The War Is Over...And We Won

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[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]

The war I'm talking about is the war between individuals and the state. You see, governments have already lost. They just don't know it yet. There has been a war going on between collectivizing, coercive government and the allied forces of individualism, freedom and markets for quite some time. Exactly how long is hard to say because for most of history it seems that the governed more or less accepted that they need to be governed and accepted the brutality of politicians, whether those politicians were tribal chiefs, pharaohs, princes or presidents. So there wasn't much of a fight going on between the forces of coercion (the state) and the forces of cooperation and peace (the market) for the first few thousand years of human civilization.

But something started to shift in the last few hundred years. Maybe it was by accident and maybe it's the result of countless fortunate accidents; scientific discoveries coupled with explorations in philosophy. But humanity managed to reach an Age of Enlightenment and an Industrial Age. Standards of living began to rise for the masses, and people started to realize that being free was much, much better than being property of the king. Later, at the end of the 20th Century, they would also realize that being free was also better than being property of the collective. Not only was it better for individual happiness when one was not owned, but it was also better for material progress when a bunch of free individuals were left alone to use their talent and resources to satisfy their desire to create and to make a profit. 

So it's hard to pinpoint when the war started exactly, though it's almost certainly within the last few hundred years; and it really picked up steam with the colonization of North America. But I can suggest a definite period for the end of the war.

The End of the War: 1913-1994

The beginning of the end of the war between government and the individual was 1913. That was when what would become the biggest, most powerful, most murderous, most indebted government the world has ever seen (and likely will ever see, if we're lucky) sowed the seeds of its own guaranteed collapse. That was the year the latest incarnation of a US central bank was created to do what central banks do: provide the government with limitless purchasing power stolen from the productive individuals through currency supply inflation. 

The end of the end, so to speak, was in 1994. That was the year the Internet gained widespread public knowledge and use. Governments have always thrived by controlling education of the young, controlling the currency and controlling information. In other words: indoctrination, inflation, misinformation, and propaganda. The governed vastly outnumber the governors so force was never enough to keep control. Sure you could make an example out of a couple of the slaves by using violence on them. But to efficiently control a bunch of humans and use them as tax cows, you have to convince them that they are better off being tax cows. After the Internet, it became impossible for the governed not to find out the truth of their condition. 

I understand if when I say that government has lost the war, you might think I'm crazy. After all, things look pretty bleak. Yes, the government is out of control in the US and in many other countries. But their actions are more like death throes. Like a big, mortally wounded beast, the state is lashing out with the strength and ferocity that comes from panic. It senses death approaching. And that may make it temporarily more dangerous. But the end is in sight. All their actions are actually reactions to the fact that they're losing. They are trying to close the doors, control the flow of information and restrict the flow of capital, but people are finding ways around everything (especially people like us and the people who read publications like this). 

The blatantly obvious and rather pathetic attempts at information control keep coming. Like the latest in a long string of executive orders signed by President Obama just before the recent State of the Union address. The order will expand the power of the Department of Homeland Security to "share" information with private industry. In other words, it will be easier for the government to gather information about you from the electronic media you use. And of course, there is the much-talked about "internet kill switch" that Obama and his fellow heads of state are dying to make a reality. 

Even if the various states all over the world manage to find a way to shut off the Internet, they'll find out who really won if they do shut the internet down. The entire world is online now. And they all love it. Imagine if we had no email, no Facebook, no Craigslist, and that our smartphones just became plain cell phones again... I make no exaggeration when I say that there would be far more people revolting over the loss of these things than over the loss of their right to own firearms. Plus much of the world commerce is done through the internet now. The economic loss at this point would be staggering. You wonder if governments are really and truly that willing to cripple the economies they parasitize in order to maintain their last bits of control.

So don't worry. We won. In fact, you can even break out the champagne! Your main concern is surviving the turbulent transitions ahead. The main issue is getting through the collapse of this statist monetary and financial system. That's where we can help. You can subscribe to our Weekly TDV Newsletter for more in-depth analysis and actionable financial advice. Or you can check out or passport and citizenship options to watch the chaos from as far away as possible. 

A lot of people think we're negative here at TDV. Nothing could be further from the truth! We know liberty has already won and we're celebrating. We just have to get our readers through the transition. By the time all is said and done, the world will use mostly gold, silver and bitcoins for money, there will be no state-enabled central banks and there will be no massive intrusions by massive governments. If we're really fortunate, there will be no government intrusion at all...because humanity will fully wake up and realize what governments really are: an unnecessary evil.

So keep your head down and stay sharp for now. But rejoice. Before you know it, it will be safe to celebrate out in the open. 

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Anarcho-Capitalist.  Libertarian.  Freedom fighter against mankind’s two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks.  Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media & Services and host of the popular video podcast, Anarchast.  Jeff is a prominent speaker at many of the world’s freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business.