Free-Market Economy

                    The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the importance of our free-market economy.  This principle tells us that we can obtain the highest level of prosperity with a free-market economy, a minimum of government regulations, and a climate that encourages economic freedom.

                    W. Cleon Skousen claimed that there is a simple formula comprised of "four laws of economic freedom which a nation must maintain if its people are to prosper at the maximum level.  These are: 1) The Freedom to try.  2) The Freedom to buy.  3) The Freedom to sell.  4) The Freedom to fail….

                    "The Founding Fathers agreed with Adam Smith that the greatest threat to economic prosperity is the arbitrary intervention of the government into the economic affairs of private business and the buying public.  Historically, this has usually involved fixing prices, fixing wages, controlling production, controlling distribution, granting monopolies, or subsidizing certain products.

                    "Nevertheless, there are four areas of legitimate responsibility which properly belong to government.  These involve the policing responsibilities of government to prevent:  1) Illegal force in the market place to compel purchase or sale of products. 

2) Fraud in misrepresenting the quality, location, or ownership of the item being sold or bought.  3) Monopoly which eliminates competition and results in restraint of trade.  4) Debauchery of the cultural standards and moral fiber of society by commercial exploitation of vice -- pornography, obscenity, drugs, liquor, prostitution, or commercial gambling" (The Five Thousand Year Leap - 28 Great Ideas That Changed the World, pp. 131-133).

                    Alexander Hamilton stated, "To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted."

                    In a recent speech in Roanoke, Virginia, President Barack Obama demonstrated his ignorance on what it takes to create jobs while making money.  Obama insulted all the small-business owners in America, people who provide nearly fifty-percent of all jobs.  "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that.  Somebody else made that happen."  Obama claimed that the government is the reason why businesses succeed because the government provides basic services and infrastructure such as roads and bridges used by businesses. 

                    In his effort to advance tax hikes to fund more failing companies and entitlement programs, he seemed to forget that roads, bridges, basic services, etc. are provided by the people who pay taxes - the successful businesses that pay taxes and employ other people who pay taxes.  He wants those same successful entrepreneurs to feel gratitude for the opportunity to finance this nation and to still be eager to pay more taxes!

                    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney rebutted Obama's claims in a speech at a company in Pennsylvania.   "… President Obama exposed what he really thinks about free people and the American vision, and government, what he really thinks about America itself. … If you want to understand why his policies have failed, … you can look at what he said …:  "If you've got a business, you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen."  That somebody else is government in his view.  He goes on to describe the people who deserve the credit for building this business.  And, of course, he describes people who we care very deeply about, who make a difference in our lives, our school teachers, fire fighters, people who build roads.  We need those things, we value school teachers, fire fighters, people who build roads; you really couldn't have a business if you didn't have those things.  But, you know, we pay for those things.  The taxpayers pay for government.  It's not like government just provides those to all of us and we say oh thank you government for doing those things.  In fact we pay for them and we benefit from them and we appreciate the work that they do and the sacrifices that are done by people who work in government.  But they did not build this business.

                    "The idea to say that Steve Jobs didn't build Apple, that Henry Ford didn't build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn't build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Kroc didn't build McDonald's, that Bill Gates didn't build Microsoft, you go on [down] the list, that Joe and his colleagues didn't build this enterprise, to say something like that is not just foolishness, it is insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it's wrong.  And by the way, the President's logic doesn't just extend to the entrepreneurs that start a barber shop or a taxi operation or an oil field service business like this and a gas service business like this, it also extends to everybody in America that wants to lift themselves up a little further, that goes back to school to get a degree and see if they can get a little better job, to somebody who wants to get some new skills and get a little higher income, to somebody who has, may have dropped out that decides to get back in school and go for it, people who reach to try and lift themselves up.  The President would say, well you didn't do that.  You couldn't have gotten to school without the roads that government built for you.  You couldn't have gone to school without teachers.  So you didn't, you are not responsible for that success.  President Obama attacks success and therefore under President Obama we have less success and I will change that.  I've got to be honest, I don't think anyone could have said what he said who had actually started a business or been in a business.  And my own view is that what the President said was both startling and revealing.  I find it extraordinary that a philosophy of that nature would be spoken by a President of the United States.  It goes to something that I have spoken about from the beginning of the campaign - that this election is, to a great degree, about the soul of America.  Do we believe in an America that is great because of government or do we believe in an America that is great because of free people allowed to pursue their dreams and build our future?

                    "You understand, of course, what's going on.  What he is saying is his justification for raising taxes higher and higher, because government needs more.  What he is saying is his justification for Obamacare, which says that we need 2,300 pages of legislation to have government more intrusive in your life.  What he is saying is his justification for a larger and larger government.  This is very different, by the way, than the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton that said that the era of big-government was over, that reformed welfare.  You heard that story by the way, [that] he is trying to take work out of welfare requirements.  It is changing the nature of America, changing the nature of what the Democrats have fought for, and Republicans have fought for.  In the past people of both parties understood that encouraging achievement, encouraging success, encouraging people to lift themselves as high as they can, encouraging entrepreneurs, celebrating success instead of attacking it and denigrating, makes America strong.  That's the right course for this country.  His course is extraordinarily foreign."

                    In order for our nation to enjoy true liberty we must have economic freedom.  We must maintain our freedom to reach for our dreams.  We must maintain a totally free economy with government simply protecting our rights to do so.