You make many excellent points, all of which point to one thing - human nature. Man is by nature self-centered. That is why free enterprise and “the market” work so successfully. Central planners, who think they know what is best for everyone, the “elite”, are impatient with free choice because some people make bad choices or choices that are not in sync with their plan. Some do, of course, but the consequences of individual bad choices are self-correcting. (Validating that statement will take more space than I intend to take here.) Central planners are faceless and far away so they just pass off bad choices as unintended consequences and the correction rarely takes place. The phrase unintended consequences is also a convenient way to hide their deceptions.
A strong belief in God, not a false prophet like Mohammed, is the glue which holds a free society together. That comparison is another example of why one works and the other does not. Our God, embodied in Jesus, leaves the choices up to us, as well as the consequences of those choices. Muslims are governed by earthly religious leaders who determine their course of action and exact vengeance on those who they feel are wrong.
Christianity and free enterprise are natural allies as are Islam and tyranny. Christianity and free enterprise have built the most successful, most generous, and most powerful nation ever. Islam and tyranny have frozen civilization in time, the time of Mohammed. Modern tyrannies, such as socialism and Marxism. also stifle innovation and eventually die.
The average citizen would choose free enterprise and Christianity were they to make an INFORMED choice. Unfortunately, those who would control the rest of us have for 100+ years MISinformed the average citizen and have done their best to eradicate Christianity. They will fail.
The obvious thing we must be aware of, (if it is obvious I guess we would be aware of it, huh?) is that those who want to control are also operating from self-centeredness. They want power and privilege but they don’t want to earn it fairly, they want to take it by force. They use lies and deception to accomplish their goals because us “victims” don’t want to give power to them.
During a time of monarchs I suppose the appeal of Marxism had a basis. The divide between the haves and the have-nots, the masses, was wide and there was no logical and honest way for the have-nots to improve their positions. Therefore a revolution made sense. That time and those circumstances are long past, yet, those seeking to take and keep power strive to maintain that deep divide in order to foment a revolution. They are Evil and must be stamped out!
the consequences of individual bad choices are self-correcting.
This is the absolute key to why only the free market works with as much efficiency as human nature allows. The bad aspects of human nature -- the tendency to cheat, steal, be lazy, greedy, etc. -- will be present in ANY system. A business may cheat one way, a socialized medicine clinic cheats another way, but the end result for the enterprise, and the individuals using it, is the same.
The big difference is that only the free market incentivizes good behavior and the positive traits of human nature.
If a for-profit business abuses its customers too much, it goes out of business. Individual stakeholders lose. If a socialized service provider abuses its "customers" to the same extent, it keeps right on going or becomes the subject of (essentially meaningless) government "reform."
This, as you said, is because only the market is self-correcting.
During a time of monarchs I suppose the appeal of Marxism had a basis. The divide between the haves and the have-nots, the masses, was wide and there was no logical and honest way for the have-nots to improve their positions.
This underlies the point made by the German economist who wrote this excellent article, Obama's Misguided Policies: America Has Become Too European.
The author argues that Europeans are more suited to accept socialism, essentially because, as you note, it was way better than what they had lived with throughout their history.
But we, Americans, are the only people on earth who have ALWAYS been free. We have never been under a king, tyrant or dictator! (At our founding, the cry was "We have no king but Jesus!").
Straubhaar writes:
In Europe, the state is the result of centuries of struggle by relatively homogeneous societies and it has always played a major role in European societies. Therefore, a broad majority of the population supports economic policies based on government intervention, especially in difficult times. And Germany's current successes in dealing with the crisis suggest that the Europeans are probably right in their approach. The German economy will probably grow more this year than the American one. In Europe, government-prescribed medicine goes down well.
But what is good for Europe and Germany does not automatically work for the US. The settlers of the New World rejected everything, which included throwing out anything with a semblance of state authority. They fled Europe to find freedom. The sole shared goal of the settlers was to obtain individual freedom and live independently, which included the freedom to say what they wanted, believe what they wanted and write what they wanted. The state was seen as a way to facilitate this goal. The state should not interfere in people's lives, aside from securing freedom, peace and security. Economic prosperity was seen as the responsibility of the individual.
Finally, on your point of the association between Christianity and the free market (and, indeed, freedom), I recently read a marvelous little book from the early 20th century called An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching, by George O'Brien (free for Kindle). It focuses on how the Church's teaching on the value of work and private property and juxtaposes that to the popular calls for Socialism to "fix" the excesses of the Industrial Revolution.