Power By Any Other Name

[indigobusiness]

Power By Any Other Name
by DW MacKenzie


While some still see the Republican Party as the party of smaller government, it is hard to know why. Perhaps no one else did more to create this impression than Ronald Reagan. In his inaugural address Reagandeclared that "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." While President Reagan’s actions fell far short of is rhetoric one might excuse Reagan by noting that the Democrat controlled House frustrated many of his efforts. This excuse obviously does not apply to the current Republican administration.

President Bush delivered more big government regulations and spending in his first four years than President Clinton did in his eight years in office. The first State of the Union speech of his second terms promises to deliver more of what we saw in his first term.

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Hayek once noted that the value of freedom rests upon the opportunities it provides for unforeseen and unpredictable actions. Government deals with more obvious consequences, so people overestimate the benefits of central direction because of the costs of giving up on the market are unseen. President Bush lacks an appreciation of this kind of reasoning. Consequently, he apparently believes in what he is doing. He believes in planning rather than the spontaneous order of markets and free enterprise.

What we need instead is a President with the ability to see past the obvious. Appreciating the market system means embracing the notion that people will arrive at solutions to problems which you cannot imagine, because the market allows for a division of labor whereby each can apply their individual talents in unique ways. Centralization places the burden of problem solving on fewer minds. This is antithetical to progress. The true state of the Union is unfortunately that its chief executive fails to grasp the profound truth that central planning by political elites can never match the results of decentralized planning by the general public.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1740