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… is from pages 40-41 of Richard Epstein’s magisterial 2014 study, The Classical Liberal Constitution [2]:
In contrast, markets are more immune to factional intrigue than either legislatures or administrative agencies. Traders only prosper when their trading partners also profit. No self-interested trader, supplier, or customer, whether rich or poor, ordinarily enters voluntarily into losing deals. That one condition alone means that voluntary transactions, no matter how numerous, complex, or diverse, produce expected mutual gains for all involved parties. Hence, the higher the velocity of business transactions in goods and services, the higher the level of human satisfaction, for the parties who win in one transaction have greater resources for new transactions that expand opportunities for third persons. The political conflicts of interest in majority rule are normally obviated in markets by the requirement of mutual consent to voluntary exchange.
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