It is true that Congress often seems ineffective in dealing with modern affairs, but this is what we should expect. The contemporary American government intervenes into nearly every aspect of our lives. How can any senator or congressman comprehend all of the interests at stake in all of the matters that the government tries to regulate? We live in an extraordinarily complex society. There are literally millions of businesses in America, and a larger number of households. These organizations deal in countless products and services, each of which is produced in complicated ways. Legislators have staffs to help manage their affairs, but the fact of the matter is that modern economies are complex beyond the comprehension of any staff or committee.

The intolerant ‘tolerance’ of the politically correct crowd is intolerable.

That banks get ever bigger, that they routinely hand out multi-million dollar bonuses, and that they frequently get bailed out, is not a result of the greed of the bankers – a stupid explanation anyway, only satisfactory to the intellectually challenged and perennially envious – but is integral to the fiat money system.

…why hasn’t the economy recovered in light of all the money poured into the economy by the government and the Fed? Why is the economy stagnating and not swinging back into positive territory? Perhaps you might wish to consider that the policies advocated by all the economics experts have been implemented and have failed and thus perhaps their policies are wrong. Or perhaps you would like them to continue doing the same things to the same results.

Capitalism vigorously pursued might produce trade cycles and long periods of high unemployment; it might produce anxiety in yesterday’s successful entrepreneurs who now face competition from today’s upstart entrepreneurs; it might cause too many people to become obese; it might kill off animal species in unusually high numbers; it might cause the earth’s climate to change; it might create asset bubbles; it might spark envy and over-work in the Smiths who are trying to keep up with their neighbors, the Joneses. It might do these things and others that reasonable people might regard as unfortunate in comparison with some imaginable paradise. But we must never lose sight of this important asymmetry: complete or near-complete state control of the economy is proven to generate deep impoverishment and tyranny

Since the onset of industrialization, the basis of power and wealth has changed from mere possession of land and people to work it to the hard work of free laborers and creative capitalists. The latter thrive best in democracies, so autocratic regimes have fallen further and further behind democratic ones economically. This has lessened the resources available to dictators to hold onto their possessions, and reduced the appeal of dictators to their own elites and populations. In old days of territorial gains providing wealth, a powerful autocrat could expect to do well in global economic terms, and to reward his supporters and improve the prestige and power of his nation. Those days are gone — dictatorships today are struggling low or middle income pariah states, such as Cuba, N. Korea, Iran, Belarus. So it is pretty much an expectation that more freedom — economic freedom, freedom of expression, and freedom to participate — is a hallmark of strong and successful countries. Dictatorships are, in Darwinian terms, increasingly uncompetitive.

Fewer workers in farming (or retail) means more workers producing more goods in other industries. The same basic lesson holds throughout an economy, it is the declining sectors that allow other sectors to advance. Instantaneously? Immediately? With higher wages for every worker? No. Transitions always involve some pain; creation always involves some destruction; growth always involves change. The alternative, however, is stagnation. The politics of growth are difficult because those who lose from change are always present and are often more numerous and perhaps even more deserving than the present winners, the capitalists, the business people, the international mega corps; but today’s losses and gains are fleeting, the permanent winners are the workers and consumers of the future who will know only the benefits of productivity.

To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, a lot of charitable endeavors are not about actually helping people so much as they are about showing that we are on the side of the angels. For some people who immerse themselves in the economic way of thinking, the Dismal Science helps them look past their (selfish? greedy?) fixation on others’ approval and shows them that a dollar might alleviate more human suffering if it is put in the bank rather than a donation box.