How free should a free market be?
Jinwook Jung
Through vigorous debates, countless conflicts and even bloody struggles, modern intellectuals and philosophers succeeded to establish a new concept, human rights. The two elements of this new concept, equality and freedom, greatly influenced the whole world and often brought them into turbulence, despite of their vague definition. Freedom is widely spoken and well respected these days. However, its application and definition is still contestable and often controversial, because of its various limitations, such as religion, culture, tradition, politics and so on. This fact makes the situation truly difficult and complicated when we apply freedom to economy, to the market. The idea of free market capitalism was once dominant. The rise of liberalism associated with minimal government intervention and the least restriction on the market seemed like progress in economics, a right and just structure that will benefit everyone who works steadily and earnestly. However, its weakness was exposed continuously by a series of crises which demonstrated the imperfection and the danger within the current system. Naturally, the question arises: how free should a free market be? The two big and extreme answers for this question are capitalism and communism. However, I would like to explore the structure and the ‘freeness’ of a market within capitalism, as history has already showed the inevitable failure of communism. I must admit that, as a student who studies economics, communism is an intriguing idea. However, the problem is that, it is not realistic. From my point of view, communism failed to realize the importance and the power of human desire. It also greatly weakened the incentive to work and thereby brought whole nations to endless depression and hunger (and no man is happy when they are hungry). Communism has been practised in numerous countries over the time, but none were really successful. For example,
the USSR collapsed, China abandoned its old- fashioned communism and changed its direction into more capitalist style, enjoying booming prosperity, and North Korea is experiencing miserable poverty. Thus, I would like to concentrate on the free-market, capitalist state in this essay. The one thing I have to address before beginning any argument is that there is no such thing as a perfect free market. Ha-joon Chang states this clearly and straightforwardly, arguing that ‘a market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them’. 98 It is true. Every single market has at least some restrictions and limitations which we consider acceptable and justifiable because they are morally or politically convincing. Talking about how free should a free market is not just about economics. It is actually a complex matter including politics, tradition, culture, religion, ethics and economics. As people’s beliefs in these areas cannot all be the same, it is impossible make perfectly objective and definite boundaries for a market. For instance, let us look at child labour and slavery. These two were common in the past and everyone accepted them, in the name of free trade. When opposition emerged, attempting to restrict child labour and ban slavery, there was counter-opposition. Most significantly, the conflict over slavery ended up in bloody civil war in the USA. Nowadays, if you defend child labour or slavery, you will be treated as a barbarian, a heartless and inhumane being. People’s interpretations of these same issues have changed over time and this phenomenon is keep occurring. Restricting carbon dioxide production in order to abate the effect on environment was once controversial, but now people accept them, in
98 Ha-joon Chang, 23 Things They Don’t Tell you About Capitalism
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