First off, let's some up the part of Obama's speech that is driving this guy up the wall. Obama talks about a "certain crowd" in Washington who believe that the market will take care of everything. He shuts down this group and bluntly says that this ideology that the market will take care of everything isn't working and it isn't going to work. He then calls for the solution in his eyes: more regulations and government involvement in business. I thought the journalist, Harry Binswanger, had some interesting points in his response.
Binswanger starts out by admitting to being a part of that "certain crowd," and he clarifies what their beliefs actually are. This "certain crowd" is technically a rather small group of Radical Capitalists who are, that's right, radical for capitalism. He clarifies that government exists for one use and one use only, "to secure these rights" or, in other words, government is there to secure the personal civil rights we possess for merely being human beings. He gives some insight on how long its been since laissez-faire of capitalism; its been since the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Get this, he then bashes on the Federal Reserve and tells why he thinks it is corrupt. He makes this point, "Obama is pretending that the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society were repealed, so that he can blame the financial crisis on capitalism." The finishing touches too his article are quite superb; he concludes that Obama is trying to do two things: limit our freedom because we can't handle it and, to fix that, force is the answer.
It's been a long time since the free market, per-say, "just did its thing," but I believe there are some reasons for that. Some things, like subsides, are a good way government is involved in business. Think about if government didn't have a subsidy on oil, the oil companies could charge whatever they wanted to. Sure, if that were to happen, a better energy source might rise from the ashes, but the transition would be detrimental; we rely to heavily on oil, so we aren't going to drop it. Regardless, government helps contain corruption of power.
There is a point that I think government needs to cease its involvement in business, but that's not the point right now, the point is that, if what this writer is saying has any significance, we need to worry but not a lot. In my opinion, capitalism is a pretty good building block for an economy. The concept of supply and demand helps to get people what the want/need when the want/need it. There shouldn't have to be more regulations on businesses. Of course, some newer regulations may be needed, but business should be free. People should be able get what they want because they want it. I'm not saying that Obama is trying to limit peoples freedoms, but people need to watch and pay attention to what's going on around them so that they can protect themselves and their freedoms; if they want to be protected, they will be.
Great post, I read the article and as soon as I saw him mention Ayn Rand I knew I was going to like it. Government is indeed too involved in our nation, it needs to be reduced by a large amount ( I side with the Libertarians). While the individual market should remain free with few subsidies, as you said about oil, Obama is indeed trying to stop that. He is trying to turn our country to socialism, as seen with Obama care (gonna get a few mad with that one). We indeed do need to pay attention to what is going on in the White House in order to protect ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to remember that, indeed, the government is intended to "secure these rights." There is no way for an purely free-market system to guarantee those rights in any stretch. I think our nation's history is a testament to that.
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