You Don't Work, You Don't Eat

  "When our people were fed out of the common store, and laboured jointly together, glad was he could slip from his labour, or slumber over his taske he cared not how, nay, the most honest among them would hardly take so much true paines in a weeke, as now for themselves they will doe in a day:  neither cared they for the increase, presuming that howsoever the harvest prospered, the generall store must maintaine them, so that wee reaped not so much Corne from the labours of thirtie, as now three or foure doe provide for themselves."

Captain John Smith (1580-1631)
Jamestown Virginia

On 10 April 1606, the Virginia Company of London was granted a charter by King James to establish a colony in Virginia in North America.

In December three ships were dispatched with 104 settlers, including one Captain John Smith. 

Establishing the colony in 13 May 1607, they named it Jamestown, in honor of the king.  It was the first permanent settlement of England in North America.

The colony was originally governed by a council of seven men, with Captain Smith named as one of them.

They set up a common system whereby each would work for the good of all, and each would receive what they needed from a common store.  Things did not go well, for many years.  Sooner or later, as we know and are taught by Socialism, you run out of other people's Corne...

The colony suffered from food shortages, unhealthy drinking water, disease and attacks by the pesky, nearby Powhatan Indians.  It was during a small expedition into one of the Powhatan villages, in a desperate search for food, that Captain Smith was captured.  It was on this expedition that Captain Smith was saved from execution by the daughter of Chief Powhatan, named Pocahontas, and was released to return to James Fort.  When he got back there were only 38 settlers left alive.

Smith returned in January with food sent by the Chief, but misfortune struck and part of the fort was lost to fire.  Smith found the settlers engaged in searching for gold and idling their time.  He immediately took action.

Quickly elected president of the settlement, Smith instituted his famous "if ye shall not worke, ye shall not eate" edict.  Success ensued, the death toll dropped, food was harvested in abundance, a well was dug, houses were built and the colonists made pitch, tar and soap to return to England.

Captain John Smith wrote about this turn around in his autobiography, with one quote recorded above.  When each colonist was given his own plot of land to farm, and earn a return from, and was forced to work for his own welfare, the profit that followed literally saved the colony from ruin.

Phillip L. Barbour, a Smith biographer, wrote, "Captain John Smith has lived in legend even more thrillingly than even he could have foreseen.  Let it only be said that nothing John Smith wrote has yet been found to be a lie."

This, by the way, is the same experience as was had, and written about, by William Bradford in New England.  The story we hear about "the first Thanksgiving" is NOTHING like what really happened.  The "First Thanksgiving" was rather a celebration of the successes of capitalism which Bradford instituted there, as did Smith in Virginia.  We know this from Bradford's own journal!  It's as if Bradford learned from the Virginia experience!

It reminds me of the sixth chapter of Proverbs, where six different things that are hated are written about.  Look at verses 6 - 8:  "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise:  Which having no guide, overseer or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth in the harvest."

That's right, idlers do not contribute.  In fact, when there are idlers expecting an entitlement from the "common store" (meaning from the work of others), everybody suffers. 

The free enterprise of providing for oneself and contributing in that way is the true principle, demonstrated by and practiced in nature.  When one is providing for oneself, there is no need of a boss or directive telling how one must work.  One sinks or swims.

The people of Jamestown learned to develop their own capital and contribute what capital they could not simply for personal profit and gain, but for the gain, and survival, of the whole. 

And the colony of Virginia survives, even today!

Monstrous Monopoly

"Governments institutionalize something for nothing."

James Cook
Investment Consultant

Now that's a statement that can be taken a couple of ways!

First, in the free lunch sense.  The famous cliche that there is no such thing as a free lunch.  Well, there isn't!  Someone has to pay for everything.

So, if a gubment program is "institutionalized," are there people who think it's free?  And if so, why do they think that?  And if they think that, why do they think the money comes from "the gubment?"  Why don't they realize it comes from their neighbor?

They don't think that because they have been trained not to think that.

Another way the statement can be taken is in the sense of efficiency.  Gubment programs do get institutionalized!  They become "the norm."  They become "the way."  Some people think some of these things always were.

Aside from defense, which could not be provided by anything but central control (although control in this country is very decentralized centralized), what gubment program has not become unimaginably large, inefficient, intrusive and consuming?

At the point that a program becomes so consuming of treasure and citizenry, what is the benefit?  Is it for the ultimate good or for naught?  Truly it has become institutionalized.  But for nothing.

HISTORY SAYS THAT BUREAUCRACY EATS COUNTRIES ALIVE. 

So why would or could our country be any different?

Bureaucracies, in effect, become monopolies.  If you don't think "health" care, with its hundreds of bureaucracies already written into its organizational chart (if THAT could ever be drawn up), will not grow to be the biggest monster in the world, think again. 

And it will consume this country's treasure and citizenry.

When the market demands something and the market gets it, that thing grows in importance.  But only so far!  It never consumes treasure and citizenry.  Why not?

Because in a free market a monopoly can never be!  Why?

The product market cycle!  Or product differentiation!  Or diminishing returns!  Economics!  Basic economics is the reason!

Bad products are removed and replaced!  Necessarily.  Do the scammers and hucksters get their way?  Yes, maybe, but only for a while.  Truth overtakes them and they go away.

There is a particular company out there that tries to push out the product market cycle with the phrase "new and improved!"  They want us to think that this product, or these products, that have been around for so very long, are different, truly new and improved.  They don't want to be overtaken by another similar product and its differentiation.  They are trying to bump out their market cycle a bit further.

Everyone is waiting for the new search engine, television, software, smart phone characteristic, sound system or portable computer device.  And we want it to be cheaper and cheaper!  Differentiation is happening so fast in so many things that we can't keep up with them all!  When we buy something it is already obsolete!  Or so it seems. 

But bureaucracy is different.  It is the supergigantosaur which will never get smaller, never become prehistoric, and never go away.  And each one will get more and more and more inefficient.  Each one will consume more and more and more treasure and citizenry.  Instead of getting cheaper, as it grows monstrously, it is fed with more and more dollars that are getting cheaper!

AND THESE MONSTERS GROW NECESSARILY BECAUSE EACH BUREAUCRACY WANTS MORE AND MORE AND MORE IMPORTANCE AND CONTROL.

And, as Mr. Cook says, people get an institutional something for nothing.

But NOT a free lunch!

Who Are The Worlds' Good Samaritans?

"No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions.  He had money as well."

Baroness Margaret Thatcher
British Prime Minister 1979-1990

A Soviet journalist nicknamed Margaret Thatcher "The Iron Lady" because of her uncompromising style of politics and leadership.  She derided those who always sought compromise, saying such represented the "absence of leadership."

She had a way of verbally cutting through the clutter and getting right to the nut.

And her comment is an interesting play on the oft-used word Good Samaritan.

Few understand why Jesus would use the Samaritans in that parable.

Jesus taught in parables for two reasons:

1.  To avoid being arrested.  He was followed by the "ruling class," scribes and Pharisees, hoping to catch him doing something illegal.  He was upsetting their apple cart of literal control and religious governance over the Jews, and they were looking to brand him with illegal activity.  His eventual arrest and conviction was for sedition, or rabble rousing, and was because of something he said.  Parables were "innocent" stories for which he could not be arrested.

2.  Parables are a way to offer a deep, many-layered, spiritual message.  Regarding them, He literally said that people would hear what they hear, and to each his own.  A parable is just that - a story which illustrates a spiritual teaching.  The more one delves into His parables, the more one can discover, and apply.

Why would He use the Samaritan traveler in this parable?  One reason is because as a people they were reviled by the Jews, and by Jesus's time centuries of historical hatred.  Another - they were considered to be uneducated and of a lower class, mongrels and mutts, and unworthy.

But what of Miss Thatcher's thinking?  She notices that in the parable the Good Samaritan had money!  And he did.

A Jewish man is beaten, robbed and left for dead in the road.  He is approached first, and not helped, by a priest (who, with special Godly status ministered daily in the temple, ostensibly a "good" man).  Then a Levite, the tribe set apart by God for special religious service (they are the only tribe who could touch the Ark of the Covenant for example), passes by next, sees the bleeding man and, instead of helping hastens his pace.

True to the way Jesus taught, with unexpected juxtaposition and hyperbole, an ignorant, half-breed Samaritan comes along.  The beaten man is his sworn enemy!  He takes pity, cleans and binds the wounds, and drops the pitiful man off at a place where he can recover.  He paid in advance for some recovery time but promised to pass by again and if more money was owed for the recovering man's care he would then provide it.

There's a lot going on there!

But without getting into all the spiritual teaching, notice the Samaritan was traveling with provisions and had money.  He was not only in a position to help, which was not a position given him by status and standing, he did help - with care and with money.

Maybe the most pressing and impressive part of the story is his promise to return to pay future monies that he does not then owe.  He not only has the good intentions and good heart, he puts his money where his heart is.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN GOT NOTHING IN RETURN AND EXPECTED NOTHING IN RETURN!

I am never impressed when people do for others, but want it to be known, or they have it displayed so they get the notice.  The Good Samaritan got nothing in return for his goodness.  This was an anonymous act of love and compassion.  But he did have the financial ability to do more, going the extra mile, as it were.

People now seem to want to deride those with the financial ability to do more.  Go ahead. 

BUT LET'S SEE A SOCIETY WITHOUT THOSE WHO DO THOSE EXTRA THINGS, AND EXPECT NOTHING IN RETURN.

So, which countries in the world are immediately there offering help when natural disasters happen?  It's the happy socialists right?  There they are, all eager to give of their time, talents, energy, treasure and provision to dress others' wounds and help them recover, right?  There they are, first in line, expecting nothing in return, right?  And they should be first to help, enjoying those high standards of living, right?

Or is it the free enterprise countries, the mixed-breed mongrels and mutts, derided by the rest of the happy socialists as unfit and unworthy, except when they want our free enterprise time, talents, energy, treasure and provision, right?  Who's first in line to say, "gimme some of that..."?

Keep in mind where the economic growth is, where wealth has always been generated, and the ability to help has always been in the heart.  THAT is the system WE want to be.

Well, it used to be WE had the money ... hopefully WE still have the good intentions.

Misallocating And Vandalizing

"All the impoverishing effects of socialism are with us in the U.S.:  reduced levels of investment and saving, the misallocation of resources, the overutilization and vandalization of factors of production, and the inferior quality of products and services."

Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Austrian School Economist

Not to sound too cynical, but how can we save and invest when we are spending all our discretionary money, well, after paying our own taxes and the taxes of those who don't think they should pay taxes, spending all our discretionary money on inferior products made elsewhere, products that don't last long so we can buy the newer version again a couple of years later!

Oh, don't forget the extended warranty.

"They" say we "don't manufacture anything here anymore."  Can we?  Wouldn't those things be too expensive?  They have to be made somewhere else or we couldn't afford all those things we want!

Well, that is pretty cynical!

But is that where we are?

What are factors of production?  The traditional economic definition would say that land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship are invested in the production of goods and services in the attempt to make a profit.  Those things invested make up the factors of production.

And what does it mean to "invest" those things?  Investment means to devote time, energy or money toward something with the expectation of a worthwhile result.

What you say?  Taxes are NOT an investment?  Only in certain circles!  And those circles are all outside the thinking of the gubment and the bureaucrat.  Thinking of taxes as investments is Animal Farm two-leg talk!  Remember, the gubment produces nothing!  It is sustained from monies taken FROM the private sector, and does not add TO it.  Each dollar taken FROM the private sector does not go TOWARD profit made possible by the employment of factors of production.

The growth of gubment, beyond its means and beyond measure(!), is truly how resources, meaning factors of production, are misallocated, overutilized and vandalized.  And the bigger it gets, the less that is left for savings and investment, infrastructure and economic development.  That's why the super influx of cheap products are so important!  So, buy, buy, buy!

Be sure to buy two, because the first will break soon anyway.

Yes, We Have Bananas

"Personally, I have never seen anybody slip on a banana peel."

Jay, the Home Inspector

Bananas are a very well-known fruit in our society. 

I say fruit, but technically they are an herb.

Nonetheless, this is a food used in so many contexts, it is hard to imagine our lives without it!

But bananas were not always so common!  Our country was around 100 years before the banana, very well known in other parts of the world, was as part of the American diet.

Bananas were introduced to America during the 1876 International Centennial Exhibition, in Philadelphia PA.  We might now refer to this celebration as The World's Fair.

The theme of the exhibition was to demonstrate how the United States, and the world, had progressed from an agricultural society and into the Industrial Revolution.  It was described in newspapers and magazines as "organized chaos and clutter."

The most popular exhibits involved peoples, art, and many new inventions, particularly electronic, as that was an industry entering its new age.  More people lined up to talk on Mr. Bell's newfangled device than any other exhibit - the telephone.  Everybody wanted to be able to speak with someone else on the other end of the "line."

The second-most popular exhibit wasn't a device at all!  It was a new food!  Served warm, wrapped in tin foil, on a plate with silverware, was the BANANA!  

There was nothing special about the offering, just a warm banana on a plate!  A simple dish and a wonderful new taste.

And people lined up to eat one!  I expect most went back for more.

America's cooks probably went home and began figuring out hundreds of delicious ways to incorporate it into the daily diet.  Stores filled up with the new fruit.

And today, the three top banana-producing countries are India, Brazil and Ecuador.  Together they offer the world over 23 million metric tons of bananas annually.

> But the countries, and companies, that farm bananas do not ship them.
> And the shipping companies do not produce the boats or trucks that deliver them worldwide.
> And the distributing companies do not manage the wholesale distribution companies and warehouses.
> And this chain, from international farm to your bowl of cereal continues with everyone operating together, but entirely separately.  It's as if they were all shepherded by an invisible hand!
> Your grocer almost certainly does not know a single person with a machete that harvests the bananas he buys to sell to you.

But the BANANA is produced, distributed and sold worldwide so consistently that every grocery store in America has a regular, ripe and delicious offering.  And of more than one type of banana!

The bananas are so efficiently managed, and free enterprise reigns so supreme, that they come to us at extremely cheap retail prices.

Those bananas in the photo above I bought, as a pack of 7, for $1.27, including tax.  That's 18 cents a piece, retail.

Free enterprise works every time.

Laying More Than A Finger

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted the right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

James Madison (1751-1836)
"The Father of the Constitution"

Virginian James Madison may have been the shortest American president, standing at 5'4", but he was certainly among the biggest thinkers.  He was instrumental, if not the driving force, in the drafting of the United States Constitution, hence his moniker as its "father."

As such, he was familiar with its parameters and objectives.  As one of the original ORIGINALISTS, he understood tyranny and how one of the main objectives of the document was to prevent tyranny.  It was to limit the country's federal gubment, to specific limits, with enumerated powers, so the citizen would never have to worry about living under the threat of tyrannical overlords.

A slave revolt on the French colonial island of Saint-Dominigue eliminated slavery there and founded the Haitian Republic.  This resulted in Haiti being one of only two independent republics to be established before the 19th Century after a revolution with a European power. 

As the revolt concluded, many French refugees fled to the United States.  France and the United States were, after all, close allies during the American Revolution. 

Many fled to the ports of Baltimore and Philadelphia.  Congress appropriated $15,000 toward their relief, calling this an act of "benevolence."

The James Madison quote above comes from his writing very disapprovingly of the appropriation as "unconstitutional."

A few years later a large fire left many victims and Congressmen wanted to respond, appropriating monies in the same manner.  Representative William Giles of Virginia insisted this was outside the purview of Congress, encouraging them instead not "to attend to what generosity and humanity require, but to what the Constitution and their duty require."

Years later Representative Davy Crockett responded in like manner in a debate about whether to appropriate money for the widow of a naval officer.  His statement was that Congressmen could give away their own money as they wished in benevolence, "but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money."  This story can be read here.

Presidents in those days routinely vetoed such legislation as unconstitutional.  The two most veto-prone presidents were Polk and Cleveland.

These ORIGINALISTS all understood the purpose, parameters and extent of the Constitution.  When did those things change?

Today, what percentage of the federal expenditure is spent to control "objects of benevolence?"  Two thirds?  Seventy percent?  I say control because that is what it amounts to.  There are always strings attached.  And some recipients end up trained to think it is normal and even that they are "entitled" to such "benevolence."

This "benevolence" always comes from the pockets of their neighbors, however, as the federal gubment has no money of its own, and produces nothing.

I read the Constitution all the time.  It is even installed on my phone!  And, like Madison, I cannot lay my finger on where the Constitution affords Congress the ability to give away so much to so few.

And as to laying a finger on the Constitutional article, neither can anyone in gubment...

It's Unnatural To Feed The Animals

"It is impossible to maintain a free society when more and more people look to the state to provide what Americans used to provide for themselves."

Warren Pollock

It is said that one of the many good reasons the gubment has signs at national parks asking patrons to NOT to feed animals is that the animals will begin to see humans as a food source and expect the food.  As this animal expectation grows their inclination will grow less and less to provide food for themselves.  And their natural behavior changes.

It might be said that as we humans are taken care of by others our expectations similarly grow and we will stop acting in response to that provision.

If someone else provides our food, what is our incentive to pay for our own?  What if everything was provided by someone else?  What would our incentive be to pay for it ourselves?

To the degree we are dependent we are captive.  And to the degree we are captive we are less and less free.

And so, the declaration above uses the word "impossible."   Is it "impossible" to maintain societal freedom as more and more people become captives of the state?

ARE PEOPLE REALLY BECOMING CAPTIVES OF THE STATE?

What is the goal of statism?  It is 100% state!  Why?  Because that is how bureaucracy is!  The goal of the bureaucracy is to maintain the bureaucracy.  And the only way to do that is to make the bureaucracy seem more and more necessary, and important, and it grows larger.  Its size means more and more are incorporated into it to manage and sustain it, and it grows more.  AT ALL COSTS!

Has the disease of statism, which prescribes itself as the cure, ever gotten to 100%?  Look to history to see the answer to that question.  What epoch has not had it dictators and wannabe dictators?  And what have these dictators wrought for their nations and people?

And so, Mr. Pollock's statement is essentially the same as the professionals, the naturalists, who manage the national parks:

DON'T FEED THE ANIMALS.

Why?  Because little by little, as their dependence grows, they will stop feeding themselves.

And that is unnatural.