Kevin's View of the Free Market

Following is a brief overview of my model of the free market.

The free market is about people with free minds running around in a physical world trying to find the best use of their time and resources.

If you consider time to be a resource, you can simplify the model even further.

Another name for the resources under one's control is "property."

When classical liberals talk about property rights, they are saying that people have a fundamental right to own resources for use in the market.

The fundamental task for each of us is to figure out how to best use the resources under our control.

Since we are not islands unto ourselves, we end up negotiating with each other and exchange goods and services. In these negotiations, I might choose to sell time to an employer. At other times I might negotiate the purchase of time or services from others, in which case I am the employer.

The goal of the people in the free market is to better their conditions. We employ our free minds to figure out how to make the most of our existing property and how to create new property.

As Adam Smith noted, when a large number of people are actively engaged in this process of improving their property, then the nation becomes wealthy.

BTW, I should point out that, in a truly free market, there is no such thing as unemployment. In a market where people own their time and their bodies, they will employ themselves in the way they find most fruitful.