By almost all measures, people throughout much of the
developed and developing world enjoy a standard of living unprecedented in
history. Even the poorest individuals today
live a life that a king did not enjoy even two centuries ago. Consider: climate controlled living
environments, entertainment of all sorts on demand, travel around the world,
instantaneous communications, an infinitely wide diversity of food and drink. The list can go on – and none of it available
to King George or King Louis, yet most if not all of it available to everyone
except the poorest of the poor in the least developed regions of the world
today.
Progress
From the beginning of recorded history until about 1800,
living conditions did not change significantly for much of the world. Certainly, one could time-travel from Rome to
the 18th century North American colonies of Britain and carve out a
living without much difficulty and with no additional training: a farmer, a cobbler,
a shopkeeper. Little had changed.
However, take that colonist and bring him to today. A productive individual of even two-hundred
years ago would find his options at gainful employment today severely limited
without significant training. He could hardly
even make a living as a farmer today, except in the barest sense of
subsistence.
I will not attempt to identify even a small fraction of the
technological advancements that have been brought to market that have made this
possible. However, I will offer that along
with each advancement – allowing a more advanced standard of living – has come
the possibility of making it easier for others to control us.
This trade-off, it seems to me, is inevitable and is the
cost of progress.
Tools are Tools
We advance by means of the introduction of new tools into
the marketplace (of course preceded by savings, requiring some recognition of private
property). By tools, I don’t mean simply
hammers and screwdrivers. Tools include
such “hardware,” but also “software”: ideas, designs, business practices, and
the like. Tools include the ability to
pool capital efficiently through intermediaries.
Tools are almost always amoral – not having a quality of
right or wrong. (The only exception, in
my opinion, would be weapons
of mass destruction, where, in the
use of the weapon as designed, innocents are killed.)
With each new tool that offers the possibility of an
improved standard of living comes the risk of further centralization and
control. This is especially obvious
today with the advancement of computing and telecommunication technology, but
it has been true throughout the history of man’s development.
Money and credit
– the single-most important tool for improving man’s standard of living: there
is no division-of-labor economy without it.
Yet, control of money and credit by kings and states is one of the most
sinister methods of control ever devised.
Firearms – the
one equalizer when it comes to providing for self-defense. A ninety pound weakling is able to defend
himself against all manner of bullies if properly armed and trained. Yet, control of weaponry – especially control
of advanced weaponry not available to the general public – is the means by
which kings and states turn their desired monopoly control into reality.
Modern
telecommunications – an opening to a world of ideas and experiences; the
means by which like-minded minorities can find each other and communicate with
multiple parties simultaneously regardless of geographic distance. This was virtually impossible before the
development of the fax machine, and extremely difficult before the internet. Yet, who by now is not aware of the uses that
the state is employing of these same tools against
virtually every connected person in the world?
Money and credit; firearms; modern telecommunications: would
you voluntarily go back to a world without any of these? I would rather not. While each one of these comes with additional
opportunities for control, each also allows for significant protection and
advancement of freedom.
Level the Playing
Field
Every advancement, while it brings possibilities of further
centralization and control, also brings opportunities to level the playing
field. It seems clear that the
division-of-labor economy made possible by the advancement of money and credit
has been beneficial to the relative position of the vast majority of mankind.
The availability of relatively inexpensive firearms –
capable of defending against an aggressor regardless of the physical strength
of the individual so armed – has brought relative equality to the concept of
personal protection.
What of modern telecommunications – the internet? Many are rightly focused on the possibilities
(and realities) that such a tool offers to a coercive state. Fair enough.
But what of leveling the playing field for the minority? What of those who advocate for individual
liberty, for the non-aggression principle?
What of the
remnant?
Many have come to learn the ideas of liberty,
non-aggression, and Austrian economics thanks to the internet. It is the most wonderful tool for allowing a
decentralization of ideas. And it is
only though ideas that real change will come.
The internet has leveled the playing field for ideas. True, it is a home for ideas of all sorts –
including every form of statism; however, in the political field there are only
two-sides – statists of one version or another, and us. The statists (of whatever stripe) always had
avenues to get the word out – the gatekeepers ensured that only statist ideas
were represented in the dialogue.
Through the internet, we have an avenue outside of the
control of the gatekeepers. Even if we
reach a small handful, it is a larger handful reached than in the days of
mimeograph machines and snail-mail lists.
The promises of the state will slowly be broken. What comes next depends on the ideas that an
active minority embrace. This is where
the battle lies. Our only limit is
reach, and the internet breaks that barrier.
Every advance in technology offers opportunities for
coercive control to go along with the benefits of progress. The internet offers the opportunity to avoid
the gatekeepers.
In the war of ideas and in a world of gatekeepers, this is a
tradeoff worth embracing.
But the State is
Worse than Ever
Are you sure?
Was there ever really “the good old days” in the
post-renaissance west?
Many rightly point to the myriad violations by various
governments in the west – first on the list being the United States
government. The violations are visible
at home, and especially abroad. The ability
of the US government to track and monitor every detail of individual activity
appears almost limitless. The ability of
the US government to murder countless millions of people is also limitless.
Some look longingly toward an American past – perhaps in
their young adulthood, under Reagan; their childhood, under Ike; or maybe when
they first immigrated to this land of the free; or, for the more (but not totally)
cynical, the liberty under the founding generation.
Myths, all myths. Dreamtime,
to coin a phrase I first read at The
Daily Bell.
From even prior to the American Revolution, there
were many desirous of revolution for the sake of replacing foreign control
with local, American centralized control.
Independence? Ha! For me, but not for thee!
Of course, eventually these forces won – not later than
1789.
What of the Alien and Sedition
Acts? Many fondly remember Jefferson
for pardoning those convicted under these acts before his presidency, yet are
not aware of his own violations:
Thomas Jefferson, upon assuming the
Presidency, pardoned those still serving sentences under the Sedition Act,
though he also used the acts to prosecute several of his own critics before the
acts expired.
Jefferson also consummated the Louisiana Purchase
under cloudy Constitutional skies:
Some historians argue that
Jefferson was a hypocrite in the Louisiana Purchase, primarily pointing to the
fact that Jefferson was a strict constructionist in his views on the
Constitution, yet allegedly took a loose constructionist view of the Constitution
regarding the Louisiana Purchase.
And what of Jefferson’s lack
of action in reigning in a Supreme Court that was actively engaged in
expanding central government power?
I pick on Jefferson only because he is the most fondly
idolized founder by those who consider the late 18th and early 19th
century to be the good old days because of Jefferson’s role.
Lincoln? His
abuses are myriad, and the United States has seen nothing like it on their
shores since then (of course, no state has seceded since then). It cannot be disputed that the government was
more abusive toward Americans during this time than it is today.
What of the slaves before 1865, or American Indians from the
first colonial landing until today? Life
for people in these groups was much worse at the hand of the state than any
abuses rained down on the majority of Americans today.
Moving on to the 20th century: World War One – a mess
for Americans, and a disaster for Europeans; World War Two – a war that had its
roots in American involvement in the Great War (although likely that Stalin
would have attacked the west regardless of the situation in Germany). What if you happened to live in Central
Europe during the first half of the last century? Is life so much worse today in the west than
it was for individuals of any race and religion who found themselves caught up
in this part of the world?
Mao’s China? Stalin’s
Russia? Armenians in the crumbling days
of the Ottoman Empire? A Cambodian under
the Khmer Rouge? The twentieth century
alone has seen hundreds of millions killed at the hand of the state.
What is my point? Not
to suggest that everything today is great, but only an attempt to keep
perspective. It is easy to get caught up
in the-end-of-the-world possibilities today, the closing-in of the police
state. On the one hand, these past
historical examples don’t make the current situation in the west any easier to
live under. However, as long as earth is
populated by humans, the current situation isn’t so bad.
In the meantime, we have a tool that none of these other
victims have had – a means to communicate with the remnant; a means to reach
out to the millions of curious – those who realize something is wrong, but they
just aren’t sure what it is.
The State is Losing
When the promises of safety and security fail, the state, as
it is known today, will fail expire along with the failed promises.
We Are Winning
The cost of progress is often the potential loss of privacy. However, the benefits of progress are
immense.
According
to Rothbard, we will win – and it is because many of our compatriots
ultimately will demand it:
The clock cannot be turned back to
a preindustrial age….We are stuck with the industrial age, whether we like it
or not.
But if that is true, then the cause
of liberty is secured. For economic
science has shown, as we have partially demonstrated in this book, that only
freedom and a free market can run an industrial economy. In short…in an industrial world it is also a
vital necessity. For, as Ludwig von
Mises and other economists have shown, in an industrial economy statism simply
does not work.
The calamities of the state are upon us. Price mechanisms are quite distorted, and
profit and loss are not allowed to perform their function. The alternative to returning to a
pre-industrial time is to allow markets to work.
And we are winning.
Look at the dialogue today: the Fed and empire are both openly debated
and criticized. Historical fiction is
under continuous pressure: 911, JFK, FDR and WWII, FDR and the Depression, the
so-called civil war. As the myths
supporting the state religion are shattered, the foundations of state
worship crumble.
Austrian economics has re-entered the dialogue – at least at
the periphery, for now. Of course, today
the allowed dialogue is either Hayek (grudgingly) or ridicule; however, soon even
Rothbard will have to be seriously confronted.
Most interesting, it seems to me, is both the
domestic and global reaction regarding the US desire to bomb Syria.
None of this was reality even ten years ago. Thanks to the fortuitous combination of Ron
Paul, the internet, and the several internet pioneers toiling for freedom, the
dialogue has changed. More importantly,
under the radar, millions of individuals are looking for answers.
Write a blog; financially support those who effectively get
out the message; meet the inquisitive where they are – don’t start with
Rothbard or Hoppe, for goodness sakes!
Anarcho-capitalism is a hard pill to swallow with a dry throat.
Remember, Rome didn’t
crumble in a day; neither will this empire.
But crumble it will, aided both by its own contradiction and the power
of the tool of both decentralization and centralization – the internet. Let us pray for a peaceful, Soviet-style
ending.
We should be so fortunate.
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