Amidst the annual recaps, the Mountain Xpress declared its top online story to be a letter from Tim Peck. Peck merely declared what should be obvious: In a truly free market, buyers and sellers profit. Predictably, attacks flew against crony capitalism mistakenly identified as the free market, the perps intending to equate the two systems, for a presumed internet audience of bird-brained parrots. The scheme worked.
One commentator claimed the market cannot be free until all truth is known about how manufacturers are treating labor and the environment. It is as if a big enough government with enough laws and tools of Inquisition will make everybody honestly compliant, and only government is big enough to discover and correct moral shortcomings. The following scenarios exist only in Never-Neverland:
- A little girl overhears her dad complaining about the boss exploiting child labor in Thailand. She tells her friends, and they tell their liberal parents, who decide to boycott the industry.
- The slimy leader of a big business slips carbon tetrachloride into the streams at midnight and hides all the evidence whenever the OSHA and EPA folks pull into the parking lot.
Until government’s great iron fist is empowered and fueled (Think laws and taxes.), directed of course by democratic community conscience (Think useful idiots.), people won’t know if they want to buy floor mops or diamond rings. After all, one does not spend money to acquire things; one spends to strengthen the economy and create jobs.
This post is painfully run-on. I’ve been at this for more than a decade. I repeat myself, and nothing changes. To be more explicit would be to insult everybody’s intelligence and pass myself off as overly smug about my mediocrity. My New Year’s resolution is to spend more time writing music and less time pretending evil can be exorcised with catechism.
