“If . . . taxation is
compulsory, and is therefore indistinguishable from theft it follows that the
State, which subsists on taxation, is a vast criminal organization far more
formidable and successful than any ‘private’ Mafia in history.”
–Murray Rothbard, “The
Nature of the State”
“There is no distinctly
native American criminal class except Congress.”
–H. L. Mencken
Pope Francis recently
excommunicated (i.e., kicked out of the Catholic Church) all members of the
Italian Mafia, denouncing their “evil ways” as an affront to God. If he
was consistent, however, he would similarly condemn and excommunicate all
Catholic politicians and their networks of big-government worshipping
Catholic political activists, among the most prominent of which are his fellow
Jesuits. Politics is many orders of magnitude more evil and immoral
than the Mafia or any other “private” criminal gang.
Pope Francis would
realize this truth by a careful consideration of the part of Catholic
doctrine known as the Seven Deadly Sins. According to the Church’s
teachings, all sin has its root causes in these seven deadliest sins, all of
which, I will argue, are defining characteristics of the politics and
politicians whose causes are championed by Jesuits like Pope Francis with
their “social justice” agenda. (As F.A. Hayek pointed out in The Mirage of Social Justice, the phrase itself is nonsensical
– only individuals can act in a just or unjust manner—and is essentially a
euphemism for socialism).
Politicians are natural
criminals, as H.L. Mencken observed in the above quotation. (Ron Paul
is the only exception that I can think of during my lifetime). In order to
finance their campaigns for election they must promise to steal money
from those who have earned it and give it to others who have no moral right
to it. They are inveterate liars, as everyone knows, since they all
make campaign promises that they know they could never keep. The most
successful among them are those who are the least hindered by strong moral
principles opposed to lying and stealing and confiscating their fellow
citizens’ property. That is why F.A Hayek titled a chapter of The Road to Serfdom “Why the Worst Get on Top.”
There are one or two
exceptions every couple of generations, but in general politicians personify
the Seven Deadly Sins of Catholic doctrine. Self pride trumps
humility as the most successful politicians tend to be extremely egotistical
with inflated self images (sometimes etched in stone on mountain sides and in
bronze statues littering cities all around the world).
Envy poisons the heart of every
crusader for “social justice,” the lame euphemism for income redistribution
via welfare statism, which long ago replaced “government ownership of the
means of production” as the definition of socialism.
Wrath is what one experiences if one
even criticizes the ruling political class. In some societies this
means lost employment, character assassination, and censorship, whereas in
others, such as the twentieth-century socialist states, it meant the mass
murder of dissenters by the millions (see Death by Government by Rudolph Rummel).
Sloth has long been associated with
government bureaucrats and bureaucracies because of absence of market
feedback mechanisms. A slothful business owner will pay a price for his
laziness in terms of lower profits or bankruptcy; no such penalties exist in
governments, where budgets only increase year after year after year. In
fact, it is quite routine to reward government
bureaucracies with larger budgets for their failures. The worse the
public schools become, the more money they get; the more the war on drugs
fails, the more money the Drug Enforcement Administration gets; etc.
Greed for power to dominate others is why
politicians become politicians in the first place, not to mention the riches
attached to being a “public servant” who can use his political connections to
enrich himself and his family through inside information among other means.
Gluttony is on display daily with
internet, newspaper, and televised images of “state dinners,” the palatial
buildings that politicians build for themselves to “work” in, their lavish
spending of taxpayer dollars on international travel, nightly feasts,
cocktail parties, staff entourages, and more.
The antics of politicians
like Bill Clinton periodically remind us of the Sodom-and-Gomorrah lifestyle
of so many politicians who are not unfamiliar with the deadly sin of lust,
although the bigger sin is their lust to dominate other people and societies
and their use of coercion and force to achieve these ends.
Murray Rothbard pointed
out in his essay on “Just War” that the American Revolution and the South
during the Civil War” were the ony two just (defensive) wars in American history
that are consistent with the kind of Catholic just war theory initiated by
St. Thomas Aquinas. All other wars and military interventions in
foreign countries have been aggressive wars pursued for economic gain on
behalf of “the elite” who control government. All politicians and
others who have supported these wars are therefore accomplices in mass murder
in one way or another.
Theft, intimidation,
threats, censorship, imprisonment, and murder are all defining
characteristics of the state and statists. It is fine that Pope Francis
has excommunicated the Mafia, but he actually supports and promotes far more
sin and evil in the world with his Jesuit-inspired views of welfare statism
and his incoherent and uneducated denunciations of peaceful exchange among
consenting adults through the benefit of the international division of labor
(i.e., capitalism).
