The 1996 blizzard dumped three feet of snow on the Washington, D.C., area. The event proved once again that statist economists, armed with their "market failure" theories, perceive reality exactly the opposite from the way it is. It is government, not the free market, that is inherently plagued with inefficiency, fraud, and corruption. Private property and competitive markets provide citizens with the superior alternative—not the other way around.
Extremes like bloody backs distract from the main issue, which is not whether taxpayers should subsidize grotesque performance or perverse photography, but whether they should subsidize art at all. Market theory, of course, follows one simple rule: those who want something should be the ones to pay for it. In particular, those who want art, or a specific kind of art, should put up the money, whether by purchasing tickets or becoming a generous benefactor.
It was November 25, 1945, and the overpaid workers at General Motors were striking, again. Their gripe? Company profits were up, but wages were not. They demanded a shorter workweek and higher pay. Then as now, this government-backed union was using its legal privileges to stick it to consumers and employers. But there was one voice of sanity.
The Federal Reserve is the most powerful yet least questioned of all Washington institutions. It can make or break elections, bail out entire governments, send the stock market to the stratosphere, or bankrupt whole industries. Yet it operates with less oversight than the CIA.
To the outside world, it appears that all economists agree: free trade can never be compromised. Inside, the picture is far more complicated. Good economists, preeminently the Austrian School, favor liberty across the board. Yet among the mainstream, economists who favor big government at home likely reject free trade abroad.
There it is, on the cover of Newsweek, in thick, blood-red letters: "Corporate Killers." What follows is mug-like photo after photo, some of them grainy, of rich white men, all menacing and "greedy." They are the CEOs of America's top corporations. The story's thesis is simple: they are destroying the country.
In the welfare debates, Congress spared what is perhaps the most objectionable part of the welfare state, cash subsidies for illegitimate children. The opponents had committed a terrible error early in the debate. They granted the first philosophical assumption of the program's supporters: that we all should take responsibility for America's children. But should we?
Gus Stelzer, a retired General Motors senior executive, is on a rampage against free trade. It makes sense from his point of view. Like most big business, GM does not welcome competition from abroad, however much it's spurred product improvements over the years. It turns to the government to tax imports that consumers desire more.
Should free enterprise stop at the border? Of course not, and the attempt to make it so can drive us to ruin. Yet politicians are hammering free trade. Long-refuted myths are back in full force, and the voters are getting a miseducation in the economics of autarky.
Well, the Nissan Motor Corporation just proved that it can be every bit as shortsighted as any American company by giving $150,000 to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. According to the new NAACP president, ex-Congressman Kweisi Mfume, the money will be used for "voter registration and education," presumably to elect more left-wing ideologues like himself.
