THE RECORD
February 02, 2000

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

The basic idea of "laissez faire" economics started with the distortion of the theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo almost 200 years ago. The proponents of laissez faire, including just about all the economic faculties around the world, claim that if business is permitted to operate without any governmental controls and interference it will bring wealth and prosperity to the whole society. This nonsense is the reasoning behind globalization and the demands for the unhindered movement of capital.

We have ample evidence of the beneficial results of laissez faire economics like those recorded and described by Charles Dickens in 19th Century Britain, just to mention one of the many. Merchant princes living in castles in ostentatious luxury, while their serfs lived in hovels, eating dirt.

There are still some of us alive who have even seen the results of it in depression ridden Europe. Has anyone among the readers ever seen conditions where the owner of a business or a foreman was permitted to kick or beat up a worker, or demand sexual favours as condition of employment? I have and this is why I'm now writing the facts about economic theories.

Under the fascism of laissez faire, now advocated by the Fraser Institute and to a great degree by the BC Business Council, these conditions I have seen would be the inevitable result of the removal of the protective laws which these groups see as a detriment to business. Of course this is a consequence which they would vehemently deny, but look at the conditions in countries where billions of dollars of Canadian capital is currently pouring. Just look where those proudly reported foreign investment figures go to? How many people know where their precious RRSPs in mutual funds and with investment agents end up? Very few do, or even care. In our society, theft in the name of economics is a virtue.

Why are certain political Parties so hell bent to destroy democratic institutions and protection that prevent human and environmental exploitation? Why do we see the constant propaganda in the media urging the election of politicians who would do away with government controls in order to "create business friendly conditions to encourage the influx of job and wealth creating foreign investment"? We know what the past experience is with no regulations and the total freedom of the actions and movements of predators? Why do people still fall for these lies?

Let's look at the national economy as a road system. The public is permitted to buy and use any kind of vehicle within prescribed legal limits. The drivers must undergo certain training and licencing requirements to prove their proficiency. The laws and rules of the road for the protection of life and property are enforced by a politically independent police force and court systems to ensure a democratically acceptable degree of fairness and equality for all road users, regardless of skill, wealth and size. The only vehicles permitted to operate outside the mandatory laws are those engaged in the saving of lives and the prevention of crimes.

The same kind of protective and impartial laws could and should also apply in economic systems, not the destructive ideas of brain dead, or paid off theorists. Our modern, neo-classical laissez faire capitalist system is the brainchild of the late Austrian - American economist Friedrich von Hayek and his disciple Milton Friedman at the Chicago School of economics. These theories have been, over the past 30 years, forced on the whole world and are the cause of incredible damage still described as "growth."

The ruling classes of all past and present aristocracies have always claimed divine powers ordained by gods and prophets. Hence, I prefer to call our present crop of economists "the Priesthood of the Money God." The rulers of the past used weapons to enforce their supernatural rights and powers. Now the creators of man made capital claim the same exploitation rights over life and death, based on their control of non-existing, imaginary money jumping around in computers.

On the road system of neo-classical economics there are no laws on size, speed and the kind of vehicles permitted to travel. It is Road Warrior country where the luckiest and most brutal are the heroes. The biggest and fastest have the unlimited right of the road. They not only are permitted, but encouraged to drive on either side, wave around or occupy the whole road to crash and force anybody off regardless of consequences. They don't have to show any respect for the protection of life and property and the more damage they cause to reach their intended targets the more society praises and rewards them. This hoodlum empire is called "the efficiency of market economy" and taught at our tax funded universities as the epitome of human values.

In our world, when a hoodlum holds up a business and steals a few dollars the whole justice system goes into high gear to catch and punish him. Yet, when the same hoodlum shows a cheque, containing borrowed, instantly created money from a bank he's welcomed to ruin thousands of businesses , their employees and families and be hailed as the Businessman of the Year.

To be continued.............

Copyright (c) 2000, West's International