THE GREAT UNTRUTH
Three-hundred years ago Emanuel Swedenborg wrote, “It is no proof of man’s understanding to be able to affirm whatever he pleases; but to be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false – this is the mark and character of intelligence.” This thought was followed up years later by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose.”
Some truths are self-evident. The free market system provides bountiful goods and services. The socialist system brings poverty and stagnation. The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises said about free market capitalism, “If you seek [its] monument look around you.” Take a moment to reflect on the goods that surround you. Socialism provided none of them.
The entrepreneur Steve Jobs operating within the market system changed our lives. Despite all the evidence liberals and socialists denigrate the free market. They argue for redistribution and a more progressive system. They disdain capitalism. They cannot see the benefits of a free market because their core beliefs are false. They are harbingers of retrogression, poverty, despair and national ruin.
We hear them chatter incessantly about income inequality. They push the idea that the market systems bear responsibility for the rich getting richer while the middle class suffers. In reality it is their socialist schemes and intrusions into the market that have hurt us. They promote big government despite its detrimental impact on our economy. Look at what these liberals have saddled us with. Start with unions. The left passed laws that allowed unions to get a stranglehold on major industries. At one time the auto makers dominated world markets. By 1980 Japanese cars had replaced U.S. cars the world over. Union work rules, lush benefits, impossibly high wages for janitors and other unskilled workers made it easy for the competition to overtake us. Job losses from overseas competitors are enormous.
High taxes, labor unions, trial lawyers, social programs, subsidies and too many regulations kill jobs, growth and wages. All are the policies and building blocks of the left. Worst of all is fiat money. Liberals (Keynesians) promote loose money and credit. It’s the reason speculation and financial engineering have overtaken factory production. It’s why Wall Street is richer than Main Street. They get the government’s newly created money first. It accounts for inequality of incomes and the rich getting richer. The unbridled monetary expansion by government caused the boom and bust we are living through. Yet liberals foster the malicious lie that capitalism and free markets are to blame.
If the left prevails as they have in the past few decades, they will destroy America as we know it. This process has already started. Call it what you will: socialism, liberalism, progressivism, collectivism, we have clear cut proof that it doesn’t work. Only go to Cuba or Greece.
Under socialism, people are equal but only in their poverty and deprivation. The liberal viewpoint is the world’s primary falsehood and the path to economic purgatory and social hell. Time is running out on the truth.