John Stossel devotes his column today to the OWS protesters, arguing that they’re half right. In their complaints about government bailouts of big banks, they have a perfectly sound position. No firm should get bailed out from bad decisions. I haven’t seen any evidence, however, that the protesters are against government waste in general.
Most of the protesters also proclaim that they are against capitalism and in that, Stossel argues, they are badly confused. Real capitalism entails risk in organizing labor and capital to produce goods and services that might or might not turn out to be popular enough in the market to earn a profit. It is that search for profitable opportunities that is responsible for human beings today living at a stupendously higher standard than they did just a few centuries ago, as Tom Palmer pointed out on Monday. It is a terrible commentary on our system of education that so many people who have gone through our schools and colleges believe such fantasies as that socialism would make life wonderful.
