Even capitalists often make the mistake of talking about “social justice” as if it’s the opposite of free markets or a reason to rein in markets with more regulations or redistribution of wealth. But there’s nothing “just” about the leftist protesters’ claimed solution: more big government.
Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and Harry Belafonte praised Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez for his socialist revolution. Chavez then proceeded to destroy much of his country.
Even after his death, his portrait remains on walls everywhere and his policies live on. They haven’t produced social justice, unless your idea of “justice” is privileges for government officials and shortages of basics like food and toilet paper for ordinary people. Only socialism could take an oil-rich nation and turn it into one where people wait in line for hours for survival rations.
The left-wing Guardian newspaper quotes a Venezuelan farmer saying that Chavez’s policies left Venezuela with “no one to explain why a rich country has no food.”
Not many people in Venezuela give such explanations — the government censors its critics — but free-market economists can explain.
Goods don’t get matched to consumer needs by anyone’s burning desire for justice. The amazing coordination of the marketplace happens because sellers and buyers are free. Sellers can sell whatever they choose at prices they choose. Buyers decide whether to pay. That flexibility — and chance to make a profit — is what persuades people to create what customers want and risk their own money and safety to stock it in a store.
Without the free market setting prices and allocating resources, all the cries of “justice” in the world don’t help anyone. You can’t eat justice. You can’t use it as toilet paper.
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