Down with government

Cluefon
    By Dan Dudis

So this is my last column. After four semesters of writing for the Herald, it all ends here. During this time, the key point I've sought to make is that everyone is inherently self-interested. People will always make what they believe to be the rational choice. And while such decisions can be distorted by many different variables—for example, the American obsession with professional sports—any government that seeks to work against humankind's gift for greed is destined to fail.

Today, we take the ascendancy of free-market principles for granted, but only 20 years ago, a very different philosophy influenced most Western governments. It was the philosophy of the social-welfare state, a philosophy which often commingled with socialism in Western European nations. Even the right-of-center parties in Western Europe—and, to a lesser extent, in America—supported and expanded the welfare state's cradle-to-grave social programs. Marginal tax rates were sky high, and there was little incentive to create wealth. The entrepreneurial spirit was dead. Why work when the government would pay you anyway, even if you didn't work? Whole industries were nationalized.

Having thus been relieved of the everyday pressure to turn a profit, these nationalized behemoths drained money from their governmental protectors. Competition evaporated and service deteriorated. In 1979, the state of the developed world looked bleak: stagflation, labor unrest, and a tired leftist ideology that called for yet more inefficient government intervention.

And then, a breath of fresh air. When Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979, she promised to change the way that things were done. That meant no more big government solutions. Thatcher had the humility to realize that the world economy was too complicated for even the smartest of bureaucrats to understand. She believed that only by turning things over to the free market—to the individuals making rational choices unfettered by government intervention—could economic growth resume.

Guided by that belief, Thatcher reduced marginal tax rates that had previously inhibited investment. She closed government-run industries that were hopelessly inefficient and could no longer compete on the world stage. She privatized countless other government-owned corporations. These previously poorly-managed, money-losing, corporations are now some of the most internationally competitive and agile companies in the world: British Airways. British Telephone. Cable & Wireless. British Petroleum. The list goes on.

When Britain's economy began to bloom in 1983 as the world came out of an international slump, the other nations of Western Europe took notice and abandoned their dance towards socialism. Thatcher's legacy lives on today. It is no accident that the U.S. and Britain, which have the most open economies, have lower unemployment rates than France, Germany, and Italy, whose economies remain plagued with governmental regulation.

All over the world, the free-market ideas popularized by Thatcher are ascendant. When economic trouble arises, the answer is almost always not more government interference but less. The individual now reigns supreme. All over the world, consumers are faced with more choices of better quality, many at lower cost. Adam Smith's invisible hand is alive and well, once again guiding the world economy.

So what does this mean to us as students? We should be leery of solutions to problems that require any sort of big-government bureaucratic interventions. We should respect the choices of others, not arrogantly insist that we, perhaps several thousand miles and many worlds away, know what's best.

To this aim, begin by rejecting as silly the arguments of those on this campus who seek to deny the right of third-world laborers to continue to manufacture our apparel. As hard as it may seem for us to believe, these jobs represent the best option for these workers. And such apparel plants are just the first step in the age-old economic development process that will result in higher standards of living for the citizens of the nations where they're based. Outside interference will only result in the retardation of this cycle and a worsening of the conditions of the very laborers we profess to care for so very much.

This is just one example of how we should apply the principles of the free market to questions facing us today. The Thatcher revolution is far from over. Hopefully, we can see it come to fruition in our lifetimes. A world with maximum choice and minimal government intervention is an ideal one. It is now within our grasp.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• We can't handle Kosovo, 4/9/99
• March Madness?, 3/26/99
• The death match of Rudy and Hillary, 2/26/99

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