Month: March, 2012
The Problem With Taxes
| 30 March 2012 | 18:18 | Economics, Politics | 1 Comment

There are two major problems with taxes. First of all, taxes are illegitimate. Governments can make taxation legal, but they cannot make taxation right. (For further explanation see here)

Secondly, taxes do not do us any good. The propaganda would have us believe that government is going to help us with all kinds of things. These stories never mention that the financing for this help is coming from the resources of individual citizens in the form of taxes. The implication is that the government can use the citizen’s resources more effectively than the citizens can. The truth of the matter is that by taking resources out of the private sector, government taxation destroys jobs and productivity. The taxed resources incur a huge overhead in the form of bureaucratic management that is wasteful, inefficient, and slow. Some pittance may make its way back to us, but it cannot compare to what has been lost. Taxation is a major drag on the economy and gives everyone a lower standard of living, but is especially hard on those with the least.

Free Enterprise Versus Regulation and Privilege
| 13 March 2012 | 20:34 | Economics, Politics | No comments

Free Enterprise
Free enterprise means that people can conduct their affairs and enter into contracts with each other without interference from the government. Free enterprise means that people can decide how, when, and where they will use their possessions and to what purpose. People can decide what to exchange with others. Individuals are capable of making these decisions and if they need help, then free enterprise can provide standards associations and rating services.

Government Interference

Government interference in people’s affairs and business by imposing bureaucratic control is wasteful, inefficient, and slow moving. Government imposed codes become irrelevant, out dated, and hamper innovation. Large businesses lobby government to impose regulations in their sector which the large businesses can afford to implement and which stifle their smaller competition thus introducing waste, inefficiency, and slowing progress. Government licences to perform certain work grant a monopoly privilege by imposing hurdles in money, time, and quotas. Such licences will once again give us waste, inefficiency, and hampered innovation.

Bureaucratic Management
Our governments have taken on an ever increasing role as central planners using bureaucratic management. Bureaucratic management has no profit incentive as in free enterprise management. The consequence is that the bureaucracy has no incentive to control costs but rather to spend all or more of their budget and add to their personnel regardless of need. Bureaucracies have no price discovery in a market so they will push salaries and prices to the upper limit. Bureaucracies have no competition so there is no incentive to innovate and progress. People in bureaucracies are the same as people in free enterprises; the difference is in the systems, not the people. By its nature, bureaucracy is wasteful, inefficient, and slow.

Freedom and free enterprise is the way to prosperity. By its nature, free enterprise anticipates and fulfils the choices of consumers in an efficient manner while moving to the next innovation.