This post will discuss the “evolution” of Law from decentralized to centralized over the last five hundred years, and how the advent of new distributed technologies will decentralize law again away from centres of power and influence and towards localized and voluntary exchange and institutions… I will explain step by step how this centralization of Law, Power and Control has played out in history to the detriment of voluntary relationships (individual, family and community) and their liberty, and how the colossal collapse of this centralized system and decentralized technology will allow a new dawn for Liberty and the privatization and sovereignty of property in a Society of Private Laws (voluntarysm/capitalism), not Public Laws (socialism/fascism/communism)…

Centralization and Decentralization – The Ebb And Flow Of History

A central theme through my posts has been the trends of Centralization and Decentralization in History, and how these trends can be observed from an economical and technological standpoint so that modern History at least makes some kind of sense… I will pick up from a quote in a previous post, and quote…

“If you have studied History in any depth whatsoever, then you will find certain definitive trends in action… For example you will find a definite trend of centralization and decentralization which ebbs and flows throughout… From the Fall of the centralized Roman Empire (27BC – 476AD) which included Europe and vast swathes of the East and Africa; while the Byzantine Empire (330-1453) continued in the East, Western Europe shattered into a thousand decentralized localized states, ultimately under the authority of the Catholic Church, otherwise known as Western Christendom… This decentralized and localized social order and hierarchical structure lasted roughly a thousand years, until the end of Feudalism and natural aristocracy and the rise of Absolutist and Constitutional Monarchies in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, which jostled with the Catholic Church for power and control following the Protestant Reformation (1517-1648)…” End Quote…

From a centralized Roman Empire of War and Welfare to decentralized localized system of Law and Order under Feudalism… If you have looked into Feudalism and its laws in any detail (my special interest as a Welshman being in Welsh Law) you will find that the laws are localized, based on classes and around property ownership… Most of the feudal laws were to distinguish between property classes, and the protection of property rights for those classes, and especially laws in relation to families, their privileges and their obligations (for further writing on my take on Anarcho-feudalism, see here)… This is what you would expect for any small localized social order, for Law and Order to protect individuals, families, communities and their private property… In order for this natural and organic Hierarchical Social Order to be “superseded” by something more centralized and detrimental to the property rights of its citizens (monopoly rule by a State), then those seeking the usurpation of Power needed to Rule exclusively would need to rewrite history to make their usurpation of Power look benevolent and a necessity… Who would those Natural Aristocratic Families seeking monopoly rule over their subjects use in order to carry out this audacious Power Grab? You would need clever and devious men, so naturally you would look to the Intellectual Class…

History As Written By The Victors – The Statist View Of History

In this Statist, deluded and distorted view of history, we take as our starting point Sir Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), and the Hobbesian State of Nature thought experiment, the Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes… In Hobbes much cited (by Statists) thought experiment, nature is cut-throat, dog eat dog, the Darwinian survival of the fittest, and just all around miserable and grim… The state of nature without benevolent monopoly rule Hobbes would tell you, is the war of every man against every man… So men are essentially animals, unable to control themselves and their greed, and unable to keep each others eyes and weapons off each others property… So according to Hobbes (funded by his “Patrons”), how is this “anarchic” and violence to be tempered and controlled so that civilization may flourish? The “answer” is to appoint a monopoly Ruler to end this war of men against each other, by submitting to his Rule above all others… The “answer” to the problem of a society of rabid wolves hell bent on violating each other and their property, is to give a lone WOLF the legal monopoly of decision making and arbitration over all other wolves that that society consists of… Thereby is born The Social Contract Theory, that monopoly rule is both benevolent and a requirement of civilized society, even though it is never explicitly detailed what or where this contract is, what conditions this contract stipulates, and when in your life did you happen to sign it… It’s a Social Contract, and you signed it, so there…

With the ethereal but “signed” Social Contract and the added doctrine of The Divine Right Of Kings following the Protestant Reformation that puts a King above the Law of his subjects, you have the rise of the modern Nation State, of centralized monopolist Rule… These spurious claims and horrendously badly thought out ideas become the foundation of modern Western Philosophy, that for peace and prosperity there must be Rulers, and a State… More Royally funded Intellectuals expand on these ideas further refining and improving them, and are increasingly acted upon by the Elite Rulers over Western Europe… The innate need for man made centralized control systems (Centralized Rule and Religion) become enshrined and immutable… When the Monarchs over-reach their Divine Powers (such as the American Revolution of 1775-1783 and the French Revolution of 1789-1799), then the people rise up to claim their own power over their rulers in the form of Democracy (The Rule of the People, By The People), as the Whig Theory of History dictates… Through the Nineteenth Century powers and territories are further centralized and Empires rise and consolidate culminating in the horror of World War I (1914-1918)… Monarchies are dismantled following the First World War to be replaced by Social Democracy over the Western World and peace reigns supreme, at least until the Second World War (1939-1945)… Following the destruction of Europe for the second time in thirty years, the American Empire is the last one standing assuming World Reserve Currency Status and control of the world monetary supply… Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late Eighties as the only imperial Hegemon to threaten American International “Capitalism”, as Francis Fukuyama would have it, we have the End of History…

History As Written By The Losers – A More Realistic View Of History

Feudalism was a localized social order based on blood ties, tribal and oaths of allegience to a Natural Aristocracy and Social Hierarchy… You had in the Feudal Order property owners and renters and Legal Classes to recognize this, so the Hobbesian State of Nature is a myth… When looking at the development in arms and especially gun powder in Western Europe is when you find the Feudal Lords and Nobles lose their old power, unable to defend themselves and their natural authority against better funded and equipped oppressors and would be Rulers…

The Natural Hierarchy of Feudalism is fractured by a monopolist Usurper Ruler “convincing” his subjects to let him be their Ruler for protection from the Feudal lords and nobles, and to placate the same lords and nobles incomes and estates are granted through the new monopoly Rule of Taxation and Confiscation, now that an Absolutist Monarch has successfully divided and conquered the old decentralized social order and replaced it with Political Rule… Those Monarchs who can consolidate power and even get as far as a Constitutional Monarchy, now have the power of Law to legislate over their subjects, and claim this Power of Law by way of another myth of History, that of the Social Contract…

Even by accomplishing Absolute or Constitutional Monarchy by force and using Intellectuals to justify this usurpation of power, centralized ruling monarchies sit somewhat uncomfortably on their thrones… As a centralized Ruler they exert their “Lawful” power to extract taxes and other “privileges” over their citizenry, but they are also subject to the ire and emnity of the same citizenry… While people will put up with a lot of abuse before storming the gates of a castle, the problems for the Monarchs begin when they start trying to take control of the money supply, that is by getting into the Central Banking business due nearly exclusively to War and debt… The French Revolution (1789-1799) came about as a result of past hyperinflations (John Law, Banque Générale and the Mississippi Bubble) and the punishing taxes and debasement of money to service the Royal debts of War… As a single point of Rule a monarch is inherently weak when the tide turns…

The trend of replacing Monarchy with Democracy begins with the French Revolution and festers throughout the Nineteenth Century, endlessly discussed and treated by the so called “Enlightened” thinkers… the truth about intellectuals is they will serve Kings or they will serve Prime Ministers or Presidents, anyone and everyone who has money to pay for a quill for hire… The Monarchical Age of Single Rule is dismantled by and large after the Death of Western Civilization in 1914, and by the Nineteen Twenties Democracy is the Rule… What might sound a straightforward change of a Single Ruler for the Rule of All By All, has profound consequences for History and The Twentieth Century…

We still have centralized Rule, but that Rule is no longer subject to one family (and their entourage)… However despotic any King or Single Ruler they generally were not interested in much except enriching themselves and their families and connections, and therefore taxation and Legislation under Monarchy was low and almost invisible… Go back a Century and the only way you really knew the existence of the State was through taxes, the Policeman and the Postman… Kings generally did not show any interest in social engineering and were more interested in conserving the existing order as they were the existing order… The King as Single Ruler treated his Nation like private property and private property owners always have an incentive in conserving that which gives them their power, wealth and prestige… With Democracy comes the abolition of all that and the Rule of The People, where all property becomes Public Property to exploit, a Nation owned by everyone and no-one at the same time… With Centralized Rule by The People there is less resistance to this Centralized Rule as the lone figurehead (King, Ruler) has been replaced by pandering Politicians and faceless bureaucrats… With this Centralized Rule, Democracy can now legislate for Central Banks and Centralized Education and Centralized Media (Propaganda), and Centralized Agriculture, and so on… From Monarchy and conservatism, we go by means of the Centralization of the means of production (Communism) to a Century of Democracy (Socialism, Fascism, Communism), the tyranny of the majority… The End of History…

Enforcing Centralized Rule And Abolishing Property Rights

I have described previously how I consider the Feudal Age to be the end of Capitalism/Voluntarysm when localized Law and Order was usurped by Absolute Monarchy, which ushered in the last five centuries of Socialism… The monopolization (Nationalization) of Law and Order that creates the State, is the first monopoly… Whereas a King would stop there without using this monopoly of Law and Order to legislate Social Engineering institutions, Democracy is all about Social Engineering… So they take the power that the Monarch usurps, and use it to Legislate into existence by Democracy, the Centrally Planned Society… All this free stuff the benevolent Government tells you is your Human Right, contrary to the Socialist Hopium, isn’t actually free… First you need to Legislate into existence a Central Bank that is given exclusive control of the money supply, and through Legal Tender Laws enforces the payment of taxes on income and property, communising (“Nationalizing”) the money supply and abolishing your private property rights to scarce and stable money (gold and silver)…

With a Central Bank and the goods and services of the citizenry that exchanges in it, you can print the currency (stolen from the purchasing power and recycled through taxation in that currency) to fund a Centralized Compulsory Education system to steal children from their parents and indocrinate them with notions such as benevolent government, the Social Contract, how taxation is the price we pay pay for a civilized society, and all the rest of the social engineering blather that comes out of a communized (“Nationalized”) Education system… The top down centrally planned government of the Elite and Intellectual Class minority is forced on the whole of society in their formative years, and is invaluable in maintaining and paying for the Status Quo to keep producing dumbed down obedient tax and debt serfs… The War and Welfare States that grow into the monsters of today can only be funded by Central Banking and the covert theft of inflation… The Centrally Planned, totalitarian, surveilled and servile society of today, can only exist because of a Central Bank…

While a Central Bank will allow you complete control of an economy and to print the necessary Fiat currency for pay for all of it, you also need to enforce this top down society… Indocrination in schools and universities goes far to achieve this end, but you also need to back this up with threats to make sure the citizenry stays in fear of retribution for dissent… This is where the Central Bank and Government (both owned and operated behind the curtain by the same Elites) work together in their common goal, control… The Government by its Law and Order monopoly mandates registry of Property Deeds with a Centralized Registry (Land Registries, Vehicle Registries, Property Registries) which are subject to taxes (Tax Authorities) and enforced by Centralized Rule Enforcers (The Police and Prisons)… With the Central Banking system being given access to your bank accounts also (through its High Street banking minions), the State controls all aspects of your “private property” and the taxes you have to pay for the privilege of owning or selling them… All these enforcement agencies created by Government Legislation (banks, tax authorities, police, the legal system, prisons) are paid for by the Central Bank, by just printing the money to pay for them!

Centralization And Debt

To fund all of the above effective abolishing of private property rights to be replaced with public property rights does not come for free, and there is never enough purchasing power to pillage from the productive citizenry, so to fund Socialist Democracy you necessarily need to go into debt… Central Banking once unchained from the scarcity of free market money (gold and silver) is a completely debt based system, gold being the last link to market price discovery (and last defence of the purchasing power of money) that the citizenry will ever get before collapse… To service the increasing debts Central Banks drive down interest rates over time, to further strip savers of purchasing power (less interest on deposits) and to fund more Government and Legislation and theft… Driving down interest rates (the price of money) creates the Boom and Bust economy further destablizing and devastating society… The longer this Ponzi Scheme perpetuates the lower interest rates need to go in order to service the increasing debts, the more they drive the value of money to zero, the more worthless they make the money…

Peak Centralization And Collapse

The time comes when Democracy/Central Planning reaches a critical threshold and that happened for this moribund system in 2008… The insolvency was so bad that as I extensively discussed in my last post, they had to suspend Mark to Market Accounting Rules and institute Mark to Unicorns, and they also had to drive interest rates to zero (Zero Interest Rate Policy) and unleash trillions in Quantitative Easing to make the insolvent, solvent again… To keep the obsolete Centralized Rule Model alive in order to extract the productiveness of its unfortunate hosts as long as possible, the Central Planners make money worthless… Once you (temporarily) destroy the price discovery of the cost of money, as the whole of that economy exchanges in that money, then you destroy the price discovery mechanism of the whole economy… Capital mis-allocation is now widespread in perpetuating the Ponzi State and its debt printing Central Bank eroding more property rights (interest on savings, money debasement, property taxes and confiscation) in order to fund the increasingly unfundable Leviathan State… You can even go beyond the logical endpoint and go to NIRP (Negative Interest Rate Policy) but that only increases the mis-allocation as well as making money less than worthless! NIRP only brings about sooner the endgame…

All these shenanigans and tricks to rape savers of their purchasing power and erode the value of money are the last attempts of the Elites to hold on their power, but these desperate measures only accelerate collapse, because this is the CRITICALLY IMPORTANT point… The Government extracts its existence from the REAL production of its citizenry… ZIRP and NIRP only debase further the REAL production of its citizenry… And unlike the Government that can spend like a drunken sailor by legislating away more property rights of the REAL production of its citizenry, the citizenry depends on REAL production to service their own debts and those of Government… You can only steal so much of the productive citizenry until they collapse… Centralization is a definite point in time, when you cannot fund the debt any longer… A Financial Crash, Bank Bailins, and Helicopter Money (all three likely in my opinion in 2016) could easily lead to a loss of confidence in Fiat currencies and trigger hyperinflation, especially considering that today we live in a 24/7 social media environment where news is instant and increasingly unfiltered by Mainstream Media Gatekeepers… If you think that hyperinflation is wishful or fanciful thinking and that this debt collapse is years away rather than maybe months, then I offer these words from Ludwig von Mises on the Weimar Hyperinflation, and quote,

“This first stage of the inflationary process may last for many years. While it lasts, the prices of many goods and services are not yet adjusted to the altered money relation. There are still people in the country who have not yet become aware of the fact that they are confronted with a price revolution which will finally result in a considerable rise of all prices, although the extent of this rise will not be the same in the various commodities and services. These people still believe that prices one day will drop. Waiting for this day, they restrict their purchases and concomitantly increase their cash holdings. As long as such ideas are still held by public opinion, it is not yet too late for the government to abandon its inflationary policy.”

“But then, finally, the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy and will go on endlessly. A breakdown occurs. The crack-up boom appears. Everybody is anxious to swap his money against ‘real’ goods, no matter whether he needs them or not, no matter how much money he has to pay for them. Within a very short time, within a few weeks or even days [AR: especially in the 24/7 Social Media world of today], the things which were used as money are no longer used as media of exchange. They become scrap paper. Nobody wants to give away anything against them.

“It was this that happened with the Continental currency in America in 1781, with the French mandats territoriaux in 1796, and with the German mark in 1923. It will happen again whenever the same conditions appear. If a thing has to be used as a medium of exchange, public opinion must not believe that the quantity of this thing will increase beyond all bounds. Inflation is a policy that cannot last.” End Quote…

As Mises makes clear, people will scale back spending and attempt to save no matter what the Central Planners demand as they bump up against the limitations of debt… The Central Banks print money in order to generate “growth” and “Aggregate Demand” but inevitably fail as printing money and credit doesn’t and cannot ever print the trade that underpins its purchasing power… But at some point (such as an exogenous financial shock or Black Swan, think Helicopter Money) people realize that the bankers will print money forever, CONfidence can then be lost in a matter of days and then we have a crack up boom or hyperinflationary event… And as harrowing as the Weimar Hyperinflation was to the people who had to live through it (see here), the Papiermark was an un-backed Fiat currency in a world of gold backed currencies (The Interwar Gold Exchange Standard) and therefore was isolated in the destruction of Germany and rise of Adolph Hitler… In today’s world of pure Fiat currencies that are anchored by the Pure Fiat Petrodollar, then contagion would be certain and would unleash a Global Hyperinflationary event, a Global Weimar…

The Mechanics Of A Hyperinflation

Fiat money is a CONfidence game… There is no intrinsic scarcity to its issue (unlike gold or silver that is mined from the earth, or Bitcoin that is mined by computers) so it only has scarcity while the general public that are forced to exchange in it, believes in its scarcity… It’s the loss of confidence in its scarcity (Helicopter drops anyone?!) that triggers hyperinflation… In a hyperinflation let’s be clear what happens, the purchasing power of the currency vanishes… If you have the vast majority of your wealth in Fiat (savings, pensions, equities etc) then that wealth vanishes because the purchasing power of the currency vanishes… But if you have invested in REAL assets (land, real estate, gold, silver etc) then they don’t vanish, because they have an intrinsic scarcity that cannot be printed… Those real assets will need to be revalued and repriced in another currency to be exchanged once again, but they still exist… People will still desire REAL assets and goods and services, they just won’t be able to get anyone to accept Fiat money in exchange for them… Hyperinflation in a matter of days or weeks or days will wipe out the savings and illusory wealth of generations of innocent people, probably hundreds of trillions or even quadrillions of dollars, to extinguish the impossible debts built up by a Century of the Human Waste of Social Democracy… Debit (savings) and credit (debt) will vanish alike and the slate wiped clean… This will be a momentous event in Human History, a Historic Jubilee…

New Central Bank/Government Currencies?

As I described in a previous post, to keep the Fiat system looking solvent the Elites need to manipulate the price of gold to these absurd levels, as a rising gold is the canary in the coal mine… At these insanely low manipulated paper prices, the East has been stockpiling physical gold, for backing their new currencies during/following hyperinflation (Chinese Yuan and Russian Ruble are currently pure Fiat currencies)… The East has the gold that the West has sold it for paper… So I would say that generally the West doesn’t have the gold to back a new Central Bank/Government currencies…

So for all those who think and say we are headed into totalitarianism and Gulags in the West, I would simply answer with whose army?! You need the goods and services of citizenry to give your pure Fiat currency value for you to enforce your totalitarianism… You can unhinge Fiat from gold (1971) but you can’t reboot Fiat currency from scratch, because who exactly will accept it?! The only way that that currency can have value (without gold backing) is by recycling REAL goods and services and property and extracting the wealth to pay for Central Planning, but if the currency has zero value, then who will accept this new currency? You will say that it will be enforced… By whom?! Police, Tax Inspectors, and other State enforcers need to get paid in something to enforce the State’s will, and they won’t accept worthless Fiat money because they couldn’t get the producers they rely on for consumption to accept the same currency… The Centralized Media will ramp up their propaganda campaign to enforce acceptance of this new State currency you say, and I say again with what? These also need a valuable currency to extract their running costs from, and that value was extinguished with hyperinflation of the currency… You cannot simply reboot a Totalitarian system from scratch because it only exists due to the REAL production and exchange in Central Bank currencies that allows the State to function and expand, and you just printed the previous currencies into complete destruction… I repeat, Big Government for all intents and purposes, is dead, you just need to stand well back and watch the fireworks…

Hyperinflation Of Fiat And The Return Of Markets

I hear a lot talking about how in the next crash the people will elect some demagogue to lead into further totalitarianism, but as I show above with loss of control of the money that the citizenry exchange in, the Political “Solutions” (propagated by Media and Intellectuals) will vanish… Public Sector workers I suspect will be too busy trying to produce anything they can for barter purposes, rather than working as enforcers for a State whose savings and public pensions they just hyperinflated… Generations of people who have depended on the State (Media, Public Services, Welfare Benefits) will be suddenly left destitute, and will have to provide labour or produce goods and services to survive… This will not be a picnic for the people of the West in the next few of years as we transition from Statism to Voluntarysm…

Centralized Public Utilities (electricity, gas, water) depend on getting paid by Fiat currencies like everyone else, and so without an alternative electronic medium of exchange to exchange for their utilities, then these utilities would shut down… If the electricity goes down then the Mainstream Media, television, radio and the whole Fiat financial system will also be shut down, and at that stage we would revert to Barter… So again forget looking to politics and politicians to solve your problems, because they won’t be there… Start sorting your own problems… In the aftermath of this calamitous event we come back full circle after five centuries of Centralization, to the beginning of this post, and the Hobbesian State of Nature…

Not The Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes, But Spontaneous Order

While Thomas Hobbes relied on “naivety” and a vivid imagination to base his war of every man against every man, I will use logic and economics to sketch a different narrative… In the absence of Centralized “Order”, you will have a phenomenon that is observed everywhere in nature, that of Spontaneous Order, and quote,

“Spontaneous order, also named “self-organization“, is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. It is a process found in physical, biological, and social networks including economics, though the term “self-organization” is more often used for physical and biological processes, while “spontaneous order” is typically used to describe the emergence of various kinds of social orders from a combination of self-interested individuals who are not intentionally trying to create order through planning. The evolution of life on Earth, language, crystal structure, the Internet and a free market economy have all been proposed as examples of systems which evolved through spontaneous order.^[1] Naturalists often point to the inherent “watch-like” precision of uncultivated ecosystems and to the universe itself as ultimate examples of this phenomenon.^{[citation needed]}

Spontaneous orders are to be distinguished from organizations. Spontaneous orders are distinguished by being scale-free networks, while organizations are hierarchical networks. Further, organizations can be and often are a part of spontaneous social orders, but the reverse is not true. Further, while organizations are created and controlled by humans, spontaneous orders are created, controlled, and controllable by no one.^{[citation needed]} In economics and the social sciences, spontaneous order is defined as “the result of human actions, not of human design.”

The Barter Economy

Again I will take a quote from a previous post to explain further, and quote,

“Once the banking monopoly has gone down in flames, life, community and society does not just exist in a timeless vacuum… While there will no doubt be widespread disruption, pain and misery in the aftermath of Fiat meltdown, and many dependent on State Welfare will have to do something productive for the first time in their life, people will do what they have to, to survive… Those who have invested wisely and prepared thoroughly will flourish more than those who have not… The base of the recovery and re-adaption to the reality of a post state world, will of course be voluntary exchange… If you can stockpile tradeable barter items, then you have something to exchange for something else you might want… But in this vacuum of money while life returns to normality, barter will only last so long, as I extensively showed in my second post, barter and the double-coincidence of wants will naturally lead from direct exchange to indirect exchange, to common mediums of exchange, to money… After the Elites have lost control of the money supply and by extension their very existence as controllers of coercive power, a natural competitive market will arise for money once again…

The Prime Candidate

Recommended Background Information For This Post

From Aristocracy To Monarchy To Democracy – Hans Hermann Hoppe