Op-Ed: Follow the Ten Commandments of Capitalism To Restore Prosperity

My colleagues Ralph Benko and Bill Collier, co-authors of “The Capitalist Manifesto” and founders of The Capitalist League, have given us the recipe for inciting equitable prosperity.

Voilà: the Ten Commandments of Capitalism.

Benko and Collier set out to find proven-in-practice rules to uplift workers to economic security and even affluence.

Like a modern Moses, Benko, founder of the Prosperity Caucus, with Collier, a progenitor of the Tea Party movement and ace warrior in Aaron’s supporting role, went to the mountaintop in search of truth. And found it. Not on stone tablets this time, but on their laptops.

These Ten Commandments lay out ten practical, proven, prosperity-producing policies. But like their biblical progenitors, Benko and Collier (and I, as their Miriam, the Capitalist League’s Georgia state director) return to find a tough crowd reluctant to give up worshiping the golden calf of multitrillion-dollar subsidies and bailouts.

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Benko and Collier now call upon the capitalist faithful to purge both socialists and cronyists and heed the gospel of real capitalism.

Let’s put this in historical context.

Having fled Egypt, homeless and destitute, the Hebrew tribes went knocking around in the desert for 40 years, subsisting on manna, that era’s version of food stamps (only less tasty). Moses hikes up Mount Sinai, receives the Word, and brings the Word to the people.

But like his nearly to-the-one-hundred-fortieth-power descendent Rodney Dangerfield, he can’t get no respect. The Hebrews ain’t buying. They want to keep doing things the way they’ve been doing them. Meaning, mostly, worshipping a golden calf. Moses gets angry. He moves fast and breaks things. He prevails. Dignity and prosperity ensue. The biblical Ten Commandments hold up very well for thousands of years.

Fast forward.

America, a vigorous and optimistic nation, is paralyzed by a pandemic. In a matter of weeks unemployment goes from the lowest rate in history to the highest. Our politicians seem to think the answer lies in more and better worship of that ol’ golden calf. They want to drown our problems in a mountain of fluffy banknotes, hot off the presses. In a very unusual situation in D.C., it’s business as usual.

To paraphrase a remark attributed to the late Sen. Everett Dirksen, a trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.