June 26, 2016
Unleash the Producers, Not the Parasites
By Jeffrey Folks
In his wonderful book, The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley explores the ways in which trade and commerce have propelled innovation and well-being. Ridley presents evidence that for the last 100,000 years, humans have engaged in trade and that the rise of complex civilizations can be tied to the exchange of ideas associated with trade. So widespread and deep-seated is this instinct for exchange that, according to Ridley, it is evidence of a fundamental genetic propensity in Homo sapiens. The human brain is hardwired to engage in all forms of exchange – commercial, social, and intellectual – and the result is an ever-improving quality of life.
Ridley is indeed an "optimist," but he is realistic enough to know that government can strangle innovation by preying upon private enterprise. Human history is full of examples of great civilizations brought low by the parasitic inclinations of powerful rulers – the kind of rulers who now govern our nation by executive order rather than by the rule of law. Under the weight of these parasites, as Ridley shows, civilization stagnates or regresses to earlier stages of development.
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