John Carpenter’s They Live, which Carpenter said was a warning about “unrestrained capitalism”. As much as I adore this movie and, in fact, think it is more relevant today than ever, Carpenter does not understand capitalism. What he captures in this dystopian horror is corporatism (the merger between corporation and state), not capitalism (the voluntary exchange of goods and services).

When discussing the prospect of a laissez-faire society, which is to say a society where voluntary exchange is free from interference (regulation, taxation, etc.) from any centralised authority, i.e government, it has long been argued that corporations would engage in the most heinous of activities if not for being restrained by a government (unrestrained capitalism, that is, true capitalism, where capitalism is simply the voluntary exchange of goods and services as described above), and that they would naturally transform into a government themselves in the absence of such a restraint. In reality, it is, in fact, the opposite that is true: corporations can only engage in the most heinous of activities with the aid of a government, and governments are not a natural occurrence that spontaneously manifests itself after an organisation reaches a particular size. Let us dispel this widely held notion by establishing a fundamental understanding of the power dynamic between the seller and the buyer in the marketplace, when government intervention is not possible (because it doesn't exist to intervene).

The seller approaches the buyer with a product they wish the buyer to purchase from them. The buyer will likely have many choices of sellers to purchase this same product from, or a variant of it of a lesser or greater quality, but let us assume the seller is the only one in town offering this particular product. If the seller quotes the buyer an exorbitant price that no buyer is willing to agree to in exchange for their niche product, then no buyer will purchase this product. Thus the seller is forced to lower their price until the buyer is satisfied to commit to the transaction, for if not their business will cease to exist. That's it. Anticlimactic, I know, but in a free market society transactions in the marketplace are that simple. There can be circumstances where a product is of absolute necessity, such as healthcare, and sellers can get away with charging exorbitant prices when they're the only guy in town, but given enough time and dissatisfaction, and given that in such a free market society there are no barriers to entry into the market (because government does not exist to place such barriers via its regulation), competition will always arise to capitalise on that dissatisfaction. Monopoly is therefore impossible to achieve in an unregulated environment, that is, an environment where a government cannot place obstacles in the way of aspiring competitors or outright bar competition from entry into the market. 

To circumvent this, a wannabe monopolist could act like a government and stick a gun to people's heads in order to get them to commit to the transaction, but this is unsustainable in such a free market society for two reasons: there are no money trees anymore, and reputation actually matters now; the two factors are inextricably linked. Without a bottomless pit of funds to replenish themselves with, i.e. leveraging government power to give themselves a monopoly, a business is compelled to persuade people to willingly hand over their money. This innately regulates the market, rewarding good behaviour with trust and therefore success, while punishing bad behaviour with scorn and therefore failure, reinforcing reputation as the absolute. Thus it is futile in this environment for a business to choose extortion as their sales tactic, for it is (unsurprisingly) considered a nefarious, immoral action by any decent human being, and the business' reputation will be tainted as such by engaging in it, ultimately leading to their demise. 

The retaliation against nefarious business practices will often be simple and peaceful: people will cease to associate with and sustain such an ill-willed business, as they do today. But where there is no legal immunity to hide behind, and where therefore one is held individually responsible for their actions — "I was just following orders" no longer being a viable justification for one's aggression against another — this could escalate when a business goes to great lengths to become a pariah, e.g. engaging in malpractice, extortion, murder. This would most commonly take the form of demands for reparations, i.e. compensation, by those damaged, as is typically the case today when a wrong has been done to oneself by another. These reparations payments would likely be arbitrated by insurance companies, the infrastructure for and practice of which being commonplace in society today already (I refer the reader to The Market for Liberty by Morris and Linda Tannehill for an in-depth study of how private enterprise could trivially resolve the problem of coercion in society in the absence of government). On the other hand, if civility goes by the wayside, violent retribution could be the chosen tool for dispute resolution. However, what one should remember is that reputation applies to the business just as much as it does to the customer, so a tendency to initiate outlandish barbarism to resolve one's conflicts is also innately punished by such a free market society (nobody is in favour of doing dealings with or living next door to an unpredictable brute). In short, in the absence of legal immunity, which is to say protection by government, businesses are entirely at the mercy of the customer and the community, and so they do well to behave accordingly.

Outside of this free market context however, a business can absolutely get away with such bad behaviour if they pull the right strings and scratch the right backs. In any other context we call this "bribery", but when giving financial incentives to political organisations for privileges we call this "lobbying". This is how and only how monopoly can be achieved. And where there is a lack of choice, businesses tend, much like governments, to increasingly slack on the quality of the service they provide. For they have no financial incentive to do otherwise, with income now guaranteed at the end of the government gun. Competition is the only thing that compels a business to invent, to innovate, to seek better ways to provide value to the customer and, ultimately, persuade them to part with their money, because they can walk away at any moment if left unsatisfied. Without this competition perpetually threatening their existence, they can do exactly what governments do, which is provide no value while reaping all the rewards just the same.

This brings us to PayPal. What they attempted to do by introducing a policy of fining customers $2,500 for what they deem "misinformation" is to become a government, which is to say impose their belief system onto others, coerce people into behaving as they believe they should behave, making the customer beholden to themselves as opposed to themselves being beholden to the customer — a perversion of capitalism. But despite the widely believed notion that corporations spontaneously evolve into a government in the absence of one (not physical but legal absence in this case, with government neither enabling nor disabling PayPal's plans), and that corporations can take over the world whilst nothing can stand in their way, this venture failed instantaneously. For it lacked the two things that allow a government to do what it does with impunity: muscle (to keep people in line) and perception (so people don’t think to get out of line in the first place). Theoretically, PayPal could hire people to abduct its customers, stick guns in their faces, and demand compliance with its new policy. But even if they could muster the muscle to pull this off on such a large scale, without having achieved the latter factor, this would quickly be met with retaliatory force, as well as the mass exodus of its customers (as did happen) and consequently the drying up of PayPal's resources, of which are required to pursue such a quest for world domination in the first place. Being the most popular payment processor in the world, with over 400 million users worldwide, and a net worth of almost $100 billion (at the time of writing), PayPal is most certainly in proportion to the goliath that is the fabled corporate boogeyman dead set on world domination. Yet look how quickly its plans crumbled. Why? Because even if PayPal has the resources, the manpower, and the will, it does not have the perceived legitimacy to do such a thing and for people not to resist them in doing it. 

The reason a perception of legitimacy is so crucial is readily apparent, because without it the wannabe ruler would find themselves — due to an overwhelming distaste for their attempts to limit people's lives — in a constant state of turmoil, one which is too great to overcome by brute force, which one lacking such a perception would be left with as their only option, as has always inevitably been the case with oppressive regimes throughout history. The modern day is no different; the same formula applies. If a mugger put a gun to one's head, commanded them to hand over their possessions or face the consequences, no one in their right mind would accept this as a moral act or suggest that one is morally obligated to obey — in fact they would most likely encourage resistance. But if the mugger puts on a costume and calls themselves "the government", despite doing the exact same thing, almost everyone would and, in fact, does accept this as a moral act, and would and, in fact, does insist that one is morally obligated to obey. The difference is plain to see: not that one gang actually possesses the right to rule, but that one has convinced the victim that they possess the right to rule, and consequently that the victim has a duty to obey. Without this, a government would be perceived in the same way any other gang would be, as a gang, the biggest gang in town in fact, and would surely be resisted sooner or later.

This is how PayPal was received in doing what they did because they lacked this perception of virtue: as a gang. But it is not PayPal or any other private entity that is the danger in such a reach for power, for they all are impotent without this perception, no matter their might and determination. It is that which does command such a perception of virtue, and in so doing can get away with such a reach for power, that one should be concerned with: government, the great enabler. If government were to step in and enforce such a policy on PayPal's behalf — much like they did for Pfizer and other pharmaceutical corporations when mandating the consumption of their product during the recent pandemic, and much like they did for GoFundMe when legally backing them to block the Freedom Convoy access to their donations — PayPal could very easily bring about this policy and with it the dystopian future that many wrongly attribute to unrestrained capitalism, i.e. the sort of capitalism where government doesn't get a cut (actual capitalism). On their own and in the absence of such a mafia however, they can bring about nothing.

A Pandemic Retrospective

Science is irrelevant to freedom. It is important, yes, but it is secondary to exercising one’s natural right to live on one’s own terms. Whether science, or "The Science" as it has come to be known in recent years, determines that one is endangering themselves or not has absolutely no determination on whether the individual possesses the natural right to conduct themselves as they see fit — even if the scientific community argues that them doing or not doing that something also puts others in danger. Freedom simply means choice, and so this is not to say that one is free to impose their choices onto others, therefore affecting another’s ability to choose — this would be an act of aggression, which is antithetical to freedom — but it is to say that individuals are free to mutually and consensually make the decision to do or not do something with one another, such as meeting in a confined setting, staying under the same roof, or operating their own business as usual, in spite of the warnings of scientists and medical professionals.

This principle, the principle of freedom, is a sense of morality that was tragically absent in most people during the recent COVID-19 pandemic years, which some still treat as an active pandemic rather than a historic one that has long been just that, history. But this is their prerogative, regardless of my personal opinion on them and how I choose to conduct myself to the contrary: and there lies the contrast. As one will have discovered during this period, there are two kinds of people, collectivists (the group comes before the individual) and individualists (the individual comes before the group), and by now one will have learnt the hard way who is which. The contrast I bring to attention is that I, a steadfast individualist, and other like minded individuals, take no issue with, what seems to us, to be hypochondria brought on by being subjected to the most repugnant, coercive, and totalitarian of propaganda campaigns in recent history. Speaking on behalf of myself, and perhaps on behalf of many other individualists, I do not blame the hypochondriacs for being so. It was not their doing but that of those to whom they gave their trust and loyalty. But having had this trust and loyalty undeniably betrayed and maliciously abused, the victims of such abuse should have then, upon learning of this, immediately withdrawn their trust and loyalty, their obedience to and perpetuation of the order of the day. For if they did not, they made themselves no longer amongst the victims of the piece but instead amongst the villains.

After such revelations and after such individuals continued in their unwavering compliance, some even escalating to enthusiastic enforcement (and free of charge), this endorsement of totalitarianism, which I would call "medically induced fascism", lies naked and will not be forgotten nor should it be forgiven. After the red curtain had been pulled back, revealing the coalition between malevolent politicians, Stalinist scientists (forever diminishing the term "expert"), and nefarious pharmaceutical corporations (well and truly a corporatist cabal), any who persisted in forwarding the designs of such an anti-human conspiracy onto their neighbours is far beyond the pale. And make no mistake, what such victims-cum-victimisers supported for two years, and perhaps even beyond and now, was fascism: the merger between corporation and state, where the corporation — namely big pharma, the media, and big tech —  is in league with and subservient to the will of the state. A more concise term for this phenomena is "corporatism", as Mussolini himself argued. Having been, and perhaps still being, a cheerleader for corporatism, how could one subjected to such victimisation at the hands of such individuals, their own neighbours, overlook this aggression that was masqueraded as "public health"?

Such cheerleaders will and have argued since the jig has been up exactly this, that what they did was "for your safety" and "for your health". Let us put aside the fact that this is now and has been for a long while absolutely false, the interventions in one's life, such as lockdowns, quarantine, masks, vaccines, and all else, having provably done far greater harm than good, decreasing quality of life, increasing human suffering, and killing more people than COVID-19 was ever capable of; let us put all that aside and concede that the cheerleaders were right, The Science was on their side, and we dissidents endangered ourselves and others by not heeding their warnings; even if this were all demonstrably true, it does not and did not ever matter. 

Recall my opening statement, "science is irrelevant to freedom". Whether or not science determines that lockdowns will save lives, it does not matter because locking people in their homes is immoral; whether or not science determines that forcing people to wear masks anywhere and everywhere they go will save lives, it does not matter because forcing people to cover their faces — distorting their connection with other human beings — is immoral; whether or not science determines that forcing people to get vaccinated will save lives, it does not matter because violating the natural right to bodily autonomy, to have absolute dominion over one’s own body, is immoral; whether or not science determines that forcing people into quarantine and forcefully preventing the infected from physical contact with their loved ones will save lives, it does not matter because denying consenting individuals physical contact with one another, regardless of the circumstances, is immoral; and whether or not science determines that taking absolute control over the terms on which every individual lives their life will save lives, it does not matter because to deny anyone the ability to live (and die) on their own terms is, yes, absolutely immoral, irredeemably inhuman, and utterly evil.

One's safety does not take priority over another's freedom, primarily because every individual maintains the natural right to live on their own terms, but also because a life without quality is not a life at all. For what is a life devoid of risk-taking, adventure, and choice, other than one of anxiety, misery, and hermitry — one without meaning. It is inhuman, which is to say unnatural, for any human being to be subjected to such an empty existence against their will — and who would deny that such an existence would not be the one the individual selected for themselves but rather the one selected for them. Such pre-determination of another's choices has historically always led to more death and suffering rather than less, and the recent pandemic was no exception.

Averting Future Tyrannies

 

Majorities are unreliable and easily led, as one will have experienced during the pandemic years, and so one who sides with principle and not with them will and have always historically, as one witnessed during the recent mania, found themselves surrounded, shouted down, and ostracised. For freedom is not free nor is it safe. But the risk taken upon oneself is worth the social and economic costs that one may face because it is in defence of something irreplaceable, invaluable, the only thing that preserves the individual in being just that, the individual, and from which all other human happiness stems: integrity, that is, being true to oneself no matter the cost. The number of people who share the belief in this principle, the principle of living on one's own terms, undeterred by threats of force, never surrendering their freedom for safety, the less sacrifice any single dissident individual has to make alone. 

Winter is coming and surely with it the fear factory and its relentless campaign to have oneself and everyone around them do just that, surrender. So what can any one individual do to resist and to lessen the sacrifice necessary to preserve oneself? I propose the following: forgive those who desire and prove worthy to be forgiven and forget those who don't, blood or otherwise; always encourage the personal and discourage the political; and never argue the scientific with proponents of tyranny, rather always argue what is moral, what is right, for it is all that really matters. For each individual dissident that spreads this sentiment among their personal circles, the risk taken in dissidence by any single one is reduced exponentially, and a significant domino effect is caused that we may all benefit from: a spontaneous counter campaign to that of the centrally planned legion of doom. 

The story of the pandemic now past was just this, many small and seemingly insignificant acts of bravery amounting to a large and significant minority resisting the creep of corporatist tyranny. This was sufficient enough to (rather ironically) slow the spread and, ultimately, turn the tide, ending once and for all what would have likely otherwise been an eternal state of emergency to justify more and more encroachments on individual freedom, until there were none left to encroach upon — complete and utter totalitarianism. And this too is the story of any and all historical resistance against tyranny. Not a downtrodden majority standing against an oppressive minority, but a principled and courageous minority standing against an unprincipled, cowardly, and overwhelming majority: a single man in a crowd of conformists simply saying "No!", and whilst most look on, out of either fear of retaliation or genuine faith in the regime, others are inspired to echo the lone brave man, and thus a revolution is born. 

To be the brave man, one must first be willing to be the villain, the boogeyman, the extremist, the terrorist, the conspiracy theorist, the scapegoat. The brave man will be all of these things whilst also being none of them. This is what it means to stand apart from the crowd and say "No!" But as the history of toppling oppressive regimes has taught us, the brave men, surrounded on all sides, outmanned and outgunned, persecuted by the empowered, mindless majority, forced to live their lives in banishment, always win. Why? Because it is always the majority that sleepwalks through history while it is always the minority that wakes them up to the evil that they have done. If it were the other way around, such industrial scale atrocities that litter the pages of human history would never have come to fruition, for they would have lacked the sheer volume of unconscious zombies necessary to implement such a degree of evil. 

This latter point is the precise object of my original proposition, the aim of the sentiment I advocate one embodies and spreads to others: disenfranchise the majority, which is to say take away from them their means to bring about whichever dystopia they have been duped into constructing this time — government. This does not mean, as one has been incessantly taught as the solution to everything by this very establishment, wielding government in the other direction, thereby empowering the minority politically instead. For this would inevitably make this newly empowered minority the new majority that will go on to bring about such evil as I have described, as has historically always been the case when the minority advocates political solutions, i.e. solving problems by force. Rather it means acting out personally and privately the change one wishes to see in the world, which is to say leading by example and disengaging with government and any and all of its solutions in favour of engaging with others peacefully and voluntarily by means of persuasion, while leaving be those who do not wish to be engaged or persuaded.

This idea in practice would be attempting to convince one's family, friends, and colleagues in conversation, in writing (such as this), and by other persuasive means, such as recommending books, articles, videos, and other media, simply that one should be free from compulsion, in absolute control of their own body and, by extension, their own destiny. They need not agree with or approve of one's lifestyle, choices, or even philosophy; they need merely agree to this elementary, fundamental understanding of morality that already conducts all human interactions that are not political: tolerance, which is to say peaceful co-existence. 

The effect of disseminating this tenet of persuasion over force, if successful and widespread, is the gradual breaking up of the majority by reducing support for, dependence on, and therefore the influence of, government, until its resources are so exhausted that it collapses beneath its own weight. This nonviolent solution requires great patience, time, and effort, but it is the only moral and permanent solution to the tyranny of the majority, the only way freedom wins, forever. For what it is the alternative but that which humanity defaults to, that which has been tried over and over again for centuries: sticking a gun to people's heads and demanding they go along with one's plans, else pulling the trigger. As any student of history has observed, that road, sooner or later, always leads back to the slaughterhouse.

"The queen is dead, long live the king!"

The sentiment behind this proclamation is to both mourn the death of the passing monarch and assure the monarchy's subjects that the monarchy shall live on in the incumbent. But why would one outside of the monarchy's circle of influence — of whom have the obvious incentive to gain the incoming ruler's favour in order to gain influence, authority, and fortune for themselves — say such a thing and actually mean it, given that the relationship between the subject and the monarch is one objectively of servant and master? And in light of this unbalanced dynamic between the subject and the ruler, why is it considered an absurdity by the majority for one to bring voice to this absurdity?

The answer is patriotism, which is to say the conflation of love for one's country with love for one's rulers, whether they be monarchs, democratically-elected politicians, dictators, or any other flavour of government that has reigned over the population for so long that it seems absurd for the population to imagine a life without it. What this achieves over the course of space and time is normalising this way of things, whatever "this" may be, to the extent that after many generations, the memory of how this way of things came about decomposes in the population's memory. At a certain point, after this way of things has fully integrated itself into the minds of the population, the servant, at long last, begins to love their servitude — as was always the intent of the ruling class. This love manifests itself in the form of symbols, monuments, celebrations, and most of all, human sacrifice to honour and preserve its now long established order.

We stand in this latter point in space and time, where this order that was once new is now ancient. It therefore stands to reason that the common subject would find it rather difficult to comprehend one who would dissent from this long standing tradition embraced by everyone around them. But if one travels back to the formation of this order, my dissidence suddenly won't seem so peculiar.

As one knows full well, if one were to stop paying tribute — taxes — to the ruling class — government, of which the monarchy is apart and is in fact above — then one would most certainly find themselves confronted by the enforcers of its will, without whom none of its order would be possible — police — and the consequence of such disobedience is a lengthy stay in a cage — prison — or, if one attempts to violently resist, death. This being the foundation of its order, and the looming threat that influences all of one's interactions with it, the relationship between oneself and one's ruler cannot be said to be consensual. Since one cannot leave without violent repercussions to compel them to stay, this relationship is in fact an abusive one, and in a private context, no one would hesitate to condemn a relationship of this sort as such. But when dressed up in a pristine, well fitted, ceremonious looking costume, this basic understanding of morality and human interaction is totally abandoned by the majority of the population — and this is where the majority and I differ: I do not abandon basic morality because someone put on an outfit and declared themselves the "law", no matter how long they've insisted upon doing so.

Therefore, the origins of this "law and order" is akin to a resourceful mafia — now known as the government — approaching oneself and sticking a gun to one's head, or more accurately, hiring other thugs — now known as the police — to stick their guns to one's head and saying "your money or your life" — now known as taxation. One, after submitting to their demands, must continue to pay tribute to this mafia under constant threat of the same violence, and after a given number of years of this being the way of things — now known as the law — the mafia approaches one again and demands that the contributor — now known as the taxpayer — celebrate the day the now established order first began their reign over one's pocket and one's life — now known as the jubilee. And if one, such as I, voices anything but pride for this sort of order — patriotism — I am condemned as ungrateful for everything they do for me, when everything they do for me is done whilst holding a gun to my head with one hand and rooting through my pocket with the other.

If their order was not established in this manner — involuntarily — then I would have no such thing to say about it. But given that it was and continues to be so, only in a different arrangement, I cannot approve of its existence let alone mourn the passing of a figurehead of what is nothing more than a well dressed cabal of thieves. So I do not mourn the queen's passing, but nor do I rejoice at the news of her death — I am merely indifferent.