4. LEGALIZED INFLATION: LEGISFLATION

For the problems of America, does it matter anymore who is elected to public office? Few candidates, if any, become problem- solving legislators; most become problem-causing "legisflators". The former means law-proposers; the latter implies law-inflators, or law- cheapeners or legalizers of inflation. Because modern politicians of all stripes pass inflationary laws, "legisflator" better suits their nature than legislator. The nature and breadth of legisflation indicates why the elections don't provide a productive choice anymore.

The accolade of legisflator is justified on several accounts. An imbalanced federal budget is a frequent explanation of inflationary suffering, that is, the Treasury Department prints too many T-bills. The failure to control the money supply is a second and less frequent complaint, and the money presses of the Federal Reserve are specifically blamed for this inflation. Who is behind the budget-deficits, and who is behind the charter of the Federal Reserve System? The legisflators are the culprits.

A more basic type of legisflation exists, however, which is the worst kind of legal inflation and which necessitates the first two kinds. When understood, this third type of legalized inflation reveals why a cessation of the T-bill presses and the money presses will not stop the rise of inflationary suffering. The worst legisflation comes from the special-interest press.

The special-interest press is the pressure upon the politicians to legalize someone receiving more wealth than he produces. Behind this more subtle and decisive form of legalized inflation is the classical definition of inflation:

an increase in the amount of money (buying power) without an increase in the production of goods and services.

Special-interest laws increase the buying power of someone without that someone having increased his production; the special someone has derived individual inflationary income through the law process. These special laws involve an enfranchisement of inflationary returns for a few. Legisflation is another example of capitalism* for a fewer few, for not everyone can get something for nothing through the law pro cess.

All too often, a few dollars placed in the hands or campaign chest of a politician will buy many dollars worth of tax-avoidance. For example, a $2,000 donation to the campaign of an unopposed Democrat (Dan Rostenkowski) apparently turned into a $350 million tax- exemption. The gist of ABSCAM was the peddling of influence to make big bucks by greasing the hands of some well-placed politicians. These examples reinforce the idea that most inflationary suffering comes throughout the law process: legalized inflation.

Through legisflation, the wealth of the special someone has inflationarily increased. On the other hand, the non-special someones suffer an inflationary loss of wealth. The legisflated wealth has to come from someone and somewhere; it comes from using the law process to disenfranchise others who are unspecial at the moment.

If a person non-productively increases one's wealth--by theft or law--one is a recipient of inflationary income. One is not a creator or producer of wealth. More specifically, if the wealth is derived from monopolizing the ear of a politician, one is a beneficiary of legisflated wealth. The oppressive, inflationary suffering that burdens the productive citizen is foremost a summation of the basic form of all legisflation: non-productive re-distribution of wealth. Every dollar of legisflated income is a dollar of legisflated suffering.

Recent elections have offered no inflationary relief for the producers of America. The eradication of legisflation requires a degree of democracy not found in the American selection, election and legislative process. Because of insufficient democracy, we may be lost for a more important reason than the legal disenfranchisement of wealth, that is, the effect of legisflation upon the people's faith and trust in rule by law.

Legisflation means more than legalized inflation: besides cheapening the value of currency, legisflation cheapens the value of the law process. The cheapening of law-making means a regression to where rules are made through violence rather than reason. Compared to violent resolution of disputes--in which both life and property are frequently wasted--appeal to reason and logic solves problems quicker with fewer losses all around. When issues are resolved by violence, factors irrelevant to the problem are used in determining the outcome, e.g., strength or guile rather than right and wrong. The violent and destructive nature of appeals to force usually results in the contestants suffering a backward regression in their standard of living in comparison to the potential to move forward through reason and logic. Of the two ways of settling disputes, one is consistently more productive than the other, namely, appeal to logic.

In legalizing inflationary income for a few, modern politicians have twisted the law process into its antithesis, that is, illogical decisions based on the irrelevant strength, not the correct truth. Legisflators--using lobbyists, public relations and different speeches for different audiences--have catalyzed a regression to the rule of the jungle where might-makes-right. Instead of proposing laws for new levels of wealth production, legisflators redistribute the dwindling wealth which wounds and regresses production. Simultaneously, legisflators cheapen the combined worth of the law-process, of the politicians and of human life.

The legisflators' parody of a logical law-process is the most destructive aspect of legisflation, much worse than the short-term theft of wealth from the productive citizens. Respect dies for the law-processes, law-makers and law-enforcers. Legisflation extinguishes the hopes of the inflation sufferers to use the law- process in correcting the injustices. Being the source of the suffering, the politically degraded law-process is written-off as a viable alternative. A return to violence is pursued as the only means to redress injustices.

Anymore, does it matter who is elected? Neither the conservatives nor the liberals, the Republicans and the Democrats, realize the primal cause of inflation, namely, the legalized inflation from the special-interest pressure behind their selection, election, and legislation. Stopping the money presses and balancing the federal budgets will not eliminate the bulk of legisflation.

By choice, the politicians have incompetently or corruptly initiated aggression to the rule of the jungle using modern innovations, e.g., telecommunications. Economic chaos emerges when politicians choose to legisflate an imbalanced relationship between the production and the ownership of wealth. Those less fortunate or less willing to monopolize the ears of the politicians end up using more primitive means in their battle to survive from necessity. In the end, no one beats inflation, not even the legisflators behind it.

Warning: Anyone found stealing lifehours will be forever banned from participation in and rewards of Better Democracy and Capitalism.
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