Why shouldn’t people be free to keep everything they earn and decide what to do with their own money? That is a question that should be asked, discussed, and debated all across the nation.
In other words, why not a society in which there is no federal income tax or IRS to enforce it? No more income tax returns. No more withholding taxes. No more FICA taxes. Everyone keeps 100 percent of his income and decides for himself what to do with it — spend, save, invest, donate, or squander.
Moreover, why not a society in which no one is forced to care for others through the coercive apparatus of the government? No more Social Security. No more Medicare and Medicaid. No more education grants. No more farm subsidies. No more welfare. No more aid for foreign regimes. No more coercive transfer programs at all.
In other words, all charity would be voluntary. No exceptions. Children and grandchildren would be free to honor mother and father or grandparents on a purely voluntary basis. No one would be forced to do so. Church groups, charitable foundations, doctors, hospitals, and everyone else would be free to help others or not — it would be their choice.
By the same token, how about a society in which people would be free to sustain and improve their lives by engaging in any economic enterprise without first seeking a license or other official permission from the government? Even better, how about a society in which people would be free to engage in any economic enterprise without any governmental interference whatsoever — that is, a system in which all enterprise would be totally free of governmental control, regulation, and taxation — a genuine free-enterprise system? In other words, no more minimum-wage laws, maximum-hours laws, occupation licensure, and other economic regulations.
Moreover, why not an economic system in which people would be free to engage in economic exchanges with anyone anywhere in the world, without any governmental interference whatsoever? No more tariffs, trade restrictions, trade wars, subsidies, immigration controls, or the like. Instead, unrestricted rights of freedom of association, freedom of movement, and liberty of contract, including the right to hire anyone from anywhere in the world.
How about a total separation of money and the state? No more Federal Reserve, paper money, or legal-tender laws. No more inflation. Restore sound money by getting government entirely out of the money business.
Utopian? Well, not exactly. Utopian means impossible to achieve. Actually, there was once a society based on the principles of economic liberty. That was the United States during the period 1890-1910. It wasn’t a perfect system of economic liberty. For example, there was the Sherman Antitrust Act that came into existence in 1890. And there was the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. There were also protective tariffs. Nonetheless, it was as close to the ideal of economic liberty that mankind has ever come. It was the most unusual society in history — and the freest in terms of economic liberty.
Imagine: No income tax or IRS. No Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or other welfare. No drug laws. No gun control. No travel restrictions. An extremely lax immigration-control system. No national-security state; instead, a limited-government republic. Sound money — a gold coin/silver coin standard. No foreign aid. No foreign wars, interventions, assassinations, coups, indefinite detention, or torture.
The result of this highly unusual society? The most economically prosperous society in the history of man. Also, the most charitable society in history. When people were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and decide for themselves what to do with it, the result was a massive accumulation of productive capital as well as a massive outpouring of voluntary charity.
Obviously, that is not the society in which we live today. Twentieth-century Americans abandoned that society in favor of one based on massive income confiscation, a much-feared IRS, coercive redistribution of wealth (i.e., a welfare state), forced “charity,” an immigration control-system with a massive immigration police state, tariffs, a drug war, a national security state with omnipotent totalitarian powers, assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, foreign wars, crises, official enemies, and $34 trillion in official debt and another $60 trillion in Social Security and Medicare “entitlements.”
Americans would be wise to reflect on these two opposite economic systems and decide which one would be the better system going forward. For me, the choice is a no-brainer.