PrintHow rampant economic ignorance triggers unrest
Underlying many of the problems currently plaguing our country is economic ignorance. As of 2018, only 17 states require high school students to take a course in personal finance, and only 22 states require those students to take an economics course. It is becoming apparent that far too many Americans lack an understanding of basic economic principles.
Widespread use of the word "capitalism" pejoratively, in true Marxist fashion, is one of the telltale signs. Decades of leftist teachers drumming drivel into students' heads has resulted in "capitalism" being dangerously close to just another "ism." But if woke folks were truly awake, they would realize they've been duped.
Capitalism is nothing more — or less — than economic freedom. It is not to be feared. Quite the opposite, actually, as absent economic freedom, one can't enjoy freedom or liberty generally. Economic freedom is organic; it has evolved naturally since the beginning of time. It is not a theory or social experiment. Commerce, voluntary exchange, and the laws of supply and demand are part and parcel to a civil society. To quote Temba Nolutshungu, author and former director at the Free Market Foundation:
The economic system known as "capitalism" is the only system that guarantees every individual their personal liberty. It is thus the only moral, honest, authentic and trustworthy political, economic, and social standard for pursuing widespread social wellbeing, prosperity and peace[.] ... It evolved spontaneously through the ages through natural human interactions and impulses across the globe.
It's not perfect, but it's as good as it gets here on Earth. Utopians set on tinkering with it or tossing it out altogether have been and will forever be doomed to fail with tremendously costly and often tragic consequences.
A recent example of economic ignorance on display occurred last week in Seattle, when Black Lives Matter activists "occupied" a Trader Joe's grocery store protesting "lack of access to grocery stores" and telling customers that "capitalism exploits the working class." The occupying protesters are clueless as to how a grocery store comes to be and how it operates. The empty shelves, food shortages, and famines of failed socialist and communist experiments throughout history are evidently lost upon or unknown to them.
Black Lives Matter protestors have occupied a Trader Joe's in Seattle. Liberal white women throughout the city are now stockpiling frozen burritos and wondering: "has this all gone too far"?
Apart from the appalling sense of entitlement shown and the fact that this incident supports my belief that Critical Race Theorists will eventually eat their own, refuting all of the protestors' contentions and crimes against logic would take chapters to document. Instead, I have some simple questions for them and their sympathizers.
More access basically means more stores or venues. So which area is more likely to have more Trader Joe's, other grocery stores, and restaurants:
1. An area where vandalism, rioting, or looting has occurred or one where it has not?
2. One where shoplifting is not prosecuted or one where shoplifters are charged and prosecuted?
3. One where disorder and incivility, such as littering, loitering, drug use, public indecency, and the like, are accepted or one where local government and the community doesn't tolerate such misbehavior?
4. One where customers and employees feel unsafe or one where they feel mostly safe?
5. One where state or local government sets minimum pay rates or one where government stays out of stores' or restaurants' internal matters to the fullest extent possible?
6. An area where local and state government have high sales, property, and employment taxes or one with more reasonable tax levels?
The answers are obvious. Policing, taxation, regulation, community standards, food security, employment and advancement opportunities, laws and enforcement of same, they're all tied together. And fresh, packaged, and prepared food and meals don't magically fall out of the sky onto our plates. If Critical Race Theorists and adherents would actually start thinking critically and also study a little economics from sound sources, they would learn this is so.
Hat tip: Andy Ngo.
Image: Public Domain
