Individual liberty, limited government, and free markets in Wichita and Kansas
From the category archives:
From the Lucy Burns Institute.
The Lucy Burns Institute is delighted to announce that effective July 1, 2009, it became the official sponsor of Ballotpedia and Judgepedia.
Since the Sam Adams Alliance was established in 2006, it has organized, nurtured and spun-off several important projects, including Common Sense with Paul Jacob, American Majority, and Texas Watchdog.
For the entire press release, click on Lucy Burns Institute is the new sponsor of Ballotpedia and Judgepedia.
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A column by economist Walter E. Williams (Why we’re a divided nation) strongly makes the case for more decision-making by free markets rather than by the government through the political process.
When decisions are made through free markets, Williams says, both parties win, because in a free market, parties enter into only those transactions that benefit them.
When decisions are made for us by the government, however, it is almost always the case that one party’s gain is someone else’s loss. Therefore, there is conflict. The more decisions made through politics, the more potential for conflict. Coalitions arise in order to try to get more from the government, and the most effective coalitions “are those with a proven record of being the most divisive — those based on race, ethnicity, religion and region.”
The column concludes with this: “The best thing the president and Congress can do to heal our country is to reduce the impact of government on our lives. Doing so will not only produce a less divided country and greater economic efficiency but bear greater faith and allegiance to the vision of America held by our founders — a country of limited government.”
I’ve mentioned many columns by Walter Williams that I thought were important. This column is certainly one of his best, as it very simply, in one short page, shows us a major fault in our current system of making decisions through politics rather than through markets.
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The Foundation for Economic Education has released a new audio version of the booklet I, Pencil. Written by FEE’s founder Leonard E. Read and first published in 1958, its message proclaiming the importance of freedom has not diminished with the passage of time.
This audio recording, which you can listen to on your computer or Ipod, is just just short of 15 minutes in length. But it this short span it makes a compelling case for freedom instead of government control and planning.
In Wichita, we have a mayor, city council, and business leaders that are steering us down the path of government control instead of freedom. We locally — and nationally too — need to heed the lesson of I, Pencil:
I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human energies — millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.
The above is what I meant when writing, “If you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing.” For, if one is aware that these know-hows will naturally, yes, automatically, arrange themselves into creative and productive patterns in response to human necessity and demand — that is, in the absence of governmental or any other coercive master-minding — then one will possess an absolutely essential ingredient for freedom: a faith in free people. Freedom is impossible without this faith.
Listen to the recording by clicking on I, Pencil. Or, read it by clicking on I, Pencil.
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Today was the ribbon cutting ceremony for Hartman Arena in Park City, just north of Wichita. This privately-owned arena should provide some competition to the Intrust Bank Arena in downtown Wichita.
Note the wind turbine to the right (north) of the building.
Normally the announcement of a facility like this would be welcomed by government officials. That wasn’t the case two years ago when this arena was announced. At that time Sedgwick County Commissioner Dave Unruh said he would prefer that this arena not be built. Assistant Sedgwick County Manager Ron Holt said “overall, it would not be in the best interest of the community.”
See Government vs. Private Investment and the Downtown Wichita Arena.
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But it doesn’t stop them.
Over at the Kansas Jackass blog, it appears there’s been a discussion about libertarianism and how it doesn’t work. I think however, that the Jackass and some of his sycophants are misinformed about a few things.
Here’s something the Jackass wrote: “The Libertarian views the world like nature. If a lion eats a zebra, we shouldn’t interfere because that’s the way of nature.”
This illustrates the Jackass’s lack of knowledge about being a libertarian, for one of the most important things about libertarianism is the nonaggression axiom. Quoting from Rothbard in chapter 2 of For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto
The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else.
I would suggest that a lion eating a zebra is an act of aggression. Libertarians are opposed to violence like this.
The Jackass also said, referring to libertarians, that he’s concerned about “the human affects of their philosophy.” But what is less human than government? As Rothbard says, from the same chapter:
While opposing any and all private or group aggression against the rights of person and property, the libertarian sees that throughout history and into the present day, there has been one central, dominant, and overriding aggressor upon all of these rights: the State. In contrast to all other thinkers, left, right, or in-between, the libertarian refuses to give the State the moral sanction to commit actions that almost everyone agrees would be immoral, illegal, and criminal if committed by any person or group in society. The libertarian, in short, insists on applying the general moral law to everyone, and makes no special exemptions for any person or group.
For good measure, the Jackass throws in the “we’re in this together” argument. He asks “What affect would the application of my theory have on the average person?”
The answer is we wouldn’t be suffering under an oppressive government using paternalistic arguments to maintain its sense of necessity. Rothbard again:
In recent decades, as the divine sanction has worn a bit threadbare, the emperor’s “court intellectuals” have spun ever more sophisticated apologia: informing the public that what the government does is for the “common good” and the “public welfare,” that the process of taxation-and-spending works through the mysterious process of the “multiplier” to keep the economy on an even keel, and that, in any case, a wide variety of governmental “services” could not possibly be performed by citizens acting voluntarily on the market or in society. All of this the libertarian denies: he sees the various apologia as fraudulent means of obtaining public support for the State’s rule, and he insists that whatever services the government actually performs could be supplied far more efficiently and far more morally by private and cooperative enterprise.
How, may I ask, is reliance on the coercive force of government “human?”
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On Saturday February 28, American Majority and Americans For Prosperity will hold Special Joint Activist Training In Wichita, KS. Here’s more information from American Majority:
The training will be hosted by American Majority and AFP — Kansas, who will be presenting exclusive training to enable common citizens to make a difference in their communities by using tools of information, resources, and by networking with other like-minded individuals and organizations.
The training will be hosted at the Wichita AFP office at 800 E. 1st Street, Ste. 401 in historic Old Town in Wichita, KS.
Presentations that will be offered include:
Breakfast and lunch will be served and the cost for each attendee is $10.00.
Learn more about this event and register at this link: Special Joint Activist Training In Wichita, KS
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On Saturday February 28, American Majority and Americans For Prosperity will hold Special Joint Activist Training In Wichita, KS. Here’s more information from American Majority:
The training will be hosted by American Majority and AFP — Kansas, who will be presenting exclusive training to enable common citizens to make a difference in their communities by using tools of information, resources, and by networking with other like-minded individuals and organizations.
The training will be hosted at the Wichita AFP office at 800 E. 1st Street, Ste. 401 in historic Old Town in Wichita, KS.
Presentations that will be offered include:
Breakfast and lunch will be served and the cost for each attendee is $10.00.
Learn more about this event and register at this link: Special Joint Activist Training In Wichita, KS
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Yesterday (January 10, 2009) Americans For Prosperity held a Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita. After the event I spoke to Alan Cobb, who just stepped down as AFP’s Kansas state director to become AFP’s national director of state operations.
I asked Cobb how many people attend this event. “We had over 300. It’s the largest event we’ve had.” He added that everyone seemed to love the event.
I mentioned to Cobb about how the national press portrays the current financial crisis as a failure of capitalism and free markets. In fact, Jonah Goldberg, one of the speakers, said he feels a little weird be at a free market forum with what’s going in in Washington now. Was it a failure of free markets that caused the current crisis?
“No, of course not. It seems ironic when they talk about the banking industry failing, as it is one of the most regulated industries of all. It was government policies that partly caused at least part of the problem with sub-prime mortgages. It’s a constant theme, and it leads to the New New Deal, which was discussed several times today.”
I mentioned how lawmakers tell us that they’re often surprised at how little personal communication they receive from citizens in their districts. (They get a lot of communication from lobbyists and interested parties outside their districts.) What does this mean about the impact the average person can have on the legislative process?
“It means they obviously can have a tremendous impact, when sometimes five or six phone calls is an avalanche.” He went on to remark that people enjoy coming to grassroots meetings like the one today, but they wonder what they can really do, as they believe that politicians never listen to them. But there are many examples, he said, of where the voices of citizen activists have made a difference.
I asked what are some of the most important local-level grassroots activists can do to advance the cause of liberty and free markets?
“Two primary things: One is to recruit. Get other people involved, whether it’s in AFP or another free market group. The second is to stay engaged and don’t give up.”
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A few remarks from the Wall street Journal’s Stephen Moore, speaking at the Americans For Prosperity Defending the American Dream summit in Wichita, Kansas:
Let’s get rid of the federal income tax, he said. It would turn the country around in a month. Or a flat tax. These are the remedies that we need.
You have to be a total dingbat to believe that the problem is that the federal government isn’t spending enough money. Over the last eight years, the U.S. Federal budget has climbed from 2 to 3.5 trillion dollars. The deficit in 2009 is going to be $1.2 trillion. That doesn’t include the economic stimulus plan. With all included, $2.1 trillion. It’s fiscal child abuse.
We do not need a new New Deal. We’ve let the Left write the history books.
FDR was elected in 1932, on a platform of balancing the budget. Over first 8 years, average unemployment rate was 16%. In 1934, 25%. Even after 8 years after spending binge, by 1941, it was 15.5%. How can anyone conclude the New Deal worked?
We are in the fight of our lifetimes. We can’t allow them to destroy our economy with government programs. From Ronald Reagan’s 1980 inauguration: “All of our economic problems today in America are in direct proportion to the overspending in Washington.”
Our spending is completely out of control.
Ireland became a magnet for capital by reducing tax rates.
Can we agree: “No more federal bailouts.”
With one trillion dollars, we could suspend the federal income tax for a year.
Who is most responsible for the crisis today: Alan Greenspan. We printed so much money in the mid 2000s. We were subsidizing banks to make loans. Lead to subprime lending problem.
What’s been happening to the money supply? Over the last 6 months, the supply has increased by 60%. Friend at the Treasury: “We are printing money so rapidly, that the only thing that can slow us down is if we run out of ink.” This causes inflation.
“We should go back to the gold standard, so that the politicians can’t control our currency.”
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Since the start of the current financial crises, we’re told that markets are at fault. The most common diagnosis is that there’s not enough regulation in place, and only a move away from reliance on markets and toward more laws and regulations will save the economy.
One thing that did happen is that someone misjudged the risk that was present in the mortgage-backed securities that led to the downfall of several investment banks. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal does the best job I’ve seen of explaining how this mistake, made by credit rating agencies, was responsible for this crisis. The article, written by Robert Rosenckanz, is Let’s Write the Rating Agencies Out of Our Law. Here’s a summary, as best as I can produce, of this article:
Rating agencies can make mistakes.
Regulatory agencies used these ratings in formulating their regulations. “Most importantly, bond ratings determine — as a matter of law — how much capital regulated institutions need in order to own the bonds.”
“Since the ratings determine required capital, they have a profound influence on how financial institutions invest their assets — in effect, the regulatory reliance on ratings makes the rating agencies the de facto allocators of capital in our system. And every actor in the financial system has every incentive to group and slice assets in ways that maximize not their fundamental soundness but their rating.”
“The problem was not the erroneous ratings per se; everyone misgauges risk and ratings agencies are no different. The problem is that these erroneous ratings were incorporated into law. Regulators should not have relied on ratings agencies to asses the risk of bond holdings. Instead, they should have relied on markets.”
Markets are superior to small groups of people — the credit rating agencies in this case — in making decisions. Because of regulation, however, the financial system was forced to accept and rely on these ratings. That, in turn, led to disaster.
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One of the things we’re being told by the mainstream media is that deregulation is the cause of our current economic crisis. If only Bush hadn’t torn up so many regulations, we wouldn’t be in this trouble. Only adding more regulation will save the economy. Free markets — as if our economy is based on anything like that concept — are also blamed.
The most recent Cato Policy Report has an article Are We Ailing from Too Much Deregulation? that shows why these beliefs are incorrect.
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I, Pencil is one of the most important and influential writings that explain the necessity for limited government. A simple object that we may not give much thought to, the story of the pencil illustrates the importance of markets and the impossibility of centralized economic planning.
The size and scope of government, both at the national and local level, has been growing. Now our country is entering a period where the possibility of even larger and more intrusive government, growing faster than it has been, is very real. Those who love liberty must keep principles like those illuminated in I, Pencil at the forefront of debate.
From the afterword to I, Pencil by Milton Friedman:
Leonard E. Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand — the possibility of cooperation without coercion — and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”
Link to a pdf of I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/I,%20Pencil%202006.pdf
Link to Leonard E. Read reading I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/events/detail.asp?id=6239
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In Barriers Broken?, Lew Rockwell takes a look at what barriers have been broken with the election of Barack Obama.
Conflict is the critical word here, for the conflict view of society is what is really behind the hysterical claims that Obama’s real contribution is to have broken through barriers. … What is the alternative to the conflict view? It is the old liberal view of how the social order works. There is a harmony of interests in society in which people cooperate and exchange without the aid of an outside, all-controlling, leviathan state. Society contains within itself the capacity for self-management. Another way to put this view is that the free society works. Sadly, this view is not held by either the right or the left in our political culture.
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Steve Moore, The Wall Street Journal:
Washington created this crisis!
We can move towards capitalism or socialism. … Lefties want to socialize this economy. …
Liberals love jobs but they hate employers.
We’re redefining welfare benefits as tax cuts. …
You can not create jobs by taxing small business! …
No more bailouts!
What harms prosperity: higher taxes, moving away from free trade, corrupting our money, and out-of-control government spending.
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Herman Cain:
Prosperity is less taxes, less spending, and less government. Nancy Pelosi believes that property is a “new direction.” …
I have a message for all the liberal kool-aid drinkers: There is no Department of Happy in Washington DC!
Prosperity equals the pursuit of happiness, not a guarantee.
allenfuller tweeted: “He [Cain's father] achieved the American Dream the old-fashioned way. He worked for it.”
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