Human nature hasn't changed much in 2,000 years. Greed,
bribes and the desire to be ruled and regulated are still with us
In the Discovery of Freedom, Rose Wilder Lane
relates the story from the Bible where the men of Israel beseeched Gideon crying
out, "Rule thou, over us..." (“Rule us” being a synonym for today’s “regulate
us”).
One hundred years later the wise man Samuel was beseeched,
"Now make us a king to judge us, like all other nations.” A king not like your
sons, "who but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted
justice."
My friend George Mitrovich recently wrote in the Daily
Transcript, "The rush to deregulation began under President Reagan. It grew
under Clinton and exponentially under President Bush...this unrestrained faith
in free markets..." This was George’s cry to “regulate us/rule us!”
I fell out of my chair laughing. Especially since President
Bush increased the federal regulatory budget exponentially to nearly double
President Clinton's and has outspent all previous presidents on regulations.
According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute in 2007
roughly 50 regulatory agencies issued 3,595 new rules 159 of which are estimated
to cost at least $100 million a year each. The number of pages in the Federal
Register, which lists government regulations, reached an all time high of 78,090
pages. Outlays under George Bush for regulatory activities between 2001 and FY
2009 will total $42.7 billion, a 62% increase. In those areas where the
regulations are greatest, among them finance, housing and autos, the government
created problems are the greatest. Please George, pray tell where is this rush
to deregulation?
George Mitrovich is not alone in criticizing the free
market and some recent miniscule deregulations (most of which occurred under
President Clinton). America first began flirting with socialism, more
government planning and regulation, when the Great Depression began in 1932.
Ever since then we've been taught that mid way between capitalism and communism
there's a 3rd way - part capitalist - part socialist – supposedly the best of
both to solve America's economic and social problems. There is, however, no such
thing as a mixed economy. The economy is either directed by the impartial
market or by government decrees.
Economist and historian Robert Higgs notes: "Left liberal
historians worship political power, and idolize those who wield it most lavishly
in service of left-liberal causes." Does this country really need more
centralized control, more central planning from Washington? Barack Obama
campaigned on closing the regulatory loopholes and promised to "restore
common-sense regulation." He promised to put the government even more in charge
of our economic lives. Should we really give our neighbors who just because
they happen to work for the government more power over us, especially our
elected officials? Do really want to give more power to people the likes of
Illinois Governor Blagojevich?
The people who scorn and disparage free enterprise and call
everything they dislike "Capitalistic" believe Blagojevich was just acting as a
free marketeer, a "willing seller" wanting to sell a U.S. Senate seat to a
"willing buyer" for all the "market will bear."
Those who praise the socialist aspects of the American
economy are in effect, advocating that we need to be regulated by the likes of
the over 1,000 Illinois public official convicted since 1972, or perhaps by
Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, Congressman William Jefferson, Tom Delay, and Randy
Cunningham. Or, perhaps by the 450 members of Congress who regularly bounced
checks in the House Banking Scandal in 1992. How about by the executives of
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who put the match to the housing market. Maybe we
should seek out the government overseers of Social Security and Medicare who
have given us a $99.2 trillion unfunded liability (Source: Federal Reserve Bank
President, Richard Fisher).
The agents provocateurs who dislike the free market,
because it lacks central planning by an all-knowing Harvard or Yale graduate,
feel compelled to demonize capitalism in order to confuse obfuscate and
dissemble what is really happening in the economy. They wish to discredit free
market capitalism by depriving the public of the semantic tools to understand
and deal with the problems at hand. They want the public to believe the
opposite: that the housing crisis and credit meltdown are the result of free
market deregulation rather than being produced by the repulsive manifestations
of government interventions.
