12. Conclusion. The Free Market and Coercion.
We have thus concluded our analysis of voluntary and free action and its consequences in the
free market, and of violent and coercive action and its consequences in economic intervention.
Superficially it looks to many people as if the free market is a chaotic and anarchic
Place, while government intervention imposes order and community values upon this anarchy.
Actually, praxeology, economics, shows us that the truth is quite the reverse.
We may divide our analysis into the direct or palpable effects and the indirect, hidden
effects of the two principles.
Indirectly, voluntary action, free exchange, leads to the mutual benefit of both parties
to the exchange. Indirectly, as our investigations have shown, the network of these free exchanges
in society, known as the free market, creates a delicate and even awe-inspiring mechanism
of harmony, adjustment and precision in allocating productive resources, deciding upon products
and, gently but swiftly, guiding the economic system toward the greatest possible satisfaction of the desires of all the consumers.
In short, not only does the free market directly benefit all parties and leave them free and uncoerced,
it also creates a mighty and efficient instrument of social order.
Proudhon, indeed, wrote better than he knew when he called liberty the mother, not the daughter, of order.
On the other hand, coercion has diametrically opposite features.
Directly, coercion benefits one party only at the expense of others.
Coerced exchange is a system of exploitation of man by man, in contrast to the free market,
which is a system of cooperative exchanges in the exploitation of nature alone.
And not only does coerced exchange mean that some live at the expense of others,
but indirectly, as we have just observed, coercion leads only to further problems.
It is inefficient and chaotic, it cripples production, and it leads to cumulative and
and Unforeseen Difficulties. Seemingly orderly, coercion is not only exploitative, it is also
profoundly disorderly. The major function of praxeology, of economics, is to bring to
the world the knowledge of these indirect, these hidden consequences of the different
forms of human action. The hidden order, harmony and efficiency of the voluntary free market
The hidden disorder, conflict and gross inefficiency of coercion and intervention, these are the
great truths that economic science through deductive analysis from self-evident axioms
reveals to us.
Praxeology cannot by itself pass ethical judgment or make policy decisions.
The Theory of Money and Credit
Praxeology retires from the scene, and it is up to the citizen, the ethicist, to choose
his political course according to the values that he holds dear.