Complimentarity is as important in politics as in quantum physics. The complimentarity of free markets and regulatory government, is as essential as the interrelationship of particle and wave.
Why this naive and childish antagonism between socialism and free
enterprise? Government and free markets should work together as a
dynamic polarity, the positive and negative energies of one living system. They are compliments, not antagonists. They are Yin and Yang, not Good and Evil.
The role of regulatory government is not to eliminate free enterprise
but to keep it free. Free from the monopolizing, cannibalizing power of
the multinational mega-corporations. Good government keeps the playing field
even, providing investments and tax incentives for small business
start-ups, especially in economically depressed areas of the nation.
The real enemy of the free market is not government, but the
mega-corporation. For when the mega-corp dominates the market, it
fixes prices and eats up the competition. The mega-corp is
the fascist enemy of true capitalism. We need a government who gives
tax breaks to small companies, not to Exxon and G.E.
The freedom to start my own business, market my own skills, and sell my own product, whether it is a work of art or a better electric
car, is a human right just as basic as the right to free speech.
As I would not want to live in a nation with no government at all, so I would not want to live in an economy owned and controlled by a single
monolithic federal bureaucracy that outlawed free enterprise. What is the difference between the
over-control of a socialist state, and the over-control of the mega-corporate cartel?
Nothing.
Many of my dearest friends are either artists who need to sell their
art, or employees of non-profit philanthropic organizations. They spend a
great deal of time looking for grants and donations to sustain their
work. They certainly don't get grants and donations from their fellow
idealists, who are equally poor. They look for donations and grants from
those who have prospered through trade, commerce, and free enterprise.
Yet even as the Left begs grants and donations with one hand, it points to capitalism as the world's great evil with the other. The wealth that
would sustain the arts as well as non-profit service organizations must be generated as someone's profit, through commerce and production.
Some believe, rather naively, that all we need to do is redistribute the wealth of the rich. This would result in economic entropy. The wealth would be spent in about one month, or less, if evenly distributed throughout the population, without creating any engines of market activity to generate new wealth. Wealth must not only be distributed, it must be created.
If you are a young person just out of college today, I encourage you to
do what you love, offer it in service to others, and don't be
intimidated by those who would make you feel ashamed about asking a fair
price for your products and services. Please don't confuse the creative
capitalism of small business with the fascism of multinational
mega-corporations, who don't practice real free market capitalism at all.
When you prosper, you cease to be an economic burden on others.
Accumulating your own capital gives you the spiritual opportunity to share
abundance. This is one of the great human values, economic freedom. With the
freedom of your own fiscal independence, you can invest in your chosen
non-profit service. You can also give others freedom by expanding your
business, creating new jobs.
If you work for a large corporation, what then? Learn business
skills from your experience, be positive and grateful that you have a job, and then when you are ready, start your own business. In
the mean time, vote for political candidates with a positive vision, who will use the power of government to promote your new business and help you seed it.
The freedom to market your own creativity remains one of your most
precious human rights. Let's
stop demonizing free enterprise. When those on the Left demonize
free markets, they sound as strident and childish as those on the right
who demonize government.
I pray that we will overcome the toxic dualism of government vs. free enterprise. I pray that governments and free markets will work together, promoting new businesses
and eliminating the monopoly of the mega-corporation.
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