Posted on 11/14/2002 11:12:52 AM PST by u-89
The Myth of 'Limited Government'
by Joseph Sobran
We are taught that the change from monarchy to democracy is progress; that is, a change from servitude to liberty. Yet no monarchy in Western history ever taxed its subjects as heavily as every modern democracy taxes its citizens.
But we are taught that this condition is liberty, because "we" are ? freely ? taxing "ourselves." The individual, as a member of a democracy, is presumed to consent to being taxed and otherwise forced to do countless things he hasn?t chosen to do (or forbidden to do things he would prefer not to do).
Whence arises the right of a ruler to compel? This is a tough one, but modern rulers have discovered that a plausible answer can be found in the idea of majority rule. If the people rule themselves by collective decision, they can?t complain that the government is oppressing them. This notion is summed up in the magic word "democracy."
It?s nonsense. "We" are not doing it to "ourselves." Some people are still ruling other people. "Democracy" is merely the pretext for authorizing this process and legitimizing it in the minds of the ruled. Since outright slavery has been discredited, "democracy" is the only remaining rationale for state compulsion that most people will accept.
Now comes Hans-Hermann Hoppe, of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, to explode the whole idea that there can ever be a just state. And he thinks democracy is worse than many other forms of government. He makes his case in his new book Democracy ? The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order (Transaction Publishers).
Hoppe is often described as a libertarian, but it might be more accurate to call him a conservative anarchist. He thinks the state ? "a territorial monopoly of compulsion" ? is inherently subversive of social health and order, which can thrive only when men are free.
As soon as you grant the state anything, Hoppe argues, you have given it everything. There can be no such thing as "limited government," because there is no way to control an entity that in principle enjoys a monopoly of power (and can simply expand its own power).
We?ve tried. We adopted a Constitution that authorized the Federal Government to exercise only a few specific powers, reserving all other powers to the states and the people. It didn?t work. Over time the government claimed the sole authority to interpret the Constitution, then proceeded to broaden its own powers ad infinitum and to strip the states of their original powers ? while claiming that its self-aggrandizement was the fulfillment of the "living" Constitution. So the Constitution has become an instrument of the very power it was intended to limit!
The growth of the Federal Government might have been slowed if the states had retained the power to withdraw from the confederation. But the Civil War established the fatal principle that no state could withdraw, for any reason. So the states and the people lost their ultimate defense against Federal tyranny. (And if they hadn?t, there would still have been the problem of the tyranny of individual states.) But today Americans have learned to view the victory of the Union over the states, which meant an enormous increase in the centralization of power, as a triumph of "democracy."
Hoppe goes so far as to say that democracy is positively "immoral," because "it allows for A and B to band together to rip off C." He argues that monarchy is actually preferable, because a king has a personal interest in leaving his kingdom in good condition for his heirs; whereas democratic rulers, holding power only briefly, have an incentive to rob the public while they can, caring little for what comes afterward. (The name "Clinton" may ring a bell here.)
And historically, kings showed no desire to invade family life; but modern democracies want to "protect" children from their parents. By comparison with the rule of our alleged equals, most kings displayed remarkably little ambition for power. And compared with modern war, the wars of kings were mere scuffles.
Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves.
I think the argument is highly flawed that Monarchs are "less intrusive" and or wage war less than "Democracies".
Prussia was generally considered the most "liberal" of the German monarchies -- so much so that the 1848 revolutionaries offered the crown of a united Germany to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Even in the 18th century, Prussia was thought of very highly by both the English (generally reputed to have been the most free among all Europeans) and the Americans. There were some in the Continental Congress who seriously entertained the idea of offering the crown of an American monarchy to Heinrich of Prussia, the King's brother.
With respect to the technology issue, Russia under Lenin and Stalin, and Germany under Hitler, were able to execute, starve, and brutalise tens of millions of people with technology that had already been in existence during the previous, constitutional (and monarchical) governments.
The Great War was started by ministers, rather than monarchs. The main instigator of Russian mobilisation had been the French emissary to the Tsar. If it were left up to the Tsar and Kaiser Wilhelm, there probably would not have been a war at all.
The French under the last few Louis's were taxed heavier than we are, by far.
It caused a revolution.
Walt
The Constitution doesn't do that.
But...Americans drive automobiles on the Moon. Is anybody else going to do that any time soon?
The states never had that power -- except by revolution. The Supreme Court ruled on that as early as 1793. The Judiciary Act of 1789 requires that "controversies of a civil nature" between the states be submitted to the Supreme Court. Lastly (until the usual suspects show up) the Militia Act of 1792 requires that United States law operate in all the states.
The states have never had a right to withdraw from the Union under U.S. law.
Walt
If you read some of the accounts of the tax collectors in France, you might not think so.
Ironically, the Frogs bankrupted themselves into revolution in order to help us out against the Brits.
Walt
While I imagine that you used the term "corrupt" as one readily at hand, I do wish the problem was that simple with that branch.
The activist judiciary we have is every bit as much a danger to the Rule of Law and legitiment government when animated by leftist ideals as it was when acting to support reactionary agendas, like Dred Scott, in the last century.
The Tempting of America by Robert Bork is an excellent study of this issue.
If it was nothing but "corruption", impeachment and other measures might address it. Instead, it is a foundational perversion of the role of a judiciary.
I dunno. Kaiser Bill couldn't wait to get it on.
Walt
Well said.
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Yeh, I really liked that line too.
A state is defined conventionally as an agency that exercises a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate decison-making (jurisdiction) and of taxation. By definition then, every state, regardless of its particular constitution, is economically and ethically deficient. Every monopolist is "bad" from the viewpoint of consumers.
That's a static example, with one good, which is private. Both cited powers are public rather than private goods.
So much for the "theory" of the state.
Totally off subject but: It is interesting to note as well that Serfdom declined in Western Europe faster than the Center or the East because of one event- The Black Death. The Plauge hit Western Europe much more severely than the rest of Europe (England suffered perhaps worst of all.) There were places in Western Europe were entire villages disappeared off the map and were swallowed by the wilderness again. This massive de-population of Western Europe gave the remaining Serfs power- their labor was needed and they could demand wages and even land titles for their labor from a landed class that had land but no hands to work it. The free, Western Europeon yeoman farmer was born from out of the ashes of the black death- and this class in turn generated a need for property rights law- real estate law- more sophisticated inheritence laws- indeed- created a demand for the rule of law, courts and officers to enforce law. One can trace a line from the birth of this new post Black Death class of free farmers and their "common law" to our Constitution.
Pretty loathsome bunch those tax collectors. I read once about why in Jesus' days tax collectors were so despised. The Romans used some locals to collect the taxes and had a rate set for themselves and gave authority to certain chaps to get it and with this power these agents raked people over the coals and the Romans didn't care as long as they got theirs. The tax collectors got weallthy at the expense of their fellow citizens. Matthew, I believe was a tax collector, seems he had good reason to repent.
Er, the objective fact is that the Germans launched the invasion of France in 1914, not vice versa.
One might argue that the Germans were responding to French "pushiness", just as one might argue that the 9-11 Massacre was a response to American "imperialism". In either case, you'd better get your weight down to the point where it can be supported by the tensile strength of straws.
The myth of German war guilt gave the western allies lots of leverage to bring the U.S. into the war. It also provided a moral justification for the peace that was dictated afterwards.
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