From Deseret News archives:
Tyrants trying to subvert free markets
Blinder said, "What I've learned is anyone who says anything even obliquely that sounds hostile to free trade is treated as an apostate." Continuing his criticisms of mainstream economists, he adds that efforts to intervene in markets, such as mandatory minimum wages, industrial policy and price controls, are also viewed negatively.
First, let's establish a working definition of free markets; it's really simple. Free markets are simply millions upon millions of individual decision-makers, engaged in peaceable, voluntary exchange pursuing what they see in their best interests. People who denounce the free market and voluntary exchange, and are for control and coercion, believe they have more intelligence and superior wisdom to the masses. What's more, they believe they've been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Of course, they have what they consider good reasons for doing so, but every tyrant who has ever existed has had what he believed were good reasons for restricting the liberty of others.
Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite. For example, I might plan to purchase a car, a shirt or apples from a foreign producer because I see it in my best interest. The powerful elite might supersede my plan, through import tariffs and quotas, because they think I should make the purchases from a domestic producer.
My daughter might plan to work for the hardware guy down the street for $4 an hour. She agrees; he agrees; her mother says it's OK, and I say it's OK. The powerful elite say, "We're going to supersede that plan because it's not being transacted at the price we think it ought be the minimum wage."
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