[MD] Science Wars

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Marsha]
The idea of the free market is a myth, a cruel joke.

[Arlo]
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, a "market" is only as 
good as the values of the society (or better said, it is a reflection 
of social values). The much-lauded "free market" had no trouble in 
the buying and selling of slaves throughout history, and a "free 
market" has no qualms engaging in child or sex-slave trafficking. It 
will distribute pornography with the same ease as it distributes my 
weekly Time. It will unload a boatload of shackled "darkies" to slave 
in plantations with the same ease as it unloads crates of 
Playstations. A "free market" would traffic cocaine and meth with the 
same mechanistic precision at it distributes Coca-Cola and Doritoes.

No one, not even Platt, truly wants a wholly unregulated market 
(bye-bye copyright and hello personal nuclear missile sales!) The 
issue is realistically about what regulations and why? To what degree 
and what for? That is the sensible dialogue. Chest-thumping about the 
"free market" is merely talk-radio rhetoric.