The Ugliness and Beauty of a Modern Free Market

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

A market that is free for all to tap into has been the hallmark of those who claim that individual freedom should not be restrained by authorities who govern. Such a market is widely called “a free market”, and its economic application is aptly styled a free-market economy. It is claimed that a free-market economy is available for everybody to perform assorted, unrestrained economic activities though it could also be a market for individuals to exercise their respective non-economic functions unless they could pose harm. The freedom of a person is held to be a basic element of personal progress; but the problem arises when one attempts to explain what freedom consists of. It may be stated from the foregoing that one is free if the urge to do what one wanted or pleases was not controlled by others or obstructed from happening. Often, this point does not work for all, especially when it comes to using freedom to achieve a goal either by the person in question or representative(s) of the person.

Entertain Mike who wants to be a doctor. He thinks – and rightly so – that he has the intellectual ability to enable him pursue his goal. But, then, he does not have the financial means to do so, nor do his representatives, namely his parents. He and his parents naturally end up deserting this goal. The multiple disquietudes that may befall Mike and his parents could frustrate their individual and collective determinations to aim at other viable goals. Here, the freedom of the person does not seem realistic unless further qualifications are made to the concept, so that it can include the case of the ability to actualize what one wills without the terrible constraints of finances and other structural barriers. Suppose one is born into, and trapped in, poverty, one faces an arduous task in trying to achieve significant goals despite one's untapped high intelligence; and this presupposes that another person born into wealth – or nearly so – has the easy task of succeeding in life from the perspective of, particularly, wealth. The prior points are not usually explicated by avowed proponents of the free market.

Followers of an unfettered free market arrangement do not address the issue of diverse human aptitudes and initiatives and how a representative government that they, nevertheless, support has to function within that market. They claim that a small-size government and allied structures functions best. They think the least possible interference of governments in individuals’ efforts to create and succeed is the best scheme. And they want government to have the slightest roles in the workings of institutions, bodies. These positions do little or nothing to enable people such as Mike, his parents, and so many other people in similar situations to achieve their defined goals. A man of wealth may have gambled his way to reach his present state; and a man who has had little or no impediments in his drive to attain wealth could claim he has worked hard to reach where he presently has, knowing not how illogical his claim is. There is another man whose success has come about from the mere fact that his relations have bequeathed a large sum of money to him, so his social-economic status has surged. Lastly, there is this man whose relatives are wealthy because they were just lucky to position themselves in life in a fashion that generated unexpected wealth from the family business. This last man was a child when the business had already matured. He has been pampered from childhood up to the present; and his present position - in terms of wealth and unproblematic access to social goods – has not been his own making but delivered to him on a silver platter by his wealthy parents. Yet, he brags around that he has worked so hard to reach his present position and that those who are not like him just prefer not to work hard but expect his wealth to be redistributed by way of a progressive tax system, which he would oppose to the hilt. He fumes when he sees poor people. He considers them to be lazy and social undesirables.

In general, these kinds of privileged people tend to believe – and support the view – that a government's intrusion into personal lives insults personal freedom and could threaten the free market. But it seems to me that their respective arguments have wide gaps since they do not realize that personal wealth, in the first place, requires all kinds of support from others to help in creating it. For instance, the activities of individuals in the free market are interdependent. For Mr. Q and Mrs. Y to succeed in this market, they have to sell their products, whether in the form of services or commodities, to others; others simply have to contribute or participate in Q's or Y's respective successes. In fact, Q and Y would fail if they choose to isolate themselves or keep to themselves. If the impetus to undertake wealth-generating activities is unavailable because one was initially not in a fortunate or favourable position to access the market, then the dream of being successful could get killed.

In the nature of modern societies, people are fond of judging the course of development from the perspective of budget surpluses. Budget surpluses show, according to the popular view, that there is the prudent use of money and the control of human excesses. It would be unwise, so it may be claimed, for government and other stakeholders to put in place programs to enable all individuals in the position of Mike to achieve their set goals. Such government doings wastes money, dries up created surpluses and is proof of misguided government policies and programs, says strong lovers of the free market system They are wrong! An economic system that is not cautiously guided by the hand of government breeds moral and social emptiness that is hard to redress. But a mean-spirited man brought up to hold the inexorable view that life is successful due to one's personal strivings does not understand the purpose of government. His views, if applied, leads to a kind of social-economic arrangement that reinforces the deadly existence of classes.

So proponents of deregulation, of an unfettered free market, tend to dabble in abstractions. Ask them: should there be a representative government? Their answer would be in the affirmative. But ask further what the precise job of government has to be, and no encouraging answer would be forthcoming. In principle, governments are the supreme parents in a civil society. Disenable a government, then individual selfishness would reach a mindless level; the powerless could be crushed by those who wield power, and the limbs off civility would eventually be sawed off. A government is there to guide and promote moral, social and economic decency. One of its major purposes is to give an egalitarian character to the society, so that the society does not degenerate into a dangerously class society. Those who espouse the least possible government and governmental guidance in individualistic human affairs want to seize the fruits of an organic society for themselves in order to eventually render the society free for all to exploit. Thus, the central issue of our time revolves around the question of how to accommodate selfish personal lifestyles with the unanimous consensus that the society ought to be free from moral, social and economic inequities. To attain this goal, the right economic and social principles have to be put in place. But moral and social egalitarianism, which are keys for the suppression and, perhaps, elimination of economic classes, do not arise from the least possible guidance of government in the free operation of market forces.

A representative government fulfils its rightful duties and responsibilities when it cares to oversee and organize personal initiatives, business affairs and practical intelligence. Even with unrestrained practical intelligence, it has the tendency of getting abused whenever it is used to manipulate and seize the dominant elements of market forces for personal – not collective - gains. Cooperativeness together with governmental supervision and management is far more consistent with a free market than anything to the contrary. If this could mean socialism or a species of socialism, so be it!