Opinion: Letter
Don’t shackle free market approach
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David Lapidus calls for less partisan extremes and a greater balance between free markets and government control (“Balance market, government roles,” Jan. 21). Yet it is precisely this mix that causes the problems Mr. Lapidus cites, especially regarding our health care system.
Free markets work precisely because they are free. That is, they allow people to produce and trade values free of coercion. This is essential for any productive activity, from computer technology to health care. Government involvement in the economy, on the other hand, can only act to destroy prosperity.
Every act of government providing entitlements, whether by mandating certain insurance coverage, redistributing wealth though Medicare and Medicaid or a myriad of other interventions, is a restriction on the freedom of both health care providers and patients.
Freedom is the key to a healthy economy and prosperous society. A government that claims to protect freedom while also acting as an entitlement provider is a fraud, since every entitlement is necessarily provided at someone else’s expense.
Mixing freedom and controls is like mixing food and poison; it will only make you sick.
Jim Allard
UW Senior
jeallard@wisc.edu
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Dear Jimbo Allard,
The free market does not exist. Have you ever heard of the “Federal Reserve”? Do you remember Bernanke dropping interest rates 75 points last week? Do you think “Free Markets” and “Market Manipulation” are the same damn thing?
Wake up, son.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”
There’s a reason that this is considered one of the Great Lies of the World.
“Free markets” are as utopian as Communism. Besides, what you refer to as “freedom” is merely freedom to hold property, not complete human liberation. As much as you or I may not like Marx, he’s still pretty dead-on about the wage system, the “freedom” to sell your labor is a trap. Or to borrow your libertarian rhetoric, the market itself is coercive. Neither Hillary nor Romney offer anything much better, but the sooner you realize that a truly “free market” is just a pipe dream, the better off we’ll all be.
Is that the same free market that makes it easy for the Enrons of the world to get away with stealing their employees’ retirement funds?
Contrary to some of the comments, free-markets and stealing are opposites, which is why those responsible for the Enron scandal were prosecuted.
Also, there is nothing utopian about Communism, unless your idea of utopia is mass death.
Freedom means freedom from coercion; to say that a free-market is coercive is to drop the entire meaning of freedom.