by No Single Name

Created on: April 20, 2009

In every nation, there is a driving giant, a living, breathing creature of constant change and learning: the economy. It moves and grows as time goes on, faltering, succeeding, leashed or unchained. Sometimes, its growth is stunted; sometimes, spurred. Milton Friedman makes it very evident in Free to Choose that, in his eyes and experience, the beast liberated is a beast beneficent.

As a Libertarian, I am already inclined to agree with him. Just as Friedman writes, the Market transmits information incredibly; anyone keeping a close eye, even subconsciously, can learn a thousand things simply by taking measure of the prices around them. We can tell that gas has gone up because groceries are more expensive to transport, and perhaps that has adversely effected the price of our favorite restaurant.

It is a telephone line running through society; one that will always exist, again as demonstrated by Friedman in regards to then-Communist Russia. This is not necessarily the nature or strength of the economic type, however, but simple human nature: if it is illicit, it will exist. A black market of moonlighting may exist in the Soviet Union not only because it is beneficial to everyone involved, but also because it shouldn't. This is certainly a smaller part of the reason, but it is a portion nonetheless, and is important to consider when contemplating the damage a government can do the economy and, subsequently, its people when hampering the flow of exchange.

Federal government can do amazing and awful things to a country, and to the economy; but though the free market is healthiest, it is cyclical. It cannot go on freely forever. We have seen the bail-outs and their impacts. We have already effectively nationalized a health insurance company, and now a weak housing market has dominoed and provoked economic emergency. And so we find ourselves one step closer to Socialism, good or bad as that may be.

It is a sad fact that such is the nature of everything, the rise and fall; life, government, culture, market. What is Capitalism today falls to Communism all too quickly, but its equality will quickly eat itself and give way to more Capitalism. And in the meanwhile, people will live at the whim of the government, unhappy. Although no one wants to have a poor class, it is a simple fact that classes shall always exist; some shall be poor and some shall be rich. To force this, to force equality, is to do something unnatural to the flow of the economy and government. And as Milton Friedman himself wrote, "A society that puts equality - in the sense of equality of outcome - ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom."

The state of a nation's economy is truly a barometer for the freedom of its people, and at the moment, ours is grim. The question is how long it will stay this way; how long will religions be singled out, how long will the media be manipulated, how long will our rights ebb just out of our grasp? The frightening and exemplary portrait Friedman paints is one that explains what is to be known and feared, and is just as relevant today as it was when it was written. It is the job of the Market and its consumers, though, to decide when it is time to come around: and that is the way it should be.

Learn more about this author, No Single Name.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.