People don’t seem to get just what Laissez Faire means.
Free market, is a theory, just like socialism is a theory. You go with one, you go with the other, and we see what works best. You should never practice blind adherence to a theory, you test it, you develop hypothesis, plan out methods, and you test it. You measure the results, if the results aren’t what you wanted or can be improved upon, you adjust the theory. Free market economy is a great system, on paper it was unprecedented economic genius. It is the way all markets naturally should work, but its effectiveness is predicated on one thing:
Ethical Behavior
Without ethics, free market means nothing. If one person, or a small minority control of the entire system through power and corruption will harm the greater good, and eventually undo the entire free market system. Now that’s free market. Adam Smith (the preeminent theorist on capitalism) put a good system on paper in Wealth of Nations, but he himself even warned, that we have to protect against a slim minority controlling with absolute power, corruption and wealth. Because then it’s no longer a free market. Then we are stuck in a false façade of free market economics, but serving an all-powerful minority, one small group of men. That is the real danger. This cyclical pattern has emerged many times even in U.S. history. This very cycle is what lead to the American Revolution, the civil war, the necessity of government regulation and oversight in the early 20th century. The industrial revolution greatly helped to build this nation, but what made this nation great is people standing up and demanding: 8 hour workdays, child labor laws, and 2 day weekends. What made this country rich is ignoring all these things, in the name of free market. What made this nation free is ethical behavior.
We have to straddle a fine line… There must be free market, but also a governing body that ensures ethical treatment of people and of the earth.
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