7th
Laissez-faire is lazyfare. If you want to save the economy, you have to deregulate - the hard way (part II)
Deregulation is key to a better America; a financially, economically, and most importantly, morally better America. It just needs to be done correctly - no more ‘Lazy-Fare’ practices where lobbyists wheedle for special privileges and access to the national Treasury while Congress and the Executive bind down regulatory agencies with oversight prohibitions and budgetary constraints and regulators brazenly cozy with the industries they are entrusted to watch. This is Lazy-fare. It is corrupt. It is a sign of a sick system.
The national economy is a real, reactive, organic resource. Imagine that the economy was your farm. Would you let someone to come onto your farm and plant nutrient-stripping crops over and over again until your land is flayed of vitality and blows away under a gale of dust? No. You would make sure that they used it intelligently, prudently, tending to it by the seasons, making the soil fertile, cleaning away the weeds and pests, planting crops appropriate to your soil and climate. Now imagine the economy was your business. Would you hire someone, give them a corporate credit card, a company car, and let them run around doing whatever they felt like doing? No. You would set rules of conduct, goals, guidelines, and a review system. If they were meeting their goals admirably, you would reward and promote them. If they were not carrying their weight, you justly would fire them.
Deregulation must work like this: companies earn the privilege to operate in our economy without oversight. By demonstrating over time that they are a responsible and disciplined partner in the economy they are increasingly freed to conduct themselves without regulation. Business deregulate themselves. The advantage to the nation is that we would be assured that deregulated companies are good stewards of the economy and they will protect the health and prosperity of the system. Companies that ship jobs overseas, deliberately toxify our homeland with pollutants, drain our national coffers with their tax breaks (which is just corporate welfare) systematically abuse their workforce, or engage in highly risky financial speculation, which derails the natural balance of supply and demand are like angry, whining teenagers complaining that they have no freedoms. They must be given rules of conduct, goals, guidelines, and a review system - and learn the difficult lesson that discipline and punishment are not the same thing. Freedom is not some inherent right to do anything you want. Freedom is the earned privilege to be responsible for your own actions. When a teenager demands freedom without first showing discipline and good judgement, they are selfishly asking for you to take responsibility for their actions and for you to have no authority in those actions. When a business is deregulated without earning that liberty, you, the citizen, the taxpayer have just agreed to incur the cost of their failures, whether you wish to or not. The $700 billion bailout is the proof of this. If a business is committed to unsafe practices and willfully endangers the health and wealth of the nation, they are free to take their capital and remove themselves to elsewhere.
Now how do we build discipline and responsibility in our businesses? This is the central question of our time. Seriously. The American people and American businesses have forgotten the meaning of the word responsibility. They both think in terms of liability. Responsibility is the discipline to do what is right, day after day, even when it costs sweat and pain. Every parent will attest to this. Free market capitalism is fueled by our basest, earliest drives - fear and greed. Those are the first impulses of the child. It is the role of the American people to raise our children (and guide our businesses) to prudent, confident, responsible adulthood - I repeat, this is the role of the American people, not our government. Our government is nothing but the mechanisms of our conscience. Our government is split, broken, corrupt, irresponsible - because it is a reflection of ourselves as a nation. We have become addicted to the downward, easy path of things and forgotten the weight of responsibility. We have become a nation of bullies and victims - which are always the same weak creature. We have allowed ourselves to be divided - and we throw curses at our brothers and sisters far more foul and blood hungry than we would use on our enemy. Reject the hate. It is a cheap and dangerous drug, and this nation is addicted to it.
As a nation, everyone must stand and be accountable. Be a good parent, be a good friend, be a good neighbor - be a good citizen, everyday, even when it costs sweat and pain. Then we will have the good government and good businesses worthy of us and our Constitution.
