Thread by @JustinSiegel1

1/ I just finished reading #SovereignIndividual. I think I first heard about it when @lopp was on the @TFTC21 podcast, and has been referenced a lot lately by @pierre_rochard and @MustStopMurad

2/ It is an eye-opening read but is not meant for everyone. It gives an unemotional and unapologetic economic outlook at how unsustainable our current government structure is. This thread is an attempt to tell the story through summaries and (mostly) quotes:

3/ Part 1 #Taxes
“Consider the definition of a racketeer as someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments’ provision of protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering.” - Charles Tilly

4/ On democracy vs socialism: “Instead of laying claim to everything in the beginning, govt’s in the West allowed individuals to own property and accumulate wealth. Then, after the wealth had been accumulated, the western nation states taxed a large fraction of it away.”

5a/ On our duty as citizens: “The logic of the nation-state suggests that the ultimate price of citizenship is sacrifice and death. ‘The young man goes to war not so much to kill as to die, to forfeit his particular body for that of the large body, the body politic’" (cont)...

5b/ "...Paying taxes, like bearing arms, is a duty, rather than an exchange in which one forgoes money to obtain some product or service of an equal or greater value.”

6/ Summarizing from P304 It will be remarkable that it was ever considered “fair” for people to pay wildly different amounts for govt services. This is particularly odd in that those who use govt services the most pay the least, and those who use them the least pay the most.

7/ “Like the late-medieval Church, the nation-state at the end of the 20th century is a deeply indebted institution that can no longer pay its way.”

8/ Part 2 How governments will need to adapt
“In the information age it will be much less important that government be large and powerful than that it be honest.”

9/ Summarized from P136 Employees vs Customers – Govt controlled by its employees is optimized for tax collection. A govt controlled by its customers optimizes the amount customers can retain.

10/ “In the future, when most wealth can be earned anywhere, and even spent anywhere, govt’s that attempt to charge too much as the price for domicile will merely drive away their best customers.”

11/ “Citizenship will no longer serve as a mechanism for enforcing income redistribution based upon the equality of the vote within a confined territory.”

12/ This is my favorite line in the entire book:
“Markets always place the greatest pressures on the weakest holders. Indeed, that is part their virtue. They promote efficiency by removing assets from weak hands.” It is especially relevant to #bitcoin today. $BTC

13/ To critics of the free market: “To hear the critics tell it, the advent of factory jobs was an unprecedented evil and “exploitation” of the working class. But now it appears that the only thing worse than the advent of factory jobs is their disappearance.”

14/ Part 3 Culture and human psyche:
“If you know nothing else about the future, you can rest assured that dramatic changes will be neither welcomed nor advertised by conventional thinkers.”

15/ “Culture changes human society as genes change other species. Change can therefore take place much faster in our societies. It does not have to work through many generations as it does when it depends on random genetic mutations.” @harari_yuval talked about this in Sapiens

16a/ This quote on religion reminded me a lot of the message @jordanbpeterson is trying to communicate. “The most successful periods in the history of societies tend to be those in which the collective morality is fully shared." (cont)...

16b/ ..."Such a morality not only perform specific functions such as reducing crime, and helping to support family and social structures, but gives citizens a sense of purpose and direction.”

17/ “For human beings it is the struggle rather than the achievement that matters; we are made for action, and the achievement can prove to be a great disappointment.”

18/ Part 4 Current Political Climate:
“Before nation-states visibly collapse they will be dominated by latter day barbarians.” This is especially relevant today. I can't believe this book was written in '99 😂

19a/ “The politically correct and the fundamentalist Christian groups are bitterly critical of each other, yet in the modern world they look rather alike. (cont)...

19b/ They both assume the authority of a particular moral doctrine as though it were universal, even though their moral doctrines are different.”