Posted on 01/04/2002 5:34:10 AM PST by tberry
The Myth of 'Limited Government'
by Joseph Sobran
We are taught that the change from monarchy to democracy is progress; that is, a change from servitude to liberty. Yet no monarchy in Western history ever taxed its subjects as heavily as every modern democracy taxes its citizens.
But we are taught that this condition is liberty, because "we" are – freely – taxing "ourselves." The individual, as a member of a democracy, is presumed to consent to being taxed and otherwise forced to do countless things he hasn’t chosen to do (or forbidden to do things he would prefer not to do).
Whence arises the right of a ruler to compel? This is a tough one, but modern rulers have discovered that a plausible answer can be found in the idea of majority rule. If the people rule themselves by collective decision, they can’t complain that the government is oppressing them. This notion is summed up in the magic word "democracy."
It’s nonsense. "We" are not doing it to "ourselves." Some people are still ruling other people. "Democracy" is merely the pretext for authorizing this process and legitimizing it in the minds of the ruled. Since outright slavery has been discredited, "democracy" is the only remaining rationale for state compulsion that most people will accept.
Now comes Hans-Hermann Hoppe, of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, to explode the whole idea that there can ever be a just state. And he thinks democracy is worse than many other forms of government. He makes his case in his new book Democracy – The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order
Hoppe is often described as a libertarian, but it might be more accurate to call him a conservative anarchist. He thinks the state – "a territorial monopoly of compulsion" – is inherently subversive of social health and order, which can thrive only when men are free.
As soon as you grant the state anything, Hoppe argues, you have given it everything. There can be no such thing as "limited government," because there is no way to control an entity that in principle enjoys a monopoly of power (and can simply expand its own power).
We’ve tried. We adopted a Constitution that authorized the Federal Government to exercise only a few specific powers, reserving all other powers to the states and the people. It didn’t work. Over time the government claimed the sole authority to interpret the Constitution, then proceeded to broaden its own powers ad infinitum and to strip the states of their original powers – while claiming that its self-aggrandizement was the fulfillment of the "living" Constitution. So the Constitution has become an instrument of the very power it was intended to limit!
The growth of the Federal Government might have been slowed if the states had retained the power to withdraw from the confederation. But the Civil War established the fatal principle that no state could withdraw, for any reason. So the states and the people lost their ultimate defense against Federal tyranny. (And if they hadn’t, there would still have been the problem of the tyranny of individual states.) But today Americans have learned to view the victory of the Union over the states, which meant an enormous increase in the centralization of power, as a triumph of "democracy."
Hoppe goes so far as to say that democracy is positively "immoral," because "it allows for A and B to band together to rip off C." He argues that monarchy is actually preferable, because a king has a personal interest in leaving his kingdom in good condition for his heirs; whereas democratic rulers, holding power only briefly, have an incentive to rob the public while they can, caring little for what comes afterward. (The name "Clinton" may ring a bell here.)
And historically, kings showed no desire to invade family life; but modern democracies want to "protect" children from their parents. By comparison with the rule of our alleged equals, most kings displayed remarkably little ambition for power. And compared with modern war, the wars of kings were mere scuffles.
Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves.
January 4, 2001
I'm seeing here the Spaghetti Theory of History: it's all mighty twisted, ain't it?
Even Washington subscribes: Sure, he had it right in theory with "no foreign entanglements." But the man himself knew how to use those entanglements to the national interest. Did he not win a war with it?
American isolationism is a myth. We used George III, Louis XVI, Napoleon, etc. long before the nation could even pronounce the word, "isolationism." Look at Jefferson. For a man so intent upon the idyllic, independent farmer, he was awfully concerned with Paris.
What I'm trying to get at is your:
"...there is that contradiction between high-powered capitalism and its wide markets and Jeffersonian theories of agrarianism and narrow state sovereignty... A Jeffersonian society, fragmented into narrow state sovereignties would be more like Europe was before unification than America is now: shallow little ponds with their own traditions, regulations and bureaucracies, rather than a free and open field for development."
"As a public man, he is one of the worst sort - a friend to nothing but as it suits his interests and ambition."Which reminds me: how ironic, all our musings of the Hamilton-Jefferson axis when it was the Hamilton-Jefferson alignment that denied Burr the Presidency -- ?
Twisted, indeed.
Is there hope for me, then?
It was part of the old Jeffersonian/Jacksonian heritage: state and local regulation of powerful corporations to prevent them from getting too big and powerful.
Things changed. Banking became less regulated. Bigger, supposedly more efficient banks took over. Smaller banks often got gobbled up by multi-state giants.
As an old stick in the mud, I didn't mind the old way of doing things. I wasn't the one getting regulated and I get treated much better at a small bank than at a big one.
Rockwellites would celebrate this deregulation as part of the greater efficiency of free market capitalism. But it was in the tradition of Hamilton and Lincoln, rather than in the tradition of Jefferson and Jackson. They focus on one part of the Jeffersonian heritage -- individual freedom and free trade -- and they neglect the consequences of the other part of that heritage -- state's rights and localism.
So I'm thinking that the kind of wide open freedom to go to another state and make or sell any sort of goods there might not have developed so quickly had Jefferson won more of the battles than Hamilton. Certainly if we'd retained the Articles of Confederation, the price of freedom from federal authorities would be subjection to state ones.
Banking has always been a concern for agrarians who wanted to avoid having all society's credit in too few hands, but one could make a similar case for retailing chains and other large corporations. The sovereign states would put more obstacles in their path than modern America actually did. Eventually, they might have won out, as McDonald's did around the world, but they would have had a much harder road in a Jeffersonian America. I could live with that, but those obstacles and regulations are precisely the sort of thing that drives Rockwellites up the wall.
There's something to be said for small, deeply-rooted, autonomous communities. I've got some affection for them. But they aren't as appreciative of change, mobility, and trade as more wide open communities.
It's certainly possible that the Rockwellites could get what they want: smaller governments that are culturally conservative and economically free market. But it's also possible that culturally conservative rural sovereignties would fetter the market, or forever try to work it in favor of themselves and their core-population. Urban city-states might be more accepting of free trade, but also of cultural liberalism, and welfare-statism. That, at least, seems to be the experience at present.
We owe much to the Jeffersonian heritage, and there's a lot to be said for it. But to make Jefferson the hero and Hamilton the villain in all things would be a mistake. Past heroes challenge us precisely because they didn't say just exactly what we believe now.
So, I can feel virtuous for for having pointed out the defense against the accusation of Hamilton's having cheated in this duel, although I am not an admirer of Hamilton.
On the other hand, regarding newly discovered evidence, around the same time (aroud 1975) the notorious Burr letter that alone convinced Jefferson of treasonous activity on Burr's part was submitted to a handwriting specialist for comparison with certified writings of Burr and was determined not to be in Burr's handwriting.
Because you don't. Every cent you take home was taken from other people at the point of a gun. And you know it. Stop playing your shell game with me, Buster.
As for your insults about my intelligence, someone who fails to understand this obvious fact clearly has none. So go play in your little bureaucratic warren. You'd obviously never make it in the real world.
And as far as the insults, you are the one comparing federal employees to your house servants and telling me that I'm a leech on the "productive" economy.
You are an idiot, but you have the right to be an idiot. I have the responsibility of protecting you from other idiots. Welcome to the real world, Buster.
Should have continued as such: "...make less than their non-Fed counterparts and an equal percentage of taxes are then taken out of the gross pay."
Architect, if you're so darn smart you would see that your arguments are self-defeating. For example, you complain that my salary is paid by taxes taken from your pay at the point of a gun; what about the taxes taken from mine? I don't see any gunmen in my payroll office taking out Uncle Sam's cut.
One more thing, are you seriously saying that anarchy is better than a federal republic? If so, you're even more childish than I've assumed to this point.
Also, if federal employees shouldn't be able to vote because they have a self-interest, what about members of the military, retired and active-duty? What about those receiving Social Security? What about government contractors? What about farmers? What about anybody who owns a business or pays taxes? Every one of those listed has a vested interest in the federal government. Should they be able to vote?
So, logically speaking, you are saying that the U.S. federal government is worse than the monarchy we lived under until the American Revolution. Or, better yet, the occupation governments in Germany and Japan were worse than what preceded them?
Governments have problems because people are not perfect, that's a given. But, they're necessary, and we as voters are responsible for keeping them relatively honest.
As I said in my original post, No! No one feeding at the public trough should vote.
Chapters to come should be:
The Myth of "Smaller Government"
The Myth of "Deregulation"
The Myth of "Free Trade"
The Myth of "Free Market"
The Myth of "Let The Market Decide"
You responded: "No! No one feeding at the public trough should vote.
Are you running a comedy routine, or what? You mean to tell me that members of the armed forces should not be allowed to vote? So, logically speaking, you must have applauded Al Gore's efforts to prevent the absentee ballots of servicemen from being counted in his attempted theft of Florida's electoral votes. And, by logical extension, nobody in the country should be allowed to vote because we all have a vested interest.
And, BTW, I'm still waiting for your source for stating that the founding fathers didn't want federal employees to have the right to vote.
Certainly not the professional officer corps; enlisted men, maybe. Draftees, of any rank, were the draft in place, I would not deny the vote. Had we a citizen army (a necessary feature of a true democracy) like the Swiss, I would certainly not deny its members the vote.
"And, by logical extension, nobody in the country should be allowed to vote because we all have a vested interest."
And you accuse me of running a comedy routine. Those who suckle at the federal teats (to use the great Abraham Lincoln's metaphor) have a "vested interest" that the rest of us don't share.
"And, BTW, I'm still waiting for your source for stating that the founding fathers didn't want federal employees to have the right to vote."
That is what I was taught in school, and in more than one course. My cursory attempts to find a source have not succeeded, and finding it is not one of my current top priorities. But I shall continue looking and when I find it, I will surely let you know.
By the way, it took you a long time to respond, do you actually have work to do today?
Governments have problems because people are not perfect, that's a given. But, they're necessary, and we as voters are responsible for keeping them relatively honest.
I am not an expert in prophecy and i was not very clear as well. The prophcey had to do with 4 recognized world type goverments....Nebeecanezar's....which was associated with Gold....the finest/best.....then 2 more goverments......and if you believe in prophecy.....the final world type goverment....associated with iron and clay which is not very strong. I know i am not being real clear as to my discription but think of it this way....A goverment run by ONE truely Godly man would be the best form of goverment....which is what Neb's goverment became due to his acceptance of God thru Daniel's witness to him. Of course it was not to last because either the man or his succcessors are not perfect and due to man's falible nature will allow greed, corruption, etc... to move in. As for our democracy....due to it's being founded on God (regardless of what the librals say) it started off strong....but it is inherently week. Look at what we are as opposed to 200 years ago.....you may feel that as a voter you can keep them honest but i harbor no such illusion. As for your examples of japan, germany etc... they were one nation goverments and were not, a part of the prophecy that was being shown to neb. Again i was not clear in my statement that EACH succesive goverment would be worse than the last.
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