Today, it is easy to figure out that free-market ideology is not popular. Most people are in favor of one for of interventionism or another. They believe that we need the government to manage the economy. However, if one looks closer at the free-market system, they will find that it is the key to creating a free and prosperous society and that government intervention is never the solution (it normally makes everything worse). So, if this is true, why are so many people not in favor of the free-market?
Free to Fail
Under a true free-market order where the government does not get involved in the economy the customers are in authority. They determine through buying or not buying what business, big or small, will live to see another day. This applies to the employees of a business too because the business can only get money to pay its employees from its customers. In the absence of government coercion, the only way for a business to make money is to please the customer.
This means that everyone is free to succeed if they have the ability to. No one is legally barred from becoming wealthy; it is all a matter of how well can you please the customer. But this also means that everyone is free to fail. This is a necessity for freedom. If someone does a poor job at serving the customer, they will receive less wealth. Naturally this person will resent this; everyone wants to be wealthy. They will probably also be envious of their fellows who have been successful. Therefore, they look for something to blame for their failures and resulting lack of success. In reality, their failure is their fault, but they don’t want to admit this. They want a scape-goat to blame their failures on and direct their envy at. This scape-goat is the free-market.
People blame the free-market because it makes them feel better about themselves. They don’t want to look at themselves as a failure. However, the truth is that when you are free to succeed you are free to fail. Only in a society of government control where everyone does face legal restrictions on success can people rightly blame their failures on the system. Therefore, the free-market has been unjustly blamed for the failures of specific people and this helps foster the resentment against the free-market today.
Conclusion
It can be said that there are many things that foster hatred towards the free-market. The public school and college system being foremost among them. However, I believe that these many things are a result of the deep-seeded envy in people that drives them to hate the free-market in the first place. This fact is at the root of everything. The correct ideas about the free-market are so seldom taught that the masses don’t recognize that it is on their side. The free-market puts the customer in control and gives everyone a chance at success. It is not the evil that everyone sees it as today.
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