University of Virginia Library

Free Private Sector

More important, perhaps, a
liberal Republican party would seek
the strengths of a truly free private
sector: as guided by the spirit of
classical economics it would at least
aspire to maximize the interests of
neither business nor labor but the
consumer: The goal of the liberal
Republican economy - like that of
old laissez faire economics would
be lowest prices for the consumer.

This goal would mean
Republicans abandoning
completely their historic
protectionist role and embracing
free trade (as well as programs to
relocate and retrain workers in
marginal industry). A liberal
Republican would have no part of
the uncompetitive SST, and it
would move to let free market
supply and demand forces swallow
up inefficient business - and
provide suitable and humane
adjustment to make hitherto
parasitic enterprise again viable.

Appropriately, I think, it was
Democrat John Kenneth Galbraith
who once said that government
should sustain inefficient family
farms and another Democrat,
Hubert Humphrey, who suggested
that the little corner store should
be subsidized by fair trade laws —
to which a Republican liberal
would reply, you shall not crucify
the consumer on a cross of
n morntili sustained of
course only by consumer tax
money.