Big Government and Demagoguery: Are We on the Path to Tyranny?

Michael E. Newton

“The American People will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label… Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to ‘End Poverty in California’ I got 879,000… There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.” ~ Upton Sinclair

End Poverty vs. Socialism

Promise free gifts to the voters

Class warfare

Government control of the economy (socialism, fascism, totalitarianism). “Fascism and Communism are merely variants of the

same totalitarianism which central control of economic activity tends to produce.” ~ Friedrich Hayek

Demagogues generally promise bigger, not smaller government.

How Demagogues Gain Power

Warning Against Tyranny

Lead them in battle against Philistines.

Unite the tribes.

“To judge us, like all the nations.”

Desiring a King

“He will take away your sons and place them in his

chariots and cavalry, and they will run before his chariot.” Military draft

“He will appoint for himself captains of hundreds and captains of fifty, to plow his furrow and to reap his harvest, and to produce his implements of battle and the furnishings of his chariot. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.” Servitude

Samuel’s Warning

“He will take a tenth of your grain and vines,” “will take

a tenth of your sheep,” “will confiscate your best fields, vineyards, and olive trees,” and “will take your servants and maidservants and your best young men and your donkeys and press them into his service.” Taxes, confiscation of property, increased servitude

“You will be his slave. On that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves – but God will not answer you on that day.” Tyranny!

Samuel’s Warning

“No! There shall be a king over us, and we will be like

all other nations; our king will judge us, and go forth before us, and fight our wars!”

Why want a king after Samuel’s warning?

No experience with tyrants.

Focused on short-term benefit (win wars, unity); ignored long-term cost (military draft, taxes, confiscation, servitude, tyranny).

People’s Reaction

Demagogues Bearing Free Gifts

In Athens in 461 BC, Pericles promised wealth

redistribution with “allotments of public lands, festival-grants, and distributions of fees for public services.” He was a tyrant who failed to deliver.

In the 360s BC at Sicyon, Euphron attacked the rich and argued that his “government was to be on terms of full equality.” Euphron killed or exiled his enemies, took their property, acted generously to his mercenaries, and bribed his allies.

Greek History: Examples

“Almost all tyrants have been demagogues who gained the

favor of the people by their accusation of the notables.” ~ Aristotle

“A leader of the people” gains power with “unjust accusations…assassinates him…and hints at the abolition of debts and the partition of lands.” ~ Plato

After the people become “accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others,” a “leader who is enterprising…institute[s] the rule of violence” and “democracy…is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence.” ~ Polybius

Greek Philosophers

Overthrowing a Republic

Julius Caesar “proposed laws which were

becoming, not for a consul, but for a most radical tribune of the people; for to gratify the multitude he introduced sundry allotments and distributions of land.” ~ Plutarch

Julius Caesar “courted the people with banquets and distributions of grain… In all he implanted hopes, since he ardently desired to rule over willing subjects.” ~ Plutarch

Julius Caesar: From Republic to Empire

Long Live the Revolution:

But Not the People

Overthrew government.

Held one election.

Lost 41% to 24% to Socialist Revolutionaries . These two socialist parties won 65% of vote.

Allowed Assembly to meet for one day before shutting it down.

Expelled Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries from government.

Created single party dictatorship.

Bolshevik Revolution

“To us, everything is permitted, for we are the first to

raise the sword not to oppress races and reduce them to slavery, but to liberate humanity.” ~ The Red Sword, a Kiev newspaper

“We are bound by no laws. There are no fortresses which Bolsheviks cannot storm.” ~ Stalin

“Everything” included slave labor (gulags), mass starvation, mass murder, and terrorizing the people supposedly being served.

Bolshevik Mottos

Third Way Totalitarianism

“Third Way” Capitalism benefits rich

Socialism benefits poor

Fascism benefits everyone!

Political freedom; increased government control of the economy.

Heavily regulate big business; leave small businesses and individuals alone.

Fascist Promises

Labor rights

Limit working hours

Minimum wage

Regulation of corporations

Confiscation of war profits, unproductive capital, and church property

Employee management of industry

Creation of collectivized farms for the peasants

Fascism sounds great!

Fascist Proposals

Socialist Economics, Authoritarian Politics

National Socialist German Workers Party.

“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.” ~ Adolf Hitler, 1927

“Basically National Socialism and Marxism are the same.” ~ Adolf Hitler, 1941

Nazi=National Socialism

“Every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and

earning a livelihood.” (minimum wage, welfare)

“All unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.” (interest, dividends, capital gains, rent)

“Total confiscation of all war profits.”

“Nationalization of all trusts.”

“Profit-sharing in large industries.”

“Increase in old-age pensions.”

“Communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople.”

Nazi Economic Promises

Nazis won three elections in a row:

July 1932: 37% (+16%)

November 1932: 33% (+13%)

March 1933: 44% (+26%)

Hitler was then declared dictator.

Nazi Victory

Popular Para-Fascism

“Mussolini was the greatest man of our century,

but he committed certain disastrous errors. I, who have the advantage of his precedent before me, shall follow in his footsteps but also avoid his errors.” ~ Juan Peron

“Third Way” economics

Subsidized industry to appease the right

Income redistribution to appease the left

Nationalized foreign-owned companies

Peron’s Para-Fascism

Peron elected in 1946 with 53.6% of vote

Economy deteriorated

Promised further redistribution of wealth

Had political opponents fired from their jobs, imprisoned, and tortured

Took control of the media

Won reelection in 1951 with 63.5% of vote

Overthrown in 1955 due to weak economy

Results of Peron’s Para-Fascism

Reinventing Socialism?

“We have to re-invent socialism. It can’t be the

kind of socialism that we saw in the Soviet Union… We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything.” ~ Hugo Chavez (2005)

Chavez’s Reinvented Socialism

“The land is not private, it’s social property. If you put

up a fence, or farm it, or have some barns, well these things are private, but the land belongs to nobody in particular, it’s everybody’s.” ~ Hugo Chavez (2009)

Land confiscation--over six million acres of private farmland.

Nationalized large portions of the economy, including the oil, power, telecommunications, steel, and cement industries.

Profit windfall taxes.

Price controls.

Same Old Socialist Agenda

Declining oil production

Food shortages

Water shortages

Blackouts

Hyper-inflation

Venezuela is currently in collapse.

Same Old Socialist Results

Socialism, Fascism, Nazism, Communism, and

“reinvented” versions of them always fail!

Soviet Union

Fascist Italy

Nazi Germany

Peron’s Argentina

Chavez’s Venezuela

Maoist China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

Modern Europe? Scandinavian Countries?

Totalitarianism

US has most or second most progressive tax system.

Economic Freedom Index: Switzerland 81.0 Sweden 72.0

Ireland 77.3 Norway 70.8

UK 76.4 France 62.3

US 75.4 Greece 53.2

Denmark 75.3 Venezuela 33.7

Netherlands 74.6 Cuba 29.8

Germany 74.4 North Korea 2.3

Finland 72.6

Is Modern Europe Socialist?

New “Rights”; Bigger Government

Wanted to prevent anyone (demagogues) from gaining too much power.

Impossible to spot every demagogue.

Solution?

Founding Fathers

Checks and balances “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition… to

control the abuses of government.” ~James Madison

Separation of powers “The accumulation of all powers, legislative,

executive, and judiciary, in the same hands...may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” ~ James Madison

Designed to prevent anyone (demagogues) from gaining too much power.

The Constitution

Right to work at a living wage

“Freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies”

Right “to a decent home”

Right to medical care

“Protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment”

“Right to a good education”

FDR’s Economic Bills of Rights

Original Bill of Rights: “To prevent

misconstruction or abuse” of the government’s powers. ~ Preface to Bill of Rights

FDR’s Bill of Rights: These are not genuine rights. They are benefits at the expense of others.

“The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for an equal distribution of wealth.” ~ Hayek

Comparison to Bill of Rights

Abandoned and weakened our Constitution

Bureaucratic state

Agencies with legislative, executive, and judicial powers

Whatever happened to separation of powers?

And…

Result of New “Rights”

What does the Constitution say about new government programs (at the federal level)?

If we don’t follow the Constitution, what is to stop the demagogue?

If we fail to abide by the Constitution, what will prevent our descent into tyranny?

Solution: The Constitution!

Thank you!