Free-market capitalism is an economic system that is highly
suited to catering to the desires of the consuming public, as expressed through
their purchasing decisions. Free-market advocates consider this to be one of
its most praise-worthy features; but not everyone agrees with this assessment.
The argument is made that the consumers often make very poor purchasing choices
(due to ignorance, short-sightedness, addiction, marketing, etc…), and because
of this, a system that is designed to cater to such desires is not actually all
that great. Is this a fair criticism of the free-market? Let’s take a look.
First off, I would like to acknowledge that consumers do often make decisions that seem pretty
silly to me. But the key part here is ‘to me’. At the time of making the
decision, the consumer in question thinks it makes perfect sense to them; otherwise, they would not have
made it. If another person were to prevent this consumer from making that
decision through force, the consumer would probably feel frustration and
annoyance; rather than the satisfaction of having their desire fulfilled.
This, of course, only holds with high certainty in that
moment. It is very possible that the consumer who is prevented from making a
decision that is considered silly by an outsider, while feeling frustrated at
the time, will actually feel thankful later on. For instance, the consumer who
is intent on spending $1000 on prostitutes one day, may feel grateful that he
was prevented from doing so the next. But here, we run into a quandary: how do
we really know that the consumer is better off without the prostitutes than he
would have been with them? Sure, he may be happy to still have his $1000 the
next day, but is that happiness greater in magnitude than the happiness he would
have received had he gone through with his hedonistic plans? It being
impossible to compare the magnitudes of two ‘happinesses’, especially when
speaking of someone other than yourself, it is impossible to say with any
degree of certainty. Perhaps the man would have been best off had he blew all his life savings on prostitutes, and
then gone out in a cloud of cocaine that very night! We really have no idea
whatsoever about these things.
Given all of this indeterminacy, it is wise to just forget
about other people’s happiness, and to just focus on your own (which is already
difficult enough). What kind of society would you rather live in? One where you are free to make your own
choices, or one where your choices are made for you by the wielders of
political power? Would you rather be a sovereign individual, or a slave? Many
people, if they are being honest with themselves, will recognize that they
would actually prefer to be a slave, and there are no objective grounds on
which to say that this is an inferior preference. However, it is not my preference, and if these people are
intent on imposing their slave society on me, I shall fight back.
Alright, so I will fight their slave society, but then can I
really fault them for fighting my sovereign individual society? After
all, am I not trying to impose my idea of a good society on them, just as they
are on me? Not entirely. Because the thing is, micro slave societies can exist inside a sovereign individual,
free-market society. Under free-market arrangements, it is likely that entire
city neighborhoods will be owned by either a single landlord or a single condominium
association. As owners, they would have the right to set rules that tenants or
condominium members must follow in order to live in this neighborhood. These
rules could include some paternalistic ones (no smoking, no consorting with
prostitutes, no drinking sugary pop, etc…), provided there were a demand for it
from real estate consumers, which there could well be if enough people had a
slave mentality.
Thus, in this way, people with a slave mentality could opt-in
to a micro slave society within the larger free-market society, simply by moving
in to a neighborhood with a paternalistic rule set. By contrast, if the larger
society is a slave society, it is impossible for a person with a sovereign
individual mentality to opt out of it. They must obey the paternalistic
dictates of the government, or be subjected to harsh physical punishment. The
conclusion, therefore, is that a larger free-market society, with the potential
for micro slave societies within it, caters to people with both kinds of
mentality better than a larger slave society would.
But wait! A final objection emerges! A slave society that one
can opt in and out of; this still leaves an important choice in the slavish
person’s hands! They are continuously faced with the choice of whether they
wish to continue living in such a society or not! Faced with this ‘stressful’
choice, they may long for the larger slave society; featuring a slavery that is
all-encompassing and inescapable. I grant that people like this are right to be
enemies of the free-market society. I can only hope that their numbers are
slight enough to be overcome by the lovers of individual sovereignty.
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