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Re:Adam Smith and Inequality (2014) by WalterBright on Monday September 13, 2021 @12:57AM (#28507996)
The driver is economic freedom, which produces both inequality and prosperity.

Trying to force equality means you've got to hammer people down, and that means take away the freedom.

Tyranny, such as Haiti, also produce inequality, but without the prosperity.

Re:Adam Smith and Inequality (2014) by whakim on Monday September 13, 2021 @01:57AM (#28508245)
I'm not really sure what "economic freedom" means - and I'd be able to respond better if you defined it.

Haiti wasn't a tyranny. In fact, it was a prime example of proprietarian capitalism run totally amok - a regime in which the state did not restrict individuals from, say, owning other humans and reaping large profits on them.

Re:Adam Smith and Inequality (2014) by WalterBright on Monday September 13, 2021 @04:45PM (#28516652)
Free markets are when people are free to trade with whoever they want to, at the price they both freely agree to.

It does not include the right to harm others or enslave them. Enslaving people obviously prevents them from having the right to trade freely.

> Haiti wasn't a tyranny

Owning other people is tyrannical.

Re:Adam Smith and Inequality (2014) by whakim on Monday September 13, 2021 @05:26PM (#28517098)
> Free markets are when people are free to trade with whoever they want to, at the price they both freely agree to.

Except the numerous exceptions where that isn't true. I can't engage in insider trading. I can't get a child to give me his lunch money in exchange for a lollipop. I can't deal heroin. The point being that markets aren't absolutely free, they're free within the limits of what we deem to be culturally and politically acceptable. If you look at the logic surrounding the end of slavery in 19th century Europe, much of the debate was about the property rights of slaveholders and how they ought to be compensated for their lost property.