Anyone who has ever tried to start a business knows the difficulty in just getting it off the ground. Ignoring licensing, federal and state filings, etc., most potential entrepreneurs start off in a financial hole. If you have to hire employees, this will be the biggest expense. The necessity of a brick and mortar location adds another hurdle to success. Then, most importantly, what are you offering? Most new enterprises have to provide a good or service that the public wants or needs to stay in business and climb out of the “red.” This can take months but in many cases the timeline is longer. Much longer.
But what if there were another way? What if one had the power to force people to consume their good or service. And not only that, also have the power to dictate whether competition could rise up to challenge their product. Imagine that an agency held a monopoly on the biggest guns so that anyone who would question their authority would be crushed under their feet. But that might be obvious to people, causing the subjects to question whether they were living under tyranny. Instead, what if some of the brightest minds in the “agency” devised a plan to educate their “customers” from the time they began to speak that without their services there are bad people who want to kill them, and that their organization is the only one capable of providing protection from the “barbarians at the gate.”
Of course, these services are not free, the “agency” will require payment. But don’t worry about having to pay out of pocket for it, the “agency” will extract just the right amount they need to “service” you directly from your employer each pay period. You’ll never even notice the missing funds as you never saw them. They will, however, allow you some control over the amount extracted per pay period, but you will have to offer an accounting at the end of the year. Of course, if you miscalculate you will have to write them a check, sometimes with a little interest added, for the amount you attempted to hold back or face the consequences. And since they have the “big guns” you will comply.
There may come a time when this “agency” decides that they cannot provide these “services” properly; that they need more help. So, they may go on a hiring spree. And these new workers that will have to be paid. Since these new employees are working for your “benefit,” the amount the agency requires from you will have to be increased. Do you have a say in this? Well, you can certainly say something, but ultimately this is a required service and their people must be compensated.
The “agency” does allow for businesses to register with them in order to provide services that they don’t (in some cases they may even allow competition, but only on their terms). By registering, these “non-agency” businesses submit to certain guidelines that must be followed or they suffer the wrath of the “agency.” If one of these “approved” businesses becomes successful they too will have to pay the “protection service” fees. In many cases at a greater rate than those of an individual.
A smart, approved business will realize that one of the most important things it can do is to get on the “agency’s” good side. So, they will send their representative to members of the “agency” and offer additional (private) fees in exchange for special “privileges.” What kind of “privileges” would an approved business want? Since the “agency” decides who can do business and who cannot, they may make it so that the approved business can operate with no competition. The “agency” may pass laws that say that only “approved company A” can operate within a certain land mass. In addition, the “agency” may grant members of “approved company A” certain immunities if their business were to harm one of its customers. “Approved company A” may be held liable at times, but the person or persons within the “agency”who made the ultimate decision that resulted in damages are not.
In some special cases, especially if “approved company A” is doing business on behalf of the “agency,” the “agency” may ensure that “approved company A” cannot be held liable at all. The “agency” may decide to take on the burden of the liabilities for “approved company A.” Of course, this expense will have to be funded from somewhere, so the agency will probably increase the fees charged to individuals. Again, do you have a say in this? Not likely.
Going back to the beginning, what choices does the enterprising individual have to start a new business within such a system? The “agency” has obviously placed obstacles in the individual’s way. While these obstacles can most likely be overcome through hard work, there is always the chance the business will not even be able to open in the desired location due to an agreement between the “agency” and “approved company A. ”What if the individual’s business were to interfere with “services” offered by the “agency?” They will either be denied access or forced into “going into business” with said “agency.”
In the worst-case scenario, if the individual has a breakthrough product, one that could change the world, but the “agency” denies “permission” for it to be produced, what can the entrepreneur do?
When faced with such obstacles that need to be overcome, is it any wonder that so few even bother trying? In the scenario of facing down a monopoly, especially one with the license to end your life, one may ask how innovation happens at all.
Once upon a time I was in a local city government and had to resign due to overwhelming disgust at the corruption, even at that level. Preferred contracts, state laws mandating inspections of all government building projects, employees with little incentive to be productive, etc. The back-breaking straw was the building of some small, not so great public restrooms in a park with a price tag more than the median house price in the town I live in. Another example: It is state law that pricing is not discussed when choosing a firm to develop a city growth policy and only AFTER they are awarded a contract will pricing be discussed. So stuff like that baked into the lowest level of governance is quite prevalent. (This is Montana btw, not California)
Of course the businesses we have started track the experience you have described. Bootstrapping is difficult and unless you come in with substantial capital, financing is zero in the first couple years. 100% risk on you. All the while if you choose the wrong tax guy and mistakenly fire and forget, he will disregard obvious deductions because of "technicalities" and even more of the capital you don't have, will go to your overlords. He is rewarded with how well you can comply with the "agency". All quite gross and disgusting. It is a cold hard fact that most people are resorting to lives of corporate or state servitude. Either as punch the clock wage slaves or some bureaucratic rent-seeker making sure corporate or agency rules are followed. The entrepreneur has an uphill battle, at least it has certainly felt that way for us.
I don't think all is lost, in fact I do think there is a lot of potential in a strategy of competition, starving leviathan, and education. Homeschoolers are on the rise, which is probably the brightest light of optimism, but also righteous anger from those who can't exercise that option of the inadequacy of education. Add to that crypto-enabled IT kit and a tax law book full of exploitable loopholes (that they made) it should make it harder to track down people not "paying their fair share" or whatever nonsense there is, but also force them to close some of the loopholes that have helped form this joint corporation and state into the corporatocracy dystopia we seem to be inhabiting.
There is that wokism component. I haven't quite got my finger on how to characterize it yet. They seem awfully happy using the corporatocracy power to achieve their objectives at the expense of us plebes. But as the belt tightens and there are less sheep to throw to the wolves, I expect them to eat each other. (In some ways they already are) May we get a good view from the foothills of the carnage they make. Good Luck Comrades!
I wrote about and have been saying that "the worse it gets the better it gets"
I believe this from a spiritual perspective but also from the materialist perspective of evolutionary pressures. Your article framed the banal everyday existence of people in western countries in a totally different way which shows the cruelty and senselessness of government. Most people can't even SEE it the way you wrote, they have blinders on.
But more and more are starting to see it, to cut through the veil and that is exciting. Not only that but I think the "Agency" and its tyrannical insanity is created an environment, an incentive, to create entirely new forms. Some of these forms will be in the entrepreneurial space where there are new and less controlled ways of making money. Hell, this whole podcast/substack/internet writer thing you're doing is a great example. Who would have thought of that 20 years ago?
But in the meantime it is a grim and dim picture. The red tape and BS is astounding, and most of it exists for no other reason than government control.
I have faith though. The new arena of podcasting/writing/alt-intellectuals are gaining momentum. I think its a genuine beginning. I wonder what kind of desperate, violent response will be generated by the Agency in an attempt to stop it?
Cheers!