How Would You Like to Retire a Millionaire?

Too bad, peasant. THEY take your money. THEY get rich. You don't. (DN 1.7)

Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7

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Chapter 1: WHY

1.7 — Consent, Part 3: A Social Security Case Study

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After just a few more statements about principle, we are going to make all of this a lot more concrete for you. So buckle up…

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You don’t get to violate anyone else’s consent. If you do, it is considered an attack.

It is an initiation of force.
It is an arrogation of an authority you do not have, and can never have.
It is a violation of another person’s self-ownership.

Yet government attacks everyone in this way. Every day. All day. Forever.

So far, no one has been able to provide any explanation for how people in government can come to have a right that no one else does have, or can have. In fact, I defy you to provide that explanation, here and now.

You will not be able to, because it does not exist. There is no legitimate moral calculus that can do it.

The only answers are things like…

Because democracy.

Because there is no other way.

Because the alternative is worse.

We will talk about those answers later. But morally, those aren’t answers; they are diversions. Any attempt at a truly moral explanation ends up being Underpants Gnomes logic. It cannot be morally justified no matter how much statist voodoo-magic is applied.

This means (and yep, here comes the all-caps again),

GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE MORALLY JUSTIFIED.

I know that conclusion is frightening. We have all lived with government for so long—as individuals and as a species—that we cannot imagine anything else. It’s like the piece of flotsam you cling to after a shipwreck. It’s not ideal, but the swim to shore seems even scarier.¹ It’s the devil you know.

Let us now move from the realm of abstraction and make things a bit more concrete, with a look at the Social Security system in America.

We will start at the top…

#1 The System

You did not consent to be governed in this way, or any other. You did not consent to be governed by the American government, or any other. You did not sign anything.

In order for consent to be legitimate, it must meet five requirements. It must be…

1. Voluntary
   Consent cannot be forced. If it is, it is not consent. Full stop.

2. Explicit
   Consent must be stated clearly, in a form that can be verified (such as in writing).

3. Informed
   You have to know that you are consenting to something, and exactly what that something is.

4. Transparent
   Your consent (to be governed) cannot be secret, hazy, shadowy, understood, tacit, or implied. It must be open and clear to all parties.

5. Revokable
   If you cannot revoke your consent, it was never consent in the first place. Full stop.

Government meets none of these tests. You are told you “consented” and clobbered if you disagree.

#2 Taxation

You did not consent to be taxed. No other human has a right to take your money by force, duress, fraud, manipulation, and blackmail, or by the threat of violence if you refuse to pay.

Taxation is theft. There are no exceptions, no loopholes, no mealy-mouthed workarounds. It is theft. Full stop.

#3 Payroll taxes

You did not consent to have payroll taxes taken out of every paycheck. Your employer did not consent to his role in having to extract them, report them, or pay their portion. They too are given no choice.

You were also not given the choice to consent, on mutually agreeable terms, to an employment arrangement that did not include this forcible, nonconsensual extraction.

#4 The Social Security system

You did not agree that your money would be taken from you and then held “on your behalf.”

That isn’t even what actually happens. In fact, they spend your money and then send you back a pittance when you retire by extracting money from another generation of workers. It’s a Ponzi scheme. It is a continental-scale forced pyramid scam.

But set that aside. Whatever it is, you did not consent to it. Even your ancestors languishing under the regime of FDR did not consent to it. Refer to the five requirements of consent above. Voting is not consent.

Let me say that again, for the people in the back. Voting. Is. Not. Consent.

Jefferson and his fellows wanted to engender a system that had the “consent of the governed.” They knew that was the right thing to do…but the system they created DOES NOT ACTUALLY DO IT. Given their moment in history, and the level of development of classical-liberal thought at the time, it was the best they could come up with. And it was revolutionary. And it was good.

Okay. But that does not mean we freeze it in amber for all time! Classical-liberal thought has advanced since then. Please don’t trap yourself, and the rest of us, in 1789. Put down the patriotic crack pipe and look at the world. It’s time for the next upgrade.

#5 They are using your money to get rich, when you could be instead

You did not consent to the fact that you are prevented from earning interest on the money they are stealing from you.

Back in the early 2000s, a man named Dick McDonald ran a small operation called the New Social Security Institute. They had painstaking run all the numbers…

If we were allowed to invest the same amount of money that is taken in payroll taxes into safe, indexed stock funds, everyone would retire a millionaire. Janitors, waitresses, truck drivers. Everyone.

In any 20-year period, the market has been a net gainer. The average return is between five and ten percent over anyone’s working lifetime. Government is keeping you from retiring with millions in the bank.

Do not fall prey to one or both of these arguments:

If government weren’t keeping the money safe, some people might lose everything.

See the points above. Over any working lifetime, there will always be some gains—and far more than the government ever provides, which is none. THEY are using your money. THEY are getting rich with it. You are being robbed.

If government doesn’t do this, some stupid or irresponsible people might not save for retirement.

So what?

First of all, if government were not doing this, market solutions would arise to fill the niche. We will put your money in the best performing, safest indexed stock funds there are. For a small fee, we will take care of everything. We will keep you informed. We will keep you safe. It would become a cultural thing—a thing you just do, because you’re not an idiot.

And if there are idiots or irresponsible people, or shrewd businessmen who think they can earn even more on that money in other ways, that is their business. Are people going to say, “No, I don’t want to retire a millionaire” because there are other people who would make other choices. That’s a dumb decision.

And then they are going to use “democracy” to push that dumb decision on me? On you? How dare they? How dare anyone?

How dare we say that democracy is “good.” Democracy, insofar as it allows anyone to foist any of their stupidity upon anyone else, is very, very, very wicked. And it is time we shook off the last 200 years of propaganda and realized that.

#6 You did not consent to what they are doing with your money

You did not consent to how the government uses the money while it is “storing it for you” as retirement “insurance.”

You did not consent to the warfare, the welfare, or the waste.

You did not consent to have people murdered with your money, in your name. But government does it all the time. Claiming that they are doing it for you. With your consent. IN YOUR NAME.

#7 The Pittance, on their terms

You did not consent to be given back a pittance at the end of your working life, on their terms, at ages they determine.

Ready to retire now? Too bad—work longer and maybe we’ll think about giving you back a little bit more of “your” money. In the meantime, we’ll keep spending it on ourselves.

If you don’t like it, you can always vote us out in the next election. *snicker*

If you don’t feel like a chump, you should.

#8 Double taxation

You certainly did not consent to have your pittance taxed a second time before they so generously dole it back out to you. But they’re gonna anyways.

Go vote, peasant. It’s the “consent of the governed.” Now eat your mac salad, watch your fireworks, fly the flag, and keep your mouth shut.

#9 The collapse

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the rest of the “entitlements” system are going to destroy the economy of the United States. It is not an if; it is a when. Throw in other unfunded liabilities at the state level and the liability is more than the GDP of planet Earth. The exact moment cannot be known, but this is all going to come crashing down. It is a mathematical certainty.

There will be a generation that just does not get its money. Shortly thereafter, the whole system will go belly up, dragging the rest of the economy with it. There will be hyperinflation, default, war, or all of the above.

They all know this. They all keep taking your money. They all keep calling Social Security the “third rail” of politics. And they all keep driving the train headlong off the cliff.

They are in the dining car eating caviar. They will get off at the last stop before that cliff. And then they will watch you go over into the abyss.

Did you consent to that?

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From a moral standpoint, all of this is completely actionable moral crime.

The action it deserves is probably not going to be the most effective or desirable action, and that is something we will discuss in Part II. But from a purely moral standpoint, the whole system is a criminal racket.

Do you see that now? Are you starting to get it?

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We are all starting to get it…together. Help me keep the flame lit here at the Freedom Scale!

Wikimedia/public domain

1. Of course, you could hold onto the flotsam and kick-swim your way to shore, so the transition is easier. Perhaps there is a hint in there somewhere…