The Aristocracy of Pull
The phrase is Rand’s. It refers to an economy based on patronage, log-rolling, the chain of command, and favor banks. The historian Gordon Wood says the American Revolution was so radical for its time–in fact, unprecedented–mainly because it eliminated the aristocracy of pull. Pre-revolutionary society was deferential to king, to kin, to family patriarch. Personal relationships dominated both economic and political affairs. Access to honors and offices was determined by social connection alone.
Whereas now…
- “Nearly 2,000 House of Representative staffers pulled down six-figure salaries in 2009, including 43 staffers who earned the maximum $172,500 — or more than three times the median U.S. household income.”
- “A day after Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and ten other House members compromised on their pro-life position to deliver the necessary yes-votes to pass health care reform, the “Stupak 11″ released their fiscal year 2011 earmark requests, which total more than $4.7 billion“
- The Government Pay Boom: “It turns out there really is growing inequality in America. It’s the 45% premium in pay and benefits that government workers receive over the poor saps who create wealth in the private economy.”
From WSJ
Arnold Kling fulminates:
I believe that the elites have so mistreated the American people that we should declare that a state of war exists between America and Washington.
Call it whatever you want, as long as it wakes somebody up from their dogmatic slumbers. This is getting ridiculous.
Mike Gibson
Jonathan Wilde
patrissimo
Guest Blogger
Will Chamberlain
Michael Strong
Brad Taylor
Z. Caceres
chdeist
The is the purpose of the seasteading/ocean city-state movement. However, financing of the ocean city state is not possible without financing from the overseas Chinese (Kakkyo) which, in turn, brings into being its own version of corruption.
Really, the first step toward building the city state is to set up a contractor in Singapore that specializes in construction of floating structures for both residential and commercial purposes. Singapore is the best place for this because they are running out of land and they have a political fight with the Indonesians that make it difficult and expensive for them to import sand for land fill. A construction company specializing in building residential and commercial floating structures for Singaporean customers would establish both the engineering credibility and business credibility over the next 20 years to make construction of the ocean city state a feasible proposition.
I really see no other way of pulling this off.
Of course the U.S. is full of tax payer revenue sucking parasites. This is why the American republic/empire will crash.
Death to all parasites.