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Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind... Romans 12:2

Organized Crime

by Ken Ewert

There is a current trend so noticeable that even the media have picked up on it: in the 1990's, people just love to hate their politicians. At the moment, the British Conservative government is in serious trouble, Bill Clinton's popularity is slip-sliding away, and Canadians are trying to decide which bunch of rascals they will elect and despise for the next five years.

Canada's recent referendum was telling indeed. Despite the pleas of all the major political parties to pass the accord (which would have constitutionalized special rights for everybody and his dog) Canadians soundly rejected it. People are just plain "fed up" with their politicians. They are not merely upset with the current government's broken promises, foolish policies, or seamy scandals. The animosity runs much deeper. They have simply lost respect for their civil rulers.

This is nothing new. What is happening today in Canada has happened in every country which has disobeyed God's laws and turned to its civil rulers for solutions.

Historically, the story has gone something like this: Having been born lazy brutes, many people prefer to make money the old fashioned way - that is, they like to steal it. This is because theft seems easier than the alternative: a four-letter word called work. Individual theft, however, tends not to be very popular. It is generally looked down upon and punished. How can we steal without getting punished? This is the age old question.

Since sin is ever resourceful, people often come up with the idea of making a deal with the civil ruler. We'll give him our support and power - the reasoning goes - and he in turn can use his power to get us some goodies. We'll trade political support for the use of the civil "sword." So they lobby the ruler who, all too often, is happy to accommodate them. He finds that the more privileges he gives to a group, the more support he can buy. Consequently laws are passed. All ostensibly for the public's safety, protection, and well-being, of course. But not surprisingly, these laws protect the well-being of some folks better than others.

This process is time-honoured if nothing else. In ancient Rome a politician named Clodius won the office of tribune on a "free wheat for the masses" platform. (Does this sound familiar?) Other leaders took note and by 48 B.C. there were 320,000 persons on government grain relief in Rome. What a great deal! People bought grain with their votes, and politicians bought votes with their grain. Everybody was happy! Well...almost everybody. Actually the grain first had to be taken from other people; these people were not happy. Reality being what it is, governments can only spend money they first take from people: a niggly little detail to most politicians. As Ronald Reagan once noted: some people say that the government spends money like a bunch of drunken sailors. that isn 't fair. At least the drunken sailors spend their own money.

As long as the people who get the wheat can "out-vote" or "out-bribe" the people who give up the wheat, the process continues. Other groups take note and they too join the fray. An obscure nineteenth century political economist named Frederic Bastiat had a name for this political game. He called it "legal plunder." Legal plunder, Bastiat said, was when "the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong." Bastiat said, "see if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime," if it does, this is legal plunder.

Over the centuries, legal plunder has been refined. In eighteenth century Europe the blacksmith and the merchant practiced legal plunder by gaining state-issued licenses and charters which gave them special rights to ply their trade or sell their wares without competition from others. The result: some folks got richer, others were kept poorer.

In modern societies such as ours, the legal plunder process has become quite sophisticated, so much so that we don't always recognize it. Yes, we have the equivalent of "free wheat for the masses" in the form of our various social ("socialist") programs. And we also have special licenses which allow groups like doctors or lawyers, plumbers or electricians, to charge more than they otherwise could without government support. Beyond that, we also have legislation which gives special privileges to labour unions; laws called tariffs which give special privileges to some manufacturers; and organizations called marketing boards which allow some farmers to charge more than the market price for their produce. (Yes - that's why your chicken dinner is so expensive!)

Other groups such as native Indians, feminists, and homosexuals have also made effective use of the civil sword - in the form of "civil liberties" - which ultimately results in their economic gain. The list of plunderers could go on and on.

All of this amounts to one group taking wealth from another, and all of it is a violation of God's command, "You shall not steal." The fact that such theft is accomplished through the political process is irrelevant. The law of God, as Gary North points out, does not say "Thou shall not steal, except by majority vote." Democracy cannot legitimize the state doing things that would be immoral for the individual to do.

Modern democracy, as Joseph Sobran notes, "has increasingly become a public competition for what was formerly private money." Herein lies a major reason for people 's contempt for politicians. As our country devolves into a complex web of different groups fighting for the privilege of plunder, the immorality of the whole process is laid bare for all to see. Government comes to be perceived, as H.L. Mencken wrote, as "a broker in pillage" and every election "a sort of advance sale of stolen goods." Legal plunder is truly organized crime.

Frederic Bastiat could have been describing 1990's Canada when he penned these words 140 years ago:

Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encourage-ment, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few - whether farmers, manufactur-ers, shipowners, artists, or comedians. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so .... As long as ... the law may be diverted from its true purpose ... then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder .... this odious perversion of the law ... tends to destroy society itself ... 1

Civil government is ordained of God, and it is to be respected and honoured as His minister. As Christians, we cannot join with the world in despising God's servant, the civil ruler. We can and should, however, recognize the source of the popular cynicism. In principle, political theft is little different from a subway mugging. Dressed in blue jeans or a three piece suit makes little difference; it's always hard to respect a thief.

The modern disrespect towards government, while unfortunate, is not undeserved. The word "politics," it has been said, comes from two words: the first is "poly" meaning many, and the second is "tics" meaning blood-sucking little creatures. Many Canadians are coming to hold this view of civil governments.

This, however, is to mistake the symptom for the cause. The true problem is not the politicians (mind you, they don't help) but rather the many people who see nothing wrong with using government for their own gain. It is the many individual Canadians who have turned to political theft to replace honest work. The result of this organized crime is a larger, more powerful government. For, as the writer of Proverbs said, "When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers" (Prov 28:2). Taxes rise, regulation proliferates, and people's productivity declines since the return from honest labour becomes less profitable. The curse of poverty slowly descends upon the nation. This is surely what we are seeing today. God destroys that which violates His laws and by doing so He teaches men to fear Him. He is in the process of destroying our system of political plunder.

The solution to our problem won't come from a change in Ottawa or the Provincial capital.it won 't come from some new political party, or some bold new leader. The answer lies in the change of a different, much more local realm of government: a change in the individual heart.

Footnotes:
1. Frederic Bastiat, The Law (New York: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1950).

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