True prosperity arises from unpolluted economics—an unhampered, freely functioning market.  When private property and voluntary exchange are respected, wealth and innovation flourish naturally.  However, every intervention pollutes this system, dragging down the standard of living for all.

Legislation and regulation are among the primary pollutants.  Ostensibly crafted to “protect the consumer,” they assume that individuals are too foolish to make their own choices.  We’re told that without these rules, we’d buy harmful products and make irrational decisions.  Yet such interventions enable the less industrious to compete artificially with those who produce value, distorting markets and lowering overall efficiency.  Instead of raising the bar, these measures often punish success, ensuring mediocrity prevails.

Another pollutant is taxation, which extracts resources from productive individuals under the guise of fairness or necessity.  Taxation does not merely transfer wealth, it actively discourages production by making everything more expensive.  You’re taxed on what you earn, and then taxed again on what you buy.  Whether it’s income, sales, or property, every tax creates winners and losers—those who consume taxes versus those who produce them.  There is no neutral tax, only distorted incentives.

Then there’s the stealthiest pollutant of all: inflation.  While taxation openly confiscates wealth, inflation does it covertly by eroding purchasing power.  Governments unable to tax enough to fund their ambitions turn to the printing press, creating money out of thin air.  This counterfeit money dilutes the value of existing currency, making goods more expensive and savings worthless.  Inflation doesn’t just impact wallets—it destabilizes entire economies, acting as an invisible tax on everyone.

Each form of intervention—legislation, regulation, taxation, and inflation—pollutes the economy in its own way.  Together, they create a system where the state takes from one to give to another, claiming to create prosperity while actually diminishing it.  The state cannot give without first taking, and it can’t encourage one sector without crippling another.

If we wish to rise above this pollution, we must reject the propaganda that justifies it.  Don’t accept the premise that intervention is necessary for progress.  Real prosperity comes when individuals, not bureaucracies, determine the course of their lives and the value of their exchanges.  Economic freedom isn’t just idealistic, it’s practical.  The less we pollute it, the higher we can all rise.

Reference

Ludwig von Mises; Human Action