CHAPTER 12
BY THEIR FRUITS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM

 Now that we have explored the impact of aggression- through- government on our wealth and well-being, what conclusions can we draw?

Aggression creates poverty and strife in our city, state, and nation just as it does in our one-on-one interactions in our neighborhoods. The same means always create the same ends.

Our desire to use aggression (first-strike force, theft, or fraud) to create a peaceful and prosperous world is like asking a triangle to be circular. Similarly, we'd be amused if someone wanted a barking cat. (1) "Cats don't bark!" we'd explain. "You can have a dog that barks or a cat that meows." Similarly, we can work toward peace and prosperity by honoring our neighbor's choice OR we can create poverty and strife with aggression. Aggression, individually or collectively through government, can never create prosperity and peace, because threatening first-strike force is the cause of war and the resulting waste. If no one strikes first, no conflict is possible.

Wealth is created by individuals, working alone or as part of a team. The size of the Wealth Pie does not depend primarily on natural resources, but on human creativity and productivity. When the marketplace ecosystem is free from individual and collective aggression, wealth grows and flourishes. The marketplace ecosystem is self-regulating: those who serve others best will reap the positive feedback of profit.

Aggression, perpetrated by individuals or through government, upsets the balance of the marketplace ecosystem.

Aggression-through-government is an attempt to protect ourselves from individual aggressors by doing unto them before they do unto us. In fighting fire with fire, we only increase the blaze. We abdicate our responsibility for a peaceful resolution and opt for war. Instead, we need to fight fire by starving the flames. A better way to deal with those who trespass against us is detailed in Part III (As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us: How We Create Strife in a World of Harmony).

The Cost of Aggression-Through-Government

When we use aggression to deter aggression, we reap as we sow. Aggression causes the Wealth Pie to shrink, and our piece gets ever smaller. Countries with few regulations and licensing laws enjoy an economic growth rate two and a half times higher than countries where aggression is more prevalent. (2) Since no country today is completely free from aggression, we would expect an even greater economic growth (five times higher?) in its total absence.

Taxation rates are frequently a reflection of the level of aggression, since they are used to enforce licensing laws and aggressive regulations. In the United States, economic growth and employment decrease when federal taxes increase. (3) Calculations suggest that seven times as much growth in the real gross national product (GNP) might be expected in the absence of taxation! (4) Such an economic boom would be beyond our wildest hopes! In Part III (As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us: How We Create Strife in a World of Harmony), we'll examine the feasibility of zero taxation without sacrificing our defense against aggressors, foreign or domestic.

These estimates suggest that we would have five to seven times as much wealth as we do now if we hadn't supported aggression- through- government. This lost wealth is more than food and clothing. It includes forests and prairie lands devastated to keep a member of Congress in power and to line the pockets of special interests, bankruptcies of those living on the edge as boom-and-bust cycles alternate, and ghetto children who are too busy trying to stay alive in school to get an education. It includes life-saving drugs and anti-aging therapies that never come into being, as well as space explorations that might have been. The lost wealth means that the suffering we could have stopped must continue. Even the rich are poor compared to the wealth that the average person in a country without aggression- through- government would enjoy. That's quite a steep price to pay for failing to honor our neighbor's choice! Instead of trying so hard to control others, we'd be better off and they'd be better off if we'd let well enough alone!

Now we can understand why the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world. Its founders recognized the nature of aggression- through- government and attempted to limit it to an unprecedented extent. As a result, penniless immigrants flooded our shores to create the wealth they were forbidden to make in their homelands. The United States became the wealthiest nation on earth because it allowed the disadvantaged to create wealth for themselves and their loved ones. Countries that allow the disadvantaged to create wealth enjoy a more even distribution of income as well. (5)

When we allow people to create whatever wealth they can, unemployment is optional. Each person's service is worth something. When we allow individuals to work at whatever level they can, they receive exactly what they need to climb the Ladder of Affluence: training and experience to improve their skills in creating wealth.

Today, we create unemployment among the disadvantaged by kicking out the lower rungs on the Ladder of Affluence. Unable to get a foothold, the disadvantaged find themselves entangled in the poverty trap.

Contrast our founders' philosophy with that of the Soviets, who used aggression-through-government to control every aspect of a person's life, ostensibly for the common good. Since aggression was the means, poverty was the predictable result. One of three Soviet hospitals had no running water; indoor toilets serviced only 80% of the hospital beds! (6) Life expectancy in the Soviet Union was ten years lower than ours and infant mortality two and one-half times higher. (7)

Of course, the United States and the Soviet Union have had vastly different histories, cultures, and geographies. The same cannot be said of East and West Germany before reunification, however. At the time the Berlin Wall was coming down, West Germans created two and a half times as much wealth as East Germans. (8) The difference is the degree of aggression-through-government. Whether agreed to by the majority or dictated by an elite minority, the impact is the same. If we continue to institute increasingly more aggression into our legal code, we can expect our prosperity to dwindle accordingly.

The Rich Get Richer With Our Help!

The high cost of aggression makes it a tool of the rich. Only the well-to-do can afford to lobby, bribe, or threaten our elected representatives effectively. The luxuries of the wealthy might not be quite so opulent as they would be in a country that practiced non-aggression, but they will not experience the abject poverty to which aggression sentences the not-so-advantaged. As we'll find in subsequent chapters, most poverty in the world today is caused by aggression, not ignorance. The illusion that aggression-through-government benefits the poor at the expense of the rich is just that an illusion. It is the wolf in sheep's clothing, the temptation in the Garden ofEden, the spark from which the flames of war and poverty spring.

The more aggression we consent to, the more powerful the advantaged become. ThePyramid of Power grows as choice is taken from a multitude of individuals and given to a select few. Aggression discourages small busi-nesses and favors conglomerates. Yet when the serpent tempts us, we are told that aggression is a tool to control the rich and powerful. When we listen, we reap as we sow: in trying to control others, we find ourselves controlled.

Taking responsibility for the way in which our choices create our world can be uncomfortable. Instead of depending on government to show us the way, we must recognize it as the instrument by which our choices are manifested.

In Chapter 1 (The Golden Rule), we saw how people who shocked others avoided this conclusion. By blaming the authority figure's directions or the victim's poor learning ability, the volunteers avoided taking responsibility for their actions. Because the authority figure represented himself as more knowledgeable, the volunteers deferred to him. The authority represented himself as a pillar of reasonableness. Similarly, those who wish to control us claim that the guns of government exist only for our protection. As such, aggression- through- government is represented as benevolence instead of violence, as love instead of war.

Those who wish to control us encourage our belief in a win-lose world where we must do unto others or have them do unto us. Once we accept this premise, we willingly defer to the authority figures who will attack those selfish others. When we recognize that we live in a win-win world, we no longer need to choose between the welfare of ourselves and others. Instead, we recognize that both rise and fall together. That is why it is in our own best interest to offer our neighbor love instead of war. Pointing the guns of government at our neighbor eventually results in the guns of government being leveled at us. Honoring our neighbor's choice is the political manifestation of universal love.

How wonderful it is that our world works this way! If striking first brought us a plentiful world, we would have to choose between either war and wealth or peace and starvation. A peaceful, prosperous world would be impossible. Instead, we can enjoy both harmony and abundance by honoring our neighbor's choice. Nature teaches us that aggression, even well-intentioned, boomerangs back to us. Truly, we live in a win-win world!

While our ancestors recognized this principle and tried to keep our country free from aggression-through-government, they did not know how to cope with individuals who defrauded others. We've seen that trying to deter individual aggression with collective aggression is a cure worse than the disease. In the next few chapters, we'll explore the alternative: the other piece of the puzzle!

The moral lesson we learn as children, becomes simple realism in adult life; ultimately the methods used to reach a goal do end up determining the outcome.

- Frances Moore Lappe et al., BETRAYING THE NATIONAL INTEREST

All government intervention is "not merely ineffectual, but also pernicious and counterproductive." And that means all.

- Forbes, March 6, 1989

...the market system obliges individuals to be other-regarding...

- Michael Novak, WILL IT LIBERATE?

I define evil, then, as the exercise of political power-that is, the imposition of one's will upon another by overt or covert coercion-in order to avoid... spiritual growth.

- M. Scott Peck, THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

When taxes are too high, people go hungry.

- Lao-tsu, TAO TE CHING

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force like fire is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

- George Washington, First President of the United States.

I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes as common as the grass.

- Leo-tsu, TAO TE CHING

Your America is doing many things in the economic field which we found out caused us so much trouble. You are trying to control people's lives. And no country can do that part way. I tried it and failed. Nor can any country do it all the way either. I tried that, too, and it failed.

- Herman Goering, 1946, Nazi minister

Violence, even well-intentioned, invariably rebounds upon oneself.

- Lao-tsu, TAO TE CHING

The state spends much time and effort persuading the public that it is not really what it is and that the consequences of its actions are positive rather than negative.

- Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A THEORY OF SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM

Don't be tricked into believing the choice is between sacrificing yourself to others or others to yourself... You wouldn't accept it if someone told you your only choice was between sadism and masochism, would you? The same principle applies here.

- Ayn Rand, author of THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS

True free enterprise is consistent with the nature of all humans.

- Ron Smothermon, TRANSFORMING #1