Summary of “Inclined to liberty”
By Kevin (Xiong Feng, 200873518)
People seem to be born with inclination towards either liberty or mastery.We gain comfort when someone else agrees with our beliefs.I am inclined to liberty.When my guests challenged my beliefs at the dinner party, I began to search for the answer.So I wrote this book to help codify my thoughts and beliefs.
The proposition of that night each containing the notion of unfairne and the obligation to right it actually shows a rooted resentment for the rich.We tend to blame people for what we don’t have, because we read and hear the aertions in the media everyday.The media often distort the stories, and the politicians use campaign themes to make us blame one group for the ills of another.In reality, no one owes us a life free of misery.We should be thankful for the rich.Because of their big contribution to the grand profits, the prices become lower.
In political arena, most people view the use of physical force as a proper way to offer aid.They believe the state can provide prosperity for everyone simply by creating and distributing wealth.The state’s taxation and iuing fiat money makes the people who are producing real goods have to pay for all the free benefits that others receive.Also, the recipients become more and more dependent on the free lunches and tend to produce le.
Since democracy encourages everyone to empre opinions about other people’s busine, almost every human act is restricted by some regulations.However, regulations do more harm than taxation.They divert human energy from productive actions to nonproductive actions, which later increases the end cost to consumers.
If everyone receives the same share of the total production, regardle of individual
production, the people who produce and contribute most to the community will naturally lower their contribution to the average, which is opposite to the state’s real desire.
In a voluntary exchange, both parties gain in well-being, because in free markets, the earning of wealth depends on those who see value in the earner’s goods or services.But we tend to focus on only the gain of the seller.
Money can increase the efficiency of trade, but it cannot create prosperity.If the government keeps on iuing money, the unit value of the money will fall, harming mainly the savers, especially the elderly.Wealth is measured by what you can get with the money.One person’s wealth depends on what one does to increase his productivity.Equalizing wealth will only result in reducing real earnings for everyone, especially the poorest.Income quintile tiers are a natural distribution phenomenon.With the increase in a country’s level of freedom, the income of each quintile actually increases largely.The income figures which show the earning gap is worsening do not take population mobility and the value of money into consideration.The figures only help the free riders to ask for mare free benefits and higher tax rates for the rich.
In a free market, the wealthy people have contributed much more than what they’ve got by “representing revolutionary new ideas which push technology, create and facilitate markets, invent ways to increase productivities, or entertain us in new ways.” As a result, everyone is better off.Also, the people with greater talent or skill have more production.Then the sum of all production is raised, which shows a society’s prosperity.
The employers hire employees to make profits.So it is fair for them to fire employees to increase profits.“The jobs that do not generate goods or services valued by others will not generate prosperity.” Such is the make-work jobs in the war which lower the production of the
whole.The division of labor allows everyone gets the job which is well-suited, thereby increasing the individual prosperity and the prosperity of the community.With job restrictions, the cost of goods and services rises, which consequently prevent the creation of new jobs.Short workweeks and rigid job legislation only will reduce productivity, which forces people to circumvent the laws.
Marx’s unrealistic promises resemble religion.Marxists endorse the concept of mastery over others, which, in fact, is a quest for social and political power.Marx, like many other do-gooders wanted to reform the world they despised, but failed to understand causality and human nature.
All political camps support intrusion into the individual’s personal affairs, which is totally wrong.Actually, prosperity evolves spontaneously, despite the state’s restrictions.Taxation and subsidies reduce the free market efficiency of competition and incentives.Inequality is natural, because those who are the lease well off will gain from those who are better off.The aets that people gain will be spent, invested, and distributed more wisely than the state would.The political proposals which prevent peaceful activity, in fact, support violence, contrary to human liberty.Without the state equalizing consequences, people make judgments more carefully, because they bear the cost of their own mistakes.Social order is formed by the laws of causality that govern the effects of our actions.Those who try to engineer society against human nature will definitely fail and may lead to a disaster, as history has told us.
It is the people, not the state that can produce.And for many people, wealth is for more than money and material poeions.That’s why I say “liberty is won when you accept the idea that you are the sole master of your life.”
