How often do you hear criticisms of the free market, claims that we are living in an era of laissez-faire, that markets rain supreme?
Its something I come across frequently.
Its lesser heard cousin is that laissez-faire or classical liberalism failed in the 19th Century.
Both are absolute nonsense. We never had a laissez-faire system. Even in the heyday of Manchester Liberalism the state still intervened in the economy. Perhaps we were in a situation where the gains from freer trade created more of a boost than the hindrance of intervention, war and imperialism, but it certainly was no laissez-faire or even classical liberal order.
Today we live in an era of vast economic intervention. Corporations depend on the state for their existence, rent seeking is rife. Privatisation is now largely an exercise in extending state control over private business and allowing the state to run things more efficiently.
The only difference is that we are not so exposed to the intervention as we were in the 70s say. Instead the interaction is between us and business and then business and the state in its varying forms.
Even setting aside the argument as to what is the preferable system, this is a gross distortion of the facts.
Today’s Mises.org daily story has more, along with a brief (and insufficient) attempt to attack the assumption of the beneficial state.
