It walks and talks like a government; It quacks like a government; it has a flag and an anthem and all the other trappings of a state. It even dresses like a government... But it isn't really a government.
Back in 1986 Ronald Reagan delivered a memorable line, declaring that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.” As true as this phrase is, I'd like to propose an amendment for the sake of clarity. The most terrifying words are actually: “I'm from the government, and we need more money.”
These words, or words very much like them, are in fact being uttered by people in very powerful positions these days, and we would do well to take note of them. Take the latest op-ed from German Finance Minister and perennial political insider, Wolfgang Schäuble: ”Why Taxation Must Go Global.” This phrase should be enough to send shivers down anyone's spine, but most people will read a headline like that and merely nod in agreement or shrug their shoulders in indifference.
In order to understand why this is, we have to understand how the words “government” and “taxation” have been carefully crafted to keep people from seeing the truth of how they are being ruled. If they were called openly for what they are—that is, “mafia” and “extortion”—who would go along with them? Centuries of brainwashing have served to obscure this point from much of the public, but here's a handy-dandy rule of thumb: if someone is demanding money from you on penalty of captivity or even death, then they're a mafia stooge. But if they're demanding money from you under threat of captivity or even death and at the same time claiming to be a “public servant” then they're a government tax collector. It's all in the wording.
But there's an interesting corollary to this: a “government” is not really a government unless it can extract tributes from its citizens. Otherwise it's a toothless old monster living in the woods; no one believes in it, and those that do don't take it seriously.
Case in point: the United Nations. It walks and talks like a government; it has an assembly where (unelected) representatives go to strut and bloviate and make grand political speeches. It quacks like a government; it has a flag and an anthem and all the other trappings of a state. It even dresses like a government; it convenes in ornate assembly halls and presides over a massive, bloated bureaucracy that, like all governments, is guilty not just of sins of omission but sins of commission. But it isn't really a government. Why? It can't force anyone to do what it wants and it certainly can't force anyone to give it money. And so no one takes it seriously on the world stage unless it is propagandistically advantageous to do so.
The financial elite at the top of the power pyramid have known all along that the power to levy a global tax (backed up with the power to enforce it) is the cornerstone to their dream of global government. Just like the institution of any other tax, it doesn't matter how inconsequential the tax is at first, it's merely the act of getting the foot in the door that's important. Just as the income tax was sold to the people of the US as a minor tax that would only effect the rich when it was first introduced in 1913, so too will the coming world tax be sold as a “public good” that few could disagree with.
There have already been a few attempts to institute just such a global tax. One of the ideas that has been bandied about repeatedly in the last several years is that of a global carbon tax. After decades of indoctrination, a large percentage of the western public is now prepared to believe that carbon dioxide is driving climate and that the world is going to end because of the (supposedly manmade) 0.6 degrees of warming that have been experienced in the past century and a half (give or take 0.3 degrees). As a result, large numbers of people can be convinced that the answer is to disincentivize civilization by taxing it out of existence. This is the essence of the “global carbon tax” proposal that has been pushed by (amongst others) Ralph Nader in the Wall Street Journal in a 2008 op-ed titled “We Need A Global Carbon Tax” and Suresh Naidu in Jacobin Mag in a 2014 op-ed imaginatively entitled “We Need A Global Carbon Tax.” Thankfully this talk has failed to evolve into anything concrete on the political level, with Climategate seemingly having permanently derailed the idea at the 2009 IPCC conference in Copenhagen. Even limp-wristed measures like the EU's proposed carbon tax on international airliners have failed to get off the ground and with environmental issues continuing to languish near the bottom of most voters' priority lists, the momentum to push a global carbon tax through is completely missing at this point.
Another idea for such a popular global tax is the “Tobin Tax” or so-called “Robin Hood” tax. This is the idea of levying a fee on financial transactions, including sales and purchases of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures, and other instruments. Even a tiny tax of 0.05% per transaction would be enough to make large amounts of money while discouraging high volume trading and rampant speculation. Meanwhile the average mom and pop investor would hardly even notice it was there. What could go wrong? Well, as we pointed out in these very pages last January, a lot could go wrong, but the point for today's purposes is that nothing has resulted from all this talk yet.
As the globalists are discovering, even the heavily propagandized public have trouble getting behind world taxation. It's unlikely there will ever be a cause popular enough to get people to sign up for a global tax by the UN. But what if it wasn't a “global tax” but a “local tax” coordinated at the global level. Would the public do anything about it? Could they do so even if they wanted to? We might be about to find out, as this may be happening under our noses.
As we discussed several weeks ago, treaties and trade deals are another vital building block of world government. They have the power to undermine national sovereignty and even alter the constitution of a country, and they are generally worked out in closed door, secret meetings by the people's so-called “representatives” in consultation with other power elites from other nations. Just as they can be used to change a country's laws, rules and regulations, so, too, can they be used to levy taxes on people around the world.
Such is the case with a closed-door negotiation that took place between members of the World Health Organization in Moscow last month. The meeting was so secretive that the press (including a reporter for the Washington Times) was physically kicked out of the room where deliberations were taking place. Their secret agenda? To implement a 70 percent excise tax on tobacco, a tax that is going to be levied by all of the signatories to a UN anti-tobacco agreement. The tax when implemented will raise the average global price of cigarettes by 107%.
If this goes ahead as intended, it a worrying incident. It creates the precedent for any class of consumer products to be similarly subjected to arbitrary tax “harmonization” that will target or even eliminate “undesirable” products from the marketplace altogether. When this is done to cigarettes, many will be in support of the measure. But what about when this is applied to other sectors of the economy, or even to taxation rates in general? As Lorenzo Montanari notes in a recent Forbes article: “In recent months Ireland has faced severe international pressure and criticism from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) over its pro-business policies, including its competitive 12.5 percent corporate tax rate. This is just another example of an international organization without any electoral mandate interfering and undermining national sovereignty and international competitiveness.”
The dream of creating a truly global government with the power to levy and enforce taxes is still some way off, but with the implementation of global excise taxes and the continuing push to “crack down on tax evaders” by harmonizing tax laws and sharing tax information among countries, the building blocks of this dream are being put into place. And for what aim? The creation of a happier, more prosperous, freer planet? Only if you believe someone from the government who claims to be here to help.