Last night I was talking with a Republican about the state of the economy and where blame, if any, should be laid. On one point he was adamant: you can't pin this whole mess on George Bush. I actually agreed with him on that - but that doesn't mean the situation is blameless. Much of what has happened in this country socially and economically over the last decade can be laid at the doorstep of those who support a pure free market economy.
Simply put, a pure free market economy means that the "invisible hand" of market forces (largely price) governs the production and distribution of goods (wealth), and not regulations originating outside of market dynamics. So as a producer I get to do whatever I want free of outside regulation in my search for profit. If the local townsfolk object to my manufacturing plant poisoning the air, fouling the water, or to me beating them with sticks to make them work faster, then I should be able to use the police and the courts to suppress their dissent. Their claims are not based on marketplace dynamics and therefore unfairly restrict my ability to produce.
In a world filled with moral ambiguity, there is nothing ambiguous about the invisible hand: it represents a source of moral evil, and for at least three reasons.
First, for the invisible hand to work effectively, labor must be reduced to a commodity subject only to market forces. In other words, humans must be treated just like any other raw material. In the unrestrained free market, the value of human life is pegged at the cost of the cheapest grain needed to keep it alive. The Nazis understood this perfectly during WWII. In one case, thousands of Russian POW's were put to work building fortifications. The Nazis calculated that the work would require four months to complete, and that to keep the Russians alive for that just that time they would need to be fed 900 calories per day of the cheapest food available at the time, potatoes. The plan worked perfectly. At the end of four months the fortifications were finished and the Russians were all dead of starvation.This is the "Invisible hand" at work, reducing the value of human life solely to its ability to labor.
Second, for the "invisible hand" to work effectively, it must also reduce land (nature) to a commodity subject only to market forces. This means that the value of any aspect of nature is set by the cost of turning it into a useful (profitable)product. Non-market generated considerations - the beauty of an old growth forest, species diversity, or the solitude of wilderness -- are not valid considerations for determining value. Like the one politician said: an old growth forest is just a temporary storage area for telephone poles.
Third, in the era of an interconnected world economy, the invisible hand can not work freely anywhere unless it is at work freely everywhere.That's why your job has gone to China or to Cambodia, where workers can be paid at rates closer to the cost of the cheapest grain needed to keep them alive. After all, there are no non-market regulations (laws, unions) there to say otherwise.
So the next time you hear a corporation arguing that it shouldn't be bound by the minimum wage or by a union wage contract, what they are saying is that they reserve the right to commoditize labor. And when you hear a corporation saying they shouldn't be bound by "troublesome environmental regulations," what they are saying is that they deserve the right to commoditize nature. And when those same corporations say "It's all inevtible in the new global economy," what they want to do is convince you that they must be allowed to commoditize everything, everyone, everywhere.
So here is what the "invisible hand" of an unrestrained free market actually is: a revolution of the rich against the poor. And if you want to hear one of its supporters speaking today, listen to John McCain.
You must fight back. Stand in line at the polls on Tuesday morning no matter how long that line may be and vote for Barrack Obama.
(Continued in Part 2)
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