One attraction so many “cultural critics of capitalism” feel for [Thomas] Carlyle’s criticism of market exchange may be precisely that he recognized that when market exchange enters hierarchy exits. Consumer sovereignty is thus a dire threat to the notion of a political sovereignty in which orders are given from up the hierarchy to be obeyed by those below. We have command without hierarchy, command without foundation. And, for anyone who thinks that the state or society is simply a person writ large, a state or society without a hierarchy of desires is nonsensical.
DBx: Brilliantly put.
Among the signal achievements of modern economics – including the economics of Adam Smith – is to show that an orderly, peaceful society of individuals with different preferences and plans is possible under a rule of law, with private property rights and market exchange. In such a commercial society, the abstract rules that govern it encourage each individual to act in ways that benefit not only him or her, but countless other denizens of this commercial society.
Such a society is an order but not an organization.
This society is constituted not by all persons being regimented into ranks designed to achieve one society-wide set of particular goals but, instead, by each person following abstract rules (“Thou shalt not steal.” “Fulfill your promises.” Etc.) and thus, within markets, becoming dependent on each other in ways that increase as much as possible the chances for each adult to satisfy as many as possible of his or her peaceful and individually chosen goals.
No kings. No dictators. No pooh-bahs. No nannies. No hierarchies defined by ability to command and duty to obey commands. No “industrial policies” aimed at satisfying the preferences of professors, pundits, preachers, or politicians – or even of some electoral majority.
