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From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: free market and famine
Message-ID: <2921@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 15:52:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.2921
Posted: Thu Jul 25 15:52:39 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jul-85 02:22:58 EDT
References: <1671@psuvax1.UUCP>
Reply-To: josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall)
Distribution: net
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 26

In article <1671@psuvax1.UUCP> berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) writes:
>
>   As of today, famine and malnutrition occur mostly in areas occupied
>by uneducated, poor peasants.  How the free market can help them?
>By offering loans? ...  By selling educational services? ...
>To create a resemblance of a free market, which in the
>long run seems to be beneficial, one needs huge intervention, like
>subsidized education, infrastructure and state guaranteed loans...
>Piotr Berman

There seems to be a basic misconception here about what the free market
really is.  It is not a bunch of industrialists, nor is it a government
agency.  It is a condition: namely the absence of coercive force
restricting the voluntary exchange of goods and services, in this case
between "uneducated, poor peasants".  No external intervention is necessary
for the free market to occur;  and no external intervention is sufficient.

> I think that anyone who proposes a solutions which cannot
>fail (like free market) is deluding himself and others.

The free market is not a "solution which cannot fail".  It is merely 
the removal of one (and one of the largest) of the several causes of 
famine.  Allow someone to feed himself: he may or not succeed.  But 
put him in chains, and he will surely fail.

--JoSH