Jordan Peterson: The Right Man for the Time and Place or The Tale of the Professor and His Unworthy Adversaries

As each new week arrives, so does another attempted attack on the character of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, and with it, a further step toward the Balkanization of Western society. These attacks come from major media outlets under the guise of a traditional non-partisan interview. For Dr. Peterson, it can be lonely at the top, and the Doctor's current situation provides sufficient evidence to support this claim. The Professor is the man of the hour: an intellectual sensation, an Internet star, an accomplished and best selling author. Every journalist wants a piece of him. For, he is the man.

Individuals who have spent time listening his lectures and gone on to read to Dr. Peterson's literature see him as some sort of Second Coming. The Professor is currently being made into a martyr by major news media outlets for having and defending traditional, popularly held beliefs. Dr. Peterson is a clinical psychologist who uses archetypal stories of the Bible to teach a generation of people separated from their roots the stories that their parents and grandparents ought to have taught them: the stories that have been passed from generation to generation, around a bond fire or while working in the fields.

Peterson advises all people, not exclusively young men, (a fact the hostile media hacks fail to acknowledge) to seek meaning in their lives. He encourages everyone to speak the truth while also telling us not to use lies as a pathway to great achievements and enlightenment, or at the very least, a harmonious existence. Exhibiting the traits of a world-class coach, Peterson lectures people to work on their fundamentals as a prerequisite to reaching goals: to work on themselves, and forget about changing the game. His axiom “Clean up your room,” has become an Internet meme, and a call to action and accountability. It speaks to many lost, confused, and dejected young people who are wrapped up in new age addictions like porn, Netflix, and pot. Many of these people have grown up learning to dream big, yet they have not been taught the skills and methods of how to achieve those grandiose goals, consequently ending up in pitiful and miserable states of being.

Peterson eschews the modern, hippy emotion-based philosophies that dominate our society. These modern philosophies often encourage people to dismiss personal responsibility and give in to hedonism and nihilism. The quasi-philosophies that encourage both men and women alike to “follow their hearts and dreams” and “to change the world” that are leaving them dejected and resentful when they recognize the fact that people have their limitations. According to Peterson, life is suffering, but suffering itself isn’t misery; therefore suffering is not inherently negative. In fact, suffering is closely connected to that all-important precondition of civilization, self-sacrifice. Suffering is a pathway to self-improvement, and personal meaning which leads to enlightenment and contentedness. Nihilism, the avoidance of suffering, is a pathway to misery. It can be argued that if suffering is the path to meaning, while nihilism is the embracing of a life void of meaning and purpose. No joy or enlightenment will be found through the eyes of a pure nihilist, or a neo-Marxist postmodernist. The person familiar with the Misesian insight on time preference, i.e. delayed gratification, and voluntary cooperation, may well take Peterson's teachings as the non-economic case for capitalism. 

Thusly, Peterson makes better sense of the Bible and the Judeo-Christian tradition than any preacher I have encountered. I suspect that is also the case with the millions who consider themselves his students and followers.

At the same time, Dr. Peterson’s detractors are abundant and loud. They are working hard to create the illusion that they are a moral majority and that everybody that supports Dr. Peterson and his views is a deluded, despicable, bigoted person. In a sentence, Peterson's detractors can be summed up as a herd of failed intellectual narcissists and arrogant nihilists defending and advertising the virtues of chopping off your “Johnson.” A case in point is CBC News interviewer, Wendy Mesley. Over the past weekend, Mesley seemed to be on a mission to redeem her unfortunate colleague-turned-lifetime-meme, Cathy Newman of BBC’s Chanel 4. Miss Newman, as the whole world now knows, recently spent 30 minutes showing the world what not to do if you want to be a respectable journalist. Sitting across her was a man who has spent the past 30 years studying the intricacies of the human psyche and overall condition. A man who has recently written a book that proposes an antidote to this modern chaos, a simple-to-follow prescription for the average person suffering a meaningless chaotic life, the man who could very well be the person who understands the human psyche better than anyone ever has! Yet all Newman could muster up was slander, mischaracterizations, and accusations of sexist bigotry. Peterson came armed with statistics and studies, he offered sound and logical conclusions. By contrast, Miss Newman responded with anecdotes and ideological slogans, her crowning achievement being her offer to go back to playing with her Cindy dolls.

Not to be outdone, Newman’s Canadian taxpayer-funded broadcasting counterpart, Miss Mesley, spent most of her eleven-and-a-half minutes with the Professor trying to paint him with the “racist bigot” brush. In what in hindsight appears to have been a strategic move, rather than debate the scientific conclusions from his book, a move that lead to Newman’s spectacular crash and burn, Mesley dragged the conversation into the field of what company Peterson keeps. It was a move reminiscent of the post-WWII Kangaroo Court proceedings of Yugoslavia’s regime of the “People’s Revolution” where a potential counterrevolutionary was declared guilty of treason by mere association to persons who in similar fashion had been pronounced enemies of “the People.” I would like to say that journalism has reached rock-bottom, but then I am reminded of the stellar work of Pulitzer prize-winner Walter Durante and his despicable acclamations of the interwar Soviet Union. What seemed obvious on both occasions is that the Doctor understands the human condition and mind profoundly, his interviewers, perhaps not so much. To put it bluntly, Peterson has been running intellectual circles around his opponents, most of whom are consumed by an urge smear his character.

To Peterson’s detractors he is the Devil incarnate. He is regularly called a sexist, racist, provocateur, bigot, and, of course a Nazi. How is it possible for this man to be seen so excessively disparately from each side of the spectrum? The answer is simple. Dr. Peterson’s most vocal detractors, have careers in academia and the traditional media. Those devoted to their institutions, do not usually bother listening to his talks and lectures. They often comment without reading his literature. Their opinions are based on twitter ramblings of other uninformed social justice warriors. Much like a game of telephone, the uninformed opinion goes from friend to friend with no critical thinking being applied at any point. These opposing voices do not even bother listening to what Dr. Peterson is saying when he is speaking directly to them. He illustrated this idea perfectly during the abhorrent and infamous Cathy Newman "So you're saying" interview.

Maybe these people do hear what the Professor is saying and they just do not like it. Perhaps they don’t like the idea of suffering and self-sacrifice in order to earn their bread. The latter was clearly an issue with Newman. She protested that it is unfair to have citizens compete for top jobs—she protests the idea of competition for anything that anyone may desire. Another possible explanation for their stance could be that they do not like the idea of personal responsibility and integrity being currency for living a fruitful life.

Perhaps, worse yet, they just want to burn this whole thing that we call the Western Civilization to the ground.  Because, according to Peterson’s patriarchy-hating detractors, the fact that we are living in the best, most prosperous, most compassionate, and most just society ever produced in the history of humankind is still not good enough for them. Since they lack the historical perspective, they take it all for granted.

Another likely reason for their discourse: they are resentful of Peterson’s fame, newly acquired fortune, and sincere worldwide admiration. Perhaps, they are resentful of the fact that Peterson is living what he preaches. By following his personal map of meaning he has become fulfilled and the object of much love, appreciation, and admiration. Dr. Peterson is living proof of the effectiveness of his philosophy, which in turn is a slap in the face to their vapid gibberish of “quantifying the love economy.” Are Dr. Petersons opponents worthy adversaries? Far from it. They are more like affirmative action lottery winners who cannot understand the value of free speech even though they earn their living because it exists.

On to the CBC News interview with Mesley. After his all-too-familiar introduction as the “pronouns guy,” Mesley opens up in a somewhat cordial manner, buttering up Peterson for being the man of the hour:

WM: “Professor Peterson, you must be exhausted, you’ve been giving all these speeches, sold-out performances, it’s quite something. How do you explain what’s going on? … What’s behind this? What are the forces that have made you so popular?”

JP: “I tell archetypal stories. The sorts of things I’ve been talking to people about are old things. The things that people always need to know.”

Dr. Peterson took the opportunity of the infamous Channel 4 interview to forewarn the world that he chooses his words “very, very, very(!) carefully.” His opening two lines of the CBC News interview alone pack an entire volume inside them. He tells things that people always need to know. Meaning that if you don’t know these things, you better look the hell out, because life is going to chew you up and spit you out faster than you can say “the budget will balance itself,” bucko!

If Mesley was trying not to be as "on the nose" as her British colleague, she failed, immediately steering the conversation into a direction that was reminiscent of Newman’s attempted smear-fest:

            WM: “Your message has seemingly resonated with young men. Why is that?”

While Peterson goes on to give his standard, “Because young men crave responsibility and responsibility gives meaning to people’s lives” answer, the real fact that should be highlighted is that Peterson’s message resonates with people of both genders and all ages, faiths, races, and nationalities. In his interview with Newman, the Professor spoke of career-minded women who have benefited from his insights. His admirers and followers are as diverse a crowd as one can hope in this time. But Mesley’s question is not accidental. In under two minutes we can see that she is trying to paint the Doctor into a corner. More specifically, the “Alt-right” Richard Spencerite corner of the universe, populated by those evil rapist-chauvinist-capitalist pigs of tomorrow, (white) young men. If Mesley were listening in those two minutes, she would have heard that Peterson denounced the Alt-right, identitarianism, and right-wing extremism.

WM: “The world is so polarized right now. You’ve got Donald Trump, and social media, and people screaming at each other on all kinds of political issues.”

Interesting that Mesley mentions Donald Trump as a polarizer, but forgets to mention someone much closer to home in the Balkanization Olympics, like say, Premier Kathleen Wynne and her recent comments depicting small business owners as bullies merely for having to make adjustments to her anti-business policies. Mesley also purposefully avoids any mention the radical Left, and their violent terrorist wing “Antifa,” the left wing hate group known for their white-noise machines and bike-locks to the faces of those they perceive as "the next Hitler.” She then asks Peterson: “Are you part of that polarization?”

Peterson rightly says “no,” before going on to point out that he has received “hundreds, maybe even thousands” of letters from young men who at one point began drifting to the identitarian underworld, but were set straight by his lectures and Self Authoring programs. The Doctor explains to Mesley that he’s been curing proverbial lepers, roughly speaking. To anyone who listens to his lectures, his Biblical Stories series in particular, it becomes abjectly clear after the first two-hour session that Peterson is a “fisher of men,” a man on a mission to prevent the next Columbine. Peterson, the clinical psychologist, the student of history and of the human condition, the tender humanist, has come to understand that the way to change the world, is not with whips and guns and endless rules and regulations, but by sorting yourself out.

JP: “I’m no fan of the radical right. I’ve been lecturing about the dangers of Nazi totalitarianism, for example, for almost 30 years. It’s been a major part of my life’s work, to inoculate people against the attraction of that sort of thing.”

Mesley should listen; Peterson chooses his words very, very, very carefully. Instead, after bemoaning the polarized atmosphere of our time, Miss Mesley goes on to chastise the clinical psychologist, the man with a vocation that not only prepares him, but obligates him to seek out and help those who are lost and confused, those on the wrong path in life. She chastises him for doing just that. Mesley pours scorn on Dr. Peterson for reaching out to these lost souls—the current outcasts of our society—and for speaking to the CBC’s competitor, Rebel Media.  This leaves a question. How are we supposed to bridge the gap that separates the two sides of this polarized divide if we are not supposed to talk to each other? How else will we find out what causes us to feel and behave the way we do?

Peterson cuts to the point: “You don’t think we should talk to people on the right?” Have you spent a day watching CBC programing, listening to CBC Radio, or scrolling through their website, Dr. Peterson? Don’t you know that people on the right support those evil institutions of the patriarchal capitalist society such as parenthood, the market economy, faith in a being higher than the government, freedom of speech and freedom of association?! Don’t you know that they want to torch the Jews, carpet bomb the brown people, and eat the babies of the poor?! Of course CBC’s Wendy Mesley does not think you should talk to people on the right! She would much rather you take her word for how deplorable these people are, than risking having you find out the truth. The truth is that half of Canada's population are not compassion lacking racists, but are instead kind, compassionate, concerned, family-loving individuals.

JP: “I talk to people who want to talk to me. Generally speaking, I try to be careful about it, but I don’t see any reason not to talk to people who are on the right. I talk to people who are on the left, when they want to talk, which is very, very rarely.”

And therein lies the crux of the problem. People who are on the left prefer not to talk. They prefer to smear and yell, while increasingly resorting to using violence. You would not be told that if you got your information only from the CBC.

Peterson is insulted by the line of questioning when the interviewer brings up his social media posts, where he, according to Mesley is “very careful about saying, ‘Please be less radical’.”

JP: “So then there’s a real question there: Given that you’ve encountered the material that I have, why do you think that all these accusations have been leveled at me?”

“Well, I don’t know,” says Mesley, digging deep in her pile of evidence, “that’s what I find so curious,” says she as while simultaneously pulling out her proverbial ace in the sleeve: a photo featuring Dr. Peterson in the embrace of two, very decent looking, young (white) men, one of whom is sporting a “Make America Great Again” hat and flashing the “OK” sign, with a Pepe the Frog flag in front of them, all of which, according to the nose-to-the-ground journalist, represent symbols of the dreaded Alt-right. The Professor can do little but laugh at the baseness of the talking head in front of him masquerading as a journalist. Her summation of the “symbols of the Alt-right” highlight the fact that Miss Mesley has never even ran a Google search on the matter. If she had, she would know that what Peterson is about to tell her is the absolute truth.

JP: “It’s mostly used by young men who are poking and causing trouble on social media.”

WM: “But you’re supposed to be anti-chaos and anti-provocation!”

Again, the partisan journalist exposes her lack of diligence. I’m not at all sure that Doctor Peterson would label himself as “anti-chaos.” His book is subtitled “The Antidote to Chaos,” which suggests that chaos is a necessary condition to order. A one-minute YouTube clip of Dr. Peterson speaking on the balance between order and chaos, posted by the government-owned TVO in 2009, encapsulates his philosophy succinctly:

“In order for people to live a full life they have to have a foot in order. And that order has to be commensurate with what it is that they’re attempting. So their lives are properly ordered if they have goals, and the procedures they put in place to attain those goals are working. That gives them security and hope.

They also have to have a foot in chaos, because part of proper being is not merely security, which is what order provides, but also that continual generative excitement that being on the edge allows. And the edge, which everyone knows about, is the edge between order and chaos, and you can tell you’re there because that’s when life is worth living.

Surfing was sacred to the Hawaiians because the Hawaiians could see that when the surfer mastered a wave, he was physically embodying the balance between order and chaos.

The rule is: you have to confront chaos and make it back into order. You must do that, because otherwise your life becomes unbearable.”

In his lectures, Peterson talks about confronting chaos, St. George style: cutting it into pieces, making the world out of it, and sharing it with the community. He’s not anti-chaos; he’s the antidote to chaos. A life without chaos is misery. Eric Clapton did not become a virtuoso by only playing the songs he knew when he first started playing. He became great because he kept on challenging himself with songs he couldn't yet play. An athlete will never make it to the Olympics if they never train at their threshold. A clinical psychologist will not get better at their trade if they never expose themselves to difficult challenges.

Back to the symbols. Are we supposed to cede our language to anyone who claims it, responds Peterson? Just because some idiot in some obscure corner of the world declares a symbol or a word their own, are all to bow out and hand it over like cowards? This, Miss Mesley, and not “transphobia,” was at the crux of Dr. Peterson’s opposition to Bill C-16! If the “OK” sign is now a racist symbol, are we still allowed to consume “Vegeta?” I, for one, will not let that aggression stand.

In the aftermath of the CBC News interview, one of the young men pictured with Peterson in the “controversial” photo, Alex Van Ham, has published an open letter on YouTube where he declares himself and individualist who rejects identity politics. Van Ham further goes on to state that he is “not a white supremacist, a white nationalist, a racist or a reprehensible person.” As is the case with so many of Peterson’s supporters, Van Ham states that it would be fair to call him “right-wing” only in the sense that he is a proponent of small government while opposing the radical left.

Unable to cut down the unwavering Professor, Mesley digs back into her pile and pulls out a screenshot of a Jordan Peterson tweet. Attempting to suggest a “dog-whistle” the parrot-parading-as-a-journalist pulls out a tweet that confirms what Peterson already informed her earlier in the interview: that he reached out to the “KEK boys,” a.k.a. the crowd that the media’s broad brush has labeled as the “Alt-right”  (who have used the symbol of the mythical god of chaos, Kek, who happens to be a frog, hence the Pepe connection) and offered them his online self-improvement program at a discount. Peterson explains that he was calling them “out of the chaos that they’re ensconced in” and encouraging them to become individuals, rather than race-identifying cogs in a destructive machine. Mesley’s big gotcha moment turns out to have been a house built on sand.

“So, you’re helping them,” says Mesley, “but they’re helping you, too. You raise a lot of money!” That’s generally how the free market operates, Miss Mesley. People do nice things for each other and exchange currency in return. Alternatively Peterson could have invited all those hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions in need of sorting out, to line up at his clinic and treat them one-at-a-time, and have them pay for their treatments through health insurance—if they have it. Or he can have them use his Self Authoring program, follow his free lectures remotely and help them help themselves all at once, and rely on their gratitude for compensation. Gratitude. Now, there’s a word missing in the leftist vocabulary.

Rather than a giving a lesson in economics, Peterson offers Mesley the logical conclusion to her argument: “Well what do you think should happen in this polarized world if you’re dealing with people you think are attracted by a pathological ideology?” If these young men are indeed going down the pathway of neo-Nazism and white supremacy, as the media claims that they are, then what happens if you push them in their own isolated world are cross-burnings, lynch mobs, and eventually, death camps. Or at least bike lock to the faces of their perceived opponents. “What I do,” continues Peterson, “is talk to them and say, ‘Look, why don’t you make yourself into an individual and get the hell away from the ideology?’ A lot of these kids are lost in the underworld, let’s say, in nihilism, and they turn to these ideological solutions because they don’t know what else to do.” Or in the words of the fictional Walter Sobchak, because at least these ideological solution offer an ethos. Nihilism and self-destruction don’t happen over night. They are creeping phenomena that feed off themselves. “I have something else for them to do,” goes on Peterson, “‘grow the hell up; sort yourself out as an individual’.”

Doctor Peterson has a 30-year body of work behind him. If anyone is capable of dealing with the outcasts of society, it is him. People that criticize him for reaching out are either blind fools or ideological shills. In the past 15 months Dr. Peterson has given hundreds of interviews, as many talks and lectures, he has made countless posts on his social media accounts and added hundreds of hours of YouTube videos—one among which “The Metaphysics of Pepe”—met with thousands of people, taken part in hundreds of events, and published a book. In all of that, Miss Mesley found one picture, the context of which she completely constructed in her own image and one tweet with which there was nothing wrong. Of all subjects, this is what she chose to discuss with the Professor in their 11-minute interview. Had I not lived in, experienced, and personally studied a totalitarian system from primary sources and first-hand-accounts, I would have described Miss Mesley’s work as pathetic, woeful, or inept, but knowing what I know about corrupt societies, I must call it by its real name: an attempt at character assassination. And a pitiful one at that.

At the end of this interview Dr. Peterson echoes a concern he expressed in the aftermath of the Cathy Newman showdown. He is a student of history and the human condition. He is recognizing that the path we are on is likely to take us to a woefully bad place: either something akin to Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, and it is painfully clear to see in which direction academia and traditional media would like us to go. After the Channel 4 affair, Peterson confided that he was not happy with the lack of resolution in that encounter. At the end of the Mesley interview one could get the sense that he felt the same way. Each time Dr. Peterson goes out and tries to explain his philosophy to the traditional media they refuse to listen. They are not interested in resolutions: their only obvious interest is in promoting a narrative. The leftist media hurl insults and insinuations his way, and when he shows them up, they just turn the rhetoric up a notch. He must feel like he is living in a video game, where each time he completes a level, a new, more vicious, more hysterical villain is released.

My feeling is that the Professor is concerned with the way things are going because as a clinical philologist he is trained at diagnosing pathologies, and he can see that some form of self-destructive ethos afflicts the vast majority of opinion-makers in Western societies—something connected the dark side of the human mind: resentment and entitlement. And opinion-makers are exactly that: a sort of elite that is entrusted with capturing and distilling information and distributing it to the masses. They are a part of the division of labor and our society relies on them to get things right for us so that we can go on doing what we are best qualified at doing. If they are afflicted with pathology, and for that reason they don’t process information correctly, then they are essentially transmitting their pathology to society. Peterson is an astute student of history, and he likely understands the role that women played in the French and Russian Revolutions, and in seeing the women’s marches, the out of control #MeToo movement, and the constant calls for the destruction of the patriarchy coming from within academia and the traditional media, he can see the parallels between our present state and those unfortunate events of the past. This entire context is flying way above the heads of the likes of journalist imposters like Wendy Mesley and Cathy Newman.

In conclusion, Mesley asks Peterson, what’s next? “I’m trying to figure out,” she says, “are you the next Marshal McLuhan, are you the next Billy Graham? Are you a prof or a prophet?” The humble Doctor brushes off such pretensions, as he should. Her query does beg the question, though: If Peterson is a prophet, what does that make of his detractors?

He is, without a doubt, an archetypal hero, the man for his time and place. If the 19^th century killed God, Peterson is showing us how to resurrect him. It’s lonely at the top indeed, because the top is Mount Golgotha. Stony Peterson has chosen to rise up and offer himself as a sacrifice for the betterment of the rest of us. He is playing the role of a lifetime, the one he’s been preparing for his entire life, courageously standing up to the Governors and Pharisees of our day—the Nihilistic Johnson-choppers who don’t understand the rules of the game. He is carrying the cross, peacefully denouncing the corruption of our society. We could not have asked for a better, more qualified man to save our Civilization. No matter what happens next, in teaching us how to be individuals—the totalitarians’ kryptonite—Dr. Peterson has left us prepared for the challenge.

*          *          *          *          *

As is the case with so many others, I too have a personal connection to Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Like the thousands, if not millions out there, despite the fact that I’ve never met with or spoken to the Professor, he has affected me in a profound way and offered me clarity where there used to be none. As with most, Peterson pushed me to sort myself out, and to return to a meaningful life after some years in the nihilistic doldrums. Above that, he helped me make a cardinal connection.

Namely, twenty years ago this spring, my father, the Doctor’s namesake, Jordan Petrovski, did something remarkably similar to what the Professor is doing right now: he spoke out against Macedonia’s corrupt system. A smear campaign ensued, accompanied by threats, followed by complete social isolation. My father’s stepping out of line cost him the return to prominence and relative wealth, and eventually led to my family’s exile to Canada. While I always stood by my father, I never understood why he did not take the pragmatic move of accepting the prominence and wealth while complying with the corruption of the system. It was only when I heard Dr. Peterson explain how compliance to corruption makes one corrupt, and thus no longer their true self, did I understand the magnitude of my own father’s actions, and the actions of those who have dissented before him. Peterson has helped me save my father from the belly of the whale, and inspired me to build on his work. When my father spoke up in Macedonia very few had the courage to stand by him, and in short order even those who initially did were intimidated into backing away and betraying him. Little did they know that they were actually betraying themselves and their children. I have seen the society that the left is so eager to create, and it’s ugly. Very ugly. It’s Third World. If we lose what we have, we have no place left to go. The West is our last hope. That is why I’m speaking up in support of Dr. Peterson.

Dušan Petrovski (34) is a human rights activist, political refugee, opponent of the welfare state, and entrepreneur residing in St. Catharines, Ontario. He was born in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula, and is painfully aware of the full meaning of the term “Balkanization.” He is the Secretary of the Canadian-based Committee for the Democratization of the Republic of Macedonia, junior editor of kotle.ca, and small-business owner. His experiences in socialist, “post-socialist” and creeping-toward-socialist societies have left him with the firm belief that the government that governs least is the government that governs best.

Universal Bumsic Income

Welcome back little achievers!

After a few years of dicking around, exploring my Dude side, I've decided to bring The Big Petrovski back! And what a topic to kick off the return: Universal Bumsic Income! My co-host and brother from another mother, Spencer "The Gutterball" Corish and I open up the debate for the next 20 years: Does society owe you shit? Well, are you employed, Sir? And, did I micturate on your rug?

The Truth Hammer swings free today as Dušan and Spencer duet their way to a more universal society! That's right kids, we're talkin' Universal Basic Income! So grab a nice tall glass of Soma, staple your headphones into your ears to prove that pain is indeed real, and strap on your Uggs! Cuz shit is about to get basic.

Articles referenced:
1. fortune.com/2017/09/03/universa…come-economy-study/
2.www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-…170629-story.html

Released by:

The Meme Underground

Release date:

27 September 2017

Explicit

True to His Leftist Ideology, Obama Works Toward Deluge After His Departure

As the end of the Obama Era draws nearer, I’m reminded of one of my dad’s favourite quasi-quotes that he attributes to former Yugoslav Communist dictator Marshal Tito: “After me, the deluge!” The Marshal passed away three years before my birth, and Yugoslavian media and academia were about as reliable as their present-day Western counterparts, so, while I’ve never been able to find the actual quote my whistleblowing father has implanted in my impressionable mind, I’ll take his word for it. After all, it’s rather irrelevant wether the Marshal actually said the words or not, the deluge happened nonetheless. And what a bloody mess it continues to be.

Merely a decade after Tito’s death, both the Party and the Federation he presided over disintegrated. A half-a-dozen armed conflicts would ravage the region for the decade that followed. The armed conflicts have been dubbed the Yugoslavian “Civil Wars” by most Western pundits, but in earnest, they were wars of session. The Federative Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, much like its Socialist brethren around the world at the time of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, fell victim to its collectivist economic policies which sought to destroy any semblance of a market. After 45 years of Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the jig was finally up. Despite what may well have been good intentions on the part of the murderous Yugoslav Communists, their ideology cut against the natural laws of economics, which are as real and as inflexible as the laws of physics. 

Thus, while everyone was nominally covered by universal healthcare, the actual way to access it was through connections and bribery. And even then, the best of what Yugoslavia had to offer was ages behind what was available to freer market Westerners. The same went for education, day-care, public transport, entertainment and all the rest. As late as the mid-1990s, my native Republic of Macedonia (one of the six former federal republics of Yugoslavia) boasted one state-owned television station, which broadcast in one and a half channels, a state-owned national radio station, along with one state-owned radio station per town, and a handful of printed media, all produced by the same state-owned publishing house. At least we didn’t have to worry about Fake News sites, I am right?! By the time 1990 rolled around and political pluralism was legalized, the Yugoslav populace, despite four-and-a-half decades of heavy indoctrination to the contrary, largely sided with the pro-market political entities. 

Back to outgoing US President Barak Obama, who, like the aforementioned Tito, is also a socialist. He, like Tito and his ilk, also doesn’t believe in the creative and wealth producing nature of the free market. Lastly, Obama in true socialist fashion has deep contempt for the past and the lessons it offers to those who wish to learn them. As long ago as the 1920s Ludwig von Mises wrote about the impossibility of economic calculation in a planned economy, and the deleterious consequences of sprawling bureaucracy, apparently to no use. So, while he may be of a much purer heart than the blood-thirsty Tito, Obama’s “You Didn’t Built That” moment betrayed an equally misinformed understanding of economics in particular, and human action in general: human creativity, productivity and loyalty are, first and foremost, subject to one’s own profit. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” has a nice ring to it, but when the chips are down, it don’t bring home the bacon. Why? Because “Can’t Someone Else Do It?!”

Obama, much like his ideological cousins from the past, finds himself departing his office while the populace which he so lovingly governed rejects his core ideology. We’ve heard it over and over in the weeks since the US Presidential election: middle America rejected the political correctness of the Coastal Elites. To me, this is just a veiled way of saying: Americans saw what having a pinko commie in the White House looks like, and they don’t want any more of that shit. Not that President-elect Trump ran on a specifically non-collectivist platform; not that the contemporary American voter could tell an interventionist from a non-interventionist. The parallel with my former homeland is still there: while the average pleb may not posses the academic understanding of what makes markets work and the economy prosper, they do have gut instincts, which ring the warning bells. While Joe-six-pack may not understand the underlying reasons why the system is falling apart, he has enough wherewithal to understand that the system is falling apart. Thus, with labour force participation at an all time low, the surveillance state at an all time high, and the welfare/warfare machine in high gear, Obama departs the scene as his nation turns its collective back on him.

Staying true to his “You Didn’t Build That!” philosophy, the outgoing President has recently come out swinging with claims that Donald Trump didn’t win the election, the Russians did it for him. Likewise, his Democratic Party didn’t lose the election, either, the Russians lost it for them; and of course, the American people didn’t vote against his socialist legacy, you guessed it: the Ruskies gone done that, too, all of which on the surface comes across as sour grapes.

But is this pouting and fretting truly just a case of sore losing, or is there something more fundamental to it? Remember that the above mentioned Marshal Tito died in office, his reign never having come to question, thanks primarily to the State Security apparatus which controlled education, news media, book publishing and every bit of interpersonal communication, among other things. That is to say, he didn’t get to experience the hurtful rejection of his policies at the end of his term like Barak Obama gets to. Yet, his desire for an End of Times, despite the ostensible love he was feeling from his people did not diminish his desire for the deluge after his departure.

In my opinion, this can be traced to the Socialists’ aforementioned contempt for the past, and therefore, the future. The Socialist Man exists only in the present, for to use history as a gauge of one’s success is to constantly remind oneself of the utter failure one’s ideas have brought about. The present being the future’s past, means that one day, maybe in the not too distant future, when the glitter from all the pageantry settles, society will be able to judge the Socialists’ boondoggles and rate them for what they really are.

In that vein we can view President Obama’s reckless attempts at provoking Russia’s Vladimir Putin to hostility in the last days of his term as a hastening of the End of Times. 

Breaking Down Some Contemporary Propaganda

What a wonderful piece of communist propaganda:

- Despite being "demonized by the West, in other parts of the world, especially China, [Chairman Mao] remains respected."

- "A recent poll shows 85% see his merits as greatly outweighing his mistakes; more than 90% say they respect the former leader; 60% say the admire him for advocating the idea of serving the people and spreading the notion of fairness."

What the alleged recent poll omits to mention is the bloodiest reign of terror which purged the Chinese nation of the opponents of the Communist regime. Not coincidentally, those who were purged also happened to be China's most capable and most intelligent individuals. It also omits to mention the surveillance state, which served to further cleanse the minds and souls of the survivors from any thought of dissent. The idea that a Chinese person today would not not emphatically support the Chairman is ludicrous, as not only is there a threat to one's wellbeing if they were to respond in the negative, it is also unrealistic to expect critical thought from people who are more or less accomplices to a regime of systematic repression. That is to say, those who survived Mao's terror were his supporters from the very beginning and one can argue that the terror itself could not have happened were it not for these masses.

Now, no piece of agit-prop is complete without the apparent recognition of the other point of view, or the sprinkling of the odd true fact. In professional parlance this is known as "baking a shitpie." Thus, in their quest to make their shitpie appear legit, they sprinkle some "facts" which are supposed to suggest critical thinking on the part of the polled Comrades.

- "They also acknowledge his mistakes; 80% say his main fault was the Cultural Revolution; 60% say the Great Leap Forward policy was a mistake."

First, let's acknowledge that these are mistakes of epic proportions which resulted in millions dead, and billions repressed. Let us also acknowledge that the majority of China's population today, despite its great leap forward, lives in abject poverty, while ghost towns fit for kings are being erected and left to be eroded by the elements.

But the most insidious thing about the supposed acknowledgement of Mao's mistakes by our present day poll responders is that these aren't their actual opinions. Communist regimes routinely make rapid changes of course, usually at the end of each five-year plan, when they overly admit the failure of the expiring plan, while boldly announcing the next five-year boondoggle. Thus, the alleged acknowledgement of Mao's mistakes by contemporary Chinese citizens is nothing more than the recitation of standardized history as taught by the school system and propagated by the official news.

Lastly:

- "But more than 90% believe that Mao's era still influences China today."

Only a brain so washed out by propaganda can imagine that what happens upriver has no effect on the water downriver. The idea of isolating a population in time and space is one of the key concepts of keeping the masses under control. Thus, our agit-prop Comrades take a fact as obvious as the past influences the future, and spin it into something that taken on its face may seem as a sign of support for Mao's policies. Notice that there is no qualification as to whether the poll's respondents see that influence as good or bad.

https://www.facebook.com/telesurenglish/videos/990183614458374/

An Obituary to Critical Thinking

[This article originally appeared on the mises.ca blog on February 7, 2013]

I miss my friend Jacob, God bless his soul. Don’t worry, he’s not dead—though he might as well be. He is, what my brother would classify as “POW: Prisoner of Woman.” Jacob’s present state prevents him from engaging in the sort of activities that we used to take up before his captivity. And we’d do the sort of things that any twentysomething bachelors would do: we’d dig trenches, go skiing, listen to music, lift weights, make wine, hike, chase girls, drink beer, barbeque pizza, and so on. Just before Jacob got captured we were in the midst of developing an exercise system which utilized used pallets. It was to be a Tony Little sort of enterprise. It was to be called “SkidFit.”

When Jacob was free, so was his mind. And while outwardly engaging in the abovementioned activities, Jacob and I would stretch each other’s minds on all sorts of topics. I would bring something up, and Jake would find the cracks in the idea, which I would have to fill with a chain of logical reasoning; and the other way around. He was, and still is a very methodical thinker. There isn’t much that one can put past him. He’ll take his time and think things through—which annoys the living you-know-what out of people. Before Jacob became a Prisoner of Woman, he was becoming a tried and true Austro-libertarian. Before he started becoming an Austro-libertarian, Jake was a left-anarchist and a NDP supporter. Not because he was a commie, but because he finds the same faults with the corporativist system than any other student of the Austrian School of Economics does. He simply never got exposed to “Austrian” insights before I introduced them to him. Now, I didn’t turn Jacob into an “Austrian.” Chris Holacher did that with his talk on money creation and monetary policy at the April Toronto Mises Meet Up.

The topic of property rights would often come up in our conversations. Invariably we’d always conclude that property rights in Canada are treated rather schizophrenically. Say you own a piece of land. The government says that it is yours, therefore, you should pay annual tribute to the government. Say you wanted to build a house on this piece of land, the government says that you have to get permission from it to do it. Say you had a building on a piece of land you owned; the government says you can use it only in ways that it deems appropriate. Say your water-main broke. Even though it’s on your property, you can’t touch it on the grounds that the City owns the water supply and distribution system. The City has to send one of its employees to turn a screw and shut the water off. On the other hand, the city will not repair the part of the system it claims that is on your property. Once the water pipe has been repaired by the property owner, the City will not turn the screw back on, until it conducts an inspection on the work done on your property, and finds the work satisfactory. Jake and I would conclude that most of the masquerade is nothing more than an effort on the City’s behalf to provide employment in the spirit of the National Recovery Administration.

Anyway, I recall an occasion when, concluding a night of stimulating the local economy through beer destruction, Jake and I ended up at a pizza joint on the outskirts of St. Catharines’ downtown core. Despite claims to the contrary, I still maintain that Strombolli’s Pizza ranks in the top two pizza places in St. Catharines. Regardless, walking into Strombolli’s that fateful night the conversation had turned to necessitate my use of that all too common phrase:

“It’s not like the guy invented the wheel!”

“Who ever did?” said Jacob. And that’s when the proverbial light bulb went off in my head.

“You’re absolutely right, Moneybags! Nobody invented the wheel.” Too bad that most people aren’t as keen observers as is my friend Jacob.

You see, the “invention” of the wheel has been celebrated by men as one of the most significant events in the history of the human civilization. But, as I made the case here, that’s just baloney! The wheel by itself is useless: it’s the axle that makes it useful. I claim this to be my greatest contribution to human thought. It is my “Broken Window Fallacy.” Except, in the “Broken Window Fallacy” Bastiat talks about that which is not seen, as the point missed by people; in my “Wheel Fallacy” I point out that people miss that which stares them in the eye! Take for instance money printing and price inflation.

Over the past couple of years Argentina had become a poster child for government intervention and monetary inflation. Argentina has been a favorite of interventionist leaning “economists” like Keynesians and MMTers as a success story of monetary inflation gone amok. Time and time again these pundits pointed out to this South American country as an example where government can heavily interfere with the market, and print money to no end without any negative repercussions. Well, as it turns out the natural laws of economics could not be broken, despite all the well wishing done by Keynesians and their ideological brethren. The news that came as no surprise to “Austrian” observers is that the Argentinean government has moved toward price freezes to in order to “halt” inflation. AP reports:

Argentina announced a two-month price freeze on supermarket products Monday in an effort to break spiraling inflation.

The price freeze applies to every product in all of the nation’s largest supermarkets — a group including Walmart, Carrefour, Coto, Jumbo, Disco and other large chains. The companies’ trade group, representing 70 percent of the Argentine market, reached the accord with Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno, the government’s news agency Telam reported.

The commerce ministry wants consumers to keep receipts and complain to a hotline about any price hikes they see before April 1.

This is as clear cut an admission of economic policy failure as a revaluation of the currency used to be under the gold standard. Redmond Weissenberger posted a detailed analysis of the Argentinean situation here, and there has been excellent coverage of the issue on Economic Policy Journal and other “Austrian” websites, so I will refrain from repeating too much of what has already been said by commentators more competent than myself. I simply want to point out the obvious here, the proverbial axle that makes the wheel useful, as it were, which is this graph:

According to this US Federal Reserve Economic Data graph, the Argentinean authorities increased the money supply to the tune of 30 times, give or take a little, over the past decade. Here is the reason for Argentina’s raging price inflation (it must be raging, otherwise price controls would not be necessary), yet, it is the reason no mainstream economic pundit is willing to point to as the culprit of its troubles. Here’s a graph of US monetary base for the last one hundred years or so:

Notice the take off in 2010, and the near tripling of the money supply there. Paul Krugman says again that there is nothing to worry about concerning monetary and price inflation in the US. Data on Canadian monetary base seems to be not as easy to come by; but consider this: the exchange rate between the US and Canadian currencies has been pretty much level since 2006. To me this suggests that Canadian authorities have been inflating at a similar pace to that of our southern neighbors. Now think back to prices of everyday products 10 years ago and where they are today. This is an overt goal of the BoC: 2% annual target inflation. Look at real estate prices, while you’re at it too, and look at the population growth in Canada.

While CBC Radio 1 celebrated the discontinuation of the Canadian one cent piece, all I could think about was Argentina’s price freeze. The death of the penny is Canada’s overt admission of its bankruptcy; yet, it is a fact celebrated in our* media as liberation from a pestering little piece of zinc. That made me think of the liberation of Iraq by US troops; it’s the same sort of “liberation.” It also made me think of the “Wheel Fallacy,” and the fact that very few people take the time to understand the origin and purpose of money, like my friend Jacob did.

*Some of the media is “ours” since we are taxed to fund them.

Teacher Oversupply or Pupil Undersupply

[This article originally appeared on the mises.ca blog on January 31, 2013]

My high school education spanned a now unusual five years, over an even more unusual two continents and three countries. I started in the south European backwater that is Macedonia for my first two years, took my “junior year” in Florida, and finished up in Ontario with the last of the OAC regime. Despite the great differences between Macedonia and Canada, in terms of economic development, there was a connecting theme between the two places for me. It was the desperation felt among would be and new teachers. In Macedonia, if one were a certified teacher, it meant that unless his or her parent was a retiring teacher, this person would be nothing more than another addition to the unemployment statistics. I was surprised to see a shockingly similar fate for new teachers in my new home. I recall a number of young student teachers that made the rounds through my Ontario high school, hoping to get hired for the next year. I also remember the onslaught of layoffs that resulted with the discontinuation of the 13^th grade. One of these young teachers, let’s call him Mr. Gidley, got canned three years in a row, only to be recalled the following September. In my graduating year, this fellow, having got tired of the annual farewell he’d been given at the yearend assembly, asked me and a couple of buddies to join him in a bit of a prank involving the performance of Monty Python’s “The Lumberjack Song” to the unassuming audience in the school’s auditorium. He got called back the following year. He was lucky that way. It was not so for most of the others. For instance, there’s this other guy, let’s call him Mr. House. He worked as a stock boy in the nearby supermarket when he was brought in as a student teacher to my grade 12 English class. He never got hired. Eleven years later, I still run into him at the same supermarket, where he’s still a stock boy.

Coming out of high school, as kids do at that time, I was contemplating what career path to choose for myself. In Macedonia I had put myself on the path of physical education—though I never intended to make use of my degree; I just needed to attend school through the age of 18, so I chose one majoring in sport. Having seen the fates of Misters Gidley and House, and the close to a dozen other student teachers that filed through Sir Winston Secondary, I knew there was no bread for me in education. Unfortunately, many of my cohorts failed to see this. I, like probably any given twentysomething can think of about a dozen people in my social circle that are either in teacher’s college, or are on their way in or out. I have a sneaky suspicion that this came about as a direct result of the education and indoctrination these people received through the public education system that they were forced to attend through their formative years. Is there a more damning exhibit of the imbecility produced by public education than the oblivion to reality displayed by these teacher-ed novices? Many more continue to do so every year, the result of which is Ontario’s oversupply of teachers. How bad is it out there for young and budding teachers? University Affairs reports the following:

The effect of an ever-growing pool of job seekers is reflected in a 2010 survey by the Ontario College of Teachers (PDF), the provincial body that licenses teachers. Most neophyte teachers aren’t getting full-time jobs, or anything close. In 2006, 30 percent of teachers in their first year after graduation were either unemployed or underemployed. By 2010, that proportion had more than doubled, to 68 percent. Nearly one in four new teachers got no work at all, up from just three percent in 2006.

Paraphrasing the stories I relay above, Yvonne Ringles says: “It’s like your life is on hold.”

Since graduating in 2005 from Lakehead University’s one-year bachelor of education program, the 30-year-old has worked a variety of daily supply and long-term supply jobs in a school board east of Toronto and even taught overseas. But she has been unable to secure a full-time teaching position. Two of her friends are in exactly the same boat.

Life on hold, indeed. The teacher oversupply situation in Ontario represents a microcosm, a case in point if you will, of the problem with this Province’s politico-economical regime. Well, not just of this Province, but of North America in general. Jobs, and therefore, careers are in short supply as a result of the government meddling in the economy.

As one that is far from the troubles brought on by child rearing, I was quite unpleasantly surprised to learn from my neighbor, who is not as lucky as I am, that Ontario children are by law required to report to school at the age of four. Government solution to a government created problem. Having created an oversupply of teachers through its easy access to post secondary education and loans to pay for it, the government has seen the problem: there is no teacher oversupply, there is a pupil undersupply! It’s the same at the other end of the spectrum, too, as post secondary education, which used to last four years, is now pushing an average of six. Here’s how University Affairs puts it:

Lobbying by universities’ education faculties and the Ontario College of Teachers pushed the provincial government to fund an extra 1,500 one-year teacher education spots, bringing the total number of those spaces – which make up the bulk of teacher education spaces – to 6,500 in 2003. That doesn’t include additional places contributed by the four- or five-year teacher-education programs or by three wholly new teacher-ed programs that were approved and opened at Ontario universities during the decade. When all was said and done, Ontario ended up with more than 9,000 spots for teacher-ed students in its education faculties in a given year.

And not surprisingly, there are calls for extending the length of teacher’s college:

But those at education faculties say it’s tricky to correctly predict what future needs will be. They suggest that Ontario may need to take a different perspective on the role of education faculties, and even to start discussions about a longer time to earn a BEd, upping it from one to two years, like Alberta has.

And where post secondary education was something reserved for a small percentage of the population, now it’s as common as having a driver’s license. We have university grads coming up the proverbial Ying Yang, specialized in all sorts of useless fields! Ah, another parallel between Macedonian and North American societies (not the driver’s license part, the university grads part). It’s how Marshal Tito disposed with so much unemployment in the late 1960s in Yugoslavia, the last solution to unemployment before rounding up the young and shipping them off to war—and as I was taught by the products of Tito’s educational policies, the rotten, backward capitalists of the West had no choice but to follow the predetermined course of history as prescribed by Karl Marx and join us in socialism. Boy, were they right!?

I was seven years old when I started my education. By the end of my first two grades I was fully literate in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets; knew how to add, subtracts, divide and multiply. On my last day of the second grade I declared to my parents that I had attained all the wisdom that formal education had to impart on me, and was ready to take up employment with the family business. “You have to finish high school; it’s the law,” they said. So I did. They were going to send me to the agricultural or trades school, where all the idiots were sent. As far as my parents were concerned, those were the only two high schools that offered anything of educational value. In grades 3 and 4 I was taught about the Basics of Nature and Society (a precursor to geography and history). Most of it turned out to have been wrong. In grades 5 through 10 I was taught some more history that was written from the point of view of the ruling Regime, so it was useless. Here I was introduced to the Marxian determinism of history. I forget how it goes exactly, but the important part went: feudalism, capitalism, chaos and destruction, followed by socialism and finally communism. I was taught this in 1994, four years after Macedonia officially abandoned socialism. I was taught physics and chemistry, too. By grade 10 I knew the Periodic Table of Elements by heart and could write chemical formulas just by being told the name of some complex substance. You name it, I could do it: Tetracholiudwhatevermajigi, Hydroxysoandsuch, Natriumperoxideidium. Don’t remember jack. Don’t need it. I also knew how plants and animals reproduced, and when, and how they came to be. Don’t remember jack. Don’t need to. All the math I was taught by grade 10 was useful only inasmuch to get me through grade 13. Practical use for the stuff I learned after grade 2: practically non-existent. In grades 11, 12 and 13 I was taught how to write essays. Finally, something I’ve put to practical use. All the history and economics I learned came through my independent study of the subjects, reading the books that textbooks are derivatives of. Actually, textbooks hardly touch the majority of these subjects. In Macedonia I was taught that the Communist uprisings against the Nazis in Yugoslavia turned the tide of World War Two decisively in the favor of the Allies. Turns out this didn’t wasn’t quite the case. In North America there was no mention of the fire bombings of Dresden. Nowhere was I taught what the phrase “History is written by the victors,” was really put to use in the schools I attended.

The greatest benefit I received from my years in education was my learning the English language. But, this didn’t happen through the government educational system. I took courses at a private institution, and supplemented that with exposure to the English language through movies and travel—all of it paid for by my parents. All that I could use from my government sanctioned education was my familiarity with the Latin alphabet. By the time I was done grade 4 I spoke English well enough to be sent to England for a month-long excursion. By grade 5, when English was introduced in the curriculum in my elementary school I was correcting my teacher. She was not impressed. I never figured out why. Now, I also wanted to take private music lessons, but my parents said “no.” It wasn’t because they couldn’t afford it, it was simply because they could tell how unmusical I was. They were right: I can’t even keep a beat. It would be a waste of my time and their money. I was better off playing in the street with my friends. My parents didn’t believe in the notion of gaining a degree or education for the sake having it. They needed me to learn English so that we could expand our business toward the West. In the meanwhile, there were opportunities for my brother and I to make a quick buck interpreting for my dad when he had business associates visit—or when CNN broadcasted the First Gulf War, live. He had to pay us under the table, of course, due to child labour laws. My parents never cared about my grades at school, or in my private English class. They simply laid out the opportunity which would be useless to me if I had not grasped the English language as well as I had to. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there was a purpose to my learning the English language, which is why it turned out not to be a malinvestment. Pretty much all of the rest of my formal education, which, unlike my English education, was paid for through tax coercion has been more or less useless—which is what a malinvestment is. Human action is purposeful; its purpose is to substitute a present unease with a more desirable outcome. The government fueled production of thousands upon thousands of university and college grads unnecessary to the market flies in the face of the axiom of human action, which is why North America is following in the footsteps of Macedonia, and not the other way around. Our budding politicians tell us that “we” are “investing” in “our” future through education paid for through coercion. But, a malinvestment, is a malinvestment; so was the case with Tito’s educational system, with Saddam Hussein’s Republican Army (reputed to be the 5^th best, or most vicious, or biggest in the world—or whatever they measure themselves by), with the tech and housing bubbles in the US, and so on.

Now, I’m not positive, but, I’m pretty sure that kids in North America aren’t fully literate in one alphabet after two years of schooling, let alone two; nor are they competent in the basic functions of math. That’s not the point of their being in school anyway. The point of any child’s “education” within a government sanctioned system is to create jobs and perpetuate the myths of the ruling regime—no matter what country we are talking about.

Oh, and by the way. The Macedonian government recently figured out the reason for their economic woes. They are happy to report that economic restrictions, high taxation, regime uncertainty, and a lack of security concerning private property were not among the culprits. Turns out Macedonians aren’t reproducing themselves enough. Wouldn’t you know it, Ontarians aren’t either. So we have an oversupply of teachers. And so, us Ontarians need not worry about the fact that the reason why we have the most educated cab drivers in the world, imported from raging bastions of capitalism, like Pakistan, Eastern Europe, Somalia, etc., is the same reason for which we now have the most educated bartenders, servers and cooks: central planing of education. If government could only come up with a plan for population expansion, now that would be capital!

Toronto Casino Is Not A Political Issue

[This article originally appeared on the mises.ca blog on January 23, 2013]

The idea of a casino in Canada’s largest city has been discussed on and off for the past few years, and the topic seems to have picked up ground in recent months. This week National Post, owned by Postmedia, whose president and CEO, Paul Godfrey is also chair of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation*, came out with another poll suggesting a “significant lead” (of 52-54% for vs. 42% against and 6% undecided) for the construction of a Toronto based casino. The National Post poll and ensuing article, as most other treatments of the issue within media, are centered on the “social cost” (gambling addiction, environmental impact, related industries, such as the sex industry, etc.) versus “social benefit” (jobs, tax revenues) argument. Yet, from a free market point of view, the arguments which have come to dominate the issue are completely irrelevant.

In the Province of Ontario gambling is socialized and cartelized. This means that the Provincial government possesses a licensing monopoly over all major forms of gambling. Similar to the case of alcohol, we are told that governmental restriction on gambling is for the public good; likewise, proceeds generated from gambling, just like proceeds from sales of alcohol, are used to finance the multitudes of social programs that operate with ongoing losses. It is the opinion of this writer that the latter reason is far more important to governments when it comes to deciding whether to liberalize the sale of alcohol and gambling. Much like in the case of alcohol, where government restrictions have not eradicated alcoholism; restrictions on gambling have not stopped certain persons from losing their shirts at government licensed casinos.

Ludwig von Mises argued against governmental prohibition of goods and services, as a gateway to the prohibition of thought:

The problems involved in direct government interference with consumption are not catallactic problems. They go far beyond the scope of catallactics and concern the fundamental issues of human life and social organization. If it is true that government derives its authority from God and is entrusted by Providence to act as the guardian of the ignorant and stupid populace, then it is certainly its task to regiment every aspect of the subject’s conduct. The God-sent ruler knows better what is good for his wards than they do themselves. It is his duty to guard them against the harm they would inflict upon themselves if left alone. … And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs. (Human Action, p-p 728-729)

Gambling is a marketable product. It has appeal to some—as represented by a portion of the 52-54% in the NP poll; but not to all—the 42% + 6% of the same poll. In this respect gambling is not unlike exercise and fitness, professional sports, or even fast food: there is a market out there for it, but it consists of only a portion of the population. And just like with fitness and exercise, professional sports and fast food, some are occasional participants, while others live and die by it. Granted, there are voices arguing for the regulation of fast food, as well as regimentation of all aspects of life. These experiments were tried and tragically failed in the USSR, North Korea and Cambodia, to list a few.

Now, it should be clarified that not all of the 54% of the respondents to the National Post poll find gambling appealing, nor does it suggest that these 54% are the same persons that would frequent the eventual casino. The 54% represent a portion of the public that 1) like this author find no appeal in gambling, but feel that individuals ought to be left alone in making decisions as to how to spend their time and money; 2) find the idea of “job creation” appealing; 3) appreciate the additional entertainment that casinos bring; 4) are compulsive gamblers; 5) are occasional gamblers; 6) welcome the contributions to municipal, provincial and federal budgets brought on by the casino; etc. Likewise, some of the 42% + 6% include persons who, like the present author, are against the idea of a government sanctioned casino; i.e. that are against the idea as a public works project. In this respect, the NP poll, much like any other on the topic, is completely irrelevant. Such is the political approach to market issues.

The fact that gambling is socialized necessitates the anti-market approach employed in the case of the Toronto casino, where political factions face off against each other in deciding over what is fundamentally a market issue. The market approach is to know if there is enough of a market in a given geographical location to warrant an investment. If gambling were free of government interference as it should be, then there would be no need to spend “public” money to conduct surveys and propaganda for or against the issue. Private entrepreneurs would put their own money on the line according to their own forecasts of the profitability of the possible undertaking. The market has a very simple solution for any contentious issue: those who find a product or service unappealing are free to abstain, while their money cannot be used to finance an investment that they don’t approve of. The political system denies dissenters to walk away from something they stand against. Under the political system pro-lifers are forced to pay for abortions; opponents of war are coerced into financing it; anti-casino advocates have no choice but to fund it.

But, if the government restricts gambling due to its deleterious effects on society, isn’t it morally wrong for it to fill its own budgetary deficits through gambling? If the government’s argument that gambling is addictive and exploits character flaws is correct, then isn’t it immoral for it to prey on these weaknesses of its “own people”? Clearly there is some disconnect between the stated goal and reality—the same disconnect that is present in all “sin taxes.” As with all “sin taxes,” governments claim that a good or service must be prohibited due to its negative effect on society; yet they happily designs ways to increase the sales of these goods or services due to the fact that tax revenues collected from these activities allow them to fund vote-buying programs such as socialized healthcare, daycare, education, etc.

*Surely there is no connection here!