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.

In the coming months and years, we’re going to need inventive and productive people pursuing things that matter. We’re going to need smart and self-directed men and women who will find ideas and create enterprises that will help bypass the political class and build a new and better society. But everything I see in media right now seems geared toward telling people how to entertain and amuse themselves. The stories are full of advice about what to binge on Netflix and what games you should be playing while you’re stuck at home. We desperately need to ignore this advice and be looking toward building new futures instead. Being passive consumers got us where we are today. It’s time that we reclaim our former role — the one that made this country wealthy — as productive and free people who build far more than we consume. This could be a great opportunity for those who will take it. Turn off Netflix. Put down the video game controller. We need new ideas, new achievements, new goals — not more coach potatoes. This is the time to be thinking and creating and planning for the future that you and I both want.

The better I know myself, the more I realize that my core fault — and the source of many other failings in me — is that of believing on a deep level that everyone and everything in my world must be perfect, especially me. If I had seen any of this in myself as recently as 10 years ago, I would have dismissed it as a small failing that showed up only every now and then, but I now see it as the wellspring from which my other sins are born. It’s such an insidious belief — and one that can look on the surface like a reasonable desire to be good and right — that it’s hard to acknowledge it as the inner cancer it is. But until I understood this, it was always going to be impossible for me to get over my deep shame about my imperfection or to accept the love of another person, because she is bound to be flawed, too.

If it’s not yet spring where you are, you can at least enjoy 60 seconds of spring in the South with me. This was just outside my office late Thursday afternoon. Don’t you need a relaxing break today? See it on YouTube by clicking here.

It pays to be nice to the employees at Walmart — and everywhere else, for that matter. I was just in Walmart to buy some kitty litter when one of the employees called me over with a conspiratorial tone: “Hey, David, do you need some toilet paper?” she almost whispered. She had found a giant package hidden somewhere and she said she had been saving it for someone she really liked. So I’m the proud new owner of 24 additional mega rolls of toilet paper, which are worth something like $748 on the black market. On a more serious note, be good to people when you have a chance, as this employee was for me. And remember that people remember the way you treat them. I wouldn’t have treated this woman and her co-workers a bit differently in the past if I’d known she would someday do me this small favor, but there are benefits to treating people well, even if that’s not your purpose. Be good to each other.

My neighbor Cora — a retired teacher — called me while I was driving to the office earlier today to remind me that she wants to take me out to dinner sometime. We’ve talked about going out together, but we’ve never gotten around to coordinating a time. As she was about to get off the phone, she said, “I love you. You’re such a good neighbor!” And I told her that I loved her, too. I wonder how upset the racists of the unquestioned Jim Crow world — only about six decades ago — would have been that a white man and his elderly black neighbor care abut each other in such a way. There’s still a lot wrong with racial attitudes in the world today, but small things such as this remind me that we’ve come a long way.

thomas hobbs

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