[I was gratified to receive this book report from a dear and very astute friend who now lives in Florida.  For years he was a prominent developer and successful businessman in Nevada County.  A Stanford engineering graduate, he too joined the California exodus as our monopolist one-party socialist revolution became too much to bear.  By permission his email is posted here with minor edits for clarity.  gjr]

Tony Medler

Just finished For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization (1993, 1999), and still believe it should be required reading for politicians and students.  A couple of observations:

It is so obvious that so many empires, countries and civilizations encountered the same issues caused by the conflicts between monetary “needs” and resources. Almost all gave way to excesses that resulted in loss of vigor or rebellion. Our country is well down the road, losing competitiveness and leading to, I believe, eventual rebellion.

Charles Adams writes a wonderful history of taxation and the mechanisms that cause it promote energy within a system or create adversity toward business and prosperity. He is somewhat weak on how to correct or preclude the problems. History indicates that it is extremely difficult to fix the problem. Obvious solutions usually involve separation of spending control from taxing power.

I believe that there is a root cause that precludes any of these attempts at control. Our founders were aware of the problem and envisioned a legislature that was composed of citizens who would serve, not be subject to rules except those applicable to everyone, serve for limited periods, and then return to the general citizenry. We have evolved from that concept to having professional politicians who forget that it isn’t “we and they” but rather us. You can’t have equitable and fair taxation and spending unless the electoral system delivers properly motivated persons, and I think most would agree that our (accurate) view currently of politicians places them either slightly above or below lawyers as entities that are somehow needed but not admired.

How different could it be if we had a system where our legislators had in mind only the national good and not special interests, and worked only to provide those services most narrowly defined in the Constitution? A less inclusive set of services would also reduce the size of the self-serving bureaucracies. Place limitations on terms and preclude multiple services such as going from mayor to senator to president.

Somehow, we must get motivated, educated people to serve. Probably wouldn’t hurt to try to attract more business people into service. Most current politicians have little or no business experience and can’t properly relate to business issues. This hurts all of us.

Not optimistic that anything will change as we are well down what has previously proven to be a one-way road.  Thanks for suggesting the read.