It’s all over the news now; Wall Street, and other urban locations, are presently being “occupied” by a bunch of sadly misguided and delusional protesters. Originally billed as “Day(s) of Rage”, the movement’s organizers must have decided that that moniker was a bit too angry-sounding and might turn off potential converts to the cause.
Somehow these malcontents believe that by taking down the wealth creators they can build a new society on the ruins. Or something.
The fact that their concept of a perfectible world is totally incompatible with the reality of human nature, as history as proven time and again, somehow escapes them. They’re searching for the impossible, as Thomas Sowell explains in his book “The Quest of Cosmic Justice.” Cosmic Justice is the idea that somehow it’s within our grasp to eliminate all inequalities, and make life fair for everyone. Sounds like such a wonderful, noble goal – except, as Milton Friedman explained:
A society that puts equality – in the sense of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote the own interests.
Think Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot.
Sowell tells us;
We need to consider what those who believe in the vision of cosmic justice seldom want to consider – the nature of (the attendant costs) and how they change the very nature of justice itself.
Unfortunately, the “Occupiers” themselves aren’t considering much, beyond the euphoric mood of righteous protest – and maybe where their next meal is coming from.
Michelle Malkin has a great post that reflects on the passing of Steve Jobs, and compares his accomplishments with the non-productive Cosmic Kooks’ vision of utopia: From “I, Pencil” to iPhone: The spontaneous order of capitalism. She points out the contrast between Jobs’ enormous success in the free market – a direct result of his invaluable innovations in technology – and the slackers’ camp-out on Wall Street. There they are – totally connected; Facebooking, tweeting, posting and videoing like crazy, and dreaming of destroying capitalism, the very system that fostered the Apple empire. And totally missing the irony.
…it’s the doers and producers and wealth creators like Jobs who change the world. They are the gifted 1 percent whom the #OWS “99 percent-ers” mob seeks to demonize, marginalize, and tax out of existence.
Inherent in the American success story of the iPhone/iMac/iPad is a powerful lesson about the fundamentals of capitalism.
The “I, Pencil” tale, that Malkin discusses in her article, is an essay written by Leonard Read, back in 1958. Milton Freidman regularly used it to illustrate the limitless potential for widespread prosperity created by free market capitalism.
Consider the lowly pencil:
The Wall Street Wackos obviously never heard the “I, Pencil” story.
My answer to the “Occupiers’” misguided protests? Set up a bunch of Jumbotrons and play Milton Freidman videos in an endless loop, 24/7.
“Most economic fallacies derive – from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.” ~ Milton Friedman ~
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Related:
The real, devious agenda behind the “Occupation”: Alinsky Rules Return For Obama
