Introduction
Bernie Sanders was the only popular United States presidential candidate in 2016 who correctly identified that capitalism combined with government is not beneficial for the majority of people and is harmful to the planet.
Inevitably, the wealth produced by capitalism is used to influence government. Eventually government becomes a tool of the very wealthy which is used to fix prices and prevent competition in business, finance, healthcare, and education. This crony capitalism stifles innovation, prevents healthy disruption in markets, and reduces economic opportunities. The result is a sort of snowball effect in terms of the level of influence and the size, scope of the government. This is evident especially in the short history of the United States where the most limited government in history that produced massive amounts of wealth in the 19th century has grown into the largest government in history with an $4 trillion annual budget, 20 trillion in debt, and 170,000 pages of federal regulations. Where I disagree with Bernie Sanders and advocates of any form of socialism is on the approach to solve this dilemma. I ask you to consider that before we throw away capitalism, we might seriously consider whether to keep government.
This short series will examine government and capitalism and explore two alternatives which are growing in popularity: socialism and anarcho-capitalism. To begin, I will put forth some definitions. Part 1 will focus on the definition of government.
Government
According to Merriam Webster, government is defined as:
- the group of people who control and make decisions for a country, state, etc.
- a particular system used for controlling a country, state, etc.
- the process or manner of controlling a country, state, etc.
Source http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/government
According to Macmillan, government is defined as:
- the people who control a country, region, or city and make decisions about its laws and taxes
Source http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/government
That is a good start, but the definition is lacking some very important pieces of information.
- Government is the control of people through force. It must be willing to use force, including threats, fines, imprisonment and up to and including lethal force to ensure compliance with its mandates.
- It is not a voluntary system.
- The people who are subject to its power believe that the group of people comprising the government have a legitimate moral right to do the following:
- Make threats of violence against individuals
- Initiate force against individuals
- Place individuals into debt
- Take, restrict access to, or control individual’s private property including their own bodies. Governments take money from individuals which is called taxes. They take or restrict access to property such as individual’s homes. And they also exercise control over individual’s bodies such as in the case of the California State government which has declared itself to have the right to forcibly inject vaccinations into State residents. See http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_28936729/california-vaccine-law-opponents-repeal-effort-fails-but
Each and every service that is provided by government involves the use of coercion, force, and or theft.
Example 1: Building A New Highway
The Federal Government constructs a new highway. The funds to build the new highway come from one of the following:
- Taxes. This is money which is forcibly taken from individuals. This money is not given voluntarily but is taken out of individual incomes whether they like it or not. While some may not object to this money being taken, it does not mean it is voluntary. If an individual tries to prevent the Government from taking this money, the government responds with fines, threats of property seizure, wage garnishments etc. If the individual still does not comply the government responds with ever increasing force up to and including lethal force if necessary.
- Borrowing. The government issues bonds which are purchased by private investors and/or foreign governments. This debt and interest must be repaid by U.S. citizens. The current US debt stands at 19.1 Trillion Dollars (www.usdebtclock.org ). The current U.S. population is 323,114,210 (www.census.gov/popclock/ ). If you divide the debt by the population, the result is that each person owes approximately $60,000.
- Creating Money. If the government does not have enough tax revenue to pay for the highway, and it cannot find buyers for its bonds, it can create new money. What happens is that the Federal Reserve, a private bank who was given the authority to control the money supply in 1913 (http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/fract.htm ), purchases bonds from the government and creates new money which it then gives to the government to spend. This is actually a hidden form of taxation as every new dollar created makes your dollars worth a little less. Whichever way the funding occurs, money is taken from individuals or they are placed into debt without their consent.
Example 2: Anti-Discrimination Law
The Federal Government makes a law that says a business cannot discriminate against homosexual customers:
- If the business refuses to sell products or provide services to a homosexual customer, they will be forced to pay a $100,000 fine (for example). If they refuse to pay the fine, the business will be seized from the owners. If the owners try to prevent the government from taking their business, further force will be used. As described earlier, the force escalates until compliance is achieved and it can escalate to lethal force if necessary.
- On a personal note, I feel that discriminating against someone because of their sexual preference is a lousy thing to do. I would not be a patron of that business and would be happy to see a competing business get those customers. I would also support things like boycotting and/or other ways of raising awareness of their lousy business practices. However, I would not support the initiation of force, including lethal force, against the business owners.
In this post I've laid out the definition of government. In the next part of this series I will explore the definitions of capitalism and crony capitalism.
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