Vice President-elect Mike Pence has no idea what the term “free market” means, or at least, that is what his most recent statement would suggest. Defending President-elect Trump’s $7 million deal with Carrier, Pence recently stated, “the free market has been sorting it out and America’s been losing.”
While there have been some libertarian arguments made in defense of this new deal with Carrier, which will keep 1,000 jobs in the United States instead of moving them to Mexico, blaming the free market for a loss of American jobs is far-fetched, to say the least.
However, there is something even more disturbing about Pence’s belief that the free market has failed the American people: it shows a complete lack of understanding for what a free market really is. Surely, if Pence had a clear idea of what a free market economy actually entails, he would know that America, doesn’t actually have one.
While still faring better than many other nations, America has become somewhat of a beacon of crony capitalism. From corporate bailouts to giant subsidies given to American companies which do not actually need these handouts, the United States does not have a great track record when it comes to keeping the government, and taxpayer dollars, out of big business.
Read the rest at the Mises Institute.
