Freedom isn't Free

That some so-called conservatives are now backing away from the free market because it doesn't seem to be working right now is not a blemish on the free market, it is the result of a trial by fire which has brought to the surface the lack of character of those that espouse the free market when their portfolios are rising.

For the record: the free market doesn't fail.

That's like saying love failed, or freedom failed, or justice failed.

Is the free market perfect?

Define perfect.

Freedom is it's own goal. Freedom is not a means to an end. The objective of the free market is not to make people wealthy. The objective of the free market is not to grow the economy. The objective of the free market is not to improve people's standards of living.

The purpose of the free market is to be free.

There are, of course, indirect costs and benefits to freedom. The benefits are numerous and obvious. Freedom is the surest path towards the greatest prosperity.

Those that believe that the free market failed are suffering from their own failure to understand the merits of freedom and the reality of the world in which we live.

The reality is that we are not even living in a free market. I grant that freedom will produce casualties, just like any other tactic used by man to cope with the fall (the study of which I like to call economics). Freedom does not undo the damage caused by the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. However, I will not accept the premise that America is a free market.

Society in America is heavily regulated. Freedom is fenced in on all sides. We are free to do, to produce, and to purchase whatever we wish, so long as we abide by certain rules and regulations. Many of these rules and regulations are forms of social engineering and socialism meant to try to fix the problems with the free market.

The attempts to create an ownership society, an attempt to undo the fall rather than cope with it, have instead produced an impoverished society. The attempts to artificially stimulate growth have produced a recession.

The free market continued to operate to some extent, within it's neat little framework. It did exactly as it would be expected to do, and it met it's objective of being as free as it can within the constraints.

It is the meddlers who failed. It was their goal to rig the system to produce a society that is safer, wealthier, more equal, and more prosperous. It is they who have failed, and the reasons are obvious. The world is too complex a place to be governed by bureaucrats. It is only free people living in a free society that can cope with the complexities and the difficulties that have resulted from the fall.

Is it perfect? Again, I ask you to define perfect? If you are unable, then I will give you my definition. Perfect freedom will occur when all people make perfectly free choices with perfect knowledge that do not infringe upon the freedoms of others. When this perfect freedom is combined with perfect justice, perfect mercy, and perfect love, you will have a perfect society.

If this is the perfection you seek, then you will only find it in the Kingdom of God.