Thesis Number: #4 (Page 1 of 8)
Nations that want to flourish must relearn the secret of the strong State. That strength is not based on military fire-power. It stems from the creative power of people. Their energy, which is mortally degraded by taxation, is emancipated when the public’s finances are based on the rents that people are willing to pay to use the services of nature and society.
Mortal Taxes or a Life of Liberty
DEMOCRATIC societies are being undermined. Homeland security is not being compromised by crazed suicide bombers shouting blasphemous slogans. Vitriolic corrosion of national vitality may be traced to the actions of middle-class citizens who feel deeply aggrieved with the way they are governed.
The negative attitudes of a growing number of citizens are systematically weakening the State. The process has been taking hold for decades. The US Federal Government shut-down in October 2013 illustrated how a small group, voicing anger at tax policy, can shame a superpower and diminish politics to a crude game of horse-trading.
Taxation is the lightning conductor of popular discontent. Animosity directed at taxes is the sure way to unite people against their representatives. Taxes are inherently bad; at best, a necessary evil. This shared perspective drains confidence in government and weakens public agencies, a weakness that will be exploited by the emerging Asian powers which are seeking a larger share of the spoils from a new geo-political order.
A model of governance exists that would unite rather than rupture nations. The win-win formula is based on a structure of High Finance which, applied globally, would enable every nation to share prosperity. That outcome is predicated on the adoption a public finance system that emancipated all citizens.
The process of erasing popular awareness of that model of freedom originated a century ago. The initiative worked. Special interest groups are now free to engage in reckless behaviour that weakens public institutions. Those groups are not being effectively challenged because the experts – including professional economists – continue to shroud the wealth-creating process in language that impoverishes public debate.
The confusion over taxation is not an accident. It serves the rent-seeking culture that relies on property rights that privilege one section of the community. Preserving those rights depends on the ability of rent-seekers to retain control of the State’s law-making functions (see Thesis ♯1). In that State, democracy is nominal. People are neutralised to prevent them from demanding the reform that would emancipate everyone: scrap the bad taxes and raise revenue from rents that people are willing to pay to use the services provided by nature and society.
The vision of a strong but fair State emerges, once we expose the lies that have been embedded in our minds by the guardians of the rent-seeking culture.