Free market 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Do you doubt that a free market can enable prosperity, to meet the needs of more of the people? A sizeable number of our people really do doubt it. They think that an economy controlled by a socialist type of government (either voted into power, or forced into power by coup - doesn't matter which) will make more prosperity available to more people.

Jay Richards (Tuesday's video) learned the value of a free market from his 6th grade school teacher. On the day the class had to stay indoors during recess, their teacher brought in small toys like silly putty, paddle ball, Barbie trading cards, about $1/per toy, one for each child. They looked around at each other's toys, then wrote down how satisfied they were with the toy they had on a scale of 1 to 10. The teacher added up all the scores for a baseline total.

Then she gave them the freedom to trade with kids in the adjacent row, and added up all the scores again. No new toys had been added to the system, but the total score went up. Next, she gave them the freedom to trade with every student in the room, so their trading options multiplied.

They scored their satisfaction once more, she added up the total, and the number went way, way up. Overall happiness of the students soared when they were allowed to freely trade. No one was allowed to steal or force a trade (rule of law). They made only win/win exchanges, that is, trading only when both parties wanted to. 

That's a free market.

(cont'd tomorrow)