This posting has absolutely nothing to do with the Battle of Lepanto, the 442nd anniversary of which is today.
In Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, or, The Peer and the Peri, a couple of lords — members of
the House of Peers — help build up their nerve to speak to Phyllis (an Arcadian
shepherdess) by singing a song composed primarily of aphorisms about, well,
building up one’s nerve. Like all
G&S ditties, it is clever and moderately satiric. The bottom line is, “Nothing ventured,
nothing gained.”
Now, we consider ourselves as democratic as the next
person. We have spent decades attempting
to restructure the social order so as to secure to ordinary people the means of
obtaining and maintaining the chief prop of personal and individual
sovereignty: private property in capital.
That being said, it cannot be denied that Americans have an
absolute fascination for “royals,” particularly “royals” that are British. Next are European “royals” in general. After that are the Russian nobility, Swiss
admirals, oriental royalty, and then those African panjandrums. No matter — it’s the “royal” label that gets
the attention, regardless of the merit or lack thereof of the individual
holding the title. Americans lap it up.
That being the case, when we saw an article about the Kingof the Netherlands
trying to pitch the necessity of the austerity program to a populace accustomed
to having the State take care of everything, it resonated. Yes, we know the “king” is simply a
figurehead, an expensive tourist attraction.
That doesn’t matter. Occasionally
when the “monarch” (a grossly inaccurate term, by the way; it means “sole
ruler,” and is not a synonym for “king” or “queen”) speaks, people just might
listen — if only to maintain the illusion that “royalty” means anything any
more aside from increased tourist revenue.
Naturally, we were compelled to comment. We announced that His Grace (we refused to
use the imperial “majesty”) to give us a call.
Austerity may be good and necessary, but it won’t fill the gap. Consistent with Say’s Law of Markets (that
Keynes misstated and then attacked — a straw man argument, like most of Keynes’s
work), only by making people productive (or, more accurately, giving them the
opportunity and means to be productive) can people participate in economic, and
thus civil, life.
Monetary and tax reform are essential and must go in tandem,
or the effort will be futile. Financing
of all feasible new capital must shift to future savings instead of past
savings, taxes should be levied only to meet legitimate government
expenditures, and the tax system should encourage payment of dividends instead
of retention and not tax a core income sufficient to cover ordinary domestic
needs.
Finally — and without this, the whole thing will eventually
fall apart — there must be widespread capital ownership. This is essential to the restoration and
maintenance of Say’s Law of Markets. One
possible program, that would be very easy to implement in a country like the
Netherlands, is Capital Homesteading. We
finished with the announcement that if His Grace would give us a call, we’d personally
send him a complimentary copy of
Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen
— if he’ll read it and give it serious consideration.
Could you get any more democratic than that?
#30#
