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Single Idea 23134

[filed under theme 25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 4. Free market ]

Full Idea

'Free societies', as a matter of practical fact, always mean free-market societies - and free markets will never sponsor more than predatory capitalism. Inequalities always emerge.

Gist of Idea

A 'free' society implies a free market, which always produces predatory capitalism and inequalities

Source

Adam Gopnik (A Thousand Small Sanities [2019], 3)

Book Ref

Gopnik,Adam: 'A Thousand Small Sanities' [riverrun 2019], p.149


A Reaction

This is part of his account of left-wing objections to liberalism. The crux of the liberal view is a conviction that the worst of capitalism can be restrained. This began to look doubtful once huge multinational companies emerged. What to do?


The 10 ideas with the same theme [extent to which citizens can feely trade]:

Kant is the father of the notion of exploitation as an evil [Kant, by Berlin]
Communism abolishes private property and dissolves the powerful world market [Marx/Engels]
Hayek was a liberal, but mainly concerned with market freedom [Hayek, by Dunt]
Impeding the market is likely to lead to extensive state control [Hayek]
If people hold things legitimately, just distribution is simply the result of free exchanges [Nozick, by Kymlicka]
Libertarians like the free market, but they also think that the free market is just [Kymlicka]
I can buy any litre of water, but not every litre of water [Sorensen]
Market prices indicate shortages and gluts, and where the profits are to be made [Wolff,J]
No market is free of political bias, and markets need protection of their freedoms [Harari]
A 'free' society implies a free market, which always produces predatory capitalism and inequalities [Gopnik]