{"id":45881,"date":"2019-05-02T19:07:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T00:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45881"},"modified":"2019-05-02T19:07:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T00:07:01","slug":"freedom-or-government-control-there-is-no-true-third-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45881","title":{"rendered":"Freedom or Government Control \u2014 There Is No True “Third Way”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Freedom or Government Control \u2014 There Is No True “Third Way”<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Every government intervention into the economy may not be<\/em>socialism, but it is a step toward<\/em> socialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interventionists claim to advocate for a \u2018third way\u2019 of economic organization, one that preserves the productive nature of capitalism, while merely reining in some of its destructive excesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, Sen. Elizabeth Warren last year described herself <\/a>as a \u201ccapitalist to the bone,\u201d even declaring \u201cI believe in markets and the benefits they can produce when they work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, she added the caveat that it is \u201cmarkets with rules\u201d that can create value and insisted \u201cmarkets worked better\u201d during the timeframe of 1935 to 1980 in large part due to \u201cmore aggressive regulation of markets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is there a reasonable \u201cthird way\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defining difference between socialism and capitalism, as described by Ludwig von Mises in his 1950 essay \u201c Middle of the Road Policy Leads to Socialism,\u201d <\/a>is \u201cthe substitution of public control of the means of production for private control.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More properly understood, socialism would eliminate the private ownership of the means of production by capitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So efforts to impose \u201cmore aggressive regulation of markets\u201d \u2013 which typically amount to more confiscatory taxes and stricter government regulations \u2013 may fall short of actual socialism, but erode the defining characteristic of capitalism, namely private ownership over the means of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is important here to note that ownership implies the right to utilize, trade or otherwise dispose of property as the owner sees fit, as long as his actions don\u2019t infringe on the rights of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any restrictions on the owner\u2019s use, therefore, represents an erosion of private property rights over the means of production, and a step in the direction of centralized, or public, control over those means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freedom or Government Control \u2014 There Is No True “Third Way” Every government intervention into the economy may not besocialism, but it is a step toward socialism. Interventionists claim to advocate for a \u2018third way\u2019 of economic organization, one that preserves the productive nature of capitalism, while merely reining in some of its destructive excesses. For instance, Sen. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25780,2299,966,2799,25781],"class_list":["post-45881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-bradley-thomas","tag-control","tag-ludwig-von-mises","tag-socialism","tag-the-mises-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45882,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45881\/revisions\/45882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}