Corruption Is Actually Just a Black Market for the Property Rights over which Politicians and Bureaucrats Have Allocative Power

“Chicago Cop Goes Undercover to Crack a Police Dope Ring,” “This Judge Is the Defendant,” “A Federal Judge Goes on Trial in Nevada on Bribery Charges,” “More Miami Cops Are Arrested,” “A Prosecutor on Trial,” “Jailed U.S. Judge Resists Resigning.” This sample of headlines from news magazine and newspaper articles only touches the surface of the corruption problem among law enforcement officials. Political corruption has been a fact of life since government got into the business of law enforcement. Corruption is actually just a black market for the property rights over which politicians and bureaucrats have allocative power. Rather than assigning rights according to political power, rights are sold to the highest bidder. If bureaucrats are not monitored closely, then self-interest motives may really take over and corruption is likely. To get some idea of the level of corruption in law enforcement, we must examine the opportunities for corruption and the institutionalized incentives to carry out corrupt acts that face public sector law enforcement officials.

--Bruce L. Benson, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State (Oakland, CA: The Independent Institute, 2011), 159.

Locke, Jefferson, and Others Never Tired of Pointing out that Tyrannical Rulers, Not Those Who Resist Them, Are the True Rebels

The right of resistance therefore functions as a kind of safety valve, alerting rulers that they are overstepping their legitimate boundaries. If this right is denied, if the abuse of power is allowed to grow unchecked until it becomes tyrannical, then no remedy will be available except a complete revolution. The right of resistance provides citizens with another option. By resisting unjust laws before the onset of total tyranny, we may be able to reverse the growth of power, thereby avoiding tyranny – and the need for revolution.

This is more or less how John Locke viewed this issue. The “state of Mankind is not so miserable that they are not capable of using this Remedy, till it be too late to look for any.” It does no good to tell people that “they may expect Relief, when it is too late, and the evil is past Cure.” Locke continues:

This is in effect no more than to bid them first be Slaves, and then to take care of their Liberty; and when their Chains are on, tell them, they may act like Freemen. This, if barely so, is rather Mockery than Relief; and Men can never be secure from Tyranny, if there be no means to escape it, till they are perfectly under it: And therefore it is that they have not only a Right to get out of it, but to prevent it.

The classic objection to the right of resistance – that it will undercut the authority of all law – was answered by pointing out that law can retain its authority only so long as it is generally regarded as just. When a government enacts and enforces unjust laws, it rebels against the principles of natural right and undercuts its own authority. Locke, Jefferson, and others never tired of pointing out that tyrannical rulers, not those who resist them, are the true rebels. As Locke put it, “For Rebellion being an Opposition, not to Persons, but Authority, which is founded only in the Constitutions and Laws of the Government; those, whoever they be, who by force break through, and by force justify their violation of them, are truly and properly Rebels.”

The ruler must obey the same laws that are constitutionally prescribed for everyone else. Thus, whenever a ruler exceeds his or her constitutional limits, it is that ruler who rebels against the legal order and undermines legitimate authority. The right of resistance, therefore, is essential for preserving the authority of law, because it demands that everyone must abide by it, including those in power.

--George H. Smith, The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), e-book.

Inalienable Rights Could Never Have Been Transferred to Government in a Social Contract, So No Government Can Properly Claim Jurisdiction Over Them

Let us now consider Jefferson's mention of “unalienable rights.” Unalienable (or “inalienable”) rights stood in contrast to alienable rights, so we might wonder why Jefferson found it necessary to refer to this rather technical distinction, especially in a political document that was intended for popular consumption. Why didn't Jefferson simply speak of “rights” in general, instead of focusing on inalienable rights?

Inalienable rights were regarded as fundamental corollaries of a person's essential nature, especially his or her reason and volition, so these rights could never be surrendered or transferred to another person (including a government), even with the agent's consent. People can no more transfer their inalienable rights than they can transfer their moral agency, their ability to reason, and so forth. This means that inalienable rights could never have been transferred to government in a social contract, so no government can properly claim jurisdiction over them. Consequently, any government that systematically violates inalienable rights is necessarily tyrannical and vulnerable to revolution. As Francis Hutcheson put it, “Unalienable Rights are essential Limitations to all Governments.”

According to this theory, legitimate disagreements may occur between subjects and rulers when alienable rights are involved, but no such disputes are possible between people of good will when inalienable rights are involved. No government can claim jurisdiction over inalienable rights, because they are incapable of alienation and so could never have been delegated or surrendered to a government in the first place. This means there can be no excuse for the systematic violation of inalienable rights. This is the bright-line test that enables us to distinguish the incidental or well-intentioned violation of rights, which even just governments may occasionally commit, from the deliberate and inexcusable violations of a tyrannical government.

This is why Jefferson focused on inalienable rights in his effort to fasten the charge of tyranny on the British government. The violation of inalienable rights was a defining characteristic of a tyrannical government, and only against such a government is revolution clearly justified.

--George H. Smith, The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), e-book.

Classical Liberalism Is Based on Commutative Justice; Social or Distributive Justice Requires Constant and Repeated Coercion to Maintain Equality over Time

The ‘new liberals’, by contrast, think that income redistribution is exactly what governments should do. They see inequality and poverty as the result of unequal power and unjust property laws that benefit employers and the rich but harm employees and the poor. To promote ‘social justice’, therefore, government must correct the power imbalance and redirect wealth and income from better off to worse off people.

Classical liberals think this a gross misuse of the word ‘justice’. To them, justice is commutative justice, the resolution of conflicts between individuals and upholding the rights and freedoms of individuals by punishing those who intrude on them. It is about restraining threats and violence, and granting restitution to people who are made worse off by coercion. It is about the conduct we expect, and have a right to expect, from each other.

Real justice, therefore, focuses solely on how people behave towards each other. Being robbed is unjust; catching flu is a misfortune but it is not unjust, because nobody has acted unjustly. Social or distributive justice, on the other hand, is quite different. It is about the distribution of things between different members of a group. It seeks to alter that distribution – generally towards greater equality
– even if the existing distribution is simply the outcome of events, and nobody has behaved badly or acted unjustly.

If, for example, 100,000 people each pay to watch a popular singer at a stadium, they end the evening slightly poorer and the singer ends it significantly richer. But nobody has done anything wrong, and nobody has been coerced. Classical liberals would therefore ask: how can the resulting distribution of wealth possibly be unjust? And they point out that to return things to equality would require coercion – taking the singer’s new wealth by force in order to return it to the audience. Indeed, as Nozick says, it would require constant and repeated coercion to maintain that equality over the future.

--Eamonn Butler, Classical Liberalism: A Primer (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2015), 54-55.

Hard Money Is Based on the Rule of Law; Soft Money Is Monopoly Money and Is Based on the Rule of Man

Hard money is intended to be as stable and reliable as possible. It is represented as a definite, inviolable, mutually agreed-upon contract, such as the definition of the currency as a specified amount of gold. It is thus said that hard money is based on the rule of law, although any naturally occurring commodity money, such as cowrie shells, are also hard monies.

Soft money is usually intended to be adaptable to short-term policy goals, and because it is subject to the changing whims of its managers, soft money is said to be based on the rule of man. Soft money has no definition. Soft money is really only possible when the monetary system has been monopolized, since, if given the choice, citizens will naturally conduct their business in terms that are definite, inviolable, and mutually agreed upon. The only entities that have been able to monopolize the monetary system are governments and private entities in collusion with governments. (Most central banks today are privately owned.) Soft money is, literally, monopoly money. History has produced a natural cycle between hard and soft money, which has also typically been a cycle between government and private market control over the monetary system. The world is now in a soft money cycle; there are no hard currencies today.

--Nathan Lewis, Gold: The Once and Future Money (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2007), 19-20.

Keynesian Deflation Phobia Leads to an Exaggerated View of Balance Sheet Recession Danger

Let's turn to a further source of Keynesian phobia about deflation--balance sheet recessions. In severe cases of deflation phobia, this concern might even extend to the essential rhythm of prices both in a downward and upward direction which would be evident in a well-functioning capitalist economy under conditions of monetary stability (including a fixed anchor to prices in the very long run). Balance sheet recessions were first analysed by Irving Fisher in the context of the Great Depression and have been made much of by some inflation target proponents such as Bernanke (2000). Their trumpeted fear is that the fall in the price level would bring an increase in the real indebtedness of businesses which would hinder their prospects of weathering the recession and moving forward to take advantage of new investment opportunities.

The antidote to this fear is the realization that the recovery of the price level further ahead (beyond the present fall related to recession or start of secular stagnation) will go along with a decline in the real value of the debt (or equivalently there will be a period of substantially negative real interest rates) offsetting the rise in real value during the price fall. . . .

In sum, the harmful balance sheet effects of deflation (rising real indebtedness) only appear where markets fail to put any significant weight on a possible later price level recovery--meaning that substantially negative real interest rates do not emerge.

--Brendan Brown, A Global Monetary Plague: Asset Price Inflation and Federal Reserve Quantitative Easing (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Kobo e-book.

Technically, a Business Cycle Is Generated by Movements of Interest Rates Which Affect Relative Prices in Such a Way as to Cause False Expectation, According to Lionel Robbins

Robbins discussed the basic cause of business cycles. Technically “a business cycle is generated by movements of interest rates which affect relative prices in such a way as to cause false expectation.” In his explanation, he made a distinction between consumers' goods and producers' goods. Interest rates are pushed lower.

This means that the profitability of all forms of production which involve making things which only yield services at a later date, or over a long period of time, in increased. . . . The longer-lived the capital instrument, or the greater its distance from consumption, the more its value is affected by the change in the rate of interest. The shorter-lived it is, or the less its distance from consumption, the less it is affected. The value of flour in the baker's shop is hardly affected by a cheapening of the cost of borrowing. The value of mines, forest, houses and heavy factory equipment is enormously affected.

Robbins' plan for recovery included the reestablishment of an international gold standard, stable exchange rates, removal of trade barriers, and greater flexibility in prices and wage rates. He opposed the interventionist policies of maintaining wages and consumer demand, propping up business bankruptcies, and limiting farm output.

--Mark Skousen, The Structure of Production, new rev. ed. (New York: New York University Press, 2015), Kobo e-book.

It Was Keynes's Reading of the Malthus Side of the Malthus-Ricardo Correspondence That Turned Keynes's Mind to the Possibility of Demand Deficiency As a Cause of Recession

The Keynesian Revolution, and therefore the origins of virtually all macroeconomic theory today, can only be understood in relation to Keynes's coming across Malthus's economic writings in 1932. In particular, it was his reading of the Malthus side of the Malthus-Ricardo correspondence, which had been unearthed in 1930 by his close associate Piero Sraffa, that turned Keynes's mind to the possibility of demand deficiency as a cause of recession. Until that time, economists had been near unanimous in arguing that insufficient demand as a cause of recession was fallacious, and until reading the Malthus-Ricardo correspondence, this possibility had never crossed Keynes's mind. . . .

It was Malthus, of course, who had been the leading advocate in the nineteenth century of demand deficiency as a cause of recession, and of increased levels of unproductive spending as the cure. Reading Malthus's letters to Ricardo, and then the text of Chapter VII of Malthus's Principles, both of which Keynes did at the end of 1932, ought to be recognized as the single most important reason why Keynes was to write what he wrote in the way that he did.

--Steven Kates, Free Market Economics: An Introduction for the General Reader, 3rd ed. (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017), Kobo e-book.

The Price Signals of the Market Indicate to Individuals the Appraisal that Others Make of Their Possible Actions, as Reckoned in Monetary Terms

In Mises's vision, the market economy is a process through which individuals coordinate their activities in a voluntary fashion. In the market, no one can force anybody else to serve him, but ironically the price signals of the market—sometimes called market forces—indicate to individuals the appraisal that others make of their possible actions, as reckoned in monetary terms. To give a simple example: In the market economy, nobody can force a musician to tour the world and perform her hit songs for her fans. However, her agent can estimate for the musician just how much she would be able to earn if she were to go on a world tour. She always retains the freedom to retire and never sing another note, but the market process gives an indication to the musician of just how much other people would benefit from her decision to continue performing.

--Robert P. Murphy, Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise, and Human Action (Oakland, CA: Independent Institute, 2015), Kindle e-book, 117-118.

Although Millions of Pencils Are Manufactured Every Day, No One Knows How to Make Them; This “Intellectual Division of Labor,” as Mises Calls It, Is Present in Virtually All Market Exchange

How can the combination of fragments of knowledge existing in different minds bring about results which, if they were to be brought about deliberately, would require a knowledge on the part of the directing mind which no single person can possess? (Hayek 1948)

In an amusing little piece, written as if in the first person by an ordinary lead pencil, Read (1958) captures one of the fundamental qualities of modern production. Although millions of pencils are manufactured every day, strictly speaking no one knows how to make them. Many thousands of different people know partial aspects of how to make little bits of them. Thus, the graphite miner doesn't know much about the making of the wooden stem or of the eraser, and the miners of zinc and copper (for the brass ferrule) are largely ignorant of the production of factice (for the eraser) by reacting rape seed oil with sulfur chloride. All the millions of people engaged in the production of a given line of pencils, people who for the most part don't meet, don't know each other, and are not aware of each other's existence, effectively co-operate in producing pencils.

This “intellectual division of labor,” as Mises calls it, is present in virtually all market exchange. A community of pastoralists makes contact with a fishing community. Meat, milk, and horns are exchanged for fish. Both pastoralists and fishers benefit by the trade. The pastoralists are benefiting from the art of fishing, of which they are ignorant, and the fishers benefit from the art of herding cattle, of which they are ignorant.

--David Ramsay Steele, From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing, 1992), Kobo e-book.

The Cultural Marxist Repeats and Repeats the Charge that the West Is Guilty of Genocidal Crimes Against Every Civilization and Culture It Has Encountered

Among the new weapons of cultural conflict the Frankfurt School developed was Critical Theory. The name sounds benign enough, but it stands for a practice that is anything but benign. One student of Critical Theory defined it as the “essentially destructive criticism of all the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention and conservatism.”

Using Critical Theory, for example, the cultural Marxist repeats and repeats the charge that the West is guilty of genocidal crimes against every civilization and culture it has encountered. Under Critical Theory, one repeats and repeats that Western societies are history’s greatest repositories of racism, sexism, nativism, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, fascism, and Nazism. Under Critical Theory, the crimes of the West flow from the character of the West, as shaped by Christianity.

--Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002), 80.

Canada Is Soft on Illegal Immigration; In Canada, There Is an Absence of Political and Partisan Debate on the Issues of Abuse of the Refugee System and Immigration Policy in General

Compared to other countries in the developed world, Canada is soft on illegal immigration. It is easier for an irregular migrant to secure permanent resident status in Canada than in any other developed country. In Canada, the primary policy system that accomplishes the transition from irregular migrant to resident status is the extended refugee policy system. An irregular migrant is “a person without legal status in a transit or host country owing to illegal entry or the expiry of his/her visa” (International Labour Organization, 2005), and the extended refugee system is the web of entry, determination, appeal, and removal institutions tasked with processing those who make a refugee claim in Canada. Aside from infrequent migrant amnesties, refugee systems are the primary gateway through which irregular migrants gain entrance to the developed world. Compared to other countries, the unparalleled generosity of the Canadian extended refugee system, along with the absence of disincentives to abuse, makes it undeniably attractive to status-seeking irregular migrants, and clearly stimulates what is described in other countries as abuse and illegal immigration.

However, in Canada, there is an absence of political and partisan debate on the issue of abuse of the refugee system. In fact, there is an absence of political and partisan debate on immigration policy in general. The reason for this lack of debate is connected to Canada’s self-image of multiculturalism, openness, and tolerance, which is used by partisan actors to gain electoral advantage. In this way, political actors can avoid the migration debate and remain unwilling to implement and sustain effective migration management instruments. Meanwhile, well-funded and well-organized advocacy and special interest groups connected to the immigration field work tirelessly to ensure that the government lives up to its pro-immigration rhetoric. The result is a maze of migration policies that merely regularizes the bulk of the irregular migrant influx. This has the political benefit of avoiding the contentious and difficult process of deporting large numbers of illegal immigrants.

--Stephen Gallagher, “Canada's Broken Refugee Policy System,” in Immigration  Policy and the Terrorist Threat in Canada and the United States, ed. Alexander Moens and Martin Collacott (Vancouver, BC: Fraser Institute, 2008), 53-54.

Government Is That Great Fiction, Through Which Everybody Endeavors to live at the Expense of Everybody Else

One thing, however, remains—it is the original inclination that exists in all men to divide the lot of life into two parts, throwing the trouble upon others, and keeping the satisfaction for themselves. It remains to be shown under what new form this sad tendency is manifesting itself.

The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own powers upon his victim. No, our discretion has become too refined for that. The tyrant and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate person between them, which is the Government—that is, the Law itself. What can be better calculated to silence our scruples, and, which is perhaps better appreciated, to overcome all resistance? We all, therefore, put in our claim under some pretext or other, and apply to Government. We say to it,

I am dissatisfied at the proportion between my labor and my enjoyments. I should like, for the sake of restoring the desired equilibrium, to take a part of the possessions of others. But this would be dangerous. Could not you facilitate the thing for me? Could you not find me a good place? or check the industry of my competitors? or, perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital, which you may take from its possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense? or grant me some subsidies? or secure me a pension when I have attained my fiftieth year? By this means I shall gain my end with an easy conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without its risk or its disgrace!

As it is certain, on the one hand, that we are all making some similar request to the Government; and as, on the other, it is proved that Government cannot satisfy one party without adding to the labor of the others, until I can obtain another definition of the word Government, I feel authorized to give my own. Who knows but it may obtain the prize?

Here it is:

Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

For now, as formerly, everyone is more or less for profiting by the labors of others. No one would dare to profess such a sentiment; he even hides it from himself; and then what is done? A medium is thought of; Government is applied to, and every class in its turn comes to it, and says, “You, who can take justifiably and honestly, take from the public, and we will partake.” Alas! Government is only too much disposed to follow this diabolical advice, for it is composed of ministers and officials—of men, in short, who, like all other men, desire in their hearts, and always seize every opportunity with eagerness, to increase their wealth and influence. Government is not slow to perceive the advantages it may derive from the part that is entrusted to it by the public. It is glad to be the judge and the master of the destinies of all; it will take much, for then a large share will remain for itself; it will multiply the number of its agents; it will enlarge the circle of its privileges; it will end by appropriating a ruinous proportion.

But the most remarkable part of it is the astonishing blindness of the public through it all. When successful soldiers used to reduce the vanquished to slavery, they were barbarous, but they were not irrational. Their object, like ours, was to live at other people’s expense, and they did not fail to do so.

--Claude Frédéric Bastiat, “Government,” in The Bastiat Collection, 2nd ed. (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2011), 98-100.

The Best Characterization of Destructionism Is the Financial Policy of the Jacobins (Consume in the Present at the Expense of the Future), and It Applies to the German Inflation Policy of 1923

The best characterization of destructionism is in the words with which Stourm tried to describe the financial policy of the Jacobins: “The financial spirit of the Jacobins consisted exclusively of this: Consume in the present to the utmost at the expense of the future. Tomorrow never counted for them: Activities were conducted each day as if that day were the last: Such was the distinctive spirit of all the actions of the Revolution. Such is also the secret of its surprising duration: The daily plundering of the accumulated reserves of a rich and powerful nation brought forth resources beyond all expectations.” And it applies word for word to the German inflation policy of 1923 when Stourm goes on: “The assignats, so long as they were worth anything, as little as that might be, flooded the country in ever-increasing quantities. The prospect of their collapse did not stop the emissions for a single instant; they stopped issuing them only when the public absolutely refused to accept, even when dirt cheap, any kind of paper money.”

--Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, trans. J. Kahane (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981), 452n.

Only the Adoption of the (Classical or Old) Liberal Program Could Make the Problem of Immigration, Which Today Seems Insoluble, Completely Disappear

This issue is of the most momentous significance for the future of the world. Indeed, the fate of civilization depends on its satisfactory resolution. On the one side stand scores, indeed, hundreds of millions of Europeans and Asiatics who are compelled to work under less favorable conditions of production than they could find in the territories from which they are barred. They demand that the gates of the forbidden paradise be opened to them so that they may increase the productivity of their labor and thereby receive for themselves a higher standard of living. On the other side stand those already fortunate enough to call their own the land with the more favorable conditions of production. They desire—as far as they are workers, and not owners of the means of production—not to give up the higher wages that this position guarantees them. The entire nation, however, is unanimous in fearing inundation by foreigners. The present inhabitants of these favored lands fear that some day they could be reduced to a minority in their own country and that they would then have to suffer all the horrors of national persecution to which, for instance, the Germans are today exposed in Czechoslovakia, Italy, and Poland.

It cannot be denied that these fears are justified. Because of the enormous power that today stands at the command of the state, a national minority must expect the worst from a majority of a different nationality. As long as the state is granted the vast powers which it has today and which public opinion considers to be its right, the thought of having to live in a state whose government is in the hands of members of a foreign nationality is positively terrifying. It is frightful to live in a state in which at every turn one is exposed to persecution—masquerading under the guise of justice—by a ruling majority. It is dreadful to be handicapped even as a child in school on account of one’s nationality and to be in the wrong before every judicial and administrative authority because one belongs to a national minority.

If one considers the conflict from this point of view, it seems as if it allows of no other solution than war. In that case, it is to be expected that the nation inferior in numbers will be defeated, that, for example, the nations of Asia, counting hundreds of millions, will succeed in driving the progeny of the white race from Australia. But we do not wish to indulge in such conjectures. For it is certain that such wars—and we must assume that a world problem of such great dimensions cannot be solved once and for all in just one war—would lead to the most frightful catastrophe for civilization.

It is clear that no solution of the problem of immigration is possible if one adheres to the ideal of the interventionist state, which meddles in every field of human activity, or to that of the socialist state. Only the adoption of the liberal program could make the problem of immigration, which today seems insoluble, completely disappear. In an Australia governed according to liberal principles, what difficulties could arise from the fact that in some parts of the continent Japanese and in other parts Englishmen were in the majority?

--Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005), 107-108.

Is It Possible that the Scions of the Builders of the White Man’s (i.e. Western) Civilization Should Renounce Their Freedom and Voluntarily Surrender to the Suzerainty of Omnipotent Government?

The reason is obvious. The East lacked the primordial thing, the idea of freedom from the state. The East never raised the banner of freedom, it never tried to stress the rights of the individual against the power of the rulers. It never called into question the arbitrariness of the despots. And, consequently, it never established the legal framework that would protect the private citizens’ wealth against confiscation on the part of the tyrants. On the contrary, deluded by the idea that the wealth of the rich is the cause of the poverty of the poor, all people approved of the practice of the governors of expropriating successful businessmen. Thus big-scale capital accumulation was prevented, and the nations had to miss all those improvements that require considerable investment of capital. No “bourgeoisie” could develop, and consequently there was no public to encourage and to patronize authors, artists and inventors. To the sons of the people all roads toward personal distinction were closed but one. They could try to make their way in serving the princes.Western society was a community of individuals who could compete for the highest prizes. Eastern society was an agglomeration of subjects entirely dependent on the good graces of the sovereigns. The alert youth of the West looks upon the world as a field of action in which he can win fame, eminence, honors and wealth; nothing appears too difficult for his ambition. The meek progeny of Eastern parents know of nothing else than to follow the routine of their environment. The noble self-reliance of Western man found triumphant expression in such dithyrambs as Sophocles’ choric Antigone-hymn upon man and his enterprising effort and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Nothing of the kind has been ever heard in the Orient.

Is it possible that the scions of the builders of the white man’s civilization should renounce their freedom and voluntarily surrender to the suzerainty of omnipotent government? That they should seek contentment in a system in which their only task will be to serve as cogs in a vast machine designed and operated by an almighty planmaker? Should the mentality of the arrested civilizations sweep the ideals for the ascendancy of which thousands and thousands have sacrificed their lives?

Ruere in servitium, they plunged into slavery, Tacitus sadly observed in speaking of the Romans of the age of Tiberius.

--Ludwig von Mises, The Anti-capitalistic Mentality, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006), 62-63.