Markets and Morality

Don,

Thanks for this post! It reminds me of a book I read about 5 years ago by Paul Seabright entitled: "The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life."

I plan to read the Science article that the piece you posted cites. But the argument I see in the piece you posted is already intriguing to me. It suggests that cooperation with kin and reciprocally with local non-relatives tends to be where, as E.O. Wilson put it: "genes have culture on a long leash." But it also suggests that cooperation among strangers is much more, or maybe exclusively, a phenomenon that emerges or does not depending upon the presence or absence of market institutions. This is fascinating and important for it suggests the vital role that must be played by market processes to accomplish as Friedman puts "to foster harmony and peace among the peoples of the world":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8

Exactly. Socialism isn't something "new and improved" as its advocates would have us believe, but rather, a reversion to the authoritarianism of the past. Regressive, not Progressive (Hat tip to Vidyohs).

A reversion to the failed authoritarianism of the past.

So let's try it again, on a larger scale.

Are people really this stupid?

"Are people really this stupid?"

Stupid has nothing to do with it. It is a force of nature. An inviolable monopoly on legitimized violence creates an inescapable ratcheting up in the monopoly's power. You might think that limited government republican principles and eternal vigilance would be the solution. But if that were true, then we would not arrived at the current state. For surely it is hard to imagine a more promising experiment in limited government than the one started by America's Founders. With knowledge of our own nation's history, there can be little hope left for the future of government as a force for liberty.