The Sierra Nevada of California are rugged and beautiful mountains, and they are located only about an hour east of my home in Roseville. We can see them on clear days and many times we have driven east to go snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, or taking in the scenery around Lake Tahoe.

Toward the end of my recent lecture at the Oklahoma City Mises Circle, I mentioned that one peculiar aspect of small businesses, as a group, is that they are very bad at lobbying the government for special favors. We can contrast this, for example, with the financial sector and commercial airlines, or with large manufacturers in areas like steel, aerospace, and automobiles.

In a free, market-based economy, there is no conflict between different industries, economic interests, or sectors of the economy. There is no “class conflict”—as Marx imagined it—because, thanks to the division of labor, voluntary trade and competition reward consumers, producers, and asset owners alike. This is what Ludwig von Mises called the “harmony of interests.” 

I recently attended an event at the Prosperity Institute in the United Kingdom, and, as a foreigner listening to the discussion unfold, I found it both unsettling and clarifying. The panel addressed the grooming gang scandal, a subject that remains profoundly uncomfortable for Britain’s political and cultural establishment. What distinguished this event was its refusal to soften the reality of what occurred or to retreat into evasive language.