DR. SANITY (commenting on a column by Thomas Sowell):
... poverty has a cure. But for the left--those "progressives" that Sowell identifies, to embrace that cure would require letting go their death-grip on an ideology whose economic redistribution plans have repeatedly been shown to be catastrophically ineffective and oppressive in the real world. ... the alleviation of poverty is directly linked to economic freedom. The more liberty; the more people are free to pursue their own happiness, the less poverty. ... The freest economies have a per-capita income of $29,219, more than twice that of the "mostly free" at $12,839, and more than four times that of the "mostly unfree." It is economic freedom that is the true cure for poverty. Not taxes. Not regulation. Not government control of the economy and redistribution of wealth; but capitalism.
... One cannot escape noticing that the intellectual trend in the West is to continually bash capitalism, business, and free trade; while simultaneously enjoying the benefits of them.
Our academics rail against business. Our government constantly seeks to control it. Our youth are propagandized to death about its evils. Popular culture refrains from painting Islamofascists as the villians in movies out of political correctness, but does not hesitate to make big businessmen evil and grandiose.
One harmful result of this sorry situation is that there are few people--even among those who stalwartly defend the free market, who understand and appreciate the essential morality of capitalism.
The foundation of capitalism is human freedom in its most classical, liberal tradition. ...Redistributing wealth--the method of choice promulgated by the political left--is a scam that so-called "progressive" con artists have played for many decades now. What they actually do is redistribute poverty because their goal of the scam, as Sowell brilliantly notes, is to give themselves "sweeping powers to control other people's lives, in the name of curing the ills of society."
Scratch a progressive leftist, and you will see that underneath the caring, compassionate exterior he or she presents to the world, is the con artist/tyrant whose primary desire is control over others.
Reliapundit: FREE PEOPLE ARE WHAT CONSTITUTE A FREE MARKET - ANY MARKET: WOOL; COTTON; OIL; DOLLARS; GOLD; STOCKS. WHEN YOU INTERFERE WITH A FREE MARKET IN ORDER TO PREDETERMINE OUTCOMES, THEN YOU ARE LIMITING FREEDOM AND GUARANTEEING SKEWED, INEFFICIENT, AND UNSUSTAINABLE RESULTS.Free people pursuing their own happiness are more productive and produce things - goods and services - of better value than do people limited by elites. Cars, clothes, food - anything - produced freely and sold and bought freely is going to be better, more satisfying, and of a truer real value than the same types of things made un-freely. Competition breeds improvement and better value.
Poor people have a lower standard of living than richer people because they don't have the means to consume more goods and more services they want - or better goods and services. To make poor people richer we need to produce more wealth not redistribute the wealth already created. To create more wealth we need to have as much liberty and free trade in all things as possible. Artificial controls on prices or wages or om stock or currency valuation has always and will always only distort real values and retard improvements, innovations and incentives. And this makes economies falters, and increases poverty. Freedom is the answer, not controls - however well-intended.
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