The Free Market... And The Jungle

Yesterday's post briefly touched upon the differences between the natural order of the market economy - the "catallaxy" - and the other "order without design," that of nature, the jungle, the world that Darwin studied.

Yesterday, I touched upon just one difference - that species survive through camouflage in nature, while in the market economy human beings loudly advertise their wares; that there is no "predation" going on at all, and that each is trying in his best way to serve his customers, his fellowmen.

Today, let me point out two more important differences between the Darwinian natural world and the market order, a product of "human nature." These are important because there are many "social Darwinians" out there who do not see these vital differences.

Let's begin with the chief bogey of the Social Darwinians - and that is "competition." Now, Darwinian competition is biological competition. It is in this pitiless competition of the natural world that "only the fittest survive." Competition in the market economy is "social competition" - and it is its life blood. Everyone engaged in catallactic competition knows it is good for him. In this competition, we all survive, and not just the fittest. The bottle of finest Scotch will sell alongside a bottle of the worst plonk. The best musicians and actors will prosper - and the worst will also survive. The best books will sell - as well as the worst trash. The next time you go to market, do keep an eye out for all the second- and third-best products on sale - and you will get my drift.

It was Frederic Bastiat who understood well the nature of market competition, which the socialists of his age considered "anarchistic." Bastiat wrote:

Competition is Liberty - and the absence of Competition is tyranny.

In a free market, we are all free to realise our dreams through competition. Many rise to great heights of super-stardom. Yet, in an all-embracing socialist order - a tyranny - the only way to achieve such heights is by pleasing the socialist rulers.

That the Social Darwinians have got it completely wrong is also apparent when we consider one peculiar fact about those who survive pretty well in market competition - that many are, in fact, biologically the weakest. When man was still a nomadic herdsman, the blind or the lame were simply abandoned. With progress to civilisation and cities, and their markets, what we see today is that the vast majority of those humans who survive pretty well are precisely those who are physically weak. Obesity, blood pressure, heart disease - these are common among corporate managers. And there are the superstars like Stevie Wonder, blind from birth, but a multi-millionaire - because of the rise of the "music industry."

There is a reason for this. The "division of labour" based on the "fragmentation of knowledge" requires us to be possessed of just one specialised skill. It is because of this that there are blind musicians and so on. In the pitiless world of biological competition, the world Darwin studied, these people would have been wiped out.

So think of the urban catallaxy as a "garden of Eden."

It is not where only the fittest survive.

Rather, it is the beneficial order of Providence by which all survive.