An Empty Tank . . .
As I watched a congressional sub-committee addressing our national energy policy on CNN this past weekend, a freely-elected member of the U.S. senate actually made the statement that our government failed to prevent the current gasoline crises by not raising taxes on gas during the past several years to a level equal to European taxes. He postulated that a coerced pricing of $8.00 a gallon would have benefited our society by forcing consumers to change their behavior.
Of course, inextricably wrapped into this vocalization of thought is this elected official’s view of the proper role of government.
In this land of ours, which was founded upon the laissez-faire concepts of free markets and free minds, our meteoric rise to the position of the world’s greatest economic power has been fueled by novel reasoning that markets can more efficiently advance the well-being of a society than the best intentions of kings, queens, statist dictators, and/or social planners.
The government of United States has been created to ensure that the supply and demand of goods and services moves freely to meet the desires, wants, and needs of its citizens. Not to direct the outcome of this movement.
Ayn Rand eloquently punctuates this fact in the first few paragraphs of an August 1962 article which ran in the Los Angeles Times titled ‘Let Us Alone!’ in which she stated:
Since “economic growth” is today’s great problem, and our present Administration is promising to “stimulate” it – to achieve general prosperity by even wider government controls, while spending an unproduced wealth – I wonder how many people know the origin of the term laissez-faire?
France, in the seventeenth century, was an absolute monarchy. […] Colbert, chief advisor of Louis XIV, was one of the early modern statists. He believed that government regulations can create national prosperity and that higher tax revenues can be obtained only from the country’s “economic growth”; so he devoted himself to seeking “a general increase in wealth by the encouragement of industry”. The encouragement consisted of imposing countless government controls and minute regulations that chocked business activity; the result was dismal failure.
Colbert was not an enemy of business; no more than is our present administration. On one historic occasion, he asked a group of manufacturers what he could do for industry. A manufacturer named Legendre answered: “Laissez-nous faire!” (“Let us alone!”).
As Ms. Rand went on to convey, it was evident that this French businessman had a better understanding of human nature and economics than the politicians of his day (and of our day as well!). He grasped that government “stimulus” is just as disastrous as government oppression, and that the only way a government can benefit national prosperity is by protecting the market system, not manipulating it.
The proper role of government is to protect a country’s national sovereignty, protect its citizens from other citizens, and create laws to maintain these protections. Other than that . . . it should keep its hands out of the personal lives of individuals (and their gas tanks!).