Take the red pill 

 Contrary to popular belief we do not live in a Market Economy.
The market does not reign supreme. There is no market because no bargaining
takes place. There is no communication between market actors. Markets facilitate communication between market actors to ensure an efficient allocation of resourses. No Communication, No market. Simple as that. Communist country had stores and currency and all that but that doesn't make them a market economy.

 
The Case of Pharmaceutical
Society v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd

[1]

neatly explains how it all really works.

 
This case involved a chemist shop which unlike most had the
medicines on display where a customer could reach them and ostensibly pick and
choose for themselves what they wanted. Prima facie this was an illegal way to
sell pharmaceuticals, it being against the Pharmacy and Poisons Act

[2]

to sell drugs without the supervision of a trained pharmacist. Pharmaceuticals
can be very dangerous and the legislation reasonably controlled supply to all
but those who needed them.

[3]

 
The court finally found that a breach had not occurred
because the pharmacist was in control of every stage of the transaction,
standing by the cashier to process and ratify all purchases. No offer was
presented by the chemist in displaying the already price tagged medicine, he
merely ‘allowed’ the customer to buy on his assent. If you have to ask someone
for something that you need to survive and though you make an offer the price
is already set, where is the bargaining power, where is the choice? Chemists
dispense they don’t sell. It is not a market it’s a monopoly even today

[4]

and you can only ask permission or beg, it’s an ‘invitation to treat.’ But all
retail and wholesale trade operates on these premises. The job market is
no different.

Tell’ em they’re dream’in

 
When you go to a shop you say ‘may I please have’ or ‘could
I have one of those.’ You are begging for service and are thanked for your
manners. You do not say, ‘I’ll give you 5 bucks’ which in contract law
constitutes a valid offer.

[5]

And the cashier doesn’t say ‘what are you joking, my mothers needs a kidney
operation, do you want her to die, would you rather have my blood instead, make
it 10 bucks.’ This in law is a valid counter offer.

[6]

To
keep it short you’d say, ‘fine then, 10 it is.’ This is a valid binding
contract, you have accepted the counteroffer.

[7]

 Is that a promise?

 
Your promise  to pay ‘10 it is’ is considered far more
significant than the actual thing being bought or sold. It could be but one
peppercorn

[8]

but it is what it represents that matters. A persons’ integrity is what counts
and not a mere chattel. The thing doesn’t matter but the people do. Break your
promise and you would end up in court facing damages.

[9]

You’ve lost face and who’s going to do business with you ever again if it turns
out you have been trading in bad faith. You can’t unscramble a broken egg and
the same holds true for promises, once you’ve reneged on a promise, that’s it.
You can make up, but making good on a promise is as good as ones word. A
promise is a promise. Fulfill a promise and promise to be careful, won’t you…

 

There is nothing wrong with bargaining, its fun, you get to
know people, what people want and what they don’t. It is a personal exchange
which recognises the basic humanity of each and every person. It builds
relationships because agreement is a glue which binds us. We are naturally
argumentative. This is not a negative attribute. Democracy is the principle of
open and free argument, debate, conducted in an appropriate forum.

[10]

In
a free and open market you have the right to say whatever you want but are
responsible for your own reputation. There is a bundle or rights and duties

[11]

and you have unlimited liability for your own actions, subject to the goodwill
of others. Ultimately Goodwill from society is one of the most valuable thing a
business or person can own.

[12]

It
is an efficient way to allocate scarce resources between rational caring
people.

Step through the door

 

The facts of Boots Cash Chemists can be
distinguished however from modern retail trade and the job market in that no highly
trained health professional is standing at the counter making sure you don’t
buy products which imperil your health. Whether you get a job or buy a product
which may or may not kill you is entirely up to you. Are you being served?

 

The free market

 

In Australia’s
Command Economy the government ostensibly controls 25% of GDP and the private
sector the balance. With a controlling interest however the private sector
effectively controls the lot because they can control the government. Though it
is often said that ‘an economy is there to serve people and not people there to
serve the economy;’ economies don’t serve people at all, only people serve
people. This is all the more true under a command economy. The real question is
which people are serving which people and is it really serving anyone’s interests
at all?

 

The implications of living in a command economy go far beyond
merely bursting the bubble of popular opinion that we live under a market
economy.  In a command economy market
forces are just not operative in any real way. Supply and demand, price theory,
comparative advantage, choice theory, rational utility maximization; none
operate as one would expect them too in a free market. Try applying these
theories in a command economy and you end up with a disaster. 

 

As a vast swathe of modern economic analysis demonstrates
applying a standard market model to our economy just gives you a load of
nonsense, diametrically opposed to commonsense which even Joe Blogs in the
street would laugh at if it wasn’t so serious. It is as if the Emperor was
wearing no clothes. Economists however, rarely if ever venture outside the castle
even when they have bought themselves a new suit and therefore remain flattered
by their consorts.

 

This phenomenon goes by the name of ‘economic rationalism’
but even this is an inversion of the truth; it should be called ‘economic
irrationalism.’ Much like religious doctrine it starts with an irrational Dogma
and a rational superstructure is built a over the top; modern economics, that
is, neo-liberal and neo-classical economics is, as its core, totally
irrational. The use of the term ‘Efficiency’ provides an excellent
demonstration.

 

Efficiency in its real sense means satisfying our collective
needs and wants with the least amount of time and resources. This can be
approached from a macro or microeconomic level. In modern economic jargon
however it means something totally different. Efficient now mean some thing or
some way of doing things which satisfies your needs and wants at any cost, be
it at the cost of other people, animals or by inflicting permanent injury on
the environment. Previously it meant that for something to be efficient both
parties to any given transaction had to come away better off, now it means only
one need be better off and who cares about the other person or the
consequences. ‘Efficiency is good’ now means greed is good. The world gets
turned up side down.

 

Economic forces are natural forces in the sense that they
map out the way most people do and will behave in any given situation if left
to make up their own mind. As Aristotle rightly said ‘ethics is the good at which all things aim and
this is the end of human life’ …
‘clearly this must be the good and the chief good.’

[13]

Most
of the time most people will make good choices about what is right for
themselves, their family and society. To suppress natural market forces therefore
is a suppression of peoples’ natural instinct to do good things; things which
are programmed in for our very survival.. Taking away peoples choices is taking
away the possibility of following those instincts which naturally direct us
towards life giving and life sustaining actions.

 

When we do good things in an efficient manner we tend to
feel good about life, dare I use the word, it tends to evoke a sense of well
being and happiness. If you are not allowed to do good things and are forced
into doing things you don’t think are good you have no possibility of ever
feeling genuinely happy. All you can do is fill the void with material
possessions or seek instant gratification or rather temporary distraction form
the unhappiness you feel; or go on the pills. The only choice you have left is
to take it or leave it; but do you even have the choice of leaving it?