With the BBC now regularly reporting from Kabul, we are treated to nightly interviews with Taliban fighters. Their fanaticism is undiluted, their belief is absolute, their conviction in the morality of their struggle is unwavering. In any war of ideologies, the side that believes the most consistently will always win the philosophical high ground, if not the war.
President Bush has called the 11 September attacks a war against freedom and has urged us all to stand firmly by our beliefs. But what exactly are those beliefs and do our politicians support them? We are fed sound-bite rhetoric about liberty, independence and democracy but rarely do we hear that politically incorrect ‘c’ word — capitalism — the system single-handedly responsible for the superb standard of living we take for granted in the West.
Few dare utter its name these days, let alone robustly defend it.
Anti-capitalist politicians
Supposedly we are defending ‘The American/British Way’ which, in the popular imagination, includes our right to work hard, build a business and keep the money we make. Alas, if you are in business you will know this to be a hollow joke. Business is now barely tolerated by an all-powerful state with a profoundly socialist, anti business agenda. The Railtrack fiasco should convince any doubters.
Many politicians despise capitalism while relying utterly upon it for their existence, let alone comfort. The result is a torrent of anti-business legislation making this a venture only for the brave or foolhardy. Governments now have a say in where you can operate, what business is permitted, who you will hire ("affirmative action and quotas"), who you can fire, how much you will pay your employees, what their conditions of work will be, how many hours they are allowed to work and what tasks they may perform. Furthermore you will be forced to pay your staff if they are sick or get pregnant. If you are successful, 60% of everything you make is removed from you by force (when you include all taxes). Resist and you will be jailed and your business seized.
Punished for progress
If you think my comments are harsh, consider the three year "jihad" against Microsoft Corporation by the US Department of ‘"Justice". After a protracted battle by the US government against the most successful business in mankind’s history, suddenly the government have decided to settle out of court. Could this be linked with the plummeting Nasdaq since the start of this action, and President Bush’s sudden desire to kick-start the hi-tech economy to prevent a catastrophic slide into recession? In short, the anti-business zealots ceased their attack the very moment they realised that, once again, they needed capitalism to rescue them.
Under the tentative settlement, Microsoft, like Saddam Hussein and Iraq, are required to have a team of "independent" inspectors on the staff with unlimited access to Microsoft’s most sensitive business plans for the future — just in case Bill Gates is planning any more weapons of mass destruction as some people seem to view Windows. Microsoft must also disclose details of its trade secrets to all competitors and is forbidden from dealing with those it chooses, instead it must deal with all-comers. This is being done in the name of ‘competition.’ If such a fantastic anti-business ethos were to be applied, say, to a car manufacturer, then Ford Motors would be required to hand over all their plans and schematics to the competition, and have an "independent" monitoring team sitting in on every plan for a new model, just in case they were scheming to produce something cheaper and more reliable, thereby disadvantaging the competition.
What price protection?
The Microsoft attack represents, in fact, an all-out assault on productiveness, pride, capitalism and The American Way. The case has seen a truly massive transfer of billions of dollars from the hands of Microsoft and its shareholders (who saw their share prices plummet as a result of this government "holy war") into the hands of lawyers, "expert" advisers and the media circus. Furthermore, the government’s profligate spending on this case was funded through taxation, that is, hundreds of millions of dollars forcibly removed from the public to fight a case which, is apparently "in the public interest." Meanwhile, vast swathes of Microsoft’s money and effort are poured into a bottomless legal pit and diverted from providing us with the next generation of computer products.
So let us pause and consider this. In the three years prior to the WTC attack, the government was faced with two "enemies." One was "guilty" of building the most successful company of all time and producing excellent products cheaply, efficiently and profitably — what the leftwing Guardian newspaper described last week as "an outrageous example of anti-competitive behaviour". The second, Osama Bin Laden, had sworn to destroy the US and its people by any means at his disposal, chemical, nuclear, biological or conventional terrorism and was merely awaiting the right opportunity.
The government had a clear choice about which enemy it considered the most deadly. They chose to spend 20 times more money attempting to destroy one of the most successful exponents of capitalism than trying to find Osama Bin Laden.
How much, exactly, do our leaders believe in The American Way?
