This is a statement that I wish those who advocate the free market used more often: I Don’t Know the Answer.
Those who argue for the State often challenge those of us who are against the State to pose our alternative. Pick your scenario, it doesn’t matter: How would we provide “xxx” without the State? Too often, those who will defend the free market feel compelled to provide a solution.
The right answer is “I don’t know.”
It’s easy for statists to say “Ah hah! Without a better solution, you’re lost!”
To that I say “BUNK.”
If I professed to know “the answer” I would either be:
A) The one who will provide a market-based solution, subject to the discrimination of everyone…and if successful; hugely profitable and documented as one of the great business visionaries of all time
-or-
B) On the same plane as a government official claiming that his solution is the “right” solution for all members of society, and imposing it on all others as “law.”
If I claim to be none of the above, I only posit that the free market will come up with millions of solutions, and that the best solutions will rise to the top – and that as better and better solutions are found, they’ll supplant the earlier solutions at the top.
This is because that is what the free market is all about: Ideas.
If you have a better idea of how things should work, introduce your idea to others. If they think it’s a good idea, they’ll tell you with their choices, by allocating their money to your idea. If it’s not good enough, it will fail because people won’t support it with their hard-earned money.
Yes, it is that simple. It is a deterministic ideal to believe that there is a “one best solution” to all issues confronting mankind. The best solution is to let them be presented with multiple choices, and to let the best one emerge in the market of free choice.
Pick any example. Post it in your comments. I’ll respond with a few potential ideas, but not the “right one.”