Just Imagine

"Imagine Free Minds & Free Markets" is a license plate frame given me by a supporter to put on our LoveBus. It goes well with the Montana plate's graphic of children playing in a meadow that reads "No Child Left Inside".

After writing the previous paragraph I just sat here for a few minutes contemplating the power of those two quotes. Mind Imaging my free minded grandchildren playing outside was a pleasant experience and I took the time to let it register. Now if we can add Free Markets to their lives our angst about their future would be more focused on,… what?

Free Markets provide a much higher standard of living and more choices in every aspect of our lives. I could provide many examples of better education, healthier water & foods, soul nourishing experiences and comfortable living conditions. Voluntary interactions would be the norm and time for family, friends and self improvement would aide in the creation of a peaceful state of mind for a larger number of people than,... Not Free Markets.

Even though the intent of 'They/Them/Those, that just won't leave us alone' is to live at the expense of others, they lack the capacity to force humanity's compliance without our willing participation. So it is our voluntary consent that is the goal. Economic and Social Engineering using pain and pleasure, punishment and reward is common and ubiquitous through human history. Force usually evolves into the fear of force & punishment and is often more effective and costs much less. And if you can give the population incentives to police their neighbors to behave as the central planners desire, then you really have achieved what despots and tyrants have always sought. I know this seems all too familiar to most of us but what is the alternative?

If you want to see the future of any grouping of humanity you only have to look for what is punished and what is rewarded. If sloth, disability and dependency is rewarded while productivity, capability and accomplishment is punished you can expect a society's death spiral.

I'm not sure which comes first, Free Minds or Free Markets. It seems that each supports the other, and without one the other can't exist. So I have been paying attention to attacks on both.

So let's think about it for a moment.

Free Markets are generally defined as free from regulation. Regulation by whom/what? Regulation using what influence and for what reasons? To say that a Free Market isn't regulated demonstrates your lack of understanding and experience. Supply and demand for products and services are major factors for sure. But we also need to take into account what influences the demand and the supply of any trade.

I remember a back of the napkin calculation from a friend and influential libertarian science fiction writer, L. Neil Smith, that speculated we would be 8 times wealthier without governments regulating the Free Market. Then another friend gave a presentation to a gathering of young activists that explained how the involvement of government in their lives has resulted in the elimination of their rest. He detailed this but I immediately thought back to my mid 20's when another young couple had started a business the same time as my wife and I had started ours. They were both service businesses that didn't require any sales tax or licensing. But after a successful year it was tax time. I remember our complaints to the older accountant and his prediction.

The accountant simply said, "when Arizonans can't take their boat to the lake, this will all change". What?? What he explained was that when all of our rest and recreation time had to be replaced with more work and the cost of activities with family was prohibitive, we would see a change in how regulation and taxation was perceived by the public. Well, that was almost 40 years ago and I'm only now seeing some real resistance. So why has this taken so long?

Capability. "T3" won't allow a Free Market because they don't have to. We don't have a Free market because we haven't the convenience to privately and securely produce, store, transport, purchase and use whatever we want whenever we want… but that is rapidly changing with the use of crypto currencies, re-popularization of precious metals and the technical ability to coordinate barter.

Free Markets are denied by those that benefit from central planning,… Because They Can. And Free Markets are being resurrected because technology and privacy in communications are reaching a point that Free Markets can no longer be stopped.

I am of the opinion that humanity (and Americans in particular, which is why we are so targeted) will once again rediscover the thoughts that will produce the emotions that create the mindset that supports the results they desire. So...

Imagine Free Minds and Free Markets. That's how you are going to get both.

Peace,
Ernest Hancock
Publisher@FreedomsPhoenix.com