Andrew – You write (quoting in full):

Jonah, the free market is, in itself, nothing more than a rather efficient (the best so far developed, in my view) way of allocating resources. If anything, as a recognition that no one person or institution can get things right, reliance upon it is both a welcome recognition of human imperfection and, at least in theory, a declaration of total moral neutrality. It’s a measuring device, no more judgemental than a set of scales. That said, you, I and some of your correspondents clearly believe that both the preconditions and the consequences of a functioning free market are beneficial in both material and non-material ways, but that’s a different topic…

I really do understand where you’re coming from here. I do. In fact, it’s entirely possible our disagreement is a semantic one. If you simply mean by free markets a liberal pricing mechanism or some other term economists use that I’m unaware of for what you’re describing, I’d agree with you. Free market pricing — for want of a better term — is morally neutral and all of the things you say it is. For example, I do not fetishize voting. Voting is merely a means of counting the desires of a group. Evil people can out-vote good people and the evil outcome doesn’t become good simply because there’s a majority of evil voters. So if by free markets you mean something like that, I’m with ya on the substance if not the terminology.

That said, I think there are all sorts of problems with your approach. First, I think you sound a bit like the blind man describing only one part of the elephant. I think your description is entirely fine as far as it goes, and in some settings, it should be the dominant explanation of the market. Indeed, I’m all for defending the free market on empirical grounds and when the free market fails or is inadequate, as ocassionally happens, I am all for being clear-eyed and honest about.

But I think as an empirical point, defending the market solely on empirical grounds is a bad idea. Free markets create winners and losers. They foster a sense of alienation and deracination. They infuriate the intellectuals and bohemians. Defending free markets solely as a cold, impersonal, yet highly efficient force leaves markets far more vulnerable to attack. I think history is pretty clear on this. As Schumpeter predicted, intellectuals generally, and the managerial class in particular, are constantly looking for ways to convince the public or the state that they are smarter than the market, and they very often succeed. Just look around today for proof of that.

Indeed, efficient pricing is not something that moves the hearts of men, at least not many of them. Your extremely narrow defense of the market is the sort of thing that invites mischief from nationalists, socialists, populists, romantics and social planners of every stripe. “Efficient pricing? Useful measurement? Screw that, bring back my horse and buggy job!” Or more recently, “The market knows best? Why isn’t it creating 5 million green collar jobs?

Now I am not advocating some Sorelian or Platonic lie whereby we defend free markets on “culty” grounds (to borrow your word) in order to seduce the masses to our cause. I actually believe the culty stuff. Individual liberty is meaningless (or, more fairly, near meaningless) without at least somewhat free markets. Property rights and free markets are inextricably connected. As Milton Friedman put it, “A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it … gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. “

In other words, even if your description of the free market as morally neutral is correct, interference with the free market is not necessarily morally neutral. (similarly, voting may be morally neutral, but abolishing voting would not be a morally neutral act). So, whether you’re right or not, the case for defending the free market is not purely a matter of empiricism. It is a moral obligation for those eager to defend freedom.