, each time President Obama mentions a new declaration of independence, our voices must be raised together in deafening unison: No You Can’t! No You Can’t! No You Can’t! (I can’t hear you) No You Can’t!

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>Housing in the New America II: The Stage is Set

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>“Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose.”

– Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)[1]

Just after the abominable housing bill of this past July, I wrote an article about the very real prospect of the government getting into the property management business, due to the nationalization of the mortgage industry that effectively occurred when the government seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The scenario was admittedly conjectured, but unfortunately it seems to be playing out even worse than I could have imagined (and I can imagine pretty bad from our government). An article in the New York Times put one more piece of the puzzle in place.

Keep in mind that the real devastation of this economic crisis has not really occurred yet. We still don’t have double digit unemployment (at least using the government’s numbers), but that is inevitably what is coming. Right now, we have unemployment that is setting records for one-month growth, but we do not have tens of millions of Americans out of work. That makes today’s news all the more disturbing.

If you have any experience with rental properties, as either a landlord or a renter, you know that when a rental property goes into foreclosure, the tenants are routinely evicted. It is much easier to sell a foreclosure property without tenants, among other reasons because choosing tenants is one of the skills that separate successful landlords from unsuccessful ones. Good landlords also usually want to do some renovation to the property, which is at least inconvenient and to some extent virtually impossible with the property already occupied. The justification for the eviction is, of course, that the property now lawfully belongs to someone else (the bank), who never consented to the rental agreement and has every right to refuse to honor it.

Or do they? According to the Charles Duhigg of the Times, Fannie Mae announced today that it would “sign new leases with renters living in foreclosed properties owned by the company.” Of course “owned by the company” is an ironic choice of words, because “the company” is none other than the U.S. government. While my previous article envisioned Section 8 as the possible vehicle for converting large percentages of the (former) middle class into government tenants, this new policy today goes one step farther. Section 8 uses public funds to subsidize rent payments to private owners of rental properties. This policy represents renters making rent payments directly to the U.S. government, for the “privilege” of living in government-owned[2] homes. While the numbers for homes owned outright by Fannie Mae are small at the moment, it is no less a watershed moment.

Of course the policies of Fannie Mae are not binding upon the so-called “private sector” (is there still one?), at least not yet. As the Duhigg reports,

““We’re not in the business of managing rental properties, and we’re not in the business of being a landlord,” said Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which owns about two million loans. “Clearly the renter is caught in the middle in cases like this. When a property is in foreclosure, we follow the law.”[3]

It is somewhat amusing that a representative of J.P. Morgan Chase would speak so reverently about the law, as if it were some bastion of property rights and justice. Having been the beneficiary of the lion’s share of the largesse during the financial sector bailouts, this bank should know better than anyone that the law and justice no longer have much to do with each other. If property rights get in the way of some new government theft, a law is simply passed to eliminate the obstacle. Having eschewed the concept of republican government in exchange for “democracy,” there are now no rights that cannot be violated, as long as a sufficient number of votes can be raised among elected representatives. Indeed, our government does not really recognize “rights,” which transcend government. It grants privileges and erroneously refers to them as rights.

I doubt that private sector banks will retain the privilege of evicting tenants from the properties they acquire in foreclosure for very long, once the new presidential administration and Congress take office. Already, the cries for “fairness” are beginning to be heard. As the Times article reports,

“Some lawmakers and housing advocates say such policies are unjust.
“If your loan is owned by Fannie Mae, you get to stay in your home. If your loan is owned by someone else, you’re on the street,” said Mr. Taylor of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “These banks need to realize they’re in the property management business now, whether they like it or not.”[4]

Note the use of 21st century coercion-euphemisms. Any statement beginning with “You need to…” is one that could just as well start with “I ORDER you to…” At least the tyrants in centuries past made such statements with swords drawn and pointed at their victims. Today’s authoritarianism with a smile is actually more horrifying.[5]

With all of the travesties of justice taking place during this blackest of years in our history, one might argue that insisting that banks retain the right to put renters out on the street represents confused priorities. Perhaps so. However, one thing is certain. The line was already blurred regarding the right to own property before this, as the government could seize it from you merely for being unable to pay its property taxes. Now that the banks (and soon anyone buying properties in foreclosure) have no say over who lives in the house that they just bought, that line has become a smudge at best. In reality, there really is no such thing as homeownership. Government merely grants the privilege of stewardship over ITS homes. This latest farce merely makes that fact clearer.

So much for the moral considerations on this issue. I seem to have been far less efficient in confronting them than the government, which breezed right on by them. Who says it can’t get things done quickly?

As far as unintended consequences, this latest bit of idiocy is so ripe with them that it is hard to know where to begin. I am not sure who truly manages these properties, now that they are the property of the government but still occupied. Who does the tenant call when the sink starts leaking? If you think you see a program like Medicare or Medicaid coming, you’re not alone. We could always use another network of overpaid providers rendering sub-par service at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars to taxpayers. Worse yet, as more and more average Americans wind up in government-owned or subsidized homes, the program to pay handymen to do repairs could grow into an institution, just like the aforementioned medical programs. Among other negative consequences, this will tend to push the prices for these repairs through the roof for everyone, just as government-provided medical care and student loans push up the cost of healthcare and tuition for everyone. Let’s hope the government doesn’t start providing beer – we can’t afford bubble prices for that in times like these!

Of course, the glaring weakness in this latest move has to do with the central issue – selling the foreclosed properties. The whole reason behind lenders taking possession of a property when the borrower defaults is to sell that property and recover some of the losses on the loan. This new policy of Fannie Mae’s, which will almost certainly become a law sometime during the next Congressional term, will only prolong the time that these properties are on the market. Far less buyers will be willing to acquire properties if they are forced to take their chances on a tenant that they haven’t personally vetted, and on a property where their options are limited in terms of what they can do with it after they acquire it. This fits the FDR pattern of intervening into the markets and preventing a needed correction perfectly. The market is trying to liquidate these properties and allow them to be sold at more reasonable prices to more viable customers. The government policy will arrest that process, causing the crisis to take longer resolve itself, if it is allowed to resolve itself at all.[6]

It also goes without saying that the landlords who will buy the homes are more likely to be poorer landlords, as they are by definition landlords who care less about who they rent to. This tends to manifest itself in the appearance and upkeep of the properties, affecting property values throughout the entire neighborhood. Add to that the poor service and quality of work that comes with the government or banks providing the property management and you have the recipe for some scary neighborhoods. Collateral damage certainly isn’t just a military term, once our federal government gets rolling.

So where does this all lead us? I said at the beginning that one of the most disturbing aspects of this story was that an idea like this has been born before the real crisis gets rolling. We have had a market crash and ensuing credit crunch, but everyone seems to be in denial over what inevitably comes next – massive unemployment. Once that starts really manifesting itself (probably as early as next summer), the “state of emergency” mindset will kick in with our government and things could really deteriorate quickly. Right now, loan defaulters are being evicted from the property that they borrowed against and are finding homes in the abundant rental market. However, when the vast majority of them are unemployed, they will need the government to help them, too. It is certainly not hard to imagine a scenario where unemployed loan defaulters are evicted from their homes in foreclosure, only to be “placed” into rental properties that the government owns (but cannot sell), or even into another property that the same bank that just seized their home acquired in foreclosure on somebody else!

For those properties owned by the government, the renters would pay the government directly (eventually it may even be a standard payroll deduction). For those properties owned by a private bank, the Section 8 program will provide the rent subsidies, which the government is now obligated to pay the bank/landlords because they forced them to get into the property management business in the first place. Alternatively, the government may just start buying the houses from the bank, in order to “stablilize” the housing market and because it now has an incentive to grow its new program. The government will certainly have an incentive to put people into the houses that it already owns and cannot sell. This program could realistically feed itself until tens of millions of Americans are in government housing.

On the brighter side, at least this will further solidify the close relationship between our banking institutions and the federal government. We could always use more tight collusion between government and big business. There is no sense in repeating the worst mistakes of the past century without throwing in a little more fascism.

However, the fascist model is more the Republican brand of socialism, at least in this century. The Democrats seems to favor the Marxist variety, as evidenced by their increasingly Marxist rhetoric and their choice of a presidential candidate. Make no mistake, government-provided housing is right in their proverbial wheel house, and you can expect them to jump on the “opportunity” next year’s emergency will afford them to hit this one out of the stadium. The Carter years might look like an economic golden age before this is over. Let’s hope that it is apparent to most Americans in four years that the medicine is killing the patient. Medicare may not be around to cover the catastrophic care needed by 2016.

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[1] Mark, Karl and Engels, Friedrich Manifesto of the Communist Party (The Communist Manifesto) 1848. (This is Plank One of the famous Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto)
[2] I suppose I should be grateful that the patronizing assertion that “the taxpayers” own Fannie Mae was not made in this particular article. That characterization has been an especially insulting aspect of our conversion to socialism. Ownership can only occur when you CHOOSE to own something, and when you have some control over its disposal. Moreover, it should be evident that even in the unlikely event that our government somehow makes money on this travesty, not one dollar will be coming back to taxpayers, nor should we accept it if it did.
[3] Duhigg, Charles “Fannie Mae Lets Renters Stay Despite Foreclosures” New York Times December 14, 2008
[4] Ibid
[5] Sadly, this expression has become ubiquitous in the private sector as well. Americans brought up under the yoke of coercion know no other way to deal with one another.
[6] Of course, this policy would not by any means be the only factor in houses not selling. Neither will it be the only action government will be taking to block the overall correction and make the depression worse.