From the White-PillBox: Part 48
Another logically inconsistent position of statism: money is the root of all evil, except when money is in the hands of the State.
This installment of the White Pill series offers another example of the internal contradictions of statism. As explained in essay 36, one of statism’s fundamental weaknesses (and thus a major White Pill) is how so many of its positions lead to logical inconsistencies.
In this essay we examine one of statists’ most glaring of contradictions: that money is evil and corrupting; but in the hands of government, it is a source of goodness.
You shouldn’t seek money
The nearly universal view1 is that commercial activity for profit, accumulating money, and spending money are vile activities for human beings.
The person who seeks profit is perceived as selfish.
The desire to save and increase one’s wealth is greedy.
Spending money is superficial and wasteful.
While these judgements are highly debatable, the statist who holds these views should be taken at his word. We can assume he believes what he says: money is evil, along with its corrupting influence on men.
But somehow things are diametrically different when the State deals with money. Now all the evils of money transform into generosity and altruism.
A barrage of inconsistencies
Profits
A business person has to earn profits. He can only do that by offering a reciprocal value that pleases willing customers.
The State most certainly does not concern itself with profits 2. True, members of the State are not seeking money profits in the business sense. Instead, they are selfish for both power (which often translates to money anyway) and the material benefits they can gain via the State (both of which are acquired on the backs of people). Make no mistake. They profit all right…and with the game rigged in their favor.
So profit is evil, except when members of the State are profiting.
Relationship to customers
In contrast to business profits, which can only happen by consensual trade, members of the State gain their benefits by non-consensual force.
Our statist sees nothing twisted in declaring a consensual relationship evil, and a forced relationship good.
Saving
The average person saves only one way: by retaining his money rather than spending it 3. The statist cannot help but see this as greedy.
But the State gets money too, only it acquires it by taxation and its printing presses. To the statist, government is not greedy when it does this; it is noble and generous. Money is no longer evil, it is good, in the hands of the State. The statist of course disregards the fact that taxes are taken by force. He shows little concern that printing money inflates away the value of peoples’ real savings.
Spending
When we spend money, it’s for things we want. Everything about that process respects consent 4. Yet the statist regards spending money as wasteful and frivolous. He sees the overweight capitalist from the Monopoly board.
Unless it’s the State that is spending money. Here, the statist sees Mother Teresa.
Conclusion
The statist cannot even contemplate something as simple as money without turning his mind into a fun house mirror. The White Pill is that the statist’s contradictory views on money is simple enough for a child to see.
It is the rare statist who understands the social function of money and its importance to human progress.
Which of course means it does not have to concern itself with the reciprocal side of pleasing customers. Customers who, in any case, are captive since they have few practical alternatives to the State’s “service”.
This is the essential meaning of the word. When we “save” money, we are “saving it from consumption”. More accurately, we are saving it from current consumption in favor of a more preferable purpose later.
It does not matter if we approve of the way others spend their money; the bigger principle recognizes it is their free choice. We should respect their freedom to choose, as we would expect others to respect ours.