The Playing Field

The Playing Field

Rick Brand

In the lively debate concerning the economic direction of the our country, there has been an awful lot of talking about the value of the “free market” system. I have heard over and over about the wonderful contributions that have been made by our capitalist system. I recently heard President Obama talking about the virtues of the Free Market to the leaders in the Far East.

One of the supposed virtues of capitalism is that it has a level playing field. Newt Gingrich can feel justified in telling the protesters in the Occupy Wall Street Movement to go home and get a job. He seems to believe that they could go home get a job and become part of the 1% of the wealthy. After all it is supposed to be a free market, level playing field on which all people can compete equally for the prize.

But honesty compels us to confess that the market is not a “free market.” Talk to most small business people and the stories I hear are that they are bound and restricted by all kinds of regulations and red tape. There is a beautiful restaurant in downtown Henderson that has never opened because it has not met all the codes. Set backs, required green spaces, sign restrictions, safety requirements and the list goes on. Most of the restrictions and requirements have some value for the good of all of us, but their very presence puts a lie to the “free market” idea.

The notion and concept of “level playing field” is equally betrayed by a looking around. The tax break people get for the interest on home mortgages put an advantage to the home builders. The government wants to encourage home ownership so they give a break to the buyer, but the home builders are benefited. To promote IRA and Retirement funds by giving tax breaks gives a boost to the financial institutions. The building of roads by the government gives a great help to the trucking industry. The Internet was developed by the government and its benefit to IT companies is amazing.

Every decision by government tilts the playing field in one direction or another. Why else would every major industry spend millions of dollars in lobbying Congress? They want Congress to tilt the field in their direction or at least to keep the tilt they already have in their favor. The level playing field, free market, concepts are myths. They do not exist. The playing field is always being tilted and the free market is clogged with restrictions and limitations.

It seems to me that is what the Occupy Movement is all about. They look at the economy facts of life for our society and it is obvious to all who look at the facts that the playing field has been tilted in the favor of the rich for the last twenty years or more. That the free market has not been free, but the marketplace has been much more receptive to big business than to small business. That government and large oil, government and defense contractors, government and financial institutions, government and the auto industry have become so interwoven that government is working for those industries and limiting the small work place.

The market is not free. The playing field is not level. The middle class and the poor are getting oppressed by a system in which the top 10% of the population holds more than 70% of the wealth and the bottom 50% of the population holds only 2% of that wealth. It has not always been this way. The tilt has obvious in the last few years. At one time it was government’s job to try to keep that playing field level. It has quit and has joined with the rich to tilt the field in their favor.