A little essay that I wrote:
The cycle of capitalism
Since the beginning of man there were producers and bureaucrats. The producers were farmers, workers, professionals and entrepreneurs. The bureaucrats were rule makers, enforcers, tax collectors and redistributors.
The two classes have been at odds with each other. The producers wanted to be left alone to produce and to keep the wealth. The bureaucrats wanted to regulate the producers and to redistribute the wealth.
The producers drew their power from low taxes and efficient production. The bureaucrats drew their power from high taxes, arbitration, adjudication, complex rules, regulations, redistributions and interventions.
There were few bureaucrats in the early days, but they have been growing and multiplying in numbers and power, uninterrupted since the beginning of capitalism.
The democratic elections have hastened the rise of the bureaucratic class. The one-man-one-vote system gave the bureaucrat a powerful ally. The poor, the underachiever, the looser, the dysfunctional, the envious, the disadvantaged and the stupid – all depend on the bureaucrat for help. The producers have become irreversibly outnumbered.
Armed with the fiat money system and the printing press the bureaucrats have created a hundred year illusion of prosperity for their constituents and the producers alike. Yet, the free market capitalism has been dying like a tree invaded by termites. The tree looks normal on the outside but is rotten on the inside. When the tree is gone, the termites have nothing more to eat and they scatter. A new tree can start growing again.
Such is the cycle of capitalism. |
