Despite contrary trends, the free market remains the best market

We need the government in our workplace. President Roosevelt was right. Private business is what creates economic disasters. We need to have the government regulate every aspect of our business and our economy. Build up the necessary bureaucracy, tax accordingly (but only tax "the rich", never "the poor") and let the government take over the business world. Use the government to make sure evreryone gets paid a minimum wage, no one gets hurt, everyone has a safe happy work environment, etc. This seems to be the general platform I hear when speaking to anyone these days with a left-of-center mindset.

My own views are quite a bit different from this. And while I love to ramble on and on about the benefits of the free market, the dangers of minimum wage policies and basically all of the government intrusions that have been introduced during and since FDR's so-called "New Deal", today's issue of The Dallas Morning News has me thinking about one issue in particular that sometimes may get neglected by those of us that wish to remove as much government as possible from as many places as possible: unemployment.

A large company in DFW started laying off people in February '01. Normally, when people are laid off in our society, they first go to the unemployment office to apply for compensation, then begin looking for new jobs. Well, this company (Alcatel) discovered something about the free market that should teach us all a lesson. Alcatel found that it is in their best interest to help make sure their former employees find future employment. Go figure.

Alcatel opened the first of two "career resource centers" in February '01. It stayed open until September '03. Alcatel continued for over 2 and one-half years to assist former employees in finding new jobs. They discovered that by assisting employees that are laid off in finding new employment, their remaining workers are more likely to remain with the company through the tough times, while acquisition of more employees in the future becomes easier as well.

Had the government remained out of what used to be the free market, this sort of thing would have probably begun 50 years ago (or more). Despite all the intervention by ineffectual bureacracy, the free market still seems to shine through doesn't it? Combine this with 401(k) and other private sector contribution plans, remove the government, and people become self-sustaining once again. If you think for one second private retirement account systems like 401(k) would not be saturating every industry at every level if not for the government retirement plan sapping off all of our money you are almost certainly mistaken.

In this scenario, people still get laid off. But instead of immediately going to the government for the dole, our employers will help us get new jobs, and we can use money in the form of loans from our personal retirement account to get us through until something comes up. Best of all, the whole thing will cost far less than the government version, a socialist scheme that is doomed to failure. I dare say all of this would have been realized in this nation long ago had our government stayed out of our businesses' buisness.

I could go on for days about how many "New Deal" administrators were openly communist/socialist. I could continue with how all that socialism actually prolonged the Great Depression far longer than was necessary and how this and later legislation has served not only to hurt us financially, but has robbed us incrementally of our liberty and freedom. Perhaps another article in the near future about all that. I just wanted to point out that even though our government has established so much, well, establishment, against our free market system it still continues to be the driving force of this nation. If we let it, it will ring in a new era of freedom and liberty for all.