What’s a poor mobster to do? Over my lifetime, various forms of government have usurped one or another of the functions organized crime used to provide.
Numbers racket? Taken over by multi-state consortiums running nation-wide lotteries, and single-state simple lotteries.
Sports bookie? Through partnerships with the various states, you can now throw your money away on sports betting without having to worry about your legs being broken if you could not pay. You now only have to worry about paying your credit card bills which reflect the losses from sports gambling.
Gambling? The casinos in most states are partners in crime with the state government, resulting in favorable treatment for businesses whose business model relies upon separating its customers from their money.
Loan sharking? In many states you can use one of the legal services for a “payday loan”, or lend your car title to a business that can legally charge rates and fees originally reserved for the shady characters who frequented the alleys in cities.
Selling marijuana? In many states, that is now under the purview of the state, through licensing of the industry.
About all an honest mobster can do now is to import drugs other than marijuana, and facilitate prostitution. Of course, those activities are up for grabs as local governments keep searching for sources of revenue where those who are paying don’t object to their own debasement.
Two things are apparent when you look at the arc of history. One is that human nature has not changed much. It will always be profitable to prey on the need for fast money, money that is not earned through labor. More on that later. The second apparent thing is the need for escapism, either through chemical means, or through mass entertainment honoring humanity’s ability to inflict pain. See WWE and MMA for examples of those diversions.
Those who are on the side of the culture wars decrying man’s descent into debauchery see these growths in government activities as examples of what happened once we turned away from God. What they do not see is human nature, and how much of what we may decry actually hides the real villainy allowed by our legal structure. It is abundantly clear we have abandoned any pretense at honoring labor, since our taxation system is heavily weighted towards valuing capital over labor. Since the radical capitalists captured our legislative functions, the steady march towards giving capital a more favorable view than labor has been unimpeded since the beginning of the Reagan administration. Until now, that is. For the first time in a very long time, someone is proposing to reverse a few of the benefits of capitalism. And the wail from the capitalists is loud and long, as the specter of socialism is invoked on any proposed change favoring the working public.
Look, the Republican party laid their cards on the table when in 2020, they gave up any pretense at being a party of ideas. When things are going well for the money parties, it is not necessary to do anything but hold on to existing gains. Therefore, no party platform was proposed other than what Donald Trump wants. He is the flag-bearer for all of the cadres who wish to keep the favored position of capital. His overt fanaticism for one variant of patriotism, where he literally hugged the flag, hid his true agenda from view. That is, to ensure the continuation of the favored position of capital over labor.
So the ongoing culture wars really are a smoke screen aimed at diverting the attention of the voting public from the real agenda going on. If you get emotionally engaged at the threat of the “other”, you won’t care about the theft of the nation’s monies enabled by legislative action. One thing to consider though, is whether the animal spirits unleashed by the culture war engagements can be put back into the bottle. Witness the horrendous scenes where anti-maskers threaten those who have concern about conditions in schools. Witness the fanaticism unleashed on January 6, where even sober individuals who would not even consider breaching the capitol, were willing to follow and enter once the true believers broke through. Civilization has always had a thin veneer, and those who actively work to strip off this veneer for political and monetary gains must answer for these actions. They may not be able to stop the mob once they have unleashed it, and when that happens, the mob tends to strike back at those who enabled it.
Meanwhile, the real needs of people are still out there. Roads need to be paved, and sewage needs to be treated, and water needs to be delivered. Students must be educated, even though many in the privileged classes gave up long ago on public schools. These services, provided mainly at the local levels, have been hamstrung by limitations on taxation. The effects of Grover Norquist and his acolytes run deep within the legislative class. Therefore, if more revenue is needed, the government tends to coopt something originally considered to be a sin, and enable more revenue to be generated without raising the tax rates.
Are we better off to have the government as the one who skims off the top of the revenues we so willingly give away, as compared to organized crime? Probably we are. But that does not hide the unmistakable truth that government is promoting these activities now, all due to the prohibition against raising taxes. Maybe what we need to do is convert our income tax system into a lottery, where some people have their taxes forgiven, while a fortunate few receive refunds in multiples of the amount due. Perhaps we just are not looking at taxes in the right way, and we need to tap into the inherent greed of the American people and turn taxation into a glorified form of the lottery. We might be surprised at how much tax revenue would be released if that were to happen.
Even A Broken Clock 