Editorial by Economist and FISM Founder Dan Celia

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According to a writer for the Wall Street Journal this week, “Western governments are taking a page from their Asian rivals and moving away from the free-market doctrine that defined their economic thinking for decades.”

I wish I could explain how inaccurate this statement is. Unfortunately, it is not inaccurate, but it may be just part of the story. The trends that we have seen are being accelerated or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It has lent itself to be a wonderful excuse to rethink the balance between the Socialist/Communist regimes and private sector. Stimulus programs (money dumps) that continue to be a damaging necessity are becoming a new fundamental reshaping economic analytics.

I believe the trends in reference to economic analytics have changed dramatically in the last 24 months, not just because of COVID-19, but because of the reshaping of our priorities and the mentality surrounding economic analysis and that of government officials and billionaire corporate CEOs. It is from these trends that we continue to put greater emphasis on ideology, political correctness and the onset of so-called socially conscious investing and socially concerned companies. The concerns over competition from large, state-run, multinational corporations have begged questioning of America’s private companies so-called inability to be able to compete.

This adds a whole additional layer of concern. How can we be thinking about America’s inability to compete when we are not looking at the dramatic difference between free market private sector companies that earn, keep and put back into the economy? There is a stark difference between that and having lower productivity—lower profitability, state-run corporations try to compete with private, free-market businesses.

Along with the desire to satisfy one’s ideology and political correctness comes the loss of real growth, America ingenuity, innovativeness and exceptional ability to create new technologies. Of course, these positive economic engines are all an anathema to the society of progressive ideology and political correctness.

This bowing at the altar of political correctness and the Socialist/Communist ideology will make it impossible to continue to move ahead with traditional free market analytics. Are these thoughts doomed or, at best, just obsolete?