In actual fact, there is no such thing as a "free market." Markets are the creation of government. Governments provide a stable currency to make markets possible. They provide a legal infrastructure and court systems to enforce the contracts that make markets possible. They provide educated work forces through public education, and those workers show up at their places of business after traveling on public roads, rails, or airways provided by government. Businesses that use the "free market" are protected by police and fire departments provided by government, and send their communications - from phone to fax to internet - over lines that follow public rights-of-way maintained and protected by government. And, most important, the rules of the game of business are defined by government.
Which explains why when Reagan began applying conservative economics, the middle class began to vanish in America in the 1980s - a process that dramatically picked up steam under George W. Bush.
What they're really saying is, "Stop government from defending workers and building a middle class, and let the corporations decide how much to pay for labor and how to trade."
And, since our government is of, by, and for We The People, those rules have historically been set to first maximize the public good resulting from people doing business. If you want to play the game of business, then you have to play in a way that both makes you money AND serves the public interest.
The "middle class" is not the natural result of freeing business to do whatever it wants, of "free and open markets," or of "free trade." The "middle class" is not a normal result of "free markets." The middle class is a new invention of liberal democracies, the result of governments defining the rules of business.
When government sets the rules in such a way that working people must receive a living wage & labor has the power to organize into unions a middle class will emerge. When government gives up these functions, the middle class vanishes. But, conservatives say government is the problem, not the solution.
Do you disagree?
