Permits? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Permits!

A friend of mine recently posted this video to Facebook.

TL;DW - Guy tries to sell stuff at market; cops harass him; he fights back; they arrest him.

The first thing that popped into my head when I watched this video was a passage from Alexander Berkman's diary, "The Bolshevik Myth." Alexander Berkman was a famous anarchist (anarcho-communist) and anti-war activist, friend and lover of Emma Goldman, who was deported to the Soviet Union along with Goldman in 1919. The book, available online here, chronicles his travels throughout the Soviet Union and his disillusionment with the Bolshevik regime. What resonated with me was this passage describing Soviet police arresting merchants at a market:

“Oblava! (Raid!) Militsioneri!” There were loud cries and shouts, and I heard the clanking of sabres. The market was surrounded by armed men.

The people were terror-stricken. Some sought to escape, but the military circle was complete; no one was permitted to leave without showing his papers. The soldiers were gruff and imperious, swearing coarse oaths and treating the crowd with roughness.

A militsioner had kicked over the tshtchi pot, and was dragging the old woman by the arm. “Let me get my pot, little father, my pot,” she pleaded.

“We’ll show you pots, you cursed speculator,” the man threatened, pulling her along.

“Don’t maltreat the woman,” I protested.

“Who are you? How dare you interfere!” a man in a leather cap shouted at me. “Your papers!”

I produced my identification document. The Tchekist glanced at it, and his eye quickly caught the stamp of the Foreign Office and Tchicherin’s signature. His manner changed. “Pardon me,” he said. “Pass the foreign tovarishtch,” he ordered the soldiers.

On the street the militsioneri were leading off their prisoners. Front and rear marched the soldiers with bayoneted rifles held horizontally, ready for action. On either flank were Tcheka men, their revolvers pointed at the backs of the prisoners. I caught sight of the tshtchi woman and the tall engineer, the thick volume still under his arm; I saw the aristocratic old lady in the rear, the two girls I had spoken to, and several boys, some of them barefoot.

I turned toward the market. Broken china and torn lace littered the ground; cigarettes and lepyoshki lay in the snow, stamped down by dirty boots, and dogs rapaciously fought for the bits of food. Children and women cowered in the doorways on the opposite side, their eyes following the soldiers left on guard at the market. The booty taken from the traders was being piled on a cart by Tchekists.

I looked at the stores. They remained open; they had not been raided.

Despite the statements of the Bolsheviks that they aimed to end speculation and shut down all stores, it's quite apparent from reading Berkman's diary that the Bolsheviks were as hypocritical as any politicians. They lived a life of comfort while the commoners suffered in squalor, and they allowed businesses who paid protection money to remain in business, while ruthlessly suppressing small merchants who struggled to make ends meet. If you paid the government for permission to do business, you were safe, otherwise they came down on you with an iron fist.

The video above reminded me of that passage, and it's a scene that repeats itself every day all over the world, and unfortunately also in the "land of the free." How many times have we heard about children's lemonade stands being shut down? And while those instances stir up a good amount of outrage, how many people are outraged when the same thing happens to adults who are trying to start a business? Just talk to anyone who's trying to start a business about the numerous government-imposed hurdles they have to jump through in order to start doing business. Incorporation, business licenses, zoning permits, occupational permits, tax department registration (at three different levels of government), and all for the "privilege" of being allowed to conduct business. Just like in Bolshevik Russia where those who didn't pay to play were put out of business, today in the United States we operate essentially the same system, despite all the pap we're fed about how free our country and our capitalist system is. The only difference is that nowadays the system is far more onerous and pervasive, albeit with a superficially kinder face. But soft totalitarianism is still totalitarianism.

Much of the mythology of the United States is based around the notion that this country is a nation of hardy, self-reliant individuals, a nation where anyone can, with a good idea and hard work, make a better life for himself. And indeed, for much of this country's history one could start a business with relatively little government interference. Many of the revolutionaries got their start as smugglers, and the popular conception of the Revolution is that it was a revolt against taxation and overbearing government. Yet here we are two centuries later having to bow and scrape before our masters for the "privilege" of starting a business. The barriers to entry are so high that for most people it is prohibitively costly to start a small business. We have evolved from a nation of ambitious entrepreneurs and craftsmen who sought to establish businesses and make names for themselves, into a nation of employees who want to be coddled from cradle to grave and have someone else take responsibility for every facet of our lives.

Read the comment sections of videos like the above, or articles about lemonade stands, or just about anything else that pits government versus the citizenry, and you'll find no shortage of people defending the government. "The rules are the rules" is not an uncommon mindset, and it reflects the lack of critical thinking among the populace today. No one bothers to think about whether the laws are just, they just reflexively follow the rules no matter what. "Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign." Cultural attitudes like that don't pop up overnight, nor will they be rolled back that quickly either. Witness the antipathy of taxi companies towards Uber, of brick and mortar restaurants towards food trucks, and of taxpayers towards tax protesters.

At least with some of those examples, consumers are beginning to realize that they're better off with less government regulation and more choice. As government becomes more and more overbearing, it seems like more and more people are waking up and realizing that so many regulations are wasteful, harmful, and pointless. Once people see the negative effect that government regulation has in their own lives, they're more likely to start standing up and asserting their rights. The job of people in the liberty movement is to help those people connect the dots and see the bigger picture. Don't stop with one little victory, keep pushing onward. Food trucks can park for more than two hours at a time? Great! Now that your belly is full of Korean tacos, start looking at the world around you and seeing how many other pointless regulations are affecting everyone else. Move outside your own little bubble and start empathizing with others. Don't get complacent when you get yours, don't back down in the face of government pressure, and start pushing back harder to assert your rights.