Capitalism’s role in the expansion of liberty and prosperity

Capitalism is continuing to play a major role in the global revival of liberty and prosperity around the world. Capitalism was the "camel's nose in the tent" under the "glasnost" policy in the former Soviet Union (USSR) that contributed greatly to the ultimate collapse of the Soviet regime.

Over the last couple of decades, it has been China's opening to limited capitalism that has led to increasing liberty, a rebirth of hope, and a rising standard of living among its billions of people.

Capitalism works because it nurtures the human spirit, inspires human creativity, and promotes a spirit of enterprise. By providing a powerful system of incentives that promote thrift, hard work, and efficiency, capitalism creates wealth—something that socialism has no mechanism to do.

The miracle of capitalism

The miracle of capitalism is that, first of all, it makes the correct assumption about mankind and how people function. That assumption is that human beings will virtually always act in a way that tends to increase their own happiness or satisfaction. This may be described in various ways:

• Self-defense
• Self-preservation
• Self-serving
• Selfishness

The actions may range, for example, from building an improvised shelter when lost in a wilderness to buying an iPhone. These are both acts of that put self ahead of other options. For example, I may destroy trees or kill an animal to survive when lost in a wilderness area.

What most liberals, progressives and leftists, however, fail to consider is that the buying of the iPhone was just as selfish an act as selling the iPhone was—as was the creation and manufacture of the iPhone.

• If you bought an iPhone, you did so because you felt that you would be happier, more satisfied or better off for having purchased it than by not purchasing it and keeping your money or using it to throw a big pizza party for your friends. Your act was purely selfish. You did not make the decision on whether the world would be a better place if you had an iPhone. You also probably did not consider: “Maybe I should just mail my money to the federal government so they can help more poor people with it.”
  
• If you sold an iPhone, you did so because you felt that your own situation would be improved by having sold it. This holds true whether you were the salesperson behind the counter, accepting a wage—and maybe a commission—for selling the iPhone; or if you were the owner of the franchise or store that sold the iPhone to the end-user. Indeed, it holds true down the entire supply chain—the distributor, the wholesaler, the manufacturer. Each of these were acting in their own self-interest when they acted to sell the iPhone.
  
• If you manufactured an iPhone, chances are you did so because it was in your own best interest to do so. (This is where it gets touchy.) Things are not so wonderful in China. It is quite possible that an eleven-year-old working ten hours a day manufacturing iPhones in China is not being coerced—at least not by Apple®. It is not at all unlikely that the parents of the eleven-year-old feel that it is better for the entire family for this child to be working in the factory than to be in China’s schools of indoctrination, where the treatment of the students may be no better than the treatment in the factory. It is even likely that the eleven-year-old worker feels that it is better for him or her to be in submission to his parents than to rebel. In fact, this young worker may even feel a tingle of pride and satisfaction that he or she is able to contribute to a better life for his whole family by working in the factory. (Granted, this is not the American way—to put children into factories—but we are not in a position to prejudge how other cultures grow and evolve over time. For more on this topic, please read here.)
  
• If you created the iPhone, if you were part of the product design team or even an inventor of one of the components, you, too, decided to create the product and work to get it into production because you were selfish. You did it because you thought you would be more satisfied or better off for having done so than in not doing so. It may have been because you were paid by Apple® or some other company to do the work. Or it may have been that you were simply so enthralled by the invention and innovation that the only way you could find satisfaction was to see it produced and distributed—even if your financial reward was relatively small by comparison. Either way, you selfishly sought whatever it was that brought you satisfaction or happiness.

So, what is the miracle of capitalism? It is the fact that capitalism turns your selfishness into service to the satisfaction of others.

Apple®, in the absence of government coercion, has no power to force anyone to buy an iPhone or an iPad or an iPod. The buyer—as indicated above—buys the product voluntarily (choosing it above all the alternatives, which are not just other similar products, but every other option—including just keeping the money) because the buyer sees the value of the product/service provided by the creators, manufacturers and sellers who bring the product/service to him.

This is the miracle of capitalism: transforming serving for self-satisfaction into service for the satisfaction of others.

Capitalism, socialism and equality

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. – W.Churchill

Milton Friedman on greed

The miracle of capitalism is its ability to transform man’s natural proclivity for “greed” and “self-interest” into service for others.

To the credit of capitalism and free markets

It is to the credit of capitalism and relatively free markets that there are many, many more people living on the earth’s surface today than at the eve of the “industrial revolution,” and that, in the nations that are most advanced in capitalism, virtually all of the people enjoy a more comfortable life than even the well-to-do of earlier ages.

On economics, human action and capitalism

Every individual is constantly making choices in the marketplace. This is what we mean by “human action.” With each decision, the consumer decides how to use his or her limited resources (and they are limited whether one is a pauper or millionaire).

You and I are constantly making choices such as: "Will I be better off if I spend my money for this television or that television?" (comparisons between similar products) while, at the same time, we are also considering, "Will I feel better off if I spend my money by paying off my credit cards and getting another latte instead of buying a new TV?"

Even though we sometimes may feel coerced into buying a product (say, fuel for our car), we are still making a free-will decision. We are asking and answering questions like: "Will I be better off putting gas in my car or taking the bus to work? Or maybe I could just hitch-hike to work. Then again, maybe I'd be better off just quitting my job and not putting gas in my car ever." Even the things we feel we must do when we'd rather be doing other things—like going to work when we'd rather be fishing—are free-will choices based on which decision we feel will make our situation better (either in the short-term or the long-term).

Capitalism does not favor the alert! Life, in general, favors the alert.

People who pay more attention when they drive, operate heavy equipment or cross the street are more likely to survive and prosper than those who do not. People who are more willing to respond as effectively as possible to changes in their environment that will affect their short-term or long-term welfare will generally be better off than the lazy, indolent, lethargic or foolish.

That's not because capitalism is opposed to such people, but because such people fail to seize opportunities for surviving and thriving when the opportunities present themselves.

As they say, “Opportunity only knocks once.” But even if it knocks a multitude of times, there will still be those who will miss it.

That is not capitalism’s fault.

---

For more about what capitalism is or is not, read here.

On capitalism and exploitation (falsely so-called)

The “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) crowd and others have frequently used the terms "capitalist" and "exploit" together where "exploit" is referenced in its negative connotation. Many times this application of the term refers to the "exploitation" of foreign workers. While acknowledging that, surely, some workers worldwide are likely subjected to truly coercive means (genuine "slave labor"), the "exploitation" term is wrongly applied on a far larger scale—generally by those with concealed motives or out of pure ignorance. Allow me to tell you why I say this.

For twelve-and-a-half years I lived in El Paso, Texas, which, as you may know, lies just across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. As a businessman, I had reason to know something of the so-called "Twin Plant" operations (or maquiladoras), where U.S. companies frequently had facilities both in Juarez and El Paso. I also knew folks who lived in Juarez, Mexico, on a personal basis and had reason to converse with them on many topics.

At the time (mid-1980s), the typical U.S. plant in Juarez was paying workers something under two dollars per hour (I don't recall the precise figures). The typical U.S. plant was relatively new, air conditioned, well-lighted, and the firm provided safety training and safety gear to its workers. In many cases the U.S. firm also provided a cafeteria for the workers; and in some cases, these U.S. companies also provided on-site day-care for working mothers. Working at, let us say, $1.75 per hour, a worker in such a plant could make $70 in a normal 40-hour week, not including the value of the fringe benefits such as day-care or a free company cafeteria.

Also, however, among my personal acquaintances, was a typical young woman who worked for a Mexican employer—a baking company. This woman worked in a hot (not air conditioned) bakery for up to 60 hours a week. There was no company cafeteria and no on-site child-care paid at the expense of her employer. This young woman took home, on average, $11 to $16 (US) per week. That amounts to pay in the range of thirty cents ($0.30 US) an hour.

The differences between the working conditions and pay supplied by that nasty old U.S. company "exploiting" Mexican workers (as folks ignorantly decried) versus the working conditions and pay at that fine, wholesome, and upstanding Mexican firm explained clearly why—for every opening at the U.S. company's plant—there were more than 300 people just standing in line, waiting to "exploited" under such circumstances. These Mexican workers could not wait to be "exploited" at five or six times the pay, and working a 50 percent shorter workweek!

It is impossible to compare wages across such economic boundaries. No, $1.75 per hour—even in the 1980s—would not be a living wage for a man with a family in the U.S. But for a worker in Mexico, it was a rich wage for which they were more than grateful.

Exploitation, in its negative connotation, cannot happen in the absence of coercion or fraud. Most U.S. firms—I am convinced—do not participate willingly in situations where fraud or coercion is being used to unfairly extract labors from people—any people. Nevertheless, thousands of ill-informed people—especially those with strong allegiances to unions—will wrongfully call what the U.S. firm  was doing (as described above) "exploitation." It is, but only in the positive connotation of the term. (If you don't know what that is, then look it up. You need to understand it.)

Who is a capitalist?

What is a Capitalist? Or, rather, who is a capitalist?

HE'S COMMERCE with a smile on his face. He's REAL PROGRESS standing behind a counter, in a factory, or behind a desk.

Capitalists are the heartbeat of every Main Street in America. In fact, progress all over the world really stems from the risks the capitalists are willing to take.

Every man, woman or couple that decides to risk home and life savings by opening a new business is a capitalist.

Capitalists comes in all sizes, shapes and temperaments. There are tall, sad capitalists who sell hardware; and short, happy capitalists who manufacture shoes or produce software.

There are young capitalists who have taken over the family farm to grow and sell hay. There are old capitalists who still run the family clothing store chain and pay wages to thousands of folks on their payrolls.

A capitalist might be rich and powerful--but most are not. Or he may be small and energetic—most are—and he has risked it ALL to open the little shop around the corner from where YOU and I live.

But either way, rich or small, large or medium, he's the great American businessman who spins the wheels of trade and meshes the economic gears of the nation.

He's a capitalist.

He's a good neighbor back of a cash register, a desk or a milling machine. He's freedom with the front door of his business open to you!

He's America's greatest host and largest employer.

Each business morning he opens his glittering stores and displays what's fine in the world for all to buy at prices you can afford.

He creates, manufactures and/or sells bathtubs, wonder drugs, lumber, automobiles, bread, books, and much, much more.

He is the godfather of better living for you and me by supplying us with wages and helping to drive prices down through production—so our wages will go further and buy more to satisfy our needs and desires. He's the man who buys tomorrow at wholesale in the hope of pleasing YOU.

Yes! He's a capitalist!

He's also a philosopher with a fixed daily overhead and a diplomat with a file full of accounts receivable.

He's the community philanthropist who helps build hospitals, and helps pay for schools. He's the spark plug of every community producing benefits for others while seeking some profit for himself.

He's a capitalist.

Landlords love him because his payroll helps thousands of renters pay their rent on time. Bankers respect him because they understand the risk he undertakes day after day.

We, the customers depend on him.

He keeps the factories of the nation alive. His constant freight moves the overland trucks and the nation's railroad cars. His payroll churns the community's economy.

He's a capitalist.

He likes: Quality merchandise, people who pay their bills, modern stores, clean sidewalks, shiny store windows, good checks, a healthy economy, happy customers, courteous salesmen, the Chamber of Commerce, and Christmas.
He dislikes: Inferior merchandise, shoplifters, checks that bounce, rainy days, fly-by-night salesmen, dirty show windows, and unpaid bills.

He's a buyer and he's a seller. He's a gambler, betting his own money on what will may YOU and ME—his customers—happier tomorrow than they are today.
He's proprietor, a tax collector for the state, a bookkeeper, a straw boss, a messenger boy, an efficiency expert, a cashier, a credit manager, a trouble shooter, an order filler, a payroll clerk, a bill collector, a "Yes" man, a "No" man, and a civic builder.

He's the hardest-working, most valuable man on every Main Street.

He's a capitalist.

Some optimism and common sense…

I think the American people broadly remain wise; broadly remain convinced that a benevolent government is not always a benefactor; broadly remain convinced that capitalism does not just make us better off--it makes us, in some sense, better. They're broadly convinced that when Jack Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country," one sensible response is that one thing you can do for your country is to reserve a spacious portion of your own life for which you--not your country--are responsible.

I think most Americans still understand what Milton Friedman meant when he said: Take any three letters from the alphabet, put them in any order you want, and you will have an acronym designating a federal agency we could do without.

I think most Americans still understand what Robert Frost meant when he said, "I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise."

And, most of all, I think they understand what Ronald Reagan meant when he said, "I don't want to go back to the past; I want to go back to the past way of facing the future."

– George Will

Stop blaming CEOs! It’s the way we invest that’s killing us.

Day by day, the leading corporations of the United States are growing more and more disconnected from the U.S. economy. Their interests are less and less attached to those of our workers and our consumers. Worse: they are becoming indifferent to our own nation’s economic future.

A decade ago, only 32 percent of income for firms listed in Standard & Poor’s index of the 500 largest publicly-traded U.S. firms came from sources outside the United States. However, by 2008 that figure had grown to nearly half—48 percent.

A 2008 survey conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in conjunction with the Conference Board uncovered the fact that 53 percent of the 1,600 companies surveyed had an “offshoring strategy”—compared to only 22 percent three years earlier. The survey drew the conclusion that “very few” of the companies had any “plan to relocate activities back to the United States.”

Many of the companies that have tried—usually driven by unions—to maintain a significant production presence in the U.S. (such as the automobile industry) have been “hollowed-out” by year-on-year losses. Many of these losses can be traced to bad decisions for profit-taking in earlier years or unwise concessions to unions that management must have known could not be sustained in the long run.

What’s driving this trend?

Of course, we all know the answer to this question: It’s “profits,” stupid!

But there is more than that. The whole of the blame cannot be laid on the shoulders of the CEOs and the corporate boards.

Here’s why:

 

A little history on investment

Prior to the year 1924, most people who invested in a corporation did so for one of two reasons:

1. Because they—or their advisor—believed the firm had opportunity for making profits. Not necessarily profits in the coming quarter, but in the long term.
   
2. Because they had a sincere “investment” in the firm itself. They had a heartfelt interest in what the firm produced or did for people or the economy as a whole.

So, what happened in 1924?

The first modern mutual fund was created in 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts. This began a dramatic shift in the way investors were connected—or, rather, disconnected—from the firms in which they made investments.

Mutual funds removed any sense of heart-felt investment in the long-term good of the firms in which the monetary investments reside. In fact, it removed the investor by one full step from his or her investments. Mutual funds are a dispassionate “yield” instrument only.

 

Paper entrepreneurs

Here’s how the picture has changed. In the pre-mutual fund days, most investors had a relatively direct connection with their investments and the companies in which they were invested.

Investor –> Corporation

In those days, larger investors took a personal interest in their investments and not infrequently attended stockholder meetings. They, more often than not, had a longer view of their investments and were looking out for the long-term profitability of the businesses in which they invested their funds.

However, as open-ended mutual funds grew from 19 in 1929 to more than 100 by 1954, Wall Street investment bankers began to see that the middle class could become a great source for new capital investment (and profits for the investment bankers, of course).

By the end of the 1960s, there were about 270 mutual funds supplying $48 billion in capital. The introduction of bank “money market” funds in the late 1970s boost growth even more. Then the real explosion came when Congress introduced tax-favored treatment for such investments through IRAs, 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans.

Today, while a great number of middle class Americans are invested in the stock market, the vast, vast majority of them would be unable to name any single corporation in which they hold investments. They are entirely disconnected and interested in one and only one factor: the yield on their investments.

Today the picture looks like this:

Investor –> Fund Manager –> Mutual Fund –> Corporation

As I said, the investor has one and only one interest in his investment: yield—especially short-term yield. (Since this is the “McDonald’s generation,” everything is expected to happen fast or impatience sets in.) Between the investor and his money sits the fund manager. The fund manager also has only one interest: the short-term yield on the fund. His or her interest is driven by a couple of concerns:

• Short-term yield will attract new assets to the fund, likely contributing to the fund manager’s bonus
• Short-term yield will keep assets from leaving the fund, also contributing to higher bonuses in all likelihood
• Short-term yield will increase the earnings of the fund, which is also likely a metric by which the fund manager is measured and compensated

I think you get the picture. The fund manager will measure every investment in corporations by short-term returns on investment (ROI) and the likelihood of future short-term returns. This is why I inserted the “mutual fund” as an entity between the fund manager and the corporation in which the fund is invested. It is likely that the fund manager views the fund as a entity in and of itself and its individual corporate investments as only vehicles for yield on the fund. He has no real interest—beyond short-term yield estimates—in any of the corporations in which the fund is invested.

 

The tail wags the dog

Formerly, CEOs at corporations were wise enough to not sacrifice a firm’s future for short-term profits. They were careful not to consume the company’s long-term future in pursuit of profits in the coming quarter.

But that was back in the days when the investors were invested in the firm with both their money and their hearts (and, sometimes, their souls). That was back in the days when an investor might show up in the CEOs office or at a board meeting and upbraid management for not taking a longer view toward the success of the firm.

Those days are gone for almost all publicly-held companies.

Mutual fund managers can make or break a company today by moving hundreds of millions of dollars from one company to another based solely on the prospect of short-term returns on investment. The fund managers care not one iota about the long-term success of the firms, and the investors in the mutual funds care even less.

So, what do CEOs do?

CEOs of publicly-held corporations seek only one thing: short-term profits. Boards of directors hire and compensate CEOs for this one objective because they know the dramatic loss of market capital that might be incurred if major fund managers decide to disinvest in their firms.

 

Local interests cannot play a part

It is America’s investment strategy that has driven this. It is because American investors are disconnected from their investments that CEOs are driven to this end.

It is America’s investment methods that have driven CEOs to lose interest in the American economy. The investors do not care whether the profits that bring yields to their 401(k) or IRA come from off-shoring or from selling products in South America or on the African continent.

Unlike prior American recessions—including the so-called “Great Depression—this recession is the first in American history from which corporate profits can rebound without rehiring of large numbers of American workers.

 

Politicians blame the “greedy” capitalists and the capitalist system

The politicians ought to look at their own policies. It is the preferential tax treatment given by Congress to instruments like IRAs and similar investment vehicles that have made the mutual fund market explode. Politicians ought to consider revamping every market intervention that makes “paper entrepreneurs”—instead of old-fashioned “investors”—a primary source for capital in the markets.

Actually, corporations that are not publicly-held are more likely to have a local and regional interest in our American economy and the American worker.

In the past, downwardly-mobile American consumers would have created problems for U.S. corporations. Today, since more and more profits come to these corporations from markets in other nations, this is far less a concern to them. And, it should be noted, that the U.S. market emerging from the present recession is very much downwardly mobile. (I, personally, have taken a 29 percent pay-cut in the last two years.)

 

The German model

U.S. politicians could learn a lot by looking at the German model for business financing. In Germany, city-owned savings banks provide funds to enable enterprises, especially family-owned (read: passionately invested) mid-sized businesses, to grow and prosper. The same locally-based financing gives these businesses what they need to grow and become involved in exporting their products. Nearly two out of three of Germany’s small-to-mid-sized businesses get their funding from these local banks.

The funding links and limits these enterprises to doing business in the local markets, thus building both their local economies and the larger economy of Germany as a nation.
Sadly, no similar localism can be found in America’s investment model. Our brand of capitalism and dispassionate investment drives our corporations to move more and more of their part of economic growth and hiring away from the U.S.

The answer is not more regulation of corporations. The answer is a radical restructuring of our investment and financing model for corporations.

On teaching the education establishment Communist democratic ideals

"[V]erbatim notes from the required course, Education 200Fa, Foundations of Education, given at Teachers College, Columbia University:

1. Democracy is not a form of government (the idea that the United States of America is a Republic was ridiculed). Democracy is a way of living, a social panacea. The all-inclusive definition of "democracy" given in this course defined, not American democracy, but Communist democracy.
2. "You won't get democracy," said Professor Rugg, "until you change the economic base."
3. The capitalists waste and exploit and their only desire is for profits. Individually operated business enterprises must go and our economy must be "planned" for us by the central government.
4. Private property now means "use for all the people."
5. There must be redistribution of wealth as, for example, by governmental deficit financing. Since some of our national income is held by people who do not spend it, the "government has to step in and spend it for them."
6. The agencies of communications (press, radio, TV, etc.) must be controlled by these believers in "democracy." Professor Rugg: "If you control these you can raise a barrier between people and other sets of ideas."
7. A plan for full employment (such as the Beveridge plan) would comprise government control of housing, fuel and food, control and regulation of all private industry, extension of public industry, full production by spending, and complete organization and mobility of labor.
8. The United States Senate is a bottleneck to worldwide economic planning.
9. The prejudice against negroes in the United States is "fraught with the greatest threat to our national life."
10. Ideas and values in American life are happily "changing." Such items as moral values and the "changing role of government" were stressed.
11. Education must be based on "our changing world" and the four curricular areas should be: Work (vocational), Health, Leisure, and Creative Activities. Education must be directed toward producing the kind of men and women they (Teachers Colleges) want. Some of the means at hand are sociology, psychology and expressions of art which have a "social message." Youth must be given a "sense of indubitable obligations."
12. Education of the last generation was inadequate because it was standardized (a child in a particular grade moving to another community would find the same work going on); it was inadequate because there was too much stress on the past rather than being "an enterprise in living"; it was inadequate because "discipline and control were imposed by the teacher," "order and quiet were imposed by command," the goal was "a gentleman educated in the classics," and control was "in the hands of the upper classes."

 -- Jones, K., and Olivier, R. (1956). Progressive Education is REDucation. Boston: Meador Publishing Company

It was bad already in 1955, and it has gotten worse, I suspect

In 1955, the Daily Worker (official publication of the Communist Party USA) reported with some pleasure the results of a U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey of 1,200 seniors, in 86 high schools, throughout the U.S. that showed that six in ten seniors believed that profits are unnecessary to making the economy work.

Thoughts Worth Recalling

1.
In my many years I have come to a conclusion
that one useless man is a shame,
two is a law firm
and three or more is a congress.
-- John Adams

2.
If you don't read the newspaper
you are uninformed,
if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
-- Mark Twain

3..
Suppose you were an idiot.
And suppose you were a member of Congress.
But then I repeat myself.
-- Mark Twain

4..
I contend that for a nation
to try to tax itself into prosperity
is like a man standing in a bucket
and trying to lift himself up by the handle .
-- Winston Churchill

5..
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul
can always depend on the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw

6..
A liberal is someone
who feels a great debt to his fellow man,
which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-- G. Gordon Liddy

7..
Democracy must be something more
than two wolves and a sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.
-- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

8..
Foreign aid might be defined
as a transfer of money
from poor people in rich countries
to rich people in poor countries.
-- Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

9..
Giving money and power to government
is like giving whiskey and car keys
to teenage boys.
-- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

10.
Government is the great fiction,
through which everybody endeavors
to live at the expense of everybody else.
-- Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

11.
Government's view of the economy
could be summed up in a few short phrases:
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-- Ronald Reagan (1986)

12.
I don't make jokes.
I just watch the government
and report the facts.
-- Will Rogers

13.
If yo u think health care is expensive now,
wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
-- P.J. O'Rourke

14.
In general,
the art of government
consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens
to give to the other.
-- Voltaire (1764)

15.
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics
won't take an interest in you!
-- Pericles (430 B.C.)

16.
No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in
session.
-- Mark Twain (1866)

17.
Talk is cheap...
except when Congress does it.
-- Anonymous

18.
The government is like
a baby's alimentary canal,
with a happy appetite at one end
and no responsibility at the other.
-- Ronald Reagan

19.
The inherent vice of capitalism
is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism
is the equal sharing of misery.
-- Winston Churchill

20.
The only difference between a tax man
and a taxidermist
is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-- Mark Twain

21.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill
the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

22.
There is no distinctly native American
criminal class...
save Congress.
-- Mark Twain

23.
What this country needs
are more unemployed politicians.
-- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

24.
A government big enough
to give you everything you want,
is strong enough
to take everything you have.
-- Thomas Jefferson


[From my friend and colleague, Dan Smith.]

Political cartoon from Chicago Tribune (1934)