This is Part 2. For Part 1, please click here.

Unfortunately, the Greek miracle does not have a happy ending, but it does have a huge lesson. For the same drive to compete that built Greek society also destroyed it when the positive life-lifting competition in arts, sciences, and sports, degenerated into negative death-delivering competition of military campaigns. Importantly, no one wins in war, certainly the losers don’t, but neither do the alleged winners. The defeated sacrifice many of their best leaders on the altar of a lost cause, not to mention the untold wealth, figuratively and literally, burnt to ashes, and finally the lost freedoms as the “winners” assume control over society. The winners, however, lose as we’ll because many of their best citizens were also sacrificed on the altar of war. Furthermore, they lost the hunger to produce wealth, for why build wealth when you can steal it, and the Five Laws of Decline secretes its poison into society. To add insult to injury, they also lose their liberties by denying others’ the right to enjoy theirs. Paradoxically, the winners must now set up a prisoner society where the defeated are closely viewed, supervised, and cajoled into obedience 24-7. The costs in time, money, and lifestyle lost by the oppressors outweighs the benefit of the oppression, but rare is the State who realizes this.

The Spartans and Helots

Indeed, Greek history is filled with many examples of this principle at work, where both the winners and losers pay greatly by going to war – the ultimate lose-lose vehicle. Perhaps the Peloponnesian war is the best example of lose-lose but there are many more. For instance, just a cursory look at the “victorious” Spartans in the Messenian War will reveal the Spartans lost as much as the defeated, for boys under 10 were forced to live in military barracks for the next twenty plus years, suffered under an oppressive form of socialism, and lived in a state of constant state of paranoia, fearing the Helots, who outnumbered the Spartans by as much as 20 to 1, would revolt. To deny freedom to others, in other words, one ends up destroying his own. Of course, if this was the fate of the winners, imagine how much worse the fate of the Messenian Helots. Unfortunately, no one seems to learn from history. This is why, although I support our national military, my dad was an elite Green Beret after all, its function should be defensive, protecting against foreign aggression, not offensive, expanding into foreign territories; otherwise, the same fate visited upon Sparta, Rome, and England, to name just a few, will knock on America’s door.

This leads to a strange twist in the battle between force and freedom. Whereas competition benefits in every life-lifting endeavor, it is a tragedy in death-delivering ones. When the the centralized State is eliminated, the void must be filled with mini-states to ensure order and not anarchy. If there is not a force strong enough to ensure the strong do not oppress the weak, rest assured they will. The mini-states maintain order while creating competition in the life-lifting activities, at the same time a limited central government ensures the mini-states do not compete in the death-delivering ones. The key to freedom is the limited central state is no longer is absolute within society; instead, it merely ensures the mini-states settle their disputes peacefully through adjudication and arbitration rather than through war.

The centralized body is now limited in its power, capable of enforcing judgments and protecting the mini-states political, economic, and religious freedoms without growing big enough to issue central commands in areas it does not belong. Limited funds are essential here, for anytime the State has access to unlimited funds, it quickly obtains unlimited power. Limited funds, in a word, for a limited State. Imagine the state of freedom if, in the USA, the centralized Federal government’s only funds came from a straight 10% import tax. This is plenty for the federal government to effectively arbitrate disputes amongst the fifty states and also defend our borders militarily – defense only. True, we would have to exit the over 140 nations where the USA presently has a military presence, but the improvement in society by the reduced money, time, and heartaches (lost loved ones from foreign wars) is worth the loss of empire. No longer would State bureaucrats have the power to send our children off to war to increase their need for power and glory.

Imagine the competition and cooperation that would result in the USA if the functions of government were moved from the monolithic Federal government to the local township/city levels. All the interactions between citizens and State could be achieved at the local level, ensuring a higher level of justice because those closest to the facts are the one’s addressing the issue. The locality would be responsible for the judicial and police  functions to ensure justice while each locality would compete to outdo its rivals in life-giving functions just as the Greeks did originally. If they serve the customers they will prosper, if they don’t they will not. Moreover, because the locality receives its income from a 5% property tax, it will seek to serve its community because as it serves them well, the community will grow, and thus the tax base grows. Naturally, the reverse is true also, for if they don’t serve, the community doesn’t grow, and the tax base decreases. Welcome to State competition to serve the customers, namely, its citizens! What a concept.

The state governments would adjudicate disputes between localities/cities and be funded by a 5% state sales tax. Again, every state would compete to increase business because it would benefit from increased tax revenues as economic activity increase within the state. Further, the state leaders would select the next president from amongst the governors of the state. No longer would the Presidency be the democratic charade parade where those with the most power and money get elected. Instead, the  governors of each state would select the governor with the best track record, his proven performance in balancing budgets and running a just government making the difference. The President would not be elected by the people at large, thus eliminating the media’s negative manipulation against anyone who threatens their power. Instead, governor peers, elected by the leaders of each locality, select the President, similar to how the founder originally intended the President to be elected. See Oliver DeMille and my New York Times bestseller LeaderShift for more details on these concepts.

Finally, as mentioned previously, the Federal government would survive on a 10% import tax and nothing else. Imagine, no more IRS needed! Of course, the ability to create money out of thin air (Federal Reserve) and the special deal fractional-reserve banking would be rescinded. The gold standard would be calibrated to the current money supply and only 100% reserve banking would be permitted by law from here forward. Think about it, the people would elect the local governments (those who know them the best) by returning to town hall meetings. The local leaders would elect the State leaders (governors) because they work with each other on a monthly basis to approve the state budgets. Cream rises to the top and the local leaders, from amongst their peers, will select the governor from among the most qualified. Finally, the state leaders will elect the federal President because they work with them monthly and approve the federal balanced budget. Yes, balanced budgets are a given or the irresponsible leader is immediately subject to recall and a new election. Mediocrity and poor leadership can no longer be tolerated by public servants, especially if they expect us to trust and follow them.

To restore freedom, we must end the control over money (no one should have centralized control over money creation), then follow it up by ending the monolithic control of the media (less than six corporations, all with interconnected boards, control what the people read and think), and only once these two are accomplished, will the controlled, centralized State be overturned and America launch a Freedom-shift. Numerous local governments are much more difficult to capture than on centralized government, especially when the centralist controllers already control the money and media.

Ok, my rant is done. Needless to say, what I propose is a huge dream and it’s going to take work, but only those who have a big dream can expect a big dream to come true. For the past twenty years, I have read extensively on leadership, liberty, and the State, and believe history supports my conclusions. The challenge, however, is the elites are not on the side of history, but rather on the side of force, and thus, centralization. In consequence, the Money Power rewards its media (TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Universities, and Foundations) for rewriting history, a history that makes the State the hero of the story and freedom the anti-hero. Pedictably, the “educated” (propagandized) people demand the State hero fix the challenges facing society while the noose tightens around freedom’s neck. This is why the elites will tolerate any change so long as the money system (what I have termed the Financial Matrix) is not changed.

As I said at the beginning of Part 1, freedom and force are in a battle to the death, and, dismally, freedom is the one dying. Is there anyone left who will, like our forefathers and foremothers, pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to resuscitate freedom?

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward: LIFE Leadership Chairman of the Board

Since the dawn of civilization, freedom and force have fought for mastery in human societies. Freedom, to the liberty-lover, implies the ideal way to freely reward people for serving others. Each society is set up to follow the laws of the land (just laws that permit no person or group to receive a special deal), a society where the State’s role is like referee rather than a participant, ensuring a level playing field for all competitors. The ideal of ordered freedom is the best mankind can aspire to this side of heaven, or so the liberty-lovers claimed.

To Statist controllers, in contrast, freedom leads to chaos, greed, and an unholy desire to separate one’s self from the herd. Absolute force is the Statist’s answer to ensure society remains peaceful, compliant, and equal. Naturally, the State must be given this absolute power, a power entrusted to a group of ruling-elite, who will make decisions not based upon personal advantages but only for the good of society. The masses must simply trust and obey, or so the Statist controllers claimed.

Interestingly, the battle between liberty and force has a celebrated history. Force/Freedom battles between the Pharaoh vs. Moses, Caesar vs. Cicero, Jesus vs Pharisees, are just a few of the legendary conflicts that come to mind. In one sense, the history of the world can be viewed as a series of particular battles in the universal struggle between the State and Society to secure either force or freedom.

Ancient Greece Innovations

For most of human history, the controllers have had the upper hand. The Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians elites ruled absolutely as god-kings though centrally-controlled oppressive civilizations. Although there were flickers of freedom scattered throughout society, the flame was snuffed out before it could catch fire. Something, however, changed with the birth of Greek civilization, for the pendulum clearly moved towards liberty. While many explanations have been suggested for freedom’s growth, perhaps the most significant was the multitude of Greek city-states increased the number of competitors seeking centralized control over Greek society. Whereas in previous civilizations the State controlled vast swaths of territory extending for thousands of miles, the Greek landscape, mountainous with few inland rivers, made centralized control over the whole are extremely difficult.

As a result, smaller units of centralization, the city-state, prospered. Each city-state’s laws were only enforced within the confines of its territory, effectively creating hundreds of mini-states ruling over a fragmented Greek society. This was the dreaded conditions for chaos that the absolutist controllers feared. However, instead of collapsing into chaos, the competition amongst city-states for political, economic, and military power, created innovation and improvements like never seen before. The competition amongst the city-states led to cooperation within them.

Instead of the oppressive standardization experienced by cities within the former centralized tyrannical States, the fragmented, decentralized city-states, shockingly, through the competition for power and glory, created, as it were, a free market environment for State services – each city seeking to impress the other Greek city-states with its ability to solve the political, economic, and religious challenges better than its neighbors. Of course, this led to a significant increases in freedom for the people since ideas were favored, not because the bureaucratic representatives of the god-king issued it, but rather because the idea worked to solve the challenge it intended to address. The city-state that solved the most issues and served its people the best would rise in this free market environment against its rivals.

Talent, effort, and innovation became the buzz words that drove the Greeks forward in their mission to achieve their rational and aesthetic objectives. Practically every field of the arts and sciences saw levels of innovation and discovery never witnessed before as society’s cream rose to the top made possible by the increased societal freedom. The monolithic State no longer controlled every city, and thus, the brightest minds with the best ideas were rewarded as each city sought to outdo its competitors in the arts, sciences, and even the sporting events of its day.

The Greek miracle, according to historian Michael Grant, was accomplished by the work of less than 500 individuals. In other words, although millions lived and died in Greece, freedom enabled 500 people to use their gifts to bless everyone in the Greek communities. Where previously, talented individuals had lived and died in obscurity, the freedom allowed this cream to rise for the benefit of all. This created the world’s first Renaissance, not repeated until the Italian Renaissance over a millennia afterwards.

Perhaps the biggest lesson to learn from the Greek experience is the importance of competition, namely, when the number of competitors in any field increases, society benefits. Of course, the antithesis is true also – when the number of competitors is limited in any field, society is harmed. The monolithic State, not surprisingly, is the peak of reduced competition since there is no competition. The State, in a word, is like one contestant in a beauty contest, and she always takes first place. 🙂 This does not mean the author believes in anarchy; rather, the goal should be a fragmented state similar to the ancient Greeks. In fact, this is what Oliver DeMille and I proposed in our New York Times bestseller LeaderShift.  Stay tuned for Part 2 where I unpack the fragmented state and how to protect against anarchy. Happy Memorial Day!

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward: LIFE Leadership Chairman of the Board