Paying for the Privilege

Why is it that some Americans seem to think better of the free market than this free country?

Perhaps they also think themselves better than their immigrant ancestors?

Adam Smith, the Scottish philosopher and ancestrial father of economics, wrote of a self-regulating "invisible hand" (said to be taken from Shakespeare's Macbeth : Act 3, Scene 2) that would guide market capitalism. Ironically, Smith wrote at the same time that our Declaration of Independence was fashioned. But alas, the great experiment, which is this favored nation and its capitalistic economy, has become contaminated by a greater expediency. As the abused child related to the psychologist, "I know some hands give and some hands only take."

Have you ever entered a conversation that you couldn't understand? Is it possible that we would pay the full amount for what the free market could provide while begrudging a mere percentage asked by government taxes? We don't need to guess what the free market recommends. Could it be that we naively assume that necessities of life are like inherent rights while luxuries are more like privileges?

"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is the established, though non-constitutional, model for American independence from genocide, enslavement and a caste system. Everything else we enjoy (including property, possessions and public services) is privileged.

Homeowners are expected to pay for the privilege of living on their property. Most purchases come with an item cost plus the sales/distribution/levy taxes applicable. Fees for public services are included in city/local, state and federal assessments on income. The rightful, though no less privileged, access to education is matriculated with a school tax. And, until just recently in the history of this blessed nation, there was a price to pay for estate inheritance as well as most forms of profiteering.

It's easy to equate limited government with limited taxes, but far more difficult to embrace the reality. There are many things from which the private sector can not profit and therefore will not provide without a substantial government subsidy. For those things that can be privitized, American history is replete with the dire consequences of unregulated commercial interests in the absence of anti-trust laws. Recently, our supreme judiciary has provided for unregulated lobbying interests in the presence of super-pacs. The conversation continues, as the scotsman Smith himself would say, to stymie.

The United States of America came about as a rejection of taxation without representation. Like the abused child, we knew the hand that only takes. Our founders recognized that politically there needed to be a balance of powers so that we would be protected from such greedy hands in the future. Taxes support the government in providing checks and balances for itself and regulation of the country's economic system.

Ironically again, the unity of our nation appears threatened by short-sighted representatives who reject taxation period. To them, the free market is their government and a balanced budget their state religion. Truly, a government that can not ask its most wealthy citizens and corporations to pay for the privilege of a balance of political powers and a regulation of economic self-interest is one that will soon find the night of Macbeth has a "bloody and invisible hand" to its own neck.