Thank you, Gary. Your point is very well taken. Indeed, an early criticism of the free market was that so many uncoordinated individual decisions would never successfully manage a complex economy. Today, we know the free market is in a fact a prerequisite for this success.
Yet, my concern is that the free market will be unable to successfully operate, in the total absence of government. If the market is undermined by a lack of enforceable contracts, it may not be able to provide the solution for private contract enforcement. The free market appears to require prerequisites, such as a reasonably peaceful environment for trade. Uniform and predictable rules appear necessary for planned investment. If you look around the world in places where there is no peace, and/or no uniform and predictable rules, the economy is almost always in the doldrums. If the market cannot maintain itself, it cannot uphold the full panoply of Life, Liberty and Property. The majority has always sought to oppress the nonconformist and the deviant. The majority has always sought to steal the hard-earned wealth of its prosperous neighbors. What makes you think this pattern will change? Have you ever seen a right-handed spoon? It is a spoon bent to the left at a 90 degree angle, so that it cannot be used in the left hand. It was used a couple of generations ago to make left-handed children conform. Though completely pointless, it was considered normal to inflict this burden on left-handed people. I do not see such a species forming the kind of society anarchists envision. I wish it were otherwise. Chris Edes > In what situations would the absence of government > > produce better results, and how? > > > > The beauty of the free market is that it develops and supplies goods and > services that you and I cannot envision. It develops and supplies goods and > services that cannot be envisioned by any group of planners. If those goods > and services could be envisioned and developed by a small group, we wouldn't > need the free market. > In the absence of government, how would the free market provide national > defense and contract enforcement? Well, I don't know, and I don't have to > know. I know that whenever and wherever there is demand, the market delivers > supply. I don't have to say how [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
