What the free market hath wrought

Pete Du Pont:

Economist David M. Smick's recent book, "The World Is Curved," shows that during the past quarter-century we have had a global "golden age of wealth creation and poverty reduction never before seen in the history of mankind." The global free market "experienced an unprecedented doubling of its labor force from 2.7 billion to 6 billion"; the U.S. had 40 million new jobs created; "the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed from 800 to over 12,000" (it is back under 9000 now); and, according to the Federal Reserve, U.S. households saw their net worth increase from $11 trillion in 1982 to more than $56 trillion today.

And due to the expanded financial globalization, America has been in recession only 5% of the time for the past 25 years, compared with 22% in the previous 25 years, when there were no global markets.

While Du Pont focuses on the U.S., it is worth noting that the level of prosperity has increased around the world. In 2004 the World Bank said that "the proportion of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1 a day) in developing countries dropped by almost half between 1981 and 2001, from 40 to 21 percent of global population."

I bring all of this up because during the current economic difficulties there have been gleeful proclamations from many on the left that the fatal flaws of capitalism and the Reagan-Thatcher revolution have finally been exposed. This is wishful thinking. Current difficulties aside, the tide of free market policies that have swept the world over the past 30 years has left a path of amazing prosperity in its wake.

The only question to me is why we even still have a debate about this. More worrisome, why do we have elected officials -- like President Bush -- that continue to look for government solutions?