Bottom-up
President 
Reagan
said it well in a speech: "We who live in free market societies
believe that growth, prosperity, and ultimately human fulfillment,
are created from the bottom up, not the government down.
"Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, prosperous, progressive and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development. The societies which have achieved the most spectacular, broad-based economic progress in the shortest period of time are not the most tightly controlled, nor necessarily the biggest in size, or the wealthiest in natural resources. No, what unites them all is their willingness to believe in the magic of the market place."
"Everyday life confirms the fundamentally human and democratic ideal that individual effort deserves economic reward. Nothing is more crushing to the spirit of working people and to the vision of development itself than the absence of reward for honest toil and legitimate risk. So let me speak plainly: we cannot have prosperity and successful development without economic freedom. Nor can we preserve our personal and political freedoms without economic freedom."
"Governments that set out to regiment their people with the stated objective of providing security and liberty have ended up losing both. Those which put freedom as the first priority also find they have also provided security and economic progress."
It is time to restore the value of power coming from the ground
up as our Founding Father's knew so well. Charles Murray writes In
Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government that
Jefferson spoke the truth in his inaugural address about limited,
minimal power at the top when he said, "a wise and frugal government,
which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave
them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and
improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it
has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary
to close the circle of our felicities." Murray says, "I am asking
that we take more seriously the proposition that Jefferson's was a
vision suitable not only for a struggling agricultural nation at the
outset of the nineteenth century but also for a wealthy,
postindustrial nation at the close of the twentieth."
Churchpeople, Socialism, and Capitalism
In an article in the journal Freeman Reverend Doctor John K. Williams wrote an article called "Churchpeople, Socialism, and Capitalism" saying, "In 1915 Karl Barth, one of the theological giants of the twentieth century, asserted that a 'true Christian must be a socialist.' Barth's thinking on this issue did not change: in 1951, for example, he wrote that capitalism 'not only allows, but demands in principle, that men make a mere instrument, a means to their own ends, of other men and their work..' In 1919 Paul Tillich, another revered twentieth century theologian, called upon Christians 'to enter into the socialist movement in order to pave the way for a future union of Christianity and the socialist social order'; near the end of his life, when asked by a student whether he still supported socialism, Tillich reported that he did, insisting that socialism 'is the only possible economic system from the Christian point of view.' Reinhold Niebuhr, probably the most influential Protestant theologian in the United States of America for many decades, insisted in 1931 that he espoused the revolutionary socialism of Marx rather than the reformist, evolutionary socialism of the early Christian socialists. He denounced Christians who did not regard Marxist 'class struggle' as a 'fact of history' as either naive or willfully perverse."
He goes on to defend capitalism against socialism. I find it interesting that he says capitalism can operate under authoritarian governments such as monarchies as well as democratic governments. In fact the first group of thinkers that advocated free enterprise economics also argued for monarchy: "not all people who have defended the view that market forces can allocate scarce resources so that people's wants are least inadequately met, have even defended the free society. The Physiocrats who preceded Adam Smith and who coined the motto, 'Laissez-faire, laissez-passer' ('Let things alone, let things pass') advocated absolute monarchy: such a form of government, they argued, would be consolidated and made more stable if the monarch recognized the inexorable laws which govern economic affairs, did not intervene in the market, and thereby allowed wealth to be created and his people to enjoy prosperity."
Passionate enthusiasm for capitalism
What I like about Gilder is that he is passionate about capitalism. Socialists from Marx to Michael Harrington have a burning intensity in preaching socialism. The Democratic Party often is emotional. Democrats speak out with a cry of moral outrage in denouncing capitalism. They really care about their crusade for big government. Republicans point to their opponents and call them "bleeding heart liberals." They think Bill and Hillary Clinton are only faking their emotions. They are not. Both Bill and Hillary have written books. And they mean every word of it. They are tricky like Satan and fool people, but their genuine emotion touches more hearts of the people than the Republicans. That is why they are usually in power. Capitalists appeal to reason and logic. But it seems cold to most people. We must defend capitalism not only by constantly refining and clarifying terms like "liberty," and "equality" to show how intellectually bankrupt and dangerous liberals are, but we must argue our case with feeling. We don't have to be theatrical, but we need to show genuine outrage for how socialism has hurt people. At the same time we need to be classier than socialist/feminists and show patience instead of anger at the naive insanity of those who inspire envy and teach that coercion and theft are needed to bring about 'social justice.' Those of us who fight for liberty must do so with joy and infectious enthusiasm as well as logic.
We must become salespeople for freedom and inspire mankind to join this crusade for our vision of an ideal world that is run by limited government and Libertarian economics. If we are going to be successful at proselytizing for free enterprise we need to match head and heart. Somehow we must make economics exciting. We have to show the idealism and love that exists in physical things and that business is spiritual. Countless people found that to be spiritual was to be celibate monks who baked bread in quiet and prayed for hours in a monastery away from the noisy and messy outside world. The MFT is mixture of this in which a member is isolated from being close to the outside world but yet walking around in it. The true spiritual training and the true spiritual life is Tribal Messiah and Home Church. It is thinking globally and acting locally. It is being personal and serving the customer. Father is elevating Christianity by ending monasteries. He is ending celibacy. He is teaching that everyone to be truly spiritual will have a family. There are, of course, some people not ready now for marriage and some who are ready for marriage, but not for having children. We should respect them and not push those who may never be ready for marriage on earth to marry or push those who can handle marriage but not children to have children. I know people in both categories. But it is proper for the rest of us to push ourselves to grow by getting married and having children. I strongly urge those blessed couples who want to be parents but cannot conceive for physical reasons to work round the clock to get a good income, good credit and good references so they can spend the thousands of dollars needed to adopt a child. I was listening to a Christian program recently about Josh MacDowell who has a ministry to help orphans in Russia (He sends a free packet of info. Write to him in Dallas, Texas). He says he charges one-third of what most agencies charge to place Russian children in American homes. Why doesn't our church offer this to members? There will never be enough blessed couples who will volunteer to give up a child. And besides, we should have large families.
Quality Service
Father constantly tells us to be superior to the outside world. I interpret this to mean that we do better financially than the national average. And we should do it in less hours so we can devote some time to witnessing and Father's campaigns. Father wants us to be successful. He said in 1994 Father gave an example of how to do good business: "One reason our fish distribution center has been so successful is that it stays open until midnight to obtain what the customer wants. If we do not have the stock, we ask Washington to send a supply. The restaurants trust us now. The only way to secure markets is through service." This is what all the motivational and sales trainers are teaching today. Quality service. It's a competition of service, not greed that wins customers. Notice also that Father says there is only one way to make money. It is to provide service. He doesn't say it is socialism. He says it is capitalism. He is for competition. He says in the paragraph next to the one just quoted, "Do we want to be out-done by others or win the competition? Of course, we want to win. To do so, we have to work harder and with greater concentration and confidence. If outside people work eight hours, we have to work nine or ten hours." One of the premier business trainers, Brian Tracy, says that to be successful financially we must be workaholics. I would like to add that we can be much more efficient if we live as trinities and follow some of the other principles I've written about such as being debt-free.
