H. L. Mencken on the Ideal Form of Government

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All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to police him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. Thus one of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives.

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are. Ludwig van Beethoven was certainly no politician. Nor was he a patriot. Nor had he any democratic illusions in him: he held the Viennese in even more contempt than he held the Hapsburgs. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the sharp criticism of the Hapsburg government that he used to loose in the cafes of Vienna had its effects that some of his ideas of 1818, after a century of germination, got themselves translated into acts in 1918. Beethoven, like all other first-rate men, greatly disliked the government he lived under. I add the names of Goethe, Heine, Wagner and Nietzsche, to keep among Germans. That of Bismarck might follow: he admired the Hohenzollern idea, as Carlyle did, not the German people or the German administration. In his “Errinerungen,” whenever he discusses the government that he was a part of, he has difficulty keeping his contempt within the bounds of decorum.

Nine times out of ten, it seems to me, the man who proposes a change in the government he lives under, no matter how defective it may be, is romantic to the verge of sentimentality. There is seldom, if ever, any evidence that the kind of government he is unlawfully inclined to would be any better than the government he proposes to supplant. Political revolutions, in truth, do not often accomplish anything of genuine value; their one undoubted effect is simply to throw out one gang of thieves and put in another. After a revolution, of course, the successful revolutionists always try to convince doubters that they have achieved great things, and usually they hang any man who denies it. But that surely doesn’t prove their case. In Russia, for many years, the plain people were taught that getting rid of the Czar would make them all rich and happy, but now that they have got rid of him they are poorer and unhappier than ever before. The Germans, with the Kaiser in exile, have discovered that a shoemaker turned statesman is ten times as bad as a Hohenzollern. The Alsatians, having become Frenchmen again after 48 years anxious wait, have responded to the boon by becoming extravagant Germanomaniacs. The Tyrolese, though they hated the Austrians, now hate the Italians enormously more. The Irish, having rid themselves of the English after 700 years of struggle, instantly discovered that government by Englishmen, compared to government by Irishmen, was almost paradisiacal. Even the American colonies gained little by their revolt in 1776. For twenty-five years after the Revolution they were in far worse condition as free states than they would have been as colonies. Their government was more expensive, more, inefficient, more dishonest, and more tyrannical. It was only the gradual material progress of the country that saved them from starvation and collapse, and that material progress was due, not to the virtues of their new government, but to the lavishness of nature. Under the British hoof they would have got on just as well, and probably a great deal better.

The ideal government of all reflective men, from Aristotle to Herbert Spencer, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all. This ideal, I believe, will be realized in the world twenty or thirty centuries after I have passed from these scenes and taken up my home in Hell.

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The Religion of Socialism, by Professor Leo Wiener 1920

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Socialism is only a form of religion, differing in no way from previous religions. Religion has always taken the side of the suffering proletariat, from Buddha and Christ to St. Augustine and St. Jerome. This is because religion has been founded on promises of rewards in Heaven, which tickled the poor people who could get nothing on earth. Socialism resembles Mohammedanism (Islam) exactly, because it wants to get salvation by fire and sword; kill as many people as possible and you will have your Heaven on earth—maybe. That is why in discussions the Socialists have the best side: they compare a perfect system of promises with an imperfect one of fact.

Garabed came to me with his perpetual motion machine last year and spent a few days with me. and then he went to Washington with the fire of a walking delegate in his face: and they took his machine and put it in a room with all the hundreds of other models that have all been absolutely perfect, except that they wouldn’t work.

Now, here is Capitalism that has been going for 7000 years, and the Socialist comes along and says the machine is breaking down, and he offers a perfect Garabed instead. Let us rather improve the machine that we have and not experiment with a Garabed.

Why, Capitalism is infinitely superior to Socialism. Socialism has no history. Take Capitalistic Athens and Socialistic Sparta. All we know about Sparta is that they learnt to steal. Take Peru—there were only two classes, lords and laborers. There are just two classes in Russia today, the man that works with his hands and the man that works with his mouth. There were hundreds of thousands of these systems in history; they were invariably failures because distribution, they said, belongs to the men at thc bottom. All civilization is due to Capitalism—to our system of savings and distribution.

Moreover, Socialism kills desire. It makes a dead level with no wanting, no seeking. Preachers take to it now because it is trying to do something for the proletariat. Let it be a party, like the Catholics, Mormons, Mohammedans,-all right; it has its excellent place there; but a state institution—never.

Look at Russia today. Some people who can't speak Russian, who know nothing about Russia, say the Bolsheviks are doing all right. Bolshevism is a complete and horrible failure. Bolshevism is the logical successor to Socialism, after which the vacuum. There is a Socialist instinct in Russia, they say. That is not true. They are Socialistic only to the extent that they are undeveloped. In the sixteenth century they began to make the villages pay taxes. They paid socialistically—~hence were called Communes. A young Danish Socialist went over there. (All young people are Socialists; when they get mature they quit.) He found prosperity only where there was Capitalism. There the straw thatch gave way to titles, the piano, the graphophone were found: there civilization begins.

There have been three hundred Socialist experiments in this country, and they never went far. They were right around here—Roxbury, Hopedale— the governors of them gave them up. I lived in one of the first Russian Socialist colonies in the seventies—a cooperative house-management scheme. It began in hysteria and finished in hysteria.

I hold no brief for Capitalism. But I am unwilling to give up what has worked for 7000 years for something that has never once worked in 7000 years.

If You're Warm Right Now, Thank Capitalism

Last night, the temperature fell three degrees an hour. As I write this, it is negative 10 degrees outside. A “once in a generation” polar vortex has swept into the American Midwest from the Arctic.
I am lucky to be alive. It would take me just a couple of hours to die from hypothermia if I were outside in such weather. But I am not just alive, I am comfortable. It is a balmy 73 degrees in my home. I am relaxing by my gas fireplace that gives off a warm heat as gentle flames dance about and please my eye. I can hear the gentle whir of fans blowing heat around my living room, generated by my furnace. I write this on my comfortable sofa with a computer on my lap powered by electricity and fed information via the internet, itself powered by electricity and glass fiber conduits that carry information to me from computers and minds from across the earth.

My refrigerator is full. I went to the grocery store last night in my car that is powered by an internal combustion engine and fueled by gasoline, which was refined from petroleum that was pumped out of wells drilled in miles-long holes, transported in pipelines and rail cars, refined at complex and gargantuan refineries, and made accessible to me via pumps placed at stations in convenient locations for me to use. I am eating an orange that was grown in Florida or Brazil thousands of miles away and transported to me by railroads and airplanes powered by jet engines.

Then vs. Now

You can continue this description of bounties that, as we go back in time, human beings could only dream about. Even to a person living as recently as 1900, the internet and jet airplanes would have seemed like science fiction. To a person living in 1800, electricity and railroads and combustion engines would have seemed like science fiction. And to a peasant working the fields—as more than 90 percent of all humans did for the past 10,000 years until the 1800s—technology itself is a concept they could not even understand, as they lived lives so hard that we can scarcely imagine it.
A couple statistics hardly do justice to the gulf in quality of life between 1800 and today.

• Life Expectancy (Years): 29 vs. 72
  
• Children Dying Before Age 5: 43 percent vs. 4 percent
  
• Illiteracy: 88 percent vs. 15 percent
• Living in Extreme Poverty (Less than $1.90 per day): 89 percent vs. 10 percent

For those who did survive, most of them were in pain most of the time. Today, most of us live pain-free lives most of the time. Two hundred-plus years ago, George Washington rarely smiled because his wooden teeth caused him near constant pain. Today, one can have pain-free and near permanent dental implants, while going to the dentist itself—which used to be a terrifying ordeal—is nearly pain-free due to the inventions of novocaine and high-speed dental drills.

Thank Capitalism

Who can I thank for all this? I can thank the inventors who invented the internal combustion engine and the electric grid. I can thank the scientists who discovered the principles of optics and physics that made possible the transmission of data on fiber optic lines. I can thank the philosophers who discovered the principles of reason used by the scientists. I can thank the businessmen who put it all together and delivered it to customers. And I can thank the financiers who picked the winning ideas and the winning businessmen who could turn those ideas into life-giving products and services.
To the extent it exists, capitalism unleashes the human ingenuity that keeps me—and millions of my fellows—alive and comfortable on this unseasonably cold morning.


In a word, I can thank capitalism. Capitalism is the political and economic system that makes all of it possible. Capitalism is the system of liberty—of individual freedom and private property rights—that enables and rewards individuals to take their ideas and turn them into the products and services that benefit themselves and others through trade. To the extent it exists, capitalism unleashes the human ingenuity that keeps me—and millions of my fellows—alive and comfortable on this unseasonably cold morning.

Unfortunately, capitalism exists only imperfectly in the world but, to the extent societies embrace it, they are experiencing economic growth and prosperity that translates, on the ground and in people’s homes, to the comfort, safety, and pleasure that I am experiencing now. Without these life-giving technologies two hundred years ago, I might have suffered frostbite or died on a day like today.
Thank you capitalism—and the scientists, inventors, businessmen, and financiers who flourish in capitalism—for keeping me alive and safe this frosty morning.

This article was reprinted from the American Institute for Economic Research.

Raymond C. Niles

Raymond C. Niles is a Senior Fellow the American Institute for Economic Research and Assistant Professor of Economics & Management at DePauw University. He holds a PhD in Economics from George Mason University and an MBA in Finance & Economics from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. 

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.