The Tao Te Ching of Darth Sidious

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It reads like Milton Friedman, or Murray Rothbard, or is that L Ron Hubbard?---I never could tell them apart:

The Philosophy of the Sith (it has different names depending on the place or the times) has always been the same: it speaks of passion and freedom but it treats Man like a machine, and the instruments of its ontology are the tools of bondage and deceit. It is cold, mechanical, calculating, and...soulless.

The two samples below made it all the way here from Sith Sigma, a galaxy...too close to home. The site is actually quite edifying. It is cleverly assembled and the spirit in which it happens to be presented does invite comparison with THE PRINCE: like Machiavelli’s best-known book the site exposits and describes the arts with which a Sith Lord or a ruling Corporate Prince can best maintain control of his realm:




In truth, such philosophies have nothing to do with the Tao Te Ching. Though don't be too quick to judge. There are some Sith Lords, like Murray Rothbard, who have been contending that "the first libertarian intellectual was Lao-tzu."

But who, in their right mind, would nowadays still take Murray Rothbard seriously?

There is no telling!

There are those who are looking at China as a Libertarian wet dream and the new promised land of unregulated "economic freedom":

China has a fast growing economy and that doesn’t happen with command style economics. China has a free market (sometimes). I had been told that Beijing recently got rid of rent control, something that New York and Los Angeles wouldn’t even consider. The government is letting some people (those with money) get visa’s and see the rest of the world. They aren’t as afraid that people will leave. This country is more than an economic power; it is a country people want to live in.
---Brad Hemak, A Libertarian in China, 2005

Could Robert Fogel's economic forecast be right?