The Price of Rejecting the Free Market

In an era afflicted by both economic and political turmoils, it is now popular to blame the profit motivation inherent in capitalism as the primary root for our suffering. Most people think that the proper way to do it is to get away with profit motivation and replace it with an idealism for common good where individual interest has no place. And so the alternative is sacrificial service for public good. However, this is inconsistent to human nature and facts show that such mindset not only fails to achieve its goal, but produces far greater sufferings. 

The best examples of such dream are the public servants, the politicians especially the "champions" of the poor. See the inconsistency between what they say and what they do. They make us believe that the reason they decided to enter public service is for common good. And we are so naive to believe their words. But in practice, you see that their real motivation is self-interest. The sad thing is, there's no way we can directly punish them. Unlike in the free market where profit is the goal, a customer can easily punish an entrepreneur if the latter renders a poor service. 

In bureaucratic system, which characterizes our existing politics, if someone is charged of corruption, all we can see are complex procedures and pointing of fingers and it is fortunate if we can see the real culprit punished for his crime. This is the price of rejecting the free market system and blindly accepting the bureaucratic system, which is a subtle way to curtail our freedom due to powerful influence of socialistic ideas. 

Bureaucracy

In 1944, Ludwig von Mises wrote Bureaucracy arguing for a perspective to see the conflict between capitalism and socialism. He claimed that analyzing bureaucratism would provide the needed insight to indepthly study about this tension. To him, this was so important during his time. Amazingly, his message remains relevant especially in our days when we are now witnessing the realization of his foresight almost seven decades ago.

In the Preface of his book, he identified that that the major issue in today's social and political tensions is between freedom and statism (socialism) he saw that the role of the US is critical to determine the future of the world: "Our age has witnessed a triumphal advance of the socialist cause. . . America alone is still free to choose. And the decision of the American people will determine the outcome for the whole of mankind" (iii).