It is possible for people to live together peacefully and productively. But politics damages and even destroys the necessary foundations. In fact, the damage has now become so great that the existence of Western civilization is at stake.
The free market economy allows for and promotes the peaceful and productive coexistence of people. It offers you and me, all of us who tend to have very different goals, talents, and inclinations, the opportunity to connect nationally and internationally for our mutual benefit through the division of labour.
People in societies that implement division of labour not only increase their material prosperity, they also recognize each other as useful contributors for overcoming the challenges of their lives. The free market economy, therefore, connects people peacefully with one another, not just temporarily, but with a lasting perspective.
The free market economy is based on voluntary action: everyone is free to offer goods to their fellow human beings, which they can either voluntarily accept or reject, and everyone is free to demand the goods they wish to purchase. Coercion, violence and war are alien to the free market.
In a free market economy, there is unconditional respect for private property: everyone has self-ownership of his/her body and physical goods acquired through non-aggressive means (through homesteading, production and/or trade, including donations).
If the goods are privately owned, and their prices are determined freely on the market, then it is ensured that the most urgent needs are met in the best possible way with limited resources. The free market optimally solves or defuses the problem of scarcity that people inevitably face.
The development of people’s material wealth over the past two hundred years is, therefore, not a coincidence but rather the result of a relatively (more or less) free market system with all its defining characteristics: individual freedom, private property, free trade, equality before the law and peace.
All these amazing civilizational achievements did not fall into people’s laps but resulted from the free market system. And to the extent that free markets are suppressed, restricted or even abolished altogether, Western civilization will (gradually) evaporate into thin air and inevitably be lost.
The fact that today there is no longer peace and sustained economic growth but rather ever-greater crises, conflicts and loss of prosperity is because the forces whose goal is to destroy the free market economy (or what little is left of it today) have now become so frighteningly strong.
The truth is that collectivist-socialist-communist ideas have gained the upper hand in the thoughts and actions of many people. Often, people are not even aware of it. That’s not all that surprising; after all, collectivist-socialist-communist ideas are no longer called by their real name these days.
They come with new name tags – most recently, they have been referred to as climate policy, anti-virus policy, lockdown policy, “green policy”, “Great Transformation”, “New World Order”, or “Great Reset”. Behind all these neologisms hides a dark notion: people should no longer be allowed to organize their lives in a system of free markets.
Rather, people’s destinies should be controlled and directed by a central authority – a technocratic elite, a world council, a world government. This is (allegedly) the only way to get humanity’s problems on this globe – such as financial and economic crises, resource scarcity, terrorism, epidemics, climate change, etc. – under control.
The states (as we know them today) should be given even more unrestricted power – at the expense of the freedoms of citizens and entrepreneurs. The states or special interest groups that use them for their own purposes become a ruling caste that can no longer be controlled by the people.
States are increasingly intervening in all areas of life: education (kindergarten, schools, university), health, retirement planning, transport, money and credit, law and security, and the environment. Sooner or later, states will determine who is allowed to produce what, when and under what conditions, and who is allowed to consume how much and when.
For example, “green politics” is a central component of the Great Reset. The goal is a hasty, government-enforced and probabilistically expensive transition away from fossil fuels, drastically reducing the livelihood of many people on the planet and sending millions, if not billions of people, into impoverishment and hunger.
A major hurdle that proponents of the Great Reset, must overcome is the nation-state. Because people who feel connected to a nationality will not be willing to allow themselves to be governed even more centrally from a supranational level than is already the case at the national level.
Therefore, the proponents of the Great Reset seek the dissolution of the nation-state, or at least its de-homogenization – especially through politically induced mass immigration. This makes democracy (whether understood as self-determination or the majority dictate) impossible, while many people probably do not even notice it.
For a democracy to function at all, there must be a minimum level of harmony and consensus between the people participating, ensuring that the majority does not completely lose sight of the wishes of the minority, that the majority does not rise to an intolerable oppressive rule over the minority.
In de-homogenized communities where people’s values, traditions, and religions differ greatly from one another, democracy is likely to become an explosive source of conflict; it will not bring people together but rather divide them: the fight for the majority will rage relentlessly, and woe betide you who end up in the minority here!
If the de-homogenization of nation-states occurs through politically induced mass immigration, then the unifying effect of national belonging also disappears, disorientation spreads, and growing internal conflicts make people susceptible to authoritarian, subversive promises of salvation and asinine social experiments.
From this point of view, the politically induced mass immigration in the United States of America and Europe is not a coincidence or an accident but a consequence of the ideas that are spreading in the wake of the Great Reset and are now increasingly falling on fertile ground, discrediting democracy from the perspective of a growing number of people.
“Wokeness” also has a similar effect. It aims to stir up conflicts between people over perceived inequities and inflame interest groups, thereby turning them against each other and making their peaceful coexistence impossible. Hostility, anger, and – ultimately – violence replace unity, charity, and peace.
In addition, the state fiat money system systematically promotes living on credit and, above all, continues to drive the state’s debt to ever greater heights. Most notably, it causes chronic inflation and recurring, ever-worsening financial and economic crises, which systematically impoverish and frighten the general population.
A devastating spiral begins: the crises caused by states are falsely attributed to free markets by “experts” – such as political scientists and mainstream economists, and even more far-reaching government interventions are being promoted as a “rescue from the evil”, which will destroy the few remnants of the free market system.
And with that, of course, Western civilization will inevitably be destroyed. If people want to prevent this, what needs to be done is very clear: the state (as we know it today) must be pushed back to its full extent, and people must (again) lead their lives in free markets in a self-determined and self-responsible manner.
This necessitates a renaissance of the Enlightenment – in the sense of the Enlightenment that the Königsberg philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) called for: People must use reason, must muster the courage and overcome the cowardice to think for themselves again to break free from their “spiritual chariot”.
Fortunately, human reason can comprehend that only the free market system can lead the way out of misery, avert the collapse of civilization and bring peace and prosperity to humanity. The outstanding economist and social philosopher Ludwig von Mises (1881 – 1973) demonstrated this at the beginning of the 20th century: Western civilization will only persist if the free market system survives.
Dr. Thorsten Polleit is Honorary professor of economics at the University of Bayreuth and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Deutschland.
