India is to get a new President soon, through "indirect elections," and some 5,00,000 votes will decide on a "Head of State" for over 1 billion people.
The US presidential elections have been in the news for quite some time now; and the "procedures" that are being followed - party primaries, caucuses, delegates - these are also about "indirect elections."
The Swiss are a study in contrast: the rest of the world never hears of their presidential elections; Swiss citizens themselves are proud of the fact that they do not know the name of their Head of State; they are famous for their "direct democracy"; and the "republicanism" of Geneva was admired throughout Europe aeons ago - which is why Adam Smith travelled all the way there, to "breathe that free air."
Of course, even in Switzerland, much has changed - and Mises noted the growing trend towards centralisation of power while he lived and taught there during the war years. Today, Switzerland is where the WTO is headquartered, mixing politics and diplomacy with international trade; where the World Economic Forum (WEF) meets and does the same; and from where the UN-propaganda of the International Baccalureate issues forth to miseducate young minds all over the world.
And, since MONEY & BANKING are The Biggest Problem facing humanity today, let us not forget that the Bank of International Settlements is headquartered in Basle, Switzerland; that the Swiss franc is no longer legally defined in gold of precise weight and fineness; and that Swiss banking is not what it used to be, either.
And, since MONEY & BANKING are The Biggest Problem facing humanity today, let us not forget that the Bank of International Settlements is headquartered in Basle, Switzerland; that the Swiss franc is no longer legally defined in gold of precise weight and fineness; and that Swiss banking is not what it used to be, either.
The conclusion to draw is that Political Science is not any "science," really; it is only History.
Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics therefore begins by stating that the author's intention is to "make some old platitudes pregnant."
This means nothing but History - and Crick goes all the way back to ages past, to when the very word "politics" was coined, to define this "civilising activity by which a moral consensus emerges" as:
This means nothing but History - and Crick goes all the way back to ages past, to when the very word "politics" was coined, to define this "civilising activity by which a moral consensus emerges" as:
THE PUBLIC ACTIONS OF FREE PEOPLE
Crick is a Fabian socialist of the LSE, better known for having penned Orwell's biography, and it is extremely noteworthy that there is a chapter in this book titled, "In Defence of Politics against Democracy."
And I, sitting in socialist, democratic India, wrote a piece originally titled "The Death of Politics" - about Manmohan Singh, Sonia and all that - which you can find here. I also have a very popular post that answers an important question: "What is an Indian 'Political Party' today?"
Further, I recently wrote a post on Politics, contrasting Crick's views with those of a British Cabinet Minister in Gladstonian times, and with the thoughts of Anthony de Jasay who, like me, is strongly against whatever politics is all about in the modern world.
What we really have around us today are these WORDS whose origins lie far back in History - and whose meanings have become completely and totally distorted: like "democracy," "politics," and "republicanism."
And when we contrast democracies of the modern world like the USSA, India and Switzerland, what we achieve are mere historical studies - of particular practices, in particular moments of time, in particular geographical locations.
Centralisation, Legislation, Interventionism, Central Banking, Bureaucratisation, Welfarism - all these are responsible for the mess the world is in today.
Just look at the EUSSR!
Centralised in Brussels, with their own European Central Bank. "Monetary Union." Funding "welfarism" throughout the region. And the inevitable CRASH.
In India, just some months ago, I wrote that the Union Budget is "High Treason." Some years ago, on another Union Budget, I wrote that this was nothing but a "Monster's Budget." Our centralised management of the "national economy" has crashed all our "private economies," for sure; and ours just happens to comprise mainly very poor people.
Similarly, the President of the USSA seems to be utterly "lawless" - and here is Ron Paul calling for an end to the "unconstitutional use of drones." There is lawlessness in other areas, too - from declaring war, to the authority of the US Federal Reserve to issue paper dollars, to even their utterly depraved "War on Drugs."
And I really wonder what "republicanism" has to do with monuments like Mount Rushmore - pictured right at the top of this post - which idolises four former heads of their centralised State.
"When words lose their meanings, the people will lose their freedoms."
I could only find this extract from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass - and my reader ought to go through the entire passage to understand exactly what has been going on, for a very long time, and that too, in England:
Republicanism - well, Ludwig von Mises was schooled in an "elite" Vienna gymnasium, where he studied Latin and Greek, and thus read all the classical literature that, in his own words, formed "the bedrock of republicanism." He added that is was none other than the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck who feared and hated this literature - and sought to have it removed from all schools. Bismarck, of course, was the first "statesman" in the world to introduce "socialist welfarism."
An older post of mine on why the West got lost, because of State education, I wrote:
"Greek city states" - that is where "republicanism" came from.
History.
And we find similarities in other historical epochs - from the Italian city states of Machiavelli's time to the Hanseatic League that once straddled the whole of Europe. Hong Kong, Singapore, the Emirates - these are modern city states, though not exactly republican.
Centralisation, Legislation, Interventionism, Central Banking, Bureaucratisation, Welfarism - all these are responsible for the mess the world is in today.
Just look at the EUSSR!
Centralised in Brussels, with their own European Central Bank. "Monetary Union." Funding "welfarism" throughout the region. And the inevitable CRASH.
In India, just some months ago, I wrote that the Union Budget is "High Treason." Some years ago, on another Union Budget, I wrote that this was nothing but a "Monster's Budget." Our centralised management of the "national economy" has crashed all our "private economies," for sure; and ours just happens to comprise mainly very poor people.
Similarly, the President of the USSA seems to be utterly "lawless" - and here is Ron Paul calling for an end to the "unconstitutional use of drones." There is lawlessness in other areas, too - from declaring war, to the authority of the US Federal Reserve to issue paper dollars, to even their utterly depraved "War on Drugs."
And I really wonder what "republicanism" has to do with monuments like Mount Rushmore - pictured right at the top of this post - which idolises four former heads of their centralised State.
"When words lose their meanings, the people will lose their freedoms."
I could only find this extract from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass - and my reader ought to go through the entire passage to understand exactly what has been going on, for a very long time, and that too, in England:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
Republicanism - well, Ludwig von Mises was schooled in an "elite" Vienna gymnasium, where he studied Latin and Greek, and thus read all the classical literature that, in his own words, formed "the bedrock of republicanism." He added that is was none other than the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck who feared and hated this literature - and sought to have it removed from all schools. Bismarck, of course, was the first "statesman" in the world to introduce "socialist welfarism."
An older post of mine on why the West got lost, because of State education, I wrote:
Why are the ideas of Liberty so scarce among "educated" westerners today? Why did that young German I met the other day sing praises of a "social market"? One clear answer does emerge in the following extract from Ludwig von Mises' The Anti-Capitalist Mentality (pdf here: go to Chapter 4, pages 55-56).
In dealing with the liberal social philosophy there is a disposition to overlook the power of an important factor that worked in favor of the idea of liberty, viz., the eminent role assigned to the literature of ancient Greece in the education of the elite. There were among the Greek authors also champions of government omnipotence such as Plato. But the essential tenor of Greek ideology was the pursuit of liberty. Judged by the standards of modern institutions, the Greek city states must be called oligarchies. The liberty which the Greek statesmen, philosophers and historians glorified as the most precious good of man was a privilege reserved to a minority. In denying it to metics and slaves they virtually advocated the despotic rule of a hereditary caste of oligarchs. Yet it would be a grave error to dismiss their hymns to liberty as mendacious. They were no less sincere in their praise and quest of freedom than were, two thousand years later, the slaveholders among the signers of the American Declaration of Independence. It was the political literature of the ancient Greeks that begot the ideas of the Monarchomachs, the philosophy of the Whigs, the doctrines of Althusius, Grotius and John Locke and the ideology of the fathers of modern constitutions and bills of rights. It was the classical studies, the essential feature of a liberal education, that kept awake the spirit of freedom in the England of the Stuarts, in the France of the Bourbons, and in Italy subject to the despotism of a galaxy of princes. No less a man than Bismarck, among the nineteenth-century statesmen next to Metternich the foremost foe of liberty, bears witness to the fact that, even in the Prussia of Frederick William III, the Gymnasium, the education based on Greek and Roman literature, was a stronghold of republicanism. The passionate endeavors to eliminate the classical studies from the curriculum of the liberal education and thus virtually to destroy its very character were one of the major manifestations of the revival of the servile ideology.It is a fact that a hundred years ago only a few people anticipated the overpowering momentum which the antilibertarian ideas were destined to acquire in a very short time. The ideal of liberty seemed to be so firmly rooted that everybody thought that no reactionary movement could ever succeed in eradicating it. It is true, it would have been a hopeless venture to attack freedom openly and to advocate unfeignedly a return to subjection and bondage. But antiliberalism got hold of peoples’ minds camouflaged as superliberalism, as the fulfillment and consummation of the very ideas of freedom and liberty. It came disguised as socialism, communism, planning.
"Greek city states" - that is where "republicanism" came from.
History.
And we find similarities in other historical epochs - from the Italian city states of Machiavelli's time to the Hanseatic League that once straddled the whole of Europe. Hong Kong, Singapore, the Emirates - these are modern city states, though not exactly republican.
Free trading and self-governing cities and towns - that is the way in which humanity had to head.
With private law, private money, and private everything.
All commerce - and very little politics.
Mayors, yes - but selected from among the richest bourgeoisie, so they perform civic functions without salaries, without ever becoming "tax parasites."
The historical example I have found is that of the Lord Mayors of the Olde City of London, who have done precisely this for over 800 long years. There is an essay on this "One Square Mile of Liberty" in my online publication that "explores civil government."
This One Square Mile is no longer what it used to be, of course, because of Keynes (and other crooked bankers before him).
But, once upon a time, it was the Epicenter of British "John Bull" Capitalism, that which made the British Empire straddle the world.
With false money - and all the commercial immorality that follows - all is inevitably lost.
My Song of the Day: "I am a man of the past, living in the present, walking in the future" - one of the tracks in the great Peter Tosh collection pictured below.
