By Russell D. Longcore
Labor in FRONA (The Free Republic Of North America) will be another area of human action that is revolutionized. At this point in America, there is no Free Market, only a distorted, repressed, Frankenstein’s monster known as Capitalism. FRONA will be a nation without Capitalism. If that sentence confuses or alarms you, read Revolution In FRONA first.
I contend that government creates most of the poverty in America though regulation and in conjunction with business. I also contend that government makes the problem worse by enacting more regulations and creating more government spending programs to “help” the underclasses, which is the government’s way of trying to fix a problem that it created in the first place. Government has created an open-air prison for the poor from which they might escape only with the greatest difficulty.
Let me give you a definition of Capitalism* and how I will be using it in this article.
“Capitalism:” An economic system that features a symbiotic relationship between big business and government, and rule of workplaces, the society and the state by capitalists (that is, a relatively small number of people who control investable wealth and the means of production.)
Let’s also lay a foundation upon which we can build understanding.
In The Free Republic Of North America, the Charter (its constitution) is a contract between the citizens. The citizens actually own shares in the Government. FRONA’s governance has been created to function like a corporation. You can read more about this by going into our Archive and clicking on the many articles with “FRONA” in the title.
The FRONA Charter has been written to empower the government to protect individual liberty and property rights The Unalienable Rights of Man are written into the Charter so that there is never any doubt about what rights are to be revered and protected by the FRONA government. And these rights go FAR beyond the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution.
Two of the Unalienable Rights that are protected in FRONA are:
1. The Right to Contract
2. The Right of Free Association
Before we expand upon these rights, let us look at the ways that Capitalism in America (and around the world) distorts and for some, destroys the ability to earn an income.
Capitalism (gov’t and business together) regulates:
• The age at which an individual can begin working as an employee
• The minimum wage that a person can earn
• The maximum number of hours an individual may work in a 7-day week
• Rules about hiring disabled persons
• Mandated Health Care resulting in layoffs and more part-time workers
• Equal Employment Opportunity regulations
• OSHA regs add untold cost to running a business
• Business licensing
• Zoning ordinances that restrict business operations to certain locations
• Building codes that restrict business usage
• Certain human activity has been made entirely illegal for trade
• And many, many other regulations too numerous to mention here.
So a child is prevented from earning an income, even if his family needs his earning ability. There are lots of tasks that a child can do proficiently that are economically not worth the minimum wage. So the business will not hire a competent, trainable child to perform menial tasks for pay. That restricts many poor people from earning income. Then, labor laws prevent some people from working as much as they wish to work. Employer and employee may not legally enter into an agreement in which they set the terms of employment. Regulations about hiring the disabled, and how a workplace must be built to accommodate the disabled, prevent many small businesses from hiring the disabled altogether. American business is presently in turmoil as business lays off millions of full-time personnel so they don’t have to provide them with government-mandated health care benefits. Federal EEOC statutes cause employers to NOT hire people, knowing how difficult the statutes make it to terminate employees. Business licensing in all its forms restricts entry into the free market for only those who have money to pay for the license and to comply with the regulations required to get the license. Zoning codes prevent certain businesses from being run from a person’s residence or other locations, as well as increasing the costs of construction for certain buildings in order that they comply with the ordinances. And in every instance in which Capitalism has deemed a human action-for-pay illegal…like prostitution, gambling and recreational drug sales…a thriving black market has been created.
And in nearly every issue listed above, Capitalism is forcing individuals and business to enter into transactions that the parties would not voluntarily choose.
How does this affect the poor? It keeps them poor by boxing them in with regulations. Why should a person be prevented from preparing food in his own kitchen that he sells to others, or taking in boarders? Why should a person be prevented from using his vehicle to transport people or cargo for money? Why should a person be prevented from taking money for providing sexual favors for another person? Why should a person be prohibited from styling hair in their homes? Why prohibit a person with a home near a sporting event from charging people to park their cars there? Why not have a poker game with open betting at your home? And why should it be illegal to sell a recreational pharmaceutical or herb, or to possess same?
People all over the USA are daily prevented and prohibited from using their creativity to invent flexible sources of income through which they could eek out a living. And, if their ideas were good enough, and they found enough of a market for their ideas, it could turn into a business that helps lift them out of poverty.
But that is not going to happen any more in America. The regulations and statutes are set in concrete. There will be no rolling back all of that negative law.
Have you ever heard an inner city person say, “The MAN is keeping me down?” He’s not kidding, and he is not wrong. The Capitalist system presently operating in America does indeed keep the poor at a functional disadvantage. There is no level playing field in the inner city or anywhere else you find the poor.
But in FRONA…
Remember Two of the Unalienable Rights that are protected in FRONA?
1. The Right to Contract
2. The Right of Free Association
Contracts are sacred in FRONA. A contract is an agreement entered into voluntarily by two or more parties. Volumes of books have been written about contracts, and we shall not go deeper into contract law today. Suffice it to say that FRONA will not have many restrictions on the contracts, oral or written, that people voluntarily enter into. FRONA law will respect contract law and protect the Unalienable Right of individuals to enter into contract.
That leads us to The Right Of Free Association. Individuals may gather together as they choose to express themselves, also known as the right of free assembly. But this Right also leads to the right of individuals to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining. FRONA will be a pure “right to work” nation. No one will be forced to join a union, nor will any employer be forced to enter into collective bargaining.
In The Free Republic Of North America, any individual will be FREE to engage in commerce with others so long as the economic transaction has no element of force or fraud. FRONA’s source of revenue is not dependent upon a vast array of taxes and fees. So FRONA doesn’t much care HOW an individual earns an income. The national sales tax of 10% is only incurred in certain commercial transactions. The INDIVIDUAL controls the amount of tax he pays. The government does not confiscate the taxes at the threat of death.
FRONA has no regulations about Child Labor other than the prohibition of force or fraud. FRONA has no laws prohibiting the use, possession or sale of any recreational drug or stimulant. FRONA has no business licenses, no EEOC regs, no zoning ordinances or building codes, no minimum wage laws, no mandated health care, no OSHA, no law preventing any person or persons from associating with one another. In FRONA, law enforcement is primarily dedicated to prosecuting force, fraud and violent crimes.
The Free Republic Of North America will be the free-est place on earth. Don’t YOU want to live there? Can you handle that much freedom?
Secession is the only solution for individual liberty and property rights on the North American continent.
DumpDC. Six Letters That Will Change History.
Copyright 2013 Russell D. Longcore. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
*”Advocates of Freed Markets Should Oppose Capitalism” pg. 108, Gary Chartier and Charles W. Johnson, Markets Not Capitalism, Minor Compositions Press.
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I’m reading Markets Not Capitalism as you suggested. I am not halfway through, yet, but what’s jumping out at me is the assumption of a polite and moral populace.
I would point out that “Big Business” had to get big before it could collude with government, voluntarily on both sides. Some people are greedy and don’t care about your natural rights and will use their wealth to gain influence. Likewise, some people are corrupt and will use their influence to gain wealth. Its probably impossible to stop the people who run an organization from subverting it to their own benefit.
Legalizing recreational drugs seems like a really bad idea in FRONA since everything depends on contracts and meth heads aren’t known for rational thinking.
Zoning laws protect a neighborhood from the one neighbor who wants to open an after hours dance club in his house or to manufacture the afore mentioned recreational drugs.
Anyway, this post ended up longer than I intended. I was originally only going to quip that FRONA sound like heaven for lawyers!
I plan to read markets Not Capitalism and then go back and post my thoughts on my site.
Mr. U-
There are those that find fault with other people’s ideas, and there are others that add value and move a good idea forward. I also note that you have no refutation for the concepts and ideas in the book. It appears that you are pretty contented with Capitalism, so stay with it. Cheers, Russ
I haven’t finished the book, yet, I’ll finish it tomorrow. I just can’t help from pointing out what I see as unworkable. Drives my wife crazy! If the book can provide a solution, I’ll recant.
“I just can’t help from pointing out what I see as unworkable.”
Hey, Russell…lemme know when you start to see the problems with Pragmatism!
FWIW I think you’re a giant for trying to do what you are. I just couldn’t resist, or didn’t anyway.
Question: Could a group of people found their own town under their own group contract within the geographical area of FRONA (but outside any existing organized area) and could that contract ban or allow things different from the main FRONA contract? Sort of like a local amendment.
No.
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The very concept of a “tax” flies in the face of the notion of self-ownership. To participate voluntarily in cooperation among individuals invites no claim of ownership by governments, certainly not within local boundaries.
If a program can’t be made to work with mechanisms such as voluntary bond issues, donations, direct user fees, etc., then it shouldn’t be acceptable at all.
-PG
Dear Guy- Absolutely right. But citizens of FRONA sign a contract and buy one share of common stock. The nation doesn’t own them…it is the other way around.. Thanks, Russ
How about this? Since there are no laws in FRONA about children working to help provide income for their families, and there are no laws against prostitution, an enterprising man, with few moral scruples, forces his two daughters to become live-in prostitutes, and his two sons to make bricks, twelve hours a day. He of course, does not have to work, as his children provide the family income. Since the children work twelve hour days, they have little or no time for school, and are functionally illiterate. Once they decide to escape this little heaven on earth in FRONA, due to their maturing, and Papa getting too old and weak to control them, they must now make their way in the world, uneducated, unskilled in anything but manual and sex labor, possibly diseased by it, and more than likely to repeat the child labor scenario when they become “parents” themselves. I’m sure they would not ever become alcohol/drug addicted, even though of course these are freely available to everyone, and if things don’t pan out, or go well enough for them, they can always resort to desperate attempts at thievery and murder to get what they need. FRONA doesn’t sound like a solution to me. It sounds more like a way to re-create a third world hell hole, like say Mumbai, India, or Jarkarta. Your writings about how capitalism has become a crime partner with govt. is well taken, and free enterprise it ain’t. But there are some very good reasons we have some of the laws we do, and repealing them is not going to change human nature, something the Bolsheviks forgot, and the Communists later discovered, say around 1989. Spooner loved humans, he just forgot about humanity, and what it really is.
Sean, you make the all too common error of sticking your toe into the pool of potential free enterprise while leaving your other leg thigh-deep in the socialist cesspool of the present. In FRONA the bad father would be severely ostracized by others for his behaviour since no one would depend on some gov agency to take care of the problem. His children, if abused, could run away and find other suitable means of taking care of themselves. In a free society good people would be there to help them avoid another predatory situation. If the abusive father used violent means to try to get them back, his actions would be met with violence. The thing our present ruling elite fear the most taking hold is vigilantism, because it fucking WORKS. Sure, there will be evil done in the form of vigilantism, but the good will far outweigh the bad. After the reset/die-off/collapse the survivors will be hardened and tempered and will not support bad behaviour. They will know the importance of freely contracting and freely associating. In case the foregoing doesn’t have your blood pressure off the charts, get this: I’m no apologist for the KKK, but they had a reputation for “counseling” abusive fathers and husbands, white or black, something they never get credit for. Anyone accused of a crime should get a trial by a jury of his peers, not the prosecutorial circus we’re subjected to today; but that doesn’t mean that everyone who got lynched was innocent, or that every flogging was unfounded. Vigilantism is certainly not something to aspire to, but what we have today, and what is waiting for us in our very near future is bad and getting worse. Your reply, Sir.
Dear Mr. Fondren- You’re GOOD! Russ
Russ Longcore, I follow the blog, and if you remember was very alarmed when you went off the air for a time. but I will have to part company with you on this. It appears you propose the old tried and failed laissez-faire Austro-libertarianism founded by two agnostic Jews who had no respect for the Catholic faith. When Laissez-faire capitalism fails, as it always does, it leads to socialism if it goes down softly or communism if it goes down hard.
If The Right to Contract, The Right of Free Association are Unalienable Rights then I and my fellow co-workers have the right to Unionize and negotiate together for our wages. And if you are paying me spit, we will. And there will be no laws limiting the activities of Unions as they also have the Right to Contract and the Right of Free Association just like everyone else. These rights are not only for corporations but for all people.
If corporations can pay as little as they want, don’t be surprised when people use their Right of Free Association to tax said corporations (and people) to supply them with what they need like healthcare, and what they want like free cell phones. They will still get sick, they still have babies and they need healthcare and the system will continue to grow and become more abusive eventually leading to free housing.
This still leads to corporations putting crap in the water (because it is cheaper), no governmental agency monitoring that and I finding out my child died because of it, as our home was downstream. Then I have to get My Tribe together and kill the owner of the company and HIS children and burn down his plant. That is no way to have a functioning society.
The laissez-faire Austro-libertarianism idea denies a basic tenet of the Christian Catholic faith (I believe because it was created by agnostic Jews). Man is fallen. If men are not saved they will do evil things. Even if Man is Saved, he must with the blessings of the Holy Spirit fight against his nature and the diabolical which will always strive to drag him down.
You think I am going to fight for a new country where the power company owned by a racist can simply say “we don’t service home with Hispanics or Americans of African descent…” The water company, banks, schools, can really say “no service because I don’t like you.” And don’t tell me it will magically go away it didn’t in the old South until the Federal government forced it to go away. Racism is without Reason and man is fallen, so you can’t expect racist to be reasonable. I will not fight for that type of nation, more-so I will actively fight against it.
When a corporation becomes successful without paying a living wage, nor providing the basic necessities for its employees, all they are doing is socializing their costs, like Wal-Mart and privatizing their profits. The 70,000 people at Wal-Mart without healthcare still get sick and have kids, thus they go to the emergency room and those cost are passed on to everyone with an insurance policy. Wal-Mart keeps the profits and forces all of us to pay for its employees healthcare. That is sick. BTW, don’t be surprised when the 70,000 people who work full time for Wal-Mart with no healthcare vote for a socialist president who promises them the healthcare they and their families need.
And you show how failed this thought pattern is because it can only be maintained by “authoritarianism” if I wanted to create a town that taxes everyone and provides healthcare, protection for the environment, a police force, funding for Christian education and a retirement system that is a free people’s right. It is the SAME right of Free Association and The Right to Contract that you hold as sacred. (I hold my Christian faith as sacred not economic dogma). Move to our town and these are the laws / contract. When people are free, they can do what you may agree with, or what you may not agree with, they are free. In the greater system if we wanted to make a town that practices Catholic teaching including economic theory we should be free too.
I am for the Catholic answer to this mess, which is distributism. I believe in things like removing all corporate taxes but requiring corporation to have living wages, some form of retirement and pay for healthcare. This follows the Catholic principle of subsidiary. Let the smallest unit do a thing. I believe in a guild system to replace the socialist union / class warfare approach. And I completely support sub-groups (towns, cities states) who want to create their own path to freedom they are free to do that. If the Mormons have a better way, let them try.
The book to read is The Church and the Libertarian by Christopher Ferrara. It debunks all of these myths nicely and proposes a Christian and Catholic liberty-leaning answer to the system proposed by two agnostic Jews with a hostility for Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.
Here is my blog post putting forth my idea: http://charlescarrollsociety.com/2013/01/21/christianity-and-libertariaism/
Again, love your blog but disagree with you on this point.
Mr. Bard-
I respond by the paragraph.
1. You appear to have a problem with Jews. I don’t. You appear to be a devotee of Catholicism. I am not. And when Laissez-faire fails, it does not end in Socialism, it ends in Capitalism. Read the book “Markets not Capitalism.”
2. Unions. Any person or group of persons MUST have the unalienable right of contract. I am not pro-union, I am anti-regulation.
3. In FRONA, only FRONA taxes, and only through the sales tax. Nobody else can tax. And you can pay for your own healthcare, or buy and insurance policy that pays on your behalf. No Government benefits, period.
4. A stupid paragraph that diminishes your argument. Kill the owner? puleeeze.
5. FRONA does not come from a religious base. Unalienable Rights can easily be found in humanity, but are most easily found in a belief in a supreme Creator. I reject your evangelical tenets. In FRONA, you can keep believing that stuff if you like, but it is not written into the government.
6. I don’t know where in hell you got your racist rant from, but in FRONA, you can do business with me or not for any reason or no reason. If that level of freedom is too much for you, don’t join us. And no one asked you to fight for a new country.
7. Your first sentence about a “living wage” shows a lack of understanding about free market economics but a total buy-in to Keynesianism. After that, none of the paragraph matters.
8. Apparently you have not read much about FRONA. No authoritarianism in a corporate form of governance, but plenty in a constitutional republic…especially when the constitution is entirely ignored. But in FRONA, if you and your buds want to have a Catholic town, have at it. But you DON’T get it through tyranny and force. You and your buds take out your wallets and BUY all the property in that town, then sell it only to Catholics. I expect that this is much too “free market” for you. I’ll lay a wager that you also believe that churches should pay no taxes also. But in FRONA, no more charitable deductions. They pay sales tax just like everybody else.
9. I do not prefer the Catholic solution to ANYTHING. And this is MY website. I’m glad to debate, but you should start your own website.
10. Won’t be reading a book about the church and libertarianism, but thanks. And two agnostic Jews may have a reason for their hostility to Catholicism. It’s not like the Crusades ever happened or anything. It’s not like Catholics never persecuted Jews or anything. It’s not like Christianity has been responsible for two thousand years of wars over religion or anything. And the Charles Carroll Society has merit, even though based in Catholicism.
Cheers, Russ
Um … I have started my own website http://charlescarrollsociety.com, I just follow yours also. I didn’t find a place for Catholic liberty-minded folks. Either it was Catholic Socialism or libertarianism with no thoughts toward Christianity and Catholicism in particular. I do have a problem with Catholics (I don’t have any thing to say about non-Catholics) parroting the reasoning of agnostic people of a different faith who were hostile to Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. Obviously this doesn’t apply to you. The only Unalienable Rights are given by our divine creator, not be a group of men. However we can part company. Good luck.
Bard- no need to part company. You’re always welcome here. Russ