The Free Market

This dreadful election season will spew forth many promises by politicians to "lead us into the future." I can hardly think of a worse fate for any society than to be led into the future by the political class of gangsters, marauders, looters, and liars. Fortunately, they haven’t the capacity to lead whole societies anywhere. They are outclassed and outrun by trends in the world economy that are beyond the ability of the political class to control or direct.

Debt is an institution in American government, long established and widespread. A cursory glance at debt statistics will quickly show that there has been a lull in the truth about debt, namely, that it cannot grow indefinitely at the rate at which it has been growing—at least not without a serious revaluation of the dollar, something we are already in the midst of seeing.

With a Republican president running sky-high debts, unleashing wars, imposing protectionist trade edicts, and risking the nation’s financial future, sometimes it feels like the 19th century all over again, specifically the year 1861 and following. The 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln sparked a secession movement in the southern states. In December, South Carolina seceded, and other Deep South states soon followed. Interstate commerce was disrupted, and many northeastern banks suspended specie payments. The atmosphere was one of grave political and economic crisis. Many feared war; many feared the unknown.

Before there was the Federal Reserve there was the second Bank of the United States (1817–1836). Since the late nineteenth century, historians and economists have lauded this institution for its salutary control over the currency, its regulation of the state banks, its prudent stewardship of the government’s funds, and its example of a fruitful private/public partnership in the field of central banking.

A common accusation against the Mises Institute is that it is obsessed with tracing social and economic problems to the state, and, in doing so, it oversimplifies the world.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Weisman recently scored a front-page story about President Bush that would have galvanized DC conservatives three years earlier if the same words had been written about President Clinton.

Traditionally in the US, the management of the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion, or government, is brought to power by an election in which the majority vote attains dominion. Individuals living in such a democratic republic are mollified by blindly assuming that such a form of government is "rule by the people," as indoctrinated.

The Free Market 24, no. ( 2004)

The Republicans have done it again. With their new Medicare bill, they’ve made government even bigger.

There is a fly in the ointment of economic recovery: a dollar that just won’t seem to stop its fall. The impression that this trend portends something ominous is bolstered by the inverse relationship of the dollar’s value on international exchange and the price of gold. As the dollar has fallen in the last year, gold has risen.

With the passage of time, the nature of post-Saddam Iraq becomes clearer, as does the Bush administration's lack of commitment to free-market principles.

The "Coalition Provisional Authority" (the US government) in Iraq has instituted a 15 percent tax in Iraq based on the view that "these collections are for the benefit of the Iraqi people." The US will tax income, the transfer of "real property," car sales, and gasoline. The US claims that this is a lower tax than Saddam had, but this is only true in the most technical legal sense.

Volume 24, Number 1
January 2004

The Federal government, which sets the pace, reported a $555 million deficit for the 2003 fiscal year; its total debt is given at $6.783 trillion. For the next two years the budget deficits are estimated at $566 billion to $644 billion each, which should increase its total debt to more than $8 trillion, or some $27,000 for every man, woman, and child.

The Economist magazine asked in a recent issue: "Why on earth can’t the world’s richest country ensure that Baghdad has water and electricity?" One might think that a publication dedicated to covering the world of markets would already know the answer. The US government is trying to solve economic problems in Iraq, including the provision of essentials like utilities, through military means. If guns and force could provide the essentials of life, the Soviet Union would have been a utopia.

It is not a short step from poverty to prosperity, and the transition itself has long been exploited by opponents of the market economy.

A growing recognition of the superiority of markets over planning has created an unviable hybrid: the planned market, one created not by property owners by the state and for the state.

Thanks to the untiring efforts of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Americans have been faced with the greatest expansion of the government into medical care since the 1960s. When these moves are complete, the free market in American medicine will be practically gone. Interventionism will be in complete possession of the field of battle, and the task of the government will be to mop up the remaining opposition.

The Free Market 23, no. 11 (November 2003)

The tax bills of many American families are falling during a period of exorbitant increases in federal spending due mainly to war and welfare spending. Odd? Not once we discover the record levels of government debt accumulation. It's the shell game of government finance at work.