thomas hobbs

The free market: It’s not just for greedy, rich white capitalists

By David McElroy · June 3, 2011

Some well-meaning people on the political left listen to arguments for the free market and respond by saying something such as, “Well, that’s fine if you’re one of the privileged middle class or higher. But for those in poverty, they’re never going to have anything unless the state helps them. Your free market is only good for the rich.”

This just isn’t so. The free market is the best known vehicle for raising the living standards of the poor. People today look at the lifestyles of poor people in the 19th century (and even 20th century) and believe those lives indict the free market. Reality is just the opposite.

Life has always been difficult. Thomas Hobbes famously referred to the natural state of man as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” The relative wealth that came to the poor in the 19th century — because of industrialization — was a tremendous improvement over what they had experienced before. It’s a testament to just how far we’ve come since then that their lives seem so bad to us today. The fact that the “working poor” weren’t as well off as the capitalists doesn’t change the fact that the market helped the poor immensely.

Michael Strong makes a powerful case for the market when he talks about the experience of the poor in India:

“At the average rate of economic growth under socialism, India would have reached a U.S. standard of living in 2300. At the average rate of economic growth achieved since economic liberalization, India will reach a U.S. standard of living in the mid-21st century. By what standard of morality can one condemn a billion people to 250 years of unnecessary poverty?”

That’s a powerful argument. If you’re a socialist or egalitarian, you might not like it that some people are going to do better than others in a market. But condemning people to the “equality” of a non-market system ensures that the living conditions of the poor will be far worse. Is your egalitarianism worth condemning billions of people to lives of poverty for? If so, please don’t pretend that you really care about the poor.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

thomas hobbs

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