The following article by Alfred Adask is reprinted with permission from the AntiShyster, PO Box 540786, Dallas, TX 75354-0786, or call (214) 559-7957 - annual subscription (6 issues) $25. More information about the AntiShyster can be found at <http://www.antishyster.com>.

BIG

That's the central theme of his essay: how many problems do you have that you couldn't solve - without any help from government - if your take-home pay was doubled?

Government persistently promises to "create more jobs" for the American people. They're going to build a new defense plant in your home town, or maybe a new post office, or a new interstate highway, or a new federal court house. And now there's the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which President Clinton claims will generate an additional 200,000 American jobs per year.

Boy, that's what we need, right? 'Cuz every one of those projects will "create" more jobs.

Why do we need more jobs? According to government, if we put more people to work, we can reduce unemployment, and stimulate the economy with the increased spending of the new workers. These new workers will buy more products which will increase business and wages for all of us, and so we'll all prosper together, right?

Not necessarily. See, it's not only important that we have more Americans who can buy more goods and services, it's equally important that we have more Americans who can produce more goods and services.

Government would have us believe a "job" is merely a place to "hang out" from 9 to 5, five days a week, so you can pick up a check on Friday, and get two-weeks paid vacation every summer. It's becoming a "right" (much like welfare or unemployment benefits) rather than a productive endeavor.

But workers are not meant to be mere consumers. If you're only a consumer (like a child or an elderly person), you are a dependent living on one form or another of private or government welfare. Workers are meant to be producers. Therefore, a "job" is an activity that produces a real product or service for sale on the free market.

For example, in general, most government employment is not a real "job." Do government employees produce cars? No - but they want to drive 'em. Do government workers produce food? No - but they want to eat. Do government workers build homes? No - but they demand shelter. Government produces nothing for the free market and as such, government employees don't have "jobs" - instead, they are paid under a kind of "welfare" program - (income redistribution from the producers/creators of wealth to those who are incapable of production or simply choose to live as social parasites).

As a result, we have two classes of "welfare" in America: one for those people who are so impaired they are unable to work (legitimate welfare), and a second class of welfare recipients who could work (produce real products) in the free market, but instead, choose to work for government.

FULL EMPLOYMENT
On a hunch, I recently called the freedomry to ask what percentage of Americans were employed in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990. I assumed the percentage of employed Americans would be fairly steady over the four decades. I was wrong. Instead, the percentage of employed Americans has risen steadily (about 5% per decade) from 30% of the total population in 1950 to roughly 50% today.

Ironically, in 1950, when 30% of us worked, we were the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth - yet today, when 50% of us work, we are clearly in economic decline. This suggests our standard of living is not directly proportional to either the number of jobs in this country nor to the percentage of Americans who are employed. If that's true, then "jobs" are not the panacea politicians would have us believe.

If it's hard to believe that more "jobs" won't bring more prosperity, you need only extend the government's plan to create more jobs to its theoretical limit: 100% employment. Under 100% full-employment, every man, woman and child would have a job. That's impossible, of course, but there are examples of near-100% employment:

Ever been to Mexico? Ever seen those little kids selling "Cheeklets" chewing gum on the street corners? I have. Four and five year old kids, begging, hustling, shining shoes, anything to survive. Look further in third world countries, and you'll see children poking through the smoking junk yards for bits of metal, or working as rag pickers, thieves, prostitutes, and worse. That's full employment, folks, and it's not only absolute evidence of a collapsed economy, it's evidence of the false promise underlying our government's pledge to "create more jobs."

I'll tell you some other places they had full, 100% employment - slave labor camps of Nazi Germany (and later in the Soviet Union, and increasingly, in American prisons). And what did the Nazis tell the Jewish prisoners? "Work Is Freedom!"

That was a lie. Freedom is freedom. Work is merely work (and sometimes slavery). The Nazis simply worked the Jews till they dropped, and then shot them or gassed them and buried them in the trash like you and I might junk a busted, worn-out lawnmower.

The Nazis lied to the Jews, and our government is lying to us. The "creation of more jobs" is clearly not the key to economic prosperity. In fact, judging from the simultaneous rise in jobs and the fall in our standard of living, it's arguable that the "creation of more jobs" at least signals (but may even cause) economic decline.

However, so far as I can see, the creation of more "jobs" is not directly relevant to our economic prosperity.

What is directly relevant?

Disposable income - or in more common, less precise terms: take-home pay. The key issue is not how many of us have jobs or how long we work - the issue is how much of the money we earn do we get to keep and spend for ourselves?

THE COST OF GOVERNMENT
What's the single biggest consumer of your take-home pay? Rent? Food? Automobile payments? Entertainment?

Nope, it's taxes (i.e., government).

It's estimated that by the time we pay our income tax, sales tax, excise tax, property tax, luxury tax, and all the "hidden" taxes that are built into the cost of virtually every product and service we buy, about half of our earnings go to support government. Therefore, government is the single largest expenditure in your budget. You spend more on government than you do on shelter (rent or mortgage payments), food, or even your own children.

But it hasn't always been that way.

In the early 1950s, the total cost of American government (local, state, and federal) was about 5% of the Gross National Product (GNP). Today, just forty years later, the total cost of government is nearly 50% of the GNP.

It's an oversimplification, but consider this: Saying 5% of the 1950 GNP was consumed by government is pretty much the same as saying the government took 5 cents out of every dollar the average worker earned. Similarly, if the government consumes about half of the GNP today, it's also consuming about half of your real earnings, thereby reducing your take-home pay and your standard of living by half: In other words, since 1950, our take-home pay has been cut from 95% of your earnings to 50% in order to support government. That's almost half.

Remember this article's theme? "How many problems do you have that you couldn't solve all by yourself - without the help of government - if your take-home pay was doubled?" Consider the converse: How many more problems would you have if your take-home pay was cut in half?

Well, since 1950, your take-home pay has been cut in half (nearly), and since 1950 the number of your seemingly insurmountable problems (can you afford health insurance? your own home? college for your kids?) have likewise ballooned. And who cut your take-home pay in half?

Government - the very same government on which you have become increasingly dependent.

Is the correlation between the growth of government and the growth of your personal problems merely coincidental?

Not a chance.

HUMAN COSTS
The understanding that government produces nothing but takes half the money you earn may be troubling. But there's also a "human" cost behind the taxes you pay that can be glimpsed in a comparison:

When I was a little boy back in 1950, government consumed about 5% of the gross national product. That means government took only 5 cents out of every dollar my dad earned. Because my dad got to keep 95% of whatever he earned, he was able to build a house, and support our family with enough money for my mother to stay home and raise me and my sister.

Today, however, a young man gets to keep only half of his earnings. So can he buy a new house? Can he afford to leave his wife at home to raise the kids? Can he even afford children? For the average man, the answer is No.

What's that mean?

It means a lot. For example, it means that to raise a family in 1993 America, wives don't merely get to work, wives got to work. Unlike my dad (who got to keep 95% of his earnings in 1950), today's young husband must put his wife to work so his 50% take-home pay and her 50% take-home pay combine to roughly equal my dad's 95% take-home pay in 1950. In essence, it takes two workers in 1993 to generate the same apparent standard of living that one worker (my dad) made in 1950. Why? Because government's taking half.

So when government grows from 5% to 50% of the GNP, who pays the bill? Who pays the extra 5%? Who's paying to "keep the world safe for democracy'' and protect Bosnia and Somalia and all the rest of the foreign nations that would cheerfully slit our throats if they had the chance?

Dads pay. Today's young fathers can't earn enough to support their families like their fathers did. Think that doesn't eat at a man? Think a young man can maintain a sense of self-esteem when faced with the fact that he can't support his family as well as he was supported by his father? Think that sense of personal inadequacy doesn't attack a man's self-esteem, drive him to drink, steal from his boss, or beat his wife and kids from time to time? I think it might.

Who else pays?

Moms. Is it only coincidental that government's grown tenfold at the same time our society's been indoctrinated with the worth and need for women to have "careers?" Is it just a coincidence that government promotes "women's rights" at the same time it subtly pressures women to work? Is it just coincidental that the same government that proudly advocates a woman's "right to work" also expects to take half of her earnings?

I don't think so.

Who else pays for government?

Traditional families. Experts agree that three-quarters of the divorces in this country are precipitated by "financial pressures." And who's creating those pressures in your life by taking the single biggest chunk out of your earnings? Government. So who's the single biggest cause of divorce? And who, incidentally, is advocating "new definitions" of "family" that include single-parent and homosexual-parent families? Who is trying to make the breakup of the traditional family unit seem acceptable? The same folks whose taxes are causing the breakup. Government. Big government.

Who else pays?

Children.

Raised in single parent families (a consequence of divorce, which is caused by financial stress, which is caused by high taxes and big government), or raised in "intact" families where mother is unavailable to care for the child because she has to work (to compensate for the 50% of dad's pay that goes to government), our children are being raised in day-care centers or as latchkey kids - and everyone knows that it's crippling them. So what's the real cause for juvenile delinquency and teenage gangs, promiscuity, illiteracy, drug use drive-by shootings, and rising teenage suicide rates? Too much TV? R-rated movies? Rock 'n roll? Reefer Madness?

Nope.

The fundamental problem is that our imperial government has so many important things to do in Bosnia and Somalia and Viet Nam, Africa, Asia, Europe, Mexico, and South America, that, well, they feel "duty bound" to squeeze every dime they can from the American people who earn the money and then give it away to someone who hasn't earned that money (often, not even an American).

Worse, studies indicate that for every tax dollar collected for some worthy American beneficiary (blacks, women, the poor, whoever) only 25 cents actually reaches the intended recipient - the other 75 cents are kept by government and government-approved "middlemen." As a result, our own children are increasingly deprived of not only material goods (20% of those living in poverty today are children), but also the personal care and civilizing effects of having mothers, fathers, and a stable family environment.

Is it surprising that the family unit is crumbling under the weight of big government? Is it surprising that our children are growing up like wild animals? How else could it be without the constant, civilizing presence of mothers to raise the children in their early years?

Healthy kids are "hand-crafted" through the intense personal attention of maternal care (motherhood). But the idea that mom can raise those kids all by herself is largely a myth. Although fathers may be so busy working outside the home that they're almost unseen by the child, traditional, stay-at-home motherhood and intensive child-care is dependent on the support of those "unseen" fathers. Thus, the maternal "myth" is built largely on the invisible foundation of fatherhood. But fatherhood, in turn, is dependent on the deeper, almost unsuspected foundation of maximized take-home pay.

Since no father can support his wife and kids if he can't keep the money he earns, healthy children are dependent on low taxes and small government. Healthy children can't coexist with big government. And no society can long withstand the assault of children who are sick, crippled, angry, or impaired.

Think not? Consider our black communities. Where is government "bigger" than in the black community? What cultural element of our society gets more government "support" (and is more government-dependent) than blacks? Except for American Indians, nobody. Welfare has all but replaced "daddy." And what's come of it? Both the black and Indian populations have been devastated. Women - the "government's poster-child" of the 1970s - have been treated to the "feminization of poverty." Children - the government's educational darlings since the Soviet Union orbited the first Sputnik in 1958 - have been rendered illiterate. To be targeted for government "support" is a virtual kiss-of-death.

In essence, when it comes to governments, the bigger they are, the harder we fall.

COUNTERPOINT
OK, government consumes half the money we earn, but so what? After all, our tax money is (mostly) spent to pay government employees' wages and to produce various goods and services which the free market might not produce on its own (Poseidon submarines and F-16 fighters). So what's the big deal? Most of the money comes back into the national economy, anyway, right? Government employees take their wages (our tax money) and buy new cars or homes or whatever, and that stimulates the economy, and that's good for everyone, right? Likewise, government also pays to build F-l 6 jets and atomic submarines, and all that money helps to maintain employment levels and generate jobs. Even the money the government sends to legitimate welfare recipients ultimately circulates back into the economy when they spend their welfare checks on rent, new TVs, whatever.

So what's the problem?

Here's the problem: Imagine you and I work on the General Motors assembly line, building Buicks for the free market. We both work hard and we both receive a fair wage for our efforts. We, and the other workers, managers and business owners of the free market, are the creators of wealth.

But what's "wealth?"

Money?

No. Imagine you're on a deserted desert isle with a trunk full of $100 bills, but no food, no water, no shelter, and no way to call the outside world for help. Are you wealthy? Clearly not. Money is merely a medium of exchange, but not real wealth. The term "wealth" identifies those commodities, products and services that are essential or desirable in the maintenance of our lives. Food. Shelter. Water. Clothes. Transportation. Medical care. Communications. These are some of the free market examples of "wealth." The more you have, the "wealthier" you are.

So back on the GM assembly line, you and I, blue collar workers, help build the cars. Further, we both want to buy new cars, and (as it should be since we help create them) we can both afford to buy a new Buick every few years.

But suppose I quit GM and go to work for the government as some sort of bureaucrat - a couple of interesting things begin to happen. Where you and I once both built new cars, both wanted new cars, and both could afford new cars, now I'm working for the government and only one of us (you) is making cars. While I'm shuffling papers in that air-conditioned government office, you're still down on the line, sweating, busting a knuckle from time to time, making cars. But even though I no longer make new cars, I still want one.

Does it take a Ph.D. in Economics to understand that if one of us quits making new cars, but both of us still want to buy new cars, that 1) the supply of cars will be reduced (one worker can't make as many cars as two); and 2) since both the GM worker and the government employee still want cars (demand is constant), the price of cars will increase?

Next point. Since I'm a new government employee, who do you suppose will pay my wages? Government? Well, yes, but where does government get the money? From taxing the American people including both GM and government employees. That's fair, since government employees pay taxes, too, right?

Nope ... not exactly.

Imagine, for a moment a world of government employees, where every one of us is out there shuffling papers for the President. What would we tax? Paper-shuffling? Trips to the water fountain? Sexual liaisons with our superiors or subordinates? The idea's a little fuzzy, but it seems to me that all taxes ultimately derive from the production or ownership of real property, goods, and services available on the free market.

Beginning to see my point?

Sure, government employees pay taxes, but what is that really but a tax on the tax money that was first derived from someone who produced a real product in the free market? Taxes are always ultimately imposed on wealth. But government produces no wealth, no products, no services for the free market and therefore can't truly be "taxed."

So, since I quit building cars for GM (but you stayed on), who do you suppose will ultimately pay my wages?

Let's see - who's still producing real wealth ...? You are. You, the one remaining creator/producer of wealth (cars) are the only one who can really pay any taxes, so one way or another, you are going to pay my wages (either in the form of higher taxes on your income or higher taxes on the cars you produce). Therefore, one way or another, government is going to raise your taxes (or lower your standard of living) so they can hire me.

What's that mean? It means you, the creator of wealth, will have less disposable income. It means that you, the creator of cars will have less take-home pay and therefore be less able to buy the very car you are producing. Why? So you can support government employees (who are only the consumers of wealth, never the creators) in the style to which they've become accustomed.

Think about it. When I quit GM to work for the government, the supply of cars decreased (only you remained to build 'em), the demand for cars remained constant (we both want new cars), and so the price of cars increased. Then, because my wages must be extracted from some real product, your taxes were increased to support me, which left you with less take-home pay to spend.

[Does the government "compensate" for high taxes and "conceal" the consequent increase in product costs by opening the nation to cheap imported products? Could it be that rising taxes in the 1960s and 1970s meant we couldn't afford to buy a Buick, so government "pacified" the public's demand for cars by allowing the importation of cheap Volkswagens and Hondas produced in low wage or low tax countries? Of course, by the 1990s, the foreign imports have not only gained market share, raised their prices, and become almost as unaffordable as domestic cars - they have even sucked American car manufacturing jobs out of Detroit and relocated them overseas. Which means that the workers on GM's Buick assembly line may not only be over-taxed, they may now be unemployed and almost as "disposable" as the Jews who once worked the Nazi slave labor camps. Why? To support big government.

Likewise, while the added burden of government taxes makes foreign imports attractive, those same government costs also make American exports over-priced, which leads to higher unemployment or lower wages for American workers.

What's next? Put the former creator of automobiles on welfare and raise taxes on the remaining producers/creators of wealth to pay the bill? The spiral goes on.]

In other words, by quitting GM and the free market to work for government, I caused the price of cars to go up, and the take-home pay for the GM workers to decline. Result? You, the producer of cars, will be increasingly unable to afford to buy one. (In fact, after a while, as a government employee, I'll be able to afford a new car, but you, the real creator/producer of new cars, won't.)

Where's the justice in that? How is it that one class of people who create cars (or food or homes), can't afford them, while another class who create nothing, can? Sounds a lot like slavery, doesn't it?

Of course, my examples and arguments are over-simplified. Government doesn't represent half the American work force - only about 20%. Also, some government "services" do have a legitimate (though overpriced) "value" on the free market. But the point of my example and argument remains: Although government produces no real wealth, it still demands the right to consume virtually anything, even everything. And to satisfy the government's appetites, the real producers/creators of wealth (the free market workers, managers, and owners) are impoverished to the point of economic slavery.

THE FINAL SOLUTION
How does government ease the burden of this economic slavery? By making us more free? Or by trying to "enslave" more of us so the tax burden can be somewhat "diluted" among larger and larger numbers of Americans?

Government chooses the latter and tries to create even more (government) "jobs," so more of us can share the load. And how will they create more jobs? By raising taxes on the productive elements of society and then hiring more government employees who produce nothing.

But tax increases (and consequent reductions in take-home pay) have already caused traditional families to disintegrate, and crippled the blacks, women, children, men, and our society. Yet now, in the name of helping the very victims it's created, government proposes to raise taxes yet again! And how will government conceal and disburse the burden of those additional taxes? By creating more "jobs," by getting more of us to work in order to compensate for diminishing take-home pay? And why? So we can support ourselves and our families? No. So we can support big government. Government "jobs" won't save the economy - they'll only make things worse.

So what needs to be done?

As usual, the first step is diagnosis. Once you cut through all the economic jabbering about inflation, deflation, "M-1 money supplies," and "seasonally adjusted unemployment rates," you can begin to see the fundamental problem is not a national need to "create more jobs." Do you want to work more? Do you want two jobs instead of one? Do you want mothers and kids to work, too? Of course not. We don't need more jobs - we need more take-home pay it's that simple.

So figure out what's taking the biggest bite out of your earnings, and cut that cost. What's your biggest cost? Government. Want to increase your standard of living? Cut government and increase your take-home pay.

Of course, my solution is easy to say, but hard to do. Still, consider: if today's government was cut back to a size proportional to that of 1950 (about 5% of the GNP), your take-home pay would nearly double. You wouldn't need to ask your boss for a nickel-an-hour raise, you wouldn't need to work one extra hour per week. Same work, same pay, but your real take-home pay would nearly double.

Your standard of living would double. My standard of living would double. Our nation's standard of living would double. Your children could get a shot at the American Dream. And all we've got to do is cut government back to a size proportional to what it was in 1950.

It's us against them, folks. It's an adversarial relationship: Producers vs. consumers; creators vs. parasites; the free market vs. the government.

Remember the theme of this article? "How many problems do you have that you couldn't solve all by yourself if your take-home pay was doubled?" Want to live the good life? Don't vote for another politician who'll raise taxes or provide one more spending program. Want to live the American Dream? All you've gotta do is "wake up" from the American Nightmare of BIG government.

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