Brian Wesbury on capitalist:
“In the year 1000, the average infant could expect to live
about 24 years. A third died in the first year of life. Hunger
and epidemic disease ravaged the survivors. By 1820, life
expectation had risen to 36 years in the west, with only
marginal improvement elsewhere. After 1820, world
development became much more dynamic. By 2003, income
per head had risen nearly ten-fold, population six-fold. Per
capita income rose by 1.2 per cent a year: 24 times as fast as in
1000-1820. Life expectation increased to 76 years in the west
and 63 in the rest of the world.” Angus Maddison, Contours of
the World Economy.
To paraphrase - for 1800 years, progress was virtually nonexistent;
then it accelerated sharply. It takes a severe case of
denial for someone to ignore these lessons of history. What
they show is that when freedom prevails, the ingenuity and
inventiveness of people creates incredible wealth. This is the
true source of improvement in the human condition.
The US Constitution was crucial in the process of freedom.
It established a new country with protected property rights. The
Declaration of Independence declared the “unalienable Rights”
of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” It also declared
that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government….”
Yes, the US has its history with slavery and women’s
suffrage, but the Civil War, and 13th and 19th Amendments to
the Constitution fixed those wrongs. It wasn’t easy, but the
system worked. No system of social and economic
organization has done more to lift living standards than the US
system of “free market capitalism.” No system of governance
has improved the lives of so many people.
So, why is this system under attack? Have we uncovered
problems with free market capitalism that are the equivalent of
slavery and women’s suffrage? President Obama thinks so. In
a speech last week, he called belief in capitalism “blind faith.”
He said this philosophy, of letting people “fend for themselves”
has “failed.” He added that “people are frustrated, they’re
anxious, they’re scared about the future. [But] now is not the
time to quit....We’ve been through worse.... It took time to free
the slaves. It took time for women to get the vote.”
This is the Progressive’s mantra – “Capitalism is unjust,
unfair...A new system must be put in its place and this takes
time.” There is only one problem with this logic. It’s not really
progress and it has never, ever worked. Today’s progressives
are the ones that ask for blind faith. They want people to
believe that they have finally figured out how to do it right
But this is just wishful thinking. Every economic system,
no matter how it is described, is a system that distributes
resources among competing interests. In a Progressive system,
government officials control this process. In a free market
system, resources flow to those who use them best to improve
the lives of others. The market votes every day on these
products and services and the successful ones are given more
resources. To prove how fluid this system is, more businesses
fail each year than succeed.
This is not true of government. Once started, government
programs rarely fail. The system perpetuates them with more
money and more resources. The waste increases over time until
it becomes so overwhelming that the entire system fails. The
Roman Empire, the Soviet Union, Greece, California and
Illinois are all the evidence needed.
The real problem with the economy these days it that we
have moved too far away from free market capitalism. As
government spending has increased, so has unemployment.
This is not a mystery; the bigger the government, the smaller
the private sector and the less dynamic the economy. If there is
any emancipation needed these days it’s from the government,
not from capitalism".
