"The market behaves like a woman" - the New York Times, summing up The Money Game by "Adam Smith"
What's a market? Isn't it a place to get veggies? Most times we see the word "market" it is a code-word referring to a sort of pyramid-scheme cult evangelism, known officially as "capitalism". Basically, it goes like this:
Gimme gimme gimme. Vote with your wallet. Outlawing slavery is evil big government - if you don't like them, don't buy from them. All men are created equal until the inheritance kicks in. Privatize congress instead of political parties we'll have the Mcdonaldcrats and the Exxonitarians.
There's actually some parts of this argument that make sense. After all, governments tend to serve business interests, and this way we'll cut out the middleman. That, and the idea of killing people I don't like and telling their grieving families to "vote with their wallet" is kind of appealing.
Capitalism is a pyramid scheme
The "invisible hand" is fit for a ouija board. The horror of "government tampering" is just rich pagan priests warning us not to anger the gods. "The wrath of the invisible hand is great. Bite the hand that feeds you - worse, call into question its existence, or accuse it of being a puppet hand controlled by people who know just how they want it to move - and it will take revenge. Pestilence and boils are nothing compared to the "leveling down" it will wreak. Try to help the poor gain some of what the rich have and we will *all* be poor, we are told. Men don't create unequal distribution of wealth, the "invisible hand" does..."-Paul L Wachtel (The Poverty of Affluence p263)
One example of capitalist "market" evangelism was a newspaper article I came across called 'Markets makes [sic] things cheap'. By "Cox, Alm, and Peter Holle" (Later this subtle article was followed by a full-page transcript of a CATO speech in China.) It was a sort of teaser ad for a book called The myth of rich and poor (Will this book prove that the world's indescribable poverty is a hoax? That the giant corporations, being command economies in their own right, are just urban myths?)
Basically, the idea of this little article was to chart 20th century progress, (it assumes people can't judge that for themselves with their own experience) then claim that it's all due to capitalism. It gave examples of purchasing power - for example, it took more work to buy a "flimsy" model T (I don't know much about cars, but I know that model Ts couldn't have been flimsy, considering that the only roads back then were either ankle-deep mud or engine-choking dust) than a modern car (which loses half of its value within months). Anyway, I'll make a small list of flaws in this example of think-tanking:
After three days of labor in a third world country, one cannot buy a television; one is lucky to afford food. More dollars may chase fewer items, but only if enough grain to feed the third world is burnt in order to keep prices profitable. Cox and Alm's "great economic progress" kills by starvation at about the same rate as the holocaust - it's not sticker shock that's hurting the world's stomach.
The "market economy based on competition" is becoming increasingly monopolized - and yet these companies, despite claiming that competition is so great, proceed to buy all competition to be found, and never have the companies they own compete against each other!
Tell the rug-weaving children that their standard of living is a miracle. Tell the farmers, who don't own the land they work, because it was bought by agribusiness corporations no different from Stalinists; that capitalism is wonderful
Every major world religion except Satanism puts kindness above cheap objects. Yet the logic of capitalism says that greed is a virtue, willingness to do cruelty an advantage, kindness a flaw. Charity is as costly as inefficiency - and no matter what happens the bottom line must be met for an enterprise to survive. It is as simple as it is godless.