Time to introduce you to the concept of "Economic Calculation." When two people trade money, goods, services, etc, each gives up something he wants less for something he wants more. If someone paid 50 cents for a fountain pen, one party would be rid of something he didn't want and would have fifty cents he did want, and the other would be rid of 50 cents he wanted less than his new pen, which he now has. Both sides benefit. Society moves the slightest degree forward. In like manner both sides benefit from almost every transaction that takes place, otherwise they would instantly… Read more stop trading. So multiply our pen example by millions of transactions every single day and you get a society that is rapidly moving forward and a sky-high standard of living. This is known as the free market.
But when force or fraud is introduced into a transaction, odds are at least one party will suffer a loss. Say that person was forced to pay fifty cents for a pen when he didn't want a pen. Then his standard of living goes down and society moves slightly backward. This is what happens whenever the government intervenes in the economy. It is introducing force and fraud into millions of transactions every single day by taxing and regulating them, plundering innocent people's money to fund programs they don't believe are worthwhile. The state, in short, is a mafia. And introduce force and fraud into millions of transactions every single day and you have a society teetering on the brink of collapse.
PS: This is the dirty little secret of economics you're not supposed to know – anyone can easily understand it if you remove the technical jargon the elites have used to distort the subject and increase government control over your life. I strongly recommend ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON, by Henry Hazlitt, for a fast-paced, fascinating, and effortless to understand look at economics. In 200 short pages you'll learn more than most people with college degrees on the subject know.
