Your communist upbringing appears to have you a bit confused. Try reading Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, might clear things up a bit.
Let's start with some basics: A free society is predicated upon individual freedom. And individual freedom starts with a basic property: the right of self-ownership. Self-ownership means we are entitled to the fruits of our own labor, i.e. that they do not belong to the government. This leads to the right to own property. That, in turn, leads to the right to capitalize that property ownership (i.e. be entitled to the value of one's own property). And for the sake of argument, let's say you decide to build something. You are successful and hire others to build for you. You must decide what their wages will be. Wages are not an arbitrary assignment: doctors earn more than housekeepers because doctors' skills are scarcer, for example. Wages are thus assigned a value by the market, and here's where you begin to get muddled. What is the market? This, again, is where you should turn to Hayek, who pointed out why socialism and the planned economy are always less efficient than the market economy: market pricing.
Why is pricing so important? Because, as Hayek noted and Kirzner added (as is paraphrased here: the coordination of the actions of millions of specialized producers and consumers around the global market is brought about through the price system. Any change in someone’s willingness or ability to supply or demand any product anywhere in the market is registered through a change in the price of the good, service, or resource in question.
Furthermore, such changes are occurring all the time in a world of unceasing change. The resulting changes in market prices due to shifts in supply and demand conditions are constantly creating new profit or loss situations.
A central task of the entrepreneur, Kirzner has argued, is to be alert to these shifts in market conditions and indeed to anticipate them as best he can.
His role in the market economy is to bring about modifications and transformations in what goods are produced, where they are produced, and with which methods of production, so that production activities are continuously tending to reflect the actual patterns of consumer demand.
Through his alertness to profits to be gained and losses to be avoided, the entrepreneur ensures the adjustments to change that are required for a process of continual coordination of market activities, upon which both the existing and an improving standard of living are dependent.
This all comes down to the point that artificially raising and/or lowering prices disrupts the wisdom inherent in the market (which is a process, not a place). Now, if you wish to speak of justice, fairness, morality and the role of the individual worker: then explain to me the morality of protecting the job of one person at the expense of the job of another is inherently moral? Because protectionism WILL lose the jobs of many more potential employees to save the job of one. "Saving" the job of the candlestick maker loses the job of the electrician, the lampmaker, and the light-bulb manufacturer, among others. Equally, "saving" the job of the steelworker loses the job of an autoworker, a washing-machine manufacturer, a refrigerator salesman--because you have artificially raised the prices of those commodities and thus artificially dampened demand.
If you do not believe in free markets, you do not believe in liberty. Period.
What a wonderfully simple progression, when put this way! I am going to shamelessly steal this formula to use on the next "social democrat" I encounter, to explain how his ideals are contradictory and that he is advocating a road to slavery.
I had previously struggled with saying the same thing in a more wordy and complicated way. Thank you. =)
You must be kidding. Are you saying that the British colony developed for the purpose of international trade and derived from Chinese civilization can be "exactly the same place" as tribal Africa?
Liberty and free market are two very different things.
Let me quote from the great American leader, one of her early political founders and teachers:
Well said. Bump. Free trade - devoid of protectionism, subsidies etc., increases the wealth of all countries involved - cheaper prices and higher standards of living.
Well the market should be a level playing field on which competitors are on an equal footing.
However, that does not exist in today's globalized economy.
INDIVIDUAL American entreprenuerial opportunity is stifled by excessive government regulation as well as by the economic barriers to market entry enjoyed by transnational corporations and their economies of scales. It is these ARTFICIAL entities who are undermining our INDIVIDUAL economic freedoms with their corrupt manipulation of governmental policies and demands for misnamed "free" trade under economic restrictions that are detrimental to individual Americans.