Lack of intelligence, lack of division of labor and violent ideologies are three factors which contribute to states, wars, and imperialism. Fighters in wars were vassals of the Lords, or mercenary groups who could be hired. Fights were frequent but small and they had rules of knightly honor.
Charles Adams, the tax writer, tells young people to get a liberal education and go with the flow. He took tax law and he taught history. He saw that there was a tax story behind every event. Taxes, not slavery, caused the Civil War.Taxes began in Sumer. “Taxes are the fuel that make civilizations run,” but how we tax and spend determines to a large extent whether we are prosperous or poor, free or enslaved, and most importantly, good or evil. Taxes are forced exaction.
In this lecture Adams talks about the Enlightenment which was the philosophy of the eighteenth century. It was the high water mark of man’s thinking on taxes. They were wise; we’re not. These thinkers used the past as a guide.
Exploitative behavior of the state is studied. Brainwashing was required to build states up. Unlike productive activities via division of labor, parasitic activities like cannibalism, slavery, fraud and robbery did not lead to social cooperation.
Lady Godiva’s naked ride on her horse was a protest over taxes. Ship money for war ships was collected in Britain even though there was then no war.
Ideological factors, especially comparative religions, are considered. Until 1500, China was the most developed region on the globe. Confucianism has no promise of an afterlife. There are no miracles for them. They are realistic and rational. Confucius is not a god or prophet. He is revered as a great teacher. His teachings are compatible with capitalism.
The Laffer Curve from the 1920s reflects the truism that a 77 percent tax rate produces the same amount of revenue as a 7 percent tax rate. Once the tax rate exceeds twenty-five percent, less will be collected.
The institution of the State is not normal or natural. We will pay for making this error. There are not different and unequal laws applying to masters and individuals. Once you accept, incorrectly, unilateral taxation and ultimate jurisdiction in the hands of the state you are stuck.
Adams begins this session with facts about taxation being the basis of the Civil War, not slavery. If the British had not taxed the colonies, the colonies would have remained with Britain and slavery would have been ended when Britain ended it. The thousand year history of the Romans covered everything about taxes.
The next element in human development is that of money and the growth of cities and trade. Why is there division of labor and why is there money? Hoppe covers why people do not remain in self-sufficient isolation even when they could and even if everybody hated everybody else. As long as every person wants to have more rather than less, division of labor occurs.
Gustave de Molinari became the grand old man of classical liberalism, crediting Pareto. Molinari understood that the main issue in the Civil War was the tariff, not slavery. In Italy economists founded free market economics, crediting Bastiat.
Intellectuals are pro-power and anti-market. Great presidents are war presidents who glorify power. The Costs of War and Reassessing the Presidency are recommended books on this topic. The First World War was a turning point which vastly extended state power, and vastly destroyed social power.
What condition does mankind find itself in? Language, property and production are elements unique to mankind. Humans are social animals. Cooperation is normal. Language permits direct communication. Animals can’t abstract in the way humans can. They can form sounds but not words. Animals cannot make inferences explicitly. Animals do not have what we call self-consciousness (reflection).
Mises’ book, Liberalism, states that liberalism sufficed to change the face of the earth. The term liberal has since been hijacked by social democrats, so they don’t have to use the tainted word socialism. Raico defines liberalism to be civil society, minus the state, running itself within the bounds of private property.
Humans are prone to envy, writes Helmut Schoeck in Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior. Humans try to set up a society in which none is envious of another. George Stigler of the Chicago School saw man as always a utility maximizer.
The theory of time preference, capital, technology and economic growth will be viewed through both theoretical and historical elements. People have a preference for satisfaction earlier as compared to satisfaction later. Capital goods allow greater production, but this requires saving now, not consuming now.
It was thought that the ultimate antidote to war was universal democracy. It was not. Spencer defined liberal democracy as an individual free to control the product of his own efforts on the market. Welfare societies could not rationally be termed democracies.
Germany surrendered conditionally in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles. Everybody opposed the treaty, but it was forcibly implemented. Revisionism is necessary to combat state propaganda, e.g. the lie in WWII that FDR was surprised by Pearl Harbor.
Humans across the globe develop the division of labor. Hunter gatherers had limited association with each other. Languages were many and varied. Division of labor was only within their tribes. Agricultural life allowed many more people to live in settlements and capital could be accumulated for the first time.
Mill played a crucial, but inflated, role in liberalism. Rothbard did not like Mill much. Mill was a disaster on economic freedom and international issues. Mill rejected that workers and capitalists shared interests. Mill was anti-capitalist.
