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Mr. Gourley is replying to a previous letter, written by Mr. Levitt. First, Mr. Levitt's letter:
Thomas Jefferson said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” This is due to liberal’s use of emotion to triumph logic, and because too many people like the idea of government largess and the redistribution of wealth, as long as there is no price to them.
Liberalism is not guided by inventiveness, energy or economic opportunity, but surrenders the freedoms of some in order to offer economic gifts to others.
Liberalism applauds the redistribution of private assets and the subordination of individual rights to group rights, without regard to the consequences. It seeks more and more: government authority to regulate private commerce; to vilify and raise taxes on productive earners; the confiscation and relocation of private property; and the provision of subsidies and expansion of entitlements. All of these are used to buy the votes of the chronically poor majority that is made and kept poor by these very policies.
The granting of rights to satisfy groups with common needs is done at the expense of society at large and steadily enhances the power of the government.
Redistribution can doubtless provide short-term relief to those on the lowest end of the economy. But no nation has ever permanently lifted its people out of poverty by redistribution.
Instead, what we need is to change the current mind-set of “what are you going to do for me” to the prior American “can-do” culture and to promote a smaller simplified government.
The past history of economic development shows that nations tend to prosper when tax rates are low, regulatory burden is determined by the rule of law, governmental debt is limited, labor markets are flexible and capital markets are dominated by private decision making, all of which are the antithesis of liberalism.
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Now for Mr. Gourley's reply:
Jack Levitt (“County needs can-do culture, less government”), in an attempt to discredit liberalism, succeeds instead in condemning capitalism. (Here's Mr. Gourley's premise. Let's see if he demonstrates it. Or even discusses it.
Oh, and by the way, we note for the record that Mr. Levitt never discusses capitalism or even uses the word. Mr. Gourley, however, seems intent on refuting a topic not under discussion.)
Whether knowingly or not, Levitt blithely dismisses the basic principles of traditional Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiments, Wealth of Nations) capitalism, free markets and modern economic thought: progressive taxation (the rich paying more proportionally in taxes), living wages, government regulation of the marketplace and banks, and government-funded public education. (Mr. Gourley is fond of bringing Adam Smith into the debate. Why he does this is a mystery, because there is no requirement that his interlocutors must support Adam Smith.
Adam Smith is and was influential. However, Smith was Scottish, not American. His ideas are not a system that must be adopted or forsaken, and our economic system is not an homage to him as if we had to follow his dictates.
It is beyond the scope of this post to evaluate Mr. Gourley's specious claims regarding Adam Smith. Nevertheless, we can safely deem this a Red Herring.)
Traditional capitalism espouses such measures in order to resolve the centuries-old, most dangerous of economic problems: too much wealth controlled by too few people, a trigger of national economic destruction. (This is preposterous. Capitalism does no such thing. Capitalism is simply the willing, legal, mutually beneficial exchange of value between parties. Capitalism has no agenda, because it isn't an economic system, it is a description of observed natural human processes.)
Levitt, however, seemingly happy with plutocracy and the attendant third-world ratio of economic inequality now plaguing America, (This is a blatant mischaracterization of Mr. Levitt's remarks. Mr. Gourley imputes motives to Mr. Levitt that are not contained in Mr. Levitt's letter. Mr. Gourley apparently thinks that if you disagree with him, your only other choice is plutocracy. This is distressingly binary thinking, which forces Mr. Gourley's interlocutors into a false choice.)
condemns traditional capitalism’s redistributive mechanisms (There are no such mechanisms in capitalism, there are only the natural behaviors of individuals engaging in uncoerced behaviors.)
and insists that low tax rates on big corporations (You'll note that neither the word "big" nor "corporations" appear in Mr. Levitt's letter.)
and the rich (The word "rich" does not appear in Mr. Levitt's letter.)
lead to national prosperity. Obviously, he is not in Kansas. Their governor Sam Brownback has done precisely what Levitt wants, in the process utterly destroying the state’s economy and angering even many of his fellow conservatives. (A leftist fiction repeated ad nauseum all over the internet.)
Sadly, over the course of the last four or five decades, plutocrats and many politicians have succeeded by sleight of hand in (falsely) rebranding Adam Smith (Back to the Red Herring.)
as a proponent of unfettered free markets, (No conservative advocates an "unfettered free market.)
redefining plutocracy as capitalism, (Unsubstantiated assertion.)
and relabeling traditional capitalism as socialism. (We already know this to be false.)
As such, it is quite understandable that Levitt is confused about capitalism. (The confusion is Mr. Gourley's, especially since Mr. Levitt made no statements about capitalism.)
One of the most telling stories of the current political election season is that of all the presidential candidates who at some point were in the running, “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders’ economic platform is the closest to traditional capitalism. (Now that is a breathtaking assertion. The word "capitalism" doesn't even appear on Bernie's website. Bernie hates the free market, and every initiative he has proposed involves empowering government to intervene even more into the economy. This has nothing at all to do with capitalism.)
The moral of this story of confusion about capitalism: know your history and pay attention to how plutocrats and politicians define the words they use, and why!
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