Political Economies: Command and Demand

What follows does not address the obamacare debate, however it is directly the center of what is just plain wrong with what is going on in D.C.

By Mike Rosen

Posted: 10/01/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

There they go again. The latest stop on the world anarchist tour was Pittsburgh, site of last week’s G20 summit of international finance ministers and governors of central banks.While the grownups met indoors to discuss cooperation in the global economy, goons of various persuasions and incoherent causes did their thing on the streets. OK, they weren’t all violent goons. There were also some better-behaved familiar goofballs like Cindy Sheehan and assorted greenies, pacifists and socialists.

But the anarchists were the most committed. They were a mostly youngish mob bedecked in standard revolutionary garb: faded jeans, black T-shirts, bandanas and ski masks to cover their faces. Their contribution to the world economy consisted of throwing rocks, bricks and trash cans at cops, breaking Starbucks windows and assaulting ATMs. Those whose faces were uncovered seemed to be smiling more than scowling. But, of course, this is what these people do for fun.

As anarchist festivals go, this one was relatively tame. Property damage was under $100,000 and fewer than 100 people were arrested. Small potatoes compared to the riot at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 and the violence in Montreal, Seattle and Turin, Italy, at other gatherings of world economic and political leaders.

One group of anarchists, apparently auditioning for “American Idol,” taunted police officers with a chorus of: “We all live in a fascist bully state,” sung to the tune of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.” They probably missed the irony. It’s only because of the civility and restraint of democratic governments like the ones these sociopaths so revile that they can get away with their antics. If they actually lived in a fascist bully state they’d have been shot, carted off to a concentration camp or a reeducation center. Icons of the world’s “People’s Democratic Republics” like Stalin, Mao, Castro and Guevara (the guy on the anarchists’ T-shirts) haven’t been so tolerant of dissent.

Anarchists have only a childish concept of what they’re against and not a clue about what they would have replace it. When better-armed anarchists break into their home, who are they going to call? Don’t bother dialing 911; nobody will be there.

In the anarchist paradise of their dreams, do they imagine that mattresses will replace banks as financial intermediaries? Political economies come in only two forms: command and demand. In a command economy, government decides what gets produced, how it’s done, who does it, and how it’s distributed. In a demand economy, the capitalist alternative, those choices are made freely in the market — with varying degrees of government intrusion. The debate among rational adults is over the degree of government intrusion. Once set in motion, government intervention and control tends to expand, becoming ever more difficult to reverse until it metastasizes into a command economy. History has shown us repeatedly and dramatically that command economies don’t work. They produce neither prosperity nor freedom.

By contrast, the tea party folks who have taken to the streets in the age of Obama understand the danger of excessively intrusive government and are trying to stand athwart it. They know what they’re for. But they’re rookies at protests and demonstrations. They’re not quite sure what to do. They certainly don’t want to break anything and they even clean up after themselves. This is not what they do for fun. Most of them would rather spend weekends with their families and are too busy earning a productive living on weekdays. When they turn out there are no face masks, no confrontations with police and no violence.

Isn’t it curious that the same Democrat politicians and liberal media types who condemned and ridiculed the law-abiding tea partiers haven’t uttered a peep in disapproval of the nasty rabble that made a ruckus and dirtied their diapers in Pittsburgh?

Mike Rosen’s radio show airs weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon on 850-KOA.

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