A Myth About The Free Market

An economy is not a tool of moral correction; it is a system comprised of whatever production and purchases are conducted in a given place, whatever the beliefs and actions of that economy's vendors are.  It might be suggested from time to time that a free market, or a set of economic transactions consumers and sellers voluntarily enter into with minimal or no government regulation, can weed out irrational or immoral ideas from a culture as consumers stop buying from sellers who adhere to those ideas.

Whether the people contributing to or benefitting from an economy are morally upright or despicable cannot usually be determined by simply leaving the free market to itself, as a truly free market reflects only the consensual transactions of various parties, as opposed to the intellectual soundness and moral standing of those parties.  Allowing a free market to "take care of" some ideological or moral problem in a society is at best a gamble, and at worst is apathy.  The decisions of the actors in a free market are not a part of justice.

For example, if a business owner holding to a relativistic, racist, or sexist idea was shrugged at by people who simply think that "the free market will take care of it" if people avoid that establishment out of dislike of the owner's worldview, the ones shrugging at the offense are at least guilty of either tolerance or leaving suppression of the idea to chance.  There is no way to know if strangers truly will boycott a business for philosophical or moral reasons, but, even then, loss of economic profits from a boycott is hardly the most effective way to deal with such stupidity.

A free market is simply not a valid way to truly rectify a society's ideological flaws.  It is never problematic for someone to boycott a particular business out of legitimate objections to the owner's ideologies, but it is irrational to think that hoping others do so is the best way to change the moral standing of a community or business.  Refutation and justice are the solutions to every ideological blight on a society.  The free market is amoral in itself, even if a free market is not an immoral thing in itself.