Recently, an intriguing longread was published on our channel by a user under the nickname “Sperry UNIVAC.” The author, who took a nickname in honor of the computer manufacturing company—which, by the way, lived for decades on fat government contracts and worked almost entirely for the military—suddenly decided to drop some “based” truths. But instead of being based, it turned out to be a typical justification of etatism with a light touch of Marxism. Sperry tries to sell us an idea as old as time: robbery is inevitable, the “social contract” is a blessing, and the private sector is just the same thing from a different angle; basically, you should be grateful that the state is simply shearing you rather than shooting you with machine guns. But let’s dismantle this heap of conceptual substitutions before it starts to smell.
Sperry claims that a corporation taking a portion of the profit “steals” from the worker in exactly the same way that the state takes taxes. “There isn’t much difference between state taxes and corporate levies,” he writes. But if we examine this issue more closely, we will realize that the difference between private companies and a stationary bandit is like the difference between consensual sex and rape.
In the first case (the market), you voluntarily sell your time and skills for an agreed sum. If you don’t like the terms, you stand up and leave. You look for another buyer for your labor or start your own business. In the second case (the state), guys with clubs come to you and say: “Give us 40% of what you’ve earned, and we might build you a road. Or a palace for our leader. Or bomb someone on the other side of the world. And if you don’t give it, we’ll put you in a cage.” Feel the nuance? In Sperry’s world, there is none. For him, the voluntary surrender of part of the profit in exchange for a guaranteed salary and the absence of risk is the same as the forced seizure of funds under threat of violence.
Next, Sperry scares us with horror stories about “wild capitalism,” the United Fruit Company, and the shooting of workers. He forgets (or intentionally omits) that the United Fruit Company and other “banana kings” did not exist in the vacuum of a free market. These were privileged monopolies fed by the state. Who gave them the land? Local governments. Who sent US Marines to suppress riots when local petty tyrants couldn’t handle it? The US government.
This is not a “free market”; this is crony capitalism in its purest form. When a corporation merges with state power, it gains access to “legalized” violence. Libertarians oppose any initiation of violence, whether by a private army or a state guard. But history shows that the most massive killings and the largest Gulags were always organized by states, not by chair manufacturers.
The passage about “corporate taxes” in the form of gyms and cookies deserves separate laughter. He claims that the corporation decides for you where to spend the profit—on your fitness or in your pocket—and that this is the same as state distribution. But a logical error is immediately apparent in such reasoning. This is called “competition for talent.” Conscious people choose an employer not only by the figure on the payroll but also by the conditions. Don’t like the fitness and want cash? Go where they pay more in cash. The market offers options. The state offers no options. You cannot tell the tax office: “Guys, I don’t need your free healthcare and police, give it back in money, I’ll buy services from private providers myself.”
Sperry leads us to the thought: “Everyone will always steal.” This is a philosophy of learned helplessness. “Relax and enjoy yourself while you are being raped with a velvet glove, otherwise they might use a gauntlet.” We, on the other hand, say that violence is not the norm and we propose solutions. Any taxes are robbery. Any regulations are a restriction of the freedom of conscious people. And the fact that the stationary bandit tries to buy our loyalty by throwing us bones from the master’s table in the form of “social welfare” (bought with our own money, but with a wild commission for bureaucrats) does not make him a benefactor.
