Individuals and foundations have sunk millions of dollars into D.C. "think tanks" and seminars, writes William Anderson, in hopes of teaching economics to those who are in positions of political leadership. Lest we be tempted to think this is working, read the latest U.S. Senate "investigative report" on oil prices. The political classes and their media allies have cooked up yet another conspiracy theory on the evils of private enterprise.
Mark Thornton shows that George Lucas is taking bits and pieces of our own historical experience to retell a battle between good and evil that also touches on themes in political economy, particularly the choice between self-determination (essential to freedom) and imperialism (linked to war and state expansion).
Germany today, argues Frank Vogelgesang, is a country marked by often suffocating regulation, a social security system that lies like a wet blanket over the private sector, and a labor market in desperate need of breathing room. This goes against the kind of market economy envisioned by Ludwig Erhard after World War II, based largely on ideas of the Freiburg School with its intellectual roots in the Austrian School.
According to Ludwig von Mises, socialism was doomed to failure because the lack of private property, plus the absence of a profit and loss system, meant that accurate economic calculation would be impossible in those regimes. Instead of order, there would be chaos--something that was borne out time and again as we witnessed the poor performances of socialist economies.
The meltdown of liberty can be stopped. But it won’t be stopped until those who understand the problem speak out courageously against the clear and present danger, which is the state at war. It is a danger even if the state wins. As Mises says: "no citizen of a liberal and democratic nation profits from a victorious war."
The free market is not a panacea. It does not eliminate old age, and it won't guarantee you a date for Saturday night. Private enterprise is fully capable of awful screw-ups. But both theory and practice indicate that its screw-ups are less pervasive and more easily corrected than those of government enterprises, including regulatory ones.
What may be the more important factor in manufacturing future Enrons is the role of government in fostering the boom-bust cycle. Enron, then, is just one casualty of many--albeit the largest so far--of massive credit expansion and of manipulation of interest rates by the central bank.
Hey, accountants are people, too, and they're not very happy ones these days. Arthur Andersen’s accountants--not unjustifiably--think that they are unfairly being made the scapegoats for much of Enron’s unreported sins, and the consequences could be devastating for the accounting concern’s survival.
If the Enron bankruptcy proves anything, it is that there are sinners in all walks of life, and that the market economy provides mechanisms for rooting out and punishing systematic liars. Those who clamor for Congress to “do something” to assure that this kind of thing will never happen again are delusional if they think Congress has the ability to legislate away sin or otherwise improve on the market system of profit and loss. Such delusions are a testament to the successful brainwashing of generations of public school students who have been taught to worship the “god” of the state and to look to it to solve all of life’s problems.
It is ironic that America is often derided by some critics for its rough-and-tumble capitalism--hence, these critics maintain, the need for government interventions of every kind. Reality, however, is quite different; America’s brand of capitalism seems to enjoy freshening the wells of failure. In America, if you’re big enough and rich enough, or if you have a world-class lobbying team, you can get the American taxpayer to underwrite your failures.
