The Free Market in Capital Between the 20Th and 90Th Percentile of Income
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~D\\j1G September 1988 \r~ Volume VI TheFreeMarket Number 9 t INSTITUTE The Case Against Government Child Care by Kathleen M. Spotts American families need more affordable child care. But the answer is not more government involvement. When child care is run, funded, and regulated by the government, it can only make the existing problem worse. And it's bad for our liberty as well. Young couples with children may think they want govern, ment child care. But they don't realize that Americans like themselves will be the biggest losers in this Faustian bargain with the State'. They risk losing their right to raise their children as they-and not bureaucrats-see fit. It is not difficult to see why calls for action on child care have grown to a deafening level. Half the married mothers with children under five are working, twice the number who did in 1970. By 1995 two,thirds ofall preschool children are xpected to have working mothers. Licensed, regulated child care costs an average of $3,000 per child per year. Most families can't afford that, especially The ABC bill would only be the first step. We can expect single,parent families whose annual incomes are less than pressure groups to launch a full,time effort to make sure $10,000. Many of these families now make unofficial ar, there's no turning back. That's why Senator Orrin Hatch's rangements in the black (i.e. free) market, which include (R,UT) bill isn't much better. He proposes a "conservative" relatives, neighbors, and other unlicensed child,care pro, alternative (i. e. more regulation, some tax credits, and viders. vouchers), but with its direct tax subsidies in the form of It's already illegal in most states to provide more than 20 vouchers-not to speak of its regulations-it too would hours a week ofchild care in your home without government encourage powerful lobbying groups to make sure it leads to permission. Yet legislators are proposing to federalize these total federal control. laws and make them harsher. Their prime vehicle is the Advocates of more regulation cite the case of Jessica "ABC bill," the Act for Better Child Care Services, spon, McClure, the 18,month,old Texas girl who fell down a well sored by Senator Christopher Dodd (D,CT) and Represen, last year. According to the misnamed Children's Defense tative. Dale Kildee (D,MI). Fund, Jessica fell because she attended an "unregulated Texas The ABC bill would create a brand,new, full,blown feder' family day,care program." Stamp out unregulated family day al "entitlement" program, complete with subsidies, grants, care, CDF says, and such accidents would end. This is licenses, loans, regulations, certificates, and inspections. nonsense, of course. Regulated industries are much less The program would be administered by the states but over, responsive to consumer demands than unregulated ones. seen by a federal child,care administrator backed by an army Continued on back page of bureaucrats. ABC would authorize $2.5 billion in the first year and "suchsums as may be necessary" thereafter. If licensed child, are costs $3,000 per child per year and 16 million children The Mussolinization of America 2 are eligible, simple multiplication tells us that the program Medicare and Equality 3 will cost at least $48 billion annually. And knowing how William H. Hutt, in Memoriam 4 government programs work, after that, the sky is the limit. the NRA was unconstitutional, prevented the establishment Massachussetts and of a fascist economy in our country. FDR denounced the "nine old men" and tried to pack the court with NRA the Mussolinization proponents. But the American people, including most ofhi( of America supporters, opposed the power grab, and he lost. That did by Lew Rockwell not end the battle, however. Today, there are many elements of a corporate state in Washington. But in Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis has come closest to actually establishing one. Wrote the Wash Official socialism has probably never been a threat in ington Post recently: America, but the corporate state has. And 'is. Corporate Massachusetts is in a de facto alliance with It all began in 1919 when ex .. Marxist Benito Mussolini the state and a host ofpotentially conflicting interests, wrote the Fascist Party platform, calling for central planning including...organized labor... , all of whom serve on through a "partnership" ofgovernment, business, and labor. agency boards and are also recipients of agency By 1925 he was in total power. grants.... Not all of Mussolini's admirers were in Italy. The cover Not only has Dukakis drawn these business leaders into story of the New York Times Magazine for October 24, 1926, what amounts to limited partnerships with state gov.. gushed: ernment, with the governor as the dominant general The most approachable as well as the most interesting partner, but also these quasi.. public agencies have statesman in Europe. He is a voracious learner who never makes the same mistake twice.... The whole country is keyed up by his energy.... The whole economic structure of the nation has been As Misesian analysis shows, charted out in a graph that shows it as a huge corpora.. tion with the Government as the directorate. He ex .. the corporate state must be an plains it clearly and patiently, reminding you that he economic failure, started his career as a teacher. An earlier New York Times editorial (October 31, 1922) no matter what had explained: miracles are claimed. In Italy as everywhere the great complaint against democracy today is its inefficiency.... N either the failures nor the successes of (Russia's) Bolshevist Gov.. ernment offer much of an example to the Western formed a web of financial arrangements with at least world. Dr. Mussolini's experiment will perhaps tell us 3,000 corporations across the state. The state govern.. something more about the possibilities of oligarchic ment effectively has been entrenched in almost every administration. nook and cranny of the private sector. Although Herbert Hoover in many ways prefigured him, it The tools Dukakis used to create this alliance for central was Franklin D. Roosevelt who first tried to create an explicit planning included a larger bureaucracy; subsidized loans, corporate state in America with his National Recovery Ad.. bailouts, and outright grants for big businesses; and guaran.. ministration (NRA). With its fascist ..style Blue Eagle em.. teed high wages for unions. blem, the NRA coordinated big business and labor in a Those on the Massachusetts gravy line include the insur.. central plan, and outlawed competition. The NRA even ance industry, especially John Hancock Mutual Life; high.. employed vigilante groups to spy on smaller businesses and tech corporations like our old friend GE, Digital Equipment report if they violated the plan. Corp., and Raytheon; and banks like the Bank of Boston. Just as in Mussolini's Italy, the beneficiaries of the u.s. Each is represented on the boards of the Massachusetts corporate state were-in addition to the government itself Capital Resources Corp., the Massachusetts Industrial Fi .. established economic interest groups. NRA cheerleaders nance Agency, and similar corporate..statist entities. And included the National Association of Manufacturers, the all march in profitable lock.. step with the state. The only u.s. Chamber of Commerce, the American Bar Associa.. losers are taxpayers, consumers, and businesses without po; tion, the United Mine Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing litical connections. Workers, and-above all-Gerard Swope of General Elec.. The Post notes that Dukakis's policies "diverge sharply tric, who helped draft the NRA act. from the more traditional type ofpartisan politics emphasiz.. Only the courage ofthe Supreme Court, which ruled that ing ideological splits between business and labor." 2 With guaranteed profits, corporations are partially liber.. Medicare and the Myth of Equality ated from consumer control. In return, they agree to pay the above.. market wages that labor unions demand, and other.. by Mark D. Hughes lise cooperate with the state. But what will be the economic The notion that the Welfare State exists for the benefit of result? the poor is at best naive and at worst a despicable lie. The In 1920, Ludwig von Mises showed in "Economic Calcula.. true purpose of the welfare state is not to aid the poor but to tion in the Socialist Commonwealth" that there can be no benefit politically powerful special interest groups, usually in rational central planning. the middle class. No other conclusion is possible from what we know about the politics ofpoverty and the facts ofwelfare In a free market, consumers' spending decisions tell pro.. programs. ducers what and how much to produce. If consumers prefer Fords to Chevrolets, they tell Ford Motor Company to make In democratic politics, the interests of groups within the middle class control the bulk of all wealth transfers. The more cars by buying more of them, thereby driving up the price of Fords relative to Chevrolets and attracting more majority of this income redistribution, however, takes place investment to Ford. Because of the free market in capital between the 20th and 90th percentile of income. This is the goods, Ford is able to devote more resources to production area of the largest tax base and it's also where the greatest than Chevrolet. concentration of political power is. Socialized medicine, for example, has harmed the poor This process enables firms to rationally calculate the and benefited pressure groups like organized medicine, hos.. "structure of production" from the beginning to the end, to use scarce resources to satisfy the most highly valued goals of pitals, pharmaceutical companies, and medical supply firms. consumers. Mises showed that under socialism, economic calculation is impossi,ble.