Sunday
In a free market, the humblest consumer dictates quality and price to the mightiest producer. The consumer is king; producers either come to heel or disappear into insolvency. Any monopoly is short-lived because nimble operators will quickly move into any area of high profitability.
The 19th century was the closest that the world has been to a free market since the sixth century BC. In an extensive analysis of British wages, W. H. Mallock noted the following…
“… in those thirty years (1851-1881) the wage-earning class had increased in number from 26,000,000 to 30,000,000 or 16 per cent; while the wages paid to them had increased by nearly 100 per cent. In fact, the income of the working classes in 1881 was about equal to that of the whole nation in 1851, with largely increased purchasing power, owing to reduction in prices.”
In the 20th century, government regulators moved decisively to ensure that this anarchic situation was put on a more traditional Lords and Serfs footing. Their legislation ensured that neither consumer nor producer were king. Instead they ensured that governments assumed that role. Bugger the people who actually made and consumed the goods having any say. Governments determined everything, while taking a large piece of the action for their troubles.
The mechanism they employed to facilitate this was the old Roman strategy of divide and conquer. One side of politics was trained to mutter about the rapacious habits of unconstrained producers (capitalist pigs). When in power they legislated to curb this illusion. The other side moaned about the dangers of organised labour (dark, anarchic forces). When in power they legislated to control that illusion.
Both the consumers (workers) and the producers (bosses) were, and remain, bamboozled into accepting their roles; neither side ever having the vaguest inkling that they have been hoodwinked. In the 21st century, both consumers and producers remain hopelessly divided and well set on the path back to serfdom from which they were liberated only 150 years ago.
Neither are intellectually capable of spotting the real villain of the piece.
The cynic suggests that in a democracy, such stupidity is deserving of the poverty and struggle that is the lot of consumers and producers – i.e. anyone not in the 0.001{781366457d9c05ca9285c5eb3e04ac75968647e24436986cab65f74e6f4b3aad} of government or their circle of evil accomplices – bankers, financiers, public servants etc. A more humane response is that just because some people are easily fooled, does not give an ethical person licence to fool them. As importantly, such an artificial structure is doomed to failure because it is at odds with reality.
Each election we go along with this charade and whoever we vote for only serves to further return us to absolute Serfdom. As the definitely cynical Henry Louis Mencken once noted:
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
The problem is that they take the rest of us with them.