The Widening Gap?

Are you worried about the widening gap between the rich and the poor? I'm curious about people who make this statement, "That the rich keep getting richer." People that hold this view may have a natural socialist view without realizing it. To make this statement in the first place, it implies that we should strive for equality. Some people have more talent than others. Just as we would think it outrageous to add weights to NBA stars until they can play no better than the other players, nor should equality be a goal in economics. If an entrepreneur figures out how to serve people so well that he gets rich should we inject him with a stupefying serum?

What we should strive for is equality under the law! The rules the same for all, Not the results. This is done by absence and limitation of government. When Nancy Pelosi buys a stock and votes on a bill to make herself rich, this is not equality under law. When the FDA gets to tell Diamond walnuts it cannot claim health benefits but Lays "heart healthy" potato chips is fine, this is not equality under law. All inequality under law comes from government not business and private sector. Everything wall street does to gain an advantage over others comes from regulation and lobbying. Remove the state from the picture, and you have equality under law and pure free market. There is no such thing as a just government. There is no "improving government" or making it more efficient, or as Newt Gingrich says "using six sigma and lean" for government (this is pretty much the most absurd thing I have ever heard from a politician, but they never cease to surprise me).

We should never worry about the rich getting richer. Since for them to do so in a free market, they must figure out how to make others richer. We should worry about making a real free market. Capitalism is a system where one must make people more wealthy in order to become wealthy himself. We must work to destroy croni-capitalism, or old English style mercantilism. This is a system of government supported private business. This is what we have become. To fix this, we don't go and protest wall street. We remove government power. Even the power we think is legitimate. The power to regulate medicine, food, banking, travel and all else.

Once you recognize that without the FDA we will not all die of poisonous medicine, you will see that killing customers and getting sued is not a great business model, Once you recognize that without government building roads and trains we will still have roads and trains, that private ownership of roads and trains is better than government ownership, and you will see it will be far cheaper and no traffic when people must compete for your business of traffic. Once you realize that without government police, people will start hiring private police. The tyranny will be gone, and they will actually serve and protect you or get fired while the next company takes their business. Then, we will be truly safe.

Just as we see how absurd it would be for government to run all shoe companies, we need to realize that services like protection and travel can be handled by the market far better than the monopoly of government. Imagine what your shoes would cost were they considered too important for the private sector and so somehow handing it over to a monopoly would make it better. Everything the market handles gets better and cheaper with time. There is no reason to believe that all services and products can not be handled this way!

-Written by Jim Fisher