- Free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government's centralized planning because:
- 1) the price system utilizes more local knowledge of means and ends
- 2) markets rely upon coercion, whereas government relies upon voluntary compliance with the law
- 3) more tax revenue can be generated from free enterprise
- 4) property rights and contracts are best enforced by the market system
- 5) government planners are too cautious in spending taxpayers' money
I am deeply troubled that our electorate's understanding of economics is so deeply flawed. Virtually all professional economists agree that central planning is much less efficient at producing prosperity than the free market.
Leftist economists believe that the prosperity is 'unfairly' distributed, but even they know that tampering with the price system and ignoring its signals to achieve their idea of a 'fair' distribution of wealth introduces inefficiency and produces less wealth than would otherwise be produced.
All they succeed at doing is helping their buddies and friends for a little while. After that brief period of enjoying their stolen wealth, there is less for the bandits to steal via their machinations.
In a free market, some get very rich, but all sectors of the income distribution do much better than they would in a managed economy. Steal from the productive, and you destroy everyone's incentive to be more productive. Then the planners have little choice but to strengthen their impositions. That's why Friedrich Hayek called central planning The Road to Serfdom.
Clearly, a nation should have a real need of a very broadly based public good to justify any significant market interference.
Not just half-baked calculations of the life cycle costs of two different kinds light bulbs.
