stock market

Unfortunately we live in a world where some of the necessities of life are disparaged and sometimes even criminalised. Carbon is perhaps the life-giving "villain" highest in the public eye right now, but the free market, without which most of us would be living in squalor and misery, or even be dead, cannot be far behind.

In a nutshell, the free market is one of the necessities for wealth and happiness, but in the popular perception two things go very badly wrong:

1. The free market is confused with laissez-faire economics, deregulation, untrammelled capitalism, and so on;
2. Admirable ideas about equality, cooperation, friendship, generosity, concern for the weak and powerless, and so on, make the idea of trading—buying and selling, spending one's time making sordid money instead of selflessly giving—seem incompatible with 'being a nice person'.

The former problem means that free markets can be, and perhaps always have been, implemented badly so that a range of corruptions can be indulged in, often perfectly legally but without a shred of morals. The latter problem means that many or most who concern themselves with these issues, and who have the best and finest intentions, turn against the free market and trading in their entirety, and therefore never take part in any discussion to fix the problems with how free markets are actually implemented.