A Chicken In Every Pot - A K-1 On Every Return

Experience has an unrivaled ability for teaching us important lessons.  The most persuasive arguments are still abstract compared to living experience.  Even the ones you buy wholeheartedly will surprise you in their veracity once they are solidified by your experience.  They are made real. 

Think of it: "war is hell", "taxation is theft", "the dealership garage is trying to screw you".  Experience matters. 

Imagine if Karl Marx had owned his own factory, or even a small shop.  Would his attempts to make a profit - a return on his own hard-earned capital - have still been viewed by himself as a parasitic exploitation of his workers?

If our dear leader Obama had done something more productive with his life than community organizing (I still haven't quite figured out what that entails) would he still shackle businesses with ever more regulations, stipulations and penalties (or are they taxes?) while deriding any theoretical business model that can not survive his machinations? 

The obvious answer to me is, No!  Take anyone agitating against capitalism, have them experience the risk of their own savings, effort and time toward some productive venture, and see how their tune changes with regard to state control and taxation of commerce.  You may say that such a change of heart would be merely self-preservation or that they have become sell-outs in the eyes of the "greater-good" or "community cause".  I say you are wrong.  I say that the nature of human commercial interaction is clarified by experience.  It is easy to be spoiled in the modern industrialized world into thinking that that which you can purchase is yours by obligation.  It is just as easy to forget what your in-kind obligations might be. 

This simplest path to libertarianism is an individual's dual realization that:

1. I don't want to be forced to live my life or make my living at the direction of my neighbor(s) or the state.
2. I don't want to be a hypocrite 

I do not know how or if we will ever get there, but I contend that if a majority of Americans even attempted to operate their own business a rational understanding of capitalism would be pervasive enough to move us toward a free society.  This is the educational experience we should hope for.