By Selwyn Duke

I will occasionally respond to reader emails at this site, but today is a first.   I’m going to respond to a poster, Ray Hicks.  Mr. Hicks has complained about my commentary on the free market, and he believes he has caught me in a contradiction.  Below are his two posts on the subject.  My response follows.

Ray Hicks wrote:

“The market is as the market does,” eh? Considering the television news
market, I suppose that is why every station broadcasts the same news,
at the same time, at the same level of reporting. The Holy Market is
something that is influenced, not by the forces of nature, but by the
forces of man. It is not the same as the weather, which by the way, you
can also see broadcast in a similar fashion on any TV station. And, it
is not a sanctified entity that operates generally in the common good.
It is simply a vehicle for people to make money. The more power one
has, the more they can control and direct our Holy Market and the more
money they can make in our Holy Marketplace. Why does an MRI machine
cost two million dollars? Because…that’s what they can get for it! If
they could get four million, that’s what it would cost. It has little
to do with anything else. And you are a fool, if you think that the
people who sell them aren’t squirming and shuffling in every way they
can to get the four million. That certainly is not “nice or
idealistic.” That is avarice and greed. That, although it may not be
spelled out on a stone tablet, is evil.

Second post:

Ernest Hemmingway once said, “Art is where the heart is…Art is where
the fart is…” I’ll leave you to figure that one out! What I would like
to know is why Freddie Linsky’s creations aren’t worth the twenty
Pounds Sterling they seem to be (excuse the pun) drawing?

I once had a teacher, who was also a professional jazz musician,
question the value of some jazz forms, along the same lines that Mr.
Duke questions the quality of little Linsky’s “works.” But, if the
market is the sole determinate of something’s worth; why is it foolish
to pay the going price for the kid’s stuff?

Maybe, because the market is controlled and directed by less than
legitimate forces. Say for example like, Estelle Lovett’s sham touting
of the wonders of her young son’s painting. I know it’s astonishing and
even radical, but I suspect that “the market” is often pulled by the
kind of fraudulent influences that affect the price of Master Linsky’s
masterworks.

But, how can that be? The Holy Market subject to a scam, when really
it is more like a genuine force of nature, rather than a street corner
game of Three Card Monte? I guess we shouldn’t worry about such things.
After all, the market will certainly “correct’ itself…now won’t it?

Of course, that correction won’t help the folks that paid twenty
pounds for the crap Lovett sold them. I guess you can say, “Let the
buyer beware.” Or, of course, more simply put…”Every man for himself!”

Mr. Hicks,

You didn’t read what I wrote with an analytical eye. 

Can I both support a democratic republic while also criticizing the decisions made by those who vote within it?  OK, now, can I both support a free market system while also criticizing the decisions made by those who vote within it with their pocketbooks?

I’ll now use a variation on a great Churchill quotation: The free market is absolutely the worst system in the world . . . except for all the rest.

Someone once said, "A people cannot create a society that is better than they themselves are."  Human frailty will always bedevil us; all you can do is devise a system that minimizes the negative effects of that frailty as much as possible. 

To serve in this regard, what would you prefer?  A communist system?  Its feminized sibling, the socialist one?  I ask this rhetorically.  Heaven is not something of this world.

As for the nightly news, yes, it most certainly is a function of the market; if people tuned out, it would change.  Of course, that is happening to some degree, as news broadcasts have lost viewers and papers are experiencing declining circulation.  And if anyone should complain about the market-shaped media, I should.  If people made better choices, I’d be writing for the  New York Times and Frank Rich would be selling used cars.

You’re right when you say that people who operate by the "whatever the traffic will bear" principle are doing evil.  But that’s the beauty of the profit motive.  Sure, people should serve their fellow man for higher reasons, but what about the mass of people who aren’t that highly evolved?  When you remove an adequate profit motive from the system, they become idle.

The profit motive ensures that my fellow man will serve me even if he doesn’t really care about me.  Again, it minimizes the effects of man’s frailty.

As for Master Linksy’s dubious works, my commentary was merely an example of criticizing the "votes" some within the market cast.  I never proposed that there should be a government body overseeing the art world.  The market is as the market does.  People have a right to pay money for Linsky’s scratchings, and he has a right to accept it.

And I have a right to mock them.

As they say, "A fool and his money are soon parted." 

Oh, fools vote, too, by the way.  But it’s still better than the North Korean system.