Free Enterprise

There is near universal consent among the public and media that capitalism is evil, and that capitalism is the cause of all problems. Micheal Moore even made a movie about it. However, those who criticize capitalism (again almost everyone) have no understanding of how the market works. Did you know we have not had a truly free market in about 100 years? Any interference in the market immediately distorts it. With the Federal Reserve, the interst rates are controlled by a group of individuals. By manipulating the interest rates and not allowing the market to set them, we enter into an inevitable cycle of booms and busts. We see a short time of prosperity followed by a time of despairity. In order to try and shore up the economy, the government often creates bailouts and stimulus packages by increasing the money supply. By increasing the money supply, we decrease the value and purchasing power of each individual dollar. This is a simplistic explanation of Keynesian economics (what our government believes in) and is leading us to a depression greater than the Great Depression. It is extremely likely that with all the money being created out of thin air, we will see hyper-inflation (assuming the Fed does not raise interest rates). If the Fed does choose to raise interest rates, it is likely we will see a depression as a result of deflation. However, I digress. To return to the topic of the free-market, many left-wingers accuse capitalism as hurting the public by either not providing quality products or hurting the environment or exploiting workers. The accusors however are wrong in seeing that we ahve a free market today and also are extremely irresponsible. Our health care system looks like it is for sure about to be overhauled in the next couple days. Many people accuse our health care insurance of being expensive, but they do not realize that legislation stands in the way of letting insurance providers sell across state lines, thus decreasing competition and permitting high prices (insurance actually should only exist for life threating illnesses and the small things should be paid for up front-lowering costs). Now with the irresponsibility of those who accuse capitalism. The beauty of capitalism is that the consumer has the power. When unsatisfied with a product, consumers can choose not to buy that product. This happens all the time. When you go to the grocery store, you often buy the cheapest gallon of milk. That is a choice made by you. Some people choose not to buy a certain clothing brand because they don't pay their workers enough in other countries. The consumer has all the power. As consumers, we have the ability to change the way a corporation runs its business. The problem with the liberals is that they accuse the businesses of being corrupt and greedy, so they ask the government to change things. They are too "lazy" to actually change it themselves, thus sacrificing their freedoms. While this sounds like a great idea to some, we are seeing the faults with this process with the banking system. Currently the government won't let banks fail, so the consumer has no need or interest to look into the investing standards of their bank and how risky they are. As would be suspected, the banks manage irresponsibly and are extremely greedy. You can see the problem with a non-capitalistic society. There is too much constriction on the free market at this point for it to function. In order to return to prosperity we must shred the chains of government regulation and return to a producing society as opposed to a "spending society."


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