As the DOGE revelations continue to emerge\u2014revealing everything from the hilarious to the outrageous projects that Americans have been forced to fund\u2014we should not be surprised by the shrieking of the political caste, the castes who benefit from it, or the rare true believer who receives none of this money, is angry at the exposure of this spending, and believes it is necessary and just. Predictably, the true needy are put forward as \u201cshields<\/a>\u201d for the system and, unsurprisingly, the political caste will not allow the grift to go without a fight, as Tho Bishop\u00a0explains<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026the billions spent on USAID money is a network of administrators, directors, and consultants who have been able to create lucrative lives for themselves by embedding themselves into a network of patronage entirely reliant upon the regime\u2019s plunder of the public.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In such times, we should be reminded and remind others of the coherence of libertarian caste analysis. While the political caste, its beneficiaries, and\u00a0others<\/a>\u00a0benefit from the concept of \u201cclass struggle\u201d\u2014in which groups of people are supposed to exist within inherently conflictual, unfixable relationships because of their belonging to several intersecting groups that\u00a0possess or lack privilege\/power<\/a>, where every difference or disparity conveniently necessitates state intervention\u2014we should pursue a superior alternative.<\/p> The\u00a0coherent concept<\/a>\u00a0of \u201cclass\u201d is rather\u00a0caste analysis<\/em>. Exploitation takes place when an individual or group\u2014by coercion or threat\u2014unjustly expropriates the production of another person or group for the expropriator\u2019s benefit, especially when achieved through the legal apparatus (instead of being justly illegal). Exploitation can take place between individuals and groups, but a caste is created through state legal power. A\u00a0caste<\/a>\u00a0is created when a class-group is \u201cprivileged or burdened by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Libertarianism has a\u00a0rich tradition of class-caste analysis<\/a>. Mises\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0one of Marx\u2019s main errors was that he \u201c[confused] the notion of caste and class.\u201d In fact, Marx borrowed from libertarian caste analysis, but then\u00a0substituted<\/a>\u00a0his own meaningless concept of \u201cclass.\u201d Ralph Raico\u00a0summarized<\/a>\u00a0the classical liberal\/libertarian caste theory: \u201cThe history of all hitherto existing society is the history of struggles between the plundering and the producing classes.\u201d Again, Mises\u00a0asserted<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cevery kind of special privilege for particular groups and classes of the population is detrimental to the common good and must be eliminated.\u201d David Gordon likewise\u00a0argues<\/a>\u00a0the importance of \u201cclass conflict\u201d (rightly defined) in history,<\/p>\n\n\n\n It remain [sic<\/em>] true, nevertheless, that class conflict is a fundamental motor of history. Marx and Engels were not altogether wrong when in the Manifesto they said, \u201cThe history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.\u201d But the conflict lies not among conflicting groups in the free market but rather between producers and those who seize their wealth, principally through statist predation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n One of the most evident\u2014though not only\u2014ways to determine the societal castes is the net transfer of revenue or production between groups achieved via the state. On net, who\u00a0pays<\/em>\u00a0the taxes and who\u00a0consumes<\/em>\u00a0the taxes? Those are the true castes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n John C. Calhoun<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This reality was noted in\u00a0A Disquisition on Government<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by John C. Calhoun, whom Rothbard also\u00a0referenced<\/a>\u00a0on this matter. (Though Calhoun is not technically in the camp of classical liberalism, his analysis on this point is similar to the classical liberal critique.) He observed that the political elites and bureaucrats are the main consumers of taxation, but rarely does government just transfer wealth to itself through taxation, it\u00a0taxes<\/em>,\u00a0keeps<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0consumes<\/em>\u00a0some, and\u00a0disburses<\/em>\u00a0to others<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Calhoun\u00a0observes<\/a>\u00a0further, \u201cWhat the one takes from the community, under the name of taxes, is transferred to the portion of the community who are the recipients,\u2026\u201d It would be impossible and senseless for taxes taken to be equally disbursed to the entire community, therefore, government must necessarily take taxes\u00a0from people<\/em>\u00a0and transfer them, on net,\u00a0to others<\/em>. On net, some necessarily pay more than they receive and some receive more than they pay.\u00a0These<\/a>\u00a0are the castes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the community into two great classes: one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes and, of course, bear exclusively the burthen of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax- consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the effect of this is to place them in antagonistic relations in reference to the fiscal action of the government\u2026. For the greater the taxes and disbursements, the greater the gain of the one and the loss of the other,\u2014and\u00a0vice versa<\/em>\u2026.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Frederic Bastiat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Frederic Bastiat also\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0that, rather than naked theft and plunder\u2014which the current recipients of state patronage\u00a0don\u2019t have the boldness to commit themselves<\/a>\u2014the state apparatus is put into the \u201cservice of the plunderer, and treats the plundered party, when he defends himself, as the criminal.\u201d How do we distinguish cases of caste exploitation or plunder?\u00a0According<\/a>\u00a0to Bastiat, this is easy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n See whether the law takes from some persons that which belongs to them, to give to others what does not belong to them. See whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen, and, to the injury of others, an act that this citizen cannot perform without committing a crime.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n He\u00a0warns<\/a>\u00a0us that when such funding is removed from a beneficiary that they are prone to \u201cexclaim loudly\u201d or defend the legitimacy of such patronage (see X, government workers, bureaucrats, and recipients, and the legacy media),\u00a0so<\/a>, \u201cTake care not to listen to this sophistry\u2026\u201d Such special pleading led to the\u00a0delusion of the day<\/a>: \u201cto enrich all classes at the expense of each other;\u2026to generalize plunder under pretense of organizing it.\u201d Bastiat\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0the state \u201cthe great fictitious entity\u201d by which everyone tries to use plunder to live at the expense of everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Murray Rothbard<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rothbard, working from previous thought,\u00a0asks<\/a>, \u201cWho benefits from taxation? It is clear that the primary beneficiaries are those who live full-time off the proceeds, e.g., the politicians and the bureaucracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also clarifies that bureaucrats\u2014while they may write a check to the IRS and pay income taxes\u2014actually, on net,\u00a0pay no taxes<\/em><\/a>. He\u00a0continues<\/a>, \u201cAdditional beneficiaries of government revenue are those in society subsidized by the government; these are the part-time rulers.\u201d This includes not only political elites who receive a paycheck, but others who receive money\u2014or in-kind transfers or favorable regulation\u2014from the state:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026the State\u00a0must<\/em>\u00a0separate society into two classes, or castes: the\u00a0taxpaying caste<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0tax-consuming caste<\/em>. The tax consumers consist of the full-time bureaucracy and politicians in power, as well as the groups which receive net subsidies, i.e., which receive more from the government than they pay to the government. (Rothbard,\u00a0Power and Market<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n While claiming to protect us from \u201cclass conflict,\u201d the government is the creator and driver of caste conflict. In fact,\u00a0they are the largest, most privileged caste<\/em>. State elites have the unique privilege of being the legal takers, rearrangers, and \u201cgivers.\u201d Additionally, while doing this, they somehow gain the reputation of the neutral, even virtuous, creator-rearranger of resources. They may also use the proceeds of their plunder to \u201cbuy\u201d allies who will support the system because the government \u201cgives them\u201d all kinds of benefits. In short, they offer to give what they do rightly possess in exchange for power. Rothbard\u00a0explains<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where government intervenes\u2026caste<\/em>\u00a0conflict is thereby created,\u00a0for one man benefits at the expense of another<\/em>. This is most clearly seen in the case of government transfer subsidies paid from tax or inflation funds\u2014an obvious taking from Peter to give to Paul. Let the subsidy method become general, then, and everyone will rush to gain control of the government. Production will be more and more neglected, as people divert their energies to the political struggles, to the scramble for loot. It is obvious that production and general living standards are lowered in two ways: (1) by the diversion of energy from production to politics, and (2) by the fact that the government inevitably burdens the producers with the incubus of an inefficient, privileged group\u2026. Those who succeed on the free market, in economic life, will therefore be those most adept at production and at serving their fellowmen; those who succeed in the political struggle will be those most adept at employing coercion and winning favors from wielders of coercion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n
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The Tax-Paying Caste versus the Tax-Consuming Caste<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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