Laci Green is Wrong: Democratic Competition vs. Free Market Competition

by | Mar 17, 2023

In environments where there’s a lot of competition, people tend to lie out their ass and you can apply this to any competitive situation.
Take capitalism. As industrialization took full effect, the Federal Government had to interfere because there was so much false advertising.
The concept of “unregulated dog-eat-dog competition” is frequently attributed to capitalism even though it applies more so to democracy.
Democracy, also known as Mob Rule by the Ignorant, involves people competing for who gets to coercively rule over everyone else, while the free market competes to better serve customers. Huge companies like Myspace, Sears, and Blockbuster, have gone out of business because consumers voluntarily chose to spend their money elsewhere. Politicians on the other hand can get replaced, but citizens have no legally recognized right to opt out of funding a government which they don’t find value in.
Imagine such a scam in any other scenario: “Amazon get’s to take 35% of your income every year and they can jail you for not obeying their arbitrary rules and regulations. However there is nothing to fear because every four years you get a 1 in 150,000,000 vote in who gets to be the CEO of Amazon!”
In a democracy, voters and politicians are constantly in competition for who gets to sit on the throne. Not only is there competition between Democrats and Republicans, but there is competition within each party for status. Every Congressional and Presidential debate is simply a competition for who can be the best demagogue.
Ms. Green apparently believes people should have the right to vote in elections but should NOT have the right to buy whatever they want because the Federal Government has to first make sure there isn’t “false advertising”. Notice Green says they “had to interfere” as if their hands were tied and they didn’t jump at the chance to control the behavior of others. This is no different than saying “High IQ people have to coercively interfere in the lives of low IQ people to protect them.” Progressivism continues to be nothing more than domestic imperialism.
Politicians, the biggest false advertisers in society, protect us from false advertising. Yes, and OJ Simpson protects us from bad marriages.
Both democracy and the free market involve competition. Market competition is preferable to democratic competition since it allows people to voluntarily opt out of funding things they do not value.

About Keith Knight

Keith Knight is Managing Editor at the Libertarian Institute, host of the Don't Tread on Anyone podcast and editor of The Voluntaryist Handbook: A Collection of Essays, Excerpts, and Quotes.

Our Books

latest book lineup.

Related Articles

Related

Faith in Markets or Faith Politics?

Faith in Markets or Faith Politics?

I plead for greater liberty and a more open world, not because I believe one system happens to be more efficient than another, but because those things provide a setting that unleashes individual creativity as no other system can. They spur dynamism that has led to...

read more