Occupy Wall Street protests are misguided
Asheville Mountain Xpress
October 26, 2011
Dear Editor,
Capitalism is morally good. It also happens to work remarkably well, raising millions around the world out of poverty and providing the marketplace with a myriad of life-enhancing material goods. This social system of economic and political freedom is the only one that fully recognizes, respect and protects individual rights. It is a system that we do not have in this country and have never had. We have had only greater or lesser degrees of economic freedom. We were the closest to capitalism during the inventive period of the late 19th Century, when most of the great innovations and conveniences we live with today were invented (phones, cameras, lighting, cars, appliances, etc.). Today, entreprenuers, like tech visionary Steve Jobs struggle, to provide society with innovations that give individuals more power over their lives.
Our current crisis is the result of government intervention in the marketplace through regulation, taxation, welfare, economic incentives, bailouts, central banking, fiat currency and rank cronyism. We live in a mixed economy. It is a mix of some capitalism and some socialism; some freedom and some political control. Half good and half bad equates to bad. And what we have today is bad. Businessmen, lobbyists and special interest groups are buying politicians because politicians are for sale. When you first hang up a shingle, buyers soon appear and compete for favors, handouts and bailouts, all at the expense of the rest of society.
The “Occupy Wall Street” protests are misguided by focusing on only one half of the equation. You cannot cure a disease with a misdiagnosis. Those angry protestors in New York and Asheville have misdiagnosed the problems they accurately perceive and would be better served by properly identifying the true source of their grievances: Government.
For an entertaining video on these points, visit econstories.com.
