TRUST IN LAWS - CONT'D
Prohibitions for citizens
According to the OECD, good regulatory practices are good for citizens because:
It is important for justice, fairness and the rule of law as well in delivering public services.
Justice. Right. Justice in this so-called modern democratic system is not only a joke, it is ridiculous, counterproductive, abusive and nonsensical (see for example In-Justice In The Democratic System and compare it with Justice in the Austro Libertarian System).
Fairness. Really? Socialism is ridiculously unfair (see for example The Big Question or Piketty Fences). Taxation is unfair (see for example Taxed To Death No Just Into Slavery or Taxes And Myths), unless you condone robbery. Social Contracts are unfair (see for example Social Contracts Are A Scam). The political and bureaucratic system is unfair (see for example Politicians and Bureaucrats Job Security Through Misery). So, how exactly are laws fair?
Rule of Law. OK. Why? As we have shown above, laws are simply prohibitions on your very own property, created just because somebody can and enforced by brute force. Does this sound fair to you?
Delivering public services. Right! You mean delivering all those so-called services we mostly don't want nor need? And of those which we actually want, paying ridiculous prices for highly inefficient and ineffective systems? Those services that through a state monopoly prevent the innovation of private enterprise? Those services that were create with our money but without our opinion, knowledge or consent? Those ones? Ah. OK. Sure, those are surely fair…
And so this concept that laws are good for citizens is pure bunk, manure, caca, dung and many other equivalent expression of the same nauseous nature. Next.
Prohibitions for business
According to the OECD, good regulatory practices are good for business because:
It is important to have reliability and confidence in regulatory governance for investment and growth.
And the million golden ducats question is: Why? The big fluorescent-green rhinoceros in the room that nobody wants to talk about is the assumption that reliable and trustworthy regulatory governance is necessary for investment and growth. Who came up with this assumption? Where does it come from and why should we accept it as a fact? Well, the answers are simple:
Bureaucrats and politicians came up with it.
It comes from Socialism which stems from the flawed concept of Social Contracts (see Social Contracts Are A Scam).
And no, we should not accept it because quite simply it is a lie.
Let's begin by saying that investment and growth is a biologically-originated and driven process, as strange as it may sound. Investment and growth are based on contracts since without contracts none of them are possible (see for example Contracts Are The Key To Coexistence). Contracts existed since humans learned to coexist about 143,000 years ago (long time before any regulatory governance) and they were doing just fine without the need for any laws, rules, regulations and especially politicians. So no. Most definitively, absolutely and positively no. Reliable and trustworthy regulatory governance is not needed at all to have investment and growth.
As a matter of fact, this concept is so incredibly stupid and so incredibly accepted by most people, that we feel the need to keep bashing it. Consider the following. Civilization as we know it grew out of un-civilization. Towns, cities and empires did not sprout overnight here and there. They were developed from individual people over long periods of time through contracts, not regulatory governance. Let's be clear. We are not saying that civilization developed without rules. Of course! it needed rules. However, those rules were the rules established between people dealing with their own private properties. Those rules were not, repeat not, impositions from a higher so-called "authority" because this "authority" simply did not exist. Many people would characterize this as "the chicken and the egg" problem. Well, it's not. Contracts between people appeared first because even if we accept the flawed theories of Social Contracts which are necessary to explain political "authority", well… Social Contracts are… contracts! You can't have contracts without contracts. It is ridiculous!
The whole point of free markets is that they are self-organizing networks and systems. If you have product A and want product B, you find somebody that has B and it is willing to exchange it for A. This is as simple as it get and it is absolutely clear that nowhere in the picture there is a necessity to have regulations for this to occur. But if regulations are not required at the most basic level, why should they be required at a higher level? Well…they are not!
Furthermore, the idea that regulatory governance somehow instils reliability and confidence is absolutely ridiculous. We are not aware of a single entrepreneur anywhere on the planet that that will make a decision of investing or not investing based on the confidence and the perception of reliability that laws and regulations generate in a specific location. As a matter of fact, almost all entrepreneurs will tell you in no uncertain terms that almost all regulations get in the way of their business…which is our business because through their efforts in serving us, they are increasing our standards of living. Let's be clear. This is not to say that investors are blind to unfavourable economic or criminal conditions. They are not. But what they want is stability, not confidence in regulatory governance. The issue is that stability can very easily be achieved through private means without the need of any government at all even in the worse possible conditions (see for example Somalia - The Great Austro-Libertarian Failure).
Furthermore, it is regulatory governance through the imposition of prohibitions and limitations and artificial monopolies that prevent humans from having their needs satisfied (see for example The Black Market To The Rescue) while the free markets try to achieve the exact opposite.
Prohibitions for everybody except "public administrators"
According to the OECD, good regulatory practices are good for public administrators because:
It is important to have the confidence of stakeholders to act and trust in the efficiency and appropriate use of public resources for equal benefit for all citizen’s well-being and environmental protection.
With regards to maintaining the confidence of "stakeholders", this is undoubtedly true. As we mentioned above, self-control through trust originated in brainwashing is far superior to control through absolute fear. From this perspective (the correct one), good regulatory practices (good for bureaucrats and politicians) are indeed very good for public administrators and especially for politicians. This may sound redundant but it is not because the concept of "good" is determined by bureaucrats and politicians and not by you. Trusting (i.e. brainwashed) "stakeholders" act in the best interest of bureaucrats and politicians and so what is not to like?
And how about creating confidence I the efficiency of public administrators? This is also true. Good regulatory practices (i.e. good for them) will create the impression that bureaucrats and politicians are efficient indeed. This is so because smartly devise regulations will indeed be regulations with clear processes. The way this works is the same way in which magicians do tricks. It is called misdirection. While politicians and bureaucrats are distracting you with a neat process, their gross inefficiency remains hidden. They want you to see a neat "due process" so that you may take this process as efficiency… and most unfortunately most people do take one for the other. Let's be clear. Just because there is a neat process this does not mean that they are efficient. They are not. Take for example a Rube Goldberg machine which is a useless machine but quite impressive because it has a clear, colourful and evocative process (for more information visit Wikipedia and search in it).
Then we have the appropriate use of resources. And the big question here is: Appropriate for what? As we also demonstrated above that it is simply not possible to came up with a law that is "good". Therefore the idea that the use of resources is "appropriate" means absolutely nothing… or worse. Basically it means that they use resources "appropriately" for whatever objective they may wish to accomplish. Feeling confident yet? But then we can move a step forward and ask what exactly is the meaning of "appropriate"? You see, as governments cannot make economic calculations because they are not for-profit, it is impossible (literally) to determine if they are cost-effective or not because they operate in vacuum (see for example Communists Can Not Count). As such it is literally impossible to determine if the use of our resources by them is appropriate or not. This is so because any standard of measurement will be subjective, determined by them and therefore manipulated.
Then we need to review the concept of "public resources". We must remember that as a state, any state, does not work (in the sense that it does not have a job), they cannot earn any wealth and therefore they cannot purchase any "resources". But if they cannot do so, where do come from the vast "public resources" that governments have? Simple. They stole them. This is nothing but following the very same criminal laws that are applied to you. The idea is that if you cannot justify your income, you have a criminal enterprise. Well… governments cannot justify their "resources" and therefore they are all criminal enterprises. Don't believe us? We challenge you to find a country, any country in the planet that would provide a valid contract with their citizens stipulating what they are getting for their taxes. Or a country in the planet providing a valid contract with their citizens stipulating that governments can borrow in their name. Or a country in the planet providing a valid contract with their citizens stipulating that governments can debase the currency. Let us be clear. There is no such thing as "public resources". All these resources were yours and were taken from you through the operation of a criminal enterprise called "government".
Going a step further and even if we can ignore all the previous issues, we reach the notion of "equal benefit". This is, again, incredibly naïve and stupid. True, it sounds impressive and very much selfless. But what does it mean in reality? Nothing. This is so because it is simply not possible to accomplish "equality" even if one would actually want to do so. Even the most acerb communists in the USSR did not strive for "equal benefits". Even they recognized that different people had different needs and different skills and as such they "earned" different salaries or, in other words, in-equal benefits. We have talked about this in an oblique manner in the article Do Not Talk To Us About Society.
Lastly, they mentioned "environmental protection". Now why would they do so? As far as we can tell, our wellbeing depends of a good and healthy environment. We cannot have wellbeing without a good ecological status. It goes without saying. The latter includes the former, then why the redundancy? Excellent question. Because it is a sound bit. It is good propaganda. Good brainwashing. Good Public Relations. Good smoke and mirrors.
Be a good and obedient drone and keep voting. If you are well behaved we will throw you an ecological bone here and there…
Summary
The idea that somehow by having "good" laws the trust of people in their governments will increase is, sadly enough, correct. Many people will be brainwashed. This is so because what matters is the question that is never asked: Good for whom? Certainly not for us, just for them.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
