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October 27, 2011

Mises
Daily

First
Cigarettes, Now Bacon and Eggs
by Ralph
Reiland

Who
Are the Monopolists?
by Hans-Hermann
Hoppe

In
Praise of Credit Checks
by Jeffrey A.
Tucker

Depoliticize
Everything
by Stephen Mauzy
on October 27, 2011

What strain of person derives profit — monetary
or psychic — from elected office? Mostly the
strain of person I strive to avoid: the nosy
neighbor too quick to comment on your daughter's
comings and goings; the junior-college erudite
miffed by the world's reluctance to embrace his
brilliance; the sentimental Luddite who believes
yesterday is always better than today; the
impassioned community organizer whose sentences
are too peppered with "we" and "must."

I am sure those running for office think
otherwise, particularly those running for minor
offices — the office where profit is mostly
psychic. Perhaps these fledgling public servants
think of themselves as ambitious. After all, these
middling bureaucracies can be a first step on a
journey toward more vainglorious, more
remunerative public callings: the US House, the US
Senate — and if one is exquisitely masterful at
speaking in euphemisms, the presidency. These
higher offices confer remarkable wealth to even
the dullest dullard. And if one lacks the gumption
to progress to the national level, an excessively
remunerative sinecure awaits in many lesser state
and local offices.

Much money and attention is given to politics;
so much that even standing on the sidelines to
comment can generate outsized wealth and
attention. Rush Limbaugh and his numerous
conservative epigones have etched lucrative
careers perpetuating
the myth that if we just vote for the right
candidates (literally, in Limbaugh's case) the
world will be set properly on its axis and the
United States' master-of-the-universe status will
grow further still.

Of course, for left-liberals, the right person
resides on the left. For either side, the right
person is a myth — a fraud, actually. There is no
right person, left or right, because the right
person from any one person's perspective will
always be the wrong person from everyone else's
perspective.

Stripped to its core, politics is nothing more
than an egregiously expensive exercise in
self-aggrandizement and frustration. Once you get
past the preening and rabble-rousing, all
democratic government is Fabian government.
Democratic government always grows. That Limbaugh
consistently persuades his putative 20 million
daily listeners that Republicans are champions of
the free market and small government is a tribute
to charismatic oratory. Republicans are nearly as
progovernment as Democrats. The great Republican
revolution lasted from 1995 to 2008. Over that
period, total federal outlays grew to $2.982
trillion from $1.515 trillion, a 5.3 percent
average annual growth rate.

Federal government spending as a percentage of
GDP dropped to 18 percent in the early years of
the revolution, but once Republicans became
accustomed to dispensing the spoils to their
constituents, the small-government bone fides
faded with the economy. When the revolution flamed
out, in 2008, federal-government spending as a
percentage of GDP was higher when the GOP lost the
majority than when they had gained it, rising to
22 percent of GDP by the end of the reign.

Republican or Democratic, nothing changes. The
tea-party movement, the Green Party, the Modern
Whig Party cannot change anything. Neither can the
Libertarian Party or its favorite Republican son,
Ron Paul. Government institutions eventually
overwhelm and corrupt the principled
politician.

These institutions are the intractable obstacle
to human progress because they demand
conciliation. Conciliation debases the brightest
ideas and elevates the stupidest ones. What
ideology is left is a thin brown gruel that
satisfies no one. The insanity of it is that, like
Oliver Twist, many of us ask for more, even when
we don't have to.

We are different; our combination of wants and
desires confers individuality. This uniqueness
makes division of labor and free markets possible.
Our differences, our uniqueness, mean we value
scarce resources differently (I prefer the term
constrained resource; no big-box retailer
conjures thoughts of scarcity), and thank goodness
for that. Otherwise, everything would be reduced
to gruel. Life would be like a flock of seagulls
converging on the same trawler for the same fish
chum.

Politics and government twist the overwhelming
advantages of our unique desires and skills into
conflict. Instead of each of us going his own way
to satisfy his needs and earning a living
satisfying other people's needs in a manner each
of us finds most accommodating, we are forced to
choose between suboptimal options imposed by
institutions. Politics distills options to the
most ascetic elements when a cornucopia should
prevail.

To wit: evolution or intelligent design? If the
elected school board picks one over the other, a
minority's interests prevail and bitterness and
frustration rise among the dissenting majority.
Why evolution or intelligent design, why not
evolution for evolutionists and intelligent design
for creationists? More important, why not
something else for those of us who believe both
are barren explanations?

This perverse system of coercing people to
accept limited options decivilizes. The question
of Ford or Chevrolet produces discord between two
pot-valiant knuckleheads at a NASCAR race, the
rest of us choose a Ford, Chevrolet, or whatever
brand best suits our fancy.

Politics always distills everything to the
knucklehead Ford-or-Chevrolet conundrum. Is it any
wonder politics infuriates and inflames? The media
apotheoses of political conflict — the repugnant
Keith Olbermann and the shrewish Ann Coulter — are
two sides of the same coin. Their stock in trade
is forcing people to consider the lesser of two
evils, when no evil need prevail. Do most of us
give a thought, much less a damn, about gay
marriage? Does anyone think politics will settle
the abortion debate?

When politics isn't decivilizing society, it's
raising time preferences. Problems must be
immediately resolved, lest the world grind to a
halt. Immediacy neuters logic and reason. Who else
but a politician could believe sagging
pants are a leading contributor to juvenile
delinquency? Many do, and when these ad hoc
thoughts invade a politician's consciousness,
those thoughts must be legislated post haste.

When politics isn't fomenting conflict, raising
time preferences, and stupefying the nation, it is
attenuating progress. Contrary to the incessant
jabbering on the need for "change," all
politicians despise change. Change — real human
progress, Schumpeterian change — erodes political
power and undermines regimes. Politics myopically
focuses on the known, which is why politicians
ruthlessly strive to maintain the status quo.

Stasis is the binding factor in political
power. Education is delivered in big sterile
buildings, seven classes of 50 minutes each,
scheduled to accommodate ancient agrarians.
Regulation expands to encompass the last crisis,
thus assuring the next. The military markets big
landmass enemies, thus enabling rag-tag bands of
freelancers from smallish countries to wreak havoc
on the country's largest city.

Marginalization is the only solution.
Government is marginalized when it is ignored,
when individuals eschew the political process.

So, do yourself and the rest of us a favor: if
you are considering running for elected office,
don't. If you are a small-government type, you're
unable to impede government growth anyway. If you
are a big-government type, you are unable to grow
government to your liking. Once in the system,
you'll be marginalized. You will make more enemies
than friends, and rightfully so. How dare you
force me to choose when I'd rather not.

Eschewing government also inures you to
government's corrupting influence. Look closely:
politicians are exemplars of the characteristics
we most despise in others: covetousness,
cowardice, equivocation, fecklessness, and
sophistry. If elected, you'll adopt these
characteristics. Your personality will shift to
stultified, reelection-seeking politician from
firebrand reformer. Public service is the most
ignoble of callings.

Voting wastes scarce
time and resources. Political debate (the ultimate
exercise in futility) is equally as wasteful. If
you can educate your kids out of public school, do
so.

The further we pull away from government
institutions, the weaker they become. Ostracizing
works. The strongest institutions, if ignored and
neglected long enough, eventually crumble. The
post office is literally crumbling before our
eyes. Other seemingly impenetrable government
institutions would suffer similar fates if we
removed the stanchions by removing our
participation in the political process.

$15.00
$14.00

The same crumbling effect would occur to
individuals committed to maintaining government
institutions and the status quo. Extracting
ourselves from politics marginalizes the Barack
Obamas, the Hillary Clintons, the Charles
Grassleys, the Barney Franks, the Harry Reids, the
Mitt Romneys, the et al. Delivering speeches in
empty auditoriums and having a handshake rebuked
with a turned back weakens confidence in the
validity of the political mission.

But won't the socialists run roughshod? No,
because the socialists are a small minority, and
small minorities can only impose their will when
the majority participates in a process that allows
them to impose their will.

There is a salutary effect to minding one's
business: the more one withdraws from politics,
the more one realizes how trifling politics
actually is, while concurrently realizing how
cooperation and freedom provide the best solutions
to the greatest number of problems.

Stephen Mauzy is a CFA charterholder, a
financial writer, and principal of S.P. Mauzy
& Associates. Send him mail.
See Stephen Mauzy's article
archives.

You can subscribe to future articles by Stephen
Mauzy via this RSS
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Mises Circle
in New Orleans

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Issues in Economics: High-School Seminar in
Auburn (Sponsored by Jeremy S. Davis)

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Matters: High-School Seminar in Houston
(Sponsored by Jeremy S. Davis)

Mises Circle,
Houston (Sponsored by Jeremy S. Davis)

Mises Circle
at Furman University (Sponsored by Furman
Conservative Students for a Better Tomorrow)

On
Politics, Money, and Banking

12.05.
Triangular Intervention: Price Control

12.04.
Utility "Ex Post": Free Market and
Government

12.03.
Direct Effects of Intervention on Utility

12.02.
A Typology of Intervention

Business
Tides: The Newsweek Era of Henry Hazlitt

Liberty
Magazine 22.6

Liberty
Magazine 24.11

Liberty
Magazine 24.10

Liberty
Magazine 24.9

Depoliticize!

“Keep
Paying Us or the Economy Dies”

The
Obsession with Equality

How
some companies raise prices in recession

Marx
was right about capitalism

Hayek
T-Shirt Cream

Mises
Money Clip

Paper
Money Collapse

Mises
License Plate Frame

Business
Tides

Free
State Project info and videos

Why
can't we just use other currencies?

Arguments
For Free Will

Wouldn't
it be better to let the state fail on its
own?

Belief
in objective morality a large impediment to
anarchy?

Ludwig von Mises Institute
518 West
Magnolia Ave.
Auburn, AL
36832

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