Free Markets, Liberty, and Culture

In a strictly economic sense the free market is about competition and maximum choice. It is important to understand that a market cannot fail. The markets job is simply to distribute production, the market is the interaction between human beings when they buy and sell goods and services. Markets just bring buyers and sellers together. If there is one buyer and one seller, that is still a market as the act of buying and selling took place. The market can either be free or controlled. As long as there is production the market will exist, to talk of market failure is to show ignorance of the market and what it is. One can talk of failure of production and reduced goods and services available in the market, but the market itself is a neutral concept, it can never fail, as long as there is exchange of goods and services, the market has done its job.

A free market concept merely says that anybody can participate in the buying and selling of goods and services. The free market says anybody capable can produce goods and provide services. This is opposite to a market that is under total government control where only the government can provide goods and services. The free market again is very different from a situation where the government decides who in their private capacity can produce goods and bring them to market, this is not free market, once you hear there are legally only so many banks, so many phone companies, so many insurance companies, that is not the free market, the government has decided who can produce and provide services. But remember, a market still exists, be the market free, partially controlled as in fascism or totally controlled as in communism. Once you hear of bailouts and subsidies, rest assured that market is not free, the players, the suppliers of goods and services have already been decided by the government. A free market says that the suppliers of goods and services are left to their own devices, if you are inefficient then you lose, the government will not come and bail you out or give you a subsidy, nobody gets special treatment.

Sports is an excellent example of the free market, there are set rules and the individual or team plays. The authorities do not handicap one team or individual in favor of another, that would be rightly called cheating. No one capable is refused a shot if they believe they can make it, one can go to the gym right now and try out their luck in any of the martial arts competitions, tennis or golf for example, as they win they would move up the rankings, authorities do not make rules to handicap anybody, the winner is clear. How does this apply to life outside sports?

When Mike Tyson lost his fortune no government came in and said Mike you were a great champ here is your money back, people would have cried foul, not fair, it is his fault, and rightly so. When a banker loses his money should he not be forced to get another job, he is no good as a banker, he has no aptitude for it, others have better aptitude, but he is bailed out. All over the world government protect monopolies, in Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia the telecommunications sector is protected creating false billionaires who never worked for their money but relied on the government to protect them from competition. They owe the government everything right down to the underwear they wear. Government protects them because they fear those better than them would do a better job if they are allowed.

The government does not subsidize for example the Dallas cowboys or any other Football team, nor does British government subsidize Arsenal or any other soccer team, that would be considered abhorrent and unfair to the others. These are businesses, private businesses, the same logic and principles should hold up for other businesses. What makes one private corporation so special that they can be subsidized by the government and call themselves talented and others lazy whilst they reside in mansions bought for by tax payers.

The free market is a simple concept, nothing evil, it guarantees an individual’s right to be allowed to bring goods and services to market that other individuals have brought to the market. If they are allowed to bring certain goods and services to the market, if you have the resources and business acumen, then you as an individual can do the same?

This brings about the legal aspect of a system of free markets and liberty. The basic legal requirement for a free market system is that everybody is equal before the law. How is that evil? If A can do it so can B. If A can own property, even if A is the government, then B can own property. No individual, no institution, no organization has greater rights than B. If A can take certain action with his property so can B because they are equal under the law, they have the same protection and rights from the law. Equality before the law is a massive concept.

If A can own property so can B. If A can take a certain action so can B. If A can have an opinion so can B and if A has right to tell others his opinion so does B because they are equal under the law, Equality before the law guarantees free speech.  If A can believe in a supernatural being of his choosing so can B believe in a supernatural being of his choosing or none. If A can own arms, equality before the law must guarantee that B can also take the same action. How then is this concept evil, because you cannot have free markets without equality before the law, how then is an idea that says you are free to take action you desire to make a living evil. Anybody who says this evil is the one who is evil as they want to control people and give certain people advantages over others, they want to create serfs, they are the absolute evil, they are the selfish who say their self interests are best served when most of society is handicapped and they have clicks that are more equal before the law than everybody else.

The market is about human interaction. For a seller there must be a buyer, there must be interaction. To provide a service you must be providing that service for another human being. You get to choose the human being you want the service from, you want the goods from. There can be no market for anything without human interaction, it does not make sense.

The free market ensures maturity. A mature mind accepts change, that there is a possibility somebody else can do it better. This is a cultural attitude. A free market is for human beings, by bringing your goods or services to the market you accept you are dealing with other human beings. By accepting that you are dealing with human beings and that money is just that money, a tool of exchange, but to serve its purpose it must have the ability to store value, it is just money, it is human action that gives that money value, not faith, goods and services. When money accepts money is just money, they accept goods and services can come from anybody no matter the religion, the culture, the race, the sex, money will purchase the good or service the owner wants, and will allow anybody else to purchase their good or service.

The free market ensures a culture of positive human action, as all are equal human beings will see that they do not have to join fraternities, political parties, or donate to political parties to get legislation that is beneficial to them, because they can take any action that any other member or members of society can take. Those who advocate any other system advocate inequality before the law, by this they are spreading the culture that some humans are superior to other humans, and their pseudo scientists will keep claiming they have found the intelligence gene in their people and therefore must rule everybody else and laws must be bent for them to get bailouts. Well, if they are so intelligent why do they fear a free market, a culture that accepts all are human beings, a culture that will accept knowledge from any human being, if it is correct it is correct. Only a free market mentality can do that, allow humans to accept other humans.

The free market promotes the idea that one must look after their own self interests, without harming anybody else. Anything less than a free market promotes a culture of selfishness, everything for me, subsidies for me, bailouts for me, government contracts for me, the rest deserve nothing, I don’t even have to be good, I just need the connection who will bend laws towards my favor, that is selfishness. They will use my services or else, and I shall get rich because I have made donations to the right people. Who cares if others are more talented than me. But the media I advertise in will say I am talented or else. The media I advertise in will only show scientists of my people as great, a truly selfish, fearful, thieving, con artist of a human.Yes to them the Free market, equality before the law is their greatest threat.

Accepting all are human beings means people will interact freely with each other not stratified by race, religion, sex, or wealth, but what you have to offer. Free market promotes a superior culture, how can accepting we are all human beings be evil? The most confusing thing is when a descendant of slaves or descendant of apartheid, colonialism  calls the free market evil, what a fool, he/ she thinks equality before the law is evil. Well back to slavery the opposite of free markets and equality before the law.

Bhekuzulu Khumalo

Twitter @bhekukhumalo

If you like what you read, be generous if you can it will be appreciated

Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, and Free market

“Free markets and civil liberties are the same. You can’t just pick one and not the other...”(Jose Shnanderson on Twitter). The Civil rights movement that culminated with Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech and the decolonization of Africa was a fight for justice, if justice encompasses the principles of righteousness and equitableness.

For a movement to be known as a Civil Rights movement, it follows that the past generation of black leaders in America where leading in the demands for civil liberties. The leaders in the Caribbean and Africa who at the same time where leading in the demands for civil liberties for black people in Africa. It is no coincidence that these movements occurred at the same time.

Nobody just stands up and demands civil liberties, what are people in actuality demand when they ask for civil rights, when they demand equal rights and justice. When somebody demands civil rights, they are demanding in actual fact to be treated as not less than a human being. They are demanding that the law treat them as it treats anybody else, that nobody has fewer rights under the law.

Civil rights ensure that everybody is treated equally by the law, if one can vote, so can another vote. The civil rights movement of the past was guided by the principle that the question of race should never be a factor in how the law treats anybody. The concept of the civil rights movement in principle can never be detached from the concept of civil liberties, though seemingly broader in nature, at the core of civil rights has to be the principle of civil liberties, one is demanding the same civil liberties as another human being, in effect civil liberties guarantee that all are human and all have the same rights and protections from the law.

The concept of civil liberties ensures the law treats us all the same. The process of the civil rights movement is to demand civil liberties for all. The free market is more than just about the right to make money, a free market can never operate in an arena where there are no civil liberties. The free market cannot exist without the concept of equality before the law, a pillar of civil liberties. Equality before the law ensures that what anybody else can do, all others can do it. You cannot have a free market without that concept that is what is behind competition in the economy. If A can do an economic activity, so can B, as long as A is a legal body. Therefore if the state can do an activity, B can also do that activity, how can the state be more equal than the general citizenry that it claims to represent?If the state can own property then other citizens can own property.

The state cannot be more equal than the citizens, the state is run by citizens, it would by logical deduction mean that the citizens running the state have more rights than other citizens. That is why wise people ensure that the people have a right to be armed, the right to bear arms, because the state cannot have greater rights than everybody else, if the state can bear arms, surely the people can too if there is any respect for civil liberties.

One cannot at the same time demand civil liberties, demand civil rights, and at the same time demand that the state have more rights than individuals, it is illogical. Sure people do it, but by that very action, they are being illogical. One cannot at the same time talk of civil liberties, demand freedom and say people must be disarmed, the state should have a monopoly on the right to arms. Even if the state is the most benevolent state, the fact that it has more rights than the people suggests an illogical setup, what happens when the citizens who run the sate are no longer benevolent.

People with proper civil liberties intact understand that everybody is entitled to legally be equal with another person. One cannot at the same time for example demand civil rights and attack the concept of civil liberties, by demanding that the state somehow have more rights than the other citizens who are not a part of running the state.

One cannot at the same time demand civil rights and attack the concept of the free market. The free market is an offshoot of equality before the law, it is an offshoot of civil liberties. Civil rights is about demanding civil liberties for all, then those who advocate civil rights cannot at the same time attack the free market, it is illogical. The free market can only be based on the concept that if one can do an activity, all can do that activity, that is how you get competition. Being based on civil liberties, the free market essentially says all are human beings and are capable of being active in the economic process in the manner that best suits them. To claim to believe in the free market and refuse civil liberties is insanity. One is essentially being a con artist.

These concepts of civil rights, civil liberties, and the free market take great maturity to accept, only an immature mind splits them and tries to make them different issues when they are essentially the same issue. To believe in civil liberties and the free market is to believe in human beings, is to accept all as human beings and capable given opportunities by the law, given opportunities by culture. Civil liberties are a culture, people who truly believe in civil liberties must also believe in humanity and individuals, there are some individuals capable of a certain activity, there are some who are not, but all must be equal in front of the law.

One who truly believes in the free market and is not using it as a smokescreen for some other believes they have accepted by logical extension that all human beings are potentially capable.

Bhekuzulu Khumalo

Twitter - @bhekukhumalo

If you like what you read, be generous if you can it will be appreciated

Old Man Shu on Liberty and Freedom

Lenus was known throughout the lands as a major defender of total freedom, to him governments where a total rip-off giving money to unproductive people, who defended their incompetent friends by making laws favoring their incompetent friends.  He was sitting in the garden of Shu, a man at least twenty years older than Lenus, and Shu himself was considered a great defender of liberty and freedom but a less extreme version than that of Lenus and his followers. Lenus had once been a student of Shu.

“Shu, my old friend and a man whose views I hold dear to my heart and soul. We are both defenders of freedom and liberty, we both see that it is the government in the ways of people. It has always been governments in the ways of people, governments basically want a few people, to control the great swaths of people. We both know this to be an injustice, people should be free to use their property in the manner that they see fit. They should be allowed to gather as much property as they so desire. As a matter of fact in my latest book I have gone as far as saying profit should be the highest ideal. In short when a society is looking at profits they will learn to be more efficient and will constantly look for better ways of doing things. Government is in the way of the better to make profits, why are you so reluctant to give our views your full support, get rid of the government altogether. We don’t need them Shu.”

All the time whilst Lenus was talking Shu was looking at him. When Lenus finished Shu looked away deep in thought. He stood up to pour himself another drink, and brought the whole bottle so that Lenus could pour for himself whenever he was ready. Lenus could not help that though 83, Shu had a spring in his step, his old mentor was still fanatical about looking after himself. After pondering the question from Lenus, Shu sighed heavily, like a man about to relieve a burden of himself, knowing now is the time. Lenus asked like he was trying to dig some secret out of Shu, now Lenus felt at long last he was about to receive this secret.

“We don’t need the government Lenus, we need a government Lenus. Once long ago, in my youth I met men from distant lands, Have you ever heard of Bizazoo Lenus?” Shu put forward a question to Lenus.

“It’s Bizazool my old friend, who has not heard of Bizazool. That tyrannical land, such tyranny drove all the talented people from that land. The talented, left with their talents to offer them to other lands, the rich took their gold, silver, diamonds and rubies to finance other lands. What great loads of gold and silver that Bizazool had. But why talk of this, its fall is close to a century ago. Bizazool is the classic example of why we should have no governments at all.”

Shu burst out laughing, laughing so much that tears were rolling down his eyes. Lenus was puzzled how can a man of any sense laugh at such a serious matter, though getting visibly agitated he managed to ask Shu, “ what is so funny, I do not believe I made a joke?”

Shu controlled his laughter and began to engage Lenus once more in conversation. “Lenus, some parts of my memory are weary, Bizazoo, Bizazool, what’s the difference, does it really matter my pronunciation, my spelling, okay Bizazool. You think I am timid because I say there should be a government, a government of some sort. A system where there is the right to have property, to do as one pleases with that property. To be treated equally by the law, meaning in some sense that you can use your property in the manner that anybody else can use their property. Government should be as meaningless as possible, but there should still be a government. To you that is soft. I take this stance because of Bizazool, you take your stance seemingly because of Bizazool. But we both agree that Bizazool had great wealth, as could be seen by how much flowed out of it because of tyranny.

When I was young in my twenties, my early twenties or late twenties who cares, I thought exactly like how you think now, but you are now at least in your sixties. Go and read my first writings, one of my very first articles I called for the abolition of government. Soon after that article I met an extraordinarily wealthy philosopher, he philosophized mostly on what it meant to be happy, he never became famous. They had left Bizazool when he was a teen and when I met him he must have been at least fifty. We talked a lot, he gave me my first loan to buy into some mining venture, it turned out well. Well that is how I made my fortune, but fortune was always secondary to the cause, but fortune allowed me to do more, but I would still fought to the bitter end for liberty and justice, I already was before fortune came my way, well you didn’t know that, just letting you know. Now I was already into liberty and freedom, as I had already written dozens of articles about it and spoken several times. But this man who became a friend told me the story of Bizazool, the great symbol of tyranny. That is why I laugh when you say Bizazool is the classic example of why we should have no governments. See, 300 years before the fall of Bizazool, Bizazool was a wealthy but not powerful nation. The people overthrew the aristocracy of that land in a bloody, in a very bloody revolution. The leaders of the revolution where not half baked people who envied the aristocrats, and replace the aristocrats once the revolution was over. They mean to abolish that system and put in place a system where anybody could be, if they used their talents, true freedom.

There have been revolutions, there will always be wars of freedom, but the overthrow of the aristocracy in Bizazool  was a true revolution in the sense that those who overthrew the aristocracy never wanted anything but to be free and the rest of Bizazool to be free. Understand this, they refused to replace the aristocracy they wanted a totally new system where all citizens of Bizazool where free, they got rid of all hierarchy in the justice system, everybody was equal, you could do what anybody else could do with your property. They even got rid of the government, there were no taxes. Those that led the revolution gained nothing except their freedom, some had property some did not, but they gained immortality as leaders of a great revolution. Profit was the ideal, creating better and better, been awarded, being the best at your job, expanding your mind to the limit. Profit was cherished, money was cherished. It was put as the highest ideal.

As there were no tariffs at first some industries suffered badly collapsing, but those that remained became strong and great money spinners. Agriculture became more efficient as farmers had to compete with produce from elsewhere, but farming machinery and techniques also improved greatly. Within 30 years the Bizazool experiment was envy of large parts of the world.

There was some crime taking place, not much, but some crime. A private police force was set up. Everybody had to contribute, after all, there must be no free riders. It was for a profit police force of course. Profit was the ideal. The philosophy of the land was make the most of life, the most is material. The for profit police force was set up, crime came down. If you did not contribute you could expect your property not to be looked after.

Now my friend, knowing human nature there will be some crime, a private police force set up, many to be sure competing with different services in both quantity and quality of course. You got the police service you could afford. The courts where of course privatized, becoming for profit organizations. Now you can already see the problem with this. The jails where run by for profit organizations, obviously a more wealthy transgressor got better jail conditions for committing similar crimes than the poor transgressor, jails had to balance the budget too. This in itself is a serious breach of equality before the law, or if you like equality under the law.

The courts had to make money to justify their existence. Brother, you can already imagine the problem for yourself. It is a disaster in the making. When judges and juries are for sale, there is a real problem. Can such a system breed nothing but tyrannical forces? Sure we are all free, that is such an ideal but at the end the concept of aristocracy must slowly keep creeping in. Those with means can afford courts better than those without, the concept of equality before the law is thrown out of the window, it becomes a system of who has more.

Evil creeps in slowly into what was meant to be ideal. What began as we are all free do what you like, make profit, zero governments. There was a border skirmish that occurred with a neighbor. A small skirmish. There was no army, but volunteers rushed in to defend their beloved Bizazool. Bizazool pushed back the intruders, then it was realized a defense mechanism is needed. An army would be needed to patrol the border lands, who was going to pay. There was an argument that those with properties on the borderlands should pay more as they had most to lose. But the people at the border suggested all must pay equally, or they will leave their border properties and Bizazool can shrink as they should not be made to carry more of the burden. Now imagine if those at the border retreated, in effect Bizazool would be ceding land as it would not be settled. It was agreed that it was in everybody’s interest to pay for defense.

So we have a whole lot of taxes that are not being called taxes, they paid for policing, they paid for an army, private armies of course, mercenaries so to speak. Several companies would provide such a service so that there was no monopoly. Now there is an army that is answerable to profit. There is a correctional services system that treats those with money better in order to maximize profits. As there is no government, prisoners must work for the jail so that the jail can sell products in order to be able to pay for itself. Would this be an honest prison system. They need more prisoners in order to make a profit. Now I am not against prisoners working and contributing financially to a society, but I mean, those with means can pay for good behavior, after all these are private institutions, instead of working they pay upfront, so much for equality before the law. Corruption and immorality all the way, from what started off as good intentions, just wanted to get the government out of the way of people.

When everything is for profit, what we consider crooked becomes accepted culture. Maximize your life, your material well being, you have that right, no government in the way. But slowly a form of government has to creep back in, paying for protection, that is a tax but anarchists would refuse to call it exactly what it is, it is a tax, that is what taxes are for, they are for protection.

Now armies spend all day preparing for war, sure every citizen been equal in principle had rights to arms that the armies had, but how prepared are they for combat. Going to a shooting range every other weekend is not preparation for lethal combat. In time the armies kept demanding more and more for their protection. The people got so fed up with the justice system that those with guns soon took over the justice system promising that all will be treated equally under the law no matter the amount of money they had. A weary people accepted this new government, but many had started leaving Bizazool. After three hundred years it was the symbol of corruption. The police and military corporations united in order to provide better services, promising to end the chaos, the end result is what you have heard of Tyrannical land. It was once the richest land, but soon people could no longer tolerate it, but what could they do. For profit army, well it will end up plundering its own citizens. The bankers, the big industries all compiled, knowing that they now needed the protection from the police and army.

Everybody was blamed, the bankers, the industrialists, but really, the power of bankers and industrialists was protected by the military and police.The military and police should be answerable to the general citizenry, not those who can afford to bribe the top echelons of such institutions.

No my dear Lenus, I believe in private property, I believe in equality before the law, I believe in the free market for a society. But the free market is far more than just the right to make a profit. If a judge takes a bribe, is he not maximizing his profit? Sure he is, is that moral, is that a judge. Principles are more than just profit, they have to be, we are humans. Let us minimize the role of government in a proper social code, but get rid of it, I have many doubts and I have just expressed them to you, we are a society. Bizazool, profit nation, what a laugh.” This time Shu did not laugh, he was being very serious.

Bhekuzulu Khumalo
twitter - @bhekukhumalo