Monday, July 10, 2017

The Ruthless Evil Incas of Peru

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

I have a new article on the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation on, “Economic Ideas: The Ancient Incas and the Collectivist State.”

Collectivist systems of control and command have a core set of common features and characteristics, whether they existed centuries ago or in the recent past. The ancient Incas of Peru and their empire of five hundred years ago represents one of these variations on the collectivist theme.

The Incas ruled their empire with ruthless totalitarian precision. Every aspect of life was overseen, supervised and centrally planned – including the government’s arrangement of marriages and the insistence that the doors of the people’s homes be left open so that bureaucratic managers could always look in to see what the occupants were doing – their primitive version of Big Brother is always watching!

While the Inca elite lived lives of privileges, the mass of the population lived in forced egalitarianism – similar homes, similar dress, and similar modes of everyday activities. The Inca state attempted to crush all forms of individuality and senses of personal responsibility. Obedience to and dependence upon the political authority kept the people docile and minimized resistance or opposition.

Many family resemblances may be found in more modern forms of such collectivist states. Not only in the extreme manifestation of Nazi and communist totalitarianism, but even in the much milder and far less brutal versions of the interventionist-welfare state. The Inca empire serves as one of the demonstrations of what the underlying principles of collectivism mean when taken to their logical and practical conclusion.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/economic-ideas-ancient-incas-collectivist-state/

Best,
Richard

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