Of all the myths that persist concerning economic history, writes D.W. MacKenzie, the myth that the United States rebuilt Europe and Japan following the Second World War is among the most popular. While there is considerable disagreement concerning other myths, like the notion that FDR saved us all during the Great Depression, the myth of the Marshall Plan enjoys wide support.
What free-marketeers don't always make explicit is that the government and media Chicken Littles are right in part: Corporations are indeed out to make a profit. Of this point we must first observe the first lesson of business economics, as taught by the classical school markets in the 18th century. The institutions of the market channel questionable motivations to a social end.
To listen to mainstream economists, including Wall Street analysts, what destruction Isabel wrought is really a bonanza for the economy. Maybe, if we are really desperate to improve the local economies of our cities and towns, what all of us ought to do is bulldoze our property to the ground. Think of all the jobs that will be created when it becomes necessary to rebuild our houses, workplaces, downtowns, shopping malls and other centers of commerce from scratch.
At the Mises University, George Reisman explained why many countries often thought to be socialist, either now or in the past, such as Sweden, Israel, and Britain under the old Labor Party, should be thought of as hampered market economies instead. For production in those countries characteristically takes place, or did take place, at private initiative, motivated by private profit.
We invent great ideas, and the Japanese—Honda in particular—adopt them and put them to work.
Christopher Westley formulates his own law of economics, which highlights how consumers apply much lower standards to government output, no matter what it is, than they do to the output that results from private markets. How else to explain hysteria about market failure and corporate mis-behavior as compared with unending government government failure?
The authors of the Time article are correct in that coming energy crises are brewing. However, they are wrong when they assume that such problems occur because of the ineptitude of capitalists and the lack of political will by members of Congress. Whether it be gasoline or the making of bread, the production of goods is best left to economic, not political entrepreneurship.
Why has the Concorde failed? The market determines whether and to what extent certain services such as speed are desired by society relative to competing demands on resources. No one can say a priori that faster is always and everywhere better. It may need to take a back seat to other priorities, like cheap tickets or mass availability or frequency of travel opportunities.
The guild system possesses a superficial plausibility, which gives it what attractiveness it may have among market critics left and right. But consider how a guild system must work in practice. The logic of the guild is such that certain people who wish to enter a particular trade are denied entry.
The merchant class has been the most reviled in the history of political thought. Their very existence sticks in the craw of those who, like Marxists and modern-day militarists, believe that history should be about great conflicts, and winners and losers. Why? Because the merchant class views history in a more mundane way: as a series of small steps by which people are provided the goods and services they need to overcome the great economic problem of scarcity.
