In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal economist Douglas Coate suggests a need for “Improving the GOP’s Free-Market Pitch.” He correctly points out, “Capitalism’s virtues don’t easily reduce to sound bites, but that isn’t a reason to give up.” Then he provides a reasonable summary of the benefits of free markets or capitalism including an obligatory reference to Hayek and concludes and provides a suggested sound bite from Gary Becker:
Unfortunately, I am not sure how best a political candidate might argue for capitalism and limited government in a sound bite. Maybe by borrowing from Gary Becker: “Over the past 25 years, a billion people have escaped poverty as their countries moved away from command and control, toward capitalism and freedom.
The GOP’s problem of establishing itself as the party of limited government has much more to do with action not rhetoric, framing, or sound bites. Actual actions speak much louder than words. The Republican power elite still remains, by action, a party committed to what is now called crony capitalism but should be more appropriately recognized as modern mercantilism, the unvanquished foe of liberty. As recent examples, the party refuses to de-fund the Export-Import Bank, and as pointed out by other editorials in the same edition of the Wall Street Journal, leaders of the party continue to “bow to the wind and the ethanol lobby” while providing support to the pentagon and large defense contractor lobby for ever increasing defense spending and war mongering under the guise of national defense. This is private enterprise at work for the benefit of the connected, not the work of an unhampered market for sustainable prosperity.
Supporters of a free economy and an unhampered market need to be ever vigilant. It is thus ever more important that there are institutions like the Mises Institute that make resources available to educate the public on the true nature of a free and prosperous commonwealth.
