What would capitalism do?

If we had a free economy, as libertarians have wanted for for a long, long time, a recession would be a natural cooling off period in which adjustments are made with no central planning. People under 45 years of age would know that the economy has ups and downs making planning easier -- saving for a rainy day, or taking out insurance policies to deal with down times.

The cooling off period would be relatively short and businesses could take these downturns into account with much better prediction-capability. With the infomation technology we possess, responses to recessions would be swift and efficient and mostly painless.

However, years and years of government intervention in the cyclical nature of the economy has made planning almost impossible and has created bubbles and bursts which create an emercency mindset.

A capitalist economy, with total separation of economy and state, is the natural flux and flow of human interactions. Now that we know government intervention is creating uncertainty and crises in the market, all but the stubbornly statist, opportunistic, ignorant and dependent will continue to promote government stimulus in recessions. It's time for honest adult resistance in the US. We can no longer afford to experiment politically and play games with an economy as large as ours. This is no time for sophomoric theory-testing -- it's time to stop the spending, cut the spending, end the irrational regulations, abolish income tax and free a capitalist system to create growth. It will do no good to make a short term loan to America for short-term stimulus -- it'll have to be paid back shortly by everyone, even the poor, through higher taxes, higher prices, lower wages, reduced benefits, etc. Nothing is free and everybody pays back.

And, for God's sake, let's move past the hip-irony of pundits and blowhard skeptics whose main purpose is to cripple any understanding of the potential of capitalism as an economic system undefiled by government intervention. It's sickeningly easy to play the worldly intellectual who sighs at the prospect of capitalism being any more than another tyrannical system with government officials in its pocket.

As long as we neglect the responsibility of building the systems we need to limit government and free the economy then we'll always be critics on the porch afraid to committ, pathetic cynics who produce bullshit and little else.

This time should be used to dismantle statism and return to capitalism -- a return that this time should have no strings attached. Where are the adults?

photo from www.exquisitesafaris.com