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What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear

February 1, 2013 By 4 Comments

by Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville

An excerpt from Democracy in America.

I had remarked during my stay in the United States that a democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism; and I perceived, upon my return to Europe, how much use had already been made, by most of our rulers, of the notions, the sentiments, and the wants created by this same social condition, for the purpose of extending the circle of their power. This led me to think that the nations of Christendom would perhaps eventually undergo some oppression like that which hung over several of the nations of the ancient world.

A more accurate examination of the subject, and five years of further meditation, have not diminished my fears, but have changed their object.

No sovereign ever lived in former ages so absolute or so powerful as to undertake to administer by his own agency, and without the assistance of intermediate powers, all the parts of a great empire; none ever attempted to subject all his subjects indiscriminately to strict uniformity of regulation and personally to tutor and direct every member of the community. The notion of such an undertaking never occurred to the human mind; and if any man had conceived it, the want of information, the imperfection of the administrative system, and, above all, the natural obstacles caused by the inequality of conditions would speedily have checked the execution of so vast a design. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alexis de Tocqueville, American Founding, American Republic, Books, Democracy, Democracy in America, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William F. Byrne February 1, 2013

Income Tax & Fed Created In 1913, Phil Mickelson Shrugs In 2013?

February 1, 2013 By 2 Comments
Tax

Phil Michelson

by Brian Domitrovic

Don’t quite recall what happened in 1913? The Philadelphia Athletics’ World Series win that year didn’t make its mark? How about this, as I wrote in my book Econoclasts:

For all one hears about, say, 1914, 1929, 1945, 1968, 1989, and 2001, 1913 may well be the most important year in modern American—if not modern world—history. In 1913, the last three major reforms of the Progressive era were enacted: the direct election of senators; the federal income tax…; and the Federal Reserve System of central banking. Today, the direct election of senators is a footnote to history. The income tax and the Federal Reserve, however, have rather shaped life as we have known it in the century since 1913.

We always hear about how the President/Congress/the Fed chairman “runs” the economy. Experts intone about “fiscal policy” and “monetary policy,” when not the “fiscal-monetary policy mix.” Experts couldn’t do this before the momentous year of 1913, because the governmental institutions that make possible fiscal and monetary policy didn’t yet exist. It made for a thin market in experts. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Brian Domitrovic, Economics, Political Economy February 1, 2013