Now that Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States of America and Kevin O’Leary is for sure competing for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, I think it’s time–well, past time–I made my thoughts about free-market fundamentalism known.

To bring the uninitiated up to speed, free-market fundamentalism posits that the market should be free to run itself, and make decisions. This, per se, is ludicrous: the market is a concept, and concepts cannot run themselves or make decisions. The truth is, people run the market, and make decisions based on what’s most likely to make money, ergo if the market tanks, it’s on the watch of the people running it. So this idea that the market knows best, and should thus be free to run itself and make decisions, is patently absurd–especially when we take into account all the times the market has gone south.

And the free market does tank every so often, especially if it’s unregulated, or laissez-faire (roughly translated from French, ‘leave it alone’ or ‘let it be.’)  The laissez-faire attitude towards business and economics protects no one, businesses or people. As George Bernard Shaw wrote in his treatise, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, “‘Let things be’ actually means ‘let things slide.'” And when the market has no rules as to how people run it, things do slide.

But free-market fundamentalism is helpful to leaders who don’t want to take responsibility for helping out the less fortunate, as they can adopt a ‘blame the victim’ mentality. You see, free-market fundamentalism proponents claim being poor is the result of character flaws on the part of those who are poor, while ignoring the issue of people who are rich who get rich by dishonest means–if those people don’t inherit their wealth. (This is not to say that people who are rich never get there by honest means, but let’s get real.)

Another problem with free-market fundamentalism is it helps create, and foster, a culture of entitlement, which is so entrenched in the psyches of those who live under the rules of free-market fundamentalism we confuse, and conflate, entitlement with freedom. And those who promote free-market fundamentalism encourage this, as it sustains itself by convincing people it’s OK for them to think only in terms of ‘me, me, me,’ regardless of the consequences to anybody else.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is all aspects of society–and that includes the market–need to be run by people who care as much about the human and environmental costs of their decisions as they do about the economy. The people running things need to make sure everyone gets their fair share–no more, no less–there is little negative environmental impact, and the economy runs smoothly. But none of that will ever happen under free-market fundamentalism.