“The Kingdom of God is within you.”

-Jesus Christ in Luke 17:21

I believe in an essentially laissez-faire economy.  We know that lower regulations and lower taxes often spur growth (see the example of Hong Kong here), and that economic freedom and religious liberty are what brought so many people to America throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries.  But there’s something else about fiscal conservatism/economic libertarianism that should be mentioned.

It is consistent with my belief in the power of the individual.

A statist system in which the government provides healthcare, education, and money suggests to me that statists don’t believe in the power of the individual.  After all, if you didn’t believe that individuals could take care of themselves, you would certainly call for the government action they call for.  “They need help.”  Some people do need help, sure, but to make it official government policy says something about your beliefs in humanity.  I think that running this kind of government is a disingenuous form of compassion that doesn’t only harm our economy, it restricts actual personal growth and the personal benefits of charity.

But since liberals are spotted taking government action on behalf of the poor – like Ted Kennedy did – they can make easy claims of compassion.  Conservatives realize that a rising tide lifts all ships, and that free market policy is simply the best we can do for the poor without destroying our own economy.  Conservatives don’t look like activists for the poor because their policy seems a little counter-intuitive.

Conservatives believe that Utopia – which roughly translates as “no place” in Greek – is not possible.  As Ludwig Von Mises wrote, progress cannot be organized – not on a scale as large as civilization.  Bureaucrats can’t legislate their state into prosperity.  They have their own interests to serve, quotas to meet, and don’t have the risk of their personal money to consider.  In a free market, people make their own decisions, including investments, purchases, hirings, and firings, and have the incentive of knowing that if they fail, it’s their money that’s lost.  Businesses that don’t serve the interests of enough customers fail; businesses that do succeed.  Millions of these individuals end up regulating the “economy” (just an abstraction describing all of the trade that occurs within a country) themselves – and do a better job than any government could.  Utopia is a myth.

But why should a political system need to look like activism for the poor in the first place?  The assumption is that the government needs to help the poor.  How and when did that become government’s responsibility?  Is that not something that should be imbedded in a compassionate culture, without the need for government legislation?  To force government upon us does mean action, but it only treats the symptoms of poverty, not the causes.

The causes rise from the individual.

Lack of money is a symptom of poverty, not poverty itself.  Many liberals fail to understand that.  Why else would so many lottery winners end up bankrupt within years?  Why else would the homeless man who received $100,000 from Oprah refuse financial advisors and blow all of the money (link)?

Human beings have always naturally sorted out according to the Pareto principle – a minority of wealthy people controlled most of the wealth.  This is always the case.  The free market economy at least embraces this and leaves the money to people who own it, allowing them to create jobs, buy goods, and outsource work.  Want an example of trickle-down economics in action?  It’s called a paycheck.

If history has taught us that human beings will always economically sort out in a Pareto principle shape, and we see that free markets have worked to create prosperity in the past, we should realize that the free market is simply the best economic system we have.

If I told you that the best economic system we have is the one that includes the most freedom for individuals, wouldn’t you fall in love with it?

What about poverty?  Let’s treat it at a cause level.

As mentioned, lack of money is a symptom of poverty, but it’s just part of the story.  If you can directly give a homeless man enough to live on and build himself up – $100,000 – only to see him waste it, there must be something else going on.  Similarly, if you take away some peoples’ money, they can earn it back.  In the book “Scratch Beginnings,” a middle-class young adult went to a homeless shelter with only $25 in his pocket – within a year he had a truck, a job, and was living in an apartment.

The individual has the power to make himself wealthy or poor.  I’m not saying this is an easy choice for everyone, but it is a choice you can make, as demonstrated time and time again here in America. What about people who were born rich?  Someone in their family tree had to become rich – and maintaining wealth is often a challenge, as well.

It follows that treating poverty should treat the individual, which is why personal charity can be far more effective than government-legislated handouts.  Education is very important, but I’m not talking about public school education – often, self-education is the best kind.  Besides, what kind of financial advice would public school teachers have to give?

If an individual gives you charity of his own volition, that impact will be far more powerful than the government checks you receive in the mail.  It won’t only help you believe in the good of humanity, that personal charity will be more targeted to your specific situation.  It will give you expectations to live up to and faith in yourself.  Like the private market, in which consumers are free to choose where they put their money, private charity means individuals making decisions, not a distant bureaucrat concerned about protecting his own job and filling quotas.

If the government forces you to give money to poor people, what good is that for you?  It certainly doesn’t make you much of a better person – after all, they’d punish you if you didn’t.  But if you give money you earned to charity and do it because of your own free will, it enriches the life of the giver as well as the recipient.  Private charity often results in benefits that are more than the sum of money that changed hands;  it’s certainly different than when you’re forced via tax to give to the poor.

Self-made gazillionaire (he was born poor) Andrew Carnegie – listed here as the second-wealthiest historical figure of all time – wrote that to die rich is to die disgraced.  He had given away most of his money by the time he died (he had given away over $350,000,000 and had some $30,000,000 remaining), which means that to many people, the world was better because Andrew Carnegie had gotten rich.  But more important than the money is the mindset behind his wealth – both charity and hard work.  Ambition made him serve the world – or at least his employers and eventually customers – better.  When he was just a worker in a telegraph office, he memorized the location of Pittsburgh businesses so he could better deliver messages.  He also worked to memorize the important people he came across.  What do you know, his work resulted in a promotion.  And he kept building up from there.

Anyone who’s attempted to succeed in business knows that to earn money honestly, you have to serve others well.  Some people earn money dishonestly, but it’s not a very sustainable business model.  The drive for the individual to achieve often does “lift the tides and raise all the ships,” as new industries are forged, jobs are created, and innovation improves our quality of life.

The government that ignores the power of the individual does so at its own disservice.  In fiscal conservatism and free market principles, I can satisfactorily unify my belief in the power of the individual with my political thoughts.  I believe that true growth comes from within, just as true economic growth comes from the individuals making their own decisions.  I want to leave other individuals with the economic freedom to pursue their dreams, just as I want to pursue mine.

There’s a reason so many poor people came to America.  It wasn’t because they’d get a check.  It was simply because they’d be free to seek their own checks.  A good free market country would be one poor people could flock to, ready to receive the many available jobs created by wealthy people with ambition.

Even Jesus, who performed the ultimate act of sacrifice and giving for us, said that the kingdom of God or Heaven is within us.  I don’t think he was talking about wealth, but I do think he was talking about the individual responsibility for growth.

If you’re a poor person reading this on a public computer, what am I saying about you?  I’m saying you should wake up from the illusion that you need to be cared for.  Remember, I’m talking about you here – the individual.  Wake up the illusion that you need to be cared for, which makes the assumption that you don’t have the power to live a better life.  Care for yourself, do more work than you are paid for, and you can still achieve a lot in America.  Then go back and help others do it, too.

Utopia is a myth.  The kingdom is within.