A Twelve Step Plan for Understanding the Free-Market

1. Admit that government solutions are a problem.
2. Have faith that people can interact peacefully and that economic blessings are available for all.
3. Surrender to the fact that certain social ills cannot be irradiated by force or politically will.
4. Ask yourself do I want to advocate self-sufficiency and voluntary means or do I want to look to politicians every time I don’t like something.
5. Survey the past record of governments when it comes to economic planning or other allegeds improvements.
6. Learn to look for the hidden costs of government intervention rather than the superficial benefits.
7. Understand the role of market prices and why tampering with them interferes with the job they have to perform.
8. Study history. Examine whether governments that violated private property rights stayed out their citizens other affairs.
9. Before condemning a market outcome is unjust first understand why it occurs.
10. Study other spontaneous social institutions such as language and science where no-one is in charge and yet the outcome is quite orderly.
11. When politicians propose a new program remember how much they said it would cost at the outset. Compare that number to the actual amount spent.
12. Go through the newspaper and discover how government meddling causes or exacerbates the conflict in virtually every story.

Source: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism (2007) by Robert P. Murphy, Ph. D.

This is good advice for everyone but especially for the ones in power since they are the ones that make policy.