The Sept. 9 Republican
breakfast meeting in Chadds Ford was billed as a way to find out how township supervisors could help businesses. It was more political than business related, but the concept was reminiscent of a story about the roots of the phrase laissez faire.

While possibly apocryphal, the
story is worth noting. During the reign of Louis XIV, the French economy was in
the dumper. Why not? The economy was over regulated because the government had
run it into the ground.

French minister Jean-Baptiste
Colbert asked a group of businessmen what the government could do to help
business.

Colbert, like the contemporary
statist economists of today, believed that regulation and taxes create wealth
and prosperity. Colbert was wrong and the dismal French economy proved that
point.

In response to Colbert’s
question of what the government could do to help, one man, a manufacturer named
Legendre stood up and said, “Laissez-nous
faire,” meaning let us alone.

Legendre understood that wealth
comes from businesses that provide services and manufacture goods that people
are willing to pay for. This creates jobs and disposable income.

As one 20^th century
writer has suggested, perhaps Legendre had more smarts and guts than today’s
business people.

But we relate the story not as
a means of attacking policies or the politicians who advocate them. Rather, the
idea is to get people to understand the actual meaning of words and phrases and
to get them to use those words properly.

Sometimes words are used so
often and in so many improper ways that they lose significance, even when used
properly. Two such words are socialism and fascism.

How often do neo-cons accuse
President Obama of advocating socialism? About as often as progressives call
anyone who disagrees with their policies fascists.

More often than not, the words
are used improperly.

Both are economic systems, not
social systems or forms of government. Socialism is an economic system in which
the government, the state, owns the means of production. Under fascism, those
means of production are nominally owned by the private sector, but strongly
controlled by the government. “Socialism with a capitalistic veneer,” as some
call it.

Note that neither definition
attributes any social program or racism to either system. Those attitudes come
from the rulers who use those systems. Indeed, Italian fascism was not anti Jewish until the German
Nazis — national socialists — moved in. And while the Nazis perpetrated the
Holocaust, they had many social programs for their own Aryan citizens. (Note
also that Aryan actually refers to people from India. Another example of
co-opted words.)

What is wrong with both fascism
and socialism is that they deny the inherent rights of individuals because the
government runs the economy in those systems. In that, the two systems are truly equal.

Capitalism, too, is an economic
system, but one in which the means of production are owned and controlled
privately, where government intercedes only when there has been an initiation
of force or fraud.

But misused words and concepts
aren’t always involved in so dramatic or horrible situations as the Holocaust.
Consider the phrase nonpartisan. Maybe it sounds nice, but it sure doesn’t
apply to the Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board.

Supposedly the school board
elections are nonpartisan. Candidates are even allowed to cross-file. Yet
everyone knows that these elections are just as partisan — and as bitter — as
any election campaign.

So let’s drop the façade of
political parties not being involved. Let’s stop misusing words. If people used
words properly, they would actually be able to communicate to resolve issues
instead of fanning flames of animosity.