Posted on 05/16/2002 8:40:37 AM PDT by Sir Gawain
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As a communication instructor and informal philosopher, I find it fascinating — if a bit disheartening, at times — to see how different groups of people can examine the same set of facts and reach diametrically opposed interpretations of what those facts imply. For example, few dispute the notion that the Drug War frequently results in excessive violence among dealers, degraded lives of users, burgeoning prisons, and enriched thugs who then use their money to corrupt police and judges. The pro-Drug War crowd appeals to those negative results to justify such draconian policies as asset forfeiture, no-knock raids, the militarization of our police and borders, and further expansion of the War on Drugs. The anti-Drug War folks, however, see those same bad consequences and claim that such destruction demands the end of the War on Drugs, aka, the War on People. They state that drug prohibition — not the recreational drugs per se that people consume — is the primary cause of those very reasons used to bolster support for drug prohibition. Poking into nearly any politically contentious controversy yields similar dichotomies. I find it amazing how consistently wrong the statists, collectivists, and altruists can be in evaluating life's little difficulties and suggesting — excuse me: forcing — solutions on the rest of us that are designed to "solve" problems they themselves have created or exacerbated.
The Big Cash ThreatA clear illustration of this phenomenon was provided recently in an article by Beth Barrett, a staff writer for Dailynews.com, the online version of The Los Angeles Daily News. The title of this piece elegantly captures the article's theme: "Cash Economy Threatens Wages, Tax Base." Lest there be any room for confusion, this effect of "cash" is A Bad Thing. You will search in vain through this long article by Barrett for any hint that we should encourage a cash economy. The economists, labor leaders, and community mavens universally condemn this dire trend. Nowhere does Barrett bother to quote a dissenting voice . . . not that such evasion and tunnel vision is surprising given the source. Also intriguing in this story is what is left unstated, i.e., precisely how the Political Hordes intend to "solve" this problem. National identification cards meld with smart cards combining credit cards and drivers licenses which blend with the aforementioned Drug War and its attendant "money laundering" and offshore banking accounts. That's just for starters. The dovetailing of seemingly disparate trends shows yet again how pols doing what pols just naturally do leads to outcomes, i.e., further erosions of freedom, virtually indistinguishable from intentional collusion. According to Barrett, the L.A. County's "underground cash economy has exploded, jeopardizing public services and new investments." [Translation: the State is not getting all the loot it wants for bribing and controlling the voters.] The president of the Economic Roundtable, Daniel Flaming, says that a new study "estimates that up to 1.5 million" L.A. area workers receive cash instead of a paycheck. This practice is economically "destabilizing." [Translation: the politicians find their power base weakened when they can no longer guarantee a particular level of graft and corruption.] Even worse, the bastions of the altruists — "Social Security, workers' compensation, health insurance" and other programs that "protect workers" — are being deprived of "about $1.1 billion a year." This leads to "hundreds of thousands of workers" being bereft of "a safety net." [Translation: people actually have to take responsibility for their own lives.] And all of this — horrors — is "in violation of the law"! [Translation: people are making their own decisions and doing what is right instead of blindly performing the immoral actions forced upon them by the State.] This is just the tip of the heart-wrenching tragedies L.A.'s underground employees face. Workers who prefer anonymous cash to trackable bits of paper "lose an additional $1.5 billion a year" when they don't claim the benefits of that disguised welfare program, i.e., federal tax "credits," for those poor folks who owe no federal income tax in the first place. [Translation: some people prefer self-respect and independence to the dole, i.e., money stolen from other people.] These exploited folks are (*sob*) prevented from experiencing the joys of having "federal and state payroll taxes withheld." [Translation: they get to keep their own money rather than forking it over to the State that returns a small percentage of it to them.] This creates "economic unpredictability" supposedly abhorrent to "potential employers." [Translation: the State is the one really worried about unpredictable tax revenues.] Flaming assures us that a "changing environment" is undesirable. What is a worthy objective is when we have a "coherent environment . . . rules are understandable . . . and behavior is predictable." An economy that exists in the shadows is "not regulated" and is thus "profoundly incoherent." [Hoo boy . . . Translation: the central planners need us little robots in easily identifiable and locatable cubicles as they manipulate us according to their simplistic notions of human behavior and move us pawns around to fulfill their visions of interchangeable collectivism and mediocrity. Dynamism, Variety, and Autonomy Bad. Rigidity, Sameness, and External Control Good.] These low wage earners who forego State-mandated and -manipulated "benefits" "are limited in their spending power which reduces retail sales . . . and sales tax revenue." [Translation: even though these workers keep all of the money they earn and thus actually have more spending power than they would otherwise have under the "legal" system, the State cannot spend as much as it would like.] The employers who agree to give their workers what they want, i.e., cash in exchange for services rendered, "cheat" and have "an unfair competitive advantage over" employers who comply with the Big Stick of the State. Flaming pronounces this the "low road of economic growth," "not law-abiding," and "not in good faith." [Translation: anyone who dares do what is right rather than what is legal is evil.] L.A. mayor, James Hahn, is "disturbed" by these alarming developments that are "undermining society" and eroding "the local tax base." He wants to change this through "enforcement" and "real jobs" with "some dignity" that do not lead to a "permanent underclass." He seeks "to invest in human capital," but if that "human capital" disagrees with his goals, he is ready and prepared to rout out these ne'er-do-wells and "bust them." [Translation: Hahn links and equates society, i.e., a collection of individuals interacting peacefully with one another, with the State, i.e., an elite group of power mongers who work to impose their will on the majority. What erodes the State is the root of all evil. Only employment tightly bound to the State is acceptable. Individuals are cogs in the State-run culture and can — and will be — readily replaced if they resist their designated role as fodder for the central planners.] The labor union thugs in L.A. County are ready travelers along the road owned and operated by their titular masters. Julie Butcher [how's that last name for irony . . . ] of the Service Employees International Local 347 tells us that participants in the underground economy who "are not even on the chart" contribute to a "spiral to the bottom" in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Such traitors to the Brotherhood of Man are "largely impervious to the help unions . . . have provided labors." These shadow workers are "hard to organize." [Translation: people who are not numbered and tagged and tracked by the State are not easily accessible to those who want to rope and coerce them into joining the faceless herd.] Hahn's director of economic recovery, Joy Chen, wants to "better track" the cash economy and "reverse" it. She complains that this is a difficult process due to the lower educational achievements of these recalcitrant, cash-only employees. [Translation: these cash-only people have not yet been so completely brainwashed by the State-run educational system that they will swallow the bilge the statists want to cram down their throats. Those benighted souls can, however, yet be saved once the statists get their meat hooks into them.] Perhaps she should consult labor leader, Mike Garcia, who brags that the number of people working as janitors for cash-only would be four times larger if the union had not intervened and squashed such yearnings for self-determination. "Without the union," he says, "janitors are easy prey, because it's low skill and they work at night." (sic) [Translation: the union thugs think that people who have few skills are too stupid to know what is in their own best self-interest.] Flaming admits that many of these immigrants believe that "life has never been better," but that they are using the wrong standard, i.e., their old home villages rather than what is normal for L.A. [Translation: these ignorant peasants are idiots. Flaming believes they should use his standard of living for deciding whether or not they are better off; after all, his judgment is superior to theirs.] Chen says government cannot effect changes away from the underground economy on its own. Businesses, employers, and various educational establishments must participate in a "partnership" with the State. [Translation: every social institution must subordinate itself to the mandates and dictates of the State.] Flaming is ready to help out by "better enforcing labor regulations" that will "raise the profile of workers who are now invisible." The IRS and state tax board will also increase their criminal investigations. "It's getting more and more difficult to live in the underground economy," says IRS mouthpiece, Deborah Guajardo. [Translation: the State will come down on the heads of these lawless creeps like the wrath of God as it eliminates the last vestiges of privacy and independence.] After all, the state is losing $3 billion per year from such blatant transgressions. [Translation: all of your money really belongs to the State. If you're good and obedient, it may return a few bits of that dough to you.]
Nice Mr. GovernmentEconomist Jack Kyser complains that the statists' path is made more difficult because these underground workers "come from countries . . . where distrust of the government is high." To root out these folks who are "under the radar of all government entities" will require time as the authorities must "investigate almost every structure in the community." The State will "have to put on a happy face and say, we won't hurt you, but please come out of the cold." [Translation: we're from the government, and we're here to help you. Run for your lives!] Even though the "cash" circulating in society is fiat money rather than Constitutionally mandated gold and silver, its use by citizens still affords them an out from constant tracking of their economic activities. Cash offers anonymity. It provides privacy and individual control. Its one of the few walls holding back the flood tide of government domination that threatens our last tattered shreds of liberty. Those benefits, of course, are what condemn cash in the eyes of the State. Only when cash is fully eliminated will the politicians be satisfied. Consider how far we have already traversed down that path: Buy a plane ticket these days with cash and face arrest as a terrorist. Carry a large sum of cash and have it confiscated as "drug money." Deposit too much cash in a bank or try to transfer too much into an offshore account or carry too much out of the country and be investigated for "money laundering." The push is on for digital money that travels from employer to bank to employee as nothing more than strings of ones and zeroes. It is sold as a benefit for you: never worry about running out of cash; use it for vending machines; combine it with a credit card so you can charge larger sums; link it with your student ID card or drivers license; no fumbling through a pile of cards. No muss, no fuss. Yes, such digital money on smart cards could be used to enhance privacy. More likely, however, will be cards designed to enhance your profiling, instead. To combat "terrorism" and "drugs," the State will nudge us away from cash. After all, if we can track purchases of "suspects" and determine when they are making too many "suspicious" buys, we will be able to prevent them from completing their nefarious plans. And everyone knows that the drug trade is primarily a cash-only business: eliminate paper currency and the drug lords and their underlings will be stymied in their illicit transactions. In addition, by hiding the origins of cash, such practices as "money laundering" promote fraud and traffic in illegal substances. And, of course, as Barrett's article makes abundantly evident, unreported cash exchanges undermine the State by limiting the tax money, i.e., the stolen wealth, it needs to flourish. What is white to you and me is black to the minions of the State. Yin and yang. Freedom is Slavery. War is Peace. Hate is Love. Ignorance is Strength. Never forget, however, that when these Orwellian monsters come marching to seize your cash, what they really want to take is your freedom. See Russ Madden's articles, short stories, novel excerpts, and items of interest to Objectivists, libertarians, and sci-fi fans at http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/. |
A cash economy is an economy of freedom, in which one can elect to keep one's dealings to oneself. Big Government simply can't have that. There's only one zone of privacy under the Constitution, and that's abortion, by God! Just ask our Nine Wise Men.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
Slave Tags are slave tags. It doesn't matter the rationale; the "benefits," the "authority" who says it's needed; the convenience; the "for your own good;" the "safety" issue.
Slavery is slavery.
BAN SLAGS! ESPECIALLY ALL INJECTABLE KINDS!
Translation: All your cash are belong to Gov. ;-)
Great article bump!
The author of this piece comes SOOOO close to the central reasoning behind a cashless society,and misses the point by a mile. All he cites are excuses the goobement will use. The REASON is "control and power". If all your money comes in and goes out linked to a electronic "ID account number",ALL the gooberment needs to do to totally shut you down is to delete your account number. No money coming in,no money to pay house payment or rent,no money to buy food,and no money to even ride a bus to city hall to complain. You don't exist. THE "perfect solution" for a gooberment worried about formenting revolution amongst it's people,and looking for a way to prevent it.
Boys and girls,the very day they come out and say a cashless society will become official is the day to pick up your rifle and go into politics. Wait a week and you won't even be able to buy a cup of coffee,never mind a box of ammo.
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