Remember, slavery was a free market solution.
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Indeed. I would argue that the free market, itself, carries no inherent morals. The morals, instead, lie within the consumers, and businesses. If the consumers are opposed to slavery, then, on moral grounds, it would be expected that they would boycott such a business. As such, a business would be inclined to not use such forms of labour since the public wouldn't give them their business; however, it seems that the populace doesn't care too much about those under the employ of a company as evidenced the rampant use of child labour, sweatshops, and poor human rights conditions by major corporations with foreign manufacturing -- if the public is not opposed to such forms of obviously cheaper labour, then the market will certainly make use of them.
That assumes the consumer has perfect knowledge of a businesses practices and has the resources to vote with their wallet. Businesses are incentivised to conceal any actions that would cause them to lose customers, not stop those actions. They are also incentivised to eliminate competition so consumers don't have a choice but to buy from them regardless of business practices.
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