On The Road To Serfdom

In his 1944 classic treatise, The Road To Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek discusses how an individual's freedom erodes as greater economic control is assumed by the government. Usurping this control in the name of 'fairness,' the devolution to statism "would control what we consume almost as effectively as if it directly told us how to spend our income." Using the Germany of his time, Hayek outlines how the promises of socialism inevitably led to totalitarianism.



In the fall of 2008, Barack Obama declared, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." Setting aside the obvious racial component to the election, the release of his $3,800,000,000,000 budget this past Monday (as well as his machinations over the past year), represents his true intentions for the country. In a way, Obama's attempts to 'stabilize' our economy could have been taken right out of the book handed to him by Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez, during last April's Summit of the Americas. Just like the South American strongman, Obama has orchestrated the federal takeover and manipulation of private industries (i.e. - automobiles, banks), and his progressive push shows no signs of stagnating.

Of the president's budget, USA Today commented, "Since taking office last year, President Obama has been preaching fiscal restraint while practicing something else...[The budget] forecasts an endless flow of red ink that will push the American economy relentlessly toward a perilous economic precipice." Spend, spend, spend, or as House Majority Whip James Clyburn [D] surmised, "We're not going to save our way out of this recession...We've got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that."

Say what?

It frosts me that these pointy-headed Washington elites continue to foist their ill-conceived notions of economics upon the rest of us, and against the facts history. The fastest and healthiest way out of a recession is by growth - and not by growth of government. Rather, by growth of industry. It simply doesn't make sense for the government to spend more of our money (as well as the money not yet earned by those not yet born!) to return to businesses in the form of measly tax credits towards the hiring of workers. Why not let citizens and corporations (who must do the hiring in the first place) keep more of what little they earn nowadays? What's needed now are across-the-board tax cuts for every citizen, the elimination of capital gains and estate taxes, and the slashing of corporate tax rates. By simply announcing these key measures, Obama could be credited with a surge in stock markets around the world the likes of which have never been seen before.

Unfortunately, he would never make such an announcement. He simply couldn't. Doing so would render 'the state' less needed by those of us governed by it. And so the story goes.

This is a crucial time for freedom-loving Americans. Are we to continue down the road to serfdom, or will we have the wherewithal to resist; to take the proven route to prosperity?