5stringJeff
01-27-2009, 05:58 PM
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Daily Article by Briggs Armstrong | Posted on 1/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
"These false prophets of capitalism are the greatest friends that proponents of socialism have."
New Rule: neomercantilists, neoconservatives, and statists are no longer allowed to call themselves "free marketers." People who call themselves free marketers such as Bush, Paulson, Greenspan, and Bernanke are the primary threat capitalism faces. These false prophets of capitalism are the greatest friends that proponents of socialism have.
Many prominent American figures claim to be proponents of free markets but in practice advocate neomercantilist, corporate welfare policies. These policies eventually, and unsurprisingly, lead to disastrous economic and social consequences. These catastrophes are then blamed on capitalism, free markets, and deregulation, at which point, socialists are easily able to convince the distraught public that capitalism is a failed experiment and only massive government intervention in the markets can save them. Such is the way that capitalism dies, eaten away by a cancer from within.
The real mystery is not that some of the loudest proponents of free markets often institute policies that are antithetical to free markets, but that the general public, as well as learned scholars, rarely challenge these claims. In general, the public simply accepts that if a person claims to believe in capitalism and private-property rights then they are truly capitalists. In truth, most politicians who claim to be champions of free-market principles are anything but.
Read the rest: http://mises.org/story/3306
Daily Article by Briggs Armstrong | Posted on 1/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
"These false prophets of capitalism are the greatest friends that proponents of socialism have."
New Rule: neomercantilists, neoconservatives, and statists are no longer allowed to call themselves "free marketers." People who call themselves free marketers such as Bush, Paulson, Greenspan, and Bernanke are the primary threat capitalism faces. These false prophets of capitalism are the greatest friends that proponents of socialism have.
Many prominent American figures claim to be proponents of free markets but in practice advocate neomercantilist, corporate welfare policies. These policies eventually, and unsurprisingly, lead to disastrous economic and social consequences. These catastrophes are then blamed on capitalism, free markets, and deregulation, at which point, socialists are easily able to convince the distraught public that capitalism is a failed experiment and only massive government intervention in the markets can save them. Such is the way that capitalism dies, eaten away by a cancer from within.
The real mystery is not that some of the loudest proponents of free markets often institute policies that are antithetical to free markets, but that the general public, as well as learned scholars, rarely challenge these claims. In general, the public simply accepts that if a person claims to believe in capitalism and private-property rights then they are truly capitalists. In truth, most politicians who claim to be champions of free-market principles are anything but.
Read the rest: http://mises.org/story/3306