Lady Justice

I am so excited to be finally releasing the first of a trilogy of books on the never-ending power-struggle between the State and Society in human history. And Justice for All will be released at the LIFE Leadership Major Convention in Columbus Ohio in June. I am so thankful to the LIFE Leaders who have blessed me with their friendship, thoughts, and suggestions to make this book better.

A special thanks to my amazing wife Laurie Woodward and our two youngest sons (Lance and Jeremy) for participating in our family discussions upon the concepts in this book. I have experienced first-hand the growth of these two teenager of their knowledge of the roles of the State and Society. 

Here is a short segment from the book to illustrate the power of ideas in one’s life.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Author Warren T. Brookes captures how the duality within human nature and methods for creating wealth has led to a division within the science of economics as well:

One view, defined by Adam Smith and Jean-Baptist Say, is that wealth is primarily metaphysical, the results of ideas, imagination, innovation, and individual creativity, and is therefore, relatively speaking, unlimited, susceptible to great growth and development . . . After all, if wealth truly is metaphysical, the result more of mind than matter, the “wealth of nations” has to be seen as the direct result of the creative activity of individuals and the degree to which that activity is either liberated or restricted by governmental, trade, or societal structures and strictures . . . The other, espoused by Thomas Malthus and Karl Marx, contends that wealth is essentially and primarily physical, and therefore ultimately finite. The modern presentation of this view argues that since usable energy is steadily diminishing into entropy, all wealth is really cost to be shared more equitably . . .  If one believes that wealth is primarily a function of material resources, and is therefore limited (or declining), it is only natural that one would see the role of economic policy as the just and collective conservation, distribution, and redistribution of these limited resources until the end is reached.

Smith and Say believe wealth is metaphysical, and since ideas are unlimited, society should employ the “economics means” of wealth creation to raise the tide of humanity and its societal ships. In contrast, Malthus and Marx believe wealth is physical, and since resources are limited, society should employ the “political means” of wealth expropriation to direct the tide equitably between societal ships. This divergence in economic thought relates back to the divergence in methods to create wealth which tracks back to the divergence within man himself.

One of the key objectives of this book is to educate leaders in the systematic interactions between these two opposing forces within society.  For only when this is understood can we achieve long lasting concord within society.  Towards that end, there are three questions that must be answered in order to achieve enduring concord within society.

1. What areas of society prosper best under liberty and persuasion?
2. What is the proper role of government within society to ensure justice for all?
3. How does society check government’s “monopoly of force” from expanding into areas it doesn’t belong?

The Six Duties of Society (SDS) and the Five Laws of Decline (FLD) are present in every human society because it the seeds of both processes are inherent within the human heart. LIFE Leadership is a company that focuses on expanding the SDS and restraining the FLD. In a similar fashion, every successful society rises under the impetus of the SDS and eventually falls when the FLD kill it.

I promise that anyone who reads history with an SDS and FLD mindset will see it everywhere. For instance, the following video about the Greeks and the Power Pendulum is from a talk I gave last year. Listen to the video and tell me where else you have seen the FLD working within society.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Jesus Huerta de Soto

In Hernando de Soto’s fantastic book Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, he uses a simple example from Robinson Crusoe to explain how savings is essential for the free enterprise process. Understanding these concepts at the simplest levels helps one decipher the more complicated cases in today’s modern economies. I have spent the last year really studying the fractional reserve banking (FRB) methods and now realize the highly inflationary nature of this process.

Unfortunately, the modern State’s marriage to the banking system has only exacerbated the ill effects of FRB by juicing the whole process with fiat money created through the central banks. Thus, the money supply grows precipitously during the Boom process and banks enjoy massive profits until the borrowers (both business and consumers) realize their inability to repay the debts at the now inflated prices cause the the monetary expansion. Of course, this leads to the Bust when debt defaults rapidly reverse the FRB monetary expansion.

LIFE Leadership is just months away from releasing my new book And Justice for All that reveals the SDS and FLD and how they interact within society. Increasingly, entrepreneurs are failing because they can no longer make accurate predictions based upon current prices thanks to the Boom/Bust FRB cycles. With that said, however, I am not a doom and gloom person as I believe the truth sets you free. It’s time for We the People to learn, live, and apply truth in the areas of finances (both personally, professionally, and societally) and restore the American (along with every other societies) Dream for the next-generation.

Here is part I of a two part series.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

The sine qua non for producing capital goods is saving, or the relinquishment or postponement of immediate consumption. Indeed in an action process the actor will only be able to reach successive and increasingly time-consuming intermediate stages if he has first sacrificed the chance to undertake actions which would produce a more immediate result. In other words, he must give up the achievement of immediate ends which would satisfy current human needs (consumption).

To illustrate this important concept, we will use the example given by Böhm-Bawerk to explain the process of saving and investment in capital goods carried out by an individual actor in an isolated situation, such as Robinson Crusoe on his island. Let us suppose that Robinson Crusoe has just arrived on his island and spends his time picking berries by hand, his only means of subsistence. Each day he devotes all of his efforts to gathering berries, and he picks enough to survive and can even eat a few extra daily.

After several weeks on this diet, Robinson Crusoe makes the entrepreneurial discovery that with a wooden stick several meters long, he could reach higher and further, strike the bushes with force and gather the necessary berries much quicker. The only problem is that he estimates it could take him five whole days to find a suitable tree from which to take the stick and then to prepare it by pulling off its branches, leaves, and imperfections. During this time he will be compelled to interrupt his berry picking. If he wants to produce the stick, he will have to reduce his consumption of berries for a time and store the remainder in a basket until he has enough to survive for five days, the predicted duration of the production process of the wooden stick.

After planning his action, Robinson Crusoe decides to undertake it, and therefore he must first save a portion of the berries he picks by hand each day, reducing his consumption by that amount. This clearly means he must make an inevitable sacrifice, which he nevertheless deems well worth his effort in relation to the goal he longs to achieve. So he decides to reduce his consumption (in other words, to save) for several weeks while storing his leftover berries in a basket until he has accumulated an amount he believes will be sufficient to sustain him while he produces the stick. This example shows that each process of investment in capital goods requires prior saving; that is, a decrease in consumption, which must fall below its potential level.

Once Robinson Crusoe has saved enough berries, he spends five days searching for a branch from which to make his wooden stick, separating it from the tree and perfecting it. What does he eat during the five days it takes him to prepare the stick, a production process which forces him to interrupt his daily harvest of berries? He simply consumes the berries he accumulated in the basket over the preceding several-week period during which he saved the necessary portion from his handpicked berries and experienced some hunger. In this way, if Robinson Crusoe’s calculations were correct, at the end of five days he will have the stick (a capital good), which represents an intermediate stage removed in time (by five days of saving) from the immediate processes of the berry production (by hand) which up to that point had occupied him.

With the finished stick Robinson Crusoe can reach places inaccessible to him by hand and strike the bushes with force, multiplying his production of berries by ten. As a result, from that point on his stick enables him to gather in one-tenth of a day the berries he needs to survive, and he can spend the rest of his time resting or pursuing subsequent goals that are much more important to him (like building a hut or hunting animals to vary his diet and make clothes).

The Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates at the founding of America have some of the best insights into government and society that have ever been written. Unfortunately, few have read both sides of the debate. I am working on a book project that will provide the main points from both sides and discuss where history has proven each side right.

LIFE Leadership is about providing truth for one to learn how to think and reason in order to better his/her life. I am so thankful I get to do what I do with the greatest compensated community and customer base in the world! 🙂 Below is a short segment from the upcoming work.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

The Anti-Federalist

“[C]onstitutions are not so necessary to regulate the conduct
of good rulers as to restrain that of bad ones.”
—Robert Yates (Brutus), Anti-Federalist

What the Anti-Federalists Had to Say

The Anti-Federalists had a number of very important things to say about the powers of the sword and the purse. For example, as one Anti-Federalist wrote in the Pennsylvania Minority Report: “[T]he new government will not be a [cooperation] of states, as it ought, but one consolidated government, founded upon the [federal control] of…the states…”

In other words, one huge problem with the Constitution was that it gave too much power to the federal government, swinging the nation in the direction of Coercion—as I have already discussed. But the really interesting thing is exactly how the Pennsylvania Minority Report predicted that this would happen:

The Federalists

“The powers of Congress under the new constitution, are complete and unlimited over the purse and the sword, and are perfectly independent of, and supreme over, the state governments, whose intervention in these great points is entirely destroyed. By virtue of their power of taxation, Congress may command the whole, or any part of the property of the people.

“They may impose what imposts upon commerce; they may impose what land taxes, poll taxes, excises, duties on all written instruments, and duties on every other article that they may judge proper; in short, every species of taxation, whether of an external or internal nature is comprised in section the 8th, of article the 1^st [of the Constitution], viz., ‘The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.”

This was a major concern for the Anti-Federalists. They predicted that the federal government would use the power of the sword as an excuse to increase the federal power of the purse, and then just keep increasing their powers until the federal government did much, much more than protect our national defense.

They saw that the federal powers of sword and purse would lead to federal involvement in every facet of our lives. This is exactly what happened.

I am still plugging along on my new book. The long history of taxation has been both a treat and disappointment to me. On one side, it has been a treat to learn all the various methods that society has sought to check the exploitive State. On the other side, though, it has also been disappointing to realize how many times the State has won this contest against society. LIFE Leadership is a company on a quest to learn truth so it can be shared with others. The only agenda is truth, wherever that may lead in life. Understanding taxation is an important aspect of State/Society truth. More pointedly, understanding the Income Tax, that goose that has laid so many golden eggs for the State at society’s expense is essential. There are few areas in the history of mankind that have been subjected to more Five Laws of Decline outcomes than the taxation policies. Hence, let’s turn to the Income Tax in today’s blog.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

USA Income Tax Amendment

Income tax has proven to be the goose that lays the golden eggs for government. Although all governments, even those performing its limited and delegated role, need constant funding, the creation of income tax has led to the unlimited State. Indeed, expecting a limited-government to restrain itself when it has been handed the power to tax the people’s income indiscriminately is like expecting the local drunkard to restrain his drinking when he has a free pass for unlimited drinks from the local brewery. It cannot be emphasized enough that power is an insatiable drug and money is its means of purchase. Hence, any government given a practical unlimited ability to tax (restrained only by society’s rebellion or destruction) will use this power over the purse to build State Power by taxing Social Power. The State’s view of society is akin to a the shepherd over his sheep, namely, seeking to shear them as close as possible without slaughtering them. Montesquieu recognized the State and Social Power and Social symbiotic relationship when he wrote:

The revenues of the state are a portion of that each subject gives of his property in order to secure or to have agreeable enjoyment of the remainder. To fix these revenues in a proper manner, regard should be had both to the necessities of the state and those of the subject. The real wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the state. Imaginary wants are those which flow from the passions, and from the weakness of the governors, from the charms of an extraordinary project, from the distempered desire of vain glory and from a certain impotency of mind incapable of withstanding the attacks of fancy. Often has it happened that minsters of a restless disposition, have imagined that the wants of the state were those of their own little ignoble souls.

The State and society, however, have had an ongoing dispute over the definition appropriate, equitable, and just levels of taxation. Indeed, when John Marshall wrote, “the power to tax is the power to destroy”, he articulated why limiting government’s ability to tax is just as important as limiting as its sphere of operation. In fact, the only proven method for limiting the State has been by limiting its funds. For anytime the funds are available to do so, government’s “force hammer,” has routinely usurped its delegated boundary to becomes the exploiters agent of injustice. Accordingly, if society intends to enjoy its inalienable rights, it must minimize the level of taxation to a limited and equitable amount that permits the government to perform its delegated role. Anything above this minimum amount is dangerous to the inalienable rights of society’s members since government will seek to use these funds to interfere with the SDS. Unhappily, few societies have successfully walked this tightrope and thus why the FLD has historically thrived under government taxation schemes. Taxation has typically been used by the rulers to optimize their profits and power by providing special deals for the few funded by increased taxation upon the many. Tax historian Charles Adams wrote:

A government that taxes excessively is like a spouse that engages in adultery. Its destructiveness is usually not apparent until it is too late. . . A society can best be evaluated by examining who is taxed, what is taxed, and how taxes are assessed, collected, and spent. Those in control of the political process invariably bear lighter tax burdens than those on the outside. . . Taxes are forced exactions. The loss of money through taxation often enrages people and drives them to revolt. Governments, therefore, must face their tax management with the utmost prudence and wisdom. . . A government that shackles its people with grossly inequitable tax laws and despotic enforcement practices loses all moral persuasion with respect to compliance, and can hardly complain if its taxpayers resort to all kinds of schemes to protect themselves . . . The ethics then, of society’s tax policy should develop from two moral maxims: First, it is the duty  – the first duty – of every government to develop just and sound revenue systems. . . Second, it is the duty of every person to pay his (or her) fair share of the costs of maintaining the government that serves and protects them. 

Regrettably, the history of taxation reveals the inability of those in power to lightly shear society’s sheep. As the tax rates increase, the shearing transforms into slaughter as the the people are plundered mercilessly. Moreover, the increased taxes rob the people of the capital needed to grow the SDS. As a result, societal growth slows before it begins its inevitable decline. Although people can endure injustices for extended periods of time, they will not tolerate an unjust tax system indefinitely. If the FLD continues to expand within the tax system, then evasion, exile, and rebellion become the potential paths of action. But when the rebellion against the State’s oppression reaches a certain point, the SDS collapses as either chaos or coercion overthrows societal concord.