What I would like to add today is that what really matters is not how the government is formed, what matters is what the government does; and, even more important, what the government does NOT do.
If the government leaves all voluntary exchange free; if it leaves all peaceful people alone; if it does not inflate; if it practices no interventionism and does not hamper the working of The Market; if its taxes are not onerous and vast armies of tax parasites are not maintained at public cost; if it practices no “welfarism” and leaves the field to private charity and philanthropy; if it does not seek to instruct its subjects in the arts and sciences and “knowledge is free”; if a huge “standing army” is not employed in times of peace; and if peace, trade, goodwill and non-interference mark its relations with the outside world, instead of the ideology of perpetual war – that is good government. The only tasks left to such a government are the protection of property and the apprehension of real outlaws, who menace the peaceful public; and the administration of justice (not the making of law). Of course, in India, the government must build toll-free roads. Such a government could be democratic, but it could also be a monarchy, a nawab, a sultan, whatever. Even a mayor.
Hülsmann reveals that Mises supported the return of monarchy for post WW-2 Austria. He even addressed Otto von Hapsburg as “Your Highness” in correspondence. In the USA, Mises spoke highly of democracy, and drew a sharp rebuke from the feisty Rose Wilder Lane, who called his notions about US democracy “stuff and nonsense.” According to Lane, the US was heading towards doom because of democracy. Lane championed Liberty. She is the author of that great book The Discovery of Freedom.
The Lesson: Freedom matters more than democracy.
On the USSA of today, this post from Lew Rockwell is worth reading, where he calls Obama America’s Mussolini. It seems their democracy has degenerated into fascism, just as Rose Wilder Lane feared it would.
Also on LRC today was this short article by Ron Paul advocating the free coinage of gold and silver. We in India need to do that too. We must get Chacha’s cotton-picking hands OUT of our money.
It is a very dangerous thing, this thing called government. Its role must be vastly restricted and limited if society is to flourish. That is the lesson of recent history – in the USSA, in the UK, and in India.
Talking about philanthropy, the two richest men in America (Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) have given away most of their wealth to charitable causes. Contrast this with the super-rich in India. However, you cannot really begrudge their personal choices; they know the Hobbesian definition of power only too well.
ReplyDeletePS: Love this blog.