The recent efforts by President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence against Carrier Corp. provide us with a signpost of the economic fascism that lies ahead after both men take office. Whatever might be said about economic fascism, one thing is for sure: it is contrary to the principles of economic liberty, private property, the free market, and the rule of law.
Targeting Carrier for daring to move some of its operations to Mexico, Pence, as governor of Indiana, offered the company a package of tax incentives to induce the company to keep some of its operations in Indiana. At the same time, Trump announced that as president he will punish any American company that moved abroad with the imposition of a high tariff on any goods it wished to ship into the United States.
That, my friends, is economic fascism in action. That’s precisely how Benito Mussolini, the democratically elected leader of Italy, operated in the 1930s — through edicts, decrees, and economic legislation directed at forcing or inducing private-sector businesses to behave as the political authorities wanted them to behave.
Under principles of economic liberty, private property, and the free market, people have the fundamental, God-given right to establish and move their business operations anywhere they want. That’s because it’s their business and their money, not society’s, not the government’s, and not the workers’.
Read the rest at the Future of Freedom Foundation.
