Sep

4

The emphasis is always on "free" when it should be on markets. Markets are the miracle of human invention– the one thing that we do than other creatures, event those more intelligent, skilled and long-living, have not bothered with. Markets only exist where 2 things occur at once:

1. People, by force or common acceptance, have outright ownership in what they are selling

2. Buyers have either money or good promises to pay money that the sellers believe they can use for payment when they become buyers

Markets are never "free" - there are always rules from the king, the viceroy or the legislature, as enforced by their minions, that dictate the conditions under which buyers and sellers are allowed to meet. And, most certainly, the king, the viceroy or the legislature, enforces through their minions the monopoly of the government over the question of what can be used to pay taxes. And, most certainly of all, there are always taxes. Commerce is always bent; but, even so, it is more liberating than anything else people do to each other because it assumes that each person is, as Friedman, put it "free to choose".

I wish/pray (depending on the day's preference) that the Libertarians and their allies would abandon their prohibitionist/abolitionist manias about absolute freedom (no borders, no armies or navies, no copyright laws, no legal tender, etc.) and simply become the party of "more" markets. The American labor movement only began to grow freely, without government enforcement, when Samuel Gompers persuaded others that their demands should be simple. "We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more."


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3 Comments so far

  1. Steve on September 4, 2014 12:19 pm

    “Markets are never “free”

    Most of, if not all markets are never completely “controlled.”

    The black market is the market most “free.” And its growing.

  2. Rick Ellis on September 5, 2014 4:54 pm

    Excellent post. Completely agree.

  3. RL on September 7, 2014 7:01 am

    economics is biology. Your definition of a market is too restrictive. the physical action of buying and selling is not as important as the idea that makes a person buy or sell. These strings of ideas mutate and evolve just like animals. In a sense there is no unfree market because governments are subject to the same natural laws as everyone else.

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