Sometimes I get the impression that free-market economists think of the idea of the “Free Market” as if it were an objective reality or an inescapable cosmic force, in much the same way that Hinduism or Buddhism thinks of karma. In Hinduism as in Buddhism, karma is an impersonal force, a cosmic reality, a universal law, like gravity. The karmic wheel turns as an unalterable, unstoppable grinding reality. It just is. There is no escaping the consequences of one’s actions because … karma. From a historian’s perspective, the karmic system developed in the East where there were and still are densely populated areas and a very strident competition for material resources. So the development of a system that regulated human moral behavior (how we treat each other when the population is dense and competition for resources is pronounced) became a necessity. For those who live in the East, historically, karma was the answer to this very difficult human problem. Note the moral component. Now, to press the analogy a bit, the Free Market has within it cosmic power to reward and punish certain choices or behaviors. If you act in such a way that compromises or fails to implement the Free-Market ideal in its purity, the Free Market will punish you … or at least, so the ideology goes. It is not a moral or immoral system; so the argument goes. It just is. There is no escaping it. And if we remove all artificially contrived restraints on the Free Market, then its truly benevolent nature will emerge to reward everyone … everyone, that is, who makes the right choices. The Free Market is an impersonal force. So the argument goes, and its rewards and punishments ultimately are those of one’s own making. A lot like karma. … The failure of this ideology is in its misunderstanding of human nature. How do you convince the greedy to stop being greedy? How do you stop the murderer from having murderous thoughts? How do you turn the tyrant from using violence to seize power? … So the idea of the free market is just that, an idea. It requires regulation to prevent human beings from exploiting other human beings of lesser status and power, because having had success in the market they want to use the results of their success to use people instead of providing opportunities for others to have the same success. And once those regulations are implemented by a society that has ordered its government for the protection and the prosperity of its people, then it is no longer a free market. It’s called living and working together.
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Staff members of the International Monetary Fund organization just published a document for debate regarding the global scope of income inequality. And while I dislike the phrase “income inequality” and prefer the phrase “opportunity inequality”, the document makes important points about what is probably the most serious issue of our times. The disclaimer at the beginning of the document warns against associating the findings of this paper with the IMF and that the paper should be taken as the views of its authors. That’s fine. It presents a lot of facts for serious consideration. The one overarching fact is that paying people more in real wages, rather than exploiting the working poor and gutting the middle class, makes for an environment that allows the economy to work for everyone, not just a privileged few. It’s worth the read.
studia rerum iudaicarum 