Gastbeitrag von Arjan Deij, Webmaster von www.vrijhandelaar.nl

In the Netherlands, more than half of the Gross National Product is consumed by the State, so you can imagine the weight of our tax burden. Dutch society expects more from intervention by government than from private initiative. Dutch politics is dominated by ambitious but mostly non-talented and short sighted politicians. Their primary concern is their short-term �??score�?� in opinion-polls.

To transform my ever increasing annoyance about this situation into a constructive initiative, I decided to start a website for the Dutch and Flemish community: www.vrijhandelaar.nl (Dutch: “De Vrijhandelaar” = English: “The Freetrader”).

There is a summary on English on http://www.vrijhandelaar.nl/summary.html.

With this site, I want to promote:

• the economic and moral superiority of free trade and free enterprise;
• individual liberty and responsibility;
• moral guidelines which stimulate private property, mutual respect and personal growth (whether based on religion or from a secular worldview).

The main regular activity of “De Vrijhandelaar” is the news digest. I read numerous articles, columns and research reports from a free-market perspective. Every other day I summarise and link to a selection of these texts from this site. Sometimes I�??ll also place more �??canonical�?� texts on this site: the �??golden classics of capitalism�?�.

To promote this website in Holland and Belgium, I have sent a translation of Leonard Read�??s I, Pencil to many opinion leaders in both countries: the most influental business men, intellectuals and politicians who are more or less benevolent towards the idea of free trade and personal responsibility. And I’ve sent an email to many liberty lovers all over the world, so that we can help each other in our struggle for more freedom, peace and prosperity. Let�??s hope Holland can restore its �??Golden Age�?� again: the wealthy period of the 17th century, when there was much more liberty in Holland than nowadays!