Laissez – what now?
I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who pointed my thoughts towards the stock market and politics. Now I see that the Dow was below 6500 on opening this morning. Conversations keep popping up lately centered around job security, market forces, and how the sky is falling. Additionally, I actually recently heard someone use the term “selfish individualism.” (Seriously.) It reminded me that one of the comments a few weeks ago on Sarah’s blog led me to the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. Apparently, economic times being what they are, people have been buying lots of copies of Atlas Shrugged
“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.” – Ayn Rand
Allowing the market to fail and right itself without government interference is the practical solution that isn’t being considered. Those people who lost their jobs after the dot-com bubble burst still are alive today, and many are thriving. Failure isn’t the end of the world. Let irresponsible banks and institutions fail and a truly free economy rise from the ashes. But no. Laissez-faire economics — too scary. Actually, so few people seem to realize that this wasn’t the free market acting on its own, and that governmental interference into things set up a large part of the problem. I heard an NPR piece recently where the commentator actually said, “The free market has had its chance, now it’s time to get some adults in there to fix the situation.”
That was a paraphrase, but the word ‘adults’ was used to refer to the government. Is that where we are, as a nation? The government will save us all? Since they do such a great job keeping things on the up and up in Washington, we want to hand over our own lives to them. Anything to not be personally responsible for ourselves. If we fail, at least it will be because the government made us.
“My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” -Ayn Rand
When Ron Paul ran for president last year, those of us who supported him were weirdos and nuts (which suits me fine.) To look outside of the major players was dangerous and extremist, “even if he did have some good ideas.” Of course it was. True individuals are always dangerous. I didn’t expect him to win, nor did I expect his ideas to get out there to the extent they did. I’m tickled that so many people heard the message. I think that the fact that people are buying copies of Atlas Shrugged
WORD.
I’ve read a few things lately about how Ron Paul’s voice will only get louder, especially as we approach the next election cycle. Nobody will listen to him, probably, but a lot more people will hear him.
I hope these voices get louder but it is an uphill battle. I spent the evening with 8 people last Friday. All of them intelligent, professional people and I was outnumbered 8 to 1 when it came to discussing libertarian ideals. It was really amazing how everyone of these people were against the idea of people being able to keep the entirety of the fruits of their labor. It was shocking and and eye opening. I thought at least one would share my philosophy but I was wrong. People fear the free market because it entails risk and sacrifice. These were all men I respect and each of them defended the welfare state and our current government. It was a real surprise.
I’ve been in the same boat, Shadowhelm. I’ll talk with folk who I’ve considered well-reasoned and pragmatic and come to find out that personal responsibility is the last thing on their minds.
I had students in a government class mock election project some years back who, based on their individual beliefs would have most aligned with the Prohibition Party of all things, but still ended up supporting the Democratic party, solely because of the social programs. It went against their values to do so, but it was so ingrained in them that it was the government’s job to take care of them!
Do folks not see that it is government interference, and not “selfish individualism” that is causing these problems?