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The "occupy" protest movement is thriving
off the claim that the 99% are being exploited by the 1%, and there is truth in
what they say. But they have the identities of the groups wrong. They imagine
that it is the 1% of highest wealth holders who are the problem. In fact,
that 1% includes some of the smartest, most innovative people in the country
– the people who invent, market, and distribute material blessings to
the whole population. They also own the capital that sustains productivity
and growth.
But there is another 1% out there, those who do live
parasitically off the population and exploit the 99%. Moreover, there is a
long intellectual tradition, dating back to the late middle ages that draws attention to the strange reality that a tiny
minority lives off the productive labor of the overwhelming majority.
I’m speaking of the State, which even today is
made up of a tiny sliver of the population, but is the direct cause of all
the impoverishing wars, inflation, taxes, regimentation, and social conflict.
This 1% is the direct cause of the violence, the censorship, the
unemployment, and vast amounts of poverty, too.
Look at the numbers, rounding from latest data. The
U.S. population is 307 million. There are about 20 million government
employees at all levels, which makes 6.5%. But 6.2 million of these people are
public school teachers, whom I think we can say are not really the ruling
elite. That takes us down to 4.4%.
We can knock of another half million who work for
the post office, and probably the same who work for various service
department bureaus. Probably another million do not work in any enforcement
arm of the State, and there’s also the amazing labor-pool fluff that
comes with any government work. Local governments do not cause nation-wide
problems (usually), and the same might be said of the 50 states. The real
problem is at the federal level (8.5 million), from which we can subtract
fluff, drones, and service workers.
In the end, we end up with about 3 million people
who constitute what is commonly called the State. For short, we can just call
these people the 1%.
The 1% do not generate any
wealth of their own. Everything they have they get by taking from others
under the cover of law. They live at our expense. Without us, the State as an
institution would die.
Here we come to the core of the issue. What is the
State and what does it do? There is vast confusion about this issue, insofar
as it is talked about at all. For hundreds of years, people have imagined
that the State might be an organic institution that develops naturally out of
some social contract. Or perhaps the State is our benefactor because it
provides services we could not otherwise provide for ourselves.
In classrooms and in political discussions, there is
very little if any honest talk about what the State is and what it does. But
in the libertarian tradition, matters are much clearer. From Bastiat to Rothbard, the answer
has been before our eyes. The State is the only institution in society that
is permitted by law to use aggressive force against person and property.
Let’s understand through a simple example.
Let’s say you go into a restaurant and hate the wallpaper. You can
complain and try to persuade the owner to change it. If he doesn’t
change it, you can decide not to go back. But if you break in, take money out
of the cash register, buy paint, and cover the wallpaper yourself, you will
be charged with criminal wrongdoing and perhaps go to jail. Everyone in
society agrees that you did the wrong thing.
But the State is different. If it doesn’t like
the wallpaper, it can pass a law (or maybe even not that) and send a memo. It
can mandate a change. It doesn’t have to do the repainting. The State
can make you repaint the place. If you refuse, you are guilty of criminal
wrongdoing.
Same goals, different means, two very different sets
of criminals. The State is the institution that essentially redefines
criminal wrongdoing to make itself exempt from the law that governs everyone
else.
It is the same with every tax, every regulation,
every mandate, and every single word of the federal code. It all represents
coercion. Even in the area of money and banking, it is the State that created
and sustains the Fed and the dollar because it forcibly limits competition in
money and banking, preventing people from making gold or silver money, or
innovating in other ways. And in some ways, this is the most dreadful
intervention of all, because it allows the State to destroy our money on a
whim.
The State is everybody’s enemy. Why don’t
the protesters get this? Because they are victims of propaganda by the State,
doled out in public school, that attempts to blame
all human suffering on private parties and free enterprise. They do not
comprehend that the real enemy is the institution that brainwashes them to
think the way they do.
They are right that society is rife with conflicts,
and that the contest is wildly lopsided. It is indeed the 99% vs. the 1%.
They’re just wrong about the identity of the enemy.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr
LewRockwell.com
Article originally published at
www.lewrockwell.com here
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