Ignorance and Want: Forever Present
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Adam Smith is often acknowledged as the father of modern economics, and perhaps as often as the first champion of Free Market Capitalism. What many don’t realize is that Smith was not an economist (the study did not even exist before his Wealth of Nations was published in 1776), but rather, a moral philosopher.
This is important because Smith didn’t argue for freedom of the individual and in favor of the righteousness of mutually beneficial transactions unimpeded by the Sovereign (or, “the State”) because he thought that would be the best thing for business development (they didn’t really have that concept back then, either). No, Smith proposed his system of equitable exchange between free men as a moral thesis — a necessary evolution in late-Enlightenment thinking — that would make for a more equitable and civilized society. Truly, Smith was far more about “The Golden Rule” here, than he was about “the gold.”
I posit that this misunderstanding of capitalism — especially by those who believe in the guiding hand of the Monarch (now, merely “the State“) over the Invisible Hand of the market — continues today. Moreover, I’d posit further that the misunderstanding is one of basic definitions.
Monarchists, Feudalists, Fascists, Socialists, and other government-first adherents tend to believe that the key to capitalism is physical capital associated with wealth — cash, land, equipment, etc. In fact these are mere wasting assets, the by-product of capitalism, rather than its key ingredients. They are nothing without the spark of human ideation — the intellectual capital that drives all progress and increased standards of living.
For there is no arguing that innovation drives human progress, and it’s by-product in a free society is wealth. It is no coincidence that those countries that respect and even seek to attract intellectual capital are among the wealthiest in the world.
To provide an example, it’s no coincidence that health care has become one of our greatest economic pillars. We are among the very few nations left that will invest directly in health care innovation, and, as a result, we are providing innovation for most of the world. That creates an enormous market for U.S. health care entrepreneurs and venture capital investors, because they are in essence, innovating for a global market with very little competition outside our own borders.
Sometimes I wish someone could sit down with the Congressional Delegation of California — with their state’s enormous reputation for cutting edge innovation — and explain this paradigm to them, veeeerrrry slowly. Perhaps then they would not be so quick to take a hatchet to the golden goose’s valuable neck.
Ah well.
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I wonder also that if our friends who favor a heavier hand of government could finally understand that it is people acting in freedom that make for a vibrant and successful economy, and therefore, people are our most precious asset, would they continue to be such proponents for Malthusian population control?
Would they, who purport to stand for the “little people,” be so non-chalant about layering on increased taxes and regulations on the idea-laden, but cash-light small business community?
I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I am willing to believe it’s all just a matter of fundamental misunderstanding, and they “know not what they do.”
Let’s take on the responsibility then. This holiday season, let’s do something truly for our fellow man.
Let’s pledge together to be the instrument of education in our communities and our states.
Only active participation can help turn a tide of creeping government that threatens to separate the country irreparably from its roots in individual freedom. Let us rather return to those roots, by blowing the horn of innovation, progress, and freedom for all free men and women — and those seeking to be free.
Slante.
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