"… Most traditional societies adapted to economic change perfectly adequately, whereas post-traditional societies have shown themselves vulnerable to dictatorship and government bloat, both seriously detrimental to economic health. In the very long run, our modern ideals of how to organize government may be flat-out wrong. …
… Modern democratic governments have several disadvantages compared with their traditional dynastic-royal predecessors. The bureaucracy bloats and perpetuates itself. Taxation rises without limit, while budget deficits also soar, as the bureaucracy’s demand for resources is insatiable. Inflation is perpetual, because modern bureaucratic government cannot bear to give up its hidden seigniorage revenues from creating new money – hence the worst excesses of money-printing and coinage debasement are universal. The courts become corrupt …"
It is an interesting thought – rather than “liberal democracy” representing the End of History, it may turn out to be a disastrous dead end; not that monarchies have been a light to the world.
Any civil structure that permits centralization of the positive Network externalities away from the Flesh Blood and Bone of enforcers of property rights is de facto opposed to property rights. The only question is how long will it take to corrupt those centers into committing de facto genocide against that Flesh Blood and Bone? This is why I am so disgusted with Christian leadership that is anti-abortion. Not one of them have been advocating the replacement of the 16th Amendment with tax on liquidation value of net assets, let alone distribution of those revenues to young men attempting to form families. They are possessed of a spirit that wants the best of their young women to enter “higher education” where there are a vast array of demonic spirits awaiting to possess their bodies and souls in slavery to Mammon, rather than starting families with the young men of those churches. The Christian churches are imbued with satanic power and the dumpsters behind abortion clinics reek of that power.
A monarchy (in the traditional sense, not like modern Britain) is as good, or bad, as the monarch. This is why our founders put in “checks and balances”. But in reality, starting largely with B. Hussein, we DO have a monarchy now. It’s not that the laws have changed. It’s just that none of our 3 branches care about enforcing them. Like, B. Hussein put in DACA after stating that he knew it wasnt legal for him to do so. But here we are, stuck with the “Dreamers”.
Trump had to accomplish a lot of his goals with executive orders—and who can forget the spectacle of Biden on his first day in office, decreeing them all of naught?
No im down with monarchy. Maybe George Washington SHOULD have agreed to be King of America! All hail King Donald, first of his name!
Hence “liquidation” value but you’re also probably thinking in terms of capital gains tax rates when you should be thinking more in terms of the rate of interest on the national debt which is currently 3.15%, as opposed to whatever tax bracket the capital gains are taxed at.
Arithmetic matters in business matters.
For instance, here’s the arithmetic to determine how current asset holders would fare under the repeal of the 16th and replacement with a tax on liquidation value of net assets:
Hans Hermann Hoppe was way ahead on this, back in 2001. In Democracy, the God that Failed , he pointed out that monarchs have far more incentive to leave the nation in better condition at the end of their reign, in order to pass an improving society to their heirs. It there any comparison to the proved incentives of our “democratic” rulers?
Indeed! In theory, at least. But the sorry history of European monarchies shows the limitation of that approach.
On the other hand, the rapidly degrading mess around us today in the West demonstrates irrefutably that universal suffrage is at least as bad as monarchy.
If we try to be constructive, what are the alternatives to these failed approaches to governing societies? Humans evolved as hunting groups, which naturally required a leader whom most of the group would obey. The self-destructive loyalty of modern voters to failed “leaders” is probably genetically unavoidable.
There is a need for organization of any society – preferably a non-violent way of transferring the Mandate of Heaven. Perhaps the answers lie in the steps the Ancient Greeks took in their very-different democracies – limited franchise; limited scope of government; representatives selected by lot; laws require votes from all the voters, not just the representatives; stringent audits of leaders. Those kinds of ideas may be worth trying – as a future generation rebuilds after the coming inevitable collapse.
Kings are the primordial form of civilization because civilization is nascent eusocial organization and eusocial organization is a de facto state of war as evidenced in eusocial insects.
It is no mere metaphor that we call the reproductive caste in eusocial insects the singular Queen. “Soldier” is no mere metaphor for the sterile caste. It is the end-point of the evolution of eusociality.
To wage war you need to form a virtual organism out of individual organisms, and you need a command and control structure that is unified. You’ll get that unification in a biological individual in whom all genetic interests are vested if you don’t have the cognitive capacity for reason. If you do have the cognitive capacity for reason, you can defend individuality by making the organizing principle be a simple but plausible promise that is the underlying purpose of a Declaration of War.
A free people opts for Declarations of War over kings, but fall into perpetual kingship, hence perpetual war when they forget to “sacrifice the sacred king” at the accomplishment of the Declaration’s objective.
People are so far removed from the State of Peace now that it may be necessary for someone to step up and actually state the Declaration of War in the terms I described in this X post, along with a declaration that they be sacrificed upon its accomplishment:
I’d do it except that people are so insane that they’d think I had delusions of grandeur or some horseshit “diagnosis” and it wouldn’t work. I’m not deluded as to my insignificance. Otherwise I’d gladly be the sacrificial offering needed. I’ll probably end up being sacrificed anyway for far lesser purposes – worst of all simply dying of old age while the world goes to Hell. Trump could probably pull it off. Musk? Maybe but I’m not sure he’s up for anything but transhumanist “everlasting life”.
I am still not sure I follow you. In the formula you present, are you indicating that the right side of the minus side is today’s income tax and the left side would be the net asset tax? The result being the tax difference paid by the owner of an asset under the net asset tax versus the income tax?
So let me provide an example, to see if I can understand.
I can buy farmland near my home town for 5500 an acre. My earnings for renting this ground would be around 105/acre/year. Renting this farm land will have a gross yield of around 2%. I would pay about 18.375 in income tax at the aggregate tax rate of 17.5% (average tax rate on total GDI). If I pay 1% of the net asset value it would be 55 dollars.
Is that the right calculation?
This may be legitimate method of taxing such that those that are accumulating assets pay the tax to protect those assets. However, the implementation would cause massive bankruptcy as the value of the assets would drop drastically. When assets drop in price, tax receipts will drop. Increasing the need to raise the rate which further depresses the asset value.
Unless one is more concerned with politics than wise policy (policy which a wise philosopher king would impose), the more salient example is comparing Bezos and Musk. But be careful since politics is war carried out by other means – and eventually the facade gets stripped away as now we are starting to witness.
Bezos is a lot more like a Land Barron than is Musk. I’m not saying I’m entirely unsympathetic to Land Barrons since it is obvious that when Things Are Going To Hell, the “shrewd” investment is in collecting positive network externalities wherever one can find them falling – land value being the most ancient (even more so than collectibles like gold).
We need survivors who are wise enough to see the wisdom of the policy I’ve advocated, while subject to an environment of fools that are merely “shrewd”. BTC “whales” may be among these “survivors” but I’m not advocating BTC one way or the other. I’m just saying that’s one group of “Land Barrons” among whom we may find some genuine wisdom – whales that may “get it” when I talk of policies related to net asset tax such as militia.money.
So you seem to be saying that we need a king who will agree to be sacrificed upon his people accomplishing victory?
That is interesting. Of all the sacred-victim type kingships I’ve read about, the king usually gets ploughed under to ensure fertility, y’know, good crop o’ corn or whatever. He has to “water the soil” with his blood. That’s why people think William Rufus, the Conqueror’s son, met the bloody and suspicious “accidental” death he did, shot in the chest with a crossbow. The custom doesn’t seem to me to be aligned with insuring victory. The king should embody the people’s valor and aggression in war; he has to be brave enough to risk his own death, but ideally he will survive as an emblem of the people’s continued survival. The king embodies the fertility and virility of the land. Thats why the land languishes if he suffers a wound “in the thigh”.
I’m painfully aware of that narrative of “The Sacrifice of the Sacred King” but I have what I believe to be a much more rational understanding of the reason one would kill a warband leader upon the accomplishment of a war’s objective.
He’s dangerous to a free people. Free people only submit their will to his will in order to “Slay the Dragon” (ie: the collectivist group organism that threatens their land).
Why is he dangerous?
Why did everyone consider it so amazing that George Washington abjured kingship and why did a free people find his abdication of “the throne” in constitutional fulfillment to be a pivotal point in The Republic after he led the Revolutionary War?
Why did the effete patrician oligarchs assassinate Caesar after his attempt at a populist reform following on his victories against the Germanics?
Why did a modern “George Washington”, warn us of the military industrial complex as he stepped down from “the throne” that was his after victory in WW II?
Why is FERTILITY in danger when a deadly embrace forms between the women of the land and elite men?
The whole thing about agricultural “fertility” being the purpose of the sacrifice is horseshit layered over the ancient practice that kept people free – layered by a priestly class that became part of the power structure that enslaves men to the will of an elite.
I doubt there is a form of government that would work at the scale of large countries. The US Constitution was probably the best experiment and it failed within 100 years.
The best solution is to have many small “nations” (for lack of a better word). This system would probably fail too. The parasite class that think they deserve something because they exist and the criminal class that thinks it is morally justified to take from others for their idea of the greater good will eventually find a way to justify trying to take from others.
The US is like the Hatfield and McCoy fued on a national scale. With both sides believing all they have to do is get control and basically subjugate the other. Seventy or more percent of the population seems to think this is a better path forward than figuring out how to peacefully separate and avoiding total destruction.
As jabowery has stated. It looks like the Protestant vs Catholics and the 30 years war. Killing in the name of seems to be the preferred human reaction.
Just browsing X shows how little understanding of the horror this will cause all involved. The vast majority of us are like the idiots that thought they could watch the war between the States while having a picnic. Thinking you will watch the F16 bomb those others on tv when in reality your sister will be raped and have her throat slit.
