Ethics, Values and the Family

A market economy in not, as many people think, a selfish society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is a society with moral values without which it cannot survive.

It stands on the foundation of individual property rights. And it relies to a large degree on people following moral rules, like honesty. Without honesty one simply cannot have fair trade.

In a market economy, the family also plays a very important role. It is the one place in society where sharing is still practiced on a regular and voluntary basis. in a way it is like the small hunting groups of thirty thousand years ago.

It is also the place where one gets the values which make a market economy possible: respect for property, honesty, responsibility, fairness, and compassion.

Adapted from "understading the Economy" by Marc Swanepoel

Learners often have a very scant idea of the principles on which economic systems rest and the so-called left has done a sterling job of making things appear opposite to what they are. For example socialism is seen as the route to go when one has compassion to the poor whilst capitalists are made oute to be greedy and selfish. This while everybody knows that in free market capitalist countries there is less poverty (and even the poor are relatively well off) and the wealthy tend to be very sensitive to the needs of the poor and are therefore philantropic and caring in their actions - the very human qualities that socialist policies tend to blunt (I am not going to care, the state should solve the problem with my taxes - which we know doesn't happen since th burcrats look after themselves and not the populace).

Then we have this whole moral issue of force - free market capitaism is based on voluntary exchange between adult individuals while socialism is dependent on force to expropriate the earnings from the productive groups within society.