Free Enterprise Is The Engine That Has Made America The Greatest Nation On The Planet

SEE HERE I prefer not to call it capitalism. The main reason is that I think capitalism is a misnomer which calls to mind the much maligned "Captains of Industry" and "Greedy Traders of Wall Street" and other images that liberals have worked so hard to insinuate into the American psyche. Walter Williams in an insightful column which was in today's newspaper HERE makes the distinction between "free" and "fair" trade. Free trade involves both parties seeking freely their own interests (which isn't greed just in case any liberals read this post). Fair trade is the moniker that those who wish to interpose the state into transactions to further their own interests apply. Some third party decides what "fair" is and it isn't generally in your self-interest but someone elses.

That's the problem we have today. The government has become the arbiter of "fair" and at the serious expense of "free." The problem is that there is a reasonable penumbra, an area where the state has an interest in preserving honesty. I always call it the truth in advertising, truth in labeling element. If you buy something and it says 8 ounces, then it ought to weigh something pretty close to 8 ounces. If it says that there is caffeine in it then that's what should be in it. If it says "pasteurized cheese product" that means it isn't really cheese, just a reasonable facsimile. So there is a place for government. But when it gets in the way of our legitimate freedoms to make bargains with people each furthering their own interests and imposes instead the interests of arbitrary third parties that government wants to favor, then "fair" has become a myth because "fair trade" is neither free nor fair, it is manipulated for some third party's interest, a party that is generally not even involved in the transaction.

A little more "fairness" and we'll all be impoverished.