Americans are expressing greater acceptance of socialism, if recent polls reported by Forbes, Fox and others are accurate.
The Left’s concerted, decades-long campaign to blame every human challenge, social ill and appalling injustice on “the evils of Capitalism” is producing results. Their campaign could hardly fail, given the ubiquity of their message. But their message is a lie.
Economic liberty does not, cannot cause harm.
When economically free people become wealthy, their activity creates yet more opportunity for others.
Economic liberty is NOT the problem.
CRONYISM; CRIMINAL CORRUPTION is the problem.
Our government is supposed to defend us in the exercise of our natural rights against infringement by fraud, force, coercion, theft or invasion.
When big corporations “purchase” legislation that prevents the rise of competition and/or procures favorable treatment by the law, the defense of other people’s rights is compromised. In this event, a CRIME has been committed by both the party offering the bribe and the office-holder or agency accepting the bribe.
This is criminal. It is not the fault of economic liberty. So it’s surprising to see ostensible champions of American Liberty join the Leftists in calling for further economic intervention by government as a response to government-enabled monopolies and the harm they cause.
When has MORE government intervention ever done more good than harm? When has the fat fist of gov’t force ever failed to generate unintended consequences?
What is “Capitalism” anyway? Capitalism is a philosophy that says “you own your life.” From this philosophy emerges the essence of practical liberty, Economic Liberty and defense of Property Rights.
We each own our time, talent, expertise, the right to engage with others in consenting exchange and the value generated from our efforts – our property. The codification of each person’s right to own himself and his property defends a Natural Liberty. It doesn’t establish a centrally-controlled “system.”
Defense of Economic Liberty is the foundation of the peaceable, consenting interdependence which permits specialization (driving progress) and generates prosperity.
Entrusting people with power – be it the force of law, a private fortune or a corporation – will result in some corruption by some people some of the time. The rational response to this timeless fact of life is to make corruption quickly discoverable, isolate (contain) the damage, and promptly prosecute the perpetrators.
Rational, free people DEFEND liberty and PROSECUTE crime. It’s not rational to question the morality of economic liberty as a response to crime.
So, why are Americans today seeming more amenable to socialism?
No one votes to give up his natural right to monetize his time, own the results and engage in consenting exchange with others. Absent force, collectivist ideology could only prevail by deception. And so profound a deception as is needed to make a person denounce his own nature is only made possible by generations of replacing reason with emotion, facts with feelings, education with indoctrination; information with propaganda. The Statist Left has been working toward this for a very long while. Even so, it can be counteracted by exposure.
THE CENTRAL DECEPTION promoted by collectivist ideology is its strategic misdefinition of wealth. Proponents of socialist economic policy define wealth in primitive, zero-sum terms, calling it a “limited resource” over which a benevolent authority must preside if everyone is to get a “fair share,” as they say.
“If you have wealth, you must have victimized someone to get it.”
Let’s unpack the origin of this deception. In much more primitive times, wealth was measured by the land and other natural resources to which a given clan or tribe could secure access by conquest. “Wealth” consisting of a limited resource to which one acquired access at another’s expense truly defines a “zero-sum” game, doesn’t it?
In a modern, post-industrial economy, wealth is a RESULT of creating or doing anything having VALUE to others. Those who create and offer value to a great many people in CONSENTING exchanges will accumulate value because their produced value exceeds their daily needs. The resulting stored value is wealth.
Wealth is a RESULT of economic activity. It’s not a resource. As such, it isn’t in “limited supply.”
So, how should those of us fully subscribed to economic liberty respond to the socialist aspirations of Osceo-Cortez and those like her?
DISARM the socialist DECEPTION with ECONOMIC TRUTH!
- Wealth is a RESULT of economic activity (the production of anything others value)
- Income inequality is not a problem to be solved by the force of law, but a natural and expected result of human diversity; of choices, preferences, values, skills, stages of life, etc.
- Bribing public officials or accepting bribery is CRIMINAL CORRUPTION, not an “excess of capitalism.”
- Economic Justice is measured NOT in equality but in economic empowerment; economic mobility. We look at the ease or difficulty with which a person may mount the economic ladder and ascend by virtue of his own effort and merit
Robust and reliable defense of economic liberty and individual property rights is the best way to optimize the economic empowerment of each individual.
