During the Transport Comittee today, one of the witnesses described the personal injury system as “the free market as it is today”.
On closer questioning, it turned out that what passes for a market is hampered by heavy structural interventions and price controls imposed by the state. It occurred to me that the usual action of free markets is to increase quality and quantity, decrease price and improve service. And this in an enquiry on the cost of motor insurance…
There will be much digging to do but I find myself wondering if we have become blind to quite severe state interventions in human social cooperation.
I think far too many in this country are blindly obedient to the state – so much so that they don’t even recognise it. Indeed, when something goes wrong that is caused by the state, they blame the imaginary free market.
Markets are far from free in this country. The fact that we have a central bank is evidence of our socialist system (yet the vast majority of people probably think that the Bank of England is “free market”).