Cindy and I are back from our anniversary “vacation,” which involved me doing book signings at the Big E. Last week I did some prep work for deconstructing the misinformation in Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny by providing an overview of misinformation principles and declaring what “ideology” guides my analysis. The remaining prep work is to establish free market, liberty and property models/definitions as a base for analyzing Levin’s use of those terms. I will start with a free market model.
The simplest free market model involves local individuals bartering their goods and/or services. The exchange is voluntary, the most trumped up condition for a free market exchange by “free market libertarians.” Bartering does not require government’s role in providing currency, making it the most pure form of exchange without government intervention, another agreed upon condition of free markets. Finally, there is likely to be a free flow of information or full disclosure between local merchants. This is a condition of free markets that tends to be ignored by “free market libertarians” but is, in a sense, the condition that makes the other two meaningful.
Of what value is making a voluntary exchange in the cause of “freedom,” unless that exchange is based on the liberty of individuals to self-actualize, to fulfill individual objectives based on the information they receive? Nature can not “pull a fast one” with information; only culture can provide a system where individuals misinform to gain advantage in an exchange as a standard practice. This means that where misinformation can be a standard practice, government must be involved for that standard practice to work.
There are some attributes for the simple free market model worth noting. First, market exchanges occur between “individuals.” A proprietor can be defined as an “individual” without too much stretch of the meaning. Salesmen and laborers working for the proprietor extend the complexity of market changes, but they still amount to a series of exchanges between individuals whose labors have enabled the exchange. The Supreme Court has defined corporations as “individuals” entitled to due process of the law as well, but it should be noted that this “individual” includes shareholders that have no involvement in products being exchanged. It should also be noted corporate “individuals” have been defined as such by government, and that corporate “individuals” have liability protections from government not enjoyed by real individuals.
Another thing of note is that liberty causes free markets, not vice-versa. Grant individuals full autonomy to think and labor independently and they will do so. Humans being a wonderfully diverse species our independence will lead to specialization, which in turn provides the basis for exchanges between individuals that specialize in different things. Free markets are an attribute, not a cause, of a free society.
Finally, there is nothing inherent about free markets that maximizes wealth. Wealth is defined in our economic system as generated by trade. While free market exchange is by definition a trade, maximizing wealth means maximizing trade, maximizing exhanges, whether or not individuals would freely do so, whether or not the exchanges involve a market commodity. If we were to be more precise in what free markets accomplish for society we should say progress, not wealth. For through free exchange comes the free flow of information, and through free flow of information comes new enhancements to specialization, new markets for exchange.
I think that as the economy continues to go through difficult times, more and more people will turn to bartering. I know a lot of people that have. Personally I have begun to barter my services on http://barterquest.com to keep my business running.