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Markets and Society Essay

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Markets and Society

In his famous book, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith descried the free market system as a self-regulating mechanism, which maximizes society’s wealth and well-being. Indeed, since the time of Adam Smith, the free market has been an incredibly successful system for improving society. This can be attributed to an increase in overall wealth, innovation, and efficient resource allocation. Unfortunately, the market system also suffered numerous drawbacks, the most important being the inequality and the inequality of opportunity which the system created. These inequalities are best observed in the credit, education, and labor markets. The question of whether the use of free markets is truly preferable method for improving …show more content…

People all over the world have experienced higher living standards. Most people in the US today live better than the monarchs of the 19th century. The abundance of consumer goods, availability of medical services, and better public utilities area a testament to how markets have improved society.

Equally important, society has experienced a great wave of technological innovation ever since Smith’s free market ideas became widely recognized. From the Industrial Revolution, to the recent Internet and Information Revolution, the markets have consistently encouraged sellers to innovate because innovation is a way of getting an edge in the market and to reap its rewards. Societies with a free market have been much more innovative than those with traditional or command type economies. The fact that the inventors like Henry Ford and Bill Gates earned substantial profits from their ideas encouraged other to follow their example. Most of the new technologies improve society by making their lives more convenient.

Another aspect of the benefits of the markets on society is its resource allocating ability. Unlike a common economy, in a market system, the prices of goods reflect the demand for them. As a result, the prices of goods decrease when there is a surplus and increase when there is a deficit. This system has allowed market economies to deal with crises such as aggregate supply shocks or economic downturns. For example, during the 1970’s OPEC

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