While I salute the idealism of the Occupy Wherever crowd, one would hope that those ideologues can ascertain the irony of having their encampments overrun by the homeless, as they have pretty much everywhere the Occupy movement has set down stakes.

Seriously, the struggle of the Occupy movements with the homeless who are looking to make their hard lives a little softer, even only for a week or so until the cops roust the lot of them, is the problem confronted by all human societies writ small. In this instance, the homeless are merely demonstrating the same ingrained survival instincts and innately opportunistic human tendency to gravitate toward anything that makes their lives easier.

Forgetting the homeless - many, and maybe most, of whom may be clinically insane - society has always had to contend with this fundamental component of human nature. In those societies that skew toward totalitarianism, the leadership deals with this human trait by enslaving the populace and forcing everyone to work a proscribed number of hours each week "or else."

In other societies, those skewing toward socialism, certain rules considered more humane are implemented that strip wealth from Peter to hand-feed to Paul when Paul is unable to feed himself. Unfortunately, on seeing that Paul is managing to get along just fine with less effort, and maybe no effort at all, Mary and Bob and all sorts of less ethically inclined individuals will study the rules and invariably find the loopholes that allow them to hop on the same gravy train.

Next thing you know, Peter is almost alone as he is forced to shovel a greater and greater percentage of the coal into the steam engine of human progress, providing a free ride, or close to it, to Paul, Mary, Bob and, of course, the parasitical bureaucrats who made the rules in the first place.

Which brings us to the idealized free-market capitalist system (idealized, because nothing like it is currently operating). The key feature of that system is that what passes for government studiously stays out of the way of every citizen, leaving them free to take risks in the hopes of earning rewards.

All that is certain is that there are risks. You can choose to live a life aimed at minimizing risks, say by accepting a suitable job, or you can roll the dice with your time and accumulated capital and hope for the desired outcome. But in either case, neither the job nor the payout for taking higher risks is guaranteed. If you are unwilling, or even unable, to work for someone else, or for yourself, then your only real hope is that the economy is strong enough that your friends, family or strangers with a charitable heart are willing and able to help out.

While not perfect, history has proven time and again that the freer flowing the human enterprise, the bigger the economic benefits - benefits that ultimately spread to society at large.

Need a proof point? You don't have to look any further back in human history than 1978 and the introduction of Deng Xiaoping's reforms in China. Among other actions, those reforms loosened the state's direct control over many segments of the economy and allowed for foreign direct investment to help provide the necessary capital for the newly freed segments to blossom.

Simply, rather than trying to command the economy from the center, there was an active campaign for individuals and consortiums to start and operate private businesses.

The results of these reforms are historic: In 1978, Chinese GDP per capita was 379 renminbi, today it approaches 20,000, a better than 50-fold increase. Concurrently, China's share of the world's economic output leapt from about 3% then to over 12% today, in the process surpassing Japan as the world's second-largest economy.

On a more human level, the real significance of China's growth has been that it essentially lifted all boats with the economic tide, going a very long way towards mitigating centuries of abject poverty and degradation for the masses, all of which could be directly laid at the feet of the succession of warlords, dictators and communist tyrants.

Were there still some Chinese who were not lifted by the rising tide? Of course, but outside of some utopian fantasy, the best economy is one that allows the maximum number of people to live a life of some dignity. Not all people, but the maximum number of people. And in that regard, despite the obvious drawbacks, the freer the economy, the better.

Unfortunately, most people simply don't understand basic economics, but instead deal almost entirely on an emotional level, one that is deeply shaded by the green-eyed monster of jealousy.

Sure, there are some pigs working on Wall Street, sociopathic bastards who would sell their own mothers a participation in an overrated subprime bond without blinking an eye. But to advocate an economy structured around the idea of suppressing a human's natural tendencies to get ahead, rather than simply having a structure in place whereby fraud is punishable and letting people be free to choose whatever path they feel will get them what they most want, is folly of the highest sort.

Why, it would be like designing playground equipment so that the strongest kids, on attaining the highest bars on the jungle gym, would find them electrified and be shocked back to earth. Pretty soon, no one attempts to rise to greater heights.

In any event, I do hope that at least someone in the OWS camp, confronted by the unwelcome homeless campers - campers who are looking to the Occupiers to be their new source of sustenance and shelter - finds themselves pondering about the parallels with broader society and realizing things are not so simple as to be reduced to slogans.

Unless that slogan is the one of my own making, and that is, "Stop Meddling!"

Before signing off on the topic of OWS, please let me clarify -

I'm all in favor of taking it to The Man. Where we disagree is that I firmly believe the only man who really counts in terms of what currently ails societies around the world is not found on Wall Street or their global equivalents, but rather in the backrooms of political power whence emanates the massive meddling that has things so balled up these days.