There are some places in the world less free than others.
Having lived in post-communist Europe, and having study totalitarian rule and its war on freedom, I understand the important role of the pašerák in Slovak history.
Pašerák (Pa-share-aaahk) is the Slovak word for smuggler. Traveling the inhospitable borderlands, between Slovakia and Poland, he would facilitate the trade of goods between two oppressive regimes. Those regimes would come up with seemingly random reasons to outlaw this or that item. And in a command and control economy, there were some things that really worked well and lots of things that were total rubbish. An imported item from a locale in which the government did not inadvertently and entirely eliminate quality was a useful service that the pašerák provided the Slovak consumer.
The pašerák played numerous useful roles, but another more prominent role deserves mention as well. He also subverted the official chains which would prevent goods from getting to most people. Either by legal restriction, these goods would be prevented from passing into the hands of the common folk, or by outright theft. The closer a government employee was to the flow of goods, the more likely that employee was to have them, regardless of who the goods were actually intended for.
In fact, in communist Czecho-Slovakia, there was a folksy sounding saying among the common folk “He who does not steal from government, steals from his family.”
When it came to the work of the pašerák, more important than goods originating in communist Poland though, were goods originating in the West — where there was relative freedom for entrepreneurs to produce whatever it was they thought a consumer might appreciate.
It is hard to express just how incredibly backwards and impoverished Central and Eastern European became under four or five decades of communist rule. In once prosperous and free countries, so little worked as it should. Though it takes so much time and effort to build a wonderful, functioning, prosperous society every communist country has learned how quickly such amazing things taken for granted can turn to crap. It is important to not delude yourself into thinking America is untouchable to this trend.
Even today, as I step into even high-end American grocery stores in well-heeled neighborhoods, I smell a familiar stench: the stench of second and third world vegetable markets.
Americans don’t know this smell, because Americans have not lived through this smell. It is the smell of a failing supply chain that has started to deliver rotting food to the consumer.
It is important consequently to fight that decline toward lower standards in every way you can. I don’t expect you to influence everything in the world. But I expect you to influence what you are in immediate contact with.
So, the pašerák, the smuggler in communist society fought against this rot of society. In an oppressive place, it is the black market that is the real marketplace.
It was the pašerák’s profession to skirt official channels and to make a profit by doing so. In a marketplace, profit is the reward one earns for helping others fulfill their wants. Be careful if talk of profit causes you to groan, to switch off your mind, or to change the channel. The societal programming around that topic is quite toxic. What I am here speaking about is an antidote to that programming.
It can be no surprise that profit is denounced as evil by would-be communists, both now and then. The truth is, profit is an important signaling device that demonstrates what a person is doing is creating benefit to others. Those people are freely buying what they want to buy and are receiving benefit from doing so.
Again, to say it a different way, in a marketplace, profit is the reward one earns for helping others fulfill their wants. That makes profit a very good thing. It is one indication that you are, in fact, helping people.
You don’t need to be a pauper or a mendicant monk to help others. Often, quite the opposite is true, and that is a truth some don’t want you recognizing in your life. They would prefer you obsess about sacrifice and selflessness in obeisance to some pseudo-religious goals laid out by think tanks in places such as Washington DC, Brussels, Beijing, and their slick marketing departments. Be careful when you onboard such messaging, for it can be so very enfeebling.
I’d prefer you onboard the empowering reality of the situation — that profit is an indication that you are helping someone.
Freely, or voluntarily, buying something is an important issue in that equation. That is the only way that marketplace can work — through the action of voluntary participants. To better illustrate that, please allow me to paint a picture of the exact opposite.
From the early 2000s onward, drug company profits boomed. The Bush administration had passed Medicare Part D, which ensured that taxpayers would be forced to fund a massive increase in drug purchases. This was profit that was not earned by satisfying the needs of consumers but by instead forcing a third party to write a blank check to cover an unlimited number of medicines that doctors would soon be prescribing to the elderly in America for “free” or for a fraction of their cost to the patient, a full cost paid for by taxpayers and borrowed against the future in the form of public debt. That’s not the marketplace at work. That’s the exact opposite. It is government pushing it weight around.
Let me point to an even more involuntary example.
In 2021 and 2022, Pfizer’s profits boomed even further. It was not because Pfizer was pleasing a voluntary consumer, as a marketplace requires. Quite the opposite, not only was a third party (the American taxpayer) on the hook again for unlimited payments to the drug manufacture, but the patient was required by government to take the drugs, in the form of the Covid-19 vaccine. Drug companies had long used this model on children without much parental or societal pushback and now this model was being applied to the entirety of society. People were told, “If you want to have the normal rights and privileges of everyone else in society, you must agree to take this ‘free’ medicine.” Millions did.
Pfizer’s “profit” in 2022, hardly deserves use of that beautiful word, that indicates a person has helped another. It was by force that Pfizer made that profit — forcible taxation combined with a coercive and threatening vaccination campaign.
Communism has arrived on America’s shores. The transitions of the Ides of March 2020 introduced it. It introduced this corona communism into our midst.
He who would oppose the government’s mandates and the government’s control of the flow of money would be pointed to as a pariah in society.
It can be no surprise that the pašerák in communist Czecho-Slovakia, as in any communist society, was painted as a social pariah by the government. Quite the opposite was true however, he was one who provided such great social benefit. He moved goods from where they were located to where consumers wanted them. He did so at great risk to himself and at great benefit to the recipient of those goods. It was the government seeking to prevent both the creation of those goods and movement of those goods that was the true social pariah.
Yes, it was the government that was the true social pariah.
And today, in so many ways, too numerous to here recount, it is the government that is the true social pariah.
It can be no surprise that government in the name of deflection, paints the freedom fighters as social pariahs, as government behavior causes so many to be less free, less happy, and less prosperous.
In the spring of 2020, I ran out of lightbulbs. I don’t use the new kinds of lightbulbs. Their flicker is weird and they give me headaches. I like the old kind, the incandescent ones. And shouldn’t it be my right to be able to buy those freely from the manufacturer who also produces freely?
I went shopping for them that day and realized that I could no longer find them in California. They had become illegal. What a bunch of nonsense, I thought, though I knew since the first term of George W. Bush that these policies were being pushed on the American people by both political parties, and might eventually come. I went online to Amazon — Eureka! A plentiful and affordable supply was there present.
But, alas, I had spoken too soon. Amazon had signed on to the same nonsense. When I tried to check out, a warning message appeared on my screen to let me know they do not ship those lightbulbs to my address.
Well, my city has a bustling Chinatown, where one can buy all manner of things. Someone there might have them, I presumed. In Chinatown, I found a pašerák who sold me exactly what I wanted, though it may have been done illegally.
I would have happily paid five times the price for those lightbulbs than I paid for them. What a favor that man had done for me. I was able to return home victorious, able to provide for my family to the standards I hoped to provide for them.
Sometimes, as 19th century French thinker Frederic Bastiat points out — the law may be contrary to morality. Accordingly, there was no moral or ethical violation in breaking such a nonsense law.
This is something that I had grown used to.
My daughter, for example, loves straws. But they are illegal where I live. Yes. Plastic straws are illegal. She was introduced to straws by me. I introduced her to straws because I too loved straws as a child. I mean, who doesn’t love blowing bubbles into a drink with a straw when no one is looking?
And you know what, the recycled paper straw that goes soggy in your mouth after forty seconds like a wadded up spitball is no fun. Paper straws are low standards garbage done in the name of posturing and virtue signaling.
Not in my home.
In my home, plastic straws abound, purchased for pennies by the hundreds. Why? Because they are fun. And because she is a child. And because the control freaks who try to force people to posture over nonsense have no place in that home.
Just as I hope they have no place in yours.
No matter what the law says, it is your duty to do the right thing, in ways big and small in your life. I often write about the bigger things we must do. Straws and lightbulbs, though, are no different. The behaviors and decisions it takes to say “No!” to the small nonsense are the same behaviors and decisions it takes to say “No!” to the big nonsense.
Being diligent about small and large both empowers you and makes it easier for you to incrementally grow to handle far bigger challenges than what you thought you might be able to handle. This makes it so important for you to diligently oppose tyranny big and small in your life, to diligently oppose lies big and small in your life.
This time needs that of you.
Are you still wearing a face mask, ever, for any reason? If so, have a look at Allan’s bestselling book “Face Masks in One Lesson.” You’ll never wear one again.
And how about online, do you still use Duck Duck Go? If so, have a look at Allan’s free report on the 11 search engines that suck and the 2 that don’t. Duck Duck Go is the most censored search engine, worse than Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Have a look at that report here and get a list of the best and worst search engines right there on the first page of the report.
I have a bunch of incandescent light bulbs that I inherited from my mother-in-law. Most have never been used. If you will pay postage (assuming the diesel fuel supply lasts), I will send them to you. Because they take so much more electricity, I am not using them. Maybe the others are bad for me, but what the heck. I do plenty of other things to keep myself healthy. :)
I pre-bought a bazillion incandescent light bulbs as soon as the tyrants declared they were outlawing them. Hope they last me the rest of my life but good to know I can probably still find them on the black market. Do you know where in the world they are still being produced? Must admit, when one burns out, I am a little bummed knowing I am one bulb closer to being out. Although, I still have a few hundred stashed back. :-)