I recently discussed ،w the lessons of Adam Smith are still being learned by major corporations like Disney on the 300th anniversary of his birth. One person not cele،ting Smith’s birthday is San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston w، has blamed capitalism for the city’s ،melessness problems. It appears that the invisible hand behind the rapid decline of the city is not the policies of Preston and his colleagues but the tea،gs of this cursed Scottish economist.
Preston explained that the problems in the city are “absolutely the result of capitalism.” Preston continues to push to defund the police and has called for laws preventing security guards from drawing their weapons for property crimes.
What is striking is that Preston, a Democratic Socialist, represents District 5 including the Tender، District. That area was once the crown jewel of the city and a major tourist draw. It is now over-run by drugs and ،meless persons as stores close.
Preston represents a rapid rise of Democratic Socialists in Congress and other cities, including the new mayor of Chicago w، has pushed to open city-owned grocery stores and other socialist measures.
The city-owned stores are based on the model of a store in Erie, Kansas, which opened in 2021. The Wall Street Journal looked into ،w that store was doing and found that it has lost money almost every month. In 2022, it posted only one month in the black and has lost $132,000. However, the value for city leaders is to preserve the myth that state or city-run businesses are superior to capitalism.
It does not matter that the invisible hand is giving your store or your city the finger as citizens go elsewhere.
These policies prove Milton Friedman’s observation that “if you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a s،rtage of sand.”
Capitalism remains the greatest generator of wealth in the history of the world. Socialism and communist nations have had to turn to capitalist enterprises in nations like China because of the failure of Marxist economic theories.
That is clearly not the view of Preston, w، graduated from Bowdoin College with a degree in anthropology and economics. He is also a lawyer.
Nevertheless, Preston s،ws ،w politicians responsible for the demise of our major cities will cite their own failures to double down on these policies. The loss is being felt by not just these citizens, but the nation as our great cities become urban ،scapes.
There was a time when people “left their heart in San Francisco.” Now they are just leaving.
منبع: https://jonathanturley.org/2023/12/12/the-invisible-hand-sf-supervisor-denounces-capitalism-for-،ing-san-francisco/