“For me, then, the real message of 1984 is that once governments are allowed to get too firm a grip on the reins of power – including the judicial, the constabulary, the military, the media – they are not just imminently corruptible but super-hardened to any real change. I, Pencil, Leonard Read’s 1958 essay, a video version of which you can watch here, explains how the free market works using the simple example of how the lowly pencil is produced and brought to market. I’ll try to use the same sort of simplistic example – replacing the pencil with the coca leaf – to expose the genesis of Big Brother’s steady assent to unassailable power.”
http://www.caseyresearch.com/node/41795
Related posts:
The Source of Systemic Crisis: Risk and Moral Hazard
A Cypherpunk's Manifesto (March 9th, 1993)
Jacob Hornberger: The Evil of the National-Security State, Part 1
John Hussman: Do the Lessons of History No Longer Apply?
Does “Homeland Security” really protect you?
Ron Paul: Government Policies Hurt Low-Wage Workers
Will Warrants for Searches Become a Thing of the Past?
Paul Craig Roberts: 2014 Will Bring More Social Collapse
Creating a Culture of Denunciation
Why a pizza can’t fly
The Industrial Revolution You Haven't Met
The Good News Is That the Bad News about Kansas Was Wrong
Alfred McCoy: It's About Blackmail, Not National Security
Cheating to Learn: How a UCLA professor gamed a game theory midterm
John Hussman: Over-Adaptation and Market Drawdowns