אתה להוט מדי נגד ברלנד!’ – מכתב ביקורת’

בנוגע לפעילותך לגבי אותה אישיות‎‎

אני לא בא להיכנס לעניינים שלך, אלא רק לומר לך דבר שאולי חשוב לומר:
א. מאחר ואיני מכיר את הרקע שלך אז איני יודע למה אתה כל-כך להוט עליו, כך שאיני דן אותך.
ב. ראיתי בעבר דבר שכתב אדם שלאחר ניסיון, הוא הבין שלפעמים נענשים גם על רדיפת אדם רשע בצדק. הוא העיד על עצמו שרדף אדם בצדק, וראה בחוש שהוא נענש על כך.
שים לב שהרדיפה לא תמלא אותך, כרגע, מהצד – זה ממש נראה שכן.
אם בית הדין שפסק נגדו ירצה – תן להם לעשות על ידי מי שהם ימנו. גם כשזה מוצדק – זה לא אומר שהעיסוק בכך טוב ומועיל לך. ואדרבה.

תשובת העורך:

תודה על המכתב!

א. הטעם כי במקום שאין איש וכו’. יש כאן “חזרת הש”ץ” (שבתאי צבי) ורבים אומרים שלום עלי נפשי.

ב. המעשה שהזכרת אולי תנהו ענין למ”ש הרחב דבר שמות ל”ב כ”ז, וז”ל, היינו דאיתא במדרש קהלת עה״פ ״והאלהים יבקש את נרדף״ (קהלת ג’ ט”ו) — ׳אפילו צדיק רודף רשע׳, פירוש, ומה שרודפו יש בו הנאה עצמית שוב נענש על זה, עכ”ל.

והנה, בזה”ז, א”א “לתת” לב”ד לנדות\להמית\להחרים\להוריד ממינוי\לבזות\להכניס לכיפה\לבער ספרים וכו’ וכו’ ולעסוק באנשיו והנטפלים, כי יראים מהשלטון, וגם לא “ממנים” (בלי להצדיק).

ממילא, כל המצוות לבער הרע חוזרות לציבור כחובת גברא לפעול כ”א כפי כוחו, בתנאי שלא יהפוך לרועץ, ובמסגרת חקותיהם אולי. וברוך אשר יקים את דברי התורה הזאת.

כמובן, כל מקרה לגופו, ובהשכל.

Taxation Is Chiefly an Instrument of Social Policy, NOT State Revenue

This article was first published in the January 1946 issue of American Affairs.

TAXES FOR REVENUE ARE OBSOLETE

by Beardsley Ruml
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Mr. Ruml read this paper before the American Bar Association during the last year of the war [World War II]. It attracted then less attention than it deserved and is even more timely now, with the tax structure undergoing change for peacetime. His thesis is that given (1) control of a central banking system and (2) an inconvertible currency, a sovereign national government is finally free of money worries and need no longer levy taxes for the purpose of providing itself with revenue. All taxation, therefore, should be regarded from the point of view of social and economic consequences. The paragraph that embodies this idea will be found italicized in the text. Mr. Ruml does not say precisely how in that case the government would pay its own bills. One may assume that it would either shave its expenses out of the proceeds of taxes levied for social and economic ends or print the money it needs. The point may be academic. The latter end of his paper is devoted to an argument against taxing corporation profits. — Editor.

The superior position of public government over private business is nowhere more clearly evident than in government’s power to tax business. Business gets its many rule-making powers from public government. Public government sets the limits to the exercise of these rule-making powers of business, and protects the freedom of business operations within this area of authority. Taxation is one of the limitations placed by government on the power of business to do what it pleases.

There is nothing reprehensible about this procedure. The business that is taxed is not a creature of flesh and blood, it is not a citizen. It has no voice in how it shall be governed — nor should it. The issues in the taxation of business are not moral issues, but are questions of practical effect: What will get the best results? How should business be taxed so that business will make its greatest contribution to the common good?

It is sometimes instructive when faced with alternatives to ask the underlying question. If we are to understand the problems involved in the taxation of business, we must first ask: “Why does the government need to tax at all?” This seems to be a simple question, but, as is the case with simple questions, the obvious answer is likely to be a superficial one. The obvious answer is, of course, that taxes provide the revenue which the government needs in order to pay its bills.

It Happened

If we look at the financial history of recent years it is apparent that nations have been able to pay their bills even though their tax revenues fell short of expenses. These countries whose expenses were greater than their receipts from taxes paid their bills by borrowing the necessary money. The borrowing of money, therefore, is an alternative which governments use to supplement the revenues from taxation in order to obtain the necessary means for the payment of their bills.

A government which depends on loans and on the refunding of its loans to get the money it requires for its operations is necessarily dependent on the sources from which the money can be obtained. In the past, if a government persisted in borrowing heavily to cover its expenditures, interest rates would get higher and higher, and greater and greater inducements would have to be offered by the government to the lenders. These governments finally found that the only way they could maintain both their sovereign independence and their solvency was to tax heavily enough to meet a substantial part of their financial needs, and to be prepared — if placed under undue pressure — to tax to meet them all.

The necessity for a government to tax in order to maintain both its independence and its solvency is true for state and local governments, but it is not true for a national government. Two changes of the greatest consequence have occurred in the last twenty-five years which have substantially altered the position of the national state with respect to the financing of its current requirements.

The first of these changes is the gaining of vast new experience in the management of central banks.

The second change is the elimination, for domestic purposes, of the convertibility of the currency into gold.

 

Free of the Money Market

Final freedom from the domestic money market exists for every sovereign national state where there exists an institution which functions in the manner of a modern central bank, and whose currency is not convertible into gold or into some other commodity.

The United States is a national state which has a central banking system, the Federal Reserve System, and whose currency, for domestic purposes, is not convertible into any commodity. It follows that our Federal Government has final freedom from the money market in meeting its financial requirements. Accordingly, the inevitable social and economic consequences of any and all taxes have now become the prime consideration in the imposition of taxes. In general, it may be said that since all taxes have consequences of a social and economic character, the government should look to these consequences in formulating its tax policy. All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue.

What Taxes Are Really For

>1. As an instrument of fiscal policy to help stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar;

2. To express public policy in the distribution of wealth and of income, as in the case of the progressive income and estate taxes;

3. To express public policy in subsidizing or in penalizing various industries and economic groups;

4. To isolate and assess directly the costs of certain national benefits, such as highways and social security.

In the recent past, we have used our federal tax program consciously for each of these purposes. In serving these purposes, the tax program is a means to an end. The purposes themselves are matters of basic national policy which should be established, in the first instance, independently of any national tax program.

Among the policy questions with which we have to deal are these:

Do we want a dollar with reasonably stable purchasing power over the years?

Do we want greater equality of wealth and of income than would result from economic forces working alone?

Do we want to subsidize certain industries and certain economic groups?

Do we want the beneficiaries of certain federal activities to be aware of what they cost?

These questions are not tax questions; they are questions as to the kind of country we want and the kind of life we want to lead. The tax program should be a means to an agreed end. The tax program should be devised as an instrument, and it should be judged by how well it serves its purpose.

By all odds, the most important single purpose to be served by the imposition of federal taxes is the maintenance of a dollar which has stable purchasing power over the years. Sometimes this purpose is stated as “the avoidance of inflation”; and without the use of federal taxation all other means of stabilization, such as monetary policy and price controls and subsidies, are unavailing. All other means, in any case, must be integrated with federal tax policy if we are to have tomorrow a dollar which has a value near to what it has today.

The war has taught the government, and the government has taught the people, that federal taxation has much to do with inflation and deflation, with the prices which have to be paid for the things that are bought and sold. If federal taxes are insufficient or of the wrong kind, the purchasing power in the hands of the public is likely to be greater than the output of goods and services with which this purchasing demand can be satisfied. If the demand becomes too great, the result will be a rise in prices, and there will be no proportionate increase in the quantity of things for sale. This will mean that the dollar is worth less than it was before — that is inflation. On the other hand, if federal taxes are too heavy or are of the wrong kind, effective purchasing power in the hands of the public will be insufficient to take from the producers of goods and services all the things these producers would like to make. This will mean widespread unemployment.

The dollars the government spends become purchasing power in the hands of the people who have received them. The dollars the government takes by taxes cannot be spent by the people, and, therefore, these dollars can no longer be used to acquire the things which are available for sale. Taxation is, therefore, an instrument of the first importance in the administration of any fiscal and monetary policy.

To Distribute the Wealth

The second principal purpose of federal taxes is to attain more equality of wealth and of income than would result from economic forces working alone. The taxes which are effective for this purpose are the progressive individual income tax, the progressive estate tax, and the gift tax. What these taxes should be depends on public policy with respect to the distribution of wealth and of income. It is important, here, to note that the estate and gift taxes have little or no significance, as tax measures, for stabilizing the value of the dollar. Their purpose is the social purpose of preventing what otherwise would be high concentration of wealth and income at a few points, as a result of investment and reinvestment of income not expended in meeting day-to-day consumption requirements. These taxes should be defended and attacked it terms of their effects on the character of American life, not as revenue measures.

The third reason for federal taxes is to provide a subsidy for some industrial or economic interest. The most conspicuous example of these taxes is the tariffs on imports. Originally, taxes of this type were imposed to serve a double purpose since, a century and a half ago, the national government required revenues in order to pay its bills. Today, tariffs on imports are no longer needed for revenue. These taxes are nothing more than devices to provide subsidies to selected industries; their social purpose is to provide a price floor above which a domestic industry can compete with goods which can be produced abroad and sold in this country more cheaply except for the tariff protection. The subsidy is paid, not at the port of entry where the imported goods are taxed, but in the higher price level for all goods of the same type produced and sold at home.

The fourth purpose served by federal taxes is to assess, directly and visibly, the costs of certain benefits. Such taxation is highly desirable in order to limit the benefits to amounts which the people who benefit are willing to pay. The most conspicuous examples of such measures are the social security benefits, old-age and unemployment insurance. The social purposes of giving such benefits and of assessing specific taxes to meet the costs are obvious. Unfortunately and unnecessarily, in both cases, the programs have involved staggering deflationary consequences as a result of the excess of current receipts over current disbursements.

The Bad Tax

The federal tax on corporate profits is the tax which is most important in its effect on business operations. There are other taxes which are of great concern to special classes of business. There are many problems of state and local taxation of business which become extremely urgent, particularly when a corporation has no profits at all. However, we shall confine our discussion to the federal corporation income tax, since it is in this way that business is principally taxed. We shall also confine our considerations to the problems of ordinary peacetime taxation since, during wartime, many tax measures, such as the excess-profits tax, have a special justification.

Taxes on corporation profits have three principal consequences — all of them bad. Briefly, the three bad effects of the corporation income tax are:

1. The money which is taken from the corporation in taxes must come in one of three ways. It must come from the people, in the higher prices they pay for the things they buy; from the corporation’s own employees in wages that are lower than they otherwise would be; or from the corporation’s stockholders, in lower rate of return on their investment. No matter from which sources it comes, or in what proportion, this tax is harmful to production, to purchasing power, and to investment.

2. The tax on corporation profits is a distorting factor in managerial judgment, a factor which is prejudicial to clear engineering and economic analysis of what will be best for the production and distribution of things for use. And, the larger the tax, the greater the distortion.

3. The corporation income tax is the cause of double taxation. The individual taxpayer is taxed once when his profit is earned by the corporation, and once again when he receives the profit as a dividend. This double taxation makes it more difficult to get people to invest their savings in business than if the profits of business were only taxed once. Furthermore, stockholders with small incomes bear as heavy a burden under the corporation income tax as do stockholders with large incomes.

Analysis

Let us examine these three bad effects of the tax on corporation profits more closely. The first effect we observed was that the corporation income tax results in either higher prices, lower wages, reduced return on investment, or all three in combination. When the corporation income tax was first imposed it may have been believed by some that an impersonal levy could be placed on the profits of a soulless corporation, a levy which would be neither a sales tax, a tax on wages, or a double tax on the stockholder. Obviously, this is impossible in any real sense. A corporation is nothing but a method of doing business which is embodied in words inscribed on a piece of paper. The tax must be paid by one or more of the people who are parties at interest in the business, either as customer, as employee, or as stockholder.

It is impossible to know exactly who pays how much of the tax on corporation profits. The stockholder pays some of it, to the extent that the return on his investment is less than it would be if there were no tax. But, it is equally certain that the stockholder does not pay all of the tax on corporate income — indeed, he may pay very little of it. After a period of time, the corporation income tax is figured as one of the costs of production and it gets passed on in higher prices charged for the company’s goods and services, and in lower wages, including conditions of work which are inferior to what they otherwise might be.

The reasons why the corporation income tax is passed on, in some measure, must be clearly understood. In the operations of a company, the management of the business, directed by the profit motive, keeps its eyes on what is left over as profit for the stockholders. Since the corporation must pay its federal income taxes before it can pay dividends, the taxes are thought of — the same as any other uncontrollable expense — as an outlay to be covered by higher prices or lower costs, of which the principal cost is wages. Since all competition in the same line of business is thinking the same way, prices and costs will tend to stabilize at a point which will produce a profit, after taxes, sufficient to give the industry access to new capital at a reasonable price. When this finally happens, as it must if the industry is to hold its own, the federal income tax on corporations will have been largely absorbed in higher prices and in lower wages. The effect of the corporation income tax is, therefore, to raise prices blindly and to lower wages by an undeterminable amount. Both tendencies are in the wrong direction and are harmful to the public welfare.

Where Would the Money Go?

The second bad effect of the corporation income tax is that it is a distorting factor in management judgment, entering into every decision, and causing actions to be taken which would not have been taken on business grounds alone. The tax consequences of every important commitment have to be appraised. Sometimes, some action which ought to be taken cannot be taken because the tax results make the transaction valueless, or worse. Sometimes, apparently senseless actions are fully warranted because of tax benefits. The results of this tax thinking is to destroy the integrity of business judgment, and to set up a business structure and tradition which does not hang together in terms of the compulsion of inner economic or engineering efficiency.

Premium on Debt

The most conspicuous illustration of the bad effect of tax consideration on business judgment is seen in the preferred position that debt financing has over equity financing. This preferred position is due to the fact that interest and rents, paid on capital used in business, are deductible as expense; whereas dividends paid are not. The result weighs the scales always in favor of debt financing, since no income tax is paid on the deductible costs of this form of capital. This tendency goes on, although it is universally agreed that business and the country generally would be in a stronger position if a much larger proportion of all investment were in common stocks and equities, and a smaller proportion in mortgages and bonds.

It must be conceded that, in many cases, a high corporation income tax induces management to make expenditures which prudent judgment would avoid. This is particularly true if a long-term benefit may result, a benefit which cannot or need not be capitalized. The long-term expense is shared involuntarily by government with business, and, under these circumstances, a long chance is often well worth taking. Scientific research and institutional advertising are favorite vehicles for the use of these cheap dollars. Since these expenses reduce profits, they reduce taxes at the same time; and the cost to the business is only the margin of the expenditure that would have remained after the taxes had been paid — the government pays the rest. Admitting that a certain amount of venturesome expenditure does result from this tax inducement, it is an unhealthy form of unregulated subsidy which, in the end, will soften the fibre of management and will result in excess timidity when the risk must be carried by the business alone.

The third unfortunate consequence of the corporation income tax is that the same earnings are taxed twice, once when they are earned and once when they are distributed. This double taxation causes the original profit margin to carry a tremendous burden of tax, making it difficult to justify equity investment in a new and growing business. It also works contrary to the principles of the progressive income tax, since the small stockholder, with a small income, pays the same rate of corporation tax on his share of the earnings as does the stockholder whose total income falls in the highest brackets. This defect of double taxation is serious, both as it affects equity in the total tax structure, and as a handicap to the investment of savings in business.

Shortly, an Evil

Any one of these three bad effects of the corporation income tax would be enough to put it severely on the defensive. The three effects, taken together, make an overwhelming case against this tax. The corporation income tax is an evil tax and it should be abolished.

The corporation income tax cannot be abolished until some method is found to keep the corporate form from being used as a refuge from the individual income tax and as a means of accumulating unneeded, uninvested surpluses. Some way must be devised whereby the corporation earnings, which inure to the individual stockholders, are adequately taxed as income of these individuals.

The weaknesses and dangers of the corporation income tax have been known for years, and an ill-fated attempt to abolish it was made in 1936 in a proposed undistributed profits tax. This tax, as it was imposed by Congress, had four weaknesses which soon drove it from the books. First, the income tax on corporations was not eliminated in the final legislation, but the undistributed profits tax was added on top of it. Second, it was never made absolutely clear, by regulation or by statute, just what form of distributed capitalization of withheld and reinvested earnings would be taxable to the stockholders and not to the corporation. Third, the Securities and Exchange Commission did not set forth special and simple regulations covering securities issued to capitalize withheld earnings. Fourth, the earnings of a corporation were frozen to a particular fiscal year, with none of the flexibility of the carry-forward, carry-back provisions of the present law.

Granted that the corporation income tax must go, it will not be easy to devise protective measures which will be entirely satisfactory. The difficulties are not merely difficulties of technique and of avoiding the pitfalls of a perfect solution impossible to administer, but are questions of principle that raise issues as to the proper locus of power over new capital investment.

Can the government afford to give up the corporation income tax? This really is not the question. The question is this: Is it a favorable way of assessing taxes on the people — on the consumer, the workers and investors — who after all are the only real taxpayers? It is clear from any point of view that the effects of the corporation income tax are bad effects. The public purposes to be served by taxation are not thereby well served. The tax is uncertain in its effect with respect to the stabilization of the dollar, and it is inequitable as part of a progressive levy on individual income. It tends to raise the prices of goods and services. It tends to keep wages lower than they otherwise might be. It reduces the yield on investment and obstructs the flow of savings into business enterprise.

Reproduced from here.

(Find a PDF scan of the original journal here.)

משך חכמה על פר’ יתרו בענין הפראק של דיין מטעם

ז”ל משך חכמה שמות כ’ י”ט:

אלהי כסף וכו׳ – ירוש׳ בכורים, דיין זה שהוא מתמנה בכסף אין עומדין מפניו כו׳ והטלית שעליו כמרדעת של חמור, פירושו עפ״י מה דתנינא שבת דף קי״ד דטלית של בנאים מצד אחד רבב חוצץ, ושל עם הארץ דוקא שיהיה משני הצדדים ומרדעת של חמור כטליתו של עם הארץ, לכן אמר זה שהוא מתמנה בכסף הוא מבוזה כ״כ עד שטליתו אינו חוצץ עד שיהא הרבב משני צדדין שאין הוא מכובד כלל וכלל ודו״ק.

If We’re Tossing Out C. Walder’s Books, Why Not S. Carlebach’s ‘Inspirational’ Material, AS WELL?!

I see no difference…

By the way, I regard it as a terrible sign many Breslovers still mention S.C., and with the respectful “Reb” (all because he helped popularize Rabbi Nachman of Breslov at the time). And I mean the old-style, Meah Shearim Breslovers, too!

(I am unaware of what Amshinov does.)

Again, we refer here to preserving the hypocritical “religious inspiration” of a child molester and lecher, not necessarily the melodies.

The Rules of Power for Teachers & Tyrants

How to control 5th Graders… and the world

Many years ago I took over a 5th grade class in the middle of the school year. By the principal’s description, the kids were “swinging from the chandeliers”. Most of them were on a 2nd or 3rd grade reading level. There was also a state exam in American history coming up in a few weeks that they were completely unprepared for, which was a looming disaster for the school.

To make a long and interesting story short, the class did very well on the state exam, by the end of the year many of them were on a 7th or 8th grade reading level, and almost all the kids had become solid students. Turning that wild bunch of kids into mensches was a constant challenge with many ups and downs. It is the teaching job I am most proud of, though I must acknowledge that the turnaround was beyond my control, and easily could have turned out differently. If we don’t take all the blame when things don’t work out the way we desire, we have to be consistent and defer the credit when they do.

Although much of the time I was flying by the seat of my pants (it was only my second year as a full-time teacher) I learned many things about human behavior that have implications far beyond a middle-school classroom. After all, there is not much difference between controlling a classroom, controlling a group of employees, controlling an army, controlling inmates in a prison, or controlling an entire society. The details are different, but the underlying strategies are essentially the same.

Before I get to what worked, here’s what made no difference at all: everything I learned in graduate school. I spent three years toiling through graduate school, borrowed many thousands of dollars for tuition, housing, and overpriced textbooks, and learned almost nothing of practical value. I provided the desired responses to questions about theories of education, received passable grades, promptly forgot this information, wrote a paper or two, and participated in model lessons with fellow aspiring teachers that resembled an actual day in the classroom in no way at all, all while pretending that professors who couldn’t even entertain us compliant graduate students would mold us into experts in taming a jungle.

At the end of this torturous process, I had very little useful knowledge, but I did receive a valuable piece of paper. This conferred upon me the right to boast that I have this piece of paper. I have a Master’s degree in Secondary Jewish Education! This evidence that I had entered this torturous process of “higher education” and came out the other side brought me esteem and the illusion of “expertise”. I could command a better job and a higher salary, at least in theory. Furthermore, for the rest of my life I could pull rank on anyone without equal “credentials” who expressed an opinion on education. I have a Master’s degree! I speak with authority!

Of course, there were even higher credentials available for purchase. I could have subjected myself to several more years of “higher education”, tortured myself to write a dissertation, dug a deeper pit of student debt, and then received a PhD. This would confer upon me the right to command an even better job and a higher salary (at least in theory), and even greater boasting rights for the rest of my life. No one with a mere Master’s degree would dare speak up in my presence.

I decided a Master’s degree would be enough torture and reward for me. Even with a PhD, I would still be expected to defer to those with multiple doctorates, or a PhD from a more prestigious institution, or winners of some award. Besides, I wanted to be a rebbe in a yeshiva, where teachers are generally viewed either as glorified babysitters or robots to be plugged into the wall. A Master’s degree would be sufficient to distinguish me as far as it mattered, with little to be gained beyond that. Being someone’s cousin or son-in-law mattered a lot more than any piece of paper from the high temples of education.

So what did work in that 5th grade classroom, against all odds, and how is it working for the tyrants of the world today? As I sometimes told my students with tongue in cheek, open up your brain and let me pour in some knowledge.

1. Never let them know that you are flying by the seat of your pants. Always maintain the illusion of control.

Once a teacher loses control of the classroom, he is in a desperate situation. If he fails to regain control quickly, he may never be able to hold onto it again. This is because the students will realize that they can seize control of the classroom at any time and there is virtually nothing the teacher can do about it. He is vastly outnumbered. He will have to run to the principal for support, which further exposes him as having no independent power.

The principal will then demonstrate the same illusion of control, issuing stern demands and warnings, but he too is vastly outnumbered. It is all a bluff. If the students maintain a united front, it is the teacher who will pay the price, not them. And if they keep it up, the principal will pay the price, too.

The greatest fear every teacher has is that they will lose control of the class. The elusive secret of how to control the classroom is the obsession of every graduate student, who will learn many advanced theories that will fail the minute he is faced with a difficult group of children. The teacher will then either figure out on his own that it’s all about bluffing and manipulating people, or he will fall.

The students must never see that you are rattled and confused. Even if the principal marches into your classroom and dresses you down in front of your students – the most unprofessional and counter-productive thing a principal can do – you must maintain your composure and appearance of control.

A successful teacher is an award-winning actor.

It is the same with those who control society. It is all one big bluff. They too are vastly outnumbered, and they live in constant terror of losing control. Sometimes they have detailed “lesson plans” and sometimes they are flying by the seat of their pants, but maintaining the illusion of control is their primary obsession.

If they lose control for a short period of time, they will panic and scramble to regain control before the inmates see through the facade. If the inmates maintain a united front for an extended period of time, the “teachers” in the middle will be the ones who pay, and they will be replaced with other teachers to mollify the populace and reset the situation.

No matter what happens, the people cannot be allowed to believe that the leaders stand on very shaky ground, live in terror of them, and are desperate to maintain control. They must always convince the people of just the reverse – that the people are the ones in trouble.

2. Convince the students that you are on their side, and you are their best hope.

One of the first things I did when I took over the class was make it clear that I wanted them to succeed, and they needed to cooperate with me in order to succeed. In the beginning they would gloat about having gotten the previous teacher fired, and implied that they could do the same to me. I acknowledged that theoretically that was possible, but I had no intention of quitting as the previous teacher had essentially done, and in any case if I were replaced it wouldn’t benefit them in any way. They would still be stuck in the same classroom, with the same requirements to advance, and the same trajectory in life before them. At some point their antics would boomerang on them. The next teacher wouldn’t be better than me – definitely not – so they would only be shooting themselves in the foot.

They tested me for a little while – there were good days and bad days – but then they really accepted me as their teacher.

Those who control society attempt to do this as well. Every politician claims that they are on your side, that they will “fight for you”. Who would you want to be alone with in a dark alley more than them? No one! In fact, no one else can possibly protect you. Only they can get the job done.

I really was on the side of my students and I really did get the job done. But when it comes to those who control society, it is never true. During election season they will run around shaking hands, taking pictures with people, visiting different communities to meet the regular people, take their questions, and learn about their needs. Because they care so very much.

Once the election is over, try to speak with them or arrange a meeting with them in your community. I’m sure they will never be too busy to meet with regular people, take their questions, and learn about their needs. Because they care so very much.

3. Carrot and stick

You don’t want to use a hard-handed approach unless you absolutely have to. It is a tool best used sparingly and responsibly. If it backfires it exposes your weakness, and if it succeeds it still breeds resentment. Though the students must know you pack an iron fist, they must see it only rarely and think of it frequently.

If you make my life easier, I will make your life easier. I rewarded good performance from my class with pizza parties, extra recess, and other perks. At the beginning of the class I told them exactly what I needed to do with them that day. If they would cooperate, we would finish early, and I would give the rest of the time back to them. They could have recess for the rest of the day, do their homework in class, or just hang out with me until school was over.

If they didn’t cooperate, the job still needed to get done, but it would be a lot less fun. No recess, extra homework, the regular school lunch, no fun and games. If you don’t let me teach, I am not going to go hoarse from screaming. I will simply stop, turn around without a word, and add homework to the whiteboard. This will continue as needed. If I cannot finish the day’s lesson, I will not reward you by trying again tomorrow. You are on your own, and tomorrow I will do tomorrow’s lesson. If you can’t keep up, hire a tutor.

Again, there were good days and bad days. They tested me. It took them time to change their habits. One student was thrown out of the school. It actually had nothing to do with his behavior in my class, and I wasn’t even informed of the expulsion by the unprofessional administration, but I used this example to put the fear of God in the rest of the class. Eventually they got used to the idea that cooperating was a much better idea. Not only was life more pleasant, they actually learned, succeeded, and enjoyed it.

The people who control society use the carrot and stick as well, but the carrots tend to be rotten and the sticks have rusty nails on them. Unlike a good teacher, they despise you and have no interest in your personal success. Consequently, you should have no interest in their carrots or their sticks, and seek to replace them with shepherds who truly care for you.

4. Make them believe you are on their side. Give them a small victory.

As a teacher, this was easy, because I really was on their side. I didn’t need to fake it.

The people who control society need to fake it. Your personal success is no goal of theirs, and may represent a threat to their agenda. So while the people in charge are actively working to impede your success, to complicate your life, and even to destroy your life, they must make you believe that they are your greatest ally.

They will generally employ rhetoric, because talk is cheap, efficient, and effective most of the time. They will lull you to sleep with oratory, assuage your pain and difficulties by acknowledging that we are “going through difficult times” (“we” meaning you, not them).

Sometimes, however, when your lives are really going to pieces, and especially when this is their direct fault, they will need to persuade you even more convincingly that they are on your side. When they propose a new draconian measure against you – the passage of which is a fait accompli – they will allow you to submit your opinion, which of course they will take into consideration, because your opinion matters.

They will allow you to protest – only in a time, place, and manner that you first receive permission for, of course – because you are allowed to make your voice heard. If the time, place, and manner of your protest is inconvenient to them, expressing your voice will land you in prison, because your voice is otherwise harmful to society. If protesting at all becomes too inconvenient to them, or they have consolidated power sufficiently, they will disallow protests entirely, because this too is best for society (their society).

They will take away your livelihood and right to work, but they will print monopoly money and give you some. They will confiscate all natural resources, but ration out “your fair share”. They will appropriate whatever is useful to them, but only so they can protect it for you. They will destroy your home, but promise to take care of you. They will force greater and greater tyranny upon you, but always provide an exception so you will see that they are reasonable. They will leap ten steps forward, then go one step back, so you will think your voice matters and you scored a victory.

They will utterly control you by allowing you to choose the collar around your neck and the mask on your face.

Israeli citizens face government-mandated boycotts against them if they refuse to submit their bodies and their children’s bodies to medical experiments and potentially lethal injections. However, the tyrants in power have threatened serious repercussions to an ice cream company for refusing to sell their products in certain parts of our land. “Israel will act aggressively against any effort to boycott its citizens,” declared Bibi 2.0.

Remember, they fight for you!

5. Unite the people around you.

What better example than the one just cited? The media decides what we should care about and for how long. The same day the media decided that we should care very much about an ice cream company, making this the most important story, urging us to be all up in arms about this outrage, another development occurred that received far less attention.

The government mandated that business-owners must enforce inhumane, medically dangerous, discriminatory edicts against the population. If people are caught inside a store or at an event without a mask or proof that they poisoned themselves, the business owner will be slapped with a massive penalty. The business owner must serve as a private arm of the government and police his customers on their behalf. He will not receive a salary like actual police officers; his only compensation will be the “right” to continue operating his business, which he formerly believed was inherent.

This incredible development, this outrageous encroachment on decency and human rights, received scant attention in the media, which was entirely by design. We are not to concern ourselves with decency and human rights, let alone be outraged by assaults against them. That would be selfish, and ignorant, and the result of misinformation, and display a gross lack of concern for human life.

No, we must be obsessed with an ice cream company pulling its mediocre products from some parts of the country, because that is simply unacceptable. We must channel our righteous outrage in that direction, create memes, write letters, and make it clear that we will not be trifled with.

Most of all, we will rally around our heroic leaders, who proudly stand up for us in this time of crisis.

At the same time…

6. Get them to keep each other in line.

Something special happened one day in my 5th grade class, and I knew that I had won. A few students were being disruptive. Without missing a beat, I turned around and added some homework to the whiteboard. There were groans from other students. It wasn’t fair. Why was I punishing them for what a few clowns did?

The disruptions continued. I stopped again, and there was silence. They knew what was coming next.

Suddenly one of the good students, a hard worker and emotionally sensitive child, yelled at the troublemakers to stop. He represented the overwhelming majority.

The troublemakers stopped.

Once the students had bought in to the extent that they were disciplining each other for me, my job was a lot easier. I would now only have to step in for extreme infractions, or occasionally give a reminder, but otherwise I would have no serious problems with controlling the classroom. They were controlling it for me.

This is the dream of every teacher, and the dream of every political leader.

They only have so many officers and soldiers they can deploy to enforce their cruel edicts. They cannot be everywhere all the time, and, contrary to what they want you to believe, they’d really rather not. They would much rather condition you to do the dirty work for them. Scream at people for not wearing a mask. Shame people for not being pin cushions for amoral maniacs in lab coats. Refuse to let them into your store, or into your home, or into your place of worship, or into your school. Hate them with all the pent-up rage and sanctimony you have stored inside you. Unleash it upon these fellow inmates instead of on your captors.

Then your captors can turn their attention to bigger things, instead of fighting tooth and nail to enforce their edicts. They will only have to trouble themselves for extreme infractions and provide occasional reminders that they are the boss.

Their plan all along was to turn their hostages against one another. This is what they have always done. As soon as people bought in to the extent that they were disciplining each other, they knew that they had won.

As soon as this stops, they will become very afraid.

Everything I always wanted to know about ruling the world I learned in 5th grade.

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https://chananyaweissman.com/