Home
In this issue
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 2, 2008 / 3 Tishrei 5769

Yet freedom

By Tony Blankley


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There is nothing new under the sun. The United States has endured major financial panics in 1837, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1929, 1933 and now in 2008. Most of these economic events had ideological and political consequences — as well as the inevitable economic play-outs. And if history is any guide, contrary to the hope of some and the fear of others, this is not the end of capitalism as we have known it.


But it is true that usually, major economic events have had political as well as economic consequences. For instance, the panic of 1893, which in some ways is similar to the current panic, was caused by overbuilding and sloppy financing of the railroads. The 1880s enjoyed dramatic economic expansion, which led to dangerous speculation. Once the railroad bubble burst, there was a run on the banks, a contraction of credit, and European investors demanded gold for payments, which forced the reduction in the value of the dollar.


Unemployment went from 3 percent in 1892 to 18 percent in 1894 — not returning to single digits (6.5 percent) until 1899. Many out-of-work middle-class citizens failed to meet their mortgage obligations, abandoned their homes, and moved west. That was the end of the Gilded Age. After years of close presidential elections, McKinley's decisive victory in 1896 — fought out over economic issues — brought on political realignment and the beginning of the Progressive era. With the exception of President Woodrow Wilson from 1913-1921 (who won in 1912 only because Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican vote), Republicans controlled the White House from 1897-1933.


If economic events affect politics, it is also true that political events often have economic consequences. For example, the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago deeply compromised the credibility and appeal of government-managed economies. As a result, throughout the world — and particularly in the United States — the past two decades have seen deregulation and a respect for market forces flourish. Not only Marxists but also conventional big-government democratic liberals in the West consistently lost the policy arguments to those of us who argued for a more vigorous, deregulated and freewheeling capitalism.


Those abiding and ever-true principles of economics will be tainted for a while by recent economic events. Now waiting in the grass to leap up and champion the cause of anti-free markets are the left two-thirds of the Democrats here in America, our mainstream media, the socialists and regulators in Europe, and the Mussolini-style corporatists in Russia, China and perhaps in America, too.


We had a taste of this urge for fierce regulatory recrudescence Sunday evening with the words of Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who warned, in calculated tones of inflamed class resentment, that once the Democrats save the day, they will ensure the end of deregulated markets (although after leaving Clinton's White House staff, he took a position at the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in Chicago, where he worked from 1999 to 2002 and reportedly earned $18 million).


Last December, in somber rather than triumphant tones, leading conservative economic commentator Martin Wolf, of the British Financial Times warned, "What is happening in credit markets today is a huge blow to the credibility of the Anglo-Saxon model of transactions-oriented financial capitalism." As Wolf's further words have been characterized, when the crisis hits (as it now has), "That will certainly mean the end of the neoliberal consensus that has dominated politics for almost a generation." Or, as Newsweek's Howard Fineman wrote recently in more informal words, "The era of cowboy capitalism has died, largely of self-inflicted wounds."


I don't take those words as prophecy, but they are certainly shrewd warnings of the political things that may come. And it is true that it is harder this week than it was last week to argue persuasively for pure free-market principles if one has endorsed the $700 billion bailout and partial nationalization of the credit industry. (And I do emphatically endorse the bailout as the only available and preferable alternative to the calamitous economic status quo.)


So in the months and years to come, it falls to those of us who advocate for free markets to persist in making our case. It is true that momentary events likely will cloud the public's judgment and provide nefarious opportunity for statists and other political hustlers. But it is also the truth, which is vouchsafed by any fair reading of history, that excessive regulation and taxation — which means political management of private property and previously free markets — are inherently corrupt and inefficient. Prosperity and the dignity of human freedom are two sides of the same coin. It is an old lesson that now must be retaught and relearned. And it shall be.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Tony Blankley is executive vice president of Edelman public relations in Washington. Comment by clicking here.

© 2008, Creators Syndicate

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works