The Free Market

Among the follies of our own age seemingly has been the dot.com boom. Indeed, it is apparent now that much of the resources invested in the Internet were wasted.

Religious social services soon may be getting a new ally in their efforts to rescue people from the clutches of poverty, drug addiction and other personal problems: the federal government. The hook is "compassionate conservatism," and as the linchpin of President Bush's domestic policy, stand-and-deliver time has come early. But his plan, if fully realized, should succeed mainly in underscoring the folly of state-sponsored private charity of any type.

What could make us rush to a building at eight o' clock in the morning on Monday? Eviction!

In an earlier article in the FreeMarket, I questioned whether or not Joel Klein, who headed the US Justice Department's Antitrust Division during the Clinton administration's jihad against Microsoft, was doing so as a "public servant," or might there be a more personal agenda. We now have our answer: Klein was going for the big bucks.

One of the modern hero-myths the State has cultivated about itself is that government vaccination programs drastically reduced some common communicable diseases in the twentieth century. For decades, the government has required certain vaccinations for entry into schools, and most parents have passively submitted to the inoculation of their children. Now, in response to increasing evidence that vaccines may not be the boon to our health that has been supposed, opposition to mandatory vaccination programs is building.

Due to the weakening economy, the red-hot job market appears to be at an end. Employers are already handing out pink slips, giving rise to complaints about the "injustices" of the market system, particularly among younger workers whose careers have been furthered by an unusually long economic boom.

The state of California has experienced a meltdown in its electric power system. For months, the system has repeatedly run at or near the overload point, necessitating brownouts and even rolling blackouts. Incredibly, the fiasco has been blamed on deregulation and the free market.

Some ninety percent of all antitrust lawsuits are litigated by the private antitrust bar, which is to say, they involve one company suing one of its rivals, as opposed to the government bringing the suit. As a rule, whenever one company sues a rival it is because the rival is charging lower prices or providing superior products and services. Antitrust lawsuits are meant to throw a monkey wrench into the smoothly-functioning gears of the competitive process, and are therefore inherently anticompetitive.

Under the Bush system in Texas, teachers teach the test. They drill until ninety percent of the kids can pass it. The weakest among the students dictate the pace and method. It is a dreary and unimaginative approach to teaching. But if your goal is to boost overall scores, no question: this is the way to do it.

I have come up with a brief list of films I' ve happened upon that I think are of particular interest to the cause of liberty. I am not vouching for ideological purity in any of these films, but they do underscore the case against managed societies and economics. Also, I have selected films that are generally high quality.

While it did not make headway in this latest presidential campaign, events of the last year have weakened one of the longest-standing policies of the US government: the trade embargo with Cuba.

There is a class of pundits that defends public confidence in big government, and trashes those who celebrate its undoing. These pundits had a fit following this year' s election that revealed the least flattering side of the US system of government. If we thought the process of making laws was ugly, few were prepared to observe in slow motion the even more contemptible process of picking lawmakers.

Earlier last year (February 17) in testimony before the House Banking Committee, Alan Greenspan argued that increases in productivity tend to create greater increases in aggregate demand than in potential aggregate supply. His reasoning was that productivity increases stimulate optimistic corporate earnings forecasts, which stimulate stock price increases, which lead consumers to assume increased personal wealth, which increases consumption (and thus aggregate) expenditure.

The latest outrage from the Profession that Gave Us John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Paul Samuelson is in the form of a story in The Economist.

History frowns upon the belief that government protects children's rights, and yet that is precisely the claim that undergirds child labor laws, now enforced in most parts of the world. Hardly anyone dares question their existence, much less the conventional history of child labor, no matter how many children and families continue to be victimized by government regulation of labor.

The inflation suffered by the colony of Rhode Island during the early eighteenth century is well-described by the word "wanton." Especially since the engineers of this inflation were the Wanton brothers, John and William, Governor and Deputy Governor of the colony at the time.

In October, the press began reporting Albert Gore's startling catalog of lies. They were legion. How can a person tell so many falsehoods so often about so many things? One newspaper account theorized that it was a habit developed from growing up in a highly-political family.

So the regulations have begun. Two towns, so far, have passed laws banning the use of cellular phones while driving. In Illinois, the giant cellular telephone provider Verizon said it would lobby for a state law prohibiting anything but "hands-free" cellular phone use by drivers.

Statism was the primary theme of this year's election. The political issues of the day were all approached from the interventionist point of view. For George W. Bush and Al Gore, it was not a matter of whether government should be running a social security scheme or not. It was only a matter of how government might save it.

Rumor has it that the economics profession has finally been "won over" to a free-market view of the world. If the complimentary economics textbooks that cross my desk are a bellwether, however, it is not yet time to break out the champagne.