The collapse of the Soviet Union in December of 1991 was the best news of my lifetime. The monster died. It was not just that the USSR went down. The entire mythology of revolutionary violence as the method of social regeneration, promoted since the French Revolution, went down with it.
Gary North is Dancing on the Grave of the Keynesian. Every Christian should read this article.
The heart of economic growth is the availability of the means of sustenance to support the maintenance and the improvement of an economy’s infrastructure.
Frank Shostak on the Economic growth and the Pool of Funding
The modern social welfare state was invented by Otto von Bismarck in the mid-19th century. The idea was simple. Governments required the consent and support of the masses. That was the lesson that Republican France had taught the world and that Bismarck had learned. You could get a lot more out of “citizens” than you could out of “subjects.” The subjects of Frederick the Great might reluctantly pay their taxes...and might join his armies. But they would always keep a distance — emotional and physical — between themselves and their masters. War and government were Frederick’s business, not theirs. Monarchs might retain the loyalty of their subjects. They could claim some of their money, too. But even the Sun King, Louis XIV, the man for whom the term “absolute monarch” was coined, was lucky if he collected 10% of the kingdom’s GDP in taxes. As for his soldiers, every one of them wanted payment. In real money.....
In the course of the 19th century, monarchy was gradually replaced by some form of representative democracy or republicanism..... The main reason was probably because it is easier to squeeze and bamboozle a citizen than it is a subject. The real genius of modern democracy is that it makes the citizen feel that the government and its workings are somehow the product of his own aspirations.
Bill Bonner on Too Much of a Good Thing
