This is the third of our four-part series on Occupy Wall Street, transcribed from a recent Heritage Foundation event on the movement. In part three, Ben Domenech, research fellow at the Heartland Institute and editor of The Transom, reflects on his own interaction with Occupiers and explains why he’s not ready to write them off. He argues that supporters of capitalism need to find a way to reach those who have become disillusioned. Part 3: The Untrained Grasshopper I wanted to talk about the response from the right to Occupy … More
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President Obama has a new role model for his Buffett Rule tax—Henry Ford. It’s an odd choice considering that Ford advocated free-market capitalism and opposed redistributive policies. Despite the lucrative government contracts, Henry Ford refused to participate in FDR’s 1933 National Recovery Act. (Let’s not forget that Ford Motors was the only “big-three” automaker to decline the recent government bailout.) So why cite Ford as support for a redistributive “fairness tax”—especially one that discourages investment in the sort of successful companies that Ford worked to create? In his stump speech … More
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Most politicians and political commentators insist that this year’s election rests on economic concerns, not “social values” (contraception, abortion, gay marriage, and the like). But in America’s free market system, economics and values are in fact closely joined. Not only is capitalism the most successful system for generating wealth, but it does so in large part by reinforcing virtues that make individuals good and societies strong: self-reliance, initiative, personal responsibility, productivity, honesty. This connection between economics and moral virtues should not be neglected. The eminent political scientist James Q. Wilson, … More
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In his State of the Union address, President Obama emphasized, “We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it.” That may be the case if you make iPods, iPads, and iPhones, but when it is “big oil” (i.e., stockholders, pension funds, and IRAs investing in oil companies) that has a successful quarter, let the public onslaught commence. The most recent attack has been legislatively, when Representative Dennis Kucinich (D–OH) introduced “the Gas Price Spike Act.” The provisions in the bill threaten the entrepreneurial spirit and our system of … More
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“Economic fairness” is expected to be the topic of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, during which he will likely sound the same populist notes of progressivism that America heard last month in his speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Fairness, though, is in the eye of the beholder. And in the President’s eye, “fairness” means equality of outcomes, not of opportunity. He says he will “lay out a blueprint for an American economy that’s built to last,” but if his Kansas speech is any indication, that … More
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Free-market capitalism is losing supporters these days. Wall Street occupiers blame banks, financial firms, and Wall Street for the bad economy. President Obama derides free markets, in true straw-man fashion, as you’re-on-your-own economics with “a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can.” Even some Republican presidential candidates have inveighed against capitalism. What about the Founders? What did they think about free-market capitalism? Although the term capitalism was scarcely in use at the time of the Founding, the Founders supported the principle of economic liberty underlying it. … More
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