My monthly column for Airport Business magazine arrived a week or so ago. The column was about globalization and I thought it was great job of explaining a few simple facts about world trade.
Hoo, boy.
One fellow emailed, lashing at me for hating America and trying to ruin the middle class, along with a few other sins. This guy was mad. We hashed back and forth for a couple of emails, then decided to give up on each other. Neither of us had changed the other’s mind at all.
Just for the record, I am neither Democrat nor Republican. I am for the free market. I sincerely believe that the free market delivers more good to more people than any guvmint can. I learned this from Adam Smith, who wrote the book on which our economy was based way back in about 1776. We have strayed far from that book’s teachings many times, and it seems to me that it was a mistake each time.
Adam Smith taught that our economy—when left alone—is guided by the invisible hand of the marketplace. When we each set out to make a living by serving other people, everybody comes out ahead. The best modern follower of Adam Smith may be an economist named Milton Friedman, who won the Nobel prize for his teachings and writing on the subject.
Frankly, I have never seen so many people around the globe lining up behind and with the free market as they do today. Even China is lined up and marching. So is Russia. Eclipse is even now working like heck to get an airplane factory going in Russia.
The free market is not perfect, of course. China, in particular, has pulled some monumental blunders. But they are also trying their best to correct them and to please our marketplace. I can’t remember China working that hard to please us before business intervened. Can you? It does seem to be a truism that countries that trade together get along together.
The free market is and always has been more efficient and more desirable for the most people than any guvmint. I rest my case.
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