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A Grim Fairy Tale
III
It was late autumn in the garden. The erratic wind was making eddies in the leaf piles. Mundus Vult Decipi sat there transfixed. Despite being covered by several layers of blankets, he was feeling colder than he ever remembered at this time of year. Most of all, he was feeling dispirited and unappreciated.
He still missed his dog, Vivat Rex, who had died more than twenty years ago. He missed the king, who had died of pneumonia this past year. It was the king with whom Mundus had conspired to control all of the subjects in the kingdom. Yes, the grand plan, which had those four basic elements:
- creating a fiat currency to replace gold;
- creating income taxes and regulations to control all of the fiat currency activity;
- creating police agencies, exempt from basic laws, to keep the cash coming into the treasury and the dissenters isolated;
- using the media and schools to create and reinforce language that clouds meaning.
This plan had worked out so well. Most people believed that they were free and so there was little or no resistance. When the king wished to raise more revenue (confiscate more income or property), all he had to do was invoke the honored phrases "it's investment for our future" or "it's for your children". The power of this approach amazed even Mundus, who had developed the linguistic strategy with several university professors. The phrases were almost hypnotic in their effect. The few who objected to the confiscation of their income were shouted down and vilified by the majority.
But now there was the new king.
About twenty years ago archeologists had unearthed the scrolls of an ancient civilization that stood on the very spot now occupied by the kingdom. There had been underground rumors of the existence of such a civilization as far back as Mundus could remember. Who could believe such foolishness? A civilization with no king, no rulers. It wasn't even a democracy, where larger groups could force smaller ones to do their bidding. It was one based on something-called "Individual Liberty". The only job for police in such a civilization was to protect citizens from outlaws. There was no confiscation of income or property by any means. People produced and traded guided by their own wishes. It was a monstrous idea. There wasn't even a group of officials telling the citizens how to build, whom to hire, which schools to use, etc.
The king, realizing the danger of these scrolls, immediately classified them as state secrets, and had them locked away. Somehow, the prince, who was now the reigning king, got access to the documents. It became obvious to Mundus that the king's son had been secretly reading the ancient manuscripts. The prince began to express many unusual ideas. At first there was some confusion in his thoughts since the prince was educated at the government schools. But the prince had an unusual level of intelligence. Mundus remembered that the king's personal psychometrician had indicated that the standard intelligence scales could not measure the prince. The estimate was that he possessed an intellect exceeded by only about 1 in 10 million people. Very quickly the prince began to ask very probing questions. In fact, Mundus recalled four specific questions from the last meeting of the advisors, which took place right before the old king died:
"How does paper become real money (a money that has value)?" asked the prince. "All the king's bankers have to do to make it is print numbers on paper. They can put 5 zeros with no more effort than 1 zero. Then the king's bankers even lend out more of this paper money than they have in their vaults, by simply making entries on their ledgers. They charge interest on this made-up money and then again lend out multiples of what really exists. Is this a plot to get our people into debt by using this made up money? If gold no longer has any monetary value then why is it hoarded in the king's treasury? "
"What is this democracy?" The people had long since confused democracy with freedom. "They think that they are self-governing. But by enough of them voting, they could make their neighbors give up their income or property and behave as they wished. And they were not, of course, given any real choices - all questions and candidates were committed to maintain and expand the power of the state over all - even those who got nominal 'benefits' from the state."
"What happens to those benefits from the state? For example the more medical care we give the harder it is to obtain it." The prince had noticed a strange thing about government benefits. The "freer" a thing became the less of it there was. "As we have taken over more and more private functions, they have become more and more expensive. Is this because when these functions are private and they fail, they loose access to capital? But when we fail, instead of changing or going out of business, we just take more money from those who produce it?"
"Did you notice that confiscating money from the people by income taxation destroys capital? People make decisions based on the tax consequences not what's best for the consumer. Some people do nothing but maintain records for taxes. There is an entire police agency, the I(nfernal) R(ip-off) S(ervice), made up of thousands of employees, countless computers and offices, which does nothing except confiscate income and property while obliterating privacy. They all subtract tremendous amounts from the productive sector of the economy."
The prince's comments had greatly agitated the council of advisors. These items were all concepts that the king's advisors had discussed in private. There was simply no way around these outcomes as long as we wished to extract the maximum income from citizens. It was viewed simply as a cost of maintaining power.
The prince's questions had not yet received wide circulation. But there were rumors circulating and there was a small, but significant, increase in the purchase of gold. Most citizens who heard of it could not seem to comprehend this ancient concept of Liberty. "Thank heaven for the government schools", thought Mundus.
Mundus was frightened. These ideas were a nightmare to him and the other advisors. What would become of the wonderful power machine that he and the king had built? What would become of the millions of government bureaucrats who lived off of the income of others? What of the multi-millions who had been educated to believe that they had an "entitlement" to the income and property of others? Could either of these groups ever learn to be productive citizens in the frightening new world of liberty? The new king had already renamed himself Libertas. Mundus shuddered. It wasn't the swirling wind that caused the shudder.
He thought about the solution posed by two of the new advisors. It wasn't what he wanted, but it was a cure. What were their names? Ah yes, they were Brutus and Cassius. Mundus shuddered once more.
Harry J. Clawar Ph.D.
HJC@angelfire.com
December 1, 2000
