Dakota Beacon

P. J. O’Rourke, American political satirist and writer of over 20 books, passed away from lung cancer February 15, 2022 at the age of 74 – two days shy of the first anniversary of the passing of Rush Limbaugh. Like Limbaugh, he will be sorely missed.

O’Rourke held a graduate degree from John Hopkins University. He joined the “National Lampoon” as managing editor and later became the foreign-affairs chief for “Rolling Stone” magazine. Eventually he became the H. L. Mencken Research fellow at the Cato Institute.

Some of the books he wrote include “Give War a Chance,” “Peace Kills,” and “All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty.” But his real forte focused on economics.

Public schools are known for many things, but teaching economics is not one of them. Little wonder, then, that only trite and inane conversation characterizes public discussion of economics.

O’Rourke states that the hardest thing to understand about economics is that economics doesn’t need to be understood. It simply measures how human nature affects the material world. It is not a zero-sum game and, therefore, there is no fixed amount of wealth. Wealth is based on productivity and productivity is expandable. My accumulation of wealth does not cause your poverty.

In his best seller “Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics” O’Rourke addressed this intriguing topic of wealth. What is it and how do we get it? Luke Froeb of the Owens School of Management at Vanderbilt University coached him through his economics education. He cites Froeb’s succinct statement on wealth creation. “The chief virtue of a capitalist mode of production is the ability to create wealth. Wealth is created when assets are moved from lower to higher valued uses.”

O’Rourke’s assertion of government impropriety runs deep. His book “A Parliament of Whores” humorously lambastes government in general, and politicians in particular, for their propensity to trade principle for political gain. The etymology of “whore” connotes exactly what it says -- trading something for favors. In the end it’s the American people who look bad. Government programs have their constituencies which, more often than not, comprise the work-a-day middle class. We have an appetite for gargantuan government programs making us easy prey for politicians. Ben Franklin observed, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, it will herald the end of the republic.” In the end, it seems, we are the whores trading our freedom for financial gain.

Then there was O’Rourke’s rendering of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.” He delivered his exposition of Smith’s classic in the same amusing manner in which he wrote his other books. This time, however, he tackled a yeoman’s task. Adam Smith is neither humorous nor entertaining to a twenty-first-century reader. Writing lightly of Smith’s book, O’Rourke stretched his talent. In doing so he exhibited a maturity not previously seen. Whereas his earlier books treat various subjects in an almost comic manner, “Wealth” expresses a sophistication in his levity. His talent enables one to see the lighter side of serious events.

The nub of Smith’s observations is that free trade leads to prosperity and curtailment of the same leads to desolation. O’Rourke summarizes Smith’s thesis. Wealth depends on division of labor. Division of labor depends on trade. Trade depends upon natural liberty. Therefore, freedom = wealth. All was predicated on the pursuit of self-interest, not at all a bad thing. In a sense, Adam Smith was a libertarian thinker before there were libertarians. Government is not the solution to people’s problems. Government is the problem. (For extra credit, name the U.S. president who said the same thing two hundred years after Smith wrote.) As early as 1776 when “Wealth” was first published, Smith knew, and others understood, that government involvement in the affairs of people was a problem, not a solution. America’s Founding Fathers did not have a corner on limited government when they wrote the Constitution.

O’Rourke clarifies the so-called “heartlessness” alleged in the free market and the fictional need for “fairness.” Fairness implies that people have a “right” to (fill in the blank). From an economist’s perspective, “rights” to material things involve making finite goods available to infinite wants. That can only happen if the “fair” society generates unprecedented growth (not prone to happen in a controlled economy) or goods are denied to some in favor of redistribution to others. Who, then, enforces “fairness?”

His point? You can’t fiddle with freedom by allowing a little here and a little there while retaining your favorite restrictions. Likewise, you can’t fiddle with the free market skipping the costs while reaping the benefits.

In the end, “The free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall;…” but under Marxism, Communism, and Socialism “…[the] unfree market is just as ugly and just as stupid, except there’s nothing in the mall and if you don’t go there they shoot you.”

O’Rourke holds the dubious distinction as the most quoted man in “The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations.” (“Giving power and money to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” “You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.” “When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”)

He was a true lover of American liberty and the good life. P. J. O’Rourke -- RIP.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).