Voice For Liberty

Tag: Free markets

  • Bryan Derreberry and the Chamber’s goals for Wichita

    When the head of a chamber of commerce speaks or writes, it pays to listen or read carefully. While chambers are nominally pro-business, that’s a long way from saying they’re pro-liberty. Instead, they increasingly exist to serve a narrow interest. Using words and language like “pride,” “community,” “investment,” and “economic development” — all words that people can agree with, their flowery messages hide their real agenda.

    Here’s an example. In the Wichita Eagle on May 12, 2006, president and CEO of the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce Bryan Derreberry wrote as follows:

    If we are serious about advancing our community, then we have to invest in it and take pride in who we are. The Sedgwick County arena can boost excitement and economic development in Wichita, Sedgwick County and the region.

    The arena initiative was a broad-based decision-making effort that offered everyone an opportunity to weigh in with a vote. Sedgwick County is now carrying out what the voters approved with an open and thoughtful process, allowing much input along the way.

    There will always be those who resist change and look for ways to impede progress. But we have an obligation to take care of the community we live in today and make it better for those who come after us.

    First, Mr. Derreberry is confused about the meaning of the word “investment.” In a recent article, Chris Brown tells us the true meaning of investment: “Investment signifies an accumulation of savings through lower present consumption, which will then be used to achieve (potential) profitable returns in the future.” None of this applies to the downtown Wichita arena. It was funded by transferring money from taxpayers to the government. Then, government has no ability to measure profitability, as it is not subject to the profit and loss system that private business must live by. Besides, how does government generate revenue? Through taxation, of course.

    Then, the “broad-based decision-making effort” is certainly a misnomer. The arena passed with 52% of the vote. That’s hardly a mandate. Many people, seeing how the process has been handled since the election, have said they’d change their “yes” vote to “no.”

    Finally, Mr. Derreberry slams those who say “no” to what he wants. That’s a mistake arising from the arrogance of those who believe that they know best how people should spend their money. By saying “no” to these government projects we are saying “yes” to entrepreneurship, limited government, and liberty. These goals, evidently, are not valued by Mr. Derreberry and his organization.

  • Wichita Chamber of Commerce values

    Here’s a message that Bryan Derreberry, president of the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce, sent to Chamber members. Note that this message doesn’t mention the role its political action committee played in the third Sedgwick County Commission district. In that race, the PAC spent some $19,000 of its $48,000 in an effort to elect Goddard mayor Marcey Gregory. Her opponent, longtime taxpayer advocate Karl Peterjohn, is just the type of candidate you’d expect chambers of commerce to support.

    But that’s changed. Stephen Moore in the article “Tax Chambers” published in The Wall Street Journal on February 10, 2007 wrote this: “In as many as half the states, state taxpayer organizations, free market think tanks and small business leaders now complain bitterly that, on a wide range of issues, chambers of commerce deploy their financial resources and lobbying clout to expand the taxing, spending and regulatory authorities of government. This behavior, they note, erodes the very pro-growth climate necessary for businesses — at least those not connected at the hip with government — to prosper.”

    Mr. Derreberry’s letter mentions “pro-business values.” At one time this meant something approaching free-market values. But now, Ronald Reagan’s prediction is being fulfilled here in Wichita: “What is euphemistically called government-corporate ‘partnership’ is just government coercion, political favoritism, collectivist industrial policy, and old-fashioned federal boondoggles nicely wrapped up in a bright-colored ribbon. It doesn’t work.”

    November 18, 2008
    Dear Chamber Members:

    This election cycle was a resounding success for the candidates supported by the Wichita Area Business Political Action Committee (WABPAC) as we raised more than $48,000 to support pro-business state and local candidates. The Chamber’s political action committee identified and supported 39 state legislative candidates and three Sedgwick County Commissioner candidates winning 36 of the 39 races in which WABPAC was involved (93% elected).

    The litmus test for the PAC’s engagement and support was whether a candidate had demonstrated an ability to listen and work with the business community to assure that your company, or organization, had the most competitive environment possible in which to excel. WABPAC’s Board of Trustees wants to thank every Chamber member who reviewed the PAC’s support recommendations and voted accordingly. The reason behind this appreciation is that the Chamber’s collective voice has its greatest impact when business members engage themselves in the election process and elect candidates who embrace pro-business values and understand the challenges you face daily.

    A strong, collective pro-business vote is also an outstanding way to support incumbent state legislators and local elected officials who have successfully advanced our region’s top priorities. Bottom line – we need to effectively support the business-attuned elected officials who support us. Our South Central Kansas state legislative delegation has been an adept and courageous partner in advancing our metro area’s top policy and program goals. Your combined voice, in supporting the PAC and re-electing a majority of this delegation, assures the return of legislators to Topeka willing to champion our most important business priorities.

    Respectfully,
    Bryan Derreberry

  • No Kansas subsidy to Northern Flyer

    When it comes to government money, there’s no shortage of people who have ideas on how to spend it. One group that has grand ideas of how government should spend your money is the Northern Flyer Alliance. This group promotes passenger train service in our area. Currently they’re promoting extension of rail service from Oklahoma City to Wichita.

    The problem with this group, as alluded to above, is that they seek to accomplish their goal by using government. As reported in the Wichita Eagle (Group seeks support for train service through Wichita), “The director of a group seeking expanded passenger rail service through Wichita today asked City Council members to pass a resolution urging the state to include in its upcoming transportation plan a new Amtrak line stretching from Oklahoma City to Wichita and on to Kansas City.”

    So this group is asking Wichita (and many other towns and cities) to apply pressure to the State of Kansas to subsidize this rail line. This group is another example of political entrepreneurship in action. Instead of practicing market entrepreneurship — that’s where you develop and deliver services and products that people actually want enough to pay for — this group seeks to accomplish its goals by influencing politicians and bureaucrats. They were successful in Oklahoma.

    If we want passenger train service that is truly successful, this group should work to raise private capital rather than seeking government subsidy. This is the only way we’ll know whether this train service is something that truly adds value, or whether it is just another “amenity” the government provides by taxing one person to subsidize someone else.

  • Pragmatism must recognize reality

    Any editorial that starts with “Karl Marx was right about at least one thing …” deserves close examination, especially when it appears in Kansas’ largest newspaper and is written by that newspaper’s former editor. The thrust of Davis Merritt’s article is that the theory of free markets hasn’t worked: “We’re painfully experiencing right now the unraveling of neat free-market theory.” (Pragmatism needs to trump ideology, November 18, 2008 Wichita Eagle)

    Here’s the first problem with Mr. Merritt’s argument: what we live in is anything but a free market society. George Reisman details just how far removed we are from anything resembling free markets in The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Present Crisis.

    Then, Mr. Merritt warns that free market theory is doomed to fail because “perfect theories require perfect people.” I don’t know precisely who he refers to as not perfect, but judging from the tone of the article, I think he’s condemning greedy businesspeople who are the cause of the present financial crisis. In particular, investment bankers. Demonizing these people on general grounds doesn’t help. Instead: Did they steal from their shareholders? Did they commit fraud when they issued sub-prime loans? These acts are illegal, and to the extent they were committed, let’s prosecute them.

    Greed — human self-interest — is a constant factor. It’s what drives people to expend tremendous effort to accomplish great things for the betterment of mankind. It can also drive people to accept a sub-prime mortgage loan that they can’t repay in order to buy a house they can’t afford — but, greedily, want nonetheless. It works both ways. So we need good rules that prevent people from using theft, force, and fraud to unjustly enrich themselves. These good rules are easier to create and enforce, and more reliable, than a false hope the people will start behaving “good.”

    Besides, couldn’t we also say that good government requires good politicians, bureaucrats, and administrators? I’m surprised that an editor of a newspaper — someone who must have experienced the political process close-up — would have such confidence in government instead of people.

    Mr. Merritt cites the “hands-off, no-regulation attitude of the current administration” as bad for people and economic welfare. If we had been experiencing a period of reductions in regulation, we might have evidence for this claim. The Heritage Foundation report Red Tape Rising: Regulatory Trends in the Bush Years debunks the myth that regulation has decreased during the presidency of George W. Bush: “Far from shrinking to dangerously low levels, regulation has actually grown substantially during the Bush years. By almost every measure, regulatory burdens are up.”

    Mr. Merritt’s editorial, if its advice is taken, will lead us towards more regulation and reliance on government. That’s not what we need.

  • Joe Scarborough: Please Stop Saying Laissez-faire

    I’m listening to Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, and he says: “Laissez-faire capitalism is a wonderful thing except in this case …”

    I’ve heard stuff like this over and over the past few months: A politician says “I’m a big free-market guy, but …”

    What’s sad to realize is that these people think that what we have in American is free markets and laissez-faire capitalism. We don’t have these. See my post The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Present Crisis.

    The sooner that we understand that it is largely government that is the cause of the present crisis, we can realize that relying on government for a cure is dangerous and predetermined to fail.

    Resources: The Bailout Reader at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and Global Financial Crisis at the Cato Institute.

  • Pencils Reveal the Impossibility of Government Planning

    I, Pencil is one of the most important and influential writings that explain the necessity for limited government. A simple object that we may not give much thought to, the story of the pencil illustrates the importance of markets and the impossibility of centralized economic planning.

    The size and scope of government, both at the national and local level, has been growing. Now our country is entering a period where the possibility of even larger and more intrusive government, growing faster than it has been, is very real. Those who love liberty must keep principles like those illuminated in I, Pencil at the forefront of debate.

    From the afterword to I, Pencil by Milton Friedman:

    Leonard E. Read’s delightful story, “I, Pencil,” has become a classic, and deservedly so. I know of no other piece of literature that so succinctly, persuasively, and effectively illustrates the meaning of both Adam Smith’s invisible hand — the possibility of cooperation without coercion — and Friedrich Hayek’s emphasis on the importance of dispersed knowledge and the role of the price system in communicating information that “will make the individuals do the desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do.”

    Link to a pdf of I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/I,%20Pencil%202006.pdf

    Link to Leonard E. Read reading I, Pencil: http://www.fee.org/events/detail.asp?id=6239

  • The conflict view creates barriers

    In Barriers Broken?, Lew Rockwell takes a look at what barriers have been broken with the election of Barack Obama.

    Conflict is the critical word here, for the conflict view of society is what is really behind the hysterical claims that Obama’s real contribution is to have broken through barriers. … What is the alternative to the conflict view? It is the old liberal view of how the social order works. There is a harmony of interests in society in which people cooperate and exchange without the aid of an outside, all-controlling, leviathan state. Society contains within itself the capacity for self-management. Another way to put this view is that the free society works. Sadly, this view is not held by either the right or the left in our political culture.

  • Why Austrian Economics Matters More Than Ever

    Here’s a talk recently delivered by Lew Rockwell, president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. This organization remains the best place to learn about why our economy is in such trouble. The full speech can be read at Why Austrian Economics Matters More Than Ever. An excerpt:

    I report on this not so that we can say “We told you so,” but rather to underscore the need to stick to principle, depart from the crowd, avoid the fashion, and adhere to the truth no matter what. This is what Mises taught us, and if he had done nothing more than be his era’s most tough-minded resister to collectivism of all types, it would be enough to earn him an institute founded in his name.

  • Pat Buchanan: Comrade Obama?

    Pat Buchanan’s recent column Comrade Obama? contains much I agree with, keeping me liking and admiring him, even through I disagree with a few of his positions.

    This column accurately describes the current political landscape, and it’s not complimentary to Barack Obama, Democrats, or Republicans. A few excerpts:

    Indeed, how do Republicans who call Obama a socialist explain their support for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and the Earned Income Tax Credit? …

    Since August, the Bush-Paulson team has seized our biggest S&L, Washington Mutual, and largest insurance company, AIG. It has nationalized Fannie and Freddie, pumped scores of billions into our banks, bailed out GM, Ford and Chrysler, and paid the $29 billion dowry for Bear Stearns to enter its shotgun marriage with JPMorgan Chase. And with federal, state and local taxes taking a third of gross domestic product, and government regulating businesses with wage-and-hour laws, civil rights laws, environmental laws, and occupational health and safety laws, what are we living under, if not a mixed socialist-capitalist system?

    And then this:

    Norman Thomas is said to have quit running for president on the Socialist ticket after six campaigns because the Democratic Party had stolen all his ideas and written them into its platforms.

    This is the same Norman Thomas who said “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened.”