Trump, Biden, or the free market

The title of this article suggests we have a choice between three candidates.  

And we do.

But where do we find the free market on the ballot?  Ballots contain the names of people.  The free market is not a person, it is many persons, starting with you and me.  We who try to make a living through voluntary exchanges constitute, on a state election ballot, an unrepresented force in deciding who will be in charge of our lives.  

If we’re not on an “official” ballot, how can we ever get representation? 

By announcing it.

Why assume the state’s elections are the only elections that matter? Let’s have one of our own -- and make it never-ending.  Let’s give voice to that which we truly need to survive and prosper, the free market. 

I am saying the free market is our government — you, me, and the millions of other participants — and that which announces itself as our government is a criminal gang, an intruder feeding on our lifeblood and keeping the free market from working to our benefit.

With enough voices, we will be heard.  With enough voices the intruder might go away permanently.

The free market doesn’t need special-occasion elections like the one coming up.  It holds elections constantly, night and day, every day, through the decisions of consumers to buy or refrain from buying certain products or services.  

Try this quiz

What entity comes to mind with these words and phrases: war, war destruction, war dead & wounded, bombs, civilian casualties and displacements, war propaganda, The Big Lie, PTSD, poverty, conscription, foreign intervention, WMDs, “intelligence” operations, revolution, secession, civil war, assassinations, printing press money, inflation, hyperinflation, astronomical debt, economic crises, massive unemployment, lockdowns, mandates, masks, income taxes, sales taxes, estate taxes, property taxes, taxes called “contributions,” hidden taxes, taxes and more taxes, and more taxes after those, totalitarianism, executive orders, bad schooling, expensive schooling, trillion-dollar student debt, dumbed-down students, dumbed-down electorate, “never let a crisis go to waste,” servile media, all-pervasive corruption.

If your answer is “the State,” then we agree.  

The State’s sordid and destructive history is explained by its very nature: a supremely powerful monopoly able to impose its agenda on the rest of the country.  Its interventionist policies, both domestic and abroad, create crises that allow it to circumvent written law, urged on by the media outcry of “Do something!”

The State is the ultimate cartel (it forcibly prohibits competitors) and is the source of supportive cartels — such as the Federal Reserve.  The FED is legally allowed to print whatever quantity of dollars it wishes, usually through the scheme of “purchasing” the State’s debt, with taxpayers unknowingly held responsible for that debt.

A nice racket, the State.  And the nearly unanimous view is we need it.

Open competition, on the other hand, is a hallmark of the free market.  Money would be the result of market choices, subject to market forces.  Attempts to form cartels without the support of the State would invariably fail. (See Gabriel Kolko’s The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916; see also Murray Rothbard’s The Progressive Era.)    

Neither major party supports the free market — these days not even with lip service.  The free market doesn’t need supporting, because it doesn’t need the State.  

The free market personified

If the free market were a person in today’s world it would champion the abolition of the taxing authority.  Without a taxing authority there would be no taxes.  Without taxes there would be no theft by taxation.  People would keep the money they earned and decide for themselves what to do with it.

Without a taxing authority there would be no elections, no wars for banking and corporate aggrandizement — no more political “heroes” like Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt.  

Without a taxing authority there would be no politically-appointed bankers trying to direct the economy with a printing press. 

Without a taxing authority there would be no State.  

The State has a constant need to redirect voter attention because of its crises, and there’s no better distraction than a war.  Since it controls the MSM, getting the public behind another foreign invasion is a task it is supremely able to undertake.  (Trailer, Wag the Dog).  With the right propaganda, uncritical Americans will support our troops as they roll into some country few knew existed much less could find on a map.  Better for the State to get hit by a handful of antiwar protestors than incur the wrath of investors and breadwinners, if the economy is tanking.   It’s a job that has to be done — not State “deciders” but the poor bastards they send overseas to get it done.  Deciders are too important to risk their necks.  They run the country, not you and me who are expendable.

If the current system of government strikes you as suicidal and insane, and getting worse the more you think about it, then it’s time to think about a radically different approach. 

Seeing Americans walking around masked leads me to suspect that freedom has become a dirty word, but the day will come when a few people, then more, then almost everyone will rip them from their faces — and the sudden onrush of freedom they had been duped from experiencing will be a monumental deliverance.  They might organize mask bonfires with fireworks to celebrate. They might even question the need for the State itself, the elite that kept them masked to keep them obedient.

They might be willing to try a radically different approach — one they’re thoroughly familiar with that’s been available all along: The free market.

It’s difficult to acquire an understanding of free markets in today’s Left-dominated culture.  But you can’t support free markets if you don’t understand them.  For this purpose I’m pleased to recommend an engaging introduction to free market economics: Michael Dahlen’s Free Market Economics: A Primer.  A great follow-up to Dahlen’s eBook is Lew Rockwell’s The Free Market Reader, a collection of essays available free at Mises.org.  Lessons for the Young Economist, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism, and Chaos Theory by Robert P. Murphy will further expand your understanding. 

And for those who are curious about government by the free market only, see my 10-minute YouTube video here — and don’t forget to vote when you’re done!  

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George Ford Smith is the author of nine books, including Do Not Consent: Think OUTSIDE the voting booth,  The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty.