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Chapter 8: Omnibus Reform
There are no tyrants among men; there are only tyrannies, and the mother of tyrannies is money monopoly.
The launching of a nonpolitical, universal monetary system will mark the beginning of a revolution in its most consummate sense. Figuratively speaking, it will reverse the world upon its axis. Just as the political monetary system trends power toward the state, so the system based on true money will release the natural forces that trend society toward private initiative, enterprise and democracy. Pending this fundamental reversal, all resistance to statism is futile. As long as the only available monetary system is political, exchange, that process by which the social order functions, will never accomplish its natural purpose, the development of prosperity and freedom.
To rely on education to reverse the present trend toward statism shows a want of comprehension of the naturalness of personal enterprise. No one needs to be educated in private initiative and enterprise. These qualities arise spontaneously. All that is needed is that the counterfeiting power of the state, which robs productive effort and rewards parasitism, be removed. The various educational efforts to propagate personal enterprise are worse than wasted, because they imply that but for propaganda and indoctrination, personal enterprise would be overwhelmed by state-sponsored systems. In reality, it is the tax-supported institutions that are artificial and that must, therefore, conduct crusades to proselytize supporters to their cause. Under the present political monetary system, personal enterprise cannot be saved by propaganda. Freed from the perversion of that system, it will need none.
The appeal of the welfare state lies in its seductive promise of wealth with the least possible effort. That, under the illusory system of the welfare state, the benefits to some are the loot of others, is beside the point. The beneficiaries may not realize this, or, realizing it, may argue that it operates in their favor rather than against them. We cannot stop this pernicious robbery of the industrious and reward of the indolent by attacking it on the reward side. Every beneficiary is aware of his benefits and is grateful for them. As for those robbed, there is complete bewilderment as to the cause of their loss. However, we would not accomplish anything but rebellion against the state if we made it clear to all the Peters that they are being robbed for the benefit of the Pauls. The cause of the injustice is political, but the remedy is not.
The trouble has arisen from the failure of personal enterprisers to provide a sound monetary system of, by, and for personal enterprise. In their default, the state has contrived a socialized system. We are neither grounded in the philosophy of personal enterprise nor intelligently opposed to socialism, if we do not realize that a socialized monetary system must generate socialism. If, realizing it, we continue to tolerate it, we forfeit our right to complain against the inevitable trend toward statism. But even if we are opposed to the mother of socialism as well as her whelps, it is not words, but works, that are called for. Sooner or later we must institute a nonpolitical monetary system.
Through its deficit spending policy, the state has begun its acquisition of control. Unless this be halted, all reform is useless, all idealizing vain. Indeed, so subverted have men's minds become under the influence of the state's seemingly unlimited power that reformers almost universally turn to political rather than economic means of reform. Thus their reform efforts effected through political action actually salute and strengthen the generator of the evils against which the reforms are directed.
Vindicating the Democratic Ideal
No reform that invokes the power of the state can be predicated on democracy. The state's profession of being an instrument of democracy is pure sham. It is inherently exploitative and autocratic, because it has no means of invoking support by appeal to voluntary patronage. It lives by taxation and functions by edict. To regard the state as the implement of democracy, when it is itself anti-democratic, is surely the most consummate delusion of man. This delusion deepens as the state expands its means of robbing industry through the insidious process of issuing counterfeit money, which gives the state the appearance of being a generator of wealth, provider of welfare, and guarantor of security. Conversely, as the state's prestige is increased by this deceptive device, that of personal enterprise declines, and business becomes the culprit for all the ills of society. The extent to which this idea of the benign state and the malign business community prevails among would-be reformers can be seen in the frequent "pass-a-law" provisions that occur in their proposals. These laws are usually directed against business and prosecuted by the presumed defender of justice, government. Let us have done with the idea that democracy can reside in, or operate through, the state; nothing can be democratic that is not dependent upon voluntary patronage.
Instead of expanding state activities, they must be contracted. To what extent the state should be reduced cannot be determined in theory. We must first free personal enterprise through a nonpolitical monetary system and give it an opportunity to show how far it can go in taking over the activities of local, state, and national governments. In this way will the activities of the various governmental entities be brought from a tax-supported basis into the sphere of personal enterprise, with its attendant competition and voluntary payment for services rendered.
Thus the ultimate domestication of government will be accomplished only as, and in the degree to which, personal enterprise is prepared to render community services on an optional basis and at competitive prices. For there is profit in rendering service, and the boundaries of private and public service are not fixed. The extent to which private enterprise may absorb so-called public services depends solely upon the vision and initiative of enterprisers. Spencer Heath has already developed an impressive body of thought directed toward just such ends. Such worthy aims, however, await the liberation of personal enterprise from the political monetary system. Only then shall we be able to reverse the present trend and begin whittling down the sphere of the state by enlarging that of personal enterprise.
The state presently renders disservices as well as services, and the citizen must pay for both, either by open taxation or by hidden taxation in the inflated prices he pays for the things he buys. Once the state is denied its power to impose taxes by watering the money stream and is confronted with an aggressive personal enterprise movement that will take over services for which there is actual demand, its disservices will be recognized as such simply because personal enterprise will make no bid for them. Public resistance to taxation will then dispose of them.
Exchange, served by a true monetary system, is a constant reform mechanism. It is the sifter of proposals and projects, the natural mechanism whereby all undertakings are measured for public approval. Its constituency votes early and often, making change and progress facile. Served by an unbiased monetary system, it will be the perfect instrument of democracy. Here will democracy function, vindicating its ideal.
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