I
enjoy talking about Charles,
David,
William
Koch, even a family
history. Charles Koch recently wrote a letter that was published in Koch
Industry’s July Discovery magazine here. The article
talks about when Charles visited Russia in 1990 (formerly known as the Soviet
Union) he quickly noticed how many shortages there were. I actually did a
research project for one of my MBA courses where I shortages of products when
the country was rationing products. Not only did the rationing lead had to
study Russia and why a company should open business there (I ended up picking
Wal-Mart). In my research I remember reading about to shortages if you could
actually find food it was priced much higher than you could find elsewhere.
Also
he points out that even though the country had “free” healthcare but the
quality was very poor compared to standards of the United States. He then goes
on to discuss how the Soviet Union is a prime example of why economic freedom
is important. Also people who depend on government are not as free as they
think because as Charles points out “Citizens who over-rely on their government
to do everything not only become dependent on their government, they end up
having to do whatever the government demands.
In the meantime, their initiative and self-respect are destroyed”.
Charles Koch and understands the welfare system. As Thomas Sowell would say Democrats
want to help the poor while they are poor, while Republicans want to help the
poor from stop being poor.
Not
only do people ask for handouts but companies and industries also ask for
handouts. Companies don’t directly ask for handouts however they may get
special treatment that other companies don’t get. For instance farmers enjoy subsidies
(which represents only a handful of farmers) meanwhile they artificially increase
the price of crops that go into many different products we use. If we got rid
of these subsidies the prices of inputs like corn, cotton, sugar, and wheat
would not only decrease but any end product that used these inputs would also
decrease which would save Americans billions of dollars per year. The people
who are truly hurt by these subsidies are the poor and even middle class
families who see food prices increase because the government enjoys subsiding
farmers. If a business cannot meet the needs of their customers they should be
forced to go out of business. As Milton Friedman use to say business is a
profit and loss system. The profits encourage wise behavior while the losses
force people to realize reality is not optional.
Charles
Koch also points out that disparity not only exists in America but even in
other countries that have dictators. He is absolutely right. In these countries
you have a small class of people who are really rich because the government can
hand out favors or blocks certain people from entering (modern day Russia seems
to be like this with various oligopolies) while the vast majority of people
have a lower standard of living. The United States is much more transparent
than most developed countries but still has issues from time to time with this.
I
was a little sad to here that Mr. Koch is not seeking political office like his
brother did in 1980 on the libertarian ticket with Ed Clark. What Mr. Koch seems
to understand is that economic freedom does in fact create economic prosperity.
I am not sure why this is so hard for many people to understand. When
discussing his legacy Mr. Koch says “I want my legacy to be greater freedom, greater
prosperity and a better way of life for my family, our employees and all Americans. And I wish the same for every nation on
earth.” Mr. Koch has done a great job of creating jobs, running a company, and
helping spread the word of limited government with its main ingredient of
liberty. I just wish now he would write an autobiography so we could learn more
about this great individual!
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