Makems and Takems

Do Takems Have the Upper Hand?
The people of Sunderland in England have been building, or making, ships on the River Wear as far back as the 14th century. Since that time, their neighbors to the north in Newcastle upon Tyne have been taking the ships from Sunderland and using them to ship goods from the Port of Tyne.

Somewhere along the way the relationship between these good-natured rivals was captured by the term of mackems and tackems, or makems and takems. Each sees their role as superior; but the key point is that these roles take place voluntarily in a free market. When we look at these terms, however, in the context of what is happening in the United States today, they take on a much darker meaning.

What has set the United States apart from every other nation in the history of mankind is that the liberty afforded Americans created a country of makems. The Pilgrims overcame near starvation on their way to making a new life in cold, hostile environment. Later, other pioneers made their way into the wilderness to expand the boundaries of the colonies. The work ethic empowered by liberty kept on for over two centuries as America made itself the world’s greatest economic power.

Of course, there were many problems along the way as takems decided they wanted to share in American prosperity without doing the work themselves. For instance, the English Parliament and English merchants tried to take profits from the colonists through the Stamp Act and the Tea Act and in the process provoked the American Revolution. But for the most part, America grew strong and prosperous as a country of makems.

Today, it seems, the takems have the upper hand. But these aren’t the takems of Newcastle who prospered by employing the ships of Sunderland in the marketplace. Instead, takems in 21st century America have turned to the government to acquire what they can’t in the free market through their own toil. The result is sustained economic malaise for many in America and subsequent spiritual and economic unrest for many of those–on both the left and the right.

As noted, the problem of takems is not new to our country or to the 21st century. But it has taken on a scale unprecedented in the United States. The reason for this is simple, explained by Milton Friedman, “The smaller the unit of government and the more restricted the functions assigned government, the less likely it is that its actions will reflect special interests rather than the general interest.”

A relatively small and decentralized government , which America had up until the Civil War, has a limited ability to be used by special interests—our takems—to take wealth from the general public. However, when progressives became expanding the size and scope of government in the aftermath of the Civil War, the ability of government to plunder its citizens on behalf of the takems began to rapidly expand. Soon, income taxes at the state and federal level gave government the resources it needed to thrive in its new role of , while the courts in the hands of the progressives overturned years of precedence in order to allow the transformation to occur. Despite a few bright spots—such as Frederick Douglass, R.L. Dabney, Calvin Coolidge, Ludwig von Mises, William F. Buckley, Jr, and Ronald Reagan—throughout the last century and a half progressivism continued to take its toll on liberty and prosperity by allowing takems to seize more and more control of our lives.

Texas Stands Out – Or Used To

When I first wrote this back in 2017, Texas stood out as a relative beacon of freedom in the midst of liberty’s decline in the U.S. I noted how one way to measure how Texas is doing when it comes to liberty and prosperity is simply by watching the choices people make for themselves about where they want to live. And more people want to live in Texas than almost any other state. In a typical year, more people come to live in Texas than any other state except Florida, and its net migration rate ranks seventh in the country. Texas is a place people want to live, just like it was when Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, and Stephen F. Austin came here almost 200 years ago. And they come here today for the same reasons they did then—for opportunity and freedom.

Yet, as I have written elsewhere, today Texas’ liberty is at risk through corporate cronyism. Programs like the Texas Enterprise Fund, Chapters 312 and 313 local property tax abatements, regulatory favoritism, and renewable energy subsidies are taking their toll on the pocketbooks and liberties of Texans. It is not just the money, but also how corporations are more and more driving public policy in Texas, even capturing conservative institutions who are supposed to be guarding our liberty.

People are still moving to Texas in record numbers because of our relative freedom and prosperity, but whether that continues will be up to Texans.

A Few Recommendations
The recipe for continued liberty and prosperity in Texas is rather simple—more makems and less takems. To this end, I offer a few simple, though challenging to implement, recommendations:

• Stop murdering our children. Ending abortion may seem like a strange recommendation for a post focused on corporate welfare. However, the bigger issue here is liberty. And no people who murder millions of children can claim to be living in liberty. Additionally, the corporate cronyist culture has bought into the abortion industry just like it has most other progressive assaults on liberty and is actively promoting it. If we want to persevere as a people in liberty under God, we must end abortion and end the profits that many businesses are earning from it.
• Stop and then reverse the growth of state and local governments: Texas government is big enough; if it needs to do something new, it can stop doing something else. As long as government continues to grow, it also increases its capacity for being used by special interests, i.e., takems, to undermine liberty.
• Eliminate public funding for K-12 and higher education. Perhaps nothing portends a worse future for liberty in Texas than Texans sending their children year after year to the godless institutions that seek to turn children against God, family, and country. Corporate cronyism is a major part of this work, as billions of dollars each year earned by businesses developed to siphon money out of publicly-funded  education. Conservatives often get upset about what is happening in public schools. Instead, they should be upset that they exist at all.
• Eliminate corporate welfare: Texas has long since proven that the best economic program isn’t corporate welfare, it is lower taxes and spending, fewer regulations, less frivolous lawsuits, and reduced reliance on the federal government. More of this approach, i.e., the Texas Model, is what Texas needs to lead America and the rest of the world to a more prosperous future in the years to come. It was only a few years ago that corporate welfare was illegal in Texas. Unfortunately, it has not taken long for businesses to take full advantage of this new, immoral, and lucrative source of income.
• Stop local governments from eviscerating property rights: Local governments use zoning, eminent domain, and economic regulation to shut down profitable businesses, make cities less affordable, and take away the rights of citizens to use their property. We need to allow makems (and everyone else) to use their property to their benefit and the benefit of others.
• Get Texas out from under federal duress through programs like Medicaid and federal regulations on the economy and environment: This is a tough one, but still very necessary. Every time Texas does something to improve the lives of its citizens, the federal government seeks to undermine or reverse our gains. Whether it is interstate compacts, an Article V convention, or just saying no, Texas
  needs to continue its work with other states to stand up to the federal assault on our liberties.
• Strengthen Texas’ standing as a Right-to-Work State: Few things have been more important to maintaining Texas economic leadership than being a right-to-work state. But unions are making inroads in certain sectors of our economy. We must stop the unions’ assault on the secret ballot and stop the government from being a dues collector for unions.

Resource: Policymaker’s Guide to Corporate Welfare. PDF and Kindle