Individual Choice and the Government

Let's get down to basics and contrast the different way our economy works when control is in the hands of either (1) government sponsored producers or (2) individual consumers.


Here are a few examples -----

In education it's the government "establishment" vs. individuals and the right to have school vouchers.


In health care it's ObamaCare vs. individual choice.


In communications it's the U.S. Postal Service and all that entails with respect to costs vs. private sector based risk taking entrepreneurialism (FedEx, UPS and the internet based e-mail and such).


And for retirement funding, it's largely an issue of taxpayer guaranteed and unaffordable public sector pension benefits vs. private sector individual 401(k)s.


In brief, more and more our economy is now centered around government mandates, inefficiency and bureaucratic control instead of market based individual choice, productivity and risk taking.


As a result, we get the lack of customer focused service, low cost and the high quality that market economies provide to consumers.


Notable & Quotable captures the essence of how a market economy works best in contrasting the difference between producer control (government) and consumer control (individuals) succinctly and accurately:


"Ludwig von Mises, "Nation, State, and Economy" (1919):

One of the great ideas of [classical] liberalism is that it lets the consumer interest alone count and disregards the producer interest. No production is worth maintaining if it is not suited to bring about the cheapest and best supply. No producer is recognized as having a right to oppose any change in the conditions of production because it runs counter to his interest as a producer. The highest goal of all economic activity is the achievement of the best and most abundant satisfaction of wants at the smallest cost. . . .

Preferring the producer interest over the consumer interest, which is characteristic of antiliberalism, means nothing other than striving artificially to maintain conditions of production that have been rendered inefficient by continuing progress. Such a system may seem discussible when the special interests of small groups are protected against the great mass of others, since the privileged party then gains more from his privilege as a producer than he loses on the other hand as a consumer; it becomes absurd when it is raised to a general principle, since then every individual loses infinitely more as a consumer than he may be able to gain as a producer. The victory of the producer interest over the consumer interest means turning away from rational economic organization and impeding all economic progress."

Summing Up

Now what's so hard to understand about that?

It's pretty simple.

And its effects are quite profound.

Just look at the Russians.

Thanks. Bob.