By David Ziemer
The Daily Record Newswire
The other day, I advised a young friend to attend law school, and she agreed. We mutually decided that it was the best means for her to accomplish her goals in life.
“So, what do you want to do with your life?” I asked her.
“I want to fight poverty,” she answered.
“A most noble goal,” I vouchsafed her. I proceeded to explain that there is only one way to fight poverty, and that is to create wealth; and that there are basically only three ways to create wealth: manufacturing; mining; and farming.
“So, what do you know about farming?” I asked. “Nothing,” she replied.
“That’s okay,” I assured her. “What do you know about mining?” “Nothing,” she said.
“Still not a problem. What do you know about manufacturing?” was my final query. Again, she answered, “Nothing.”
Now, we had a problem. She lacked any skills requisite to be a relevant participant in the war against poverty. That’s how we got from farming to practicing law.
I explained to her that, while farmers, miners, and manufacturers were slaving away, creating wealth and eliminating poverty, there were others in the world actively engaged in destroying wealth and creating poverty.
These sources of misery and suffering accomplish this, of course, by taxing and regulating the farmers, miners, and manufacturers.
“So, you could become a tax lawyer,” I told her. “You would not be engaged in the day-to-day work of fighting poverty, the way a factory owner is, but you would be actively keeping wealth in the hands of those who fight poverty, and out of the hands of those who make it.”
“You might also become an environmental lawyer,” I suggested. “After all, farmers, miners, and manufacturers can’t fight poverty if their operations are thwarted every time a few inedible fish might be killed in the process.”
“You should consider antitrust law, too” I added. “Even though antitrust laws have been thoroughly discredited and refuted as counterproductive decades ago, unsuccessful competitors and governments still file vexatious lawsuits against those who are successful at fighting poverty.”
“Or you could become a constitutional lawyer,” I said, and watched her eyes light up like the lights on a Christmas tree. “The manufacturers of poverty enact new regulations every year to cripple those who manufacture wealth. You could represent the owners of copper and coal mines, and challenge these laws. You could argue that, by restricting the highest and best use of valuable property, they reduce the value of the property and thus, take it without just compensation.”
“You could also defend the free speech rights of those who fight poverty. There are powerful special interest groups that seek to prohibit those who create wealth and fight poverty from even participating in the political system that seeks to destroy them.”
“Who knows,” I concluded. “Someday, you might even wind up on the United States Supreme Court, and, if you could get four other justices to join you, you could restore Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), as binding precedent. There are few acts anyone could ever do to eliminate more poverty than to restore liberty of contract as a basic human right.”
“All right, Mr. Ziemer. You’ve convinced me,” she said. “I will go to law school.
