I believe that the statement, “The Great Depression was caused by a failure of the free market and was resolved by government intervention,” is a myth. It is a myth because after the government stepped in to help out, things got worse. We have had many other recessions that only lasted a couple years WITHOUT government interference. The Great Depression lasted ten years and the government intervened. That shows that without getting help from the government we were still able to fix our economy.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the New Deal it was very intriguing. It seemed like a perfect plan to most. It was supposed to give Americans jobs. Instead, the amount of people working during that time was even less than before Roosevelt took office. Parts of the New Deal did help out the economy, such as Social Security and unemployment benefits. Other policies that he put in place messed up basic economic principles by suppressing competition, and setting prices and wages in many sectors well above their normal levels. One of the most damaging policies that he put in place was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). The NIRA gave the President authority to regulate industry and permit cartels and monopolies. The NIRA eliminated excessive competition and we learned in the “Greed” video that competition is a necessity for a prosperous economy.

Government intervention did not get us out of the depression; it only put us into it deeper. FDR wanted to help the economy and he came up with ideas to do it, unfortunately those ideas made things worse rather than better. I believe our economy should be like Hayek’s way of thinking. The government should not interfere with the economy; they should leave it up to the businesses.

If I was to create my own city in some uninhabited part of the globe where people could come in search of opportunity, I would make it a free market economy. In “The Success of an Idea: American Economic Development, 1787-2010,” it talks about a free market economy and that property is the key institution of it. A free market economy is defined as an economy based on the power of division of labor in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system set by supply and demand. All the prices are determined by supply and demand, if there is little demand for something it will be cheaper. I would use land value taxation, which taxes only on the unimproved value of land. With that type of taxation people would be more motivated to develop their land so their taxes would be lower. With the development of land new businesses would be created and that would help the economy. I would also make sure that it was an independent city-state that way I would have more administrative freedom. When charter cities are inferior to the rules of larger institutions, provinces or nations, they have limited flexibility to adopt new institutions to create economic growth.

The paradox that James Madison creates in the Federalist No. 51 is when he says, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Men are not angels, therefore a government is necessary.  James Madison says that the solution to this paradox is the Constitution’s separation of powers. Each of the branches of government has a way to limit the power of another branch.  In this journal from James Madison, he outlines the details of the separated system.

The primary control on the government is the dependence on the people.  An auxiliary precaution is a republican government, which is pure democracy versus republic. Another is the separation of powers and checks and balances. With separating the government into two it gives us double security because “The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.”

I strongly believe, just like many others, that the United States Constitution was a document inspired by God. In D&C 101:80 it says, “…I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose…” The Lord prepared our founding fathers so that they would be able to build up our Constitution for our country to be free. We needed our country to be free so the restoration of the church would be able to happen. In President Ezra Taft Benson’s October 1987 he said, “I reverence the Constitution of the United States as a sacred document. To me its words are akin to the revelations of God, for God has placed His stamp of approval upon it.”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave us his five great fundamentals of how the Constitution was inspired by God, in his talk, “The Divinely Inspired Constitution” in the Ensign in February 1992. The five fundamentals are separation of powers, a written bill of rights, division of powers, popular sovereignty, and the rule of law and not of men. The inspiration of separation of powers was the adaptation of the idea of it to the needs of a national government. The inspiration for the written bill of rights was in the implementation of principles that had already existed. The division of powers subject had not been a part of any government before. Giving the states power was part of the inspiration of the division of powers. Popular sovereignty gives power to the people of the states.  Elder Dallin H. Oaks said this about popular sovereignty, “Along with many religious people, Latter-day Saints affirm that God gave the power to the people, and the people consented to a constitution that delegated certain powers to the government.” Without the rule of law all the blessings we have received from the Constitution would not be possible. “The rule of law is the basis of liberty.”

I feel the colonies were morally justified in declaring independence from Great Britain because of the many things that were forced upon them or wrongfully taken away from them. In the Declaration of Independence it states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” King George III did not make it so each colonist had the opportunity for Life, Liberty, and Property, otherwise known as the Pursuit of Happiness, and when these God- given rights began to continually be infringed upon by Great Britain, they knew it was time for them to revolt. In fact, God helped them to be able to declare independence because He knew that was what needed to happen in order for the restoration of the church to occur later on.

The rights of the colonists were being infringed upon in multiple ways. One principal way their rights were being violated was Taxation without Representation. By definition, taxation without representation means: A situation in which a government imposes taxes on a particular group of its citizens, despite the citizens not consenting or having an actual representative deliver their views when the taxation decision was made.  The Sugar Act was an indirect tax that was passed by Parliament in hopes of raising their revenue. It raised the taxes on sugar and other items such as textiles, coffee, wines and indigo. They forced the colonists to pay more taxes on these items to help pay for the food and supplies for the British Army during the Seven Years War that Great Britain was trying to win. There were several other Acts passed by Parliament that raised taxes, such as the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts. The Stamp Act was a direct tax that required all printed items to be printed on specific paper that was produced in London. This special paper had an embossed revenue stamp on it that set it apart from other regular paper. This tax was created to pay for the troops that were stationed in North America after the British won the war. The Townshend Acts were multiple acts created to raise revenue after the Stamp Act was repealed. These taxes were created to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would be independent of colonial rule, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies. The Townshend Acts taxed on lead, glass, paints, paper, and tea.

Another principle way the colonists were justified in declaring independence was that King George III was taking away their natural rights. King George III believed his father and grandfather were weak kings and was determined to change that. He was able to increase his power by rewarding those who were loyal to him. Before King George III was king, Whig party leaders had been in control of the government. These Whig party leaders were very accommodating to the colonists and of course George III didn’t like that so he removed Whig leaders from government. The natural rights of man are God-given and no one should take those rights away. These rights are Life, Liberty, and Property or the Pursuit of Happiness. King George III infringed on these rights by forcing the colonists to give up their money or property for the benefit of someone else.  In the Quartering Act the colonists were forced to house British troops and supply them with food. This, in a sense, took away the colonists property because they were not able to use their whole house and they had to pay for someone else’s food. With all of the acts mentioned previously above, they were forced to give up their money or property to the government and had no say in it at all. In the Proclamation of 1763, King George III declared that settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains was no longer allowed and that any person that already lived there was now forced to move back to the east. This proclamation took away the colonists liberty. They were now being forced to move across country and were not allowed to choose where they wanted to live anymore. In the Declaratory Act, Great Britain announced that it can regulate and tax the colonists in any way they may want to. The colonists were not allowed to vote or have any say on this act or any other acts that King George III passed, this took away their liberty once again.

The Rule of Law means that everyone is subject to the law and no one it above it at all. King George III did not obey the rule of law. In many cases, he deprived the colonists of the benefits of trial by a jury. He also refused to agree to laws for establishing judiciary powers. Governors and judges were appointed by the crown so the colonists had no decision in those matters either. He definitely made himself higher than the law. He paid other leaders to like him and he pretty much did what he wanted and never got punished for it. King George III definitely did not have the morals that he should have. If he did, he would have never done these things to the American colonists. I know for a fact that King George III was judged for all his wrongful doings on his judgment day.

The colonies declaring independence from Great Britain was a stand against imperialism. Imperialism is, by definition, the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies. The American colonists were tired of being controlled wrongfully by Great Britain and therefore revolted against them. Their revolution was morally justified because their God-given rights had been, in most cases, taken away from them. It was not morally correct for Great Britain to take away these inalienable rights.