What makes the capitalist marketplace unique is its unpredictability. Although economists have discovered economic principles, no one can predict the cross-fertilization of ideas and chance encounters of individuals that result in entirely new products, services, and industries.
Socialists believe that economic progress can be planned politically, meaning that individuals can and should be forced to comply with top-down, collective, macroeconomic goals dictated by socialist politicians and bureaucrats with political power.
This is one reason why socialist planning doesn’t work. It attempts to control the economy, which means controlling productive human interactions. Socialists create reams of regulations and rules which effectively squeeze individual choices into economic planning straight-jackets, thus stifling experimentation, risk-taking, and innovation.
Thinking is an individual process. All human progress results from individuals free enough and brave enough to pursue their unique vision, ideas, and talents. The interactions of inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs, buyers and sellers in a capitalist society make progress possible.
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Note: We live, of course, in a mixed-economy, meaning a mixture of freedom (capitalism) and controls (socialism). Fortunately, we’re still free enough to say, “No!” to more socialism.
As the coming 2020 election ramps up, we have the opportunity to speak truth to socialist power-lust which poses as the benefactor of humankind.
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Ken West is the author of Achieve Your Purpose.
He is also the publisher of the following free online newspapers:
