![]() ![]() Bush, installed laissez-faire capitalism-on the grounds that they tinkered with one or two regulations (Glass-Steagall) and marginal tax rates-while blanking out the fact that under the Bush administration, government spending ballooned, growing much faster than under Clinton, and 50,000 new regulations were added to the Federal Register. Obama absurdly suggests that timid, half-hearted, compromisers, like George W. What doesn't exist is what he says didn't work. Obama blames economic woes, some real some manufactured ("inequality") on a philosophy and policy that was abandoned a century ago. ![]() They are against free markets and individualism not only when they agree with the Left that we must have antitrust laws and the Federal Reserve, but also when they demand immigration controls, government schools, regulatory agencies, Medicare, laws prohibiting abortion, Social Security, "public works" projects, the "social safety net," laws against insider trading, banking regulation, and the whole system of fiat money. They are for individualism-except when they are against it. The typical Republican would never, ever say "the market will take care of everything." He'd say, "the market will take care of most things, and for the other things, we need the regulatory-welfare state." Which is a nice way of saying inconsistent. The overwhelming majority on the Right are eclectic. Radical capitalists are just beginning to have a slight effect on the Right wing. That was the first of a plethora of government crimes against the free market. Laissez-faire hasn't existed since the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. How did the dollar hold up over the 100 years before this government take-over of money and banking? It actually gained slightly in value. How's that worked out? How's the value of the dollar held up since 1913? Is it worth one-fiftieth of its value then or only one one-hundredth? You be the judge. For 100 years, government, not the free market, has controlled money and banking. I pick 100 years deliberately, because it was exactly 100 years ago that a gigantic anti-capitalist measure was put into effect: the Federal Reserve System. But ask yourself, are we few radical capitalists in charge? Have radical capitalists been in charge at any time in the last, oh, say 100 years? That's the political philosophy on which Obama is trying to hang the blame for the recent financial crisis and every other social ill. (Yes, I added "property" in there-property rights are inseparable from the other three.) Radicals for capitalism would, as the Declaration of Independence says, use government only "to secure these rights"-the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. That's why we need government: to wield retaliatory force to defend individual rights. The only thing that the market doesn't take care of is anti-market acts: acts that initiate physical force. It's not really a crowd, it's a tiny group of radicals-radicals for capitalism, in Ayn Rand's well-turned phrase. Though not in Washington, I'm in that "certain crowd" that has been saying for decades that the market will take care of everything. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it's not as if we haven't tried this theory. And it didn't work when we tried it during the last decade. It's not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the '50s and '60s. (Applause.) It didn't work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. (Laughter.) But here's the problem: It doesn't work. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. And we have to admit, it's one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. ![]()
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