I see people as victims of uncontrolled free market capitalism

Recently I received this statement in an email from a liberal friend. It was in the context of discussing economics as the liberal left sees them versus how the Libertarians see them.

I could not let such an uninformed statement stand. But I also thought it would be good to include in my daily comments here as it is instructive to others who might be liberal, or who might be talking to liberals.

To be a victim one has to be deceived or cheated by the dishonesty or brute force of others. There are two avenues of injury then, force and fraud.

It is not possible to be coerced in a free market, as the act of coercion cancels a free market. This has always been recognized as a crime. The use of deceit in any private transaction has also always been recognized as a crime.

The next problem is the word "uncontrolled", which is really the same as free. Any controlled market would, by definition, not be free. A controlled market would mean that some transactions are illegal. This thwarts the freedom of will of the participants. It should be noted that control is not the same as regulation. Regulation simply lays out the standards of business, such as the requirement of an APR being showed in any loan or credit transaction. A control would be a law stating that the interest rate cannot go above a specific, and arbitrary, number.

Finally we come to the word "market". This is a common error by the left, to blame something other than the individuals involved. The market is nothing more than a statistical description for the private transactions between individuals. It is not a corporal thing one can touch. The market is not like a bridge. If you're driving on a road and it suddenly collapses beneath you, then of course you can blame the system for any reasonable driver might just happen to be at the wrong place and time. But the market is just an abstract concept without any ability to harm anyone. If individuals are cheating each other, then that is not a fault of the market, but of the individuals involved.

The worst part of my friends thinking is that she concludes two wrong things. First, she concludes that capitalism is to blame for people cheating each other. Second she falsely believes that the Libertarians would turn a blind eye to injustice.

Both errors are the natural result of ignorance. People not understanding capitalism or free markets is one thing, but people unable to understand the touchstone statement of Libertarianism "The government exists to remove force and fraud from human relationships" has to make me wonder what could possibly have gone wrong in their thinking?

My friend is not stupid. I have to concluded she failed in her application of the principles of Libertarian thought. Libertarians hold that the markets must be free, and anyone coerced or deceived has every expectation of a government ready, willing and able to undo the injustice and punish those who have committed the crimes.

Given this situation her statement could never come to pass. This is a common problem for those on the left because they have never lived in a free society, so they cannot know what one feels like. They see injustice, and blame the wrong things because they have never been exposed to real freedom. In the world "the system", that amorphous body of evil things, often does people real harm, and so they blame "the system", and by accident label the system capitalism when, in fact, capitalism was never involved.

People living in "the system" are NOT free to practice capitalism, thus to blame it is to misunderstand. People in modern America are not in a semi-capitalist system, and because they are not the term capitalism should not be applied. We Americans live in a mixed system that capriciously allows capitalist like activities in some areas, and not others. In fact, we are in a highly controlled market.

In a free market all injustices would be sent to the courts, and the courts would resolve the issues. This is because the only source of injustice is one person inflicting injury upon another.

In our polluted system we not only have individuals injuring each other, but we have "the system" itself! And, as liberals are not by and large stupid, they see the injustice and erroneously associate it with the label that has been applied, that being capitalism and conclude that capitalism must be the source of the injustice when, in fact, it is the pollution itself that causes the problem.