Once again, the unpredictable and uncontrollable forces of chaos have revealed themselves, this time in Las Vegas, a city that thrives on the unforeseeable nature of gambling. As we have come to expect, members of the mainstream media, politicians, and other apostles for the established order, were quick to remind Boobus Americanus not to lose faith in the power of political systems to bring mankind to order. Again, we hear the endless recitation of the mantra that follows the failures of political intervention to achieve its promised expectations: "we will find out what went wrong and fix it so this doesn't happen again." I am reminded of the religions that predict the "end of the world" on a specific date, and when doomsday fails to occur on the predicted date, a new date is then selected.

The institutional structuring of the lives of individuals has its foundations in the belief in pyramidal systems of authority. While we are familiar with this model in most organized religions, all institutional claims of formal authority are grounded in the belief that an orderly world can be realized only through centrally planned and regulated systems of control over people.

The ends sought by most advocates of political structuring are not a peaceful and orderly society, nor conforming human behavior to the demands of nature, nor maximizing the material and spiritual well-being of all humans. Their aspirations, rather, are to be found in the enjoyment of coercive power over others, a purpose that can be found in the manipulation of any conditions. "Environmentalists" began, a few decades ago, with the "threat" of a coming "ice age," for which state regulation of human behavior would be required. In mid-stream, their hypothecated threat became "global warming," with government control the only plausible solution. The "threat" was later modified to "climate change," for which political control was proposed.

The late William Hutt told me that Keynes – with whom Hutt was closely acquainted – had written a draft of his General Theory and sent it out to fellow economists for their responses. They strongly criticized