Markets are signals and the aggregate effects of the decisions made in response to those signals. These decisions include the allocation and reallocation of resources – both private and public. The power to make decisions in response to market signals also means the power to create these signals.Whether people as citizens have the power to make decisions depends on whether there is a democratic, accountable state that allocates resources in the interests of citizens. Whether people as heads of corporations and private industry have the power to make decisions depends on whether the state intervenes, regulates or restricts what they can and cannot do.

In the rapid reallocation of resources, institutions, corporations and people gain or lose access to resources and – if unrestrained – everything becomes a resource: a commodity bought and sold for profit.

If the state does not intervene, regulate or restrict, then it is clear that a handful of the rich and powerful will make all of the decisions of consequence. The state only intervenes at the request of the rich and powerful when they need help – when they have made bad decisions and must be bailed out of the financial crises they created.

The state also intervenes when the people show signs of challenging the power of the rich minority – when the people demand the right to make decisions that fundamentally shape their lives and the future of their children. It is a demand that resources are allocated and reallocated according to the needs of the people and the planet through democratic processes. This is self-determination. This is people’s national sovereignty. It is at this point the politicians representing the rich and powerful, while defending a market free of any state intervention, also summon the powers of a strong state against the people.

A “free market” really means that decisions can be freely made to allocate and reallocate all of the resources in society in response to signals – signals embodying a mix of physical realities and artificial manipulation and speculation – without any intervention by the state. There is no state intervention to ensure that this allocation and reallocation of resources fulfills the needs of the people and the realization of their human rights, including the right to a life worthy of human dignity. There is only state intervention to repress popular protest against the massive theft of public resources.

Left free to respond to, create and manipulate market signals, the rich and powerful who make these unrestrained decisions will inevitably become the free market. And in the “free market”, freedom is eroded.

This is the madness of the free market. This is the madness of Milei.

Foto: Nelson Godoy