Friday, January 08, 2010

Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself

This is from an article about the evolution of wikipedia's editing policies. I can never resist the Milton Friedman quote that made the title. Some great stuff here:

Winston Churchill understood that freedom is a messy thing. He noted, "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried," but that "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." That brings to mind William F Buckley's, Jr.'s admonition that, "I would rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty".

Milton Friedmon understands, "A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that... it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the "rules of the game" and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on. What the market does is to reduce greatly the range of issues that must be decided through political means, and thereby to minimize the extent to which government need participate directly in the game. Capitalism and Freedom

Martin Luther King, Jr. chastised his friends, "I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Letter from Birmingham City Jail

Freedom does not occur in a vacuum. Freedom occurs in community, and its preservation is a daily struggle.


Read the whole piece here: Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself | Swamp Fox

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