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Jewish World Review Oct. 18, 2006 / 26 Tishrei, 5767 Why the free market is king By Jonathan V. Last http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | On the morning of Dec. 21, 1970, Elvis Aaron Presley appeared at the northwest gate of the White House. He delivered a letter — handwritten, on American Airlines stationery — to Richard Nixon, requesting an interview. Elvis was interested in becoming a "federal agent — at large," and besides, he really wanted to meet the president. The White House staff went into something of a tizzy. Memos were quickly typed and exchanged while the King was kept waiting. After a couple of hours, Elvis was brought inside, given a tour, and taken finally to the Oval Office, where he met President Nixon. Ever the gentleman, Elvis did not come empty-handed. Upon meeting Nixon, he presented the president with gifts: a Second World War-era Colt .45 and a collection of Presley family photographs. For wholesale weirdness, it doesn't get much better. But it's also incredibly charming and, in its own way, symbolic. There is an only-in-America quality about Elvis that accounts for much of his enduring appeal. Leave aside his artistic merits (and camp value) and, for a moment, consider seriously what Elvis represents: As much as anything else, the King of Rock and Roll is the embodiment of America's embrace of free-market capitalism. He is the word of free-market philosopher Friedrich Hayek made flesh. With the fall of communism, there is no longer any challenge to the capitalist thesis. To be sure, there is some niggling around the edges: Some countries commingle state support and protectionism; others try to hold to some last vestiges of command economics. But capitalism is the only game in town. For better or for worse. Mostly, it's for better. Capitalism works more efficiently and provides more freedoms than any other system humanity has yet devised. But believers in the net good of markets need not be blind to their shortcomings. Capitalism produces what economists call "market failures" all the time. Consider professional athletes, paid many times the annual salaries of police officers. Free-market enthusiasts will insist that there is a scarcity of talent at work here: A policewoman might add more value to society than a utility outfielder, but there are many fewer people with the talent to play professional baseball. Of course, the scarcity argument goes only so far. Swallowed-sword weightlifting is, for example, a very scarce talent indeed. Australia's Matthew Henshaw holds the world record in it, having lifted 44 pounds in this strange manner. No one is paying him Alex Rodriguez money. If the lament on the status of athletes is too cliché, take casino dealers, who often make more money than teachers. Here the "scarcity-of-talent" argument runs in the opposite direction and arrives at opposite results. Or consider the enormous compensation packages afforded to many corporate executives. Perhaps an executive presiding over a successful company deserves hundreds of millions — but failed CEOs get the big money, too. In 1999, for instance, the late Ken Lay of Enron was paid $42.4 million. If that's the market rate for a company-destroying executive, then surely the market has failed. I don't know what your educational background is, but I bet Enron would have been better off hiring you for half the price. They could hardly have done worse. The point is that free-market capitalism fails all the time. It fails in little ways and in big ways. And these failures often hurt people. So why is it that we love capitalism so dearly? Because of Elvis. Despite its problems, the free market does something no other system has ever done: It allows for the creation of economic space. If you have a talent and you're passionate about it, the market will make a way for you. Elvis Presley is the modern embodiment of this principle: He had nothing in the world other than a unique gift, and even though no one else at the time was doing what he did — bring white and black popular music together — the market found a way to accommodate him. It's the quintessential American story. Not everyone makes as much money as Elvis, but our country is littered with strange and wonderful talents that find ways to be rewarded: Jake Shimabukuro, for instance, is considered to be the Paganini of the ukulele; he has made an unlikely career out of performing. Cesar Millan's gift is the ability to train any dog; he runs a successful dog school in California. Ricky Jay is considered by some magicians to be the greatest sleight-of-hand man to ever live; he has done quite nicely with this arcane skill. If the market can find room for prestidigitation, dog tricks and the ukulele — if it can make way for a skinny kid with shaky hips and a yen to visit the White House — then it can accommodate just about anything. For all its failures and imperfections, we've made our peace with the system because it gave us Elvis. And because it gives each of us the opportunity to be the next King. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Jonathan V. Last is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Comment by clicking here. Previously: 08/07/06 Democracy, of itself, not solution to all problems 08/01/06 We get the movies we deserve 07/27/06 How long will U.S. empire last? © 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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