Mind Traps (3) — Continuing to Free Ourselves from the Mental Barriers to a Truly Ethical and Thriving Society

Previously, I have addressed understandable concerns about fundamental ethics in a society that allows no aggression, as well as how such a society, based on the non-aggression principle, could successfully provide, without immoral authoritarian government, such services as roads, schools, and helping the poor, sick and old. I want to continue now to complete the list of basic services including shelter, food, security, and justice — as well as critical misunderstandings about money, taxes and capitalism.

Mind-trap #7: The right to the basic necessities

Question

Isn’t it obvious that the basics of life — shelter, food, healthcare and education — are human “rights,” so they need to be provided by the State?

This sounds great. Most people want to have their needs met and to be well. But where’s the money going to come from to provide all of that? Those who think the government should provide it are really saying they are in favor of a few folks stealing from those who have to give to others who don’t. That’s coercion under the threat of violence. Do you think this type of aggression will really get us the society we want? Is this a valid excuse for condoning the initiation of force against individuals who are doing no harm? It’s never worked and it never will. That permission to be immoral always grows into a tyrannical state. If people care enough to want a state to take care of all the people in need, they care enough to take care of the needy themselves. And without the state taking a significant portion of our earnings in taxes, we will have plenty of resources (as individuals, charities, churches, mutual aid societies etc.) to take care of not just our own needs but also of those who are genuinely handicapped in their ability to do the same — all without violence.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.
— Thomas Jefferson

Mind-trap #8: Protection from dangerous people and invasion

Question

There are dangerous people and groups out there, so don’t we need “the state” with its military and police to protect us from them?

Of course there are people in society who would do others harm. There are thieves, cheats, muggers, rapists, and murderers who will violate others when they can. It’s been estimated that about 3% of the population are socio- or psychopaths who will do harm with no remorse or even take pleasure from it. But given this, the most dangerous thing we could do is to create and depend on corrupt economic, political and media systems where deranged people with no morals would naturally rise to the top and have monopolies on force and money. That is just what we have done with the “state,” the Fed, government protected corporations and the military.

Without government, perpetrators would be identified and prosecuted toward restitution rather than protected and even subsidized. Independent security and conflict resolution organizations would have to compete for our business by establishing reputations for non-violation, effectiveness and trustworthiness. Local and regional protection agencies will be independent, well-armed and highly trained.

These entities can have pre-existing agreements to join efforts and equipment with other groups to protect against larger scale invasion, if necessary, but they would never have the authority, popular support or taxpayer funding to initiate wars of aggression. It is immoral to initiate force, but perfectly ethical in self-defense. Non-Aggression is different from Pacifism, in which one chooses to never use violence — a very dangerous choice when needing to protect yourself, your loved ones, your community or others unable to defend themselves.

If Private Security Organizations (PSOs) try to sell themselves out to whoever could offer them the biggest bribes to initiate force, they would be liable for prosecution and they would lose their reputation for resolving conflicts in alignment with individual rights and they would lose their insurance, all of which would threaten to put them out of business.

Individuals and their teams would all be held accountable to laws based on the Non-Aggression Principle.

Mind-trap #9: Justice without the State

Question

Don’t we need government courts to assure equal justice for everyone?

Without government, we would still need organizations to resolve disputes and restore justice. Independent Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs) would need to compete with one another to attract clients looking for honest and fair outcomes at a reasonable price. DROs would have agreements with proven independent judges who have earned reputations as highly skilled, unbiased, and wise in their verdicts. They would be experts in emergent law, based entirely on precedent decisions and all based on the Non-Aggression Principle. Incarceration would only be necessary in cases of flight risks or perpetrators of violence. The emphasis would be on fair restitution to the victim, not only of costs, but also damages. Convicted perpetrators would need to put in daily work — in or outside of prisons — to pay back their victims. Private Security Organizations (PSOs) and DROs would also have pre-existing contracts for investigation, protection, and when necessary — arrests, as well as mediation, arbitration or trials.

As with virtually all of these proposed NAP solutions, there is ample evidence that humanity is already instinctively moving toward them. In the U.S., over 90% of civil cases are already being resolved through alternative dispute mediation and arbitration, rather than through the government courts.

People would voluntarily subscribe to the DRO of their choice, just as they would to an independent security or insurance provider. In a voluntary society where victimless crimes and the related law enforcement costs of enforcing such unjust laws are eliminated, the justice system would be much less expensive than it is today. Fees would be paid with the resources that people were not needing to pay in taxes, or by businesses, neighborhood organizations, churches, mutual aid, or other charities. Most people would already be far wealthier than they are now if they were in a free society with honest money.

Mind-trap #10: Honest Money

Question

Don’t we need centralized authority to regulate money or get rid of it all together?

Many self-proclaimed ‘social justice warriors’ like to say that “Money is the root of all evil. We need to get rid of money and evolve to a “gifting” economy. Giving with no expectation of return will bring out the best in each of us and get rid of the inequities and manipulations created by using money.”

I have difficulty imagining a world without a medium of exchange. If I need a new computer and you make them, and someone else transports them, we can use a practical, honest means of exchanging value. The option of not using any medium of exchange or storehouse of value (i.e. “money”) would of course be available in a true free market, but if going without using money were attractive, people would already be doing it in great numbers. In general those using barter, gifting or the black market are doing so to avoid the authoritarian theft by the state-imposed fraudulent system of the Federal Reserve and IRS — both spawned together in 1913. Trading or bartering is ideal for certain kinds of simple transactions, but highly impractical for today’s world. Someday, perhaps, we will be able to materialize whatever we need with our consciousness — from toothpaste, to transport, to fine art — merely by thinking it into existence. Until then, some sort of representation of value (cash, credit exchange, gold, crypto-currency, puka shells…) makes transactions a whole lot more convenient.

So the question of importance for me is, “Is the recommended ‘non-use’ or re-distribution of money mandatory? Is someone claiming the authority to tell us we can’t use it? If so, then we are just going along with the instituting of another authoritarian command structure in the effort to be free and prosperous. And that has always turned disastrous.

I have spoken with many folks from the Zeitgeist Movement who assure me that their vision of transition to a money-free society would be entirely voluntary. That would be good news, because that option would then simply be one of many that would need to prove its value, convenience and trustworthiness in an open and non-coercive civilization.

I believe it is much more useful to realize that it is not money that is evil. If it were, why would so many good people — like yourself, most likely — wish they had more of it? I propose that it is the dishonest use or representation of it that causes so much suffering and destruction. Honest money, including valid crypto currencies like Bitcoin, is backed by real assets that have real value — that represent initiative, expertise, creativity or work accomplished by real people. And it is as natural to rent real money, if you have it and someone else needs it, as it is to rent a car or a house. It is fiat currency (artificial debt made up out of nothing), fractional reserve lending (lending money you don’t have), naked short swaps (selling stocks you don’t own), and other forms of fraud, counterfeit, swindles, embezzlement and theft (most of the practices of the governments banks and mafias of the world) that are the real threat. They are what has to be stopped and the individuals involved prosecuted.

Mind-trap #11: Taxes

Question

Aren’t taxes “the price we pay for a civil society?” Aren’t they the means of compassion? Isn’t this how we can build roads, educate children and take care of the poor, sick and elderly?

No matter how you want to spin it, taking justly earned money from people against their will is outright stealing. It’s the fuzzy, disguised version of a mugging. The only reason it is complied with by its victims is the threat of fines, imprisonment or being shot. The implied gun or caging is the foundation of violence at the base of every government. A truly “civil” society is an authentic “community” where free people choose to form or dissolve friendships, alliances and commercial transactions. Voting, uniforms and badges don’t change the fundamental violation at the core of such a system and the notion that we could ever build a peaceful society based on violence and theft makes no sense and has all of history proving it doesn’t work. With weapons of mass destruction available to both authoritarian states and oppressed individuals, it is an evolutionary imperative that we finally learn how to work this out or perish from our ignorance.

None of us or our ancestors ever signed a so-called “Social Contract.” So the protection racket called “government” is not only not binding…it’s not even an agreement — which requires voluntary participation.

Mind-trap #12: Capitalism

Question

Isn’t it obvious that “free market capitalism” is evil and has obviously failed — so we can’t leave our fate to the “free market?”

Karl Marx employed the term “capitalism” to create class conflict and blame societal suffering on the market rather than counterfeit money, fraudulent lending and illegitimate authority.

Free-market capitalism has not failed — because we don’t have free-market capitalism. We have state-intervention, centrally controlled, subsidy-ridden, bailout-backed, military-enforced, banker-skewed, “legalized” corruption. To call what we have “capitalism” is an insult to honest workers, managers and entrepreneurs — whether it’s Elon Musk or your children at their lemonade stand. It is as arrogant, unjust and dangerous to try to “centrally manage” an economy, as it is to try to “geo-engineer the weather on planet Earth.”

A true free-market economy is a natural phenomenon — the organic and ever-unfolding result of billions of daily voluntary exchanges of goods and services where each participant feels they are getting the benefit to their life that makes the agreement worthwhile. That’s how real costs are continually determined — without violence — and markets are free to require the best goods are provided at the lowest viable prices. This is the way that state-manipulated monopolies, subsidies and artificial booms and busts are best avoided. Whenever a real and honest free market is allowed, for even a little while, the prosperity that ensues is such a threat to the would-be dominators of society and the world that they slam down on it as quickly as they can. They swoop in to steal that prosperity through taxation, inflation and unnecessary regulation. (USSR, China, Viet Nam, Argentina, Venezuela, Norway, Sweden, Denmark etc.)

Then they make sure they control it with their government-enforced, unethical monopolies on money and military force. (King George and the Rothschild/Rockefeller central banking cartel are just two examples in a tragic historic tapestry of deceit and destruction.)

I welcome your comments below.

Next time we will move on to look at common dangerous assumptions about human nature and decision making.