No, there are no economic agencies in this country like Gosplan, but the U.S. Government, as well as many state and local governments, engage in central economic planning all the same. As Bill Anderson tells us, in the end, it is still central economic planning and, not surprisingly, it does not work any better here than it did in the U.S.S.R.
By following U.S. Government policies from beginning to end, Bill Anderson writes, United and American airlines inadvertently aided those individuals who snuffed out nearly 3,000 lives through their vicious actions. Yet, we also know that to have thwarted those attacks would have turned some employees of United and American into felons.
The Economist magazine asked in a recent issue: "Why on earth can’t the world’s richest country ensure that Baghdad has water and electricity?" One might think that a publication dedicated to covering the world of markets would already know the answer. The US government is trying to solve economic problems in Iraq, including the provision of essentials like utilities, through military means. If guns and force could provide the essentials of life, the Soviet Union would have been a utopia.
Jobs are not being shipped, and Americans are not somehow being stopped from making TVs, writes Lew Rockwell. TVs can still be made in the US. Everyone and anyone is free to invest the money, hire the workers (bidding them away from other pursuits), buy the parts, build the sets, and put them on sale. That the same processes are undertaken in China has no bearing on anyone's freedom to do it here. If you want to make an all-American TV, no one is stopping you.
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.
