Italian Fascist Leader Benito Mussolini on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini and his mistress are killed on this day in 1945. Fascism is a term that gets thrown about liberally, but few actually know what it means. Another word for Fascism is Corporatism, and for many, it is the economic system of most Western countries, including the United States. Mussolini was a Socialist who believed that business should be closely tied to the State.

"No aspect of life is untouched by government intervention, and often it takes forms we do not readily see. All of healthcare is regulated, but so is every bit of our food, transportation, clothing, household products, and even private relationships. Mussolini himself put his principle this way: 'All within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.' I submit to you that this is the prevailing ideology in the United States today." Lew Rockwell

Ben O’Neill in his “The Vampire Economy and the Market" described Fascism as “attempts to secure economic growth and prosperity by fusing a ‘partnership’ between business and the State, absorbing business into the State in this process.” While communism '[when] faced with existing institutions that threaten the power of the state – be they corporations, churches, the family, tradition – the Communist impulse is by and large to abolish them, while the fascist impulse is by and large to absorb them.' Essentially, 'fascism is a form of hyper-interventionism amounting to socialism.'”

When Mussolini's dead body was hung upside-down in a public square, his form of governance should have died with him. But the bad ideas of the past (socialism / communism /fascism) don't die as these ideologies provide the recipe for power too many so eagerly desire.

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David Hume on This Day in History

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This Day In History: Scottish Philosopher David Hume was born on this day in 1711 (April 26, old calendar). One puzzle that Hume posed is especially pertinent today in the era of mass lockdowns. In his First Principles of Government, Hume wrote, "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers."

200 years prior to Hume, Étienne de La Boétie wrote his "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude" wherein he wonders, "how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation!"

It was however the great H.L. Mencken that figured out how this was done: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

What the above discovered is the Sheeple...herd behavior in a political context. 

Sheeple is a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people" and is a derogatory term that highlights the passive herd behavior of people easily controlled by a governing power which likens them to sheep, a herd animal that is "easily" led about. The term is used to describe those who voluntarily acquiesce to a suggestion without any significant critical analysis or research, in large part due to the majority of a population having a similar mindset. Word Spy defines it as "people who are meek, easily persuaded, and tend to follow the crowd (sheep + people)". Merriam-Webster defines the term as "people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced: people likened to sheep". The word is pluralia tantum, which means it does not have a singular form.

Sheeple are easily led thanks to poor education and a lack of critical thinking skills coupled with fear. Such people give in to Authority Bias, which is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure and be more influenced by that opinion. An individual is more influenced by the opinion of this authority figure, believing their views to be more credible, and hence place greater emphasis on the authority figure’s viewpoint. This concept is considered one of the so-called social cognitive biases or collective cognitive biases. Humans generally have a deep-seated duty to authority and tend to comply when requested by an authority figure. Some scholars explain that individuals are motivated to view authority as deserving of their position and this legitimacy leads people to accept and obey the decisions that it makes.

See also: David Hume: How Easily the Masses are Manipulated by the Few
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/02/david-hume-how-easily-masses-are.html

Today is Tax Freedom Day

 

This Day in History: April 16 has been generally accepted as Tax Freedom Day. Tax Freedom Day is the date after which we no longer work to pay taxes, and from here on in you work for yourself for the remainder of the year. I personally believe Tax Freedom Day is probably much later, as it is difficult to really calculate how much taxes we really pay as taxes are hidden and embedded into so many things. However, even if I accept April 16 as Tax Freedom Day, it is interesting to note in the early 1900s, Tax Freedom Day was January 20. It stayed there until 1917, when it was Jan. 22. With World War I, Tax Freedom Day was Feb. 6 in 1918, then Feb. 20 in 1921. After Roosevelt's New Deal in 1940, Tax Freedom Day was March 3, and after World War II, Tax Freedom Day was March 31.

Tax Freedom Day in Canada is June 14. In the UK it is June 12. In Austria it is August 5.

There is also a Tax Freedom Clock

Dickens Knew Taxes Started the French Revolution
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/06/dickens-knew-taxes-started-french.html

How They Viewed an Income Tax Over 100 Years Ago
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-they-viewed-income-tax-over-100.html

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The Zimbabwean Dollar on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Zimbabwe officially abandoned the Zimbabwean dollar as its official currency. The reason for this is hyperinflation. As the currency loses value the authorities respond by issuing more of it, thereby ensuring that it will lose even more value which then leads to the printing of even more money and so on. A year before this, a newspaper in Zimbabwe went from $200,000 to $25 billion in the space of one month. A beer was $150 billion. "The chaos spreads through everything. ATMs and computers cannot handle all the additional zeros. Suitcases full of paper are needed to buy things – what few things are available. The inflation is so rapid that wages cannot keep pace. A worker might find that his bus fare today is more than his weekly wage. Life becomes intolerable for almost everyone."~Bill Trench

In place of their own dollar Zimbabwe uses other currencies, such as the American dollar. However, the US is also doing what Zimbabwe did. Endless stimulus programs means more money printing. This then leads to inflation,

Current inflation levels:

Average Food Index 25%

Wheat 28%

Steel 145%

Lumber 188%

Oil 76%

Soybeans 71%

Corn 67%

Copper 48%

Silver 40%

Cotton 35%

40% of all dollars in circulation were "printed" in the last 12 months.

All paper money is doomed to fail. However, we live in a strange time right now when all dominant economies are engaged in inflating their money supply (Quantitative Easing).

Quantitative Easing Explained

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Thomas Hobbes on This Day in History

This Day in History: English philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born on this day in 1588. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. In this book he postulated that a world without a strong government would be one of chaos and violence, so people need to give up many of their freedoms in order to prop up a powerful State that would protect them. 

"Hobbes labeled the State as Leviathan, 'our mortal God.' Leviathan signifies a government whose power is unbounded, with a right to dictate almost anything and everything to the people under its sway. Hobbes declared that it was forever prohibited for subjects in 'any way to speak evil of their sovereign' regardless of how badly power was abused. Hobbes proclaimed that 'there can happen no breach of Covenant on the part of the Sovereign; and consequently none of his subjects, by any pretense of forfeiture, can be freed from his subjection.' Hobbes championed absolute impunity for rulers: 'No man that hath sovereign power can justly be put to death, or otherwise in any manner by his subjects punished.' Hobbes offered what might be called suicide pact sovereignty: to recognize a government’s existence is to automatically concede the government’s right to destroy everything in its domain."~James Bovard

David Hume wrote that “Hobbes’s politics were fitted only to promote tyranny.” Voltaire condemned Hobbes for making “no distinction between kingship and tyranny … With him force is everything.” Jean Jacques Rousseau condemned Hobbes for viewing humans as “herds of cattle, each of which has a master, who looks after it in order to devour it.”

“The theory of Hobbes is a theory of unadulterated despotism, or it is nothing.”~Charles Tarlton. Tarlton also wrote: "Hobbes was fond of posing the stark alternatives of unlimited authority and the state of nature, to frighten us back into our chains. But if authority is necessarily as he described it, then maybe anarchy (and) disorganization ... are really no worse." ("The despotical doctrine of Hobbes", p. 89)

Leviathan, with its politics and its views on religion led to its being banned, and even burned at Oxford University.

See also: The History of the Social Contract by Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave 1899

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About That Social Contract I Never Signed....

 

Pope Pius XI and the Divini Redemptoris on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Pope Pius XI issued the Divini Redemptoris, an anti-communist encyclical on this day in 1937. The encyclical describes communism as "a system full of errors and sophisms" that "subverts the social order, because it means the destruction of its foundations."

Pius XI goes on to contrast Communism with the civitas humana (ideal human civilization), which is marked by love, respect for human dignity, economic justice, and the rights of workers. He faults industrialists and employers who do not adequately support their workers for creating a climate of discontent in which people are tempted to embrace Communism. This reminds me of Willi Schlamm's refrain: “The problem with capitalism is capitalists. The problem with socialism is socialism.”

Pius XI once remarked, "No one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist."

His work expressed concern with Communism developing in the Soviet Union, Spain, and Mexico, and it condemned the Western press for its apparent "conspiracy of silence" in failing to cover such events in those countries. People forget that Mexico was one of the first Communist countries. 

Times change and now the present pope is often labelled a Socialist.

https://spectator.org/pope-franciss-communist-mentor/

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Eli Whitney on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Eli Whitney was granted a patent for the cotton gin on this day in 1794. A cotton gin – meaning "cotton engine" – is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.

The book "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine has an interesting story about the cotton gin and Eli Whitney: "the cotton gin was enormously valuable in the South of the United States, where it made Southern cotton a profitable crop for the first time...Eli Whitney also had a business partner, Phineas Miller, and the two opted for a monopolistic pricing scheme...They would install their machines throughout Georgia and the South and charge farmers a fee to do the ginning for them. Their charge was two-fifths of the profit, paid to them in cotton. Not surprisingly, farmers did not like this pricing scheme very much and started to 'pirate' the machine. Whitney and Miller spent a lot of time and money trying to enforce their patent on the cotton gin, but with little success. Between 1794 and 1807, they went around the South bringing to court everyone in sight, yet received little compensation for their strenuous efforts. In the meanwhile, and thanks also to all that 'pirating', the Southern cotton-growing and cotton-ginning sector grew at a healthy pace."

https://www.amazon.com/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-Michele-Boldrin-ebook/dp/B001E9731A

Eli Whitney did eventually become wealthy with muskets without enforcing copyright.