The modern market is not made for the average man, Free Northerner argues, but is instead made for the soulless, high-IQ, homo economicus. So, what do we replace it with?
We can not replace it with socialism, communism, or the like, for those systems lead to misery. Distributism looks nice, but is light on details and is unlikely to scale to large urban populations. It is undisputable that free markets are the most effective and efficient means of producing goods and services, but modern free markets are based on the abominations of usury and inflation, and destroys traditional communities and leave those humans not suited for inhuman money-grubbing frozen out.
So, where can we get a system that is a combination of efficient, just (in the proper sense, not in the evil ‘social justice’ sense), and human?
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The problem with free markets though, is that they are free. Libertarians and conservatives do not take their thoughts as fully forward as they should. We can privatize all the goods and services on the market, but that leaves one question, what of the market itself?
The lib/cons wish to privatize everything but the market itself, leaving the market as its own commons. They than argue the socialist argument that the market, and the contracts that it consists of, should be enforced and controlled by the public through the complex social scheme called the government. Of course, the government tends to snowball out of control, and the lib/cons are suprised when a formerly free market country becomes a socialist state.
The solution then, is to privatize markets themselves. We need not free markets, which are subject to the plundering all commons are subject to, but owned markets, markets which are privately owned and controlled for the profit of the owner.
“…We need not free markets, which are subject to the plundering all commons are subject to, but owned markets, markets which are privately owned and controlled for the profit of the owner…”
I believe this is what we have now. A good example the monetary systems of the West.
By pure synchronicity I ran across this post that corresponds with what I said above:
Great find, Sam. That’s one to bookmark and watch. This HipCrime Vocab, I’ll put it right next to Grey Enlightenment in my bookmarks folder, which I also recommend.
The key distinction being made is between markets that can be manipulated by cronies and markets that can only be controlled by their owners — a principal-agent distinction.