The Tyranny of Democracy: How the Wealth, Property and Income of the Bourgeoisie are at the Mercy of the Working Classes

By Clifton Thornton

This book traces the historical rise of democracy throughout the world and how the proletariat over time have come to dominate it, leading to ever increasing demands for social welfare spending by democratic governments and the accompanying imposts of taxation to pay for it all. The result being that the bourgeoisie are slowly being financially destroyed (in the same manner that the aristocracy was politically destroyed) by the democratic experiment. The book explains how progressive taxation regimes are the tools to achieve this destruction and how inherently unfair, unjust and brutally tyrannical it is to the wealthy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398471870

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The Tyranny of Democracy

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Clifton Thornton 2022

The right of Clifton Thornton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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The story, experiences, and words are the author’s alone.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398471863 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398471870 (ePub e-book)

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First Published 2022

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Prologue

Winston Churchill famously postulated that ‘democracy was the worst form of government – except for all the rest’. Many have wrongly made the incorrect conclusion that democracy is therefore the best form of government. It is not.

Democracy is falsely lauded as rule by the will of ‘the people’, which is patently untrue, whilst in reality it is the rule by ‘some’ of the people. At best it often represents just over half the peoples’ will – in Australia par exemple, historically the ruling party obtains just two or three percentage points more than the opposition. In most democracies which do not have compulsory voting, democracy can result in rule by a party which obtained less than fifty percent of the votes of the people. Where first-past-the-post voting systems are in use, democracy can result in rule by a party with considerably less than fifty percent of votes of the people.

How often on election nights is one subjected to the sickening hypocrisy of the ‘winning party’ sanctimoniously proclaiming that ‘it will govern for all the people’ when it fully intends to implement policies, for which it now claims a mandate, well knowing that almost half the electorate has just rejected them!

Democracy has many other deficiencies especially in its representative form with which we are most familiar in the West. The most glaring deficiency is the absolute tyranny of the masses’ ability to confiscate the wealth, property and income of the bourgeoisie. The origins and consequences of this tyranny is the subject of this book.

Where I live in the Australian Capital Territory, the Labour (socialist) Party has been in power for twenty-four consecutive years, due mainly to the demographics of the state (not dissimilar from Washington in the USA where 93% of the population votes Democrat, for similar demographic reasons) and is unlikely ever to lose it, in my lifetime, in any case. In the past seven years, property taxes have risen by over three hundred and fifty percent! However, Conservatives like myself are totally powerless and impotent to defend ourselves from this democratic tyranny of being forced to pay taxes we believe to be totally unfair and unjust.

The historical development of democracy may be characterised as beginning with the overthrow of the power of the monarch by the aristocracy, progressing to the overthrow of the power of the aristocracy by the bourgeoisie and ending with the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat masses. Throughout this progression, the issue of taxation has been critical to the development of democracy, certainly in the Anglo-Saxon world, and probably in the rest of Europe as well. From time immemorial, people have resisted those who seek to tax them unjustly and are prepared to fight for their wealth and property. Thus, the power to levy taxes and under what circumstances is a bedrock of the modern democratic state and that power has ultimately ended up in the hands of the proletariat, leading to democracy’s greatest faults and excesses.

Once a country embraces full democracy, the demands by the proletariat inevitably lead to the rise and expansion of the welfare state. Demands are made forever more government spending which have currently reached unsustainable levels, with a massive increase in government debt, resulting in dire consequences for the economy and society as a whole. But governments, in order to stay in power, must satisfy these demands and preferably exceed them. And how is all this paid for? An ever-increasing tax burden upon the bourgeoisie!

The twentieth century, was a disaster for the bourgeoisie, a century in which they were decimated; literally in the case of the First World War and the Russian Communist Revolution, financially with the imposition, then rapid expansion of taxation. First came income tax, from very low levels at the start of the century, reaching their zenith at the height of the leftist socialist governments’ rise to power before sanity prevailed and some relief arrived and the levels settled at around half of their incomes. Then came consumption taxes which were imposed on that moiety of what was left of their incomes. Finally with the proletariat still not satiated in their desire to destroy the bourgeoisie, in the latter part of the century, the push was on for wealth taxes, already imposed in France. With this tax, the proletariat finally have the weapon to financially destroy the bourgeoisie once and for all. Democratic governments, via their taxation departments, now have a powerful and ruthless enforcer to impose their taxation demands. Democratic governments, on behalf of the proletariat, now claim the right to unfettered access to the private financial details of the bourgeoisie. The taxation cycle is complete: where wealth is taxed when it is earned, taxed when it is saved and taxed when it is spent. As for what the twenty-first century holds for the bourgeoisie, one dreads to think, but if the previous century is anything to go by one may well see the end of an entire class of people, not unlike that which befell the aristocracy in the nineteenth century.

In order to implement their wealth redistribution and tax and spend policies, democratic governments have increasingly embraced Socialism as their preferred economic model. Socialism is an economic system in which the government seizes and runs industries, sets prices for goods and otherwise dictates what one can and cannot do with one’s money and therefore one’s life, paving the way to serfdom. Socialism is legalised theft, in the name of the people, against the vilified rich. It is a battle against income inequality by means of collective immiseration. It is the subjugation of private enterprise and personal autonomy to government power. Socialism whenever and wherever it has been tried has failed and ended in disaster. Yet in spite of the clear lessons of history democracies persist in the pursuit of Socialist policies and the relentless assault upon the rich this entails.

Excessive taxation is: immoral – by legalising theft, envy and greed; unjust – by arbitrarily setting differing tax rates, arbitrarily confiscating wealth, the loss of natural justice; unequal – by differing tax rates, differing financial impacts upon assets; inquisitorial – by invasion of individual privacy; detrimental to the economy – by limiting capital accumulation, reducing capital investment, reducing job creation, hindering economic growth, government inefficiencies, unintended consequences; detrimental to the good of society – by destroying personal, cultural and historical links, worsening inequality, creating social division, limiting ambition and initiative. In plain words, excessive taxation is evil. No good can ever come from disregarding the Lord’s Eighth Commandment – ‘Thou Shalt not Steal’.

There is no convincing evidence that inequality is rising but there certainly is evidence that poverty is declining. Measures such as the Gini Coefficient, the Household Income and Labour Dynamics Survey, the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Household Income and Wealth Survey, the Australian Productivity Commission Report all support this assertion. Claims that inequality causes poverty or any other social ill are totally unfounded and in truth are based upon the deadly sin of envy. The Left’s solution of wealth redistribution will only make things worse. The proven solutions are well known; increased productivity and the creation of jobs. Certainly imposing unfair taxes on the bourgeoisie is not the solution.

The Left in politics from the very beginning of its history or theories have long pursued the abolition of private property rights as a means of eradicating the bourgeoisie once and for all. Property rights are the clear articulation of who has what rights to which property. Property rights basically stated mean that nobody, not even democratically elected governments, have the right to deprive an individual of his property. Even at the time of the French Revolution, property rights were described as sacred in ’Les droits de l’homme et du citoyen’. In those rare instances where property might have to be relinquished, the individual has the right to fair and reasonable compensation for its loss. Property rights are indispensable for prosperous societies and the basis of all free-market exchange which makes it particularly alarming that property is being assaulted by direct confiscation, the abolition or limitation of property rights, the abolition of inheritance law.

The case for a flat taxation rate is compelling. Taxation may be applied at a flat rate, at a progressive rate or at a compensatory rate. Progressive taxation is patently unfair and unjust, establishing the various tax brackets is inherently arbitrary. In the modern welfare state, compensatory taxation is hardly justified. Whereas flat taxation is fair and just, there are already countries which function quite well under a flat tax regime, not to mention that many of the taxes in the current tax mix are already flat taxes. Ironically, the impact of globalisation is forcing governments to flatten their tax rates to ensure continued economic advancement and counteract inter-country tax competition, putting the lie to the argument for higher taxation. Taxation should never be used as an instrument to punish the bourgeoisie simply for being rich.

Throughout the democracies, there is currently a relentless assault upon the wealthy. The Australian government collects the majority of its tax revenue from just two taxes; personal income tax and company tax, both overwhelmingly paid by the bourgeoisie. The rich pay more than their fair share of taxes and they most certainly do not merit the odium heaped upon them by the Leftist elites in the media, nor the assaults to which they are subjected and which would never be tolerated nor condoned if directed at any other minority in society. The propaganda advantage the Left holds on the proletariat by manipulating the ‘sacred cows’ of the health and education budgets gives them huge political leverage to justify taxing the rich. The property of the bourgeoisie is increasingly under threat with wealth and death taxes leading the way. Equally, individualism must not be oppressed by collectivism but rather preserved to ensure economic prosperity. The aims of democratic socialism are simply the total destruction of the bourgeoisie via unjust taxation!

It will be noticed that the situation in the United Kingdom and Australia are frequently referenced in the text, for legitimate historical and political reasons and the fact that I am an Anglo-Australian. France likewise figures prominently for equally legitimate historical and political reasons but also because since my youth I have been a fervent Francophile, in love with the idea of France and the French.

Readers may well ask what are my qualifications for writing such a work as this? The truth is I hold no academic qualifications in economics, finance, accounting nor history but like to think this work derives from the consideration of first principles, common sense and the lived experience of paying taxes for over fifty years.

Select Quotations Taken from

the Text

"Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who