[MD] Metaphysical issues: DQ

[Platt Holden]

> Platt:
> Not "institutionalizing DQ." The free market is an institution allowing DQ
> to flourish. 
 
> woods:
>    Platt, I get it.  The free market is good and allows dq to flourish,
> but where is this 
> fabled free market.  In the "Second Coming" or some other virtual
> reality?

Where is the free market? In the U.S., South Korea, Hong Kong (before the 
communist takeover), and other capitalist countries compared to European 
socialist countries, as described in Lila:

"The Metaphysics of Quality says the free market makes everybody richer-by 
preventing static economic patterns from setting in and stagnating economic 
growth. That is the reason the major capitalist economies of the world have 
done so much better since World War II than the major socialist economies." 
(Lila, 17) 

As used in Lila and most everywhere else, the free market is a relative 
term, comparing a economic system of central planning to one of individual 
free choice. That's OK for abstract comparative purposes. But as you know, 
two planks of the Communist Manifesto were adopted in the U.S. in 1913 with 
the passage of the graduated income tax and the creation of the Federal 
Reserve. Since then it's been a slow but steady degeneration in the U.S. to 
full socialism. 

Platt