I was talking with a new friend today, and he commented something I hear often — “You should run for President.” Sometimes its “You should be in politics” or something like that.

I’m very convincing. I’d be a great informercial guy if I was more attractive on camera. I don’t think I’ve ever used my convincing talents in a bad way (no fraud, no trickery, although I did have a habit of stretch-the-truth lying on occasion to get my way before I found anarchocapitalist freedom).

I will never run for office. If people voted for me for any office, my first order of business would be to end my position by firing myself. Publicly. For incompetence.

Why wouldn’t I run as a libertarian? Because I would be corrupted. We all would. You could be Murray Rothbard himself, and politics is that corrupting.

Imagine winning any platform and wanting to downsize. Now imagine the lobbyists (or, on the local level, the cronies) offering you a million dollars just to vote for a small law that brought more money to your area — guaranteeing votes. It’ll cost the average citizen just 30 cents a year each. Who cares? I could be sudsizing local home equity loan mortgages, or helping the locals get cheap college educations. It doesn’t matter, I’d be doing it by forcing others elsewhere to give me their money, and my locals would be taking in money from 1 program while paying out fot others — thousands of others!

That 30 cents per citizen adds up to US$100 million. That’s a lot of money. It sounds like nothing until you realize that we have 10,000 mandates each extracting 30 cents a year from the average citizen. One more is no big deal, but it all adds up.

Power is so corrupting. I’ve taken advantage of it in my life, and I’ve promised to never put myself in that position again. I see why teachers are corrupted, why the girl at the DMV issuing licenses is corrupted, and why mayors and governors and senators are corrupted. It comes from power — legal power.

The power granted to you by providing a free market product or service can not be corrupted if you leave government out of the equation. If you stop providing the best service at the lowest price in the fastest fashion, your market disappears. Imagine if you had two competitive “police” stations in your town. You can choose which one you pay for. One of them spends your money radaring speeders and telling their insurance companies — the other spends your money patrolling your neighborhood constantly. Which would you pay?

My town has a private police force — its called old retired people walking their dogs. I live on a gigantic Cul de Sac — about 60 houses. There are no crimes on my street. Ever. Never once. Ever. Seriously. 2 miles away is the highest crime region of my county — about 600% higher crime than any suburb within a 20 mile radius. My town is safe because of private policing.

I couldn’t involve myself in politics because I am human. The desire to take advantage of a situation is why the free market is so powerful — both parties in any transaction try to take advantage. The parties that take advantage the least are the ones that last the longer. The parties that don’t take advantage go out of business. The parties that take too much advantage go out of business, too. The only success is from those willing to take advantage but not more than others or less than their costs.

Politics is not possible without complete corruption and fraud. You have so much money coming at you, and so much power to control those you don’t like, you’ll always be corrupted. Always.

When someone says “There should be a law!” about something, I reply “There should be a law, outlawing laws.”

In 2008 I’ll tell you who to vote for, straight ticket. Vote for yourself. 100% yourself. Every position. Vote for the only person who can make the right decision for you. That’s you.

This site is now part of the Global Unanimocracy Network.

I apologize for missing the weekend — my laptop went poof and I wasn’t able to get it all up and running again until this morning. Guess it is time for a backup plan.

The Houston Chronicle has an article on Wal-Mart and Capitalism. The author discusses the book The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman. Fishman, as the article author puts it, argues that Wal-Mart’s power and scale hurt capitalism by strangling competition.

I tend to disaree, and I’m a big supporter of Wal-Mart in many ways (although I don’t tend to shop there myself).

First, let’s look at how Wal-Mart is anti-capitalism:

1. If they use their power to keep a percentage of sales tax that they charge their customers.
2. If they use their power to modify zoning laws that other businesses can’t modify.
3. If they use their power to subsidize any product with tax dollars or penalize any products with government mandates.

Let’s look at how Wal-Mart is pro-capitalism:

1. When they lower prices through voluntary persuasion, which gives everyone more money in their pocket. For every US$10 you save on cheaper salmon, you have US$10 more to spend elsewhere.

2. When they offer a community a selection of products that they otherwise wouldn’t have had based on their other retailers.

3. When they offer a community a selection of less expensive products that they otherwise wouldn’t have had based on their other retailers.

Many opponents of Wal-Mart denounce the wages of the super retailer, but I was very surprised at what upper management can make at a store. In a store local to me, I couldn’t believe what some of the employees were taking home in benefits and salary. I think the wages that are being compared are likely for entry level workers, and if you can stick it out, your wages go up significantly from that point.

I’m not sure we can say that Wal-Mart is evil. What they are doing is bringing the latest products to the masses at a price the masses can afford. Sure it can hurt the specialty businesses, but so does the Internet — especially considering the sales tax penalty local businesses have to suffer through. I’m amazed at how many anti-Wal-Mart advocates openly embrace the Internet for retail purchases, considering the impact the dotcom retailers have on brick and mortar stores.

For me, I’d like to see more every-day items go down in price. The less I spend on toothpaste and toilet paper, the more I can spend on technology or even on paying my employees more competitively.

This site is now part of the Global Unanimocracy Network.