The Lies of the Peachtree Road Race

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 27 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

One of the most interesting aspects of running the Peachtree Road Race is the politics.

Traditionally these are conservative politics. You have your preachers by the side of the road, one this year with a big sign reading "God Loves — God Hates." You have your "pro-life" shirts. And this year I even saw one woman with an Obama hat.

But mainly it's anti-government stuff. "Government is taxing us to death," was the message of one onlooker in Buckhead. "Government or freedom" was the message of another.

These are assumptions deeply ingrained in Southern history. They have resonated since before the Civil War. They are the majority view throughout the region.

And they are wrong. Dead wrong.

Start with the first. Americans are taxed less than people in other countries. We are taxed less than people in China, for instance, where there are heavy sales taxes. Especially when you consider how much the citizens of both countries make — taxes in China are a heavy burden.

But the difference is transparency. In China, after a meal at Pizza Hut, we were given three long strips of paper, which our tour guide promptly got to work on. They were scratch-off lottery tickets, he explained. They were also tax receipts. To encourage compliance with tax laws, China has merchants give these to customers are receipts. The scratch-off game encourages them to ask for them. And the empty books show how much sales taxes are owed on.

It's not a perfect system. Many small businesses evade taxes, passing the savings on to the customer, taking only cash. It acts as a subsidy of small businesses by large ones. But small businesses also know that, at any moment, the government can sweep in and close them down, on the basis of incomplete tax receipt books.

One more important point. In China, and Japan, the price is you pay is inclusive of tax. If the bill says 100 yuan or 700 yen, that's what you pay. This is not true in America, and it drives visitors batty. The bill says $7, but it's actually $7.56, or $7.49, or maybe even $7.70, depending on the sales tax rate where you are. And if this is a restaurant check, you're supposed to add 15% to pay for the waiter, because the shop owner doesn't even pay them. So you might throw down $9 on that $7 bill.

The actual process by which taxes are paid is the same in both countries. The shop owner totals his receipts and pays the government a percentage. But the method is different. In China the tax is a scratch-off game for the customer and built into the price you pay. In America the tax is a burden that's added-on after you think you know the price.

The intent is obvious. You're supposed to resent the American tax. It's supposed to remind you of the burden government imposes on its citizens. Yet sales taxes are the most popular taxes among conservatives. They oppose property taxes and income taxes — any sort of progressive taxation. Yet every Georgia conservative, faced with a problem or a deficit, reaches directly for an increase in sales tax. A penny here, a half-penny there, it's all good.

Why? Two reasons. Sales taxes are regressive, falling hardest on the poor. And sales taxes are tacked on top of the bill, so they make an anti-political point.

It's nonsense, which brings me to the second sign. "Government or Freedom."

This may be the biggest lie Americans tell one another. The sign is designed to render a choice. You can have government or you can have freedom. But the opposite of government is not freedom.

The opposite of government is anarchy.

Anarchy is the absence of government, the only absence of government.

In the Wild West, which conservatives revere as the hallmark of limited government, people outside the cities carried guns and protected their own. They did this because they were forced to. They did this because to go without protection meant you were subject to the rule of ranchers and robbers, who might take all your property or just burn you out for your land.

In town, the first thing sheriffs like Wyatt Earp did was take your guns away, because you weren't supposed to need them. You were protected in town. And the great goal of the ranchers was always statehood, and an extension of government into their lands, because government meant protection, and in a democracy it meant they had a say in that protection, not only through the ballot but through participation on juries.

Somalia has no government. Parts of Mexico have no government. And in that vacuum all kinds of oppression swoop in. Religious oppression. Oppression by criminal gangs. The law becomes that of the gun, as it was in the Wild West.

This is where anti-government zealots should be sent. Take away their property — because government's first role is in protecting property — and drop them into Tijuana or Mogadishu. Let them enjoy their freedom there.

In fact, history shows that this nonsense about "government=tyranny" and "taxes=tyranny" is a cover story. Limited government favors the wealthy. Wealthy people can protect themselves from poor people. They can hire their own armed men. They can, in effect, create governments under their exclusive control.

And this is what they have done throughout the history of the South. It is the wealthy who have controlled state legislatures here, under the cry of "limited government." It is the wealthy who have been, in effect, the law, owning the poor and controlling the rest under cover of "taxation is slavery."

This has been good for the wealthy, but only in the short term. It was good to be a feudal lord before the Civil War. Or it seemed good. But the rich then were missing the opportunities for trade and industry, missing the chance to become truly wealthy and powerful, so that the government of the people eventually rolled over them.

It was good to be a local despot during the days of segregation. Or it seemed good. But the fortunes made on southern land were always paltry to those made elsewhere, and gradually the South was colonized by people with northern money and northern ways, until the contradiction between segregation and real human values became too obvious, and was swept away.

Again, it is good to be a Republican in today's south. Or it seems good. But the fortunes made in this era on real estate are fortunes built on sand, and right now the sand is running out of the hourglass. For a generation, throughout the south, wealth has been based on control of government, the extension of highways into the exurbs and the passing off of necessary costs to those who were stuck in the cul de sacs when development moved onward.

Real wealth lies in cities, where you can actually go around a block, where there are choices on which route to take, and where government builds the infrastructure necessary for you to build real wealth, by building up instead of outward. Trade happens in cities, not in exurbs, and even exurban factories depend for their existence o
n government to extend infrastructure and organize government.

So it is time to call the politics of the Peachtree Road Race what it has always been. A lie. A convenient lie for those whose wealth gives them power. But a lie nonetheless.

The choice is not between government and non-government. The choice is between government controlled by the people and government controlled by the few. The oligarchs have been overthrown in the national government, and the time has come to overthrow them in the South.

Prosperity demands it.