A Market Economy Gone Rogue
I am a lifelong ‘market economy’ supporter, a guy who thinks the major force behind our national success is surely part multi-ethnic, part individual opportunity, part regulatory simplicity, but mostly developing markets where they did not exist. The automobile may have been born in Germany but it saw its explosive growth in America. We pretty much invented and expanded the middle class to power the consumer engine, without which, market economy means the ancient vegetables-in-the-town-square model. There are, by the way, still vegetable markets in most of the town squares in Europe.
I applaud Henry Ford’s ‘Five Dollar Day’ as one of the major achievements of the 20th century. Henry knew that there’d never be enough customers for his cars unless the guy on the assembly line was able to buy one. Henry was a genius, a nut and a near-fascist, but he had that idea nailed and the market economy can name his five-buck day as well as any other for a birthdate.
But somehow it’s all gone off the…