Posted by
Andrews on Saturday, December 06, 2008 6:05:00 PM
I have read several places, even from a few here, that free market capitalism requires moral people to "work". That is simply not true. The magic of the market is that it "works" perfectly, regardless of the people involved. So long as the state prevents force, theft and fraud, and consistently arbitrates contracts (as well as providing some minimal tort framework for the rare car crash, accident between strangers and so on), it does not matter if you have the most immoral crowd of people on earth, they will still work to the benefit of one another, if only to satisfy their own wants.
Of course, by "work" many of these people mean "work" in the sense the left always does. That is "it won't turn out the way I like unless they have the morality I propose". For example, pornography may or may not be common under a totally free market. That is not "working" or "not working". What people want is what they get. So the fact that a lot people want porn does not mean it isn't "working", it just means the morality of the majority is different from whoever is talking about it "not working".
This actually relates to
a problem I just discussed, the right acting more like the left. We tend not to accept that our own desires do not control things and talk as if things are not right simply because they differ from our own desires. At one time the right was made up of adults who recognized that their own desires where just that, their own, and not to be forced on others. Now we are as childish as the left, and if people do things with which we disagree, we call the system broken and are as ready as the left to bring in the state.
It is time one side grew up. And as we once were the side of the adults, I would hope it would be the right. Sadly, neither side shows any sign of becoming adults. If anything, we are growing ever more prone to try to use the government to make sure everyone thinks and behaves the way we want them to.