Suppose you were to give a one-question test in public schools across the country and, for that matter, to all graduates of U.S. public high schools: “True or False: The Great Depression was caused by the failure of America’s free-enterprise system.”
There can really be no doubt about what the answer would be. The vast majority of respondents would answer: True.
Yet, the correct answer is False. As Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and others have documented so well, the Great Depression was caused by the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, a federal institution that is antithetical to free enterprise...
Alas, the deception and delusion are not limited to the Great Depression.
Today, we might well be witnessing the death throes of America’s welfare state and warfare state. Everywhere you look, the entire statist system is in crisis or chaos.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FDIC, the drug war, Iraq, Afghanistan, the dollar, federal spending, the national debt, stimulus plans, foreign aid, nationalizations, corporate and banking bailouts, and on and on.
The whole welfare-warfare system is busted, broke, bankrupt. With each passing day, it gets worse and worse, as federal officials continue to double down their bets in the hopes that somehow the system is going to come out fine.
But notice what the statists are saying: That it’s not socialism or imperialism that have failed, it’s free enterprise!
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