Slaves to the Free Market

Found this in my draft posts from 2006, so I am posting it now:

Recently I came across an excellent reprint of an essay by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in the Atlantic Monthly regarding the dangers of the free market economic system (or rather the dangers of idolizing that system). Galbraith observes the danger in mistaking the tool of the economy and economic growth as a moral end in its own right. This is a mistaken moral view that has gained wide currency in our contemporary society, particularly among business-minded Republicans.

To those who subscribe to this view, the purpose of education is to promote economic growth - education has no inherent humanistic value apart from its affect on productivity. In fact, from this point of view, all values that interfere with economic growth are seen as unnecessary frills. Liberals must correct this error, and understand the basis of our support for the free market. The free market system has historically proven to be the best economic system for elevating masses of people out of poverty, and as such the free market system is valuable for its effects; it is not inherently of great value in itself. We should have no qualms about adjusting the market system to meet other values and to protect greater ends. Some values I think that the free market system falls short on include: the education of the whole person, the promotion of the arts, the protection of the environment, and the cultivation of the values of cooperation and community.

I'll keep short, because I want to let you read Galbraith's insightful summary of our shared concern:

If we continue to believe that the goals of the modern industrial system and the public policies that serve these goals are coordinate with all of life, then all of our lives will be in the service of these goals. What is consistent with these ends we shall have or be allowed; all else will be off limits. Our wants will be managed in accordance with the needs of the industrial system; the state in civilian and military policy will be heavily influenced by industrial need; education will be adapted to similar need; the discipline required by the industrial system will be the conventional morality of the community. All other goals will be made to seem precious, unimportant, or antisocial. We will be the mentally indentured servants of the industrial system. This will be the benign servitude of the household retainer who is taught to love her master and mistress and believe that their interests are her own. But it is not exactly freedom.

If, on the other hand, the industrial system is seen to be only a part, and as we grow wealthier, a diminishing part, of life, there is much less occasion for concern. Aesthetic goals will have pride of place; those who serve them will not be subject to the goals of the industrial system; the industrial system itself will be subordinate to the claims of larger dimensions of life. Intellectual preparation will be for its own sake and not merely for the better service to the industrial system. Men will not be entrapped by the belief that apart from the production of goods and income by progressively more advanced technical methods there is nothing much in life...

The need is to subordinate economic to aesthetic goals —to sacrifice efficiency, including the efficiency of organization, to beauty. Nor must there be any nonsense about beauty paying in the long run. It need not pay...


Here is the full article.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I agree that market values tend to erode other human values and that we need to work to protect education, arts, families and communities from the drive to make a buck at all costs. However, I would like to see liberals be more upfront in acknowledging the value and importance of markets. Besides lifting people out of poverty, fair and free trade is a powerful engine of tolerance: it provides a strong incentive for people who don't see eye-to-eye on cultural or political matters to cooperate with one another. Despite its many flaws, I believe democratic capitalism to be an essentially moral economic system, and I think we would be more effective critics of its excesses if we were more enthusiastic champions of its virtues.
April 16, 2006
Louis Merlin said…
Kevin, you comments are on the mark. However, I am less concerned about liberals' understanding the virtues of capitalism and more concerned about liberals having a clear understanding of their underlying values. And my main point is that free marketism is not a primary liberal value, though it may be the best system from a liberal point of view.
April 18, 2006
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