DARWINISM AND THE FREE MARKET

Animal Farm has an article today about the Free Market and Darwinism. It prompted the reply below from me. Since I went to all the trouble to write it and I need to fill some space I thought that I might as well post it here.

Good article. There are a couple problems that I see, though.

The theories of both the origin of species and the free market are generally argued not through deductive or inductive forms of reason but through abductive. Abductive reasoning is defined as reasoning that begins with a hypothesis that might explain the data in question.

Darwin, contrary to the title of his work, never explains the origin of any species. He never explains how it all started. We are told that out of some great primordial chaos order emerged. With no intelligent direction; just by chance. The idea of a self perpetuating chaotic state increasing in order and energy violates the second law of thermodynamics and common sense. A pile of crap will decompose. It will not turn into a rose. Order cannot come from disorder without design. Entropy rules.

Many, if not most scientists accept Darwinism as fact and this is a bias that is inherent in their work. Thus, all of their future conclusions become a product of abduction, working from a flawed premise in an attempt to prove their bias; or to satisfy the bias of a benefactor.

Economists suffer from a similar problem. They all have an axe to grind. Some are acolytes of Keynes, some of Friedman. Some put their faith in an invisible hand while others believe in the hand that crushes. Many are employed by a special interest to justify the world view of their employer. Regardless, few are willing to look at the problem of economics objectively, preferring to view them through lenses shaded by their own preconceptions. Again, their reasoning is abductive.

The flaw in both Darwinism and Free Market theory is the idea that neither is free. Both are controlled by their designer. We are what we are because God designed us. What methods he used are entirely up to him; whether we evolved or not is a question that is worthy of enquiry, as long as it is free of preconception and limits.

The bias of those that promote the Free Market is evident in the name of their cause; free. Markets are never free. They are acted upon by a myriad of outside influences, pushing this way and that. Without intervention, all markets will deteriorate. Entropy applies to all things. This being said, the inherent bias of those that promote the free market, that of the invisible hand, forces them through abductive reasoning to espouse theories that are just plain wrong. Ideas such as the markets will always produce the best outcome through some form of Darwinian evolutionary process. Darwinism doesn’t work in nature, why should we assume it will work here.

Markets must be controlled and directed to exist. The problem is in who is doing the controlling. Are the controllers biased towards allowing the self interests of businesses and consumers to drive the market or do the controllers believe in using the power that they posses to satisfy their own needs at the expense of others? Do they want the market to reflect the needs and desires of those it is meant to serve or would they use it to enforce political ideology? Do these controllers believe in their own wisdom, setting it above all else as the only truth worthy of adherence?

Or, will the controller accept that markets, along with everything else, are dependent upon an outside force for their very existence? Further, that this force, this creative power, has established laws to govern the actions of all that it has created; that adherence to these laws and these laws alone are the only way to have true freedom of markets and all else?

The only way markets can be “free” is if we accept our nature, that of created beings dependent upon our creator for our existence. We must accept the laws given to us, those of morality and ethics. If we refuse to place the interests of others alongside our own self interests and work towards the good of all our system will not stand. Greed is not good!

From “The Catechism of the Catholic Church”; 2404 "In his use of things man should regard the external goods he legitimately owns not merely as exclusive to himself but common to others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as himself."188 The ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of all his family."

True free markets require that we understand the reason markets exist in the first place. We are commanded to go forth and "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." (Genesis 1:28) Markets are an important tool in the fulfillment of this command. It is when we separate them from their nature, the reason our creator created them that we begin to destroy them. We remove them from the source of their energy, and like all systems in nature they decline.

We must return our markets to their truly free state, freedom governed by the laws that will allow it to truly be free. We have to make sure that those that control the markets are themselves controlled by the laws established by the markets creator. Unless this is done, we face collapse. Nothing can survive by flaunting the laws of nature and natures God, including the marketplace.