Comment by CWuestefeld
16 years ago
Hmmm. I gave this a little thought as I drove home, and I think I've got the answer.
On the whole, both regulation and the free market are able to deal with most of slavery. But at the margin, it becomes cost-ineffective to mop up the very last instance. In both cases, the instance is low enough that most of us will never come face-to-face with slavery. But ferreting out one more evil person costs society more than it would benefit.
I'll give you that. I wouldn't expect to see rampant slavery in a truly free-market society. There aren't many people who would voluntary choose to become one, though no doubt they exist. And I definitely agree with you that it's too expensive to try and eliminate ALL slavery (not just in dollars, but in rights.)
The thing that scares me about a truly free market without regulation are issues of coercion. Force may be eliminated, but there are so many other ways to take advantage of compromised people. Drug addicts, homeless, desperate parents, etc. Also, for a truly free market to work, you need enough information on both sides for people to make educated choices, but either side would prefer he have the information advantage.
Basically, I just don't see it working any better than the current system, but perhaps it would.