UN Recommends De Facto World Government

Institutions of global governance and global central banking have been steadily increasing their power throughout the last century. But this month, several key announcements have been made – quietly and disguised by political rhetoric – that usher in a global transformation that will lead to the completion of the planned World Government.

On 7th September 2009, the UN released their Trade and Development Report, which called for:

• The establishment of a global central bank.
• The establishment of a single world currency.
• A new tax on all international trades.
• Increased power to international regulators.
• Increased government intervention in the financial sector.
• Further bailouts of failing banks and industries.
• Increased use of government price controls.
• Increased intervention in the global food market.
• A cap-and-trade carbon emissions trading system.

The single currency will be based on IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR’s), and all national and regional currencies will be exchangeable at a fixed exchange rate with SDR’s and other currencies. The exchange rates will be managed by the IMF. This makes SDR’s the de facto world currency. Now inflation and business cycles will be created at the global level, by the issuing of SDR’s. Relative prosperity of the various nations will be controlled by the IMF via making adjustments to the exchange rates.

The new “Tobin tax” – a tax on all international exchanges – will severely hamper international trade, and thus global prosperity. It will also require all international exchanges to be recorded centrally by the body administering the tax. All trades will become subject to increased regulation.

The Report praised the recent bailouts of failing banks and industries, and suggested that the State play an increased role in the economy in general and the financial sector in particular…

“The heavy involvement of governments and central banks therefore justifies a thorough review of the functioning of the financial sector, and a redefinition of the role of central banks and public financial institutions in supporting real economic activity. Large segments of the financial sector cannot be left to function like giant casinos without doing great harm to the real sector of the economy. As a logical consequence of the various efforts to rescue individual financial institutions, and in the interests of greater stability and reliability of the financial system, the balance between private activity and State involvement in the financial sector beyond the crisis may need to be revised fundamentally.” (Overview, VIII)

The Report claims that “markets do not function in an orderly manner” in the international commodity markets, such as the food market…

"In 2009, food emergencies persist in 31 countries, and it is estimated that between 109 million and 126 million people, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, may have fallen below the poverty line since 2006 due to higher food prices. Despite plummeting international food prices in the second half of 2008, domestic food prices generally have remained very high, and in some cases at record highs. It appears that while the pass-through of commodity prices on international exchanges to consumer prices was high in the phase of increasing prices, it was low during the subsequent months of falling prices, which proves that the markets are not functioning in an orderly manner. In addition, forecasts by specialized agencies expect food prices to remain high in the longer run, mainly as a result of continuously rising biofuel demand and structural factors related to population and income growth.” (Overview,IV)

In blaming the free market, the Report ignores the huge distortions to the international food market caused by government involvement, for example the huge subsidies encouraging biofuel production in the name of fighting climate change.

The Report claims that increased greenhouse gas emissions represent both an imminent threat to global climate, and another failure of the market. In fact, even assuming climate change is a problem, and that greenhouse gases are to blame for it, this represents a failure of the government – a failure of having a lack of private property rights. Instead of supporting a private property-rights based approach to the “problem”, the Report – unsurprisingly – supports further interventionism on a huge scale…

“Putting a price on emissions, in the form of taxes or tradable emission permits, and thereby changing the incentive structure for producers and consumers, could help set in motion a process towards establishing low-carbon economies. Measures that increase the demand for less carbon-intensive or carbon-free sources of energy are central to market-based intervention in favour of climate change mitigation, but these measures also need to be accompanied by intervention on the supply side of energy from other sources. Managing supply adjustments and price formation for different sources of energy is necessary in order to prevent prices of non-fossil, renewable energy from increasing – relative to the prices of the more carbon-intensive types of energy – as demand for them grows. Therefore, producers of different fuels need to be involved in the formulation and implementation of an international climate change mitigation policy.

In addition to changes in the incentive structure through the market mechanism, direct government intervention in the form of emission performance standards and strict regulations that prescribe specific modes of GHG abatement is indispensable in order to achieve ambitious targets within the envisaged time horizon. Also, more proactive policies to advance technological progress are required, because innovation towards low-carbon modes of production has become a necessity, unlike innovations in most other areas. Leaving this process to the market mechanism alone carries the risk that it may not provide a sufficiently strong stimulus for accelerating the development and application of appropriate cutting-edge technologies for carbon reduction to reach the required targets.”(p167)

I contend that, taken together, these transformations amount to nothing less than the setting up of a de facto World Government.

From Indifference to Minarchy to Anarchy

Two years ago, I was indifferent to most questions of economics and politics. I was not interested in either subject. My interest in world affairs was stimulated when I became aware that the truth about many major events and trends is systematically suppressed by the mainstream media. I started out on a journey seeking truth. Realizing that the world is full of manufactured myths and grand lies led me to ask how this situation has come about and what can be done about it.

I stumbled upon Ron Paul, 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate. His inspiring vision, refreshing clarity and candid truth-telling led me to find out more about the political philosophy and economic viewpoints he stood for – libertarianism and Austrian economics. Very quickly, I became a minarchist (or constitutionalist), and began seeing that freedom is good and government is the opposite of freedom. I became interested in the new Libertarian Party UK, which has a minarchist platform.

Now, I am an anarchist. I no longer support the minarchist view that government should be limited to protection of life, liberty and property. I now believe that government should not exist at all.

Looking back I can identify several key discoveries which caused my shift from indifference to minarchy and finally to anarchy:

1. Learning that the concept of government is unethical.
2. Learning that government is behind virtually all the problems with the world.
3. Learning that the free market is superior to government.
4. Learning that there is nothing that cannot be provided by the free market.

The first discovery was the simplest. Government is obviously unethical, when you recognize that taxation is theft.

The second discovery involved learning to recognize the difference between corporatism and the free market. Just because a particular industry is “private”, this does not mean it is not under the control of government. Only an industry subject to no licensing, regulations, price controls, etc is a free market industry – and therefore no industry today is truly a free market. Some industries, such as the technology industry, are subject to less government controls than others and this explains why some private industries are highly efficient, dynamic and competitive, while other industries are stagnant and inefficient, with quality declining and prices increasing.

The pharmaceutical industry, for example, is seen by many as highly exploitative and evil. To the extent this is true, it is because of heavy government controls in that industry. Evil and exploitative firms cannot survive on the free market, and rely on government privileges to stay in business and continue their morally questionable actions.

The third discovery involved learning economics. Because of my interest in Ron Paul, I found www.mises.org very quickly and began learning economics in the Austrian tradition of Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. I learned that the Austrians conceived of economics as an axiomatic-deductive subject, rather than as an empirical subject, as it is conceived by all other schools. I studied the epistemology of economics, and came to understand that it is invalid to treat economics as an empirical science. Empiricism is valid only where the constancy principle holds. A rock, a planet and a molecule always act the same way to the same stimuli. Thus, their behavior can be analyzed by observations, data, equations, experiments, hypotheses, predictions and models. Human beings cannot be analyzed in this way because human beings have reason, make choices, and aim at goals. In short, human beings act.

Austrian economics is entirely derived, using verbal logic, from the axiom that human beings act. As long as the logic is sound, Austrian explanations for events are as undeniable as the action axiom itself. Where an Austrian explanation is in conflict with a non-Austrian explanation, the former must be true, and the latter incorrect. A major focus in the work of Austrian economists is exposing the flaws in non-Austrian economic theories – such as those of Marx, Marshall, Keynes and Friedman, whose theories dominate mainstream economic teaching. Mainstream theories about inflation, the business-cycle, competition and monopoly, welfare, money, banking and all forms of government intervention have been debunked by generations of Austrians.

The fourth discovery resulted from my own sense of cognitive dissonance. I realized that, as a minarchist, I was denouncing all taxation as theft, and yet supported the existence of government (essentially saying that government is unethical and inefficient, but necessary).

The arguments for free markets in healthcare, education, money, banking, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, etc are all essentially the same: the free market is superior economically to government, and is also the only ethical position. The question then begged itself: why, if the free market is better than government in all these areas, should it be any different in the protection and arbitration (law) industries? Or is it not any different at all? Is any government necessary?

Virtually all modern Austrian economists are anarchists. The first few generations of Austrians – Menger (1st generation), Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk and Frederick Wieser (2nd generation), Mises and F.A. Hayek (3rd generation) – were all minarchists. Mises gave two reasons why he rejected minarchy. First, he did not think that security and law could be provided on the free market. Second, he believed that in some rare circumstances, monopolies could be formed on free markets which could exploit consumers, and government was needed to prevent this.

Mises’ student Murray Rothbard, standing on the shoulders of his great tutor, made the leap to anarchy. He showed that Mises had made an error in his theory of monopoly and that, in fact, exploitative monopolies are not viable, or even identifiable, on a free market under any circumstances. Exploitative monopolies always rely on a government grant of legal privilege.

Rothbard’s other great breakthrough came when he revived the work of the 19th century individualist anarchists, such as Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker and Gustave de Molinari. Building on their pioneering insights, he demonstrated how security and law could be provided by free markets and there are enormous benefits to having them provided that way – even greater benefits than those that would be obtained by establishing free markets in other areas like education, healthcare and money.

Rothbard also integrated his economic work with natural rights philosophy and individualist ethics. He saw that economics and ethics are intimately connected via the joint concept of property. Economics is concerned with how resources can be allocated efficiently. Ethics is concerned with how resources can be allocated justly. Efficiency and justice are both maximized by strict adherence to property rights and the non-aggression principle.

Rothbard used the term “anarcho-capitalism” to describe his integrated system. It is known by a number of other names such as libertarian anarchy, market anarchy, and voluntarism.

Rothbard’s works Man, Economy and State (1962), Power and Market (1970), For a New Liberty (1973) and The Ethics of Liberty (1982) were quickly embraced by the Austrian school, and there was a flowering of anarchist thought and literature. Most Austrians became Rothbardians. Even non-Austrians, such as David Friedman, son of Milton Friedman, became anarcho-capitalists.

The current (5th) generation has extended the work of Rothbard. Hans-Hermann Hoppe has made breakthroughs in our understanding of democracy, how it functions, and how it compares to monarchy. Joseph Salerno has clarified the distinction between Mises and Hayek with regard to the socialist calculation problem, emphasizing the fundamental problem as one of property and the role of entrepreneurship. Stephan Kinsella has critiqued the Rothbardian view of copyrights, and Kinsella’s anti-IP stance has become popular in the last few years.

Through studying the work of libertarians and Austrian economists, I reached the view that government is always:
1. Unethical.
2. Undesirable.
3. Uneconomic.
4. Unnecessary.

For these reasons, I cannot morally advocate anything except libertarian anarchy; total freedom and no government.

On Extremism

It is fashionable to advocate moderate government policies. “Extreme”, or radical, views are frowned upon or openly attacked. In some cases, it is right to denounce extremism. However in today’s world extremism per se is denounced, and I believe this is a serious error.

Part of the reason for this fashion is the widespread belief in the left-right political paradigm, wherein all political viewpoints are placed on a 1-dimensional axis and called either “left-wing” or “right-wing”. At the two extremes of this political paradigm are said to be Communism (extreme left) and Fascism (extreme right). Since both of these views are generally considered (rightfully) bad, most people conclude that a good position must lie somewhere between the two extremes – the moderate position.

The terms “left” and “right” are ill-defined, and different people tend to have their own personal definitions of what these terms mean. “Left-wingers” tend to oppose private property and support massive wealth redistribution. “Right-wingers” tend to oppose heavy wealth distribution and support price controls (tariffs, subsidies, minimum wage, etc), product controls (regulations) and behavioral controls (bans on guns, drugs, prostitution, etc).

For a more in-depth analysis of the left-right political paradigm, see www.truthandliberty.com/politics.

The view that extremism per se should be denounced, and moderate views embraced, has led to the idea of moral relativism. This is the view that there is no such thing as absolute right and absolute wrong; that there is no such thing as absolute ethics, merely relative ethics. (It has also led to the popular view that truth is relative; that there is no such thing as absolute truth and absolute falsity, but merely different interpretations.)

Moral relativism and the rejection of extremism per se are misguided and dangerous, as the following simple example shows.

Consider a serial killer who murders children at a rate of 1 per week. Suppose that this particular killer is “above the law”; that is, murder laws do not apply to him.

Consider the following two positions could one take with regard to this situation:

1. The "Extreme" View; one could advocate that this killer should stop killing immediately.
2. The "Moderate" View; one could advocate that he cut down to, say, 1 child-murder per month.

There is little doubt which one of these is the correct moral position to advocate. Only by taking the first position can one consistently say that murder is wrong per se (a statement which few would disagree with). Few people would argue that the more moderate position is superior to the extreme position in this case. It could be said that the moderate view is more “realistic” and “achievable”. A reduction in the rate of child-murders would always be welcomed, but stopping the serial killer completely should always be held high as the ultimate goal and the only correct moral position.

If the number of murders this serial killer commits is a given, one could advocate a different form of murder:

3. The “Opposition” View; one could advocate that instead of murdering children, the killer should murder pensioners instead.

Few people would actually take this position, even though it may be “achievable”, because the wrong in this situation is not the particulars about who is being killed, but rather the concept of murder itself. Debates about whether it is preferable for children or pensioners to be killed would entirely miss the point.

Another position one could take is:

4. The "Other Extreme" View; one could advocate that the killer should kill more children, say, 1 per day.

The only people who might take this view are those who consider murder to be not only legitimate and acceptable, but also consider an increased murder-rate to be preferable. It is difficult to see how this position could ever be justified.

Let us now consider another example.

Government is defined as an organization with a monopoly of arbitration (law) over a certain territorial area. Being the sole producer of law, government is in the position to put its own actions “above the law”. They declare that some crimes committed by them are in fact “legal”. The most obvious example is taxation. There is no way to view taxation other than as mass theft carried out by the government against taxpayers. The word “tax” is a mere euphemism for theft-by-government.

Since governments write the law, they can choose how much they wish to steal from each person. After income tax, national insurance, council tax, VAT, excise taxes, and many other forms of taxation (notably inflation), it is not unusual for government to steal over half the income of the average individual. Consider the following two positions that one may take on this issue:

1. Anarchy; one could advocate that the government should stop stealing immediately.
2. Smaller Government; one could advocate that the government cut down its stealing to, say, 20% of individual income, and limit its activities accordingly.

Once again, it is clear which is the correct moral position to advocate, assuming one recognizes that taxation is theft and theft is immoral. And yet, there are more proponents of small government in the world than there are anarchists. Many people believe that government should be small (usually limited by a constitution to the protection of life, liberty and property) but should not be eliminated completely – i.e. “minarchy”.

As with the case of the serial killer, any reduction in government theft is to be welcomed, but it should not be advocated as the ultimate goal. Statists are unable to argue that stealing is wrong per se, because they advocate theft on a small scale. If stealing is not wrong per se (as all statists believe) then it is hard to argue against taxation on moral grounds.

Again it could be argued that small government is more “realistic” and “achievable” than no government at all. Some politicians advocate minarchist positions because it is more palatable to the general public than anarchy. Ron Paul is probably one of them, given his background in Austrian economics and friendships with anarchists such as Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell. This is a strategic decision. Rothbard and Rockwell frequently ally with minarchists against big government, while continuing to hold aloft the ultimate goal of libertarian anarchy.

While there are more minarchists than anarchists, the most popular political viewpoint is the following:

3. The “Opposition” View; one could advocate that the money stolen in taxation be distributed differently, or the form of government altered.

As in the case of advocating the serial killer targeting pensioners rather than children, this view completely misses the point. The wrong here is not the particular form of theft, or how the stolen money is distributed; it is the act of theft itself that is wrong.

Unfortunately, most mainstream political debate centers around what should be done with the loot. There are those on the “right” and those on the “left”, and every election a new group is elected, on promises to change the way government loot is distributed. Rarely is the amount of taxation or the size of government at the center of debate; merely the form of government, and which individuals will get a larger or smaller share of the stolen money. The morality of taxation is never discussed at all.

Over the years, government has grown bigger and bigger, stealing more and more wealth from productive individuals. The reason for this is the prevalence of the following view, which is naturally encouraged by governments through their control of education and the media.

4. The "Other Extreme" View; one could advocate that government increase stealing to, say, 60% of individual income.

Just as in the case of the serial killer, advocates must regard the act of taxation not only as legitimate and acceptable, but that higher taxes are preferable. Those who believe in increasing the size of government and the amount of taxation are called Communists (left-wing) or Fascists (right-wing).

Because it is fashionable to hold a “moderate” view, with both left- and right-wing elements, the government, as it has increased in size, has become a mixture of Communism and Fascism. Some industries are nationalized (and there is little or no debate about this), such as the protection, law enforcement, road management, money, education and healthcare industries. Other industries are heavily cartelized through regulations, such as the media, pharmaceutical, agriculture, banking, energy and insurance industries, which, due to nominal private ownership, are often mislabeled “free market” industries. All private businesses are subject to heavy restrictions on employee pay, working conditions, product controls and licensing. Personal behavior is regulated through bans on gun ownership, prostitution and drugs. The economy is distorted through inflation, fractional-reserve banking, subsidies, tariffs and other price controls. There is a large welfare state, transferring money from productive individuals to non-productive individuals, which is mislabeled “charity”. Finally, a significant portion of taxation is spent on overseas wars, mislabeled “peacekeeping” and “national defense”.

The obsession with details about the form of government – left or right – has led to virtually every area of life being controlled either directly or indirectly, by government.

The real debate should not be about how the government controls a certain industry, but about whether the government needs to be involved in that industry at all. Is government necessary?

It may be an extreme view to answer this question in the negative, but I believe it is the only ethical answer. All questions boil down to government vs. freedom, and freedom always wins.

Fractional Reserve Banking Caused The Economic Crisis

From www.truthandliberty.com

The fractional-reserve scam is the key to how the banking elite control nations, because it allows them to manipulate the money supply. This crisis, like all others since central banking was conceived, is due to manipulation of the money supply.

The particular details about this one should be analyzed in this context.

The two distinct functions of a bank are 1) deposit banking, and 2) savings-and-loan banking. Deposit banking is money warehousing, the depositor retains property rights, and the warehouser cannot do anything with the deposited money. For the service of storing money, the depositor should pay the bank a small fee.

Savings-and-loan banking is where money is lent out at a rate high rate to borrowers and a lower rate is paid to savers. Crucially, while the saver’s money is lent out, the saver cannot use it. Unlike with a deposit, savings are not available on demand.

It is this more fundamental division that needs to be restored in the banking industry. The only reason this distinction is blurred by banks is because it allows them to get away with fractional reserve banking. They lend out deposited money, which is supposed to always be available on demand. This way, they are literally creating money. This increases the money supply, causes malinvestments and an artificial boom, until the market forces becoming overwhelming and the banks are forced to contract.

Banks can only do this because of the institution of central banking, which is a government-granted monopoly. Legal tenders laws, “lender of last resort” guarantees, deposit “insurance” are all designed to support the fractional reserve banking scam. As long as people don’t catch on that the banks don’t have enough money to redeem all deposits, it can continue.

For more information, see CHAPTER V: BANKING.

From 1913-1920, the Fed massively increased the money supply and market forces caused a recession in 1920-21. It did the same thing from 1921-1929, creating a bigger boom, which caused a bigger bust. This time the government intervened, preventing the market from adjusting. This caused the Great Depression, which was lengthened further by FDR’s disastrous policies.

Gold served as a check on the amount of dollars that could be issued, but this was overcome with the 1933 gold seizure and the abolishing of the gold standard domestically. In 1945, the dollar became the reserve currency of the world, and the Fed was now able to hugely increase the money supply by ‘exporting the inflation’. In the late 60’s confidence in the dollar declined and demands for redemption in gold by foreigners caused a drain on gold reserves until Nixon declared national bankruptcy in 1971 and closed the ‘gold window’.

The dollar was now completely free of any restrictions. Massive inflation and huge artificial booms and busts were now possible. With carefully chosen government regulations, the industries suffering the biggest bubble can be virtually chosen at will.

The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act meant that mortgage-backed securities and other complex financial instruments could be created. But debt that is so complex that even investors cannot understand it would not come about on the free market. These instruments are backed by the government, through institutions like Fannie and Freddie.

Deregulation enabled the dollar inflation to reach new levels. This is the biggest artificial boom ever; the economy needs massive readjustment, and market forces are becoming overwhelming.

The Fed has only two choices: inflate further, risking hyperinflation and a dollar collapse, or stop inflating, and allow the recession to take place. If it inflates further, the recession when it comes will be more severe. It is likely going to be more severe than the 1930’s, due not only to the size of the boom, but because of low savings, low manufacturing and huge debts, public and private.

The situation will be made worse by any government intervention to stop the market process from working, such as bank and industry bailouts and stimulus packages. High taxes, and even higher spending, causing deficits and mounting national debt, will make the recession worse than it would otherwise be. Regulations, price controls and government jobs (green brigades) will also make things worse.

For more information, see: CHAPTER VI: CENTRAL BANKING.

Welcome

This blog has been created as a companion to the website www.truthandliberty.com, which provides information about libertarianism, Austrian economics, and numerous myths and deceptions that exist today to serve as a pretext for the establishment of a "New World Order".