Social Justice Only Comes From The Market, Not The Regulatory and Welfare States

My friend Craig Schlesinger is on a roll getting the libertarian message out there. In one letter to the editor which made it into The Wall Street Journal, Craig reminds a Journal opinion columnist that the nation's fiscal problems aren't just the fault of the blue party. The red party's compassionate conservatism ramped up federal spending to unprecedented levels under George W. Bush.

Then in a letter to The Tennessean, Craig takes down the regulatory state with a solid dose of economic thinking regarding anti-gouging laws and ticket sales. He concludes with a particularly tasty sentence: "...the vulnerable person is hurt the most by removing the distributive justice of the market." Yes.

On his blog, Spatial Orientation, he credits Matt Zwolinski's research into the ethics of exploitation as inspiration for his letter on anti-gouging laws. (super cool videos on the Matt Z link)

Like his work? Check out "The Almighty Dollar?" on Spatial Orientation to get your macro econ fix.

This is how we win. Little by little, our understanding of markets will spread until they are universally-accepted truths. We believe in a heliocentric universe at a time when people still think everything revolves around the earth.

That's frustrating, but our ideas will spread and win because they're right. The truth will out. And we can push it a little faster by writing letters to the editors, by blogging, and through activism. Thanks, Craig!