by Michael Greaney

Created on: July 29, 2008

It has become popular in recent centuries to heap abuse on the free market. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the market mechanism is the only direct manner in which individual consumers can exercise their economic "votes." Embodying as it does the general consensus of buyers and sellers as to what things are worth, the free market empowers individuals with the ability to make a difference in creating a sustainable economy, and thus a sustainable society.

By "free market," of course, we do not mean a classic laissez-faire free-for-all in which anything goes. A genuinely free market is one to which everyone, whether buyers or sellers, has free and equal access and bargaining power.

This, as we might expect, raises the issue of how the average consumer or worker can gain equal access and bargaining power. We have known for centuries (if not longer) that power naturally and necessarily follows property. The problem is that most people do not have access to the means of acquiring and possessing property, putting them at a disadvantage with respect to those who do have access to the means of acquiring and possessing property. The question then becomes how ordinary people, typical consumers, can gain access to the means of becoming owners.

First off, we have to realize that (as Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out) the individual as an individual is generally pretty helpless in the face of seemingly adamantine social institutions, institutions such as who has the power to become an owner of the means of production. The answer to the helplessness of the individual as an individual is to gain power by organizing into groups. The individual as an individual remains helpless, but the individual as a member of a group has power.

Workers and consumers have used this technique for centuries, but unfortunately often for shortsighted or even wrongheaded goals. The Luddites organized to destroy the machinery that they believed was taking away their livelihoods. Contrary to popular myth, the Luddites didn't campaign against machinery, but against machinery that they didn't own. In essence, the Luddites were protesting against concentrated ownership of the means of production, not against the means of production itself. The union movement of the 19th century organized to obtain better working conditions, higher wages, and benefits. Consumers have frequently organized boycotts of products they believe to be overpriced or below acceptable quality.

None of these things is bad, but all

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