The Market Division of Labor IS All of Us

Jake Tapper at ABC prints Obama’s sentence in context, revealing the sentence in question is from the following paragraph:

It is pretty clear to me that the President was more making the claim that other people contributed to the success of the entrepreneur by producing goods needed for the entrepreneur to do whatever that person did. The “that” which was not built by the entrepreneur was roads and bridges, not his own business.

I suppose that his observation is true enough, but his overall sentiment is still objectionable.  The entire mood of the speech tilted toward collectivism. He said, “There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back.” I have news for him, those entrepreneurs who are wealthy and successful ALREADY HAVE given something back. It is called the product or service they have provided to people who VOLUNTARILY traded their money in exchange. The idea that they now have to give something more back is maddening.

Additionally, the President said

Two things here require comment. He first recognizes the importance of the market division of labor, but then gets the entirely wrong lesson. He thinks that for projects in which we are assisted by other people, they must be government projects, such as building the Golden Gate Bridge. While it is true that we all depend on other people to provide the goods we use every day, this is part of the market, not government.

The best economists have always recognized that a market economy is not an atomistic economy populated by rugged self-sufficient hermits. As Mises said in Bureaucracy, “Under the division of labor, the structure of society rests on the shoulders of all men and women.” As he explained in his monumental Socialism

It is precisely through the division of labor that people are brought together to do the very things we cannot do only as individuals. This, however, is the product of the market division of labor, not coercive state power.

The second problem I have with the Presidents remarks is that the GI Bill is responsible for creating the middle class. That simply is not true. There was a middle class long before the GI Bill. His broadcasting he idea that we need government programs to create a middle class should be enough  to disqualify him from seeking a second term.

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