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Longing for Dictatorship
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Lew Rockwell.com
Friday, Aug 29, 2008
Politics brings out the worst in everyone, which is one good reason to completely depoliticize society. This way we can all busy ourselves in productive work or leisure, instead of wasting vast time watching these clowns on television promise the impossible to us.
What we are being offered on television is two flavors of dictatorship. One party imagines Athens, with fairness and justice for all, international brotherhood and sisterhood, a world free of hate and discrimination in which all wealth is shared and no wealth is made at the expense of nature.
Of course, this is an Athens of their own invention, since the original’s culture and accomplishments depended on free trade, private ownership, sound money, and low taxes. What the Democrats are offering is a monstrously larger state that assumes control of all property, the crushing of private initiative, and an end to economic freedom.
Note that they don’t talk about this. But that is the core of all their plans for fairness and justice: an increased use of violence in society, and an increased centralization of political power. Often the person who recommends this path imagines that he will be the dictator, and that his plans alone will prevail.
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They don’t consider that the state they advocate is also wholly capable of doing things that they do not like, like crushing civil liberties and starting wars all over the world. Note that the left’s critique of Bush’s big government is not that it is crushing liberty; rather, they believe that government power is being used for the wrong purposes.
Another problem with these people: they can’t stand capitalism. They resent the commercial society. They have not come to terms with the fact that without capitalism, most of the human race would starve the death. Why do they hate it? Because wealth under capitalism will always be unequally distributed.
They favor a different form of dictatorship.
Now to the Republicans, who imagine themselves creating a modern form of Sparta, with military strength and a disciplined citizenry unified in the drive to national greatness, courage, and heroism. Along with this comes support for national service (the draft) and a demand that Congress stop meddling in executive-branch matters.
They also say that they are for free enterprise, but what they really mean is that they support their main constituents who are large corporations dependent on government contracts and privileges. That goes for the banks and the mortgage companies too, whose interests they defend through a fiat money system that further fuels state growth.
This too is their version of dictatorship.
It is long past time for both of these parties to admit it. They won’t of course, so it is incumbent on the rest of us to at least recognize it for what it is. It is often said that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between the parties, but there is little reflection on what precisely they have in common. It comes down to a love of some version of dictatorship, of which they believe they will be the administrators.
What is the alternative? It is pure liberty, a word that is used only as a slogan in public affairs these days. By liberty, I mean only one kind: a life without badgering from the state. There is nothing on God’s green earth that the state can do better than we can as individuals and communities and voluntary associations. What I mean by liberty is no more or less than firing the state as the administrator of society.
The politicians are forever talking about their plans for us. We should reject them all, left, right, and center. Would this leave chaos in its wake? Not at all. It would leave the orderliness of the private property society.
As Mises wrote, “The truth is that the choice is not between a dead mechanism and a rigid automatism on the one hand and conscious planning on the other hand. The alternative is not plan or no plan. The question is: whose planning? Should each member of society plan for himself or should the paternal government alone plan for all? The issue is not automatism versus conscious action; it is spontaneous action of each individual versus the exclusive action of the government. It is freedom versus government omnipotence.”
Mises wrote those words in 1949. People said that he was being hyperbolic, that he was nuts and inflammatory. Surely our system has nothing in common with the German system we had just fought a war to destroy, and nothing in common with the Russian system that was becoming our new enemy.
But people forget that in the 1930s, it was conventional wisdom that our essential choice was between two forms of dictatorship, socialism or fascism. People were more open back then, using these words not in a derogatory way. Here we are all these years later, and we no longer speak with deference toward socialism and fascism as systems of government.
Even so, the intellectual assumptions remain the same. Watch the conventions with an eye to what the political class wants to do for you. Everything they promise has a flip side of what they want to do to you. And the power to do these things has to come from the violence of the state, and using that violence requires a form of total control over government and society. They may look nice and sweet. They may claim to love you and your family and community. But their political ideology is actually steeped in hatred for your liberty and property. They seek an end to your freedom to seek a better life.
They seek dictatorship. All the rest is illusion.
Prison
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17 Responses to “Longing for Dictatorship”
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August 29th, 2008 at 5:21 am
“Of course, this is an Athens of their own invention, since the original’s culture and accomplishments depended on free trade, private ownership, sound money, and low taxes.” – and…um…slavery…did you forget the SLAVE LABOR that Athens (and every ancient society) relied on Lew? Since I don’t think you’re an idiot I can only surmise you left out referencing it because you think it was a good idea. hmmmm?
August 29th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Sidd-
The Ninny Patrol (NP) wants you to know that you’ve been cited for ‘pissy’ ninnying. -3 pts.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I hadn’t thought of our political system in quite those terms, but I agree wholly with the analogy. Choose Daddy #1 or choose Daddy #2. The end result is top down control in your (democratic) choice of flavors.
August 29th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Sidd-
We rely on slavery too – just look at the bottom of your coffee cup to find out which country’s slaves made it. Also ask yourself this question – Were serfs in the medieval days the same as slaves? If so, they were required to fork over 40% of the crop yields that they produced to their lords. What percentage of your labor i.e. taxes do you fork over to your lords. (Don’t forget to include all of the taxes that you pay not just the income tax).
August 29th, 2008 at 7:26 am
There’s some programmed bullshit in there, and some truth.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Regardless of how Lew gets to the bottom line, I can’t fault his conclusion. Many, maybe most politicians are con artists, and we the public are the ‘conned’. One of these days when they have us all boxed in a corner, they will create a national emergency, declare martial law, and suspend the constitution. Won’t that be fun!
August 29th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Hahaha!….the word “Dictator” manifests such fear in a population that is plagued with illusions of freedom. We are not and have never been free. No politician in modern times has EVER been true to their words. Still you ignore the fact that your freedom comes in the form of larger cage than most. Look at your paycheck- taxed mercilessly. Those funds allocated to programs you probably have no knowledge of. Laws and legislation you never got to vote on. The US Gov. policy has nothing to do who you elect as the executioners. It will be done by whoever you prefer. Your wake up call came in the ’30s folks, long before most of us were born. It’s time to embrace the horror and much too late for anything else. Join us! and together we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the world! Join the NWO! For a safe and secure society!
August 29th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
It is sad that we as a nation are basically paying (through taxation) for our own peril…..When is america going to wake up from our deep deep hibernation and just stop paying into the system that bleeds us all???? When are we going to stop allowing these jack booted, thug nazi cops to stop brutalising people. Cops beat the shit out of a peaceful protester and everyone stands around watching like a bunch of scared cowards. Think about it…..if even 100 or so protesters fight back and mob right over these thug cops it might put a few things in perspective. Strength in numbers, what are they gonna do fire into the crowd and kill everyone? That would only solidify and bring into perspective the fact that we have become a nazi style dictatorship. I saw a video of a soccer match in Italy where the cops started clubbing one of the fans with a night stick, the next thing you know the entire crowd converged on the officers and brutally attacked them sending them fleeing for they’re lives. In a free society the government fears it’s citizenry and in a police state, the people fear they’re police and government, this is what we have in america today and it has to be stopped if we the people truely value our liberty and independence. Do we want to be free men or slaves????????
August 30th, 2008 at 2:01 am
I agree with the article accept on this point. Neither pure Capitalism nor Socialism is the solution. History has proven that either extreme generates its own problems. The writer of this article places too much faith in free enterprise. The problem is one of balance between these two poles. In other words, I think it’s foolish to equate liberty solely with the possession of property. In many ways the overall liberty of society would be better served by diminishing some forms of property.
As for government, I’m all for reducing it to the furthest extent possible. The article seems to be on the right track in suggesting that professional politics be traded for some more democratic form of governance such as a system of individual participation in the administering of society. This non-state approach combined with some other non-coercive means of limiting gross inequalities might do the trick. Perhaps we are going to need a cultural revolution as well as a political one.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
So maybe we should boycott the election and hold our own, put Paul and Kucinich on the ballot. Then we can start filling up the concentraion camps with the rich and powerful nwo goons who built them, and make THEM do the slave labor for US. Why don’t we just flip the board on em? It is possible, afterall it’s the masses who have the real control and power in society, we’ve just been tricked into thinking otherwise…
August 30th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
We must keep the dream alive-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErFOsoKzpD0
God Bless
GS
August 31st, 2008 at 10:07 am
this sucks
September 1st, 2008 at 1:08 am
The whole problem is that to prevent people from seeking power we must make it the most thankless, demeaning, underpaid and intrusive experience one could dream of rather than the opposite!
September 1st, 2008 at 1:18 am
To be a President with the powers of this Bush buffoon he shouldn’t be paid a nickel, his bank account should be on a public website for life, he should have a tv camera and microphone on him in every room and everywhere he travels monitored by an impartial 3rd party, both he and his family should have all their investments and holdings made public, and every penny that went into his campaign and every supporter and endorsers ads and press releases and where every cent came from also be made public, and only then could he be rewarded thereafter – with a huge pension
September 1st, 2008 at 7:30 am
test.
September 1st, 2008 at 7:31 am
they are all a bunch of blood sucking tics. Look at the name: “poly” meaning many and “tics” small blood sucking insects living off the blood of the host. Makes sense doesn’t it?
September 1st, 2008 at 11:42 am
VOTE FOR 3RD PARTY BOB BARR FOR PRESIDENT. BOB BARR/WAYNE ROOT
THE SOCIALISM NEEDS TO STOP.