No Vote of Confidence

"You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
--Morpheus (The Matrix)

Thought provoking piece from the always insightful Frank Chodorov. In it, Chodorov explains why he chose not to vote in major elections, and suggests why society might be better off if all would do the same.

He offers many interesting points in this missive such that it should be read carefully and perhaps multiple times. There are, however, a few passages that I want to put up here in there entirety (emphasis mine):

"Getting back to the economic advantages that the candidates promise me, in exchange for my vote, my reason tells me that they cannot make good on their promises, except by taking something from my fellow man and giving it to me. For government is not a producer. It is simply a social instrument enjoying a monopoly of coercion, which is it supposed to use to prevent indiscriminant use of coercion by individuals on one another. Its purpose in the scheme of things is to protect each of us in the enjoyment of those rights with which we were born. Its competence is in the field of behavior; it can compel us to do what we do not want to do, or to prevent us from doing what we want to do. But it cannot produce a thing.

"Therefore, when it undertakes to improve the economy, it is compelled by its own limitations to the taking from one group of citizens and giving to another; it uses its monopoly of coercion for the distribution of wealth, not for the production of wealth. So that, when I vote for the candidate who promises me betterment in my economic condition, I am condoning and encouraging some form of robbery. That does not square with my moral values."

That's one fine thought stream. It inspires conjecture about the standing of the above argument in the minds of most voters. Perhaps most voters operate in a Matrix-like state, having never made the mental connection between a politician's promise to improve their economic condition and the fact that someone else's economic condition must necessarily be reduced in order for the politician to deliver. Or perhaps they have rationalized the situation away in a manner that they don't see themselves as thieves who recruit politicians as strong armed government agents in crime. Or perhaps they understand the situation perfectly, but prospect of gaining economic economic resources thru political means is too enticing to forego.

One more passage toward the end:

"Thus, when we trace our political system to its origins we come to conquest. Tradition, law and custom have obscured its true nature, but no metamorphosis has taken place; its claws and fangs are still sharp, its appetite as voracious as ever. Politics is the art of seizing power for economic purposes. There is no doubt that men of character will give of talents for what they conceive to be the common good, without regard to their personal welfare. But so long as our system of taxation is in vogue, so long as the political means for acquiring economic goods is available, just so long will the spirit of conquest assert itself; for men always seek to satisfy their desires with the least effort."

It follows that cutting resources flowing to the government thru tax and moneyprinting streams serves to choke off that spirit of conquest.