Benefits

 

Visitors who have read through these pages in sequence will have seen what benefits result from abolishing government, and why. Here, let's draw some of them together in a single list.

1. A Huge, Immediate Increase in Prosperity

Currently in the USA almost half of everything everyone earns is confiscated by government and spent on political objectives. Accordingly when that ceases, our net earnings will approximately double overnight. In many other developed countries the confiscation, and therefore the increase, is greater yet.

Shortly afterwards that will change in two ways: a reduction, then a further increase.

The reduction will come quickly, as we find we have to pay (from that doubled income) for certain items which government previously provided "free". That is of course entirely proper. Such items would include roads, on which most of us would choose to continue to travel; naturally, the road owners will provide the right to use them only under a contract whose terms produce satisfactory profits.

The same will be true of schooling, for those who choose not to home- school their children. There will however be a wide choice of smaller schools, and at much reduced per- student costs.

The list of items chosen for purchase in any one case will be a tiny fraction of the set of "services" that government presently forces everyone to pay for, and the fees paid will be the lowest possible thanks to competition among the suppliers; so that expenditure will not reduce greatly the above doubling in net income. But it won't be zero.

It will in any case soon be overwhelmed by a massive rise in everyone's earnings as the newly-liberated society gets to work without the absurd restrictions of government rules and "management" and produces in abundance whatever millions of free agents choose to buy. Free capitalist enterprise has produced the wealth that even today makes America the envy of the world - even hobbled by regulation as it is. How much more it will yield when set free to do so is probably beyond our imagining. And thanks to human inventiveness it will know no end. A new era of immense and ongoing economic growth will have dawned, as humankind at last emerges from the dark millennia of government control.

2. A Vast Improvement in Peace, Harmony and Justice

Today the motive for dishonesty is strong and the pervasive example of government is powerful; the entire society is riddled with theft, fraud and compulsion from top down. For example for the 12 most formative years of life one is compelled to sit still in an institution funded 100% by massive theft, and be taught by teachers whose Unions systematically press for even greater theft. One "graduates" only after jumping through hoops set by social engineers, determined to press their vision for society upon each rising generation by the force of law. One obtains "higher" "education" only if one conforms to what is politically correct and, in some cases, only if one had the wisdom to be born within a certain race.

That any honest, hardworking, entrepreneurial people at all emerge from such a disaster is a powerful testament to the human spirit, and a powerful indicator of how much wealth the human race will produce when liberated from such utter nonsense.

The motivation in a free, anarchist society will all be positive. One's destiny will be totally within one's own choice. The rewards of honest dealing will be so rich that there will be no rationale for being dishonest. And if an anomaly does occur, the consequence will be swift and sure compulsion to recompense one's victim; the two factors combined may reduce recidivism close to zero.

There is an old and very true dictum that "where there is no justice, there is no peace" and today's government "justice" monopoly proves its truth with enormous eloquence. In an anarchist society in which justice in all its phases is delivered by competing market players for profit, real justice will be delivered in spades; and so the converse of that dictum will for the first time ever be made plain: "where there is true justice, there is true peace."

Freedom - the joy of running one's own life, one's own way - is so valuable that mankind has sought it everywhere in every age. It is now within reach.

3. Details, Details

Everything else derives from those two gigantic benefits of prosperity and justice. But lest they be overlooked, let's name some.

Better Health: Absent government, the medical and pharmaceutical industries will maximize profits by delivering maximized product quality - the best health possible for each patient.

Longer Life: As government controls tightened on its 180 million victims in the USSR, longevity actually fell during those seven disastrous decades; the converse will be true in a free society.

Prosperous Retirement: the government's fraudulent, compulsary sickness- and retirement- insurance scheme grotesquely called "Social Security" provides benefits two or three times lower than a competitive, commercial insurance industry would provide. Absent government, those golden years will be that much more golden.

Much Lower Prices on most items we buy; this is a part of the wealth explosion in #1 above but results not so much from the doubling of net income but from the removal of expensive govenment regulations. There are thousands of them! Every item of food must pass some government standard of inspection. Labels must convey nutrient details that few read and fewer understand. Buildings must follow government "codes" whether owner or insurer wants them or not. Seat belts must be paid for and worn even by those who prefer not to use them. So for example gasoline will sell for around 50 cents a gallon (and still return a good profit to all who extract, refine and distribute it) and high quality Scotch for around $10 a bottle. Etc, etc, ad inf.

No Terrorism - for "terrorism" consists of desperate acts of retaliation against government, albeit directed at innocent civilians. Since no government will exist to aggravate Muslim fanatics or any other group of malcontents, none will have any motive for such terrible acts. Further: since no laws will prevent passengers carrying firearms on aircraft, in the incredible event that a hijacking happens anyway, they will be free to defend themselves with far more than plastic knives.

Bright Kids: Children are amazing learning machines! In their first five years of life they learn far more than in any other 5-year period, without ever seeing the inside of a classroom. That natural thirst for knowledge will be properly served, after abolition of the government school monopoly. Result: every child will be brought to his or her maximum potential, ready for adult life with a healthy and ongoing intellectual curiosity that will bring vast gains in human happiness, inventiveness, culture and wealth.

Fulfilling Work - for all, even including ex-Government employees. The latter will of course suffer the need to find alternative work, but when the search is over the result will be a productive, useful job that someone wants to pay for voluntarily! That brings immense, and in their cases unprecedented, satisfaction. Furthermore the huge shift of labor resources from the parasitic to the productive sector of the economy will itself bring a vast increase in prosperity just on its own. Imagine for example the benefit to society just of bringing a hundred thousand bright legal minds into productive use!

No Drug War: the "War on Drugs" is a fraud and a failure. It is and has always been a war on freedom, an excuse for government to increase its control over the population, to terrorize it into compliance and subjection, and especially to excuse its otherwise intolerable violations of financial privacy. It has no actual connection with drug use, which has continued almost unchanged at about 8% of the population for at least 100 years. Liberation from this government tyranny will be a major burden off the back of society and some will choose to change their use of relaxing drugs from alcohol (which has some addictive and organ-damaging properties) to marijuana (which has neither.) Government is ruining a million lives at any one time, by imprisoning that many for making an "unapproved" choice while damaging only themselves at most.