18 Disturbing Factors

Inherently, economics is based on the principle that human transactions are completely free and voluntary - but in truth, this is a suggestion rather than reality.

Human beings are animals, and have not evolved much: it is not the wisest animal that rules the herd, but the most domineering - the one that poses the most immediate threat to the physical well-being of them others will control them by brutality and fear. And human history has shown much of the same tendencies - it is only within the past two centuries that anyone has suggested that it should be otherwise.

But in those two centuries since the discovery of the concept of freedom, much progress has been made. It cannot be successfully argued that brutality of our past is the better way, and we find that prosperity results from living in peace and harmony, under the rule of wisdom rather than violence.

(EN: He carries on for a while in the same vein. The book was published in 1850, when France was undergoing great political upheaval and there was significant division between those who proposed a republic and those who preferred a return to monarchy, so this is making a case for republic from an economic perspective. Ironically, this argument is still ongoing and politics represents a struggle between statists and individualists to this day.)

His case is for laissez-faire capitalism - to let each man pursue his own course. Let him take risks and be rewarded or punished by his own merits. The free market has mechanisms to encourage correct and productive behavior and discourage waste - and needs protection only against "force and fraud" that prevent it from functioning appropriately.

Utopia cannot be forced upon man, but he may achieve improvement if he is not impeded. The eternal goal of each man is to "silence the voice of want" and to achieve happiness - and he need not be compelled to do so for himself. Government need only step in to resolve conflicts of interest when men pursue their personal interest - and most can do so without conflict with others.

Returning to the opening point: if a government is to be good, to protect men from brutality and exploitation, that it should begin by minimizing the brutality and exploitation it inflicts upon them, and to burden men as little as possible. No act of law has ever compelled a man to prosper or to be happy, but most have achieved the opposite effect.