The morality of the free market

The cause of the lingering American economic malaise is centralized economy.  If we can get back to the atomistic, pure democracy of free market, we will bounce back in no time.  But there is a substantial cadre of people who want to control your life.  They are standing in the way. 

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Outside your typical college campus, most people don’t question the free market’s superiority when it comes to economic performance. Even the so-called communists in China have come around to the view that Adam Smith is a far more reliable guide for a nation than Karl Marx or Chairman Mao.

But while we’ve won the efficiency argument, we have yet to persuade people that the market does better because it is more moral — or that socialism fails because it is largely immoral in its denial of fundamental freedoms

To the contrary, too many people think that the market succeeds because it is based on a vice — greed. And that socialism is better, because it is based on a virtue — sharing. 

Naturally, they conclude from this one of two things: that the way to make capitalism more just and more humane is to temper it by injecting a large dollop of government-mandated sharing, or that, like President Obama, government is better.

We see this confusion everywhere. And conservatives and Republicans have to be honest here: It’s not limited to those on the left side of the political aisle.

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Crony capitalism is not capitalism. It’s cronyism. So long as we allow the debate to be framed by people who think the market is efficient because it is based on a human failing, we are going to lose. 

The only way to uphold market freedom is to show people that the market doesn’t succeed because of greed. For the truth is just the opposite

The market succeeds because it gives people incentives to put their own wants and needs aside to address the wants and needs of others. To succeed, you have to produce something that other people are willing to pay for.

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These are excerpts form an article written by Rupert Murdoch.  Normally I would link to the original article here, but it disappeared form the web.  Weird.