A Warning to Those Who Want to See a Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump Elected

By Robert Wenzel

I have seen some readers here and at EPJ commenting that they would like to see the socialist Bernie Sanders, or perhaps the micro-manager interventionist Donald Trump, elected as president. The comments are made based on the idea that collapse would come quickly under these individuals and from the ashes a libertarian society would emerge.

But this is dangerous thinking. More often than not, a collapsing economy/society leads to greater totalitarianism. No springs of libertarian policy, for example, have developed as a result of the Arab Spring, though rulers have been forced from power in  Tunisia, Egypt, Libya,and Yemen. Either greater turmoil or more oppressive regimes have emerged.

And never forget that the collapse of the German economy via hyperinflation led to Adolf Hitler gaining power.

The History Learning site notes:

The group that suffered a great deal – proportional to their income – was the middle class. Their hard earned savings disappeared overnight. They did not have the wealth or land to fall back on as the rich had. Many middle class families had to sell family heirlooms to survive. It is not surprising that many of those middle class who suffered in 1923, were to turn to Hitler and the Nazi Party. 

It was economic collapse that led to the rise of Lenin in Russia, The Bolshevik slogans "Bread, Land and Peace" and "All Power to the Soviets" sum up the way Lenin was able to gain power. The cities were starving because of inflation and price controls. Further, the peasants were  required to fight in the war and could not plow, sow or harvest crops. And the food delivery infrastructure had broken down.

You are playing with fire when economic collapse occurs. At the time of such collapse, the masses will often turn to a "can do" leader, who, of course, considers "keeping everyone in line" as part of his "can do" mandate.

The last thing we need is collapse and such an oppressive leader emerging.

The only real long-term approach to liberty is to get the masses to understand on a basic level that liberty is best for them. This is a very long-term project, not something that is going to occur just because of an economic collapse.

The best thing one can hope for in the current environment is a leader that maintains some type of stability in the economy and society but who attempts to apply some oppressive measures that are easily detected and recognized as such by the masses.

The American Revolution came about because the colonists recognized the oppression of the Stamp Act and the tariffs of the  Townshend Acts. These acts were eventually repealed by the Parliament of Great Britain because of the outcry in the colonies, but the acts themselves resulted in the colonists getting riled up. The so-called Tea Tax revolution was a much more complex issue. It basically was launched because England suddenly allowed for the hated  East India Company to sail directly from East India to the colonies with tea, without a stop in Britain. This allowed the East India Company to compete price-wise against, the colony smugglers of Dutch tea. Thus, this latter uproar was not exactly a libertarian event. It was complicated, as they say.

But note well: All three of these actions were specific oppressive acts by King George in a generally stable environment. The colonists were not looking for a new solution to a collapsing situation. They were looking for less government oppression (at least oppression from King George.) And then there were libertarian writers such as Thomas Paine to feed the idea of liberty to the masses who were fed up with the new oppressions.

From a long-term perspective, ideally, a Ron Paul presidential candidate would be great in educating the masses about freedom. But he is not running, His son, Rand Paul is too mushy on liberty, He admits this himself when he calls himself "libertarianish."  He in fact is an anti-liberty education. The danger is that many will view him as libertarian when he is not. He brings confusion to libertarian principles. He is more interested in power than educating about liberty. He, thus, is willing to sellout on libertarian principle on almost any issue  to get to the 8-year throne.

The best a libertarian can do at this time is use Rand statements as an object lesson, when speaking to non-libertarians, by pointing out what liberty is really about as opposed to Rand's muddled comments

As far as the presidential candidate, in the current crowd, that would be most like King George, where the masses would not like the dictates, and the oppressions could be clear enough to possibly cause the masses to want less government, it is my gal the justifiably hated Hillary Clinton. A dangerous collapse of some sort could occur  under her watch because of Federal Reserve money manipulations, as it could under any of the candidates, but it would be a much more dangerous situation under Sanders (and possibly Trump, though he is more of an unknown quantity).

Bottom line: There is little hope for the near future. A lot more ground work is needed with the masses. I'm talking a lot.  But we don't want some kind of leader who will create even greater collapse than what we are already facing. There is no way to know what would emerge out of a great collapse, but most likely it would not be good.

If we can't get a clear libertarian candidate,we need a candidate that can be easily hated, will maintain relative stability, but who could attempt to oppress in a manner that the masses would recognize as oppression and cause them in knee-jerk fashion to begin to want less government.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher at EconomicPolicyJournal.com and at Target Liberty. He is also author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics