Some of my fellow consevatives believe that it is our right to an open market..some even believe it's a God given right..
"Open market" is an abstraction that is ill-defined, ambiguous, and that creates considerable cognitive dissonance due to the fact that it means different things to different people.
In addition, it was not really a founding principle. The more noteworthy proponents of free-market capitalism came along after our country was founded.
The founding fathers believed in private ownership of property and in limited government, but I don't see where it was written that there can not be a public interest that is served by the government intervening in certain transactions. Granted, they would turn over in their graves to know what a fascist, totalitarian state we have become, but that doesn't mean they would have been opposed to any and all government regulation of certain markets.
I think it's kind of ridiculous to think in terms of "rights" to an "open market," the way some free-market capitalists do. Does anyone seriously think that God is a free-market capitalist? I sure don't. I think it's crazy even to think that God believes in private ownership of property. That kind of thinking is motivated by the most mindless and shallow of political thinking (which, I suppose, is redundant), and by the total confusion of the ontic with the ontological, for which all organized religions are notorious. Hey, I believe in God, and I believe in capitalism, but I don't believe that God believes in capitalism - that's just too silly for words. There is no spiritual path that is predicated on private ownership of property.
So, that being the case, there is no God-given "right" to a free market. That is just something that we (i.e. humankind) made up. It's all made up. So, there's no "morality" to it. There is nothing immoral about communism - in theory. In practice, communist governments have been brutal, oppressive and racist/prejudiced in one way or another, but that's not a result of the public ownership of property. The big problem with communism was not that it was immoral; the problem was that, on a large scale, it just didn't work, because it ran contrary to human behavior.
But, on a small scale, it can work. Isn't that essentially the kind of economy that the Amish in PA have? On a small scale, where there is a sense of community, it is possible for people to feel a sense of responsibility to one another, and to act in ways that further the common good, even at the price of foregone profits to the individual.
For the most part, I think that the kind of lust-driven hyper-capitalism that we have today is a by-product of the anonymity created by a very large economy. It's a lot harder to rape and plunder in your own community, because someone is liable to kill you. But, if you do it to people thousands of miles away, you can get away with it.
What I believe in is the right of people in local communities to organize their lives in ways that work for them. But, even that is not really a "god-given" right; that is also something that is "made up." But, I believe in it, because I believe that the local community is the most important economic and political unit in the human experience and in human history. I think it creates the most emotional and spiritual stability that the whole (i.e., society) can provide the one.
Doug
