May 15, 2006

~"As you know, programs which are easy to begin or expand, are difficult or impossible to eliminate once a constituency develops which profits from them and so develops a vested interest in maintaining the status quo." -Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, 29 Jan 1998

Steiger's Law:

Sam Steiger is a former six-term US Congressman from Arizona. He ran for Arizona governor on the Libertarian ticket in 1984. At a talk given in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 31, 1982, he suggested what he modestly called "Steiger's Law:"

"People involved in a structure spend more time and energy maintaining that structure than in working toward its goals."

Steiger's Corollary:

"People within a structure divorced from market forces will expend more time and energy defending it than can economically be spent by people outside the structure attempting to modify or eliminate it."

This is because the power of the consumer, in this case, to just say "No" is not a factor.

The corollary applies mostly to governments ...

For example - - -

"The people who protected the Commerce Department the last time around were Commerce Department bureaucrats who actually set up a Commerce Department war room to fend off spending cuts." -Jim Lucier of Americans for Tax Reform, CNBC Inside Opinion, 19 Dec 1996, 12:17 PM EST

~"The main opposition for the abolition of the Energy Department comes from the Energy Department bureaucrats." -Rod Gramms, R-Minnesota, FNC, 29 Jan 1997 ~2:15 PM

[One effect of drug laws] has been the creation of ever-larger bureaucracies, ever-increasing expenditures of money, and an outpouring of publicity so that the public will know that 'something' is being done. Perhaps the major consequence of this... has been the creation of a vested interest in the perpetuation of the problem among those dispensing and receiving funds.... In the course of well-meaning efforts to do something about drug use, this society may have inadvertently institutionalized it as a never-ending project. (Bugliosi's italics.) -1973 Shafer Commission, from "THE PRAGMATIST," December 1991, pg.13, Book review of Drugs in America: The Case for Victory, by Vincent T. Bugliosi, Reviewed by Alan Bock

This is repeated over and over in government -- and often on behalf of government's corporate clients as well. That explains the 27,000 or so registered and well paid lobbyists prowling the halls of government, flushing out special favors for their mostly corporate employers, paid for with your tax dollars. [1]

And with Greenspan's observation above, we end up with this - - -

"You tried last year to get rid of some of this corporate welfare --- what is it, twelve people in congress voted for it, voted with you?" ...-CNBC's Ron Insanna

"You know Ron, we proposed elimination of about $60 billion in pork over seven years, over seven years, $60 billion [less than $10 billion per year, a very tiny part of the $1.6+ trillion 1996 Federal Budget -lrw] --- and we got 24 votes. And you know it is just incredible because we picked the twelve most egregious examples of corporate pork as come up with not by me, but by the Cato Institute and the Progressive Policy Institute who are at different ends of the political spectrum --- And frankly we got 24 votes and that's a long long way from 51 [needed to win a vote in the 100 person U.S. Senate -lrw]." -Sen. John S. McCain, (R-AZ), CNBC Inside Opinion, 06 March, 1996, ~12:04 EST

Which situation implies - - -

Kamin's 4th Law:

Governments will grow until destroyed by war or revolution.

And - - -

Mangrum's Corollary:

If not destroyed by war or revolution, governments will continue to grow until they crush the population which supports them.

Which explains Frederick Douglass' observation - - -

Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. -Frederick Douglass, civil rights activist, Aug. 4, 1857

This is all exacerbated by a certain type of personality - - -

Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. -Daniel Webster

Within any society, there appears to be a minority that thinks in terms of power and measures the worth of all actions in terms of whether they increase the personal reach of the actors and increase their capacity for control. This is why practically every society of any size is hierarchical, and why hierarchy is never eliminated, only replaced by a different hierarchy -- the same wine in a new bottle. "TAKING THE RED PILL" THE REAL MATRIX, PART 3, Steven Yates, December 7, 2004, NewsWithViews.com

But maybe there's still hope - - -

Hume's paradox as stated by [Noam] Chomsky: In any society, the population submits to the rulers, even though force is always in the hands of the governed. Chomsky also suggests that, "Ultimately the governors, the rulers, can only rule if they control opinion --no matter how many guns they have. This is true of the most despotic societies and the most free, [Hume] wrote. If the general population won't accept things, the rulers are finished." - PFRM: Hume's paradox The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (Interviews with Noam Chomsky) Copyright 1994 by David Barsamian SEE also Media's Role

"The revolution was Velvet because it stemmed from the beliefs of the common man. It was a cultural groundswell. Too often, revolutions are about power and attempting to grab control of the enforcement structure. They result in less liberty for the populace, as the new regime feeds on the dying carcass of the old establishment. If a revolution is to create more freedom, it must be derived from general popular consent and have as its goal simply to reject the prevailing sovereigns rather than to capture command, much like the American Revolution and Velvet Revolution were. Only then will there be the necessary cultural institutions present for liberty to thrive. Such an outcome is more secession than revolution. Otherwise, the result will be simply bloodshed and more tyranny as the French Revolution and Bolshevik Revolution showed. Unknown

There are [four] kinds of tyrants: some receive their proud position through elections by the people, others by force of arms, others by inheritance, [others by "divine right"]. Although the means of coming into power differ, still the method of ruling is practically the same. The tyrant has nothing more than the power you confer upon him to destroy you. [2] How does he have any power over you except through you? Tyrants need only be deprived of the public's continuing supply of funds and resources. Resolve to serve no more! and you are at once free. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer. Then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces. -Etienne de la Boetie 1553 France

Beware, however:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -U.S. President John F. Kennedy

L. Reichard White

Notes:

[1] As a result, five times as much tax money is spent on "corporate welfare" as is spent on "social welfare." return

[2] Here's how you may be inadvertantaly bestowing the power on the tyrant -- which he may then use to destroy you:

...participation [in the electoral process] is an instrument of conquest because it encourages people to give their consent to being governed by the state. Stemming from a sense of fair play deeply embedded in the human psyche, people generally obey the principle that those who play the game accept the outcome. Those who participate in politics are no less committed even if they are consistently on the losing side. ...This scheme of politics is remarkably ingenious in the way it exploits the natural inclination of humans toward fair play, loyalty and cooperation in process of subjecting them to conquest. - Alvin Lowi, Jr., originally for Economic.net

So, should you vote?

...the real occupation of the governors is either to plunder or to steal, as will best answer their purpose ...the art of administering those governments has been so to vary the means of seizing upon private property, as to bring the greatest possible quantity into the public coffers, without exciting insurrections. Those governments which are called despotic, deal more in open plunder; those that call themselves free, and act under the cloak of what they teach the people to reverence as a constitution, are driven to the arts of stealing. These have succeeded better by theft than the others have by plunder; ...Under those constitutional governments the people are more industrious, and create property faster; because they are not sensible in what manner, and in what quantities, it is taken from them. -Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe - Resulting from the Necessity and Propriety of a General Revolution in the Principle of Gvernment," written between 1792 and 1795

And, for an eye-opening view of just how the U.S. government illegitimately steals from you -- and who gets the loot -- take a look at "Silent Partners." return

L. Reichard White has made his living by beating casinos at their own games for over thirty years and specializes in games theory and self-motivation in enterprises with uncertain outcomes. His current studies include the evolution of lying as part of modern enterprise, the ethnology of rebellion and the role of prediction in personal psychology. You can find some of his other work if you search Google for "L. Reichard White" and you can contact him here.

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