Taxes
There is no means by which "the rich" can be taxed without ultimately taxing "the poor" far more heavily. And one tax tends to increase all other taxes, instead of lessening them, because tax expenditure goes into things which require upkeep and yield no return (public buildings and political jobs).
- Isabel Paterson, God of the Machine
Government Spending
When paper currency is depreciated, the difference has to come out somewhere; and the main cut is in wages. The fact is that heavy government expenditure must always be taken from the workingman's wages; there is no other possible source. But the depreciation in currency comes out of wages immediately; whatever anyone gets in his pay envelope will simply buy him that much less in goods.
- Isabel Paterson, God of the Machine
Great Depression
What was the cause of the panic [that led to the Great Depression]? Enormous government loans abroad which were not repaid; and the existence of the Federal Reserve system, a political creation, which made an inordinate credit extension possible.
If a financial system is unsound, it can only be so by the possibility of overextension of credit, and paper currency. A true remedy could only consist of limiting such facilities. Government "guarantees" merely put the property of prudent men at the disposal of speculators in case of loss. There is no such thing as a "money panic"; a financial panic occurs from collapse of credit.
- Isabel Paterson, God of the Machine
Humanitarianism
Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends. This is demonstrably true; nor could it occur otherwise. The percentage of positively malignant, vicious or depraved persons is necessarily small, for no species could survive if its members were habitually and consciously bent upon injuring one another. Destruction is so easy that even a minority of persistently evil intent could shortly exterminate the unsuspecting majority of well-disposed persons. Murder, theft, rapine and destruction are easily within the power of every individual at any time. If it is presumed that they are restrained only by fear or force, what is it they fear, or who would turn the force against them if all men were of like mind? Certainly, if the harm done by willful criminals were to be computed, the number of murders, the extent of damage and loss, would be found negligible in the sum total of death and devastation wrought upon human beings by their kind. Therefore, it is obvious that in periods when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object. When they are not the immediate executants, they are on record as giving approval, elaborating justifications or else cloaking facts with silence, and discountenancing discussion....
Then there must be a very grave error in the means by which they seek to attain their ends. There must even be an error in their primary axioms, to permit them to continue using such means. Something is terribly wrong in the procedure, somewhere. What is it?...
The root of the matter is ethical, philosophical and religious, involving the relation of man to the universe, of man's creative faculty to his Creator. The fatal divergence occurs in failing to recognize the norm of human life.... No one person, though his income be $10 million dollars a year, can take care of every case of need in the world. But supposing he has no means of his own and still imagines that he can make "helping others" at once his primary purpose and the normal way of life, which is the central doctrine of the humanitarian creed, how is he to go about it? ...
There is only one way, and that is by the use of the political power in its fullest extension. Hence, the humanitarian feels the utmost gratification when he visits or hears of a country in which everyone is restricted to ration cards. Where subsistence is doled out, the desideratum has been achieved, of general want and a superior power to "relieve" it. The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action. ...
Why do kind-hearted persons call in the political power? They cannot deny that the means for relief must come from production. But they say there is enough and to spare. Then they must assume that the producers are not willing to give what is "right." Further, they assume that there is a collective right to impose taxes, for any purpose the collective shall determine. They localize that right in "the government," as if it were self-existent…
But if taxes are to be imposed for relief, who is the judge of what is possible or beneficial? It must be either the producers, the needy or some third group. To say it shall be all three together is no answer; the verdict must swing upon majority or plurality drawn from one or other group. Are the needy to vote themselves whatever they want? Are the humanitarians, the third group, to vote themselves control of both the producers and the needy? (That is what they have done.) The government is thus supposed to be empowered to give "security" to the needy. It cannot. What it does is to seize the provision made by private persons for their own security, thus depriving everyone...
- Isabel Paterson, God of the Machine
On what moves the world
“An abstraction will move a mountain: Nothing can withstand an idea.”
- Isabel Paterson, God of the Machine
[Hat tip Jeffrey Tucker]
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