This leads us to our next matter for consideration: the currency of debt. Besides the fact that central banks consider it sound economic policy to print money which they do not have (Quantitative Easing), governments choosing to spend more than they receive (deficit spending) is ultimately the disease which infects the monetary system. When the treasuries of the governments of the world issue bonds, and banks buy bonds at auction, they do not take into account that bonds (which are nothing more than ‘I-owe-yous’) remove money from the future system for the purposes of spending in the present moment by means of creating debt. Central banks then pay for bonds from banks by creating money through Quantitative Easing, but since central banks do not have any money of their own, they create money out of thin air to pay for bonds. The government and the central bank of a nation therefore do nothing but swap long-term debts, and thus every dollar or pound or euro created must by nature have a dollar or pound or euro of debt attached to it. Since most nations left the gold standard after the First and Second World Wars, money has always derived its value from debt rather than from the value of metal, and it goes without saying that if the money that people spend on a day-to-day basis is founded only on debt, then they are nothing but debt slaves themselves.
It has been said that ‘Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.’39 There is a reason why the ancient civilisations of Athens and Rome used gold and silver to craft their currencies — that money had real value, which was stable and always in demand. Floating debt-based currency has no such stability. Even the Greeks and Romans debased their currency, however, by clipping their coins, which we see in the silver siliqua of the Hoxne Horde of coins discovered in England. What is perhaps most remarkable about currency debasement is that it only occurred in the dying days of the Roman and Athenian empires. When governments become mired in debt and financial difficulty, they seek to attain more wealth by any means necessary, which includes increased taxation (something which only involves stealing the wealth of private citizens, which whilst it may be necessary for the maintenance of a state, has never been seen before on the same scale as in modern times40 ) but also monetary debasement. Today’s monetary debasement is undertaken by printing more money, or creating it electronically, and therefore decreasing its value, just like the desperate Romans hopelessly melting down clippings of coins already in circulation in vain attempts to increase the money supply.
The truth is that the monetary system is a fraud, and the more people continue to accept it, the more of their own wealth will be removed. It is probably safe to say that much modern wealth inequality is derived from this fraudulent system, and if the people of Western nations were to reject their currency en masse, perhaps the greatest increase in economic liberty the world would ever have seen might come about.
***
We will not say much more on economics, besides this: the so-called ‘capability approach’ to economics is becoming increasingly popular in modern times thanks to thinkers such as Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. This is a philosophy concerned with focussing opportunities within society towards what individuals are ‘capable of’. It doesn’t sound so bad until we compare it to the Marxist mantra of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’. With commentaries on capablism from Nussbaum adding feminist readings to the mixer of leftist thought, and involving the upheaval of gender relations within the married family, it becomes clear that economic capablism involves the creation of false suitable roles for differing skill sets. The logical economics of Adam Smith and his successors has been succeeded by yet more politics of liberation. Economics is no longer about what may rationally work, but what might best allow the individual identity to engage in any form of labour, no matter whether or not it is suited to this form or not. Under modern systems of ‘anti-discrimination’, the man best suited to a particular job will be paid the same as a woman, who perhaps cannot do as good a job for natural biological reasons, purely because that woman is a woman, and therefore oppressed by a non-existent ‘pay gap’. We should not argue that women should not be paid the same as men, but we should argue that women and men should be paid according to their abilities. Labour is a commodity, and if men are able to earn more because they are more assertive, naturally stronger or better at their job than a woman, then it is the imperative of the woman to either improve her skills or find a job which better suits those skills in order to earn the same or more than a man. The possibility for gender equal pay is there, it is merely a question of logic: are those who are paid less, regardless of gender, willing to work more or with a different skill set, for more pay?
However, these things being said, in a world where capitalism has in fact fallen out of favour and been replaced by cronyism, it has become increasingly hard for workers of either sex to find alternative employment which suits their skills. In Dr Kerry Bolton’s provocative publication Revolution from Above, he presents us with the alternative theory that capitalist and Marxist economics have been conflated, and neither mainstream left- nor right-wing political parties have any interest in pursuing true economic benefit. Neoliberalism is not economic liberalism, it is not economically ethical. Of course, firms must be profitable in order to survive, lest they not be able to pay for labour or their very continuance; however, with the complete polarisation of wealth such that the wealth of the richest 1% is equivalent to the wealth of the remaining 99% put together, certain problems with the economic system are highlighted.
However, so long as the 99% are obsessed with their own self-gratification, constructive attempts to reduce wealth inequality to more natural levels will never take proper root. Ethical policies by businessmen have been undertaken in the past and present. In Germany for instance, the Marxist narrative which seizes many countries where the worker and the business executive are at odds with one another has been eradicated by allowing workers to have representatives on the board of executives of companies which they work for. In the United Kingdom, the Cadbury family of chocolate-makers and Wedgewood potters were famous for paying for their own workers’ housing as well as providing them with paid jobs. Spedan Lewis, the owner of the John Lewis PLC retail giant took the adventurous step in 1929 of distributing all profits to his employees and converting his business into a partnership, where every worker was a partner in the business, and therefore had an interest in ensuring the business remained profitable, whilst retaining the hierarchical structure which allowed it to function effectively.
Ethical capitalist economics is, by all means, possible; it is merely a means of encouraging sound business practices by outlawing harmful ones, ensuring that cartels are properly prosecuted and monopoly law is extended to include oligopoly as well. It was Smith’s belief in The Wealth of Nations that businessmen who treated their workers well and pursued ethical systems ought to be rewarded with honours and titles, in a similar way to how we decided the virtuous in society ought to be rewarded. If economic virtue is embodied by ethical practice within a capitalist system (however reluctant we might be to accept capitalism) then we may extend our honours system to ethical capitalists accordingly. It may be the only hope that the free market economy has for its survival in the face of utilitarian excess on the one hand and socialist obfuscations on the other.
Book V.
Crime and Punishment
Chapter I
Introduction
We have defined crime towards the start of this work, at least in the context of society, so by returning to it, we shall be treating this next division more as a vindication of the purpose of strong legal systems, and examining in more detail the nature of how and why we must punish criminals and to what extent they ought to be rehabilitated.
Godwin’s criticism of punishment for crime comes from his detestation of the government of his day. The ‘suppression of force by force’ argument, however, is very similar to the agenda of the modern left. One need only lo
ok at Nordic model countries such as Norway in which a life sentence is set at a maximum of 21 years, though most prisoners only serve around 14, and, according to law, are permitted unsupervised parole on weekends after serving one third of their sentence. The reason why the left is obsessed with more lenient sentencing, and in some cases even with allowing prisoners certain rights such as the vote, is derived from the moral outrage that certain individuals feel at the idea of removing someone from society rather than helping him to undergo rehabilitation. Whilst we have previously expressed sympathy with the concept of rehabilitation, and there have been several cases of even murderers undergoing a change of heart, there must be a balance between punishment and rehabilitation. Whilst the education of criminals to help them assimilate into law-abiding society is necessary, it must be proven to them that their actions, which are harmful to society as a whole, are not acceptable, and they will be denied certain freedoms and rights as consequence for demonstrating that they are not able to play a functional role in society.
Crime is fundamentally connected with vice, and the designation of certain actions as sinful is not about enforcing a subjective moral code but preserving the integrity of a local and national community in such a way that the nation may maintain the best standards for its citizens’ safety, liberty and capacity for self-improvement. Using force to repel force is sometimes necessary, since standing idly by whilst having one’s individual will assaulted is obviously not an option for any rational being. Justice, unlike what many critics of strong legal systems based on punishment say, is not about retribution but the maintenance of safety, and in the interests of that safety, a certain cynicism about the nature of man must be incorporated into justice. By exploring that cynicism, the categorisation of crime, the policing of crime and the conduct of trials, we may better come to understand the purpose of a judiciary in a politically just society.
The question of how law ought to be interpreted, and how criminality should be discerned from mere errors of judgement is certainly a problematic one. Law certainly cannot account for every single nuance of circumstance that may arise in the conduct of individuals within a society. What law can do, however, is provide safe foundation on which civilised society may flourish; that foundation may be abused, for certain, but without its existence there would be nothing but tyranny.
Chapter II
Coercion and Ethics
Law demands obedience, and in so doing threatens force against those who disobey in order to ensure that the law itself is not rendered useless. The Godwinian objection to criminal justice comes down to the principle of coercion, and indeed there is a moral argument to be made that coercion only serves to lower the enforcer to the level of the criminal who first used force. However, coercion is seen across all of history and all human society as a method of law enforcement; indeed, it is a wholly necessary part of law enforcement, not because the executive which enforces law is itself criminal, but because true crime is for the most part an irrational action, derived from irrational states of mind. When faced with irrationality, it is safe to assume that the perpetrator will not respond rationally to the prospect of punishment for his crime, therefore a rational man must restrain him in order to bring him to justice.
Crime as we know, according to the harm principle, is an action which infringes upon the person, property or safety of another individual within society. When the natural human spirit is one of cooperation and improvement, individuals who seek to harm other individuals, whether it be out of need or love of destruction, prove themselves to be lacking in that spirit. Now, it would not be fair to say that criminals are unable to find that spirit within themselves, or that they are entirely defective as human beings, but for various reasons, be they mental or circumstantial, criminals are placed in the minority. Throughout history, whilst it is hard to estimate crime figures before official records began, there have always been criminals, but civilisations have always stood firm precisely because criminals remained in the minority, and rule of the criminal classes was not able to completely deconstruct the legal system of civilisation. Many ancient civilisations were more turbulent than today, but the fact remains that their political and judicial systems managed to keep order, insofar at least that civilisations such as Rome were able to build and maintain such great empires. Minorities will always exist, but due to their nature as minority, we may assume that they are not reflective of the true nature of the human spirit, and the human spirit is not criminal.
Ultimately, the left expounds a belief that criminals cannot help themselves. Godwin cites the example of a murderer and claims that the dagger he commits murder with is not better or worse than the murderer himself, since it is in the nature of the murderer to murder; the dagger, since it has no nature, does not get a say in how it is used, but neither does the criminal, since he is naturally murderous. However, it is contrivances of morality such as this which have led to the removal of the right of the citizen to defend himself against such ‘natural murderers’. The argument that a criminal cannot help himself has ultimately led to the removal of the means to commit crime, whilst allowing the criminal to go unpunished. It is for this reason that it is incredibly difficult to own a gun in the United Kingdom, and use of firearms is restricted for those who do own them, whilst in the United States it is the agenda of many liberals to restrict or remove the right to bear arms. In other words, the left would rather punish the dagger than the murderer. Rather than ‘coercing’ the criminal into not committing crime, his means for committing crime should be removed — i.e. to take the murderer’s dagger away, to abolish private property so that the thief no longer has the capacity to steal etc.
This moral system, however, is flawed. We have already considered that the most violent of crimes are often driven by mental aberration, and in the case of cold-blooded murder, this is most often true, with psychological assessments of killers being frequently undertaken as part of modern criminal trials. The rational citizen should have a right to defend himself from the criminal. The Polish member of the European Parliament, Janusz Korwin-Mikke once commented in an interview on Polish television that if society accepts that every man walks down the street with a tool of rape in his trousers (that is to say, his penis), then how different is that to every citizen walking down the street with a gun or knife in his pocket? Not every man is a rapist; not every man is a murderer. Many modern conceptions of crime are after all derived from the Christian moral code, but the Christian moral code does not hold tenets unique to Christianity. In almost every religion God is upheld to be the ‘father’, creator of the Universe and Man, and therefore a God of logic as much as love. Whilst some may argue that a logical God would not have created human beings capable of criminality, let us pause for a minute and consider this in a different way.
When we are born we have a father and mother. Our parents raise us to be functional citizens, members of a community. From an early age we are punished for misdemeanours and rewarded for good behaviour, we learn that a naughty child will be sent to his room, but a good one will be bought the toy he wants. By the time we reach adulthood, we have a full awareness of right and wrong, and will have been exposed not just to this primitive form of morality, but the legal and religious codes of the world which also exist. We are faced with a choice: do we live a good life, for others, and abide by the law, be good, duteous and respect our fellow man; or do we choose a path of crime, or if not criminality then of immorality, of unstable behaviour and degeneracy? Our father who raised us to take the former path would surely be greatly upset if we chose the latter option; he would certainly still love us, since we are his child, but he would be forced to come to terms with the fact that we must face the consequences of our sinful actions as adults who take responsibility for individual choices. God is much like this — he shows us the path of virtue and sin, and whilst he may be upset to see his creations choose sin, the sinner must take responsibility for those actions and either repent or be punished. The le
gal system is founded in this concept, even if it has strayed from it a little since its inception. We all have the choice of abiding by the law, or breaking the law, but we must realise that if we break the law then we cannot be expected to be treated leniently. Criminals can help themselves, since the whole of human existence is about overcoming obstacles. For some this is harder than for others, but whether or not we choose to believe in a God, the fact remains that religion best embodied this spirit: that humankind is flawed, and life is a struggle to achieve a form of heroism, of perfection which is not fully achievable but ultimately worth the struggle. In the words of Camus ‘the struggle itself … is enough is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’41 This struggle for self-improvement is one which we must all confront in the progress of human civilisation, and the fact that a criminal might have a tendency towards crime does not excuse him from that crime.
Political Justice Page 22