Many make the
erroneous assumption that if someone supports big business and opposes taxes on
the wealthy that that makes him or her a libertarian. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Such attitudes simply make one an economic royalist. The term
‘economic royalist’ was brought into American discourse in the June 27, 1936 speech of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Democratic National Convention:
For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved
new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over
material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new
machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital-all undreamed of by
the fathers—the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this
royal service.
There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands
of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the
American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the
worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware
of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they
fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.
While FDR was a
progressive tyrant whose policies were an unhealthy mix of fascistic
corporatism and Marxism, he did make an interesting point in this speech.
Economic royalists are akin to today’s crony capitalists. They are corporatists
who use their wealth and influence to give themselves unfair advantages.
Typically the economic royalists are rent seekers who use the government to
regulate and tax their smaller competitors out of business when they can.
The economic royalist
attitude has spread among conservatives, Objectivists, and pseudo-libertarians.
In their eyes, big business can do no wrong. Large corporations and wealthy
individuals should not be taxed, but it does not matter whether the lower
socioeconomic classes are taxed to death. While the minimum wage is a
counterproductive concept and increasing the federal minimum wage would be a
job killer, economic royalists seem to savor that there are so many Americans
earning a low wage. Economic royalists assume—like the embarrassing Herman
Cain—that anyone who is not wealthy is simply stupid or lazy. They erroneously
believe that the United States
has a free market economy when in truth it is a corporatist economy. They
erroneously believe that all large corporations and titans of industry did it
all on their own. While President Obama was incorrect in his “you didn’t build
that” rhetoric, many economic royalists have only succeeded because progressive
taxation and business regulations have been used like cudgels against their
small business competitors. Economic royalists blame the victim. They attack
the neo-progressive policies of President Obama yet also attack the victims who
have been harmed and made dependent by the welfare state. One cannot have it
both ways. Economic royalists believe that the unemployed and poor are lazy and
do not want to work. However, what jobs could they get if they wanted to work?
Nearly one
in four is unemployed or underemployed. Decades of rule by
neo-progressives, neoconservatives, and other enemies of economic freedom have
destroyed the economy, and there are no longer enough jobs to go around.
Illegal alien workers and foreign workers on visas have driven down wages.
“Free trade” which is anything but free and fair and which only benefits other
nations at the expense of the United States
and “outsourcing” have ensured that the United
States economy is a shell of what it once
was.
The United
States economy has been taxed and regulated
nearly to death. It is so far from being a free market that an order of
operations is required to cure all its ills. Lower taxes for the rich and more
“free” trade simply will not fix things. Unemployment insurance, welfare, and all
other progressive social programs simply cannot be ended as a first step. There
are not enough jobs thanks to progressive policies. The private sector needs to
be reinvigorated through lower taxes and fewer regulations. A jobless recovery
will only ensure social turmoil and tyranny down the road.
In short, true
libertarians do not play class warfare as communists, progressives, and
economic royalists do. Freedom means that everyone gets an equal opportunity.
Crony capitalists get no special favors from government.
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