The State Of Mind That Now Exists Is The Precursor To "The Strike"

[Selene]

7/08/2012 @ 11:17AM |1,371 views

July 4th Question, Part III: Americans Revolt Billions of Times a Day

Alexis de Tocqueville. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alexis De Tocqueville once said that the limits placed on the central power in the new world are different from the limits placed on national power in the old world. In the New World, the national government has jurisdiction in certain specific areas. It is prohibited by law and custom from transgressing the boundaries of its jurisdiction. In that sense its power is severely limited. But within those boundaries it is sovereign and almost completely beyond challenge. If something such as war or taxing power is deemed a ‘federal matter,’ challenges to that power, for example the Whiskey Rebellion, were historically rare and suppressed mercilessly when they did occur.

On the other hand, Tocqueville says, the Old World functioned quite differently. The monarchs tended to be in constant conflict with other political powers regarding proper jurisdiction. The crown and the aristocracy and the colonies and provinces were engaged in an eternal game of tug of war, with each citing their own interpretation of law and custom to attempt to limit the jurisdiction of the others. Tocqueville observed that the limits to the powers of the central government in that case were largely imposed by the practical limits of enforcement. If a province was too well armed, then they went unmolested. If the aristocracy had the armies to resist, then they resisted. If colonies were too far away, or protected by seasonal factors then they had greater liberty. The monarch could only rule what he had the power to take and to keep, whereas America at the time that Democracy In America was being written tended to respect federal authority even where federales were few and far between.

It seems to be that as the United States federal government and the Presidency in particular have gradually morphed into something more like a European monarchy, our attitude towards its sovereignty has shifted. Certainly no state or province or faction of the ruling class would dare to challenge the military might of the United States in a single act of open revolt. But as time goes on we challenge it in small acts of secret revolt. Violation, for example, of our draconian system of immigration laws has become quite common. How many appointees to the federal bench or to the office of Attorney General must be caught in nannygate scandals involving child care payments to illegal aliens made under the table before we get the fact that our governing class, even that part which is directly pledged to enforce the law, routinely ignore this law?

We have a Treasury secretary who cheated on his taxes. But he is not the only one. There are probably more people who buy goods and services via the internet and catalogues who don’t pay sales taxes than people who do. We’ve been rehabbing our 132-year-old home for several years now, and I can tell you, some subcontractors expect to be paid in cash under the table. We follow speed limits when we think they are being enforced only. Dads let their teenaged kids drink beer. People cross the state line to buy fireworks, or any good when the sales tax is lower. People on unemployment compensation stretch it out so they can work on their eBay business.

Retirees buy discount drugs from Canada. Families share prescription antibiotics with other family members for whom they have not been prescribed. A man with cancer smokes marijuana even though he doesn’t live in a medical marijuana state. When we are driving at night and we come to a T in the road with a stop sign and there is no one else around, we slow down and roll through the stop sign. We eschew seatbelt laws when we take short safe jaunts up the block. We let our kids do a little practice driving in the parking lot before they get their learners permit.

We don’t recycle every time they tell us to. We top off the gas tank even though they tell us not to. If they announce they are going to illegalize normal light bulbs, we buy more, not less of them to stock up. If we think that gasoline will kill the poison ivy better than some biodegradable eco-approved watered down stuff, we use the gas. Even though certain states had anti-sodomy statutes on the books up until just a few years ago, gay people had sex in their homes all the time, and did not give a thought to the ordinances.

Businesses split in half so as to be qualified for small business exemptions from federal regulation. Farmers look the other way when they hire day laborers who clearly are not citizens. Federal regulators write their regulations, and financiers change their form of organization in unforeseen ways to avoid the regulations, even ones they pushed for.

George Soros delists his hedge fund to avoid rules his beneficiaries wrote. Businesses treat many regulations as cost of business and just pay the fine rather than incur extreme costs. Factories and labs create commonsense workarounds to arbitrary OSHA regulations.

And most people have absolutely no moral compunction about any of these violations of the either the spirit or the letter of the law, because deep down they no longer believe that the law, especially the tax code, represents any compelling moral principle, nor do its dictates seem any longer to be fair. They don’t think their home state has earned taxes on the Amazon purchases or that it deserves any share of the mutually beneficial exchange between you and your dry wall guy.

I bet you can think of a few dozen more examples, and increasingly we’re all in business and in personal life thinking of more and more ways to game a system which we have less and less faith in.

It’s not civil disobedience that I’m talking about. It’s the opposite: Civil disobedience is meant to be noticed. It is a price paid in the hope of creating social change. What I’m talking about is not based on hope; in fact, it has given up much hope on social change. It thinks the government is a colossal amoeba twitching mindlessly in response to tiny pinpricks of pain from an endless army of micro-brained interest groups. The point is not to teach the amoeba nor to guide it, but simply to stay away from the lethal stupidity of its pseudopods.

The amoeba does not get smarter but it does get hungrier and bigger. On the other hand, we get smarter. More and more of our life takes place outside of the amoeba’s reach: in the privacy of our own homes, or in capital accounts in other nations, or in the fastest growing amoeba avoidance zone ever created, cyberspace. We revolt decision by decision, transaction by transaction, because we believe deep down that most of what government tells us to do is at bottom illegitimate.

This article is available online at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2012/07/08/july-4th-question-part-iii-americans-revolt-billions-of-times-a-day/

[Brant Gaede]

That's a central problem with "Atlas Shrugged"--the people stopped producing on all levels, giving up. So Russian under Stalin, but that was totalitarian. (Or maybe Ayn Rand depressive respecting the background she came out of.) The political world of the novel was not totalitarian, but hoi polloi psychologically behaved in some respects as if under a totalitarian thumb.

What is true is the more regulations and bad taxing policies and the bigger the government the bigger the slowing in economic growth decade by decade and the more you have to have work to maintain your standard of living. Dad has to work and now both Mom and Dad have to work. And the greater the economic distortions created by the inflation of the money supply. The 1913 buck is now worth 2 cents. These distortions, especially those created by gross mal-investments since WWII are going to be liquidated and we are entering the greatest depression in world history slo-mo.

--Brant

did Rand fight a constant threat of depression with writing?

[syrakusos]

Interesting perspectives, thank you for posting this.

But within those boundaries it is sovereign and almost completely beyond challenge. If something such as war or taxing power is deemed a ‘federal matter,’ challenges to that power, for example the Whiskey Rebellion, were historically rare and suppressed mercilessly when they did occur. ... It seems to be that as the United States federal government and the Presidency in particular have gradually morphed into something more like a European monarchy, our attitude towards its sovereignty has shifted. Certainly no state or province or faction of the ruling class would dare to challenge the military might of the United States in a single act of open revolt.

That makes this exceptional:

(CNN) – Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Monday the Lone Star State will not execute major parts of the Affordable Care Act, the controversial federal health care law recently upheld by the Supreme Court.

... According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute, 14 states and the District of Columbia have made "significant progress" toward implementing reforms, while another 19 states have made "moderate progress," leaving 17 states - or about a third - that have yet to change their laws or take other steps toward implementation.

... This isn't the first time Perry has refused to accept federal monies. In 2010, the governor did not take funds for the government's "Race to the Top" education program, citing the state would be required to replace state testing standards with national requirements.

CNN here

"... The monarchs tended to be in constant conflict with other political powers regarding proper jurisdiction. The crown and the aristocracy and the colonies and provinces were engaged in an eternal game of tug of war, with each citing their own interpretation of law and custom to attempt to limit the jurisdiction of the others. ..."

Right. The so-called "divine right of kings" was a doctrine invented by James II/VI and announced to Parliament. James was a Renaissance scholar, who thought clearly and expressed himself well, even though we might disagree with his conclusions there. The point is that this was exceptional. No medieval king would have understood him on his own terms. Similarly, it is cogent that the writers of the Declaration of Independence called King George a "tyrant." We conflate that with "dictator" and let both mean "bad government" but the words had specific meanings. The men of those time read Oedipus in Greek. We too often call it "Oedipus Rex" but Rex he was not. The play is titled "Oedipous Tyrannos" - he had no hereditary right to the crown (though indeed, he did; the irony of tragedy); he was a self-proclaimed as a self-made man.

"... But as time goes on we challenge it in small acts of secret revolt. We have a Treasury secretary who cheated on his taxes. ... via the internet and catalogues who don’t pay sales taxes ... subcontractors expect to be paid in cash under the table. We follow speed limits when we think they are being enforced only. ... "

Back when he was still thinking clearly, Newt Gingrich had a speech he gave about welfare reform. When asked if he did not think it reprehensible that people sell food stamps for 75 cents on the dollar to buy booze and cigarettes, he said, "No." He said, "these people are Americans. You cannot give an American a negotiable instrument and then complain when they negotiate it for something they want." He contrasted Americans with Germans. (He grew up in Germany, an Army kid.) Germany is a good bureaucratic nation, he said. The German people want to know what the law is and their government tells them. They have no speed limit on the Autobahn because they do not want one, but if they had one, they would obey it. To Americans, Gingrich said, "... the speed limit is a benchmark of opportunity." Therefore, any reform of welfare cannot rely on reprisals and punishments, but must involve rewards and incentives.

And most people have absolutely no moral compunction about any of these violations of the either the spirit or the letter of the law, because deep down they no longer believe that the law, especially the tax code, represents any compelling moral principle, nor do its dictates seem any longer to be fair. They don’t think their home state has earned taxes on the Amazon purchases or that it deserves any share of the mutually beneficial exchange between you and your dry wall guy.

What is ironic is that the Founders were men who wanted to pay taxes. One problem was that only land was recognized as property and as merchants they wanted to pay taxes on their rented homes and movable inventories. The other problem, of course, was that in their own colonies, they could vote on those taxes, whereas they were denied that right by the English government. I have a hard time explaining to my libertarian friends why I stayed with an accountant (for 20 years) who sought to maximize our taxes. We did not impoverish ourselves to feed the state, but we did and do take pride in being producers of wealth, not consumers of benefits. ... but as you note... that has changed as the government in Washington DC (and the state capitals) today, looks more like the Court of St. James in 1776.

I find it interesting that as in other nexus events in the past, the radical left and radical right agree on so much. We have noted this for a generation (gradually), but now, if you pay attention to both Occupy and Tea Party events, the rhetoric is the same. Even as Roseanne Barr lashed out against "that goddam Ayn Rand book" she admitted to the need for competitive and open markets. Back in 2010, I worked an LP booth in Ann Arbor and the Ron Paul people had no trouble getting signatures on their "Audit the Fed" petitions. The video here on OL about "Debt" resonates with pseudo-Marxist rhetoric, and is well-received.