During the recent acclamation of their candidate for the Chilliwack/Hope byelection, both Christy Clark and others referred to what they claimed was a need for free-enterprise. By this, they mean of course a hoped joining of BC Liberal and BC Conservative supporters in order to defeat the NDP.
Their reference to so-called free-enterprise was a cynical attack on the NDP and an attempt to characterize the NDP as anything but free.
These tired, old-hat references are about 50 years out of date and very misleading, to put it mildly.
Of course, much depends on what you mean by free-enterprise, just as much depends on what you mean by socialism.
There is no such thing in North America as free-enterprise. This term implies that the market is free, that every individual has an equal opportunity to work hard, to strive and to succeed in our economy.
We know this not to be the truth. It is common sense, that without some sort of government involvement in our society, the poor, the elderly and the disabled, would not be on a equal footing.
The person who has inherited wealth, or has had the opportunity to benefit from a good education, has a distinct advantage.
Unfettered capitalism sounds great to the person who has benefited from his/her greed and manipulation of others; but, not so great from those people who have been trampled on by those greedy individuals. Witness the economic mess that we see in the United States, where unfettered free-enterprise has destroyed the lives of millions.
While the billionaires of the U.S. have benefited by this unholy alliance between large corporations and BC Liberal like capitalists, the rest of the 99 per cent suffer.
The Occupy protestations are but one result of this mess.
Dick Harrington