WHO WILL HELP the LITTLE PEOPLE?
TABLE of CONTENTS
HOW DOES GOVERNMENT TYPICALLY HELP?
EXAMPLES of BUREAUCRACY & CHALLENGES
HOW DOES LIMITED GOVERNMENT HELP LITTLE PEOPLE?
Certainly not people whose psychology is to control others, instead of living their own life.
Certainly not people believing marxist-based economic ideas, such as socialists. (That is obvious from the starvation in North Korea, and from the tyranny seen in countries such as Cambodia (where anyone suspected of knowledge was slaughtered, - such as individuals who wore glasses), the USSR (where millions of dissenters were starved despite being the most productive farmers), and Cuba (where children are slaves in the fields). Nor Nationalsozialistische (Nazis) and Fascists (as evident from Germany and Iraq).
Nor the neo-mercantilist systems that favor certain businesses (cable TV monopolies for example) or business groups (such as the milk industry in B.C.), and restrict imports for supposed collective benefit (but really to the benefit of monopolists - the favored few who obtained their position not by merit but by political pull).
(Worker unions being an odd combination of Marxism and Mercantilism - using Marxist teachings as justification for their Mercantilist actions.)
Nor the collective groups who obtain their funds from government thus taxpayers by force, then disrupt traffic and consume police resources - preventing the little people from getting to work or having thefts resolved (which requires police time) or being protected from attackers.
And not those who believe in the "divine right of the majority vote" (thanks to Norma for that term, aka "tyranny of the majority") in ignorance of individual choices.
Certainly not those who support statism while objecting to defending individuals. That hurts the little person most, because they have fewer resources and less earning ability to replace what is lost and cover the loss of income if they cannot work due injury.
But in reality many of those who are attacked by persons claiming to act for little people have helped little people by eliminating power groups. "She has done what Marxism could never achieve: made the upper classes irrelevant without bloodshed or legislative coercion."
- Barbara Amiel in McLean's magazine of January 16, 1989, page 10, regarding former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. (How did she do that? Read her books,
reviewed by me.)
How does collectivist/statist government "help" the "little people"?
- by making it more difficult to change jobs.
- by making it more difficult and costly to move to change
jobs or get better schooling (for example, why does each fiefdom require a different driver license when laws and knowledge are almost the same?).
- by assuming that an individual must have a residence, when many people are mobile (long have been - recall explorers who were away for years?). That view requires proof of a residence, thus making it more difficult to rent very low cost accomodation or use someone's cabin no-charge. That forces an individual's costs up, restricting people who try hard.
- by requiring divulging of personal information, such as residential address - thus creating a security risk - to start a business or register a vehicle. (There have been several cases in Canada in recent years, of thieves stealing a vehicle then stealing from the residence address found on registration papers in the vehicle. Often while away on vacation, finding work, or at an event of fixed duration such as church or sporting event - they only need a short period of lower risk access to steal what they want.)
- by putting complex rules in the way of persons trying to start a business (thus earn money), which slows them down and imposes fees (such as city business license).
- by rigid rules that do not anticipate individual variations and new ideas, which often come from individuals and small businesses.
- by detailed procedures whose complexity requires precious hours of time to handle. (Since they often are irrational requirements, they are especially difficult for people to figure out and are damaging to the thinking ability of those can least tolerate thinking problems (those with mental difficulties are often poor).
- by vague laws and regulations, with variable interpretation. That necessitates hiring expensive legal advice to try to ensure that the latest information is available and understood, and puts the person at risk of later problems from irrational requirements. As well, different agencies may have incompatible requirements, making it impossible to comply unless one can afford an expensive lawyer or the risk of being blocked by bureaucrats.
- by not correctly administering programs that people on low income depend on. A small example is the Canadian postal rate increase of 2002 - inadequately publicized thus high risk of
important mail being returned for insufficient postage.
- by making decisions without knowledge of the lives of the affected individual (even if they had experience in many factors in life, the control-minded people cannot predict everything - yet they are so conceited they assume they can or so cold they do not care about the impact of their actions).
- by snooping into people's affairs.
- by concerns and regulations about multiple and changing addresses, and mail services, which are needed by people who must move to get honest work yet want to keep in touch with friends and potential employers
- by complex, overlapping regulations, some contradictory. For example, Ontario passed a law against racing near a water bomber during its pickup run. Yet boaters in Canada must have an Operator Proficiency Certificate - why not just rescind it for unsafe boating practice? (Which racing near a water bomber can easily be shown to be.)
(Some of the foregoing can box individuals into a tenuous logistics situation, from the sequential nature of getting permit after permit in the crawl to get something done, multiplying the risk of failure due to missing deadlines (especially given that government agencies do not work 24/7 and often do not have enough staff to respond quickly) or plain contradiction (damned by one fiefdom if they don't and damned by another if they do). That multiplies the elapsed time, and risk of failure, to get permissions the individual is forced to have.
A few examples of problems:
> in the Highlands west of Victoria, you have to have a development permit to clear brush. Recently the control freaks in that well-treed fiefdom decided to waive the significant fee to get such a permit, as clearing brush would reduce the ability of fire to spread from forest to homes or vice versa. (Such generosity! No, the People's State of Highlands doesn't have proper level of fire protection.)
> On Victoria streets you cannot load or unload a tour bus in a Loading zone, in Vancouver BC you can.
> In Vancouver WA you can ride your bike on what IMJ is the safer place for amateur riders, the sidewalk, but in Vancouver BC you cannot.
- by making laws and regulations, then compromising when someone big complains or boxes the government in (such as big company or big union - or increasingly big mouth (the activist groups). So the "little" person - the individual or small group - is disadvantaged. That stifling of competition reduces choice and raises prices.
- by categorizing people (for example, "retired" when they may still have to work in the future).
- by prohibitting people from certain jobs. (For example the law in Washington DC that prohibitted black-skinned people from working at shining shoes. Originally intended to "protect"
black-skinned people from being stuck in such jobs (a wierd notion - it is lack of opportunity that sticks people), it hurt a person who much later saw a large gap in the market that he could fill. In other words, it prevented someone from earning a living doing something honest that he could do and wanted to do. And it deprived his potential customers of a desirable service.)
Unfinished Civil Rights Agenda (CapitalismMagazine.com, November 2001)
(Barriers to labour mobility and labor-force participation were recognized by Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge, according to Business: South Shore of July 2007. He noted the elimination of early retirement and the emerging Alberta-B.C. trade agreements which harmonize labour credentials and business regulations and standards.
I comment that it is amazing how smart companies, and others when pushed, find good employees. Some thing as simple as matching work times to personal commitments has been used by one very successful Canadian company. In tight times substantial effort has been expended to coach employees who might otherwise be marginal due to personal habits.)
- by laws prohibitting certain types of crops or food. For
example:
a. a Texas law against growing cotton that was not pure white worked against a lady who wanted to grow cotton that did not need dying to use to make clothes. Her green and brown cotton was not legal!
b. A Canadian law required minimum fat content in ice cream - preventing introduction of "lite" ice cream for persons on a reduced-fat diet.
- by competing with people who start businesses. (For example, the B.C. government ambulance attendants union used its monopoly position to get government to start a service that supplanted a new private one - of lower cost transport of patients without immediately life-threatening conditions. IOW, the union used its monopoly position within a monopoly to penalize someone who innovated by providing a good service at lower cost to payers.).
- by forcing a minimum wage that is uneconomic for employing persons of low productivity, such as those beginning to learn. (And that wage is regarded as a fair wage by large employers,
who try to stick to it instead of raising wages to meet market demand - to the detriment of their business. (Which fortunately is in a free market thus they will suffer from that decision, as McDonald's has in some areas.)
- by empowering unions who exclude little people from work. (Such as black train conductors in the US early in the 20th century (many blacks were conductors until a union got power over the jobs) and airline pilots (fallacious arguments were used to exclude females, to eliminate competition from the females who did the production test flying and delivery flying in World War II).
- by zoning regulations that prohibit co-located business and residential, thus increasing costs of rent and transportation for someone starting a business. (An example of co-location is the once-common corner store in Vancouver BC - run by a family who lived in the back or upstairs. What is wrong with that? (Now politicians are using force to get a mix of residential and commercial use, as they see the negative effects of their predecessors' policies on established city areas. But it isn't working well - in each case it may or may not work depending on various factors.)
- by zoning laws prohibiting more than one residence in a building, that are not enforced because that would reduce supply of accommodation - yet are not repealed. That facilitates discrimination because complaints must be acted on (I know of cases where it happened).
- by zoning laws that drive up the price of residences (a few examples detailed above). According to the respected economist Thomas Sowell in the article Political 'Solutions', Jewish World Review, October 30, there are many examples in history. "Study after study has shown that housing prices are highest where government restrictions on building are the most severe…."
- by imposing costs of business filings and licenses.
- by restricting trade thus keeping prices high
"Business" Mercantilism and Government (CapitalismMagazine.com, November 2001)
(In British Columbia a person cannot start some farming-related businesses, because production is restricted by government - the only way to enter the market is to buy someone else's quota. Obviously a "little person" cannot afford that. And the person with the quota has an unearned asset, thanks to government force.)
- by restricting entry to jobs, or allowing trade licensing bodies to restrict entry, as detailed in The State Against Blacks by Walter Williams (McGraw-Hill 1982).
- by violating their own rules (a minor example is their technical publications not being well controlled, while they fail applicants for not doing so).
- note that many attentive intelligent people do not understand a question well enough to answer it - they see more broadly than the person asking the question, so see additional and/or different answers than intended.
- by establishing quotas based on secondary characteristics, such that a talented person who wants to enter a particular occupation cannot do so.
- by failing to meet its basic promises, such as safe drinking water:
How N. Battleford treated its waters with a pitchfork and parsimony. (National Post, November 30, 2001)
(I don't claim that there won't be problems, but in the case of North Battleford SK and Walkerton ON there was fundamental mismanagement not just simple error. Employees and council did not think, even when approving the purchase of a pitchfork to remove used condoms from the system they apparently did not make a connection to the quality of the water. (My mind boggles at the thought of people in their context having to approve the purchase of a common low-cost tool.) The buck must stop at the politicians who failed to do what they were elected to (ensure proper management of the public facility).
(And the usual leftist activists used those cases of mismanagement by a public body to rail against private enterprise. Huh?)
- by not keeping its financial promises, such as claiming it is acceptable to have state-run lotteries because the money will be used for education, then not increasing the educational budget to reflect the income from lotteries.
- by limiting farmers to three hours per day on the tractor (ignoring the reality that farmers must make hay while the sun shines, and modern tractor cabs are enclosed, have vibration-reducing seats, power-steering, even music (and often height to stand up - I wouldn't want to leave :-)).
Don't laugh - the People's State of Euro proposed that!
- by barriers that prevent people from helping themselves. For example, if a B.C. family were on a camping vacation in WA state and their car broke down, they would not be allowed to bring a rental car into Canada to get their camping gear home. (And when they brought their repaired vehicle home they might have to justify the level of repairs - if the water pump on their Honda failed they may have elected to have the cam timing belt replaced as well because of common access and eventual need to replace it.)
- by forcing people to divulge their business plans in order to get zoning approval or service approval in a regulated market. IOW someone who figures out a better way to do things must divulge his trade secrets. (I observed that when the airline business in Canada was regulated - for example, hearings on Pacific Western Airlines' desire to serve Lethbridge AB.)
- by forcing people to obscure the facts (governments often prohibit explicit identification of taxes and government charges in the price of products - just what mentally struggling people do not need to be confused by!).
- by interfering with attempts by private non-profit organizations to provide charity
- by spending money on bureaucracy instead of real needs. (Terry J. Waller appropriately observed after it was revealed that the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development had spent over half a million dollars on sleek office remodelling at a time when the ministry was having considerable difficulty taking care of children safely: "Every politician and public employee in Canada should recite the following creed each day when looking in the bathroom mirror: "I am a public servant and my salary and expenses are paid by the taxpayer. Any money I spend on behalf of my employers, the citizens of Canada, is not mine. It is theirs, and I must spend it wisely and well." (Letter to Times Colonist, published November 13, 2007 - well done Terry!)
- "twilight" is often defined as 30 minutes before sunrise or 30 minutes after sunset. But at high latitudes, such as in Alaska, the transition is far longer at certain times of the year because the sun's path is at a shallow angle. This is an example of "typical" knowledge being used to constrain something, with negative impact in particular situations (in this case a situation that is normal to people living closer to the poles than bureaucrats usually do). It may also be an example of the cost of rules that are detailed rather than conceptual on principles.
- one provincial sales tax rule differentiates between "aircraft parts" and "aircraft accessories". Much confusion arises with helicopters, as they have equipment taken on and off frequently to perform different roles. So a rescue hoist not normally carried on a particular helicopter might be an "accessory" whereas on a dedicated rescue helicopter it is standard equipment thus a part of the aircraft - same piece, same basic helicopter, two different rules. (Bureaucrats must think that Aristotle's maxim, A is A, was wrong.)
- a federal government agency decided it would not ask well known Canadian history author Pierre Berton to prove he is a Canadian. The rules for the producers of a documentary about him to be eligible for a tax credit required actors to be proven Canadian - Berton was paid as an actor in the documentary even though he was the subject of it. Berton thought the notion was hilarious and refused to sign a declaration, so the government caved in and evaded its own rules.
- aid to poor countries is too often inappropriate (keyed to selling them expensive things rather than more fundamental projects, and without enough conditions to ensure the aid gets to intended recipients and that the government improves freedom (lack of which is the cause of poverty). "The research indicates that in countries where the leadership is committed to reform, governing well and reducing the level of corruption, aid actually is effective. But you find the opposite in countries that don't have that committment." - Danielle Goldfarb quoted in McLean's magazine October 28, 2002.
- I do give credit to the current government of B.C. for trying to reduce regulations. In 3,654 pieces of legislation, regulation and policy it found 404,000. provincially imposed requirements! (But it evaded eliminating the worst of them.)
- yet another example of government interference, and bureaucracy, is the European fuss over how many lumps are allowed in a "sauce" before it is considered a "vegetable". (Reference National Post January 10, 2002.)
Gee, I wonder if they classify a hearty stew as meat or vegetable? (OK, the answer may be in the article - lumps may be fruit but are still classified as vegetable, so I assume meat chunks are also vegetable. Huh? Well, this is the same statist control freak mentality that had to decide whether a tomato was fruit or vegetable. (Don't tell them about peanuts, which grow much more like a potato plant than a nut (technically a peanut is a legume, which is more like a grain - as is soybean, but it grows underground).)
(What is the purpose of the European concern?)
How do they handle new food ideas? (Yes, I know, they'll forbid them until they have the time to bureaucratize their definition. Never mind innovation, never mind allowing different cultural practices - control matters, not individuals.
Don't laugh, the UK did that with the fruit called "Saskatoon berry" that someone started importing from Canada. The government made them start a long approval process to show it wouldn't harm people, never mind it was an important part of the diet of North American aboriginals, also called "june berry" and other names when south of that artificial line at the 49th parallel on maps. Fortunately it was learned that people in Finland had been growing them for years, thus it had a history in Europe and under the European version of "free trade" the UK could not forbid importation. (The Fins probably got plants or seeds from Canada.)
And they actually did that with a new model of helicopter - it was not radically new, but governments in Europe claimed they could not approve it until regulations were revised, which would take several months or more.
Of course the reality of government help and private charity is captured in a statement by the head of the food bank in Barriere BC after the surrounding area was hurt badly by forest fires: "Without the Red Cross and the Salvation Army in this town, no one would have eaten anything. I haven't received one nickel, one box of macaroni, from any government agency. Everything has been from volunteers." - Brenda Lavis, quoted in the Vancouver Sun of November 29, 2003
(Yes, the provincial government did fight the fires, though apparently it did not marshall adequate resources soon enough to do a good job.)
And try this wild story.
Waterfront viaduct may be history - one way or another (Seattle Times January 10, 2001)
It seems that Washington state erroneously submitted Seattle's waterfront elevated freeway to the federal government as a historic structure at the same time it was seriously considering demolishing the aging structure that won't stand in a big earthquake, and federal rules prohibit the state government from even objecting to the listing never mind rescinding it. (Fortunately the listing is not a prohibition against demolishing it, only a requirement to document the nothing-to-brag-about not-much-significance structure before demolishing it. (Complete with the added patches over cracks caused by the last mild earthquake in Seattle? That's history.) What idiot lawyer wrote rules that do not allow people to stand up and say "we made a mistake"?
Characteristically, bureaucracies:
- have an inward focus rather than a customer/user focus (a version of not paying attention to reality).
- act according to rigid theory rather than looking at the reality of the current situation and applying principles to the specific situation (i.e. they do not think). (In philosophical terms, their epistemology is poor - they are intrincist in that they think something is inherent so will automatically be so, and subjectivist in their use of language (e.g. its the brand name that causes goodness, not what goes into the product or service the brand name refers to.)
- operate for their own convenience, despite having forced people to deal with them in the case of government agencies (that's irrational selfishness)
I'll also note that charities are not immune from having problems. (The cases of the SOS Children's village society of BC, the Skeleem Recovery Centre in BC, the Red Cross of Canada (who lied about blood testing), and the misdirection of charity funds to terrorist groups, may be examples.) However, in both cases the principle of awareness by individuals and the availability of the justice system are operative, and people will avoid the questionnable.
I define "limited government" as an objective system of protecting each individual against
the initiation of physical force, including from government or "society".
(Elected by citizens, having strict constitutional limits on what those electors and those they elect can do. In contrast to the vague term "democracy" which often means "majority rule" - that can be mob rule, the "velvet glove" or worse of collectivism at the expense of individuals.)
Such a society allows people to act honestly for themselves, by protecting against those who would stop them by initiating physical force.
(In societies like Canada and the US that protection is in the form of police, courts, and external defence (military).)
By not attempting the impossible (predicting all possibilities when writing rules), thus not getting in the way of innovation.
By avoiding the irrational (which most bureaucratic rules are) thus motivating people to focus on reality and think straight.
By staying out of the way of honest individuals.
Since the question "what about the little people?" was asked regarding Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, which provides a moral foundation for individual freedom supported by justice and defense, by someone advocating statist solutions, I note:
In Ayn Rand's fiction writings you'll find many examples of looking after the "little people" in the best sense - benevolence, justice, recognizing individual performance, trading values, rewarding good behavior, and even charity. Part of the theme is letting people produce what they are capable of - a by-product of which is the abundance that enables charity. That is very different from the "fixed pie" economic ideas of Marxism and similar disastrous philosophies, from which socialism and its cousin multiculturalism (tribalism) come. Those cannot even achieve the end they use to justify their oppressive means - feed their own people. (I focus on her fiction because it is her dramatization of human ideals, with philosophical views underlying and woven into it. Of course her non-fiction, and Leonard Piekoff's book Objectivism - The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, explain how her philosophy works for good people of all abilities and interests.)
- In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny gives a meal and a job to a tramp on the train, because she evaluates him as a person trying to make his own way in tough times.
- Ayn Rand's remark that she would listen to the elevator boy if he made sense (when a Broadway producer tried to argue from authority).
- Ayn Rand's experience in political Q&A sessions in NYC, when she helped a political campaign, about which she commented that the best questions came from the "working class" section of the theatre.
- A sub-plot in Atlas Shrugged, in which the meek drugstore clerk turns out to be a far better & smarter person than the railroad president who marries her for what we would today call "politically correct" reasons (and misleads her as to his importance, since his sister really runs the railroad).
- The many descriptions of productive employees doing their job and being treated well by the heros of the book.
- The "wet nurse" in Atlas Shrugged, who recognized the evil in his government bosses and became a friend and ally of the hard-working & fair industrialist Hank Rearden he had been assigned to monitor. (Later Hank saved his life by noticing something on a slag pile - his body dumped there for dead by "social cause" rioters at the steel mill. He was merely a disposable "little person"
to them - but not to Hank Rearden.)
In contrast, Ayn Rand's fiction contains many examples of people living in very poor or hazardous conditions because of misbehavior of government officials.
- Starnesville (the town near the abandoned vehicle factory)
- Conditions on the streets of New York City
- Farmers who could not sell their crops because a government official decreed that available railway cars be sent to carry a relative's crop (which was not usable because it was harvested incorrectly).
- Lack of work because of government restrictions on who could work where, and government actions that led to failure of good businesses that employed people fairly.
And two examples of plain compassion, from Ayn Rand's novels:
- Roark helping a drunk architect who had done excellent work.
- Rearden going out of his way to give work to an out-of-work sculptor, but insisting he act sensibly.
Note however that assistance is given voluntarily to deserving persons, based on rational self-interest (value of the individual to the benefactor, including simply rewarding honest talent (which has a broad future benefit).
A "liberal" news show producer acknowledged that Ayn Rand's philosophy is not for special interest groups, in saying "I think we missed the significance of the Ayn Rand school of economic freedom that put the consumer first and bureaucracies and special interest groups second."
Link to remarks (by Peter Manning in The Age (Australia) of August 9, 2001 regarding the program Four Corners, which he produced in the 1980s.)
[Technically misleading in saying "first" because Ayn Rand put the individual first and honored the producer without whom there can be no consumption, but correct in saying that Ayn Rand put
customers above bureaucracies and special interest groups.]
Ayn Rand's writings and philosophy reward the good, by positive means (individual freedom with justice) founded on a positive view of people as benevolent and productive. She recognized the reality that food must be produced and that the human mind is unique (it is capable of knowing reality and improving individual human life). Her philosophy glorifies the best in human life and recognizes those who achieve it.
That does not mean anyone else is lesser as such (intrinsically, as in class-structured systems like feudal monarchies (slowly dying out in England) and Indian religions (the caste system is still strong there), unlike what marxist, monarchist and religious ideas teach - and all collectivism and statism does. (Racism and other group discrimination being forms of collectivism, in contrast to what Martin Luther King wanted for his children - to be judged by the content of their character.)
Nor does it mean that anyone owes their life to another, even though the achievements of the great have spinoff benefits to all good people. (That would be akin to Mercantilism, which is a primary cause of the inability of most of Latin America to improve.) It does mean that the great deserve recognition of their abilities and for their efforts, that the good is good and deserves reward - and in general reality will reward the good. And it provides the conditions in which anyone can achieve to their own potential and pursue their own values - for their own life - as long as they do not try to sacrifice others. In Ayn Rand's world, charity is charity while forced redistribution (whether by the government, a mob, or Robin Hood) is coercion - a fundamental moral difference.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The title question of this article was asked regarding Ayn Rand's philosophy of rational self-interest. Throughout Atlas Shrugged one finds examples of benevolant treatment of individuals by the heroes, in contrast with actions of government officials and their friends, and rejection of the clearly bad.
Frederick Bastiat's pamphlet What Is Seen and Not Seen explains the hidden costs of many government actions.
Tara Smith's book Moral Rights and Political Freedom reviews what rights are and are not.
Tara Smiths book Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics (The Virtuous Egoist) includes discussion of charity.
Walter Williams' book The Government Against Blacks includes many details of restrictions, by government and government-enabled organizations, that facilitate restraint of trade to the disadvantage of anyone who is starting out or trying to enter an occupation or industry. (It is titled "Blacks" because of the widespread discrimination against black-skinned persons enabled by direct government force or by failure of the justice sytem to protect individuals against initiation of physical force - but of course applies to all persons.)
Back to the Lotus, a CBC documentary on the Lotus Cafe in Saskatchewan, illustrates how enterpreneurship can mitigate restrictions. Dennis and Mary Wong, and their uncle, of Chinese descent, moved from Vancouver to Prince Albert in 1956, to open a restaurant. Restricted from professions by racial discrimination of government-forced licensing and other trade restrictions in Vancouver, they made a reasonable career of running a restaurant serving food that was new to that city. Did they face discrimination in Prince Albert? Probably, but they encountered enough good people as customers and suppliers to run a business successfully for 25 years and have justice system protection.
In my home town of Dawson Creek B.C., Mah Shoh did the same even earlier, coming from China to an almost frontier area of Canada.
(In both cases they probably served both common "Canadian" food and what some call "Canadian Classic Chinese" food, which locals were probably not familiar with but liked.)
A related phenomenon is small businesses filling ethnic needs like foods, opening little deli shops, sometimes supplying restaurants, or selling packaged ingredients from their restaurant, even renting videos. (I saw that in the middle of Iowa farming country. In other locations, or for other types of food - like Mexican there - demand has built to where "regular" stores and restaurants for the particular ethnic specialty are readily available.) Entrepreneurs create diversity just by being entrepreneurs. No guarantee that what you desire will be available, and the entrepreneur may fail (as the East Indian restaurant in Cedar Rapids IA probably has - not kept clean, so some of those most likely to be customers did not return), but you'd be amazed at what people do.
Capitalism and the Common Man, by Walter Williams, discusses the benefits of capitalism to the non-rich. (Capitalism Magazine October 26, 2003.)
Thomas Sowell's article 'The "Working Poor" Scam' says that activists misrepresent the numbers of people who are working but poor (defined as earning less than 18,800 a year) by including students and beginners - who aren't in that status for long. (Capitalism Magazine )
The Road to Serfdom, by F.A. Hayek
"The most important change which extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people."
The Capitalist Manifesto, by Andrew Bernstein
An excellent readable review of economic history, rebutting many claims and explaining the benefits of a society based on individual freedom.
(A slimmer book is his "Capitalism Unbound", another is “Capitalist Solutions: A Philosophy of American Moral Dilemmas”.)
My review of the autobiography of another lady the left likes to malign, Margaret Thatcher, includes coverage of her attention to real people instead of power-mongers and institutionalists.
The Book "The Letters of Ayn Rand" provides information on some charitable gifts made by Ayn Rand, to individuals and organizations meriting assistance and according to her criteria for giving "not as a moral duty, but as an act of good will and generosity, when the giver can afford it." (Reference ARI leaflet "Ayn Rand on Charitable Contributions".)
Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute makes an excellent point: caring and compassion come from valuing life.
(Many who claim to want caring and compassion support philosophies that are fundamentally against human life, so when they are pushed turn cold and nasty. Little people are their slaves and cannon fodder - until they need to be fed at which time they are a burden to be disposed of.)
“....why is it that the people who worry most about mankind have the least concern for any actual human being?”
(The character Adrienne in Think Twice, a 1939 play by Ayn Rand)
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