The American Putsch

     The American democratic system requires that American Social Organisms be ruled by the majority, with exceptions carefully specified through the Bill of Rights to prevent tyranny by the majority. Historically, it has always been fascinating that the large Social Organisms we refer to as Empires or Civilizations have eventually collapsed. All Social Organisms, especially those that I would consider first order Social Organisms (S-ORGS that have mechanisms of violence), rely on some form of taxation to provide the economic life blood of the S-ORG. While it is popular among Libertarians to attribute the demise of Rome (and presumably other empires) to high taxation, the reality is probably very similar for all empires. The formation of large S-ORGs within these empires is a given and the process is more likely to be the collective refusal of these S-ORGS to continue to be taxed at all. Once large S-ORGS began to have enough political power that they could stop paying taxes and shift the tax burdon to smaller S-ORGS (or individuals), the empires and civilizations began to disintegrate.
     Today we see the large American businesses and corporations refusing to pay taxes on their profits even though their tax rates approach zero compared to the tax burdens carried by individuals. The poorest individual paying income tax in America pays a larger percentage of his gross income than any of the ten largest corporations. The whole discussion of taxes omits the distinction of taxes on gross income for individuals verses the tax on profits for businesses. There are several reasons for this but the primary reason this is so is that the debate is primarily framed by businesses who control the media.
     The current conflict began when taxes were lowered for businesses and corporations that already were paying extremely low taxes (relative to individuals). This tax reduction took place in a war-time economy which historically was itself an extraordinary event. The putsch by businesses and corporations started then but its culmination is occurring now. Once the putsch succeeds in establishing the power of the businesses and corporations, the further reduction of the taxation for them will continue. Not only will they refuse to pay even a token amount of tax, they will continue to fight the indirect taxation of regulation costs. They will not stop until there are no restraints on theselves at all, even the restraint that they be competitive and turn a profit.
     This sounds absurd but the keyword in that statement is the word "competitive". The largest corporations are not concerned with competition since the majority of large businesses and corporations are blessed with monopoly sources of revenue that are guaranteed by law. With monopoly, profit is assured unless incompetence brings them down. With control of government, however, bailouts prevent incompetency from being fatal and additional tax burden is shifted to individuals. Simultaneous with driving their tax burden to zero, big businesses and corporations will also drive the cost of labor to zero. The end point of this process of destruction of America by big business and corporations is that individuals no longer can support their government through taxation even after the only government expense is defense. At this point, in order to protect their property big business and corporations will increase individual taxes until that source of funding no longer will provide enough to carry the military industrial complex. The largest businesses and corporations will begin to arm themselves and the collapse of the America will be complete.
     It is odd that, historically, we do not analyze history in terms of these S-ORGs that have so much power. Instead, we write history as if it were the story of powerful individuals rather than powerful S-ORGs. It is if we were to watch conflicts between individuals and tanks and attribute the outcome to the characteristics of the tank drivers rather than to the overwhelming power of the tanks, the skill and courage of the drivers being irrelevant. I'll be discussing this phenomena in later blogs.