The Debt/Tax Slave System, and its
Alternative
Henry
H. Lindner, MD
You know that something is terribly wrong, but you can’t put your finger on what or why. Life shouldn’t have to be so difficult, so insecure, so insane. The United States, which at least pretended to respect human rights and freedoms, had deteriorated into a criminal empire and a police state. Our professions, corporations, and government seem to have abandoned ethics altogether. Pharmaceutical corporations have taken over medical practice. Lawyers pit every person against their neighbor. What ever brings profit is OK—as long as one is careful not to get caught violating any existing law. There is little cause for optimism. People do not enjoy their work. The brilliant popular music of the 60s, 70s, and 80s is dead. The mainstream media, in the hands of a few corporations, provides only carefully controlled information and a very narrow range of opinion. It is a media controlled by, and serving the interests of a super-rich ruling class. One can find real news and analysis only at independent sites on the world-wide web. It is becoming obvious that banks, corporations, and special interest groups like the pro-Isreali lobby have captured the US Government so that it serves them and not the people. Technology advances, while wisdom, love, and joy disappear.
The people who run this world and control the media and the governments—the bankers and corporate heads—need to have us believe that we have a choice and that we control our destiny, but this is not true. They decide what information we are fed and what choices we are allowed to make. Our elections provide us only with a choice between one of two political parties that they control, parties who represent merely the range of opinion within their own ranks—from those who lean to the right and those who lean to the left. This is in fact a single party dictatorship, a single party with two faces. The right/left divide is a tool of control that pits the slaves against each other, fighting over details of how their slavery is administered, and by whom, rather than recognizing that they are slaves. Both parties favor increasing government control different aspects of our lives, so as they go in and out of power, we continually lose more of our freedoms, falling under more and more rules and regulations. Our “democracy” is a sham. Capitalism never was freedom, it was and is a system of privileges and controls by the rich and clever, and for the rich and clever. The system of controls, rules, regulations, corporations, and professions that we live under is about as far from personal freedom and responsibility as possible.
We are the most unfree “free” people that have ever existed. Our children are taken from us at a tender age and conditioned for 12 years to obedience and unthinking acceptance of the status quo. They are prevented from developing their innate ability to learn and to think. Having grown up, the victims of this system condition their own children with threats and violence to the same slavery—the only life they know. How are we enslaved? Just look at where the money goes. We must take on enormous debts to get a home, a car, or a college education. Where does this money come from? It is in fact created from nothing by commercial banks—the true slavemasters. When we take out a loan from them, we become their debt slaves. We work to pay back their loan, with interest, when their only risk was the 8% reserve. The rest of the money they created by a simple accounting entry.
This debt slavery is just the newest, most ingenious form of slavery. It appears to the slave to be a privilege; to be able to get money to buy a house or get an education. Yet by accepting the loan, the person has entered into debt slavery to the creator of the money. The debt slave labors his/her entire life to repay the loan plus interest—and the interest is all pure profit for the bank. By allowing banks to make vast amounts of money via this scam, Capitalism has made the bankers the masters of us all. They are able to buy up corporations, media companies, and politicians. Fractional-reserve banking is the biggest criminal scam in existence—yet fully sanctioned by law.
Not only are we debt slaves, but we are tax slaves also. A medieval serf paid 50% of all earnings to the lord of the manor. Between tax and mortgage slavery, we are worse off than the serf. The result is that families must struggle to survive. They have no security. Both the mother and father must work to maintain the household. If either becomes unable to work, they are ruined. Tax slavery for all citizens was instituted in the US with the income tax in 1913, the same year that international bankers took over the financing of the US government and created a stable fractional reserve banking system by establishing the Federal Reserve banking system. Why did the two come into existence at the same time? The bankers needed a tax on the citizens so that the government would repay its debts to the bankers. None of this was or is necessary. The government should have the retained the sole right to create money from nothing. (In fact much of the history of the United States is actually the story of the conflict between bankers and the people.) If government retained the right to create money, taxes would not be necessary as the government would create the money needed for its services and spend that money into existence.
So what is the solution? More governmental controls? Socialism? Well, socialism might at least provide some security for the slaves, but it is an authoritarian response to an authoritarian abuse. It is just another form of authoritarianism—those with power controlling those without power. Socialism (favors for the poor) is the wrong response to government favors for the rich. We should instead eliminate all favors—all interventions that allow some persons or groups to live off the efforts of others. We want a fully consensual society: a sane, healthy society based upon freedom and personal responsibility. We want to live in a sane world community where each of us decides what is right for him/herself; where our dealings with other persons are determined by natural ethics, not artificial and unnecessary rules. We want to interact by mutual consent, for mutual benefit, as far as ethical considerations allow. We want a world in which the cost of things is just what it needs to be, no more no less. We want a world in which natural considerations of cost, risk, and benefit determine all decisions. We want a world of voluntary cooperation and voluntary charity. We want a world without boundaries and controls. We want a world in which children grow up loving knowledge and learning and are allowed to develop their unique interests and talents. We want a world where people can trust other people because they live in a society that rewards honesty. We want a world in which the government does what it should do: assure a clean environment, food and water, provide roads and other public goods, and prevent violence at its roots. We want a government that does not restrict or dictate personal choices beyond those requirements.
To get to there from here requires not just a revolution—for a violent upheaval will just replace one set of masters with another and fail to solve the underlying problems. We need to understand the root causes of the injustices in the current system. This allows us to create a new constitution for all human society—one which will eliminate the need for nation-states. With this blueprint in hand we can determine how best to transition from current system to a better one—in a smooth and fair way. This will occur only when a great majority of persons on this Earth understand these issues and see the need for the change. It will require the cooperation of a large percentage of the ruling class; who if they are smart will realize that their progeny will be better off living in a sane world, than being super-rich in an insane world.