self-ownership

The free market is precisely the diametric opposite of the “jungle” society. The jungle is characterized by the war of all against all. One man gains only at the expense of another, by seizure of the latter’s property. With all on a subsitance level there is a true struggle for survival, with the stronger force crushing the weaker. In the free market, on the other hand, one man gains only through serving another. It is precisely through the peaceful cooperation of the market that all men gain through the development of the division of labor and capital investment. To apply the principle of the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ to both the jungle and the market is to deny the basic question: “Fitness for What?” the ‘fit’ in the jungle are those most adept at the exercise of brute force. The ‘fit’ on the market, are those most adept in the service of society. the jungle is a brutish place, where some seize from others and all live at the starvation level. The market is a peaceful and productive place where all serve themselves and others at the same time, and live at infinitely higher levels of consumption. The free market therefore transmutes the jungle’s destructive competition for meager existence into a peaceful, cooperative competition in the service of oneself and others. In the jungle, some gain only at the expense of others; on the market everyone gains. It is the market, the contractual society, that rests order out of chaos, that subdues nature and eradicates the jungle, that permits the weak to live productively, in a regal style compared to the life of the strong in the jungle. Furthermore, the market, by raising living standards permits man the leisure to cultivate the very qualities of civilization that distinguish him from the brutes.