American Thinker published my retort to Hedrick Smith’s New York Times article of 9/2/12, When Capitalists Cared.
My article, When Government Allowed Capitalists to Care, noted the several false assumptions in Smith’s NYT article.
Excerpt:
America was able to expand post WWII was not because of unionized workers or high tax rates, but because we transitioned from a pent up demand from war production to a strong consumer demand from the returning soldiers building families. At the same time we faced this huge growth in demand we were protected from the foreign competition because our manufacturing infrastructure, secured by two oceans, had remain unharmed while the infrastructure of Europe and Asia had been devastated by the war. When the overseas competition had rebuilt itself, the competition kicked in and we realized our cars built by those same high paid union workers and companies, burdened with huge legacy costs of bloated pensions, could not compete. The quality revolution in auto production was compelled by this ‘new’ competition.
Hedrick Smith reaches back well over a half century to find a prescription to cure our social ills, while ignoring all of the real factors hindering our current economy today. But he stumbled on a real truth that he unsurprisingly missed: That the private sector is quite capable of attaining social justice when it is freed of the burdensome restrictions and friction costs imposed by the excessive central planning of the state that we now face.
One reader comment:
Back in the latter part of the 19th century, capitalists dictated to the government what needed to be done, and as long as these needs didn’t clash too strongly with the needs of the American people, they were done. Today, the rolls are reversed with government dictating to the few surviving industries that they allow to stay in business what they can or can’t sell to the public. Capitalists don’t care because they are controlled by the state, and as long as this continues expect more of the same.
Recent Comments