Legislative Evaluation Assembly of Minnesota

by Gordon L. Anderson, Ph.D.

Many writers confuse a free market with a laissez-faire (or leave alone) approach to the market. This is a serious mistake. A free market only functions with a level playing field, or “planned competition” as Friedrich Hayek, referred to it in The Road to Serfdom. Laissez-faire is what Thomas Hobbes called “the state of nature.” This is a state in which the strongest take what they can from the weak. In the state of nature there is no legal order. In the United States we might think of the Wild West in the nineteenth century or some inner city areas where gangs freely roamed in the twentieth century. Or, we might think of the formation of the Russian mafia after the collapse of communism.

The goal of a free market is to allow everyone to compete in order to provide the most desirable goods and services at the lowest prices. Continue reading →

written by David Barnhizer, A nationally recognized legal scholar
Abridged and synopsized by Dale Nathan*

INTRODUCTION

Rather than symbolizing Justice as a blindfolded goddess carefully weighing the evidence in legal disputes to ensure fair and unbiased outcomes, it has become more accurate to visualize her with blindfold askew, sneaking glances to see who places the most money or other tribute onto her scale to tilt the balance in their favor. If blindfolded Justice is the abstract symbol of independent and equitable decisionmaking, the judge is the concrete manifestation of the process through which we attempt to attain justice and fairness. Achieving justice through the judicial mechanism requires independent and principled arbiters free of corrupting influence.

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