The one thing we can tell about life with any level of
certainty is that nothing in it which goes to one extreme or another is good
for us. This does not mean that to be good, everything in life must stay
exactly in the middle. What it means is that there is a region which is away
from the extremes; one we may call the mid-band region, where life will remain
tolerable enough to be enjoyed, even so pleasant as to be greatly savored.
When cooking up a situation to live by, we tend to move away
from the absolute center, and approach the outer limit of the mid-band region
in one direction or another. This adds variety of the taste of the portions
that we accumulate on the tray, and from which we nourish our lives. Depending
on our mood, we may at times seek the sweet we find at one limit, the sour we
find at another limit, the slightly bitter or the hot to the palate.
Unless we are young and adventurous, at which time some of
us will want to experiment with going past the limits of the mid-band region,
we tend to remain within the limits, thus stay safe. Also, when we select
someone to cook up the situations in which we shall live, we expect the cook
not to make the portions too sweet, too sour, too bitter or too hot. Instead,
we expect to have a little less or a little more of this one condiment or that
one spice, but we do not want to be overwhelmed by one taste or another.
If we are fortunate enough to live at a time of relative
serenity and away from an extreme situation that may have been caused by a
natural calamity or a man-made one, the description given above will generally
apply, and be called the good times. There will, however, be occasions when
matters affecting a large portion of society will have moved far enough from
the center, that cooks who proclaim themselves to be master chefs will rise and
laud the merit of going past the limits of the mid-band region to break the
status quo, and correct the current situation. They will promise that more
salt, more sugar, more angostura or more pepper in the portions they wish to
cook for us will do the trick, and will get us back to the good times.
Culture, morality, religion and other similar topics are
often used by these self-declared master chefs to start the national dialogue.
At the bottom of it all, however, resides the reality that economics is the one
topic which draws our attention more readily than any other, and prompts us to
listen to the sermons that these people throw at us. There is an example of this
in the October 2, 2013 issue of National Review Online. It is an article
written by Alec Torres under the title: “How Economic Liberty Changes Lives”
and the subtitle: “A new documentary tells the success stories of the free
markets.”
Alec Torres says he is actually writing about a documentary
that will soon be released by an outfit calling itself the Free to Choose
Network which you're free to take as meaning “Network of Master Chefs.” They
call their documentary “Economic Freedom in Action: Changing Lives.” Behind it
all is the voice of a Swedish economist who narrates the tale of five families
from four countries “who experienced transitions from living under illiberal
regimes to having economic independence,” says Torres.
And the manner by which those chefs are approaching the
subject is that they “endeavor[ed] to link the theory of data of economic
freedom with the tangible experience of individuals who have risen from
hardship to self-sufficiency.” He goes on to say that the documentary focuses
on “using informative statistics to support, but not drive, the narrative. It
takes the debate to the plane of the personal and empathic, where statistics
act as a backdrop to real people.”
Why did the chefs choose to present their case in this way?
Because “The documentary offers no proof of its central claim … however
necessary statistics may be, few people are convinced by such method alone.
Most are moved by strong feelings, not analyses. People feel inspired by these
stories; inspirations do much more than mere numbers.”
That's what motivates those chefs. But what is it that
motivates Alec Torres? Well, he is a self-declared Conservative that's not too
happy about the way that American Conservatives have been presenting their case
to the public. And so he is telling them about that other foreign method. And
what is really bugging him, which he tries to correct, is that: “So much of
governance in the world today is devoted to directing our resources via decree
and technocracy.” He wants to change all that by showing that “real people gain
when simply given a chance.” But as you will discover, he wants to give more to
those who have everything by giving less to those who have near to nothing.
And because what is sauce for the foreign goose is sauce for
the American gander, Torres wants to cook the same meal for his compatriots
while asserting that: “the documentary has particular relevance for America.”
He complains about property rights being undermined by eminent domain,
complains about the War on Drugs, and complains about what he calls a plague of
regulations. And he joins those who worry that America is allowing entrenched
special interests to continue receiving preferential treatment at the expense
of others.
However, he also says this about the documentary: “there is
a decided lack of counterexamples to the wholly positive image it paints of
economic freedom.” Well then, this being the
case, let me fix the deficiency for him. He spoke of “entrenched special
interests” without naming them. Let me name a few of those; they are the
investment bankers who get their clients to use the properties they own as
collateral to borrow money.
This money – in the end –
can only come out the Central Bank, and will have the effect of diluting
everyone else's holdings. What happens after that is that the bankers and their
cohorts devise all sorts of derivatives, and engage in all sorts of practices
by which they fleece the clients, and end up owning most of the money and most
of the assets. They become grotesquely wealthy, the clients become greatly
impoverished, and society sinks deeper into the poor house. What more does
Torres wish to give these bankers and their cohorts? They have it extremely
sweet as it is while the rest of society has it extremely sour, even bitter.
In any case, do you know
where the problem originates? It originates with the bastardization of the word
“resource.” When the bankers and their cohorts say resource, they mean money.
But money is really not a resource; it is only a reflection of the nation's
resources – or at least, it is supposed to be only that. The real resources are
the goods and services that make up the wealth of the nation. And while the
wealth is created by the people who make things or render a real service, the
investment bankers and their cohorts get most of the printed money, therefore
get to own most of the resources without producing any.
And this is why, like says Alec Torres, America is heading directly down the wrong path. It is happening when the other nations are rising. One of those is China where not long ago, the people were mostly destitute.How did they do it? They did it by turning upside down the paradigm according to which the people who produced things were poor and those who produced nothing were wealthy.
And so, a man called
Chairman Mao rose among the Chinese people, and said to them they will have a
cultural revolution whereby those who never produced anything will be taught to
produce things, and produce real services. He sent them to work in the fields,
the mines, the quarries and the factories. The end result has been miraculous
in that China is now rising like a meteor.
America too can do the same
by having a kind of cultural revolution that will send the crowd known as the
get-rich-doing-nothing characters, to do something useful such as the cleaning
of toilets, and the sweeping of floors at the banks and the securities
exchanges.
To be fair, that crowd
should include those who sit in the editorial boardrooms of the printed media
and the audio-visual studios where they bitch about the people they rob to the
bone but cannot rob their hides too. Let these characters clean the places
where their ideas should be flushed.