No Treason

I saw this Mises quote on the LvMI community forum.

Here is Mises on this matter from “Planned Chaos” (http://mises.org/web/2714#Ch.3)

“The market is a democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote. It is true that the various individuals have not the same power to vote. The richer man casts more ballots than the poorer fellow. But to be rich and to earn a higher income is, in the market economy, already the outcome of a previous election. The only means to acquire wealth and to preserve it, in a market economy not adulterated by government-made privileges and restrictions, is to serve the consumers in the best and cheapest way. Capitalists and landowners who fail in this regard suffer losses. If they do not change their procedure, they lose their wealth and become poor. It is consumers who make poor people rich and rich people poor. It is the consumers who fix the wages of a movie star and an opera singer at a higher level than those of a welder or an accountant.”

–Mises

In the past, I have promoted this idea as market as democracy, but now I believe it is quite false.  The market is not a democracy as popularly understood.

In a democracy the will of the majority prevails.  That the so-called losers are bound by the decision of the so-called winners (majority).  In a free market however, the minority or minorities are not bound by the majority.  Their capital (in politics, it would be political capital, or political will) is allocated based on their decisions, irrespective of the decision of the majority of market actors.

As an example, in democratic politics, if the majority elected Barack H. Obama to be President, then he would be the President for everyone, who voted for, not at all and against him.

In a free market, if a majority choose Barack H. Obama and a minority choose Bob Barr, and another minority Chuck Baldwin, then all of those individuals would lead their respective constituents.  There is no need to have a consensus or monopoly outcome in a free market.  As a matter of fact, this is precisely what the free market is.

With the left-libertarians and anarcho-socialists pushing anti-capitalists memes, it is best to divorce ourselves as anarcho-capitalists from this notion of market as democracy.  The rich do have greater purchasing power, but it should not influence the decisions of those less rich than they are, just as the less rich should have no claim on the spending patterns or wishes of the more wealthy.

Both parties can get what they want as long as they are willing and able to pay for it themselves.

In my mind, this is not like voting at all.

I hope others stop identifying the market as democracy, because it perpetuates this notion that the opportunity to vote validates a potentially undesirable binding outcome.

The political system which most closely mirrors a free market is Panarchy, not Democracy.

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