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.
Leftist critics of capitalism like Labor Secretary Robert Reich have criticized the alleged shortsightedness of American corporations, while praising the supposedly longer-range perspectives of their Japanese competitors.
The dialectic goes like this. First, an artist—I use the term broadly—exhibits something pornographic, blasphemous, or otherwise egregiously offensive. His opus may well be an action, as when an HIV-positive “performance artist” had his back cut open before a surprised audience in Minneapolis.
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.
In the past, politicians have only bowed and scraped when the Fed chairman testified before the Congressional committees. But that may change. The Fed may find itself on the hotseat after 79 years.
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.
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.
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.
Hollywood ain’t what it used to be. For the most part—and with known exceptions—the quality and content of today’s movies have plummeted when compared to the Golden Age. With the movies’ parade of sex and violence, they’re an easy target for cultural critics to say capitalism inflicts grave damage on the culture.
“Every great statesman must necessarily fail,” wrote Andrew Lytle in a moving tribute to John C. Calhoun. The reason: the statesman is driven by high ideals like freedom, self-government, justice, and constitutionalism, which will never be perfectly realized. Yet even in failure, the statesman preserves civilization, and keeps tyranny at bay.
Government bureaucrats look out for their own kind. Entrepreneur John Shanahan, the man behind “Hooked on Phonics,” found that out the hard way when he developed a program that taught his son how to read after the California public schools could not.
