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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (50948)	10/9/2008 9:09:58 PM
From: Geoff Altman	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224737

Ann, that fits rather nicely with this, hat tip to LB: By Tom Bowden Ayn Rand Saw This Coming October 9, 2008 Washington, D.C. --"Despite overwhelming evidence that government policies caused the current financial crisis, Congress is blaming businessmen," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. "What's worse, the capitalists who have been shackled with unprecedented regulatory burdens are unable to defend themselves morally. Though the events are different, this pattern of abuse and submission is straight out of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. "The cycle starts with government intervening into the economy and imposing regulations and controls on business. This distorts the free market, leading to economic dislocations. When the problems caused by these distortions inevitably follow, everyone blames the free market and its greedy capitalists. The proposed solution? More government controls. Over the years, conservative critics of creeping government have repeatedly exposed this illogic but have always been helpless to explain why the cycle keeps repeating, decade after decade. "The pattern keeps recurring because businessmen are willing to take the blame. From capitalism's inception, its defenders have been morally disarmed by the widespread view that self-interest is morally suspect, and disinterested service to others is a moral ideal. So each new spate of controls has been grudgingly accepted as a fair price to pay for society's toleration of the selfish pursuit of profit. "Atlas Shrugged depicted a society in economic collapse due to this recurring cycle, and today's parallels are obvious. Government manipulation of money, credit, and lending standards over several decades caused the mess we're in. Now, the offered solution is more of the poison that sickened the economy--more bailouts, more cheap money, more government-guaranteed loans, and above all, more regulations. "This chronic cycle will not end until businessmen accept that their production of profit is neither immoral nor amoral--it is the capstone of moral virtue. Once they shrug off the role of scapegoat, businessmen can demand with moral certitude that government punish fraud and enforce contracts but refrain from interfering with voluntary trades among consenting adults. "When America's markets are finally free of all coercion--in other words, when laissez-faire is achieved--financial crises such as the one we're experiencing will never happen again."