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Chris Matthew Sciabarra

The Market Shall Set You Free... in the NY Times?

It's just so odd to see NYT Op-Ed pieces with pro-free-market rhetoric; so readers should check out Robert Wright's essay, "The Market Shall Set You Free." Wright has some interesting things to say:

... this Republican president doesn't appreciate free markets. Mr. Bush doesn't see how capitalism helps drive history toward freedom via an algorithm that for all we know is divinely designed and is in any event awesomely elegant. Namely: Capitalism's pre-eminence as a wealth generator means that every tyrant has to either embrace free markets or fall slowly into economic oblivion; but for markets to work, citizens need access to information technology and the freedom to use it - and that means having political power. This link between economic and political liberty has been extolled by conservative thinkers for centuries, but the microelectronic age has strengthened it. ... Given that involvement in the larger capitalist world is time-release poison for tyranny, impeding this involvement is an odd way to aid history's march toward freedom. ... Mr. Bush doesn't grasp the liberating power of capitalism, the lethal effect of luring authoritarian regimes into the modern world of free markets and free minds.

Sounds like an ad for Reason magazine!

Posted on Friday, January 28, 2005 at 10:51 AM | Comments (11) | Return

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