A longstanding virtue hailed by leaders in both the private and public sectors, is the power of the free market to adjudicate fair outcomes, especially but not exclusively for economic results.
It is invoked by those in regulatory positions who are charged with protecting the interests of consumers, shareholders or even employees subject to the power of large organizations. The new NCUA chair has referred to the free market as a mechanism for the evolution of the credit union system.
Credit union’s cooperative design and purpose were not intended to be a market counter to excesses of capitalism. In organization and values, credit union were to be an alternative to the ambitions of organizations wanting to tap into the opportunities of market driven outcomes. Compete, but do not become the opposition.
ThePolitical Whitewashing of Free Markets
There is no such thing as a “free market.” Different individuals and firms bring variable skills, resources and historical advantages when specific events unfold. In many instances individuals and even entire communities can be at the mercy of organization led by persons of differing motives and outlooks Not to mention personal interpretations of the “common good.”
Free market rhetoric more often reflects an incumbent’s relative economic power or in the case of regulatory oversight, the abdication of accountability for market “failures.”
The free market advocates can grow in influence in both local and larger markets to where the legal process and oversight of market participants are ignored or overridden by a firm’s economic and political power. The result is law less ness. The absence of not just transparency, due process or fair play, but devoid of attention to the common good of people affected. Think of the explosion of data center constructions in communities frequently authorized in private deal making. And the public backlash when exposed. (link)
An Historian’s View of the Consequences
Historian Timothy Snyer has studied the power of myths in which superheroes overcome evil doers with revenge killings. In his citation of social mythology below he recounts the impulse for retribution and revenge when all social norms are gone. Or, in my interpretation, when the free market is just another justification for private advantage, influence and control.
This superhero solution is a question that troubled the Greek tragedians, the authors of Icelandic sagas, and the founders of the French and English contractarian traditions: how does one seek justice when there is no law? . . . The Greek and the Scandinavian storytellers, like many others, were aware that revenge killings, no matter how apparently justified, could have consequences that spiraled out of control, over communities and over generations. They were also aware that the alternative was law, and that law is not easy and takes orderly work to build.
Is law less ness with free market verbal camouflage, the driving force in the cooperative system today?