economy — VOICES for REASON

Ayn Rand was an uncompromising defender of laissez-faire capitalism, which, she held, means “the abolition of any and all forms of government intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.” In her essay “Doesn’t Life Require Compromise?”, she noted:

There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept “just a few controls” is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of the government’s unlimited, arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement.

This view would shock most people today. They take it as self-evident that we must have some combination of freedom and government control of the economy. The idea that “just a few controls” would lead to “gradual enslavement” strikes them as dubious, to say the least. But the evidence for this proposition is all around us. A free country doesn’t dissolve into authoritarian rule over night, but by steps–some small and innocuous, others vast and brazen. Today, we’re seeing examples of both.

Here’s a recent example of the former: Read the rest of this entry »

Today, August 27, 2009, is the 150th anniversary of the birth of the oil industry. Exactly 150 years ago, “Colonel” Edwin Drake struck black gold with the first commercial oil well — giving birth to an industry that would provide the lifeblood for modern civilization.

Unfortunately, the anniversary of oil has received little attention. At ARC, we aim to change this with a new webpage dedicated to celebrating oil’s 150th birthday — and to shaping public debate about oil going forward. In our view, the widespread demonization of oil as an “addiction” or “pollutant” is a dangerous smear. Oil has sustained and enhanced billions of lives for more than 150 years by providing superior, affordable, ultra-convenient energy — and is as vital today as ever. It fuels our ultra-mobile, globalized world, and provides the building-blocks for millions of life-enhancing petroleum products.

In the coming days and weeks, ARC, on both our blog and our oil webpage, will highlight the incredible, neglected value of oil and explore oil’s role in foreign policy and environmental issues.

flickr/Fábio Pinheiro

A favorite cliché of coming-of-age movies is the irresponsible teenager taking the family car for a joyride without his parents’ permission. The climax is invariably a spectacular car-wreck, with the car totaled beyond repair. In such movies, the parents usually ground their children for the harm they have inflicted on the family by destroying its perfectly good car.

But if one believes the economics behind the government’s popular “Cash for Clunkers” program, these parents should be rewarding their children instead; it turns out that destroying cars “stimulates” the economy.

“Cash for Clunkers” just ended on Monday, as it finished gobbling up its $3 billion budget. But even though it is over, for now, its economics remain popular — witness the “cash for refrigerators” program discussed here — and thus those economics are important to expose. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I discussed how Obama and others view individual freedom as the fundamental cause of our problems, and themselves (employing government coercion) as the solution.

But in fact, our current problems come from this attitude – from the fact that intellectuals and politicians regard the results of free association and voluntary exchange among individuals as “problems” to be solved. For example, the government deemed free-market mortgage rates and lending practices (which for decades led to down payments over 20% and responsible lending and borrowing) to provide insufficiently “affordable housing” for bad credit risks. So government intervened. (See “The Government Did It.”) The carnage speaks for itself.

Freedom is not a problem, Mr. President. Coercive interference in a free society is the problem: it negates individuals’ judgment, punishes the productive, and rewards irrational behavior. Removing that interference as quickly as possible is the real problem that needs to be solved today. That’s the problem about which you should be saying “give it to me.”

In a recent speech criticizing his economic critics, President Barack Obama made a revealing statement about himself. From the New York Times:

“I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, ‘Well, this is Obama’s economy,’ ” the president said before an overwhelmingly supportive outdoor crowd at Macomb Community College. “That’s fine — give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe.” (Emphasis mine.)

While this statement is designed to invoke the sort of take-charge attitude we admire in, say, a great quarterback or an excellent CEO, it in fact exhibits the utterly dictatorial economic role Obama plays in the economy.

Read the rest of this entry »