Dear Friends,
It seems to me, chaotic liberty is the single best means to societal prosperity, as controlled dependence is the best means to universal poverty. This is true not only in an economic sense but in humanistic terms as well. When people live in liberty, we must self control and by doing so we focus our minds, strengthen our spirit and become self reliant, chaotic liberty makes us more human. It is in a focused mind, spirituality and self reliance that we gain the economic advantages of liberty. Controlled dependence dulls the mind, crushes the spirit and destroys self reliance, in short controlled dependence reduces human beings to mere selfish animals. Human heartedness grows in liberty and shrinks in dependence. This is so obvious it is sad that government should seek to put people into a state of dependence while eliminating liberty. Because by doing so, it is equally as clear that diminishing humanity to a herd of egoistic animals, that see their fellows as a means instead of an end in themselves, government undermines the very argument for government.
That is not to say Chaos is liberty or that control is dependence, it is to say that some level of personal chaos is requisite for liberty and dependence breeds people who must be controlled. If a people who have become dependent are thrust into a state of liberty, chaos, violence and poverty will immediately result. If a different people who have become used to liberty are forced into dependence there is a faux sense of control. In a state of liberty, people self control and are do not need a heavy handed government to force them to be virtuous, but where people are dependent, people do need a tyrannical government, to enforce civil equanimity. The one is because the people self regulate and the other because people have lost the ability to self regulate.
When people are used to living in liberty we must control our emotions, actions and thoughts. When living in a state of liberty, everyone is at liberty, and so disturbing the civil weal is counter productive. People learn this lesson at an early age when they live in liberty. Laws need not be draconian to keep people from each others throats because people have learned to be self controlled. The society becomes more mature, civil and polite. Moreover, when people are self controlled and at liberty, it is the nature of the human being to seek to better him or herself. As each improving their situation all of society is economically improved.
Those poor shells of human beings that have become used to living in dependence never grow out of childhood. They become disconnected from the greater society and demand their wants and needs be met by someone else. Since the very definition of dependence is to be dependent on someone else, the fruits of another’s labor, for everything, so dependent people see others as a means to their own ends, instead of ends in themselves. To put it another way, people who have become used to being dependent see others as things and not as human beings. It is much easier to steal from a thing, the morality of killing a thing is irrelevant and you don’t open the door for a thing that is handicapped. Civility in society is destroyed and all that matters is instant gratification. This shows that controlled dependence is the path to chaos while chaotic liberty is the path to civilization.
How to change people who have become used to controlled dependence into self controlled, spiritual, civil and focused human beings? Obviously if liberty were thrust upon them they would devolve to a state of anarchy. We have seen this many times in history. A people get liberated, not by their own action, and the entire society falls into violence, chaos and corruption. The means to maturing a people is by the elite, the leaders of society, leading by example. The leaders must be spiritual, self controlled and honest. That would be a giant step but not all that is required. A market system must also exist. This is because the market system trains people to be human. If someone comes into your store to buy a couch, you care nothing if they are Hindi, Asian or Hutu, those groupings become subservient attributes to their being buyers. If the way to get ahead in a society is to meet the needs and wants of others, people will happily become civil, spiritual and self controlled.
Unfortunately governments prefer people to be dependent. Dependents have no independent voice only as a screaming mob can they get heard. If government likes what the chanting mob says they simply give in and are seen as benefactors, if government doesn’t like the message they clamp down violently and are seen as the protectors of societal tranquility. Since the reason political parties exist is to get and hold power, nothing more nothing less, and dependents depend on their benefactors, if those benefactors are a faction of government, that faction can count on their dependents for support against other political factions. This is not only a path to getting political power but of holding it as well. This is why there have been so very few examples in human history of liberty, and so many of dependence, poverty, and despotism.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
