Here’s a brief historical summary as we approach our Independence Day summertime and 250 year celebration.

The United States started as a limited government that mostly stayed out of the economy from the writing of our Constitution in 1789 until the Civil War in 1861. The Civil War marks the moment that we strayed into collectivist governance where people are taxed in order to provide monies for war and welfare. The period from 1861 until WWII in 1941 was a period of mild socialism that began when the Northern states taxed people to pay for the Civil War. During modern liberalism, the government played a more active role in manipulating economic outcomes. Government money in the form of land grants, for example, gave a hand up to railroads which were the first big industry that began to change how people lived, travelled, and obtained their goods from the economic market. The federal government grew and began to interfere more with regulating people’s lives by passing new laws. After WWII, we entered the neoliberal period with globalization, financialization and wars all around the world to make way for global trade and monetary flows across national borders. That’s where we are now. Problems are easy to find under neoliberalism.

Today’s U.S. has monetary and fiscal policies that harm people by overprinting money and overspending money. Outsourcing jobs to foreign nations has led to unemployment at home. Inflation makes life less affordable and people have less disposable income and fewer employment opportunities. Financialization instead of production makes the U.S. economy more fragile. Government regulations interfere with everyday life for most people. Mandating covid vaccines in the recent past is only one example of this. Examples of corruption that steals U.S. treasury dollars in health and social programs is being revealed in California, Washington, and Minnesota. There are rumors of widespread corruption and many new examples continue to surface and flash by as another one soon replaces the last one. Corruption undermines legitimate deals in business.

Collectivist ideologies are three: socialism, communism and fascism. None of them are builders but instead, they destroy by falling on the nation where they erupt and devouring all assets and advantages that individuals living in the nation build when collectivists aren’t present. As collectivist ideologies begin to fail, because of the economic destruction that they cause, they often become violent. They don’t have a goal to build or improve. They don’t act responsibly or ethically though they often use rhetoric that sounds like they champion the powerless. Powerlessness among the population grows because collectivist systems steal people’s power by subverting governance systems and the rule of law. Breaches in the rule of law increase people’s sense of frustration, but how do you stop it? Perhaps by gradually recognizing that it’s happening. Solutions to despotism and collectivism abound in history. New agreements can be forged to stop the chaos and destruction that deconstruction is causing.

I would like to talk a little more about limited government and economic scarcity. Although the U.S. was the first Western government to limit governmental power in its Constitution in an inumerated list, the Magna Carta also limited the ruler’s power in specific ways. Even in the distant past there were real world limits to government power because of natural limits on human power. The power of gravity for instance, pulls everyone down to the earth’s surface. That natural law made it obvious to people like Thomas Hobbes that Kings had limited power. One of the recent scary myths that I hear from time to time is the idea that modern economies can exist without scarcity. That isn’t true. Economies have scarcity as an inescapable feature: no one can have everything they may want in an unlimited supply. If someone finds a way to steal from others, they may acquire abundance beyond their means to produce for themselves, but having stolen from others impoverishes them.

Biology shows us that living systems organize their natural environment to harvest energy and build opportunities to evolve into the future. Living systems aren’t passive but rather play an active role in creating coherency. Human culture can sprout and grow under coherent rule of law practices and limited government. Today’s government is constantly thrashing about as it’s internal factions vie for power. Government loses real power as factions strive against each other, breaking out of legal limitations on power at every turn. Reigning in the abuse of power and reinstituting limitations on government power is a way to stop governments from harming the people’s power to live their lives in the pursuit of happiness.

To learn more, buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com.