The Attack on the Free Market

There has been a constant attack on the Free Market since the turn of the last century, just as there has been a constant attack on Individual Freedom. The crash of the stock market in '29 and the ensuing Great Depression have been blamed on "excessive capitalism". These are myths.

Every incidence of so-called "excessive capitalism" is actually Corporatism. Corporatism is when big business and government collude so the latter will pass laws that benefit the former. (Think lobbyists.) Most government regulation is a result of this. A free market system is not the only system susceptible to government corruption. A socialist system is just as susceptible. The bigger the government, the worse it would be; because a socialist system requires a big government, it would be worse with respect to corruption.

I've written about the history of government regulation. The meat packing and steel industries at around 1900 got government to write regulation whose real purpose was to erect artificial barriers to startup competition. Free market competition is the best "trust buster". Whenever a cartel starts to form, outsiders will find it attractive to start a competing business because of unusually high profits, and they will bring prices down, to the benefit of the consumers.

The problem with letting the government write regulations in the free market, is that government is corruptible. The bigger government is, the more a corrupt government will impinge on our daily lives and distort the free market, to the detriment of the consumer. The bigger and more centralized the government, the easier it is for the lobbyists to go to a central place to push their agenda. The smaller the government, the less likely government will corrupt the free market. Agorists of course, would say that zero government means zero free market distortion.

The crash of '29 was caused by the biggest banks of the time, calling in all their margin accounts at once. The margin account was invented during the roaring 20's. A margin brokerage account is where you can borrow money from the brokerage in order to buy stocks with. If the brokerage suddenly calls the loan in, you will have to sell stocks to repay them. So the big banks calling in their loans all at once had the intended effect of causing a huge stock selloff, at a time when the stock market bubble was inflated by nearly a decade of low interest rates. Voila, stock market crash. The racketeers then of course made immense profits after buying up stock at rock bottom prices.

The Federal Reserve was created in 1913, ostensibly to prevent boom and bust cycles. However, the greatest bust happened right after their creation... the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Fed itself was the result of government regulation. President Woodrow Wilson and several senators were bribed to create a banking cartel. The Federal Reserve Act itself was drafted by a group of bankers, both local and international, at Jekyll Island in Georgia.

The income tax was implemented the same year as the Fed, as a means to pay the interest on the money loaned by the Fed to the government, which they create out of nothing. Colonel Edward House, a known Marxist, and Woodrow Wilson's best buddy and top adviser, pushed the idea to him, and got the idea of a graduated income tax from Karl Marx. The top tax bracket in the beginning was 3%; today the average bracket is something like 25% (edit: FSK pointed out I did not include 15% for Social Security and Medicare, bringing the total to 40%). This of course effectively enslaves the middle class, effectively re-directing 25% of their economic output directly to the financial industry. People are slowly being boiled like the proverbial frog in a pot. Colonel House would go on to found the Council on Foreign Relations. House had 4 pet projects: the UN, a graduated income tax, a central bank, and the CIA. He was also a member of the Cecil Rhodes Round Table Group, which is extensively discussed by Carroll Quigley.

The Great Depression itself should not have happened after the '29 stock market crash. There should have just been a short, shallow recession. The Depression was caused by the Federal Reserve shrinking the money supply by raising interest rates. Even Greenspan has said "misguided policies" extended the Depression. The money supply is readily shrunk when the Fed lowers interest rates - it's part of the Compound Interest Paradox. The net effect is a massive subsidy on the entire financial industry, in the form of the income tax and inflation.

Milton Friedman the Nobel prize winning economist, has shown that every recession has been accompanied by a shrinkage of the money supply, and vice versa. The 2 go hand in hand; you don't get one without the other.

The Great Depression was deepened and lengthened by the anti-free-market policies of Hoover and FDR: http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3097:


If you want to study more about the lie that the Fed is, here are 2 books:

1. The Creature from Jekyll Island: http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986395
2. The Case Against the Fed: http://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Fed-Murray-Rothbard/dp/094546617X

Today government meddling in the free market is so endemic that:

• Laws are constantly passed that benefit corporations, large over small, or over mom and pop type small businesses. This has created an atmosphere that...
  
• It's hard to start a small business. The system is rigged against the small business owner.

Finally, philosophically, the Establishment does not like Capitalism, because Capitalism gives power to the individual. This is the antithesis of the Collectivism that they want. It gives people the power, literally, to vote with their wallets:

"Why People Hate Capitalism"
http://www.stonemarmot.com/rantrave/rantscap.html

"Capitalism is the most democratic economic system there is, for every time you spend a dollar, or refrain from spending a dollar, you are casting a vote. That is why so many people hate capitalism, because, with capitalism, the world people live in is the sum total result of each of their individual actions. In other words, capitalism makes people responsible for their own actions, whether they like it or not.
..
But most people are too lazy and/or selfish to properly exercise this incredible power. Most people feel that they can and should be able to do whatever they want and that it is up to others to make sure that all is possible and no harm is done. This attitude is continually reinforced by our media, educational systems, and our legal system, particularly the US tort judgments.

Before I end this post I will leave you these thoughts, also from the above link:

"If you don't like Microsoft or think Mr. Gates is too rich, then quit using Microsoft products. .. If you think professional athletes (or movie stars, or rock stars, or whoever you're presently jealous of) make too much money, then quit supporting them by attending their events, watching their shows on television, and buying their products and those they endorse.

Whatever there is in this world that you think needs to be changed, first honestly examine your own life to see if and how you are contributing to the very problem you are condemning. Once you clean up your life to minimize your contribution to the problem, then you can ask others to make a similar change in their lives."