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Review of Socionomy Cyril Northcote Parkinson: The Law and the Profits 1960 book on tax levels and government waste—entertaining but bits are missing, August 25, 2011 This book was published three years after 'Parkinson's Law' and is somewhat similar, but doesn't really hold together well—I suspect it was a contracted book Parkinson had to write. The introduction states that many people wrote to him with information (I'd guess about 100) although he gives no names; this might explain a certain bittiness. The whole book is 'popular'—there are virtually no sources or references, and no index. The illustrations are far inferior to those in Parkinson's Law. There are twelve chapters, but the chapter headings are mostly uninformative. Parkinson's accounts of Britain before about 1900 are good in summoning up images of private ownership: Parkinson's family had been distinguished—in government and administration—so his descriptions of families with long traditions being wiped out by taxation, on the theory that government owns everything, are heartfelt, though he has no feeling for Jewish parasitism, and no feeling for the manipulations that Jews use in creating wars and ersatz patriotism. He of course has no idea about mediating Jews—such things as Freemasonry. Parkinson's attitude to nations, states, borders, and so on, is expressed here (note that his view is something like the opposite of the Jewish view): ‘That the citizen should contribute toward the common defense, toward the dignity of the state, toward the maintenance of justice and order is not seriously open to dispute. He owes a debt to the state as well as to his ancestors and descendants. He was brought up under its protection, induced to obey its laws, taught to rely on its justice and endowed with a share of its fame. Only the stateless know what it is to have no national legend, pride, or flag. ...’
The theme is supposedly government waste, mostly in the USA and UK since about 1900. This of course is related to taxation—Parkinson snipes both at expenditure ('Expenditure rises to meet income') and at taxation. [It's also related to borrowing; the Jewish fraud of paper money provides a huge sponge of blood, to be wrung out later] Parkinson has an historical attempt to assess taxation in ancient civilisations, coming up with 10% as an estimate. Then he switches to modern times—the First World War being a turning point in terms of tax rates. However Lloyd George's 1909 budget was the real starting point of a sort of swing to 'communism'. Parkinson comments on income tax and death duties as the methods settled on to squeeze people; there's a good account of families of soldiers killed during the First World War having to pay out death duties, perhaps several times, to the 'vultures'. And he makes a good point about death duties (on capital) being spent as though income. Parkinson follows through some consequences: remember he was writing in 1960 and had lived through the Second World War—Britain declared war when he was about 30. He gives good accounts of the psychology of the near-death of private property—taxation hitting more than 90% so that it was impossible to own a traditional estate, and impossible for several generations to build up businesses with integrity. Conversely, 'success' became a matter of maximising money from governments. And people increasingly turn to tax avoidance, and (illegal) evasion, and increasingly feel the law is against them. Young people in particularly (he feels) become disaffected and angry. Taxation is so dangerously high, so societies have few reserves, and disaster may well follow. On spending all this tax money, he notes that the Civil Service became more secure, and better paid, than much of business, and also that there was no equivalent of bankruptcy or failed technology to prune out useless civil servants. He lists failed and abandoned US military projects (the same thing happened in Britain), and comments on the vast property ownership of the military—covered storage, in total twice the size of Manhattan Island in the US, large landowning (including Crichel Down) and old forts in Britain. Parkinson was uneasy about official science—one of his mini-playlets is a made-up encounter between Isaac Newton and a modern civil servant. They can't promote science, because nobody knows what inventions will be forthcoming; Parkinson lists the failures of the British to equip properly, and the difficulties faced by many inventors of military devices. (There's an amusing parody of the difficulties of people with ideas and projects in the chapter on 'The abominable no-men'). Parkinson lists the amounts paid from tax purely on interest, and on failed projects, and on unaccountable foreign handouts. He also comments on the poor quality of government accounts, notably in the UK. All of this is quite well-written, and relies on minimal information—Parkinson is very good at drawing conclusions from a few big numbers. (Note that this book postdates the Korean War, and shows no awareness of looming genocide in Vietnam). The weaknesses of this book stem from his having no theory of the motive forces that developed in the world after about 1900. He has no idea about the Rothschild/paper money swindle—Parkinson attributes inflation to increases in tax—and doesn't consider the idea that there are temptations to large scale frauds, of the NASA type. Many of the abandoned weapons projects must have been scams; the nuclear weapon stuff was a huge scam; the EU was in the process of becoming a huge scam; the independence of former colonies, often accompanied by disasters, was a recent series of events. One motivation for wars was simply to make money from supplies; but Parkinson never once makes any criticism of any war. And so on. Although this book has great omissions, notably the Fed and paper money, it's thought-provoking and does its best to provide a useful overview of the world and economics and the place of government after 1945. If only Parkinson had been more knowledgeable. Added 25 Oct 2015: On the subject of the First World War, I mooched around an archaeological dig of Hart Hill House, in Buile Hill Park, Salford, near Manchester. This was built in about 1859; and by the 1920s became derelict and was demolished, part of the financial disaster of the 'Great War'. There is only grass on the site, and seems to be not one photograph of the building—a candidate proved to depict somewhere else; the archaeological website fails to convey anything of the site or the majesty of the building. Added 26 Mar 2018: The theme of too high tax levels, and their long-term psychological effects; and 'waste' does not take account of transfers of money and/or wealth. Just as Parkinson never criticises war, assuming that generals etc are following some rational plan in a 'national interest', he never follows the money, and has no idea that a rise in income tax or death 'duties' diverts money—in particular for Jewish schemes. For example, the giant murder machine of the USSR, as it was called, was mostly funded by US and UK taxpayers, both yearly and from future taxation. Parkinson puts some emphasis on the confusion between capital and income, though he doesn't think it's intentional. The point he's making is that (for example) a family might take several generations to build a business and its country house; all that effort is in effect wasted if there are huge death duties. But clearly from a parasitic point of view it doesn't matter; he's saying that a whole nation can be ruined by the confusion of capital with income. As for tax, Parkinson looks at income tax, and regards its inexorable rise as a working of his Law; he has no idea of the Jewish interpretation, where (say) a 1% rise in income tax gathers a staggering 1% of the entire purchasing GNP—something tax-farming Jews would have gasped at; if only (say) half the increase goes to Jews, vast unearned amounts go to them. Any fake project will serve. Here's Parkinson on income tax in the USA:
‘ ... on the eve of World War II [US income tax] was paid by ... four or five million taxpayers... None was paid in 1932-1939 by those with an income of under $2500. .. the level was steadily lowered, to $2000 in 1940, to $1500 in 1941, to $1200 in 1942, and to $642 in 1942. ... these exactions were cleverly concealed ... [by adopting] the device of making the employer do the tax collection at his own expense..
By about 1950 .. [US] income tax extended to some fifty million people, increasing tenfold the number. ... In 1951 it was discovered by Miss Vivien Kellems that President Truman had, in a little over six years, taxed the country $12 billion more than all the previous Presidents combined... Truman demanded $260 billion... all incomes [above $2000] ... were paying 20% and incomes of $50,000 no less than 75%, with 87% as the maximum...’ |