The market itself is a creature of government. As Karl Polanyi famously wrote in a seeming oxymoron, “laissez-faire was planned.” Markets could not exist without states defining the terms of property ownership and commerce, creating money, enforcing contracts, protecting patents and trademarks, and providing basic public institutions. A Robinson Crusoe world never existed. So the real issue is not whether government “intrudes” on the market—the capitalist system is impossible without government. The practical question is whose interests the state serves. - Robert Kuttner (pictured above) at The American Prospect
I have seldom seen this idea, a fundamental one to put across whenever I teach World History, Economics, or Political Science, so well expressed. The entire essay is worth reading:
The Libertarian Delusion
Kuttner's most recent book:
Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility
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