Capitalism's Twisted Gospel
Wall Streeters proclaim the free market gospel not because they really believe it (that would mean they were capable of genuine belief, or, for that matter of genuineness), but because it reinforces the idea they have of themselves as “Masters of the Universe.” The term was used so often by the fawning news media of the so-called “best and brightest” that they started to actually buy the hype. Chances are, though, that they thought pretty highly of themselves before that. You don't go into investment banking-that is to say buying and selling other people's hard-earned nesteggs-unless you already have an overdeveloped sense of your own abilities, a sort of reckless self-confidence and unswerving faith that your powers of perception and calculation are superior to those of other traders. This is the sort of business that appeals to those who are sure they can beat the spread, so sure, in fact, that they're willing to gamble billions of other people's dollars to prove it. For these people, admitting that the system sometimes fails is tantamount to admitting that they sometimes fail, and that would throw the whole game of confidence-in both senses of the term-entirely off.
The Wall Streeter loves free market theory not because it's free, so much, as the market can be just as capricious a tyrant as any mad king, but because he would not be able to function at all if he did not believe that he and others like him will always be able to produce a better result. But here inherent contradiction reveals itself. Maintenance of the market is not, in and of itself, a value of free market capitalism. No business will ever subsidize a competitor in order to keep the market actually free when a monopoly looms. No CEO or day trader or investment banker is ever going to turn down free government cash, even though his principles should, in theory militate against it. His sense of himself as Master of the Universe will, in fact, drive him to sending his cronies into positions at the Fed in order to make things just a bit more free for himself, especially if he works for Goldman Sachs.
Free market capitalism thus contradicts itself on a fundamental level. It will periodically need to be propped up with government dollars when it fails, but it also does not allow itself to admit that the “market downturn” or “correction” was, in fact, a failure of capitalism. It does not permit admitting that shuttered factories and shuffling, homeless families represent failures of capitalism. It will not allow accepting that polluted rivers and depleted resources are failures of capitalism.
Thus we are locked into a perpetual cycle of boom and bust, fated to make the same mistake in perpetuity, fiscal year after fiscal year, market cycle after market cycle, bubble after burst.