Could Truly Private Business Exist In A Socialist Country?

For years, I have been the strongest, most principled, and passionate supporter of property rights imaginable. I have believed – and I still do believe – that no politicians or government agents should have any authority to enforce any laws that do not involve a human victim (murder, assault, theft). Simply put, the government as we know it should not exist. The government was only erected for the sole purpose of protecting our natural rights. Politicians and their armed agents have actually become the greatest threats to the very rights they were created to protect. Unfortunately, the communist/fascist government of the united states has destroyed nearly everything, including the simplicity of the property rights doctrine. 

In the 19th century, businesses in the united states were likely privately owned and managed. This meant that a private citizen named Mr. Smith, who was not affiliated with the government could open and operate a bar with zero government involvement. No permits, licensing, taxes, insurance regulations, or any other laws. Unless an actual murder occurred in the bar, no government agent would ever have any involvement with his business. 

Mr. Smith made 100% of the decisions regarding the business. The government had no influence on those decisions. If he wanted to serve whiskey and not beer, or women and not men, he could do that. He could even ban Jews, Japanese, or blacks. The business was totally private and had to obey no government regulations. 

How much things have changed…

Today, opening any type of business anywhere in the united states likely requires giving the government majority control over the business. This is a similar arrangement to the venture-socialist nation of China, wherein the government/CCP generally has majority control (51% stake) of each business. In the united states, the government indirectly controls private businesses via millions of regulations, taxes, licensing, insurance, prosecutorial and regulatory targeting, courts, and general propaganda and coercion. 

For instance, business owners all over the united states supported mask mandates throughout 2020. Did they do this because they truly wanted to force their customers and employees to cover their faces regardless of their personal choices in the personal matter of health care? Or did politicians create a financial incentive (using tax dollars) for business owners to request mask mandates? 

Currently, workers can refuse to work and can claim unemployment from any job that does not have a mask mandate for employees and customers. Of course, unemployment is paid to workers by the government using taxpayer funds. Business owners noticed that many of their employees were refusing to come to work and were earning roughly the same amount by sitting at home and collecting unemployment from the government, which led to a perpetual incentive not to work. These workers claimed that because their workplace lacked a mask mandate, their work environment was too dangerous, and the government approved this reason for abstaining from work and rewarded them with taxpayer dollars to stay at home. 

There are many other examples of governments strongly influencing decisions that may appear to be ‘private’ at first glance. In fact, some companies are openly operated as a ‘partnership’ between private individuals and government agents. 

The Obama administration used the federal government to encourage banks to make business more difficult for gun stores. 

All over the united states, ‘private’ colleges obey federal guidelines and make it extremely difficult for Asians to be accepted into their school. Is that decision a private issue or a government-caused issue? Those who understand how colleges operate know very well that they are controlled more by the government than by private citizens.

Eleven hospitals in NYC are owned and operated by the NYC government. Additionally, the private hospitals must obey millions of regulations, pay massive taxes, obey tremendous amounts of licensing requirements, and obey federal law (CMS) for all billing matters. In fact, the SCOTUS confirmed in January of 2022 that the federal government can directly control all healthcare providers in the entire united states who accept Medicaid or Medicare, which accounts for nearly 100% of healthcare providers. So, are any hospitals still 100% private? What about pharmaceutical companies? The government controls them as much as they control hospitals. With all of the licenses, oversight, grants, tax breaks, partnerships, and other regulations, one could make the case for the entire pharmaceutical industry being a public-private (semi-government) enterprise. We need not even mention the billions of dollars spent on influencing politicians by the biggest pharma companies. 

How many ‘private’ business owners make decisions out of fear of lawsuits? Courts all over the united states have made it very clear that they will grant legal standing to anyone who sues conservatives for ‘discrimination‘.

While I sympathize with property rights purists, they should ask themselves a few questions about scenarios that are likely to occur within a few years:

Hospitals refusing to treat white people (or treating them with lower standards of care) because CMS reimbursement rates incentivize hospitals to prioritize black patients or because federal grants are more likely to be awarded to anti-white hospitals. 

Even under Trump, semi-governmental businesses controlled by the federal government were boldly racist towards white people. Expect that government-approved rhetoric to intensify under the Biden-Harris administration. 

Doctors ask patients about firearm ownership because the HHS requires them to. 

Supermarkets require masks even for healthy customers because federal courts have issued statements saying that they would grant standing for plaintiffs who sue a store for possibly contracting COVID on their property unless the business mandates masks. 

Private sports leagues disallow any child from playing if either of their parents is pro-life because federal law demands it. 

Churches expelling people who homeschool their children because the federal department of education publishes guidance directing churches ‘to encourage full participation in community affairs by all of their members, including attending public schools’. 

This phenomenon occurred during coronafascism, as well. Did hospitals classify nearly every death as a ‘COVID’ death of their own volition, or were they encouraged to do so by government officials? Well, I wrote a whole book about coronafascism, but suffice it to say that the federal government literally gave hospitals as much as $33,000 as a bonus for each patient that they diagnosed with ‘COVID’. 

The list goes on. 

Then, we arrive at the issue of the government bailing out private companies with tax dollars, which happens endlessly and on a massive scale. The automotive industry in the united states took billions of dollars, and lost over $10,000,000,000 tax dollars in the process. The automotive industry took its cue from the banks, which were bailed out by the government (politicians spending tax dollars) years ago. The recent “COVID relief” bills passed have included billions of tax dollars for the airline industry. The list of industries and corporations bailed out by “the government” (i.e. you and me) is extensive, and this has been ongoing. How can anyone claim that Delta is a private company, when the entity holding their corporate testicles in a vice is none other than the US Treasury?

Indeed, many of the patents that you may think are owned by citizens or businesses are literally owned by the CDC, the NIH, or Lord Fauci himself.

To go even further for just a moment, realize that the airline industry was murdered by the government last year….a government that has been bailing out corporations for ages, and knew the result would mean forcing every US-based airline even deeper into the pocket of the government through bailouts atop the unbelievably extensive federal regulations already governing every last iota of the industry. Put differently and very bluntly, in 2020 the federal government bought a significant chunk of all commercial aviation in the united states. Tell me again how they can be considered private entities.

The fact is that any industry or corporation big enough to be instantly crippled by the federal government is in their pocket, inherently, and often overtly and explicitly. None of us can even imagine how many regulations Amazon must be in compliance with; I would bet that no single human being at Amazon or in the federal government has any clue how many regulations Amazon must obey. If the feds really felt like it, they could probably cite Amazon for 15,947 various crimes and infractions tomorrow spanning every imaginable corner of the legal code, because literally nobody on earth knows the number of federal crimes, let alone minor infractions. Amazon and every other corporation must eternally bow to the federal government even without taking direct money from the Treasury, because failure to do so is potentially the apocalypse at the drop of a hat. Any corporation directly taking government money is unequivocally and by definition no longer a purely private corporation. The only question is how large of a stake politicians, regulators, and law enforcement have in their decisions. If the IRS makes it clear that they will audit any business that donates to Republicans, we may see millions of businesses dropping their support for Republicans – because of coercion by government officials. 

A proposed amendment to SB155 in New Hampshire would prevent government and private businesses from engaging in vaccine passports to ensure that everyone who entered their establishment was vaccinated against coronavirus. The Senate version of the bill would only prevent the NH government from requiring vaccine passports. In a close vote, the House amendment to the bill failed, effectively ending the hope of a vaccine passport ban in New Hampshire.

This issue has split the liberty community in half. Many conservatives, libertarians, and property rights absolutists believe that the House amendment violates property rights and is a terrible idea that should not pass into law. Proponents of the original bill believe that because the government agents at every level caused coronafascism and the accompanying propaganda, private actors requiring vaccine passports would be acting more on politician coercion than on their own accord. It is the equivalent to consenting to sex due to a veiled threat with a gun. It’s not as simple as “but she did consent, your honor!” 

On social media, robust debate about the bill and the larger issue has ensued over the past few days. As with many other important and divisive issues within the liberty movement, nearly all those involved are very passionate and believe that they are correct. However, a few libertarians have resorted to immaturity and ad hominem attacks against other productive liberty activists. They seem to assume that those who believe the united states is a socialist union like China must be stupid or anti-liberty.

Ron Paul, the New Hampshire House Freedom Caucus, Rebuild NH, The Liberty Block, and many other well-respected liberty activists are gravely concerned by vaccine passports, though. 

If members of both sides of this conflict can resist the temptation to attack each other personally, this debate can be productive and beneficial to liberty in New Hampshire moving forward.

The Biden administration has admitted that they are working with Facebook to censor speech that does not support their ideology:

“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team. This is a big issue, of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic.” – Biden Press Secretary

President Biden’s Surgeon General (the leading medical officer of the federal government) publicly threatened social media sites if they did not censor all speech that questioned corona-fascism.