Comparable Worth

 

Comparable Worth

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: This article was submitted in 1984 for the “Southern National Newsletter” of the Southern National Party. The article has been slightly edited.]

“Comparable worth” is beginning to replace the chimera of “equal pay for equal work.” (The reason that equal pay for equal work is losing to comparable worth is that it has failed to transfer enough wealth from the productive to the politically powerful.) But what is comparable worth? How should wages be determined?

In a free market, the consumer determines wages. Wages are paid according to how much one contributes to society. Everyone is paid what he is worth. (If a person believes that he is underpaid, he is free to find a job that pays more.) However, government intervention distorts a worker’s real worth.

The government can distort wages in many different ways. It can do it indirectly by granting monopolistic privileges to labor unions and public utilities. Most of its economic regulations distort wages to some degree. These regulations create nonproductive and otherwise unnecessary positions. Businesses are forced to hire people who do nothing but placate governmental officials. Taxes can have both an indirect and a direct impact on wage rates.

Besides taxes, the government directly distorts wages in several other ways. The most obvious is to fix wages as was done during the wage freeze of the 1970s. Also, the government fixes a minimum wage and forbids anyone from working if his economic contribution to society falls below this arbitrary number. Further, it distorts wages by forcing businesses to hire a minimum number of politically privileged groups (commonly called minorities, although they may not be in the minority and although many minorities are not so privileged). Moreover, it dictates equal pay for equal work. (No two people do equal work because no two people are equal. No two people can be equal because no two people are identical. Only identical people can do equal work. Yet, the government does not let the facts stand in the way of its lust for power.) Now, it is pushing an idea that will give it complete control over the workers and the economy — comparable worth.

Comparable worth is an arbitrary and subjective approach that attempts to compare the tens of thousands of different occupations in the United States and to determine the relative value of each when compared with all other occupations. The comparable worth approach subjectively determines the economic contribution of each occupation to society. This means that one’s political influence determines one’s economic worth. White-collar workers develop comparable worth schemes. Not unexpectedly, these schemes always elevate white-collar jobs and lower blue-collar jobs. The subjective approach of comparable worth would replace the objective approach of the free market in determining wages. Bureaucrats would determine wages instead of consumers.

The outcome of the comparable worth approach would be economic chaos. The government would gain complete control over the lives of every worker. Class conflict, the lifeblood of democracy, would be encouraged. Thus, the blue-collar worker, who is normally discriminated against by comparable worth, would be pitted against the white-collar worker. Courts would be filled with litigation. The wealth of the politically powerful would rise, although their economic contribution to their fellow man would decline. Of course, the government would grow astronomically as it tried to administer this draconian program. All this would be the result of using the arbitrary and subjective approach of comparable worth to determine wages instead of the objective and unbiased approach of the free market.

If the desired goal is tyranny and a larger and more powerful government, then wages should be determined by comparable worth. If one should be paid according to his political influence, then wages should be determined by comparable worth. If the desired goal is liberty and justice, then wages should be determined by the free market. If one should be paid according to his economic contribution to his fellow man, then wages should be determined by the free market.

Copyright © 1984, 2026 by Thomas C. Allen.

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Nationalists and Federalists

Nationalists and Federalists

Thomas Allen

Since the ratification of the Constitution of 1788, nationalists and federalists have been struggling to control the government of the United States. With the possible exception of the Cleveland administration, the nationalists have controlled the US government since the election of Lincoln. (Federalists should not be confused with the early Federalist Party of Washington and Adams, which was primarily a nationalist party. As contradictory as it may sound, the Antifederalists of that era were the real federalists.) The following is a comparison of nationalists and federalists.

1– Nationalists support a living constitution where the US Supreme Court, the President, and Congress continuously change the interpretation of the Constitution to meet current needs, i.e., to satiate their lust for power. Among their favorite clauses are the Interstate Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause (which means that anything Congress deems to be for the general welfare), and the Necessary and Proper Clause. They give these and other clauses extremely elastic interpretations.

On the other hand, federalists support a strict, limited interpretation of the Constitution. They advocate interpreting the Constitution to mean what the proponents of the ratification of the Constitution explained it to mean and its intent. Records of their remarks are available in the debates of the ratification conventions, the Federalist Papers, and other writings that promoted the Constitution.

2– While nationalists advocate the consolidation of political power where the national government (a.k.a. the central government, the federal government, the US government, and the general government) has unlimited power, federalists advocate the dispersal of political power where the federal government has limited, enumerated power.

3– According to nationalists, the Supreme Court is the final arbitrator of the constitutionality of federal acts (and even most State acts). Thus, the national government is the sole arbitrator of its political power.

Federalists assert that “we the people” of each State, either through their legislatures or special conventions, are the ultimate and final arbitrators of the constitutionality of a federal act. If a State finds that a federal act is unconstitutional, it is void in that State, but it may continue to be applied in the other States.

4– Nationalists maintain that all federal acts are constitutional until the Supreme Court declares them unconstitutional, which it rarely does. (Being a branch of the national government, the Supreme Court cannot be an unbiased arbitrator. Most of the time, it decides in favor of the national government and against the States.) 

However, federalists maintain that only federal acts pursuant to the Constitution are constitutional. Any federal act that does not implement or apply one of the powers expressly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution has not been made pursuant to the Constitution. Therefore, it is unconstitutional, i.e., it is not a law and consequently void.

5– Nationalists loathe States’ rights. They consider States to be merely administrative districts of the national government.  

Quite the opposite, federalists are ardent proponents of States’ rights. States, i.e., “we the people” of each State, are the heart and soul of the Constitution and the federal government that they created. Without the States, the Constitution and federal government would not exist. Furthermore, each State acting independently is the final judge of the constitutionality of all federal acts. Consequently, if a State finds a federal act unconstitutional, it is duty-bound to nullify that act within its jurisdiction.

6– Nationalists place the power of the national government above all. Therefore, they view secession as treason and a sacrilege.

Federalists place the welfare of their community, people, and land above the federal government. Thus, they view secession as a means of preservation.

7– Nationalists are inclined toward foreign intervention and imperialism and are, therefore, bellicostic. They seek hegemony.

Contrastingly, federalists desire not to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries and seek peace and trade with all. Consequently, they prefer peace to war.

8– Nationalists favor government-business partnerships, mercantilism, protectionism, centralized banking, easy credit (inflation), and government indebtedness. Thus, they favor big business, big labor, and the concentration of economic power. Prosperity is created through mercantilism, i.e., corporate welfare, protectionism, and central banking. 

On the other hand, federalists favor free trade, free markets, free enterprise, decentralized banking, the separation of government and banking, the stable value of money, and minimum or no government debt. Thus, they favor the dispersal of economic power. Free markets create prosperity.

9– Nationals accept the welfare state, for it increases the national government’s control over the people and, consequently, its power.

Federalists prefer private and church charities to governmental welfare. However, if a government is to be involved in welfare, it should be the local government.

10– Nationalists rely on the national government to promote and preserve the virtues of the people. Making people righteous is a primary function of the national government. (Today, perversion is often considered righteousness.)

Federalists rely on the independence of citizens to promote and preserve the virtues of the people. Making people righteous is primarily the work of churches (true churches and not today’s woke churches).

11– Nationalists construe the Constitution as a teleological document (establishing a society based on abstract principles of natural rights, equality, democracy, etc.)

Federalists construe it as a nomocratic document (bringing government under the rule of law).

12– Nationalists lean toward inclusion and, therefore, amalgamation.

Yet, federalists lean toward diversity and, therefore, separation. Moreover, 

federalists are more tolerant than are nationalists.

While nationalists promote the concentration of political, economic, and social power, federalists promote their dispersal.

Regrettably, most State governmental officials have sold their souls to the nationalists. Since most State officials prefer lucre to liberty, the nationalists have bought them with federal grant money. (Nowhere does the Constitution delegate the federal government the authority to issue grants — much less to use federal funds for bribery.)

In summary, while nationalists are centralists, federalists are decentralists (see “Centralism Verses Decentralism” by Thomas Allen.) Furthermore, while nationalists are statists, federalists are libertists (“Statists Versus Libertists” by Thomas Allen). Consequently, nationalists prefer the constitution that Lincoln and the Republicans, as further developed by Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and carried to fruition by the Warren Court, gave the United States, while the federalists prefer the Constitution of the Founding Fathers (see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” by Thomas Allen).

Federalism is achieved when more people know the names of their governors and State legislators than know the names of the President and their members of Congress.

Afterthought. Generally, nationalists divide into two major factions. One follows the attributes in the above list. The other follows the political and social attributes, although they disagree about the virtues that the national government should impose and the extent of the welfare state. However, the second faction agrees more with the federalists on economic matters. Further, some nationalists are less favorable to foreign interventionism than others.

Unfortunately, not all federalists are consistent. Many act like nationalists on economic matters. Some federalists are inclined toward the warfare state (foreign interventionism) and welfare states and support such endeavors, especially when their State receives money from the federal government for military bases and various social and welfare programs.

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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King on the World House – Part 2

King on the World House – Part 2

Thomas Allen

To solve international poverty, King writes “The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled and feed the unfed.” (P. 189.) (In other words, reverse colonialism: Instead of Whites countries exploiting nonwhite countries, nonwhite countries exploit White countries. This exploitation has been extended to allow nonwhites to invade White countries without restrictions or limits while granting these nonwhites the privilege to plunder, oppress, rape, maim, and kill Whites with little or no penalty. On the contrary, Whites who complain about being maltreated by nonwhites are penalized.)

Continuing, King states that the great and rich countries must “provide capital and technical assistance to the underdeveloped areas.” (P. 188.) These countries need to provide much more aid than they have provided — enough to sustain economic growth. Wealthy countries “must promptly initiate a massive, sustained Marshall Plan for Asia, Africa and South America.” (Pp. 188-189.) (Although not at the level that King wanted, rich countries, especially the United States, have provided an enormous amount of aid. However, they send aid to the government of the recipient country; consequently, only a small portion goes to the people who need it. Most of the aid goes to enrich officials of the recipient government and to the politically connected in the country receiving the aid and the country sending the aid. As for the Marshall Plan idea, European countries that received the most aid, e.g., Great Britain, under the Marshall Plan took longer to recover than countries that received little or nothing, e.g., Germany.)

Continuing, King writes, “The aid program that I am suggesting must not be used by the wealthy nations as a surreptitious means to control the poor nations.” (P. 189.) (That is, aid must be given with no conditions attached and no oversight.) Moreover, aid must be given with “a compassionate and committed effort to wipe poverty, ignorance and disease from the face of the earth.” (P. 189.) (Thus, if aid is given with an inappropriate motivation, it does the recipient country no good. How absurd! Despite the motivation, the recipient will use his lucre the same way if it comes without conditions.) Nevertheless, King implies that much of the aid will be wasted instead of improving the health, education, and wealth of the people. Such waste is caused by these colonies becoming independent countries. 

King credits the economic growth of the West to being relatively underpopulated and an abundance of iron ore and coal. (If true, when the Europeans landed in the Americas, they should have found a level of economic prosperity similar to what Europe had. The Americas were relatively underpopulated and coal, iron ore, and other natural resources exceeded that of Europe. Likewise, with Africa, when the Europeans landed in sub-Sahara Africa, they should have found a level of economic prosperity similar to Europe’s. Like the Americas, Africa was relatively underpopulated and had natural resources that far exceeded Europe’s. King errs because he fails to account for nonphysical genetic differences.)

Because the emerging new governments of former colonies, “confront staggering problems of overpopulation. There is no possible way for them to make it without aid and assistance.” (P. 190.) (Thus, King admits that nonwhites are inferior to Whites because Whites made it without aid and nonwhites cannot. Moreover, the primary reason that these new countries were “overpopulated” was that the European colonial powers created conditions conducive to population growth.)

King declares, “that we must use our resources to outlaw poverty.” (P. 191.) (Thus, King declares that Jesus erred when he said that the poor will always be with us. Jesus did not mean that we should not help the poor from our personal estates, which we should. However, one should not plunder [tax] another person and give the loot to the poor — as King wanted to do.)

About one thing, King is correct: “A final problem that mankind must solve in order to survive in the world house that we have inherited is finding an alternative to war and human destruction.” (Pp. 191-192.) (On this point, King-idolizing conservatives, especially neoconservatives, ignore the greatest conservative ever, the archconservative King. Most of these conservatives adore every war that they have ever seen. People with the right connections can make a great deal of money from war.)

Continuing, King writes, “There is no need to fight for food and land. Science has provided us with adequate means of survival and transportation, which make it possible to enjoy the fullness of this great earth.” (P. 192.) (King sounds like a proponent of free trade.) He detests the notion of fighting wars in the name of peace and condemns leaders who do so. These leaders seek “a peaceful world order, a world fashioned after their selfish conceptions of an ideal existence.” (Likewise, King sought a peaceful world order fashioned after his selfish conception of an ideal existence.) He contends that peaceful ends must be pursued through peaceful means.

Then, King suggests “that the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence become immediately a subject for study and for serious experimentation in every field of human conflict” (p.194) including relations between nations. (King seems to want countries to resolve conflicts among themselves following his method of “nonviolent” protests. For decades, the CIA has been following King’s method. If a government [a segregated State or city] does not bow to the CIA’s [King’s] demands, the CIA supports the opponent’s [openly violent civil rights groups] of the government and brings it down via a coupe, civil war [riots], etc.)

Then, King states, “The United Nations is a gesture in the direction of nonviolence on a world scale.” (P. 195.) (If true, the United Nations is a failure. As many, and probably more, violent conflicts have occurred since its creation than before. However, the real purpose of the United Nations is not to prevent violent conflicts. Its purpose is to serve as a foundation for a despotic world government that a few oligarchs control.)

Next, King writes that “true nonviolence is more than the absence of violence. It is the persistent and determined application of peaceable power to offenses against the community.” (P. 195.)  (What is this application of “peaceful power?” It looks a lot like the application of legalized coercion, i.e., war. Covert war is what King used to destroy the South.)

King argues for “a revolution of values to accompany the scientific and freedom revolutions engulfing the earth.” (P. 196.) (King had a warped sense of freedom. Traditionally, freedom means that the government does little beyond the minimum to protect life, liberty, and property. Freedom means no welfare state, no guaranteed income, no affirmative action or quotas, no public school system, and none of the many other things that King wanted governments to do. Concerning race relations, just about the only acts that a government could take are those necessary to prevent or discourage genocide.)

Continuing, King declares, “We must . . . shift from a ‘thing’-oriented society to a ‘person’-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” (Pp.196-197.) (King-idolizing conservatives take note: You need to oppose the free market economy. Either King is exposing his ignorance of a free market economy or he hates it. A free market economy is people-oriented. If producers do not provide people with what they want or need at a price that they can afford, they make no profit. Without property rights, i.e., the right to use their property as they think best, producers are hampered in providing people what they desiderate. The foundation of a free market economy is cooperation. Moreover, a free market economy does a better job of conquering the great triplets than does King’s approach of massive governmental intervention that is based on envy and the lust for power.)

Then, King describes capitalism and Communism. (His description of Communism is accurate. His description of capitalism is what happens when governments interfere in a free market economy for wars, favorites, or picking winners and losers.)

King argues for a fascist economy — the melding of capitalism and Communism. “The good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of Communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.” (P. 197.) (This is a description of fascism: the concatenation of the collective and the individual with oligarchs deciding what is a good and just society. Moreover, King should be rolling over in his grave with joy since nearly every country in the world today has some form of fascist political economy, and most did at the time he wrote.)

With his Luddite tendencies, King declares “With righteous indignation, it [the true revolution of values] will look at thousands of working people displaced from their jobs with reduced incomes as a result of automation while the profits of the employers remain intact, and say: ‘This is not just.’” (P. 198.) (King seems to want nonwhite countries to industrialize. Yet, industrialization, i.e., automation, costs people their jobs. Over the centuries many jobs have been lost to automation. Most automation has replaced people in grueling, dangerous, or monotonous jobs that most people dislike doing. Automation has freed them to perform more interesting work. The industrial revolution has been built on automation. Besides, if everything is so automated that no jobs exist, then companies would quickly go out of business because no one could buy their products. What King and most other people fail to realize is that the final customer decides what jobs are needed and the pay of workers and not employers, capitalists, etc. If the government intervenes to fix wages, prices, etc. shortages occur, and the country as a whole is poorer. Nevertheless, King has a point about companies taking much more money out of a community than they invest there — this is an argument to favor small businesses over multinational corporations.)

King complains, “There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen.” (P. 199.) (As noted above, the final customer decides the pay that a worker receives by what he is willing to pay for the product or service. Obviously, King did not know much about economics. But, here, he is promoting his guaranteed income for every family. That is, he wants the government to plunder producers and divide the stolen loot among families or individuals.)

Then, King states, “that our greatest defense against Communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice.” (P. 200.) (That is, the United States need to flood the world with money with no conditions attached.)

Continuing, King declares, “These are revolutionary times.” (P. 200.) (True. It was the revolution of tyranny and despotism over freedom and liberty. In the name of King’s social justice, tyranny, and despotism won.)

Next, King writes, “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal opposition to poverty, racism and militarism.” (Pp. 200-201.) (If this is our only hope, we are doomed. Poverty is still with us as Jesus said it would be. Black racism, Yellow racism, and Brown racism have supplanted White racism, which is mostly dead. Militarism is as prevalent today as ever before as the United States seek to impose democracy and King’s social justice on every country in the world.)

King was a cosmopolitan and a globalist. He urged everyone to place humanity as a whole above his particular tribe, race, class, and nation (a people as opposed to a country). Further, he calls “for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men.” (P. 201.) (That is, all tribes, races, classes, and nations must sacrifice themselves on the altar of globalism under the rule of the global oligarchs. Now, it becomes clear why White oligarchs supported King and his destructive work.)

In conclusion, King states, “We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation.” (Pp. 200-201.) (Where Southerners were involved, King never did stop worshiping the God of hate or bowing before his altar of retaliation.)

For decades, the White oligarchs have been flooding the country with legal and illegal nonwhites. This flooding of nonwhites greatly threatens the hold that Negroes have on America. Because they are not White, these nonwhites are demanding and receiving the same benefits and privileges given to Negroes. Consequently, Negroes are beginning to lose their control of America to these nonwhites. Unfortunately for Negroes, they cannot control these nonwhites with guilt as they have controlled Whites. When these nonwhites reach a critical mass, they will push the Negro to the lowest rung of society. Then, Negroes will look at the days of segregation and Jim Crow as the days of privilege and prosperity. For this dismal future, Negroes can think King and his civil rights movement and social justice.

After reading his book, I discovered that I have much more confidence in the American Negro than King did. He believed that the Negro was incapable of bettering himself without the aid of Whites. Therefore, according to King, Negroes need Whites to solve their problems, to support them, and to give them special privileges and benefits. Although Whites gave the Negro everything that King demanded and more — except ending wars and a guaranteed income, many Negroes still have a slave mentality, however, a perverse slave mentality. Like the traditional slave, they remain dependent on Whites, but unlike the traditional slave, they expect Whites to serve them. By obeying King’s demands, Whites have greatly damaged the Negro. The Negro as a whole would have been better off today if King and his followers had not created the turmoil that they did in the 1960s and if the Negro had been left alone to solve his problems.

To resolve his problems the Negro should free himself from his dependency on Whites. Ironically as it may seem, especially to King, Negroes would have advanced further in a more segregated society. The Black Power folks were going in the right direction, but King subverted their movement. As a result, the Negro is not much better off today than in King’s day except economically. In many social respects, the Negro is worse off.

If the Negro had followed the Black Power road instead of King’s road, he would have had the satisfaction of knowing that he raised himself up and that he is responsible for his achievements. Because he followed King’s road, he will always question his achievements since Whites gave him just about everything that he has.

When King said that he had a dream, his dream was the genocide of the White race after all its wealth had been plundered. At least, that is the result of the policies that he advocated and promoted. Moreover, King-idolizing conservatives have been working diligently to achieve his dream — except in the economic realm where most continue to oppose guaranteed income and reparations.

Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Mosaic Economics

Mosaic Economics

Thomas Allen

In Moses the Economist (1947, Editor Ben Williams, Reprinted 2009, American Christian Ministries), C.F. Parker gives his understanding of Mosaic economics as described in the Pentateuch. Some of his descriptions and my comments follow.

– Value. Parker believes that the value of the labor used to provide a product or service determines its value. (Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx held this view.) The opinion of the consumer is irrelevant. Thus, if the labor value of a product is $100 and the consumer values it at $50, the product cannot be sold for $50. To sell it for $50 would cheat the workers of their due wages and would be an ill-gotten gain for the consumer, who has cheated the workers out of part of their wages. For the product to sit on the shelf and deteriorate is better than selling it for less than $100. How the workers are better off losing $100 by the product deteriorating to worthlessness than losing $50, Parker does not explain.

Like most people, he has the cost of labor and materials determining the selling price of the product backward. The cost of labor and other inputs to produce a product does not determine the selling price of the product. The marginal consumer does. What the consumer is willing to pay for a product determines the cost of the labor and other inputs in the production of the product.

– Taxes. Farmers bear the primary burden of funding the government. They pay 10 percent of their crops and increase in herds to the government. (If their herds decrease, does this the government reimburses them for 10 percent of their loss — probably not.) However, they pay their taxes in products and livestock instead of money.

To provide additional revenue (taxes) for the government, Parker extends this principle to manufacturers. Through some convoluted reasoning, he concludes that the use of tools powered by steam or electricity produced by coal, petroleum, natural gas, uranium, water, and now wind and solar makes their products equivalent to agriculture. Consequently, manufacturers would pay the government 10 percent of what they produce. Thus, applying the agricultural equivalency, an automobile manufacturer would give the government 10 percent of the cars and trucks that he produces. A spark plug manufacturer would give the government 10 percent of the spark plugs produced. In like manner, a toy manufacturer would pay the government 10 percent of the toys that he produces. And, likewise, for other manufacturers.

However, if furniture manufacturers or seamstresses used no power tools in producing their furniture or apparel, they pay no taxes. Yet, if they use power tools, such as electric saws and drills and electric sowing machines, they pay 10 percent of their products to the government.

Providers of services are exempted from taxation. For some strange reason, Parker puts miners, who extract God-given ore from the ground, in the nontaxpaying category. Although he is unclear whether extractors of petroleum, natural gas, and coal pay taxes or not, he seems to place them in the nontaxpaying category.

Parker does not address solar and wind energy because when he wrote his book, they were not used to produce electricity, although the wind was used to grind grain, pump water, and move ships. However, based on his agricultural principle, since God provides the wind and sun, people who use them to produce electricity should give the government 10 percent of the electricity that they produce.

– Land. Parker is a proponent of the jubilee where all land returns to the original owner every 50 years. For the Western Hemisphere, this means that all land return to the Indians (who gets the land of the extinct Indian tribes?). Or, it returns to the monarchs of Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Russia. If the principle of the right of conquest, the land belongs to whoever conquers it, is applied as it is applied to the Israelite’s conquest of Canaan, then the aforementioned monarchs are the original owners since the land was conquered for them and in their name. Consequently, the Indians have no claim. (See “Jubilee” by Thomas Allen.)

– Usury, Loans, and Debt. Of course, charging interest including fees, which is interest by another name, on loans is prohibited. Moreover, all debts are canceled after seven years —not seven years from when the loan is made but a fixed calendar seven years for all loans. Thus, a loan may be canceled a year after it is made. (See “Questions for Anti-Usurers” by Thomas Allen.)

If all debt is canceled every seven years, then all paper money and its electronic equivalent including checkbook money become void every seven years. These types of money are obligations, i.e., debts. Parker seems not to recognize this cancellation of credit or representative money, which he believes is real money like full-weight gold and silver coins. His confusion about money derives from his belief that money is a mere token. (See “What Is Money?”,  "What Are the Functions of Money,” and “What Is the Difference Between Commodity and Fiat Money” by Thomas Allen)

Although Parker does not realize it, his anti-usury stance if carried to its logical conclusion forbids farmers from saving part of their crop as seed for the next season. Deciding how much to consume now and how much to save for future consumption involves interest, usury.

Furthermore, even the holdings of Social Security, of which Parker approves, would cease to exist every seven years because they are obligations (debts) owed to the participants.

– Money. Further, Parker has little understanding of commodity money, e.g., gold and silver, and a commodity monetary system, e.g., the gold standard. He believes that the monetary commodity has a different value, usually, a lower value, from the commodity stamped as a coin. Under a true commodity standard, the commodity has approximately the same value as an equivalent weight of the commodity when stamped as a coin. Money has value in and of itself that is independent of any image, words, or numbers stamped on it. The weight of the commodity in the coin is what gives it value and not what is stamped on it. (If the monetary value of a currency exceeds the commodity of which it is made, as with paper money, it represents real commodity money and is, therefore, an obligation to pay real commodity money, i.e., it is a debt payable in real commodity money.)

If he had looked in Genesis, he would have found the attributes of real money, which are quantity, a measure of weight, and substance. According to Genesis 23:16, Abraham bought a burial plot. He paid 400 (quantity) shekels (measurement of weight) of silver (substance). All commodity money has these three attributes, which makes money more than a mere token.

Therefore, a token even if used as a medium of exchange is not Biblical money. When used as a medium of exchange, token money represents money and passes the obligation to pay real money from one person to another. When the seven-year debt cancellation comes, token money becomes a canceled debt, and the person holding it is cheated out of whatever value it had as a medium of exchange.

Nevertheless, Parker is correct about money itself not being wealth. However, the gold in a gold coin is wealth as gold bullion. (See “What is the Gold Standard?” by Thomas Allen.)

– Banks. Banking as known today would cease to exist. People who wanted to save their money in a secured vault would have to pay someone to protect their money in a vault.

As for checking accounts, people would have to pay a depositary to hold their money against which they could write checks. They may also have to pay when a check is cashed or money is transferred from one account to another account. A return to yesteryear where bill collectors visited people’s houses or businesses to collect payment may return. Most likely, people may have to visit centralized offices to pay their bills as that would be the cheapest way of making payments.

– Wages. According to Parker, people should be paid according to their effective endeavors. Also, he seems to argue for a wage system that is akin to what progressives promote from time to time. Some governmental bureaucrats establish a relative pay scale for each type of job based on their opinion of its importance and on the labor required for that job. 

Nevertheless, he maintains that workers who work more efficiently acquire more wealth than less efficient workers. The incompetent and slackers become impoverished. He is a proponent of meritocracy in the workplace, which the free market generally provides when the government does not interfere with employment.

According to Parker’s understanding of Mosaic economics, wealth is fixed and is the aggregate of the rivers, lakes, oceans, soil, plants, animals, atmosphere, and the like. Wealth has nothing to do with human intelligence in organizing and using these resources. Thus, African countries rich in resources should be wealthier than Singapore, which is extremely poor in natural resources, but most are not.

– Stocks. Corporations with publicly traded stock would cease to exist under Parker’s Mosaic economics. Paying dividends on stock is outlawed because the owner of the stock did not earn the money. Moreover, one could never sell a stock for more than he paid for it because that is ill-gotten gain. Likewise, apparently, one could never sell a stock for less than what he paid for it because that would be an ill-gotten gain for the buyer. 

– Abundances and Scarcities. Buying items such as generators and food in a region of plenty and selling them in a region of want because of a natural disaster, war, or otherwise at a price above what existed before the disaster is forbidden. One must sell the item at the predisaster market price. (Higher prices mean stronger demand relative to the supply and are a signal for more supply. By fixing prices, Parker denies this signal. He appears to have a great deal of confidence in the integrity and the subjective opinions of governmental bureaucrats to move products from a region of abundance to a region of scarcity. He seems to want to eliminate the free market.)

Moreover, in a region that has an abundance of agricultural products, he would prohibit selling the products below the pre-abundant price. To do so would cheat the farmer. Apparently, the farmer and presumably the consumer benefit more from the excess crops rotting away than from selling them at a lower price.

– Selling Used Items. Selling a used product, including antiques and old masterpiece paintings, for a profit is forbidden. One cannot sell a used product for more than what he paid for it (or the original price if the original price is lower). Consequently, if a person inherits a painting, jewelry, furniture, or anything else whose original price is unknown, he cannot sell it.

Moreover, stamp and coin collecting as an investment would cease to exist. One can never sell a stamp or coin for more than its face value.

– Insurance. Private insurance is verboten. Nevertheless, Parker accepts governmentally run Ponzi schemes like social security, which is often called insurance.

– Conclusions. If implemented, Mosaic economics, as Parker explains it, would be detrimental to today’s economy. A small minority of the country, the farmers and manufacturers, bear the tax burden; the remainder remains untaxed. This dearth of taxes does keep the government small and, therefore, limited. The government could not make up for the shortfall by deficient spending as the cancellation of debt every seven years and the illegality of charging interest would prevent most people from lending to the government.

Further, his explanation of money is flawed. Also, his requirement for governmental price fixing is highly destructive and would create continuous surplus and shortages. He asserts that the value or price of labor in producing and distributing products fixes their value or price; the subjective opinion of the consumer, i.e., what the consumer is willing to pay for the product is irrelevant in fixing its value or price. His demand to abolish interest would cause the consumption of capital until society reverts to the hunter-gatherer stage. (See “Usury” by Thomas Allen.) 

Moreover, Mosaic economics, as Parker explains it, relies heavily on the wisdom, integrity, altruism, and near omniscience of governmental bureaucrats. Although historically and biblically, governments have been much more doers of evil than doers of good, Parker displays a childlike trust and confidence in governments always being doers of good.

Parker is convinced that Mosaic economics as he understands it will eliminate poverty. However, instead of making the country prosperous as he claims, his proposals would impoverish the country.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Conservatives

 Conservatives

Thomas Allen

Conservatives divide into two groups: Rationalists, who are faux conservatives, and Traditionalists, who are real conservatives. Rationalists include neoconservatives and establishment conservatives, which include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, and the typical Republican politicians. Traditionalists include principled conservatives (Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, fusionists, and the Old Right) and Enlightened conservatives (the New Conservatives of the 1950s as represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorn reason and principle, reduce virtue to prudence, and depend heavily on Providence).

While Rationalists claim that America is a proportional or creedal country dedicated to the ideas of equality, democracy, and universal natural rights, i.e., American Exceptionalism, Traditionalists reject this notion. Instead of advocating loyalty to abstract ideas as do the Rationalists, Traditionalists adhere to loyalties to one’s own race (or at least they used to, but now most are racial nihilists), ethnicity, culture, and traditions, that is loyalty to one’s nation. (A nation or nationality is a people who have a common genetic ancestry, culture, language, and history; who have common traditions and customs; and who are capable of forming or constituting an independent country.) Being universalists, cosmopolitans, globalists, imperialists, multiculturalists, and multiracialists, Rationalists believe in loyalty to humanity and abstract concepts.

Another important difference between Rationalists and Traditionalists is their view of capitalism. Rationalists promote managerial capitalism (as Sam Francis terms it). Managerial capitalism is a market system where managers of capital are not the owners of capital. Under managerial capitalism, the managers prefer a protected market instead of a free market for themselves. However, managers prefer a free market for their suppliers, workers, and independent contractors. This is the economic system of the United States, Western Europe, and much of the rest of the world — but usually without a free market for suppliers, workers, and contractors. Instead of relying on a free-market economy, this system relies on government-business partnerships, i.e., a coalition of managerial capitalism and the managerial state (a social justice-welfare state with a market economy) — thus, a form of democratic fascism. (This is what Rationalists commonly call democratic capitalism.) Perhaps, the most appropriate name for this system is “welfare capitalism.”

Traditionalists promote a decentralized free-market, free-enterprise system where the owners of capital manage their capital. Under this system, most people own their own businesses, farms, etc. and are self-employed. Factory workers are often the owners of the factories where they work. Large corporations are rare. The welfare state is nonexistent since aid provided by the welfare state is provided by private charities and local governments. Unlike Rationalists, Traditionalists do not believe in corporate welfare.

Another major disagreement between Rationalists and Traditionalists is their view of the founding of the United States. While Rationalists claim that the United States were founded as a propositional or creedal country, Traditionalists claim that they were founded as an ethnic (genetic) country.

The Rationalist view of the founding of the United States tends to fall into two groups. One group argues that America was founded on the principle of individualism and rational self-interest. It was founded with the modern commercial economy, managerial or democratic capitalism, in mind. Consequently, a homogenous citizenry is unnecessary because America is a creedal country. A person only needs to accept the creed. Thus, citizens are abstract, universal individuals instead of concrete people defined by race, class, religion, culture, language, etc.

Another group argues that America was founded on the concept of natural law and Judeo-Christian values (despite Judeo-Christian being an oxymoron). America was created on the proposition “that all men are created equal.” Thus, America was established for religious and virtuous people who sought justice, liberty, equality, and moderation. Consequently, adherence to this creed makes one an American and not race, ethnicity, class, religion, etc. Accordingly, both groups assert that the United States are a creedal country.

Traditionalists argue that the United States were founded on the principles of race and ethnicity, that is, America is a genetic nation. It was not founded as a creedal country. America was founded as a racially and culturally homogeneous country. The historical record supports this conclusion. Consequently, a multicultural and multiracial citizenry is anti-American.

Philosophically, Rationalists are in the same camp as liberals, progressives, socialists, and other left-wingers and libertarians. All are globalists and promote multiculturalism and multiracialism. All adhere to the notion that the United States are a creedal country although they disagree about what this creed is. None appreciate traditions. Therefore, Rationalists are not true conservatives.

Appendix. Traditional Southern Conservatives

A traditional Southern conservative adheres to kinship and ancestry and has an attachment to his ancestral land and community. He advocates States’ rights and stresses the importance of the Christian religion. Like John Calhoun, he believes that the US Constitution is a negative document; it greatly restricts the powers of the federal government. Further, he is a proponent of a community-oriented individualism that offers its members liberty and independent self-sufficiency within a hierarchical society regulated by tradition. Of great importance to a traditional Southern conservative are localism and coexisting with other communities and with other States in a federation.

Moreover, a traditional Southern conservative reveres the Confederacy and its symbols because it fought for the underlying principles of the US Constitution, which died with the defeat of the Confederacy. With the defeat of the Confederacy, the United States became an exceptional nation and a creedal country, whose creed is equality, democracy, and universal natural rights. The United States became a managerial state with managerial capitalism.

(On the other hand, neoconservatives and most establishment conservatives hold that America’s founding principles began with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But it will not be completed until the genocide of the last Southerner, whom they blame for nearly all of America’s problems.)

Reference

Gottfried, Paul, editor. The Vanishing Tradition: Perspectives on American Conservatism. Ithaca, New York: Northern Illinois University Press, 2020.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen

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COVID-19 Vaccine and Capitalism

 COVID-19 Vaccine and Capitalism

Thomas Allen

Most neoconservatives, establishment conservatives, and other conservatives point to President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative on getting a COVID-19 vaccine from conception to into people’s bodies in less than a year as proving the superiority of capitalism over socialism. (Russia, which many conservatives consider a communist country, accomplished the same feat, and it did so with a true vaccine instead of a gene-therapy drug that is called a vaccine to avoid liability like the ones used in the United States.) This goal was achieved because the federal government bought large quantities of doses before big pharma manufactured them and because it suspended much of the required testing and allowed the vaccines to be used experimentally, i.e., the vaccines are experiential drugs, on the American people.

Among the steps skipped has been animal testing before human testing. Probably, the reason for skipping the animal-testing step is that when other vaccines using the mRNA technology were tested on animals, the animals died.

Moreover, the FDA authorized (not to be confused with approved) the use of the COVID-19 vaccines before Phase 3 Trails have been completed. Phase 3 Trials are not expected to be completed until 2023. Thus, the federal government is allowing vaccine manufacturers to test their experiential vaccines on tens of millions of people without their informed consent, which is a violation of the Nurnberg Code. Furthermore, the vaccine manufacturers have no liability for injuries resulting from their vaccines. 

However, these boasting conservatives conceal that this capitalism is not free-market capitalist. It is Hamiltonian-Lincolnian crony capitalism, which is a mild form of fascism.

Under free-market capitalism, big pharma would have developed and distributed the vaccines without any governmental financial aid or purchases (except, perhaps, for the military). Consequently, the federal government would not have subsidized the development of the vaccines, paid for their advertisement, or promoted them as it has done with the COVID-19 vaccines. The only governmental intervention would be to punish the executives of pharmaceutical companies that sell as medicines poisonous substances that will injure or kill people. Since vaccines are concoctions of poisonous substances that injure some people, the government should be filling prisons with high-ranking executives of pharmaceutical corporations. Instead, the government shields vaccine manufacturers from liability. In the United States and most other countries, vaccine manufacturers are not liable for any injuries or deaths that their vaccines cause. Thus, the manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the United States are more akin to a socialist economy than to a market economy.

Moreover, on behalf of big pharma, the federal government has colluded with the presstitutes to create mass hysteria and terror. Such hysteria and terror have created a high demand for big pharma’s vaccines. This type of government-business partnership is illustrative of crony capitalism.

Furthermore, the federal government is colluding with big businesses to institute  “vaccine passports” to travel, work, buy, and otherwise participate in society. To bypass constitutional problems, the federal government is having big businesses require their customers and workers to have vaccine passports before selling or employing. To ensure uniformity, the federal government will issue and track vaccine passports. Thus, another government-business partnership is created, which is nothing more than crony capitalism. Also, vaccine passports are more illustrative of socialism than of capitalism, especially free-market capitalism. (Our fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers fought the Nazis to keep us from having to show papers to travel, work, and buy and from having to wear badges [such as bracelets showing that the wearer has been vaccinated] to identify our status. Now the presstitutes and governmental officials are terrorizing people to demand vaccine passports. And big businesses are using this terror, hysteria, and fear to demand that people present their vaccine passport before they can work or buy.)

Who benefits from vaccine passports? People who are forced to carry them to travel, work, buy, and otherwise participate in society do not benefit. They are the biggest losers. The primary beneficiaries are big businesses, especially big pharma,  — money — and governments — power. Vaccine passports will create enormous markets for big pharma to force its vaccines for which it has no liability on people and then to sell the drugs to treat the side effects of the vaccines. Furthermore, big pharma gains access to everyone’s medical records. For governments, vaccine passports greatly increase their opportunities and abilities to control people.

Although many conservatives oppose vaccine passports, many conservatives support crony capitalism out of which vaccine passports are a natural outgrowth. Ironically, while railing against Nazism and fascism, most liberals embrace vaccine passports, which are a natural outgrowth of Nazism and fascism.

The way that the COVID-19 vaccine has been developed and distributed in the United States and most of the rest of the world is more kin to fascism, which is a form of socialism, than to market capitalism. As mentioned above, under market capitalism, the only involvement of government with vaccine manufacturing and distribution is to prosecute executives whose companies manufacture and sell vaccines that injured the vaccinated. Instead, most governments exempt vaccine manufacturers from all liability for injuries or deaths caused by their vaccines.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Libertarianism and Social Issues

Libertarianism and Social Issues

Thomas Allen

Below, some flaws of libertarianism related to social issues are exposed. Discussed are libertarian views on contagious diseases, discrimination, transgenderism, the nature of man, morality, and adultery. The flaws discussed below may be more perception and image than reality. However, perception and image are often more controlling and important than reality.

Contagious Diseases
The underlying principle of libertarianism is that everyone should be allowed to do whatever he pleases that he can afford if he does not trespass against another person or his property.
If a person with a contagious disease transmits that disease to another person, has he trespassed against the person whom he infects? Can the person who is infected sue the person who infected him? Should a community be allowed to protect itself from a carrier of a contagious disease by preventing the infected person from entering their community? Since a significant number of illegal immigrants entering the United States have contagious diseases, these are important questions that libertarians need to answer.
Since libertarians seem to express no concern about letting an unknown, but significant, number of people into the country with contagious diseases, they must have a great deal of confidence that vaccines will protect them, even from diseases for which no vaccines have been developed. (This faith is not surprising when the esteem that libertarians have for multinational corporations is considered.)

Discrimination
With one exception, most libertarians object to discrimination. Although most libertarians abhor discriminating against people based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, or political orientation, they oppose the government prohibiting people and companies from discriminating based on these reasons. Nevertheless, more libertarians seem to oppose discrimination based on race or sex than on religion or politics.
However, few libertarians object to discrimination based on wealth with many finding such discrimination agreeable. (This is a typical Yankee attitude.) For example, most libertarians object to “fair housing” laws that forbid private owners refusing to sell to a person because of race or putting restrictions in deeds to prohibit selling to people of specific races, although most libertarians find such practices reprehensible. However, few object of gated communities with high association fees designed to price nearly all of the undesirables out with extremely high housing cost. Thus, they find discrimination because of wealth acceptable. However, the person discriminated against is discriminated against and feels discriminated against; the reason for the discrimination is of secondary importance.
Another example is that most people discriminate in favor of family members. Most libertarians probably would not object to such discrimination if economics is not involved. For libertarians, economic trumps everything. It is the only acceptable reason for discrimination. Perhaps some libertarians find some exception to this dictum. They may object to discrimination against Blacks or homosexuals even if such discrimination is more profitable.

Transgenderism
All libertarians should oppose transgenderism because it is an act of fraud, but most do not. When a biological male (has a Y chromosome) tries to pass as a female (has no Y chromosome), that is a fraud. Likewise, the same is true when a biological female attempts to pass as a male. Nevertheless, how many libertarians really do consider transgenderism a fraud? (How long will it be before a person who dates a new person will require the date to provide a genetic test to prove his or her sex and sign a contract identifying what is accepted as conceptual sex?)

Nature of Man
In agreement with Rousseau, many libertarians, especially the anarcho-libertarians, believe that man by nature is good, unselfish (except the Randian Objectivists, who consider selfishness a great virtue), and wise. However, the government has corrupted and degraded him. How could wise, good, and unselfish people create something as corrupting and degrading as government? Is it not more reasonable and logical to consider people to be naturally sinners and that government is corrupted and degraded because sinners created and run it?
For that reason, power should be decentralized and dispersed instead of centralized and concentrated. Nevertheless, most libertarians who may believe that man is by nature sinful believe that a free market is sufficient not only to suppress that sin in the economic sphere but also in the political and social spheres.
A free market does a fairly good job of regulating sin in the economic realm because it usually disperses and decentralizes economic power. However, Marxism in all its forms, including progressivism, communism, socialism, and fascism, does a poor job because it consolidates and concentrates economic power. Nevertheless, a free market does little to regulate and suppress sin in the political sphere and especially the social sphere, where it is often in the forefront of sin.

Morality
As the old saying goes, in general, libertarians agree with conservatives on economic issues and with liberals on social issues. Thus, libertarians believe that the free market economy can exist and even thrive in a morally degraded society. Therefore, most libertarians oppose outlawing or even treating as mental disorders, homosexual acts, transgenderism, miscegenation, and other formerly sexual immoralities and such fraudulent perversions as “homosexual marriages.” (What is being referred to here are primarily public acts of sexual immorality and not private acts.) Most favor, or at least do not oppose, banning the God of the Christians and His Son and Messiah, Jesus, from public life. Yet, few seem to object to moving the god of Islam and Judaism and the gods of Hinduism and paganism to the forefront of public life, because these religions are far more compatible with secular humanism than is Christianity (although Muslim currently offers more resistance to homosexuals and transgenders than do most Christian.) Most progressives and liberals and many libertarians are secular humanists.
Strange is that libertarians, who claim to be great lovers of liberty, turn against the teaching of true Christianity, which is the only religion compatible with true liberty. Libertarianism grew out of Western Civilization, which grew out of Christianity and is or used to be a Christian society. No other religion, not even secular humanism, is compatible with libertarian ideals. Yet, most libertarians want to jettison Christianity’s teachings on morality. However, libertarians have not gone as far as Marxists, progressives, and their kindred in rejecting Christianity’s moral teaching of “thou shalt not steal.”  Nevertheless, in agreement with Marxists, progressives, and their kindred, most libertarians condone abortion, which is a violation of the moral law “thou shalt not murder.”
Libertarians fail to realize that abandoning one of God’s moral laws easily leads to abandoning the others. Marxists, progressives, and their kindred know this. That is why they eagerly push sexual immorality. (Next to lying, sexual morality is the easiest for humans to violate.) They know that abandoning sexual morality weakens and even destroys the family and makes stealing, murder, and even abandoning God, which is the ultimate goal, much easier. They know that sexual immorality makes establishing a socialist or a communist utopia much easier. So, why do so many libertarians join the Marxists in breaking down morality when the result is the death of the free market economy? The only real resistance that libertarians offer to the degradation of society is their opposition to using taxpayers’ money to do it.
Most libertarians seem not to recognize that liberties come from the God of the Christians. (Unfortunately, throughout the ages, Christians have been highly destructive of these liberties and have at times rivaled the Marxists in destroying liberties.) Secular man is the enemy of liberty, and Marxists and their kindred are secular men, who have elevated man above his Creator (just as the US government has been elevated above its creators, the States).

Adultery
Libertarians believe in the sacredness of contracts. Therefore, libertarians should be in the forefront in condemning adultery, which is a violation of the marriage contract. However, they are not. Contrariwise, they give the condemnation of adultery an extremely low priority. Some even find adultery acceptable, and almost no libertarian believes that the marriage contract should be enforced where adultery is involved. Their solution is to void the contract, i.e., divorce.

Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Centralism Versus Decentralism

Centralism Versus Decentralism

Thomas Allen

    Wilhelm Ropke in The Social Framework of the Free Market (1958, translated by Elizabeth Henderson, 1960) compares centralism and decentralism and describes the differences between the two. (Page numbers in parentheses are references to his book.)
    In the American political economy terminology, centralists (whom Ropke calls centrists) promote the Hamiltonian-Lincolnian political economy, which is what the United States have today, and the decentralists (whom Ropke calls decentrists) promote the Jeffersonian-Calhounian political economy. To the centralists, America is an idea, an abstraction. To the decentralists, America is a place, concrete.
    Centralism and decentralism apply to all social, political, and economic aspects of life. In general, they express a great contrast in ideals and views of society. Centralists emphasize the larger community: the state, a puissant central government, the collective, big businesses, central banks, and even the utopian world state. Decentralists emphasize the smaller community: the individual, the family, voluntary associations, small businesses, and local and State or provincial governments. Hierarchical churches like the Catholic Church where religious power is concentrated falls under centralism. Churches like the Baptists where religious power is dispersed falls under decentralism. Thus, centralists favor the consolidation and the concentration of political and economic power. Decentralists favor the dispersion and deconcentration of political and economic power.
    The following list compares centralism and decentralism:
Government
    Centralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    a strong central government with the globalists preferring a puissant global government.
        –    people dependent on the government; thus, welfare programs and national health care.

    Decentralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    federalism and local government.
        –    people not dependent on the government.

Economy
    Centralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    macroeconomics.
        –    large-scale industry; technical and organizational rationality.
        –    centralized planning enforced by the government.
        –    large-scale governmental intervention in the economy, collectivist economy, socialism, and monopoly.
        –    dependent wage earners; workers in a subordinated and dependent relation to centers of decision.
        –    the vertical, close, and personal relation of subordination and authority of big business and socialized industry, i.e., vertical, organizational dependence.
        –    a market that depends on the boss.
        –    people occupying positions that are above and below each other; subordination of people.
        –    trade unions, which subordinate workers to union bosses, instead of independent workers.

    Decentralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    microeconomics.
        –    the peasantry, crafts, middle class, and small firms.
        –    a wide distribution of private property.
        –    a free market, free enterprise economy.
        –    an economy planned by the markets, competition, and free prices.
        –    decentralization of economic decisions among millions of separate producers and consumers as the indispensable condition of freedom, justice, and well-being.
        –    independence of workers.
        –    independent market parties where the buyers and sellers are horizontal and loose if not impersonal, i.e., horizontal market dependence.
        –    dependence upon the client or the supplier through a market that is wide enough to do away with rigid personal relationships.
        –    people occupying positions side by side with each other.

Society
    Centralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    huge associations, giant cities, and urbanized areas.
        –    social rationalism, i.e., the individual is small and eventually dwindles to a statistical figure, a building brick, a mathematical magnitude encased in equations, something that can be "refashioned."
        –    optimism about the success of his constructions and refashioning.
        –    equality and uniformity.
        –    mobility.
        –    socialization of education.
        –    the welfare state, especially one that extends well beyond the truly needed.

    Decentralists believe, favor and prefer:
        –    the lovers of nature and of the human scale.
        –    rural areas and small towns.
        –    thinking and acting in terms of human beings and knowing and respecting history.
        –    skepticism or pessimism thus basing his arguments realistically and unsentimentally on human nature.
        –    inequality, diversity, multiformity, and social articulation.
        –    stability.
        –    stratification of society with respect for natural developments, a modicum of variety and of horizontal and vertical social articulation, family traditions, personal inclinations, and inherited wealth.
        –    men having the happy feeling of being in the place where they belong.
        –    variety and independence in every sphere, but not particularism or parochialism.
        –    personal responsibility and private charities to aid the needy.

Philosophy
    Centralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    doctrinaires, dogma, doctrines, and ideologies.
        –    man centered.
        –    man can perfect man.

    Decentralists believe, favor and prefer:
        –    established principles: a hierarchy of norms and values established by reason and sober reflection instead of by passions and feelings.
        –    ultimate and absolute convictions that require no proof because it is absurd not to believe in them.
        –    God centered.
        –    only God can perfect man.

    Ropke does not specifically discuss the armed forces under centralism and decentralism. Centralists favor a large standing army and a navy and air force large enough to project power regionally and, if resources allow, even globally. However, centralists prefer a disarmed citizenry (a heavily armed citizenry can thwart the centralists’ plans and their lust for power). Conversely, decentralists prefer a heavily armed citizenry and a small armed force. The armed force should be sufficient to defend the country from invasions, but not large enough for offensive wars or foreign adventures.
    Decentralism is not particularism or parochialism with “a narrow-mindedness which can’t see the forest for the trees” (p. 233). According to Ropke, a decentralist is a convinced universalist who “keep[s] his eye on a larger community which is all the more genuine for being structured and articulated” (p. 233). However, God is his center, “and this is why he refuses to accept human centers” (p. 233). The decentralists “should cultivate a universal approach to all intellectual, political, and economic matters and reject narrow views and actions and, above all, intellectual, political, and economic regionalism and nationalism; on the other hand, we should prize variety and independence at all levels and in all spheres, on the basis of the common patrimony of mankind, which is beyond all levels and spheres” (p. 234).
    The centralist is a moralist. Ropke describes the moralism of the central as follows:

[The centralist is] a moralist of the cheap rhetorical kind, who misuses big words, such as freedom, justice, rights of man, or others, to the point of empty phraseology, who poses as a paragon of virtues and stoops to use his moralism as a political weapon and to represent his more reserved adversary as morally inferior. Since, again, he looks at things from on high, well above the reality of individual people, his moralism is of an abstract, intellectual kind. It enables him to feel morally superior to others for the simple reason that he stakes his moral claims so high and makes demands on human nature without considering either the concrete conditions or the possible consequences of the fulfillment of those demands. He does not seem capable of imagining that others may not be lesser men because they make things less easy for themselves and do take account of the complications and difficulties of a practical and concrete code of ethics within which it is not unusual to will the good and work the bad. The “left” moralist all too often reaches the point where his big words of love and freedom and justice serve as a cover for the exact opposite. The moralist, with his lofty admonitions, becomes an intolerant hater and envier, the theoretical pacifist an imperialist when it comes to the practical test, and the advocate of abstract social justice an ambitious place-hunter. These moralists are a world apart from the decentrists’ attitude . . . that man does not primarily exist for the sake of human society but for his own sake, “and if each one of us exists in the best possible manner for his own sake, he does so for society as well.” . . . The centrist’s moral ideal frequently enough amounts to a desire to make the world into a place where . . . everyone is nursing his neighbor, which presupposes a centralized compulsory organization (p. 230).

(His description of the morals of the centralist is essentially the description of the morals of the Yankee and the Puritan.)
    Ropke strongly opposes the concept of equality and believes that trying to achieve it and even the chimera of “equality of opportunity” results in disaster. About trying to achieve equality of opportunity via socialization of education, he writes:

[I]f equality of opportunity is to be achieved by socializing education, envy and resentment will only be acerbated. If everybody has the same chances of advancement, those left behind will lose the face-saving and acceptable excuse of social injustice and lowly birth. The weakness of mind or character of the overwhelming majority of average or below-average people will be harshly revealed as the reason for failure, and it would be a poor observer of the human soul who thought that this revelation would not prove poisonous. No more murderous attack on the sum total of human happiness can be imagined than this kind of equality of opportunity, for, given the aristocratic distribution of the higher gifts of mind and character among a few only, such equality will benefit a small minority and make the majority all the unhappier (p. 223).

(Perhaps, this explains the problem that the country is having with Blacks, especially those involved in Black Lives Matters, Antifa, Social Justice, and other similar groups. Not only have Blacks been given “equal opportunity,” laws have been written and are enforced that give Blacks more than equal opportunity. Blacks are given a legal and social advantage over Whites. Yet they still fall behind, not because of any discrimination, but because of their innate, genetic, inabilities.)
    Unfortunately for mankind, centralization is much easier than decentralization. Moreover, expanding the powers of the government is much easier than contracting them. The centralist’s “path is bound to lead to regions where the air of freedom and humanity becomes thinner and thinner, until we end up on the icy peaks of totalitarianism, from which nations can hardly hope to escape without a fall. The trouble is that once one takes this road, it becomes increasingly difficult to turn back” (p. 234).
    A major danger of centralism is that it encounters no checks on itself. Its obsessions become uninhibited. Moreover, it comes to know no limits. Centralism leads to loss of freedom, humanity, and the health of society. (Examples are Germany under the rule of the national socialists and Russia, China, North Korea, and other countries under the rule of the communists.)
    Ropke quotes John Stuart Mill’s description of centralism:

If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employes of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was constructed (p. 235).

    One of the dangers of centralism is that many centralists do not want to be centralist and many do not know that they are centralists. They are the classical liberals (as opposed to neo-liberals and progressives) or conservatives who reject federalism, the anti-collectivists who flirt with monopolies or government intervention in the economy, and humanist and others who support the economic integration of countries. (To Ropke’s list, can be added free-market economists like the Friedmanites who support centralized banking and a managed monetary system in lieu of the classical gold standard and decentralized banking. Also, classical liberals, conservatives, and libertarians who are racial nihilists can be included in the list.)
    Ropke comments on the work environment under centralization:

People used to occupy positions side by side with each other, but now they are above and below each other, and the relation is charged with the constant tension of close personal contact within a limited, fixed group. With the diminution of individual independence, this is becoming the fate of the masses, and we all know the strain it puts on human relations. Intrigues, place-hunting, informing, ill will, bootlicking, envy, jealousy, and all the other poisons of close contact spread like the plague in all large organizations and companies, as experience has shown again and again. Neurotics are in a position to make life hell for hundreds and thousands of people, and . . . there is a more than even chance that it will be precisely neurotics who get to the top and into a dominating position, because of their assertiveness and officiousness (p. 236-237).

(As power becomes more concentrated in the central government, ever more neurotics are drawn to the central government, especially in management positions.)
    About centralized planning and collectivism, Ropke writes:

[I]t is one of the most damning things to be held against collectivism in any shape or form that, with the exception only of the few who hold the power to plan and direct, it presses men inescapably into vertical and personal relations of subordination and so robs them of freedom. If the socialists, incorrigible centrists as they are, demand such an economic order in the name of freedom, they afford a most depressing proof of the aberrations of which man is capable when he is blinded by political passion (pp. 237-238).

    Ropke makes three recommendations to reverse the centralization of the economy:

First, we should do everything we can to brake or even reverse the process of dwindling independence whenever and wherever this is possible without real damage to economic rationality. Secondly, we should do everything we can to mitigate the rigidity of vertical subordination as much as the structure of productive organization and the nature of the market economy permit. Thirdly, we should do everything we can to strengthen the counterweights in fields other than labor dependence, the most important of these counterweights being private property (p. 241).

Moreover, decentralists should not look to government to enforce these recommendations. Instead, they must support “all the forces, whatever they be, which counteract concentration” (p. 241). To carry out these recommendations requires “[p]ainstaking research . . . to discover how, ultimately, the government itself, by means of its laws, its tax system, and its economic and social policies, continuously and injudiciously weights the scales in favor of industrial concentration and makes things difficult for small and medium firms and all others who aspire to independence” (p. 241).
    Although centralists preach the virtue of diversity, they are the destroyers of true diversity. They seek to reduce all to a uniform mongrelized oneness — one hybrid race, one culture, one religion, one government, one economy, etc. On the other hand, decentralists seek to preserve true diversity. They want to preserve the various races, cultures, and nations (people) and countries (territories) with many free and independent governments and economies (but not autarky or protectionism as that requires centralization), etc.
    Today centralism appears as:
    –    globalization with a one-world government (the United Nations and its various organizations) and one-world religion (ecumenism).
    –    the European Union and climate change treaties as steps toward world government.
    –    war on Confederate monuments to destroy history and diversity.
    –    homogenization of the male and female sexes into meaninglessness by promoting feminism to make women men, effemination of men to make them women, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc. to destroy the family.
    –    political correctness to destroy freedom of speech and thought.
    –    multiculturalism and multiracialism with large-scale, uncontrolled immigration into Europe, Canada, and the United States to destroy their race and culture as the White race and Western Civilization are the greatest impediments to global consolidation — hence, racial and cultural amalgamation.
    However, decentralization is beginning to return as evidenced by:
    –    secession movements, such as the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and numerous secession movements in Europe and the United States.
    –    nullification, such as California declaring itself a sanctuary State and thus defying federal law.
    –    the collapse of imperialism, at least in its more overt form.
    –    the growing populist-nationalist movements in the Western world, that is, defensive nationalism, which seeks to preserve race, culture, nation (the people), and country (the territory), and not aggressive nationalism, which is imperialism.
    For more than 150 years the Hamiltonian-Lincolnian political economy has dominated the United States, and the U.S. government has exploded in size and has become ever more powerful. With the election of Donald Trump as President, centralists are being forced on the defense. Many supporters of Trump are decentralists of the populist-nationalist movement. Even heretofore centralists are becoming decentralists as they defy the U.S. government with nullification and join decentralists with talk of secession.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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