A few people have asked me to produce my plan for
downsizing and/or eliminating the state. Thanks for the easy assignment.
Where’s my magic wand?
Make a list of all government programs. Then repeal
them, all of them. Any order will do.
Why are these programs on the books now? Answer that
and you have found the lever to tilt society. My answer is this. We (the
people at large) have absorbed false beliefs. We think freedom, private
property, self-interest, rights, and capitalism are bad; and we think
equality, government, force, and socialism are good. Our thinking about
economic, political, ethical, legal, and social realities is thoroughly wrongheaded
and unsophisticated. We do not even realize that we are forever shooting
ourselves in our feet. We often do wrong and do not even know we are doing
wrong.
Assume that you have been mis-educated. Most people
have been. In the field of economics, there has been vast mis-education.
Generations have been taught by Paul Samuelson rather than Ludwig von Mises.
The same is true of other important areas. Therefore, re-educate yourself,
your children, and others in true beliefs, not false beliefs. I do this
constantly. I am constantly trying to understand that which is true in a
number of areas. Economics is one of them. If I knew the subject as
thoroughly as I would like to, and I do not, I’d be writing more
frequently in explanation of it.
Not only are we mis-educated, but most of us
specialize in what we do to make a living and we let slide our knowledge of
things that matter a great deal. We are also immersed in communications media
that constantly perpetuate false beliefs and theories. We all need to take
some time to learn. At the von Mises web site are many free materials to get you started. I am fond of such
web sites as The Online Library of Liberty, The Library of Economics and Liberty, and The Molinari Institute. All it takes is your time and concentration. Be patient and
persistent. And after that, be patient again. Rome was not destroyed in a
day.
When asked my plan to downsize the state, I have to
smile. That smile means "I don’t know. Why are you asking me? You
know as well as I do." Not knowing what to respond, I become a bit
irritated. My reaction is: "How am I supposed to know what to do?"
Then: "Decide for yourself." And: "Do it yourself in whatever
small or big ways you can think of."
Consider one small way. I have come to realize the
value of a classic education. I have come to realize the value of learning
several foreign languages. I studied Latin (4 years) and French (3 years) in
a tiny public high school due to the dedication of one teacher who taught me
during lunch hours. I studied German (3 years) in college. Languages are hard
for me, and I’ve forgotten most of them. But I can come up to reading
speed with some investment of time. Why should I want to do this? Because
there are as yet untranslated gems that I’d like to read. They may help
me to understand better. I believe that there is nothing more powerful than
the truth, but it has to be understood and communicated. More generally, if
younger people want to contribute to the effort for liberty, then they can do
a lot of good by learning enough to translate important works into English.
We are talking major social change here, involving
many millions of people. I believe that change is best done in a
decentralized and multi-pronged manner. I am well aware that the situation is
social and broad in scope. We are in fact linked together via the state’s
laws. Yet I believe that whatever coordination needs to occur to deconstruct
the state will occur without heavy-handed central planning or force. One does
not make a people free or force a people to be free. Two advocates of
decentralized change are Gary North and Samuel Konkin III. North’s large body of works, among other
things, advocates voluntarily withdrawing from the state’s embraces
while building up alternative private and church-based institutions that
rebuild civil society and wealth. Konkin advocated "agorism,"
basically withdrawing one’s consent from the state’s activities
and moving wherever possible into untaxed, unregulated, and grey markets.
These are but two approaches to the problem.
Having been a professor, I tend to stress the
educational preconditions for long-lasting actions to succeed.
Standard political revolutions are not the answer.
Perhaps at the end of a transformative process, a revolution will occur or crystallize
matters; but a great deal of work has to precede it.
The state was built up one law at a time. The false
beliefs we held worked like a leaven in bread. They worked on and within very
large loopholes in the initial Constitution. We have experienced subsequent
changes in that Constitution and new interpretations of it. False beliefs
drove those changes. Changing the Constitution does not per se change false
beliefs. Changing false beliefs leads to changes in the Constitution.
To get to point A from point S, we have to know what
points S and A are. Not all of us need to know in order to effect major
social change. But a critical mass needs to know. I’d say 10 percent of
the population will make a difference, and 20 percent will make a big difference.
It doesn’t matter whether this critical mass
is outside government or inside. Either way, it can make a big difference for
two reasons. First, elections and legislative votes are often decided by
margins less than this. Therefore a group this large that votes in one
direction will have a heavy influence. Second, a fraction this large can
outweigh the narrow special interest groups that dominate lawmaking.
Ludwig von Mises by himself was enough to start a
ball rolling or at least to keep a ball rolling whose momentum had
drastically slowed down and to give it fresh energy. We surely can add new
energy.
There is absolutely no need for pessimism. There are
always alternatives. There will be change in our political situation. It is
only a matter of what that change shall be. We are not powerless to influence
it whatsoever. Patient and steady effort is required.
There are many correct and simultaneous modes of
attack on the problem of the state. They involve decisions and knowledge at
many levels and encompassing many individuals and social groups. In other
words, no one of us knows "The Answer."
Although I mentioned decentralization, that does not
mean there is no leadership. I think of the downsizing problem like that of a
company producing a product. We are talking about doing social change.
That’s the product. It is a cooperative endeavor. We are talking about
making a transition. It’s like producing a complex product.
There are production technologies for making
products. In the same way, there are technologies for making social change.
The Fabian socialists knew this. They created socialism stepwise. They
permeated the intellectual apparatus of society with their ideas. They sold
their ideas. They led, and society followed. They used the market for ideas.
Markets do these things best. Markets are
decentralized. That suggests that lasting and effective social change should
be decentralized.
There are costs of making the transition to a
smaller state, and there are benefits from making the change. The overall
social benefits will be very large, but most people do not believe that.
Although no one of us knows how to produce the change, we collectively have
enough knowledge to accomplish the task. No one person knows how to make a
pencil, but it gets made.
When a company produces a pencil, there is
entrepreneurial leadership to coordinate the endeavor. When people ask me for
my plan, they may really be asking me: "Who’s going to lead this
transition?" How do we coordinate the effort and combine the individual
knowledge that many people possess?
It is already happening. Institutions like the
Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Independent Institute, the Foundation for
Economic Education, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Molinari Institute,
and the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, are leading.
Web sites, groups, societies, and individuals are leading. They are at work
at every level of society: local, state, and national.
At some point and in some manner that no one can
predict, our society will reach a tipping point. It may already have. In the
stock market, important market tops and bottoms take many months to form and
they are not evident to most people as they form. Tops are hard to call. The
state may be nearing an important top (in its size and scope) now, and it may
not be yet visible to most of us. Ridiculous, excessive, and nonsensical laws
are analogous to the speculative froth and inane stock market valuations that
occur as one approaches a high point. So are the obvious grasping for power
that we are seeing and the pervasive corruption. Yet I do not rest
comfortable at all. Stock market prices can go to levels whose heights are
amazing, and the state’s size and scope can do the same. The social
process can take many, many years.
Where and in what way this tipping point occurs,
whether due to one man or one locality or one state or one national event,
cannot be foretold. But it will happen, and when it does the state will start
to disintegrate like a dam bursting or a building collapsing. Once there is a
critical mass that prevents one piece of special interest legislation or
repeals another, the entire structure will be called into question. Once
there is one locality that resists a state or one state that resists the
national government, the state’s power will break. There will not be a
second civil war. People will not stand for it. If the previous educational
process has done its work, then these concrete signals of the state’s
shrinkage, these victories for freedom, will encourage more and more people
to the task.
There exists a major goad or incentive to the
process of change for the better, that is, toward true beliefs and away from
false beliefs. That goad is the competition of other peoples in the rest of
the world. As and if they work from sound beliefs, the same beliefs that we
used to have but discarded, they will outcompete us. We will fall behind.
That will cause us to question and re-evaluate our ways.
If we train too many people with useless or subpar
training for useless or marginal occupations, as we are doing, living
standards will decline. We will not be producing goods that people want.
There will be discontent. If it becomes mass discontent or even if it does
not, it becomes very important to focus that discontent on the appropriate
solutions. Otherwise, if we turn to the same sorts of demagogues and false
beliefs as in the past, we will go down further before finally recovering.
I hope we have enough sense left to see the light
without having to go through a lengthy process of muddling through with
deteriorating standards of living. That is what is occurring now. It can
become much worse. We are lucky that there is enough freedom and vitality
left at present to exploit new technologies and prevent a sharp drop in
living standards. But such a drop has already occurred and more will occur as
our past sins catch up with us. There is no way to prevent such declines when
one messes up, as we have, with education, health care, energy, money, taxes,
the military sector, and countless regulations. Coercive centralization and
nationalization of human activity takes a heavy toll.
I cannot function without optimism, but it is within
a realistic framework of facing the problems and issues. They are not
trivial.
Think of the U.S.A. as a kind of criminal company.
It extracts taxes forcibly and spends the proceeds as fast as it comes in and
faster. On the basis of its proven record of using force to get resources,
lenders have lent money to it which it has spent. In addition to these debts,
the U.S.A. is a conduit for debt-like promises. It has promised large
payments to retirees. It cannot pay them without extracting further taxes. The
U.S.A. also owns assets that it has expropriated illegally in the form of
lands and such. We wish to liquidate this concern. The debtholders and
retirees will be clamoring to be paid off. There is not enough to go around.
We face a kind of bankruptcy or liquidation scenario in which the obligations
may exceed the value of the assets. There is no known bankruptcy court to
oversee the proceedings and make the hard decisions and allocations. But we
need what is called a workout and reorganization procedure.
The debtholders are also wondering what the
transition will mean for them. They want to know the final product. No one
wants to end up worse off than he is now, but that happy outcome is not
possible. No one can say now what sort of transition will occur or what the
ending situation will look like. There is definitely risk here.
Some parts of our national government are easier to
rein in than others. As suggested earlier, I myself do not think in terms of
making Constitutional changes as a way of solving anything. I think in terms
of repealing those laws that are easiest to repeal once there is a critical
mass and interest in doing so. The true Constitution is in the hearts and
minds of the people and what they countenance. But if the Constitution could be
changed – for the better – I surely would not be unhappy over it.
There are countless other political changes that
will downsize the state. We might begin by repealing laws that regulate
industry and favor special interests. Chief among these interests are the
military (usually called defense, but really offense). Releasing our economy
from its unnecessary military burdens and reducing taxes accordingly will
allow greater economic growth, making it easier when other matters are taken
up. This also makes it far more difficult for our leaders to engineer their
further power-seeking and suppression of our rights. Stopping the involvement
of the U.S. overseas has a high priority.
Other obvious areas of importance are education, health
care, and the monetary system. The health care system is still moving in the
wrong direction. Surveys always show the public interested in universal
health care financed by higher taxes. Clearly people are letting their
emotions and hopes speak. They do not understand the economics of ill-health
that they are supporting. Re-education on this subject is very important.
Similarly, people are still wedded to the public schools, despite their
abysmal performance. The monetary system hasn’t been right for a very
long time. The state simply has no business being in the money business.
Other serious problem areas are energy and the environment, where myths
abound and dangerous wedges into central socialist planning and regulation
exist.
These are tough areas to change because the special
interest groups have succeeded in spreading their views to the general public
and gotten their approval for their harmful policies. In fact, attacks on any
interest group, even rich agricultural interests, elicit a chorus of
propaganda to defend the subsidies and regulations. We simply need to keep
going after these interests tooth and nail. They are selfish and greedy
sleaze balls who have no compunctions about robbing through the public
treasuries. Their rationales for public aid are lies and fabrications. They
should be held up to scorn and ridicule at every turn.
Social Security is a tough nut to crack, but it can
be cracked. Other countries have done it. We should pay out those who want to
be paid out through the system and release from taxes anyone else who wants
to opt out. To ease the transition, the future benefit increases should be
stopped. For example, we should stop the cost of living adjustments at a
given future date, say one year from now. This means no one will face
immediate hurt, but their future benefits will probably decline in real
terms. Retirees will bear some burden, but it will be diffused over time. In
this way, we can legislate the definite and clear end of the system while
funding the payments through general revenues and borrowing. Anyone who wants
to opt out of the system should be allowed to while getting back what they
have paid in. Many will choose this deal in return for having to pay no more
Social Security taxes. If the military were cut back and if the economy were
deregulated, general taxes and borrowings might not have to rise very much to
pay off the claimants. The claimants have been defrauded by their own
government. The fraud is so massive and pervasive that we cannot leave the
victims holding the bag.
We do not need a national government. We could live
quite well with 50 states and no national government. If that occurred, then
people would start looking more closely at their state constitutions. They
would see how grossly socialistic and counterproductive they are. They would
see all manner of special interest groups, misspent money, and restraining
regulations occurring at the state level. The work of cutting back the state
could continue at the state level. Minarchists might like to try an ironclad
national Constitution with only the defense function funded by the states; or
the 50 states could make a defense agreement which would amount to almost the
same thing. The defense function would have to be clearly delimited if this
were done.
Free market anarchists like me want to go all the
way to no formal state functions at all. I believe that if minarchists could
see their watchman (defense) state in operation for awhile, with most
everything else reduced to a local level or a free market level, they would
come around to the view that free market anarchism is feasible and superior.
Even objectivists might be convinced, but, as I say, I am an optimist.
There are many possibilities. My thinking is
flexible on these matters, subject to my habit of analyzing critically any
proposals that come up. I know rather little about how to bring about major
social change. I
expect to learn from others.
Michael S. Rozeff
Michael S. Rozeff is a
retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He publishes
regularly his ideas and analysis on www.LewRockwell.com
.
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LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted,
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