When I say “free” enterprise, you take that to mean a system where producers and consumers come together and agree, un-coerced, on the terms of exchange… Of course the word “free” has two meanings; “free” as in freedom, and “free” as in no cost… The latter, in a material sense, is an unequivocal myth…
When your bank offers to refinance your mortgage at zero points (i.e., “free”), you pay for it with a higher interest rate…
When your landlord tells you he’s never passed the cost of building-code-compliance onto his tenants, as you inquire as to why some guy just affixed braille signs all over your [2nd-story] office (happened here btw), you know better… I.e., while you won’t get the bill, you know that if your landlord wasn’t coerced into financing unproductive govt. employment (your blind clients will never make it to your [2nd-story] door without a sighted-human’s assistance), there’d be more resources to make legitimate, business-enhancing, improvements to your building (financing productive private-sector employment), and/or he’d offer you better terms when it’s time to re-up…
And you know the story when it comes to government spending… I.e., every dollar spent is a dollar taxed, borrowed or inflated (all at the citizen’s expense)…
As for freedom, it’s anything but “free”… It comes at great expense to bureaucrats… I.e., the more freedoms you and I enjoy the fewer administrators, regulators, etc., we employ… Which is why the countries ranking highest on The Economic Freedom Index impose substantially less (yet strictly enforced) regulation onto the private sector, and spend less, relative to GDP, than the lower ranks…
Okay then, assuming the higher-ranking (the freer) countries perform better than us (which, by-and-large, they do), how do we make ourselves freer? Now that’s a tough one… Think about it, we’d be asking career politicians (our current cast of characters) to take measures that would ultimately reduce the size of government… That’s like asking a CPA to lobby for a flat tax… Like asking the life insurance industry to lobby for a zero estate tax… Like asking an environmentalist to lobby for more water to farmers, or for a new pipeline… Like asking an oil exec to lobby for higher fuel-efficiency mandates… Like asking a union-rep to lobby for right-to-work laws… Like asking the football stadium lawn-guy to lobby for artificial turf… Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…
Two words, “career politicians” (right and left), sums up the problem… We desperately need career privatesectorans who can afford to take a break and break into politics… Whose life’s ambitions were never to rule the world, but, once they’ve achieved their private-sector objectives, to apply their talents to bettering the world…
Now you may think, given the current slate of potentials, that this is my endorsement of the one who professes these qualities… Truly, it’s not… For what it’s worth, I am profoundly uninspired at the moment…