Who Said That?

 Who said this:

"The only way America succeeds is if businesses are succeeding.  The reason we've got a[n] unparalleled standard of living in the history of the world is because we've got a free market that is dynamic and entrepreneurial...That free market has to be nurtured and cultivated."

Speaker-elect John Boehner?  No.  Milton Friedman?  Nope.  Thomas Sowell?  Strike three.

President Obama said it.  The day after the the midterm election, in his televised news conference,  he said it.  And, much to my surprise and delight, he did not appear to throw up a little in his mouth right after the words, free market.  (Although, there was a significant pause there somewhere.  Could be a slight case of acid reflux...)

Begin at the 46 minute mark.  Comments follow the video:


Explanations for such a public statement from a president who gives every indication of a deep hostility to an unplanned free market can abound.  Let's entertain just three:

1. Timing.  It was said the day after the midterms.  The Tea Party influence on the results was significant, what, with all this talk and rally signage about socialism and free markets.  With all this talk of compromise and working together, it makes sense to pretend you've just read the dust cover to one of von Mises' tracts.  (It was Mises who said, "The people of the United States are more prosperous than the inhabitants of all other countries because their government embarked later than the government in other parts of the world upon the policy of obstructing business.") So It could just be prudent political posturing, or at least reflexive lip service.
2. Politics.  Surprise!  Related to #1, and probably interchangeable with it, he felt the calculating urge to drop a little homage to free marketeers on the Hill.  (All four were probably listening.)
3.  He actually believes it or at least acknowledges the historical fact that our prosperity and standard of living are the result of the level of freedom we've always enjoyed.   The progressive Left can indeed acknowledge so much and still embrace a radically different vision for the future of American society.  After all, who should be running the fate of the country, hordes of unorganized and uncoordinated free people pursuing their own self interests or the wiser-than-thous with Ivy League degrees?  That's a no-brainer, depending on who you're talking to, of course.

Actually, after considering all three possibilities I really don't care what the motivation for saying was.  Yes, forget all that conjecturing.

The important matter is that he said it.  Just as importantly is the fact that only the most strident outspoken socialists publicly denounce capitalism, individual freedom, and constitutional limitations on government that protect so much.  In America one still has to at least pay lip service to that whole freedom thing, and most times pay lip service to that whole Constitution thing, too.  As has been stressed here and will be stressed again and again, we have much reason for---dare I use the term---hope that politicians still feel the political urgency to give a public tip-of-the-hat to freedom.  This belies what their advisers and pollsters and focus groups tell them: "Americans are still hung up on being the freest people in the world.  Demagogue over it, prevaricate around it, bulldoze your way  over it, but you have to deal with it."

This is still the home field for freedom.  If we want to be the visiting team we can move to Europe and slug away there.

I wanted to discuss what follows these words, comments about the financial crises, health care, and BP but am running long.  Just remember to ask: How free is the market in health care, the financial markets, and petroleum?   But that's for another Chalk Talk.

The Dead Guys Are Alive And Well

The New York Times is curious what Tea Party folks are reading.  In a recent article they report the movement has provoked a renewed interest in some classic works on freedom such as works by Hayek, Mises, and Bastiat.   (Click here for full article.)

Two things in this article are striking:

1) The writer opens by emphasizing the "canon" of the Tea Party is composed of "resurrected" texts written by "dead writers" and "long-dormant ideas." (What would a Hayek or Mises zombie look like, anyway?  Would they garble incoherently through Austrian accents while feasting on the flesh of bureaucrats and Keynesian professors?) 
2) The not-so subtle conclusion provided for the reader: "The works are more suited to protest than to policy making..."

Sandwiched between the opening and conclusion are tidbit samplings minus context constructed toward the quietly dismissive statement, "Neither Hayek nor Bastiat were writing with the United States in mind."

So there you go.  The intellectual "fodder" of the Tea Party is founded on old, dusty texts whose authors are dead (Do ideas die, too?), who were never thinking of the United States (Really? Hayek wrote Serfdom for proponents of freedom in all free societies, specifically citing the United States several times), suitable only for the rabble-roused hoi-paloi Tea Party masses, not to be taken seriously for substantive policy changes.

If the mere age of texts and their authors is the benchmark for what is to be taken seriously, how new is socialism?  Hayek and Mises came along after Marx, Lenin, and Engels.  True, classical liberalism, founded on the idea of freedom, is older than socialism, the idea that societies can be planned and perfected through coercion.  But if the mere age of ideas sets the bar of legitimacy we would need to re-institute human slavery: that institution predates all written history.  Free societies came about much later in the time line of human ideas.

As for serious policy proposals, at the heart of classical liberalism and the economics that emanate from it is the acknowledgment that voluntary exchange between free individuals and the creative and productive capacities of free societies are responsible for lifting the masses out of hand-to-mouth existences.  Conversely, attempting to plan and coerce society against the free development of its people leads to the arbitrary ordering of people's lives found in authoritarian regimes. Here you will find the miserable living standards one can expect from the denial of the dignity of the individual and his and her freedom.

Enter Hayek's Road to Serfdom.   If his historical presentation is too "dusty" to be relevant, have a look-see at contemporary Cuba, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union.

Given our unsustainable debt and the ongoing growth of government intervention in our lives from everything from our incomes to our shower heads, a reinvigorated love of liberty founded on a sure intellectual footing seems very well suited for our times.  It even seems like something free people would want to do for themselves, as opposed for waiting subserviently for their governing authorities to do for them.

So long live the dead guys and whatever grassroots movement that embraces liberty.  The ideas they champion certainly do.