Patriot Update

President Obama and his fellow liberals are doing their best—and with great success—to get as many people addicted to government entitlements as possible.  This is why my co-author, Archie Jones, and I made articulating the benefits of a free market Rule # 3 in our new book Rules for Conservative Radicals available at www.patriotdepot.com.  Opposing statism, socialism, and nanny government is a radical idea in today’s entitled, government-dependent America. Since this is the case, conservatives should be just as radical as our Founding Fathers were in opposing the tyranny of big government.  Reminding conservatives how to articulate the benefits of a free market is the purpose of this column.

A free-market economy exists when people can buy and sell goods and services without restrictions, limitations, or inhibitions from outside sources—particularly government— concerning value and price.  The American economy was originally intended to be a free-market economy and started out that way.  After their experiment with socialism almost caused them to starve, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony quickly learned the value of a free-market system. However, as the country grew, so did government and big government is the antithesis of the free-market.  Moreover, the growth of our government was spurred far more by the growth of socialistic theory and propaganda than by the real needs of historical circumstances.  Government inevitably becomes the outside source that limits the free-market.  It does so through unnecessary, burdensome government regulation.

As things stand today in America,  virtually every transaction for goods and services is limited in some way—directly or indirectly—by government regulations.  In fact, the federal government—through the promulgation of onerous regulations—has spread its tentacles into every aspect of American life.  The constricting tentacles of government regulation have choked the freedom out of America’s free market.  Try to envision what George Washington or Thomas Jefferson—both gentlemen farmers—would think if they somehow learned that a mother in today’s over-regulated America cannot purchase raw milk for her children without fear of prosecution.  America’s Founders would be aghast to learn that some type of government regulation now applies to every market transaction that takes place in our country.

Consequently, it is important for conservatives to fight back by articulating the benefits of a free-market economy.  According to Brady Mickelsen, the benefits of the free market include the following:

• In a free-market individuals and organizations have freedom, flexibility, and variety in buying and selling goods and services.
• In a free market people can switch products and services depending on ever-changing conditions, thus allowing them to quickly and effectively adjust to market conditions.
• In a free-market individuals and organizations may buy and sell what they want at prices they deem appropriate, thus encouraging production, commerce, and entrepreneurship.
• In a free-market individuals and organizations with goods and services are more willing to risk capital on research, development, and innovation because they have greater control over their success.
• In a free-market individuals and organizations can maximize their profitability because they are not burdened by excessive regulations that have the effect of limiting and inhibiting.
• In a free-market healthy, productive competition is encouraged among the market players, a fact that benefits end users and consumers.
• In a free-market maximum efficiency is encouraged, thereby making the best possible use of a nation’s resources.
• In a free market economic and financial decisions are made on the basis of supply and demand, which is always more efficient and accurate than the sluggish, politically-motivated decision making of government legislatures and bureaucracies.

The bottom line concerning the free market versus statism and socialism is this: A free-market creates jobs and prosperity.  In a free market even the poor are better off than they are when dependent on an inefficient, bureaucratic, sluggish, uncaring nanny government that is quickly going broke.