Studies Confirm, Free People are Happier

Via The Daily Bell

If you don’t feel free, chances are you don’t feel happy either.

Both of these words, free and happy, are pretty loose in their official definitions. Scientific studies have used various metrics to measure happiness; self-reporting, brain waves, psychological evaluations, and family member surveys. As for freedom, the studies mainly use the self-reported metric, how free a person feels.

When people feel less restrained by outside forces, when people feel that their life is their own to do as they please, they are happier.

Even when holding income, sex, education, race, religion, politics, and family status constant, we find that people who felt free were about 18 percentage points more likely than others to say that they were very happy.

Even people who think that the government should be less involved in daily life are happier than people who think society needs more rules. And it might be tempting to chalk this up to people who are poor feeling unhappy, regardless of freedom. It makes sense to think they would want the government to intervene in order to make them more wealthy, and thus happier.

But when you look at countries overall, you still find that freer countries are happier countries.

…in 1990, at the end of the Communist era, one cross-country survey found that 41 percent of Americans said that they were very happy—contrasted with just 14 percent of East Germans, 6 percent of Russians and Czechs, and 2 percent of Latvians. Of course, regimes behind the Iron Curtain were not just economically unfree; they were politically unfree as well.

Of course, this could also just point to the fact that the freer the country, the more prosperous the people. So you could say that being prosperous makes you happy. Except this would prove that free economies deliver more prosperity. So no matter how you slice it, more freedom means more happiness–even if prosperity is a necessary step in between.

But another study found that even prosperity might not matter as much as freedom when it comes to happiness.

Swiss economists Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer made this point convincingly in the 1990s, comparing happiness levels across various Swiss cantons, which vary dramatically in how much political participation they afford their citizens. Cantons that allowed citizens more direct democratic rights, as well as meetings with leaders to discuss political and financial matters, proved significantly happier than cantons where political access was more restricted.

Now there may very well be some very special people, who even in a prison cell would still mentally “feel free.” But for most of us, factors of our environment come into play as much as our mental attitude.

But then we get to the chicken or the egg thing. If you don’t feel free, is it because of your environment? Or does your environment not feel free because of your mentality? Either way, you can fix this. You can either change your environment, or you can change your attitude. But it takes recognizing the root of the issue.

If you don’t feel free, and it is making you unhappy, you should start getting specific. Identify exactly what is making you feel unfree. Not “government” but “high taxes or illegal marijuana.” You can legally set up your finances to drastically cut your tax rate. And you can move to a place where marijuana is legal.

And don’t say “society” makes you feel unfree. Is it watching the news or scrolling facebook? Stop. Living in a city with a country heart? Move. Is it Sunday dinner with terrible relatives? You’re under no obligation, although the choices they force on you may be tough. Still, it is their choice how to react. You have the ability to make yourself free of things that keep you constrained.

Let’s address the claim that people who have too many choices are less happy.

Some studies have found that when given too many options, people get freedom overload, and are more anxious, finding it harder to make any choice at all. In one instance, two sample booths were set up to sell jam. One gave away 24 samples, and that one attracted more tasters. Another booth gave away 6 samples, and even though fewer people stopped to try the jam, they actually sold more.

The idea is that people are attracted to freedom, but in the end, it makes them stagnate and shut down with an overload of choice.

But there are a couple factors to consider.

One is that people are naturally constrained by their circumstances to some extent. Maybe you are technically free to do anything you want. But at any one point in your life, there are really only a few choices to be made.

It gets overwhelming to think, I could move anywhere I want, start a business or get a job, find a lover or play the single life, or hike the Appalachian Trail and write a book. That train of thought makes it seem like there are too many choices. You may choose to stay in a situation that doesn’t make you happy because you have no idea what choice of the infinite possibilities will actually make you happier.

But you don’t really have that many choices right now. Do you want to move, or do you like where you are? That is only two choices.

If you choose to move, that clearly opens up more choices. You say, where should I move? Is every square inch of the earth truly an option? No. You should be able to identify why you want to move. Then you simply need to make another series of small choices that are not overwhelming when you take them one at a time. Warm or cold? City or country? Coastal or inland?

Second, most people are naturally constrained by their own unique morality. Some people adopt moralities from religion or spirituality, and some people create their own. It doesn’t really matter, there are some things you will be willing to do, and some things you definitely will not. You probably don’t truly have a choice between becoming a doctor, lawyer, teacher, meth dealer, or pimp. Some of those options probably don’t align with your morals–like becoming a lawyer.

When you break things down to a step by step process of where you are going from here, the choices for what to do with life become much less overwhelming. It is great to have a 5 or even 10-year plan, but things are going to change. Most choices don’t require a steadfast decision in the present. Your smaller choices in the present will instead present new opportunities to choose from later.

And if you have some general philosophy or morality that you live by, certain choices are off the table altogether.

So by if you limit your own choices, you may very well be happier. But if someone else limits your choices for you, you are likely to feel less free, and thus be unhappy.

But again, don’t let the feeling of being unfree convince you that you are actually unfree. If you aren’t convinced that you have this much control over your own life, start by reading the 1973 classic, How I found Freedom in an Unfree World, by Harry Browne.

98% Of Greeks Consider Their Economic Situation As "Bad", Survey Says

Nearly a decade after the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, economic spirits are reviving, a PEW survey found. Economic spirits reviving everywhere? No. Not everywhere. Greeks remain pessimistic. No wonder about that, as they see no present and no future.

As KeepTalkingGreece,com reports, according to a survey conducted by Pew Research Center, many Europeans, Japanese and Americans feel better today about their economies than they did before the financial crisis. More broadly, in 11 of 18 countries from across the globe that were surveyed in both 2016 and 2017, publics feel more positive about their economy than they did a year ago.

The Dutch, Germans, Swedes and Indians see their national economies in the most positive light. While global publics are increasingly upbeat about economic conditions, the overall view of the economy is still in negative territory in many countries. Overall, a median of only 46% in the 32 nations surveyed this year say their current economy is doing well.

But as the table below illustrates, a staggering 98% of Greeks view their current economic situation as "bad."

At the same time, many are concerned about the future: A median of just 41% believe that a child in their country today will grow up to be better off financially than their parents. The most pessimistic about prospects for the next generation are the French, Japanese and Greeks.

People in advanced economies are quite pessimistic about young people’s financial prospects, just 34% believe they will be better off than the current generation.

Such despair is particularly strong in Greece, Japan, France, Australia, Canada, Spain and the UK, where roughly seven-in-ten people say today’s children will be worse off.

Do Ends Justify The Means?

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I think the U.S. citizenry is being afflicted by a sort of mass insanity at the moment. There are no good outcomes if this continues. As a result, I feel compelled to provide a voice for those of us lost in the political wilderness. We must persevere and not be manipulated into the obvious and nefarious divide and conquer tactics being aggressively unleashed across the societal spectrum. If we lose our grounding and our fortitude, who will be left to speak for those of us who simply don’t fit into any of the currently ascendant political ideologies?

– From February’s post: Lost in the Political Wilderness

Given our increasingly hysterical, polarized and downright rabid political environment, I think it’s important for those of us who see ourselves as relatively conscious individuals to reflect upon our principles and how they play a role in our everyday lives. As such, today’s piece will examine the concept of whether “the ends justify the means” when it comes to achieving ones objectives, political or otherwise. It’s an extraordinarily important philosophical exercise to undertake, particularly since the turbulent period we inhabit is likely to get far more insane and divisive before it gets better.

I think many people will quickly answer the question “do the ends justify the means” without putting enough thought into it. The question is meant to be considered when it comes to premeditated voluntary actions of questionable ethics taken with a defined objective in mind. It has nothing to do with matters of self-defense, or anything in that category. For example, if someone is coming at your family with an intent to inflict harm, the ethical decision might be to harm the aggressor to protect your family despite the fact that harming another person in itself is an immoral act. Pretty much everyone can agree with this, so it doesn’t add anything to the argument of whether the ends justify the means.

That case is obvious. What about if you’re walking down the street and you see someone come from behind an old lady, hit her on the head and then struggle with her on the ground in an attempt to take her purse. You aren’t being directly attacked, so should you intervene with violence if necessary against the perpetrator to help an innocent bystander? Again, I think the right and ethical decision here is to step in to try to help the victim if possible.

In both these cases the negative “means” of violence you might be required to use against violent aggressors do indeed justify the ends — in the first instance the protection of your family, and in the second a vulnerable old lady. Given these examples, one might be led to believe that the ends can often justify the means, but I would argue that this only holds true in extreme examples such as the ones described above, and that for a principled person, the ends almost never justify the means.

When people seriously consider whether the ends of a particular action justify the means, it’s almost never in relation to scenarios like the ones described above for two reasons. First, those are extremely rare situations that many people (in the developed world at least) will only experience a few of times in the course of a lifetime, if that. On the other hand, many of us face constant but often overlooked ethical dilemmas on a daily or weekly basis. We all face situations where we are confronted with the choice to do something we know is wrong, but perhaps do it anyway either for instant gratification or in the pursuit of a larger goal. This post is focused on the latter.

Many people involved in politics swear by the notion that “the ends justify the means,” which is typically the sign of a self-serving actor attempting to justify questionable if not downright evil action in order to get what he or she wants. While pursuit of “the greater good” is often put up for public consumption, the driving force behind this sort of action is almost always personal gain of some sort. This is what most politicians do for a living, which is why they are justifiably hated by the general public.

One of my favorite books of all time is The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi. In the introduction, he writes:

He who is ever brooding after result often loses nerve in the performance of his duty. He becomes impatient and then gives vent to anger and begins to do unworthy things; he jumps from action to action, never remaining faithful to any…When there is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or hisma. Take any instance of untruth or violence, and it will be found that at its back was the desire to attain the cherished end.

A few pages later he expounds upon the subject.

We should do no work with attachment. Attachment to good work, is that too wrong? Yes, it is. If we are attached to our goal of winning liberty, we shall not hesitate to adopt bad means. 

Gandhi clearly did not believe that ends justify the means, and I agree with this conclusion in something like 99% of the ethical dilemmas we regularly face as human beings.

Someone who wants to make the opposite argument might selectively pick certain historical instances where questionable action led to a favorable outcome overall. I don’t dispute that such instances exist, but I’d argue that for each such instance there are hundreds of examples of the exact opposite. In fact, much of the tragic state of the world as it is today can be directly linked to scores of humans constantly justifying unethical behavior in order to advance their own self interests and goals. A primary driver of so much of the unnecessary suffering in the world relates to individuals making immoral decisions they justify to themselves and others as being a necessary part of a larger goal. Notice how these “larger goals” almost always end up benefiting the person taking and justifying the questionable action? That’s your red flag.

To those of you who still disagree with my argument, think about it from the slippery slope perspective. The moment you justify one very wrong action to achieve a noble goal, what’s to stop you from next even more unethical action, or the next and the next? Nothing. This is what’s so dangerous about going down such a path. Indeed, those who fight monsters often end up becoming the exact thing they claim to be fighting. The world doesn’t benefit from this, only the person who has gained power as a result does, at least superficially. Ultimately, even that person doesn’t benefit when all is said and done. A person who attains their goal by sacrificing principles is a tormented, miserable person. They may seem to “have it all” from the outside, but deep down they hate themselves and what they’ve become. There is no peace. I believe karma eventually catches up to everybody one way or the other.

Indeed, so many of the wars, massacres and bloodshed around the world can be directly linked to “ends justify the means” type thinking. That’s exactly what America’s insane neocons use to justify their endless wars of intervention that end up making the world a worse place than it was before. Notice how they always claim their action is to achieve good, yet it always ends up making things worse. Notice how it doesn’t stop them from making the same ridiculous argument over and over again?

Unfortunately, many people don’t have any principles to begin with and simply live their lives in the pursuit of their own superficial, materialistic or egotistical goals. These are the types of people who most often employ “ends justify the means” thinking, which is exactly why those of us who do have principles must reject this way of thinking and pursue a more conscious manner of achieving our ends. If that means our ends aren’t achieved in our lifetime that’s something that must be accepted. The means we use will reverberate in the universe forever and will benefit the world whether we’re able to point to definitive results or not.

As Gandhi also wrote:

If we take a total view, we shall see that it is not wickedness but goodness which rules the world. The wicked can prevail only when they number multitudes, but goodness will rule when embodied to perfection even in one person. Nonviolence has been described as so powerful that all forces of violence subside in its presence. Under its influence, even beasts forget their nature. Even one good person can change the world. Such a one enjoys an empire over people’s hearts…

Where wickedness prevails, there is disorder in every field of life, but where goodness rules, order prevails and people are happy. They are happy not in the sense that their material needs are satisfied, but in the sense that they lead virtuous and contented lives. As for material possessions, some men have fortunes in rupees and yet have a distracted life. That is no sign of being happy.

Gandhi was himself a victim of the violence he so despised, but his timeless message lives on and he wouldn’t harbor any bitterness or anger to those who gunned him down. I first read the words above nearly a decade ago, and they’ve stayed closely beside me ever since. I hope they connect with you as well.

Keep striving, keep learning and keep growing. Thanks for joining me on this wild ride that is life.

You Can't Buy Love... But You Can Rent It

According to the Digital Market Outlook (DMO) by Statista, the country with the largest share of adults paying for a dating service is the United States.

You will find more statistics at Statista

As Statista"s Martin Armstrong details, at 26.4 percent, over a quarter of Americans are spending their money on trying to find love (or a sexual encounter).

The DMO analysts classified "dating services" as either "matchmaking", "online dating", or "casual dating". Making up the top three were the UK and Germany on 20 and 17 percent respectively.

Insider Reveals How DARPA Will Control Our Minds: "If Even 20% Of This Is True..."

Things are so far gone, that we have no idea, warns SHTFplan.com"s Mac Slavo, people have virtually no sense of how deeply we are being steered off the path.

Our very opinions, the information we receive, and the way in which our brains determine the strength of our opinions is all being skewed by algorithms, and by deliberate manipulations.

Science fiction is behind the curve of what they are actually attempting right now. A few more years of censorship and editing of content through social media, and a few more years of total integration with technology, and humanity may no longer be recognizable.

It certainly won’t be free unless some very raw facts are quickly faced and dealt with.

DARPA Insider Reveals the Coming Hive Mind Control Grid: “If Even 20% Of What This Guy Says Is True…”

Via The Daily Sheeple

The video below features a keynote by Dr. Robert Duncan regarding what can only be described as our coming hive mind control grid. He isn’t just talking about advances in transhumanism, the singularity, or artificial intelligence. He’s talking about how to control the minds of everyone on the planet and evolving humanity in a technological sense… whether they like it or not.

Duncan professes with shame that he worked on “Voice of God” weapons for the US Department of Defense, weapons which can make people think they are hearing voices in their heads in an attempt to control them. He says such weapons were tested back during Desert Storm and were quite effective at getting Iraqi soldiers to lay down arms without a shot fired.

And that’s just what they had 20+ years ago. Can you imagine what they’re working on today?

Duncan also touches on Project Blue Beam, remote neural monitoring, smart dust, and electronic telepathy technology which uses extremely low frequency waves.

Despite attempting multiple times to put a “positive spin” on this information as he nervously delivers it, what this man is saying really can’t be spun in a positive way, not with these kinds of technology in the hands of the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower once gravely warned us about. Duncan notes scientists “are brainwashed into believing that everything we are doing is of benefit to mankind, but look who pays our bills? The military. It’s all for war, it’s all for control, for government control…”

If even 20% of what this guy has to say is true…

Just… you’ve got to see this for yourself.

America's CEOs Have Never Been More "Optimistic"

It"s not just US consumer optimism that recently hit all time highs (even if, as UMichigan explained last week, it was largely split according to party lines). According to a recent analysis by Bank of America, in the current earnings season which is gradually coming to a close, despite tepid guidance, "one read on corporate optimism is at a record high."

As BofA"s Savita Subramanian writes, "guidance during 4Q earnings season is typically less positive than in other quarters as management sets a low bar for the year. While the ratio of above- vs. below consensus guidance has remained weak so far this month at 0.55, it is up from 0.44 in January and slightly above the post-2000 average of 0.48 for both months."

And yet, while managements’ official outlooks may be nothing to write home about, commentary on earnings calls has been notably optimistic. A simple count of mentions of the word “better” relative to mentions of “worse” or “weaker” on earnings calls is tracking its highest in over two years. And the word “optimistic” has been used on a record 51% of the calls this quarter, the highest ever in our data history.

Ironically the incidence of record high "optimism" mentions took place just one quarter after it hit a record low.

And while on the surface, this is great news for the future as it suggests companies may finally redirect their spending away from buybacks and dividends and into corporate growth, hiring and capex, it also means that the threshold for disappointment is the lowest it has ever been, and the pressure on both Trump and the Fed to deliver an environment that satisfied America"s CEO has never been higher.

The Unpoisoning: Two Proposals To Rescue The US Educational System And Federal Workforce From Liberal Indoctrination

If ever one needed better evidence of failed liberal ideology, look no further than the complete mental breakdown and kneejerk arrogance programmed into a nation of tantruming pseudo-intellectual children of all ages. I"ve never seen so many overly-dramatic sore losers who can"t manage to look inward and move on with their lives.

In light of the fact that so much of America is woefully unequipped with facts, critical thinking skills, or the ability to absorb divergent opinions without having an existential crisis, it"s time to address perhaps the most important swamp of all; the hyper-liberal US educational system and the people responsible for influencing the future of our nation.

Submitted for consideration by an attorney and educator who wishes to remain anonymous [emphasis mine]

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I’d like to submit two proposals concerning what President Trump could do to “drain the swamp.”  The first proposal concerns the flagrant political discrimination that plagues almost all of academia, both k-12 and college level. Virtually all of these institutions have become the sole haunt of left wing ideologues.  Everyone knows this, although some liberals may try to deny it.  The result has rendered most of our colleges and grade schools veritable liberal ghettos where conservatives need not apply and are certainly not welcome if they try.

The proposed solution is to give these institutions one year to balance their teaching staff so that fully half of them are registered Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, or otherwise conservative.  Once that year had elapsed, President Trump could decree by Executive Order that funding for any educational institution receiving federal funds would be cut by a percentage equal to the disparity between liberals and conservatives in their teaching staff.  For example, if only 5% of their teaching staff were Republican or Conservative after a year’s recruitment then the institution would receive only 10% of its prior federal funding. Institutions that raised their Republican representation to 40% would receive up to 80% of their prior federal funding.  This approach would motivate biased liberal institutions to at least abate their political discrimination, and American taxpayers wouldn’t continue to pay for left wing bigotry poisoning the minds of our children.

In America today, Christian bakers can be forced out of business for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding, but nobody blinks an eye when Spike Lee announces he’s firing a singer simply because she sang at Trump’s inauguration.  This type of selective discrimination, rampant in academia, is as wrong as any arising from race, religion or sexual preference.  The First Amendment rights of speech and association are not a right to discriminate, however the Left continues to do so based purely on political persuasions they disagree with.

By signing an Executive Order defunding politically discriminatory educational institutions, President Trump could at least begin to end this problem.

I’m sure you can anticipate my second proposal.  That is, again by Executive Order, require that two-thirds of all federal employee hires have to be ideologically conservative until similar balance is achieved.  As with the prior proposal, no new laws have to be introduced through Congress, this is something President Trump could do on his own through Executive Order to begin to heal the rampant discrimination that is also demonstrably present in the federal workforce.

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Thoughts?

Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com * Follow on Twitter @ZeroPointNow

Reflections On Trumplandia: America "Embodies Elements Of A Societal Disintegration"

Via Edelweiss Journal,

Reflections on Trump’s America

That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.

Perhaps it was inevitable that a man like Mr Trump would some day end up in the White House. Immodesty notwithstanding, he is intelligent, patriotic, and richly endowed with that American can do disposition. His election, at least within the context of financial markets both in America and elsewhere, has been greeted thus far with the exuberance and fervour reserved for the second coming of an industrial revolution. Yet, even as one ought to welcome Mr Trump’s businesslike ideas for a country that has veered further and further into an economic unknown, there is scant reason for the boundless euphoria of anticipated greatness—the subject of this brief essay.

To some folks, Mr Trump’s words and promise to “make America great again” resonated with those of the late President Reagan. On one hand, it seems that he understands what’s what. In a September interview with Reuters, he accused the Fed of having created a “false economy” (true) and “keeping the rates down so that everything else doesn’t go down” (also true). Responding to claims of alleged economic robustness, he said: “The only thing that is strong is the artificial stock market.” On the other hand, the grandiose economic policies and promises he has outlined demand a cheap dollar and even greater deficits and debt creation. His administration faces a federal debt of $20 trillion, unfunded liabilities of more than $100 trillion and 50% of a population dependent on (most, in fact, feel entitled to) some kind of government spending, which translates to the fact that much more credit/debt is a necessity and not an option. When Mr Reagan took office, circumstances were a lot different. Thus, the euphoria among financial and political pundits is unlikely to last long. The exuberance of the moment, no matter the soundness of expectations, may, for a while, give rise to higher share and dollar prices, but its consequences are trivial.

It’s hard to know what Mr Trump means with the words “Make America Great Again.” No one seems to have asked him. The first three words could well refer to some artificial conditions that merely generate confidence, enthusiasm—and retail sales. It is the again that holds the clues as to his understanding and motivation. If America was great, what was it that made it so? This isn’t a subject for short essays.

Most Americans over the age of fifty would concur with the description of America today by Strauss and Howe:

The America of today feels worse, in its fundamentals, than the one many of us remember from youth, a society presided over by those of supposedly lesser consciousness. Wherever we look ... we see paths to a foreboding future. We yearn for civic character but satisfy ourselves with symbolic gestures and celebrity circuses. We perceive no greatness in our leaders, a new meanness in ourselves. Small wonder that each new election brings a new jolt, its aftermath a new disappointment.

The authors are not alone in this description. In Leonard Cohen’s words, everybody knows. But while we agree that something has changed (for the worse), we are likely to find considerable discord among sociologists, historians, economists and theologians as to the nature of the greatness that America may have once possessed. Mr Trump does not tell us what the great in his slogan is. One suspects that his definition is similar to the one he would generously bestow on himself. But it can’t be so. From Strauss & Howe again:

Not long ago, America was more than the sum of its parts. Now it is less. Around World War II, we were proud as a people but modest as individuals ... Where we once thought of ourselves collectively strong, we now regard ourselves as individually entitled ... Popular trust in virtually every American institution—from business and governments to churches and newspapers—keeps falling to new lows. Public debts soar, the middle class shrinks, welfare dependencies deepen, and cultural arguments worsen by the year.

And on the subject of the much admired American sense of optimism:

Optimism still attaches to self, but no longer to family or community. Most Americans express more hope for their own prospects than for their children’s—or their nation’s. Parents widely fear that the American Dream, which was there (solidly) for their parents and still there (barely) for them, will not be there for their kids. Young householders are reaching their midthirties never having known a time when America seemed to be on the right track. Middle-aged people look at their thin savings accounts and slim-to-none pensions, scoff at an illusory Social Security trust fund, and try not to dwell on what a burden their old age could become.

Honesty compels us to agree, but it also demands we temper the exaggerated optimism for political remedies. “The basis for optimism is sheer terror,” wrote Oscar Wilde. Indeed, judging only by the vigour of the animal spirits unleashed on Wall Street, we want to believe that the advent of a new American president will miraculously chart a road to some illdefined greatness whilst avoiding the accumulated and compounded consequences of decades of folly.

Generally, financial problems, whether in a family, corporation or a country, are symptoms of a larger underlying problem. Greece is a perfect illustration. Even in the European scene at large, an astute observer can easily discern that the financial problems of today are largely rooted in the idiotic ideas of a common currency, Pax Europa and the utter chaos they have spawned. The American situation is distinctly more complex insofar as it also embodies elements of a societal disintegration. From Strauss & Howe:

We perceive our civic challenge as some vast, insoluble Rubik’s Cube. Behind each problem lies another problem that must be solved first, and behind that lies yet another, and another, ad infinitum. To fix crime we have to fix the family, but before we do that we have to fix welfare, and that means fixing our budget, and that means fixing our civic spirit, but we can’t do that without fixing moral standards, and that means fixing schools and churches, and that means fixing the inner cities, and that’s impossible unless we fix crime. There is no fulcrum on which to rest a policy lever. People of all ages sense that something huge will have to sweep across America before the gloom can be lifted—but that’s an awareness we supress. As a nation, we’re in deep denial ... individually focused yet collectively adrift ...

At the heart of the matter lies the undefined “greatness” being promised by Mr Trump—an oblique reference to the political and moral marvel of the Founding Fathers—as perceived within the ruins of a republic which has disintegrated into a system of soft-despotism from which there is no peaceful escape in the short-term.

Thus, the election of Mr Trump, however better he may be perceived by some as against his opponent, is of no real significance. Putting aside personalities and the superficial political distinctions that divide them, over a longer perspective, Trump’s America will be no different than Obama’s America or Bush’s America or what would have been Hillary Clinton’s America in that it retains the illusion that the people are in control, when in fact they have no say over anything of any consequence.

Soft-despotism was coined by Alexis de Tocqueville, a 19th century French diplomat, historian and author of the remarkable Democracy in America, published in 1835 as a treatise on the social consequences of unchecked democracy and advice as to arresting its demise. Soft-despotism is a state in which people live obliviously in a mild sort of obscured tyranny despite the existence of external cursory forms of liberty and rights to property. Tocqueville’s words from 180 years ago appropriately describe the status quo and the elusive pursuit of an uncertain greatness:

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions: they want to be led, and they wish to remain free. As they cannot destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain …
[Emphasis added]

By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience …
[Emphasis added]

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the
shepherd.

This is the present state of America and the whole of our western world, more or less. The Soviets were better at it. They managed something not wholly different, except with less overhead. Man does have a strong desire to be led. It’s so much easier to have someone else direct his actions. He only pursues liberty after being ruined by a long courtship with serfdom. This is indeed why the American Founding Fathers did not refer to leaders—a modern political rank whose antecedents are rooted in tyrannical regimes.

Without doubt, these reflections may be altogether pointless to those unburdened by a principled and moral framework in political economy, or those for whom the pursuit of short-term gain holds priority. To others, ourselves included, anxious as to the long-term implications for the soundness of our savings, the patrimony we are to leave another generation or merely the rights we barely hold as to our own property and its disposition, proper reflection is an indispensable component of critical action.