The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 THE ECONOMIC-POWER SYNDROME 223exempt municipal bonds reduce forthe taxpayers the costs of theservices in question.For the disinterested observer,his reason unimpaired by passionand prejudice, there is no need togo on at length with this point.It is sufficient to notice that overthe past hundred years in thiscountry, the steady trend of legislationhas been against thewealthyand the successful businesses.David Hume was correct in statingas the first principle of governmentthat all public policies arefounded in opinion. On the otherhand, in declaring that governmentin capitalist countries servesexclusively the interests of thewealthy, Karl Marx was as wrongas he was when he said that profitscome exclusively from the exploitationof labor and that increasingpoverty for the masses isthe inevitable consequence undercapitalism.An Argument OmittedStrangely·enough, the victims ofthe economic-power syndromehave left almost completely undevelopedan argument which, ifthey could sustain it, would carrythe day for them. They could bearguing that, while it is true thatall government rests upon opinion- on political votes rather thandollars - the wealthy and·the bigbusinessmen control .governmentby controlling the political and socialideas of the citizenry. Why isthis argument so rarely made?I offer as a possible answer thefact that the argument is so patentlyat odds with reality. If weconfine ourselves to reality wecannot help observing a tremendousdisproportion in all the areasof intellectual communication andopinion-forming. A vast majorityof instructional personnel fromgrade-school through graduateschool roams somewhere left ofcenter. Most newspaper columnists,moreover, consider themselvesleftist-liberals and spendlittle time vaunting the virtues ofcapitalism. For every best-sellingauthor on the right, there are atleast ten on the left. Foundationsestablished by the wealthy spendinfinitely greater sums promotingthe welfare state than they do indefending capitalism. ProfessorPaul Samuelson has become awealthy man as author of an economictext sympathetic with thewelfare' state, if not with socialism.Galbraith's books become automaticbest sellers. The works ofLudwig von Mises, the most powerfulprotagonist of capitalism inprint, do not sell in sufficientquantities to feed him.Let us now approach the problemmore systematically. The contentionthat economic power translatesinto political power by way