In this predicament, Dionysius worked out a scheme that has come to the rescue of national profligacy ever since. He called in all the coin of his realm, known as drachmas, restamped them so that each drachma became two, and, after paying off his debts with the revalued money, returned to the owners many more drachmas than they had been obliged to turn in. No doubt the Syracusans were delighted by the operation; their advances to the tyrant were paid up in full and their non-monetary assets had suddenly doubled in price. He was probably praised for this financial feat.

In twenty-two centuries men do a lot of thinking and out of this cerebration come new ways of doing old things. Like Dionysius, latter-day politicians—that is, that segment of the population to whom the behavior of the rest is entrusted—sometimes find themselves without the wherewithal needed to defray the costs of glorious adventures and, having stretched taxation to the breaking point, resort to borrowing. They convince the citizens that not only will their savings be spent in ways that will redound to their benefit, but that they will be rewarded for their faith with annual increment. To back up the latter claim, the lenders receive imposingly printed receipts for the amounts loaned, bearing a solemn promise that the holder will receive interest pay’ merits at regular intervals. Now, in one way or another, these receipts become monetized, and Society is deluged with new coin of the realm, even as were the Syracusans when their drachmas were re-stamped. Everybody is “enriched.” This modern financial wizardry is a vast improvement on Dionysius’ method in that it is more devious.

Evidently, Dionysius had not thought of this receipt business; for if he had, he would never have found himself in the aforesaid predicament. He would never have been faced with bankruptcy. For, among its other advantages, this modern receipt bears a maturity date, usually falling in the next generation, to the relief of the immediate borrower; furthermore, through refinancing and funding methods this date acquires the unique capacity of extending itself into eternity, so that the loan need never be repaid. On the other hand, the lender or his offspring can always be sure of receiving interest, since as a taxpayer he provides the funds.

We have no doubt that Dionysius’ ministers fortified him with a learned dissertation on the virtues of his restamping scheme. His modern counterpart not only has ministers to advise him but also professors of economics to explain to the public how inflation improves abundance in their pantries.

In every age political power has lent itself to purposes that are uneconomic and antisocial; it has never hesitated to purchase support with confiscated property. For the ancients it may be said that they conducted the business in a forthright manner, unadorned with moralism; the Caesars did not invoke an ideology to cover up the real objective of “bread and games.” Today, political preferment and the augmentation of political power is accomplished in the same way—with subsidies of all sorts, paid for by taxpayers—but the business is conducted under a panoply of rectitude. Our politicians do not purchase votes, they advocate “social” programs. It comes to the same thing.

History is replete with illustrative matter, and the temptation is strong to adduce examples showing that only in forms and details have the confiscatory practices of political power undergone change. But, considering the character of authority, what else can it do? Political power is not a factor in production; it cannot contribute a single loaf of bread or pair of shoes to the market place; the things that satisfy human desires result from the application of labor to raw materials, and in that process political power is out of its element. The best it can do to promote production is to maintain a climate of tranquility. When it undertakes to intervene in the market place, it is equipped for nothing else than taking what it finds. The more it takes, the less there is for Society to get along on, and the depletion causes an attitude of dependence on the confiscatory power. This attitude is enhanced when selected groups become beneficiaries of the confiscation; they are then beholden to political power for their welfare, and support and adulation of the benefactor is a natural reaction. Political power thrives on confiscation.

A comparison between the early American political establishment and the present one brings out the point. When in 1789 the economy of the country was largely agricultural and its total wealth was measured in millions, the scope of political authority was sharply delimited. Its interventions increased in number and in extent as the productive energy of the people expanded, and now that the wealth of the nation is measured in many billions, the hand of authority is felt in every private endeavor. Its interventionary powers are made possible by its appropriation of one-third of all that is produced.

When the nature of political power is put under the microscope of analysis, its incorrigible penchant for predation becomes understandable. For then one sees that political power is not “in the nature of things,” but in the nature of man. It is not, like the force of gravity, self-operating and inexorable, but is an expedient devised by man to facilitate his urge for acquiring satisfactions with the least expenditure of labor. In essence, political power is the physical power, or the threat of it, that one man or a group of men may bring to bear on other men to effect behavior. It may originate in a body of social sanctions, but it is hardly political power until these sanctions are implemented with a police force. In any case, it is exercised by human beings, and therefore must be related to the all-pervasive law of human action, the drive to get the most for the least.

Since all human beings are dominated by this inner drive, political power is always subject to competition, and one-man domination of the group is possible only when the group is small enough for one man to intimidate. In a real sense, there cannot be an absolute monarch of a nation; political power must have a base broad enough to support the pinnacle, and rulership which seems to be identified with one man’s will is in fact exercised by an oligarchy or a bureaucracy.

Political power must have allies, men who support it because it is to their interest to support it. William of Normandy consolidated his conquest of England by dividing its land among his favorites, so that they could live well on the produce of vassals and serfs. For a similar reason modern politicians have granted special privileges. In all cases the beneficiaries of political power have been won over to its support.

It is this need of a broad base that accounts for the predatory practices of political institutions. The crown rests uneasily on the royal brow until it is held firmly in position by the loyalty of subjects who partake or hope to partake of the substantial privileges at his disposal; and an elected official likewise needs the votes or campaign contributions of constituents who expect to profit by his elevation to power. What manner of fare can he possibly spread before them? Only what he can extract from the larder of production. He has nothing else.

The advent of popular suffrage did not change the nature of political power nor affect its practices. The doctrine on which suffrage rests is that sovereignty—which is protocol for power—resides in the voters, as a permanent possession, and that they merely loan it for a time to their selected rulers. Upon analysis, the doctrine boils down to the idea that each voter holds in his hands on election day a small piece of the power that once centered in a king. But, even as the king thought of power in terms of his prerogatives and perquisites, so is the voter, in casting his ballot, influenced by his material condition or expectation of improvement. He assumes that his personal economy is tied in with the political power of distribution, not with his own productive capacity, and the assumption seems valid enough when he observes that some of his fellow voters do well at the public trough. Yet, his minuscule piece of power is by itself unable to push him into a favorable position, especially as it is in competition with millions of others of like value. It is necessary for him to add his vote to many others so that the combined total will achieve the sovereign divinity of fifty-one per cent. Thus comes the pressure group system of utilizing political power for acquiring pecuniary advantages.

But, what is the profit in ruler-ship? What does the wielder of political power—also a human—hope to gain from the bargain he makes with those who put the scepter in his hands? That depends on the values of the individual politician, but taking the breed as a whole into consideration, the desires that drive them to seek office are exactly those that motivated Charlemagne: the perquisites and prerogatives attendant thereto. What else can one derive from political labors? Putting aside the perquisites, including the crude bribe and the more sophisticated and legal methods of participating directly or indirectly in the economic advantages he grants his favorites, he measures his gain in the satisfaction of a desire that is often stronger than the yearning for creature comforts.

Just as some people find more pleasure in music than in food, more satisfaction in climbing a high mountain than in luxurious living, so do others find their sum-mum bonum in the pomp and circumstance of political life or in the sense of self-importance that the exercise of power stimulates. It is an ego-profit that one derives from the making and administration of rules that others must obey, and with many of us this is of inestimable value. Otherwise, how account for the unseemly strife for office that men with pretensions to character engage in? “Long live the king” is the upholstery of the throne.

So, the predatory political institution that emerges when Society reaches the capitalistic stage is compounded of vanity and cupidity.