The Reforms

A government that is limited to its own duties -justice, security and public works- allows companies to produce goods and services in better quality and bigger quantity, making the economy grow in a really effective way, not only in numbers. In this way, many opportunities are created to produce enough employment for everybody, which makes the salaries grow, as well as productivity and the size of the economic product, that is to say wealth is boosted. Accordingly, as long as wealth is produced, it is also spread through higher salaries that allow buying and paying food, clothing, properties, transportation, education, medical care and insurance policies to elderly or other unforeseen events; regardless the State or political changes.

By limiting the State to a normal and adjusted size, and all economy to its natural laws, salaries will be sufficient to pay real and profitable prices for food, education, medicine or any other products. These real prices will be enough motivation for producers to work hard, and there will be no need of any production incentive program or other promotions in the political sphere. With a limited government, the transit from one production sector to another will be the result of the changes in prices structure, without prohibitions for importations.

It is clear that our ideology is opposite to Statism. Statism is referred as the control of State over all spheres of society, it would be its neo-mercantilist version (sometimes called Neo-liberalism), in its nationalist, socialist and communist versions, that is to say, a combination of all of them. We call these models: “21st Century New-statism”.

We are expecting with enthusiasm the models applied in Hong Kong and Shanghai, which have been established as a point of reference for our economies because they are an example of “liberal economic success”.

1. With private property we all can earn more and live better. Private property is not just the right to keep what one belongs, but also to use freely what one owns. This is the main principle of an economy of free companies in free markets. Where there are private companies in open competition, wealth is promoted with great efficiency; in such a way that the prices tend to fall, though goods get better and more abundant. In this way, business tend to multiply and plenty job positions are opened. The employers compete for employees, so salaries tend to rise. That has never been seen in Latin America before! Definitely not. Here, there has never been a free market. Why? Because many people believe that free market is only good for the rich or that it only works to produce wealth, without its distribution. This is not true. Where there are free markets, people have better incomes because there is more investment and more is saved as well, so wealth is created easily and it is distributed in real money with adequate and growing incomes for everybody.

2. Private property is the medicine to poverty. This is why those who owe more respect to private property are not those who are rich, rather those in need. Without private property, rich can become poor, but poor will never be rich! In a system like that, poor people do not have a complete right over their products. That is why it is necessary to highlight that the poor require good incomes and to be able to get properties, they need to respect the rights of private property. Then, the three conditions, previously stated, are fundamental and complementary:

I. We need governments that are limited to their own functions, providing what the markets cannot provide effectively: justice, security and public works. In this way, governments are limited in power, benefits, expenditure and resources; hence, the money becomes available for citizens, as well as assets and other economic resources, needed to satisfy people’s needs through private means.

II. It is necessary to have markets, companies and private activities for people to coordinate spontaneously, offering the resources they possess.

III. Private institutions must work separately from the State in order to avoid the troublesome and humiliating submission to power and Politics.

3. Private property is the secret to development. The journalist Tom Bethell, in his book called “The Noblest Triumph”, enquires about wealth of nations and he determines that all of them conclude in the respect to private property, in which people can have and use what they own. Those countries which defend and protect the rights of private property are those which are the wealthiest and more developed ones. More than fifty years ago, the businessman Henry Weaver, analyzed the history of mankind in his book called “The Source of Human Progress”, and he came to the same conclusion; just like the French writer, Frederic Bastiat, in his book “The Law”, written more than one hundred years ago; and, two hundred years ago, Adam Smith in “The Wealth of Nations”; moreover, four thousand years ago, Moises –in the name of God- commanded the jews to respect private property.

4. Private property is a warrant for democracy. Many democratic governments have attributed the function of “wealth redistribution”, it is supposed to be for the benefit of the poor majority at the expense of the rich minority. This is how the respect to private property is lost, and the attacks against it start: overtaxation, , inflation, massive public debt, expropriation and a huge amount of laws, decrees, limiting regulations and restrictions to property rights. For centuries, this has been the way to the free development  markets. In this way, governments are not limited , markets are not free and private institutions are not separated from State. This is how every single element connected to democracy is perverted, like the principles of supremacy of law, independence of judges, federalism, validity of human rights, fair elections; and others like free of expression, of teaching, of worship among others.

5. Private property is the support to liberty. Freedom of expression becomes nothing if media depend of licenses and exclusive permissions. Freedom of teaching is nonexistent when citizens cannot own teaching centers. The same happens with freedom of worship, when there is no public property for temples and religious learning centers, for churches or religious associations. This is how without private property lack every single basic liberty that democracy safeguards and preserves. The quote: “In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation” was not written by a liberal or a conservative, but by the ultra communist Leon Trotsky, as he was disappointed and frustrated by the failure of his fight against Stalin, when he discovered the cause his failure.

Five Enemies of Private Property

1. Confiscations, expropriations and invasions emerge with more force every time into the private spheres -agriculture, banking, education, sports, medicine, art, science, among others. By these means governments have more and more functions, incurring in excessive expenditures and powers.

I. Excessive public expenditures takes to excessive taxation, which becomes a robbery to private property. When taxes are not enough, governments resort to public debt. This becomes a deferred tax in time or they resort to inflation (a tax in disguise).

II. Excessive power leads to company confiscations, assets and other private properties, or to promotion of private invasions of private property.

2. Limiting regulations and other bad laws. Excessive power takes to arbitrary ordinances, in disguised as laws, which only pretend to be private property. For example, you own a house and you use it freely, right? Let us suppose that tomorrow laws decide what time your guests must leave or who can come or not. What kind of meeting you can make or what time they must start. What must be prepared or when cleaning is done. Would those intrusions be opposite to the right of property? The same thing happens with the economic life, job laws that protect vacancy and kill employment; or with criminal laws that promote crime. Bad laws are “protectors” that make trouble, these mistake is due the the assumption that every order coming for the Parliament is a law, even if it is opposite to reason, inequity, or reality; and considering the common will as the supreme and unquestionable law, which is not affected by rational arguments or natural rights. This produces perversions in the concepts of law and democracy. When these concepts are no longer useful and reason has lost sight, it only remains naked violence.

3. Insecurity and injustice. The prevailing insecurity on streets and fields, and the lack of justice in courts also represent agressions against private property, the same as the general neglect of the basic functions of the State -justice, security and public works- in the attempt of covering too many functions. Just like public works make properties more valuable, their detriment makes it diminish. The same happens with the neglect of police functions and justice.

4. Misleading concepts. Maybe, the biggest danger of private property are the nonsense phrases. “Private property is a robbery” said Prudhomme, a socialist, and thieves jumped with joy. “The medium is the message”, said McLuhan and we neglected the idea of thinking if messages do or do not have meaning. What people believe takes the place of the objective reality as a criterion of truth. We become slaves of fashion and changing opinions immersed in relativism. Some examples of misleading concepts are: “real” democracy, “sustainable development”, “social debt”, “social business responsibility”.  These are vague concepts, blurring, confusing, wrong and with many different interpretations, typical of the lazy thinking. This misleading thinking opens huge doors to all sort of awkwardness, whims, abuses with the wrong assumption that governments are intellectually and morally higher than us or that they know our interests and needs better, so they can lead our lives, actions and consciousness, and use our properties at their will.

5. Neglect of reason as a criterion of judgement and behaviour. As long as reason represents a higher criterion of questioning and judgement, the misleading concepts cannot succeed. And as there is time and efforts to think and reason prevails, the images to the words, and emotions to the evidence, and the sensations to the facts, there is still hope.