Arthur Brooks, the President of the "free enterprise" American Enterprise Institute, has really muddied the waters today. At something called a Poverty Summit, Brooks says:
We have a bad tendency on both left and right to talk about the poor as liabilities to manage. They are assets to develop. #PovertySummit
— Arthur Brooks (@arthurbrooks) May 12, 2015
Poor people are "assets"? Assets to whom?
And who is to "develop" these assets?
What kind of rabbit hole is Brooks carving here?
True free enterprise means (A) may freely and voluntarily exchange with (B) without government interference of any kind. Free enterprise has nothing to do with "developing" the poor, the rich, or anyone in between.
Brooks heads deeper into the rabbit hole:
The social safety net for truly poor and indigent people is one of the great achievements of free enterprise. #PovertySummit
— Arthur Brooks (@arthurbrooks) May 12, 2015
Unfortunately, we don't live in a free society, and free enterprise has the government ball and chain wrapped around its neck. Government has erected the biggest dependency society on the planet. You can't throw a stone without hitting someone that receives some form of government check.
Brooks credits this ticking time-bomb to "free enterprise" and says it's "one of the great achievements".
He's completely turned free enterprise on its head.
Chris Rossini is author of Set Money Free: What Every American Needs To Know About The Federal Reserve. Follow @chrisrossini on Twitter.
Who's assets are they? How are these assets allocatied? Homesteading, or? Scary, indeed.
ReplyDeleteYou might be giving Brooks a little bit of an unfair shake on the second tweet, though, CR.
If read more generously, one could take him to mean something along the lines of:
"Without free enterprise, there wouldn't be an abundence goods, or medical advancements, etc. Welfare checks don't do you no good withouit goods to buy with em."
Maybe he's saying the market is already taking care of everyone, rich and poor, whether people know it or not. And government theft is a seperate issue.
See! He's a regular Lugwig von Mises!