I don't hate markets. I just don't believe they bring justice or balance.

Commerce - in the broad sense of people making exchanges with other people for things that you want - has been around for millenia, and seems to be a pretty fundamental human social activity. It's not a bad idea at all; in fact, it's essential because very few if any of us have the skills to do everything we need in our life for ourselves. Markets - again, in the broad sense of vehicles for facilitating these exchanges on a larger scale, whether they are physical or virtual - are a very useful tool.

But none of that says anything about how our society - which includes these markets and exchanges - should function. Markets are just things, like forks, that don't have much value except in how they are used and the results of that use. If I use my fork to put food in my mouth and I get fed, it's a great tool; if I use my fork to stab you in the eye and you end up blind, it's not a good thing at all. Forks are not intrinsically good ... but they are generally considered positives in our society, because they result in vastly more feeding and than stabbing.

Markets are not intrinsically good either; so in the evaluation of our "free market" economy, we have to ask how they are used and what they produce. Right now, our markets produce two main things, in my opinion: lots and lots of throwaway goods, and exponentially growing inequality in access to resources. In fairness, the market also results in lots of "jobs", but the quality of those jobs varies widely, and the distribution of that quality also tends to be very unequal across different groups of people.

What makes a good market are the underlying principles that are built into its rules (and their enforcement). The rules surrounding appropriate use of forks place a severe penalty on using them to stab people, so stabbings are few. The lack of rules in the definition of our current markets of exchange to penalize environmental damage or gross pay disparities between a CEO of a company and the factory workers who make that company's products mean that those behaviors are rampant in the way that people operate in our markets.

The rules that we have in our markets prioritize individualism and self-interest; make lowest cost and biggest profit the highest goal with the best reward; encourage low quality and continual waste; and ignore diffuse costs in evaluating costs and benefits. The rules that we should have need to prioritize honesty and integrity; respect individual liberties but prioritize the public good as the goal of the market; require equitable sharing of the direct and diffuse rewards and costs of the market among the individuals and groups who participate; set high quality standards for the content, function, useful life and production methods of products and services exchanged. Finally, these rules must be enforced; the value placed on goods and services exchanged must be tied to these principles so that the best behaviors are rewarded; and penalties for violating these principles, in spirit as well as in letter, must be severe.

Some folks will argue that all of this fetters the market's "free" operation and keep people from exercising their preferences. But let's be real: the market is not free. It is very directly influenced by subsidies, regulations, loopholes, and indirectly influenced by cultural standards, that privilege certain behaviors over others. Those who are currently benefiting the most from the existing system would like to convince us that protecting the system protects our right to choose; but what they are protecting is their right to determine our range of options to maximize their own benefit.

If we're going to institute rules for our markets - which we will always do - then let's institute the ones that make our markets and the people who participate in them healthy, stable and sustaining. And if we're not willing to do that, then let's at least admit that we are choosing to be sick and broken, and take responsibility for the destruction we wreak. The current state of our system is a surprise only to those who were deliberately ignoring the reality of the world around them.