Principles of Liberty (Fifteen)

Principles of Liberty (Fifteen)

By William Pressgrove

“The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free-market economy and a minimum of government regulations.” (The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen p. 179)

This principle is one of the most important as far as the economy of our country goes today. It contains the answer to the economic problems we are experiencing. This principle is based on the economic research and life’s work of Adam Smith. In 1776 he completed a five volume work called The Wealth of Nations. It contains all of the ins and outs of the free-market economic system. The Founding Fathers believed it was the model that this country should follow. To them, Adam Smith was able to apply natural law to economics in the most viable and natural way. Their economic philosophy worked for the first 120 years or so in spite of the frailties of human nature that reared their ugly head with the acceptance and application of the Darwinian theory of “survival of the fittest” to economics in the later part of the 19th century. It is incomprehensible how, except for the profit motive, those in power could look at the history of our country which confirms that:

By 1905 the United States had become the richest industrial nation in the world. With only 5 percent of the earth’s continental land area and merely 6 percent of the world’s population, the American people were producing over half of almost everything—clothes, food, houses, transportation, communications, even luxuries. (The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen p. 181)
How anyone would think that it was not working is beyond me. However, there were “many prominent and influential leaders losing confidence in the system. These included wealthy industrialists, heads of multi-national banking institutions and leaders in the academic world, and some of the more innovative minds in the media.” (The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen p. 182) Interestingly enough these individuals stood to gain the most from changes that would allow government in interfere more in the economy.

Colleges and universities began to turn their back on the principles espoused by the Founding Fathers at about the same time and started teaching as acceptable the socialistic ideologies of Carl Marx. They spoke of Adam Smith only in derision and never encouraged students to read The Wealth of Nations. These professors laid the foundation for the Keynesian theory that was introduced as a solution to the Great Depression (the same invalid solution that our politicians are employing to end the current recession/depression).

The solution that the Founding Fathers had and tried to implement, although they were not totally successful, was to rid the country of “money changers in the temple” so to speak. Congress was charged “to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin...” (Article I, Section 8, clause 5). By taking charge of the money out of the private banks that now control it and produce the “boom and bust” cycles that occur in our economy and reestablish the gold standard with no possible way to slip back into the fractional banking (the practice of only having a fraction of the money loaned out on hand) we could return to the prosperity we once knew. One of the reasons I find this to be the answer is that it sends the rest of the economic world into a tizzy when it is mention like it was in the London Times:

If the mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic during the late war in that country (the Civil War), should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe. (Quoted in Gertrude Margaret Coogan, Money Creators [Hawthorne, Cal.: Omni Publications, 1974], p. 217, as repeated in The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen p. 190.)

So you see if it caused that much of a stir throughout the world when Abraham Lincoln almost succeeded in implementing this principle fully as the Founding Fathers intended, just imagine what it could do to remedy the current situation. That being the case, just think what it could do if other countries followed the lead of the United States. This economic policy needs to be fully discussed and debated to see how best to implement it to stabilize our economy and return this country to its former greatness. Personally I feel that a good start would be to take the “redistribution of wealth” out of the hands of Congress by establishing a Fair Tax as the foundation for financing this country.