Monday, October 13, 2008

A Capitalist Manifesto

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122385722252027327.html]

"A Capitalist Manifesto" by Judy Shelton (Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2008, P. A19) is informative but irrelevant. In my view, the free-enterprise, capitalistic experiment of the United States of America, the most successfully-economic and free society in history, has been under relentless siege since the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Today, we face one branch of our government being controlled by anti-free-market-capitalism forces, with even more substantial control being a reality in the upcoming election. A second branch, the Administrative, is poised to be captured by Barack Obama, who I believe has little understanding or appreciation for free enterprise. (And as the alleged voter-fraud activities of ACORN reflect, perhaps a lack of desire for free democracy itself.) With those two corners of our political system lost by free enterprise advocates, the third part of the triangle, Judiciary, can also be turned by the retirement of a couple of the present justices, some of whom are elderly, assuming Sen. Obama becomes president.
In order to have "A Capitalist Manifesto" meaningful, leaders must embrace its precepts. I don't believe that is the case with the Democratic Congress nor Barack Obama. To us businesspeople, Ms. Shelton makes clear and complete sense, but we believe that the success of the free-enterprise system has brought economic and political freedom to more people in this world than any other system invented by mankind to date. To those who believe that the only way for humanity to better itself is through a centralized decision-making bureaucracy, everything Ms. Shelton writes is misguided and wrong. This Congress micromanages the economy and the businesses within it to a degree never before experienced in the U. S. From sending dollars to the (ill-fated) ethanol "industry" to attempting to regulate credit card interest rates Congress deeply meddles. Not that President Bush pushed back! It is getting worse and we haven't seen anything yet: union "card-check", trade restrictions, vengeful and constant investigations of business executives, further limits on their compensation may all be on the way, not to mention the little daily intrusions.
Ms. Shelton and conservatives and Republicans everywhere must realize that as with dealing with foreign countries, many (most?) Democrats believe in and are talking a tongue foreign to free-market capitalism. One could argue that they -- in their own way -- simply want what's best for the most citizens. I argue that it's about power, and the method of gaining power over free-market advocates. In any event, they are opposed to the concepts of free enterprise. I think many (most?) American citizens don't truly understand "business", that it has created all the wealth we have, by that afore-mentioned free enterprise. At the very start, one entrepreneur had an idea to, for example, make something from some things and sell it at a price his customers were willing to pay. He had some extra money -- "profit" -- that way. And he kept doing it. From this acorn (maybe the wrong word) was created the greatest economic and social society in the world. But how many people think of "business" negatively, as a taker or oppressor rather than an creator? The popular media certainly continually and relentlessly reinforces that negative concept, as do the major financial sources of Democrats: trade union leaders and trial lawyers. Do they all really want what's best for all? (Well, almost all, certainly not the "rich".) Or do they just want power?
In any event, they have the power here in the U. S. now and may well hold it and build on it. They have spent decades in fits and starts gaining it While entrepreneurs and businesspeople were building companies and creating jobs, the Left was, if not in a coordinated effort, certainly in a unified one, putting everything in place, from union teachers and leftish professors to indoctrinate the youth, to the billions won from companies by trial lawyers with the skids greased by liberal judges, justices and lawyers which financed more liberal government. "Popular" media certainly has a left-wing bent which has certainly shown its ugly head this election season more than ever before. And with the painting of deficit spenders and corruption on the 2004 Congress, liberals took initial power. Obama may solidify it. Then comes the Supreme Court. "Le laissez-faire, c'est fini." oui!

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