Full article:
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/09/21/obama-cant-trade-places
Movies like Trading Places only reveal that, at the directorial and script-writing level at least, Hollywood knows absolutely nothing about the business world. It reminds me of Ludwig von Mises' description of Lenin in the opening pages of Socialism. Von Mises points to a passage in Lenin's writing where the great Revolutionary leader proclaims that all there is to running a business is tallying up the profits as they roll in. Anyone with a little math can do it. Therefore, in order to establish justice in the world, all that was necessary was for the Bolshevik vanguard to wrestle the means of production out of the hands of the capitalists and run them for the good of the people. Lenin had the "grocery boy's view of business," writes von Mises, and it is not surprising, based on this short passage alone, that every socialist and communist economy that ever existed has quickly sunk into squalor almost as soon as the new leadership took over.
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