The average American earns no more than he earned in 1970. Yet, the supposed promise of American life is economic growth and opportunity. There has been no, zero, zip economic growth in 40 years. What has occurred is that more Americans do more unproductive work on behalf of more government and more social parasites. The devil in the story is the government, of course, which has misdirected the economy and created income inequality, economic stagnation, lack of opportunity, and job flight. In doing so, it has murdered millions of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of others around the world. America's great error has been assumption of an imperial crown; like Rome, America was a republic that became an empire in centuries-long decline.
The solution is not an even greater empire. The United Nations, whose land was donated by the Rockefeller family and developed by Progressive Robert Moses, is no solution, nor is socialism. They are the problems.
America's empire building arises from narcissism. The nation was successful not because of Hamilton and Lincoln but because of the anti-Federalist spirit, which imbued the individual with ambition, achievement orientation, and confidence to work in a spirit inherited from Americans' Calvinist faith. The federalist--as opposed to Federalist--mindset limited central power and so permitted creativity and innovation. State-oriented economic interests, including the slave interest as reflected in the writings of George Fitzhugh and, earlier, in Hamilton's reports to Congress, were from the beginning narcissistic.
Jefferson's legacy was powerful enough to restrain Hamilton's and Lincoln's narcissism for a century, until the 1890s; in the 1890s belief in the power of an elite to guide society--as opposed to the ideal of a spontaneous order created through the innovative capacity of all human beings--became the nation's bylaw. From there, it was a simple matter to extend the narcissistic, rationalistic fantasy from Washington to the League of Nations.
Like all human delusions, the rationalist, Progressive fantasy will fail. The Roman system was based on rational self-interest and economic exploitation; so is the Progressive system. The reason the economy has not grown, that the average American is not better off, is that the Progressive model cannot innovate. Planners' expectations limit progress no matter how smart the planners are. The result is stagnation and then collapse as events outside the ken of rationalistic thought overtake the planners' mental models. The process took four centuries with respect to the western Roman Empire, and 14 centuries with respect to the eastern one. I give America a century. The decline will be more rapid because advances in transportation and communication (that occurred in libertarian Britain and America) have hastened the historical pace of change.
The solution is, of course, decentralization--the dismantling of the federal government and the abolition of the United Nations. Doing so would restructure the process of special interest extraction, creating a new, level playing field. The costs of the United Nations have quickly exceeded its benefits (if there are any benefits), and the UN should be transformed into a global treaty organization like the World Trade Organization. Washington should be merged into Virginia, and the federal government should be closed. The remnant of the federal government should also be a treaty organization similar to NATO. In fact, the federal government could be replaced by NATO, with the states individually joining the World Trade Organization.
The solution is not an even greater empire. The United Nations, whose land was donated by the Rockefeller family and developed by Progressive Robert Moses, is no solution, nor is socialism. They are the problems.
America's empire building arises from narcissism. The nation was successful not because of Hamilton and Lincoln but because of the anti-Federalist spirit, which imbued the individual with ambition, achievement orientation, and confidence to work in a spirit inherited from Americans' Calvinist faith. The federalist--as opposed to Federalist--mindset limited central power and so permitted creativity and innovation. State-oriented economic interests, including the slave interest as reflected in the writings of George Fitzhugh and, earlier, in Hamilton's reports to Congress, were from the beginning narcissistic.
Jefferson's legacy was powerful enough to restrain Hamilton's and Lincoln's narcissism for a century, until the 1890s; in the 1890s belief in the power of an elite to guide society--as opposed to the ideal of a spontaneous order created through the innovative capacity of all human beings--became the nation's bylaw. From there, it was a simple matter to extend the narcissistic, rationalistic fantasy from Washington to the League of Nations.
Like all human delusions, the rationalist, Progressive fantasy will fail. The Roman system was based on rational self-interest and economic exploitation; so is the Progressive system. The reason the economy has not grown, that the average American is not better off, is that the Progressive model cannot innovate. Planners' expectations limit progress no matter how smart the planners are. The result is stagnation and then collapse as events outside the ken of rationalistic thought overtake the planners' mental models. The process took four centuries with respect to the western Roman Empire, and 14 centuries with respect to the eastern one. I give America a century. The decline will be more rapid because advances in transportation and communication (that occurred in libertarian Britain and America) have hastened the historical pace of change.
The solution is, of course, decentralization--the dismantling of the federal government and the abolition of the United Nations. Doing so would restructure the process of special interest extraction, creating a new, level playing field. The costs of the United Nations have quickly exceeded its benefits (if there are any benefits), and the UN should be transformed into a global treaty organization like the World Trade Organization. Washington should be merged into Virginia, and the federal government should be closed. The remnant of the federal government should also be a treaty organization similar to NATO. In fact, the federal government could be replaced by NATO, with the states individually joining the World Trade Organization.
