GOOD GOVERNMENT EMPOWERS ITS PEOPLE

In 1776, Adam Smith explained the economic success of Great Britain:

• That security which the laws of Great Britain give to every man that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish.… The natural effort of every individual is to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, … capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity.… In Great Britain industry is perfectly secure; and though it is far from being perfectly free, it is as free or freer than in any other part of Europe.

In How the West was Won, Rodney Stark demonstrated how poor policy makes for poor growth:

• ...taxes were so confiscatory in France that, as Smith pointed out, the French farmer “was afraid to have a good team of horses or oxen, but endeavors to cultivate with the meanest and most wretched instruments of husbandry that he can,” so that he will appear poor to the tax collector. Writing to a friend back in France during a visit to England, Voltaire expressed his surprise that the British farmer “is not afraid to increase the number of his cattle, or to cover his roof with tile, lest his taxes be raised next year.

Society flourishes when the shackles are removed and enterprise and initiative are enabled, while justice ensures the safety of property and wealth against seizure. In many nations, corruption continues to stifle investment and growth, if the investor knows that his business can be taken away at will. Stark writes that because of these factors, the USA had become the world’s manufacturing dynamo:

• By 1900 the United States was producing more than a third (35.3 percent) of all the world’s manufacturing output, compared with 14.7 percent produced by Great Britain and 15.9 percent by Germany. By 1929 the United States dwarfed the world as a manufacturing power, producing 42.2 percent of all goods, compared with Germany’s 11.6 percent and Britain’s 9.4.

America boomed because of the laws and values it had inherited:

• The early American colonies came under English common law. Therefore individuals had an unlimited right to property that they had legally obtained, and not even the state could abridge that right without adequate compensation. Eventually that became the basis of American property law as well. Thus, the state could not seize iron foundries as had taken place in China, although it could purchase them should that seem desirable—as the socialist government of Britain did when it nationalized most basic industries right after World War II (until government control of these industries proved so unprofitable that they were transformed back into private companies).

All such “reforms” are unsustainable because they kill human initiative. However, many now erroneously equate capitalism with theft, but is it theft? If I invest in a planter and cultivator, I can grow twice as many tomatoes. This would enable me to cultivate an additional acre of land to grow more tomatoes. It might also necessitate the hiring of laborers to harvest and market the additional produce. Besides, when more produce is available, it will also depress the price making tomatoes affordable to more consumers.

Rather than theft, this example of capitalism demonstrates that my newly acquired wealth will benefit everyone.

Does capitalism disenfranchise the marginalized? No! Instead, it empowers them, allowing them to advance, unlike the entitlement programs that create dependency. This was what the great emancipator, Frederick Douglass, had warned against:

• Everybody has asked the question. . ."What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! 

Perhaps the West has a perverted understanding of compassion. Douglass understood that compassion was a matter of empowerment not of disempowerment through condescending give-away programs.