Daodejing, Verse 57

Daodejing - Other Voices

Restrictions, Laws and Poverty
The Tao Te Ching (Daodejing) is the second most translated book in the world today. Let’s take a look at a handful of translations of a particular part of Chapter 57 and see if we can determine what is being expressed:

Beck: The more restrictions there are, the poorer the people.

Chan: The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world, The poorer the people will be.

Hansen: The more the social world has to elude, the more the people are impoverished.

Legge: In the kingdom the multiplication of prohibitive enactments increases the poverty of the people.

Mitchell: The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be.

Ta-Kao: The more restrictions and avoidances are in the empire, The poorer become the people.

This is not an opposition to all law. Certainly a society will have to take measures to protect the populace from harm. Those who cause physical injury to others and pose any threat to continue causing harm must surely be removed from the opportunity to continue. Laws create an authority to do this. An authority granted by the people to further their ability to live together in harmony.

Our society today, however, goes far beyond this, to an absurd extreme. Our prisons are overflowing. Why is that? Are there so many dangerous people today? Put in a DVD and read the initial legal threat. If you copy this, if you play it in a public place, you are breaking the law and you are subject to massive fines and five years imprisonment. We send people to prison for theft of “intellectual property”. In 2001, a Federal Prisoner cost taxpayers an average of $22, 632. That’s $113,160 just to punish someone for “stealing” something that, if purchased, would have cost $20. Let’s also not forget that health care for prisoners increases in cost about 10% annually.

In 1998, the U.S. “nonviolent prisoner population, alone, is larger than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska.”

The majority of the non-violent prisoners are being held because of drug use/possession. Consider this. In 2007, According to the American Corrections Association, the average daily cost per state prison inmate per day in the US is $67.55. State prisons held 253,300 inmates for drug offenses in 2007. That means states spent approximately $17,110,415 per day to imprison drug offenders, or $6,245,301,475 per year.

Six billion dollars a year of taxpayer money to keep non-violent criminals locked up. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world at 754 persons in prison or jail per 100,000 (as of 2008). Another interesting fact: in 2002, bout 10.4% of all black males in the United States between the ages of 25 and 29 were sentenced and in prison, compared to 2.4% of Hispanic males and 1.3% of white males.

Six billion dollars a year could go a long way towards helping the population. Providing more training and opportunity for adults, education for children, etc. Not to mention you have millions of people who have felony imprisonment on their records, even further limiting their opportunities when they are released.

We have reached a level of litigation where the average American breaks numerous laws every day. From simple traffic laws such as speeding, to even more serious crimes like copyright infringement and illegal gambling (office sports pools are quite common). There are laws governing ideas and general concepts now. One doesn’t need to actually be innovative if they can work the system to gain a general patent on something. They need only sit back and wait for someone to do something somewhat similar to what their patent describes. Or better yet, get your patent then go out and find people who are already doing things which you might be able to link to your general patent.

These “laws” amount to nothing more than extortion. Instead of promoting ideas, ideas are being “locked up” behind patents and copyrights. The opportunities for the populace are being limited to those who understand the laws more.

Year after year, billions of dollars are spent to enforce growing restrictions on what we can do and say, cranking out new felons by the thousands and depositing them into society with less opportunities which translates to more dependencies.

All under the guise of protecting the people.
~ from Tao Are You?, author Brian, original post date: 4/12/10 ~

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.