http://www.jewishworldreview.com:80/1011/stossel101911.php3
What's there to say about Occupy Wall Street? The answer isn't so simple.
Some complain about taxpayer bailouts of businesses. Good for them. In a
true free market, failing firms would go out of business. They couldn't turn
to Washington for help.
But many protesters say they're against capitalism. Now things get
confusing. What do they mean? If by "capitalism" they mean crony capitalism
(let's call it crapitalism), a system in which favored business interests
are supported by government, I'm against that, too.
But if they mean the free market, then they are fools. When allowed to work,
the market has lifted more people out of the mud and misery of poverty than
any government, ever.
The protesters are also upset about income disparity. Here again we should
make distinctions. To the extent the country's income disparity is the
result of crony capitalism, it's bad.
Yet even if America had a true free market, there would be income disparity.
It's a byproduct of freedom. Some people are just more ambitious, more
energetic and more driven, and some have that ineffable knack of sensing
what consumers want. Think Steve Jobs.
But it shouldn't matter if the income gap between you and rich people grows.
What should matter is that your living standard improves.
Your living standard many not have improved lately. Over the past decade,
median income fell. But that's an aberration largely caused by the bursting
of the real estate bubble. Despite Wall Street protesters' complaints about
rich people gaining at the expense of the poor, the poorest fifth of
Americans are 20 percent wealthier than they were when I was in college, and
despite the recession, still richer than they were in 1993.
And income statistics don't tell the whole story. Thanks to the innovations
of entrepreneurs, today in America, even poor people have clean water, TV
sets, cars and flush toilets. Most live better than kings once lived -
better even than the middle class lived in 1970.
Some protesters say they hate the market process that makes that possible.
They call rich people "robber barons." That term was used by American
newspapers to smear tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D.
Rockefeller. But Vanderbilt and Rockefeller were neither robbers nor barons.
They weren't barons because they weren't born rich. They weren't robbers
because they didn't steal. They got rich by serving customers well. As
Burton Folsom wrote in "The Myth of the Robber Barons," there were political
entrepreneurs, who made their fortunes through government privilege, and
market entrepreneurs, who pleased consumers.
Rockefeller and Vanderbilt were market entrepreneurs. Vanderbilt invented
ways to make travel cheaper. He used bigger ships and served food onboard.
People liked that, and the extra customers he attracted allowed him to lower
costs. He cut the New York-Hartford fare from $8 to $1. That helped people.
Rockefeller was called a monopolist, but he wasn't one. He had 150
competitors - including big companies like Texaco and Gulf. No one was ever
forced to buy his oil. Rockefeller got rich by finding cheaper ways to get
oil products to the market. His competitors vilified him because he "stole"
their customers by lowering prices. Ignorant reporters repeated their
complaints.
In truth, Rockefeller's price cuts made life better. Poor people used to go
to bed when it got dark, but thanks to Rockefeller, they could afford fuel
for lanterns and stay up and read at night. Rockefeller's "greed" may have
even saved the whales. When he lowered the price of kerosene, he eliminated
the need for whale oil, and the slaughter of whales suddenly stopped. Bet
your kids won't read "Rockefeller saved the whales" in environmental studies
class.
I have at least found some common ground with some Wall Street protest
supporters. Joe Sibilia, who runs the website CSRWire (Corporate Social
Responsibility), told me, "You can't have an environment where people are
betting on financial instruments with the expectation that the government is
going to bail them out."
So we agree that Wall Street bailouts are intolerable. Now we just have to
teach our progressive friends that truly free markets work for the benefit
of all.
==========================================================
by William Tyler Page
I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by
the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent
of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many
sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon
those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which
American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its
Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it
against all enemies.
-Written 1917, accepted by the United States House of Representatives on
April 3, 1918
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