Protection

The issue of protection has faded from the economics discussion because we have lost the shrewdness of our ancestors. One of the primary purposes of government is to protect the people, to protect the common good. The notion that the economy is not used to determine the well-being and moral state of a people - or to put it another way - that grave evil and harm cannot take root in a people through their economy, is very foolish.

The ancients recognized it, but the idol of the Free Market today keeps people blinded and bound. Our ancestors of long ago and not-so-long-ago had no problem stating that the private monopolization of the economy has very detrimental effects on human life all the way around. They had no problems stating so while being free from the armchair alarmism that pontificates at every drop of the hat about the threat of socialist doctrine that reduces man to a part completely determined by the economy. That's because our ancestors retained a capacity for shrewdness.

But among the conservative circles today cowed into unthinking deductionism by the hyper-inflated threat of socialism repeat the same old formulas about the free market and inflation and taxes and the gold standard and the invisible hand (lol), and there is a level of cupidity there that is really astounding.