18A044 Our Big Job by Jim Davies, 10/30/2018    

A society rid of the curse of government will appear only after nobody will work for it any more. That is my premise. Government can do without our money (it can print it, or borrow from people who haven't been born yet) and without our votes (dictators often have) but there must be people who will carry out its edicts, administer its machinery. Take those away, it will cease to exist. Therefore, freedom-seekers have that single task: to persuade everyone not to work for the State.

Let's consider the size of that job.

I reckon about 20 million work for it at present in the US (Federal, State and local) directly, plus about another 20 million who work for commercial contractors in tasks predominantly serving government. If so, that's 40 million out of a work force of about 140 million, or a little under 30%. Compared to the whole population it's (40/320 =) 12.5% or one person in eight. Not exactly trivial.

That's the Parasite Sector, and in money terms it accounts for 45% of the GDP, up five times from the rate that prevailed from 1783 to 1912; in that long period, 9% paid for it all. Presumably, the portion of the people who worked for government was also five times smaller; not 30% but only 6% of the workforce. Even so, it was far too big; it sufficed for a huge amount of mischief and distortion as related for example in this ZGBlog about the Progressive Era. It also sufficed to launch the War to Prevent Secession and slaughter one American in sixty.

So to slash the government workforce by 80% is by no means good enough. It must all go, 100%.

Nor is the job merely (!) to persuade existing government workers to quit, for example using the good arguments in the QuitGov site; for even if all 40 million told their bosses tomorrow to take those jobs and shove them, there are another 90 million able to take their places. The persuasion has to be applied to all 140 million, and to all their dependents and children, who will grow up and conceivably fill those vacancies unless equally convinced that to do so would be profoundly dishonest. So the message must be taken to the entire literate population, or about 280 million. And we can assume that intereference will be run; that government bosses will not sit back and let us work in peace.

The bosses themselves may well be hopelessly beyond the reach of reason but that need not be a worry. They can go on issuing as many orders as they wish, so long as there's nobody to carry them out; and being somewhat intelligent, they won't do so for long anyway. When they see that all is lost, they will pack up their gold and migrate to some place where governments still exist - rather like the Nazi leaders tried to do in 1945. How many of them are there? - possibly 1%, or 400,000, but I sense that there are many fewer, perhaps a tenth of that. They are Congresscritters, heads of departments in the bureaucracy, and the same at State level; but probably not many more. Even cops will shed their bravado when there are no grunts left to handle their pay checks, launder their uniforms and maintain their cruisers.

So that's the size of the job; huge. How's it to be done? - not, I suggest in any way with a center, or a small number of centers, broadcasting or organizing outreach. If there is a head or heads available, the State will certainly cut it off as soon as it starts to take good effect. The method certainly must be thoroughly decentralized. Next, it must not cost much; for anarcho-libertarians don't have much to spare. There are very few millionaires among us, and to persuade 280 million people to change their well-entrenched world-view would cost a fortune many times greater than Donald Trump's. After all, our adversaries are spending $13,000 every year, per student, to indoctrinate our children.

Hence the TOLFA method, which can be used for any facility for freedom education; it costs nothing. Take the course, bring one friend a year to join it and help him or her through it. Maybe spend a few cents on a CD, to give him a copy of what's up on tolfa.us. One per year doubles annually the number of graduates, so in 28 years (2²⁸ or 268 million) the job is done, for no graduate will contemplate working for such a repugnant employer as government. Transition to Liberty visualizes the detail.

I have some questions for you, if I may.

1. Do you want to live in a society without government?

2. If so, do you agree with my premise (para 1, line 1 above)?

(a) If not, what does have to happen before the State disappears? or
(b) If so, how else do you propose to remove all its employees?

That first question may seem superfluous, but maybe not. Some give the impression that they expect the State to last for ever (even though it's existed for only the most recent 20% of the life of mankind) and that the best we can hope for is to live consistently with our principles but surrounded by hostiles. That's not a lifestyle that appeals to me one little bit.

The second is also key; for if there is another way to do the job, I'd really like to hear it. I've been listening for four decades and haven't heard one, but my ears still work.

If you'd like to respond to these two, use this link; I may base a future ZGBlog on the feedback, deleting names of course.