Why markets are better than state control

Longrider about why markets are better than state control, but I feel he has not quite explained the really great thing about markets. The amazing thing about free markets is not that they somehow makes wicked men good, it is that it makes their wickedness irrelavent. Free markets are a technology that can convert bad intentions into good actions.

This is because they are based on co-operation rather than coercion. However wicked the heart in order to acheive their aims, say a nice conservatory by the pyrana pool, under free market conditions a person has to pursuade people to deal with him of their own free will. He has to give them something that they want as well, he has to proved that he can be trusted to deliver, in short he has to act honourably despite himself or he will never forfill his evil desires.

When bad people can simply use coercion none of that applies. All he needs is to get his hand on he levers of state power and he can simply force everybody to bend to his will. History shows that psycopaths with all the social concience of an incontinent dog on a cricket pitch are rather good at getting their claws on the levels of state power. These are the people that simply cut a bloody swath through their opponents on the way up because they do not matter all that matters is getting to the top and the power to satisfy their desires that they will then wield.

A bad man in a free market based system will have to try to help other people if they are going to give him what he wants. But bad men in a state controlled system have nothing to stop them racking up a six figure body count, so they did.