71% of Americans think U.S. economy is ‘rigged’

We all know the government system is rigged. But what about the United States economy? Well, according to a new survey, a strong majority of Americans think the entire economy is rigged.

A new poll by Marketplace and Edison Research found that 71 percent of Americans think the U.S. economic system is “rigged in favor of certain groups.”

This is an interesting result because of a few things:

– “Rigged” is a word used by Donald Trump quite a bit.
– All kinds of Americans – rich and poor, Hispanic and white, young and old – think the U.S. economy is rigged.
– Both Republican and Democratic voters were in agreement that the economy is rigged.

But why shouldn’t the American people feel this way?

Politicians bail out failed companies (think the big banks and the auto industry a few years ago). Politicians hand out special privileges and favors to the well-connected. Politicians give specific industries plenty of grants and funding.

Here is what the legendary free market economist F.A. Hayek writes about this:

“There is some justification at least in the taunt that many of the pretending defenders of ‘free enterprise’ are in fact defenders of privileges and advocates of government activity in their favor rather than opponents of all privilege. In principle the industrial protectionism and government-supported cartels and the agricultural policies of the conservative groups are not different from the proposals for a more far-reaching direction of economic life sponsored by the socialists. It is an illusion when the more conservative interventionists believe that they will be able to confine these government controls to the particular kinds of which they approve. In a democratic society, at any rate, once the principle is admitted that the government undertakes responsibility for the status and position of particular groups, it is inevitable that this control will be extended to satisfy the aspirations and prejudices of the great masses. There is no hope of a return to a freer system until the leaders of the movement against state control are prepared first to impose upon themselves that discipline of a competitive market which they ask the masses to accept.”

Once you abolish the Federal Reserve, get rid of the government, embrace a true free market and private property society and enhance individual sovereignty, the game can’t be rigged anymore.