I first published this post on Christmas morning 2020 -- in the middle of a pandemic and coup attempt.
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Economic thoughts on Christmas morning 2020
We are watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas morning while we enjoy our usual and delicious breakfast -- egg frittatas with salsa and yoghurt and toast and a big cup of coffee.
What a great movie for this Christmas. Mr. Gower's son has died in the influenza pandemic. Good ol' American free enterprise capitalism tempered by the common good is represented by Bailey Savings and Loan in opposition to the heartless, selfish, tyrannical, unbridled capitalism of Mr. Potter.
After Peter Bailey died his photo was displayed on the wall of the Savings and Loan office with this quotation posted below it: "All you can take with you is that which you've given away" - Peter Bailey
This movie always makes me think of what I love about American free enterprise as reformed and reimagined during the times of the two Roosevelts and later. I am so thankful for the labor movement and those who helped end the "Gilded Age". I'm thankful for the GI Bill which so changed my life. Without it what would my family's experience have been? Social Security? My granddaddy made less than a thousand dollars a year as a barber in the late fifties. He died at 67 so he likely never got a lot from Social Security, but it certainly helped my grandmother, his widow, who lived to 91. I am thankful for the public education I received at litte Mackville KY, in Griffin GA, Ellijay GA, and Rome GA. I am thankful for the interstate highway system that saves me hours of time and bouts of carsickness travelling through Tennesee and Kentucky the last fifty years or so. The combination of free enterprise and strong regulation and protections for labor and attention to the common good have made my life more comfortable, more healthy, richer in experience, and safer.
Sheila and I have tried our hand at entrepreneurship twice. We loved being able to follow our dream for two years (with our partners) publishing a weekly newspaper (Broadside) here in Rome.
Then later we spent eleven years trying to make a living publishing a community magazine (Out & About Georgia's Rome) and doing some "desktop publishing".
Though neither of our efforts were commercial successes we are proud of some things we accomplished along the way, and treasure some of the friendships that resulted.
I believe in the power and the necessity for a healthy free enterprise system. BUT free enterprise MUST be tempered with strong regulation for the common good. Without strong protections for labor, for the public health, for environmental safety capitalism can be every bit as tyrannical as unbridled socialism.
There are some areas where the profit motive can be toxic, and health care is one of those areas. If free enterprise is going to be part of our health care system it must be strongly regulated and we must guard against healthcare and insurance and pharmaceutical business interests gaining undue influence in government. Likewise the famous military-industrial complex that Ike warned us about. (If you haven't listened to Ike's speech take the time to hear how a real president approaches passing the torch to another president of a different party.)
Ike ended that farewell speech with these words:
"We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love."
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