How does the free market promote social progress?

Does anyone have any good examples, articles, books, etc. that show how capitalism and the free market promote social progress (i.e. women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, general tolerance, equality, etc.)? 

I'm particularly interested in how Austrian/libertarian economics can be shown to be the most effective form of feminist economics.

Here's a few links that may be of some interest to you:

WendyMcElroy.com

Libertarian Feminism: Can This Marriage Be Saved?

Rad Geek People's Daily

Equality: The Unknown Ideal

Austro-Athenian Empire

Hope this helps!

Here's a Walter Block's lecture on descrimination and stuff -- make sure the brain is engaged while watching ;) :

The Economics and Ethics of Discriminatio

Freiheit:

Does anyone have any good examples, articles, books, etc. that show how capitalism and the free market promote social progress (i.e. women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, general tolerance, equality, etc.)? 

I'm particularly interested in how Austrian/libertarian economics can be shown to be the most effective form of feminist economics.

Creative Destruction is about how capitalism changes culture (and why this can help society progress).

Freiheit:

Does anyone have any good examples, articles, books, etc. that show how capitalism and the free market promote social progress (i.e. women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, general tolerance, equality, etc.)? 

Cultural Marxism isn't progress.  In fact, it's a house of cards that, like classical Marxism, is propped up by a coercive state.

What exactly do you mean by women's/minority/gay rights &c.?  That the members of these groups should have some rights in addition to the ones that I, white male 18-49, should have; or that their rights qua individuals are not being fully respected (in which case the terms are superfluous)?

And I don't even want to know what "feminist economics" is.

Byzantine:

Cultural Marxism isn't progress.  In fact, it's a house of cards that, like classical Marxism, is propped up by a coercive state.

Spot on. I love the word progress since you can never reach your goals because the goalposts keep shifting. Once we have an "equal" society we can progress to natural hierarchy but that wouldn't be progress in there eyes.

Freiheit:

Does anyone have any good examples, articles, books, etc. that show how capitalism and the free market promote social progress (i.e. women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, general tolerance, equality, etc.)? 

I'm particularly interested in how Austrian/libertarian economics can be shown to be the most effective form of feminist economics.

The best feminist economics is feminist economics. The school of economics that would do the most to advance everyone's utility and property rights would be the Austrian school.

Segregation and whatnot has never been a widespread problem among free people who choose to associate with each other. If people wish to segregate themselves by race or gender, there is nothing wrong about that. But if government steps in and imposes segregation, that is wrong. In the long run, racism, sexism, nationalism, and other destructive "isms" are done away with in a free market because people realize it is in their own personal interest to mix with people.

But then again, who are you to judge the values of others? If I personally want to live in an all white neighborhood, send my children to an all white school, and associate only with whites, nobody should stand in my way to force me to do otherwise.

Byzantine:

Freiheit:

Does anyone have any good examples, articles, books, etc. that show how capitalism and the free market promote social progress (i.e. women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, general tolerance, equality, etc.)? 

Cultural Marxism isn't progress.  In fact, it's a house of cards that, like classical Marxism, is propped up by a coercive state.

I think that it's definitely a straw man, coming from a very obvious traditionalist conservative bias, to assume that anyone who supports those causes in any way must be a cultural marxist. Would you be willing to accuse Roderick Long and Wendy McElroy of being marxists? Or, perhaps for good reason, would you be willing to grant that these causes haven't always been statist or socialist causes? Or do you genuinely think that pluralism as such is essentially marxism? By the way, I know of quite a few white nationalists who are 100% in line with this viewpoint: "cultural marxism" is the ultimate enemy, and they see it everywhere. Allegedly simply not being a downright racist or a theocrat or a paternalist makes one a "cultural marxist".

Physiocrat:

Byzantine:

Cultural Marxism isn't progress.  In fact, it's a house of cards that, like classical Marxism, is propped up by a coercive state.

 

Spot on. I love the word progress since you can never reach your goals because the goalposts keep shifting. Once we have an "equal" society we can progress to natural hierarchy but that wouldn't be progress in there eyes.

I recently wrote about precisely this problem. While the marxists are wrong in essentially attributing all inequalities to nurture while more or less ignoring nature, traditionalist conservatives such as yourself engage in the opposite error by essentially portraying all inequalities as "natural", as if it's in a vacuum and detached from political and cultural influences. In this view, the status quo and existing inequities can be legitimized and defended as "the natural order", while all proposals for meaningful changes can be brushed off as utopian before even being given a chance to be explored. This is an erroneous and dangerous worldview that breeds stagnation and regress. Progress (in real terms) is not possible without deviation from the norm.

Milton Friedman addresses this question in Free To Choose. He gives a simple analysis that even laymen can understand, but it is strong in it's argument.

Brainpolice:

Byzantine:

Freiheit:

Does anyone have any good examples, articles, books, etc. that show how capitalism and the free market promote social progress (i.e. women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, general tolerance, equality, etc.)? 

Cultural Marxism isn't progress.  In fact, it's a house of cards that, like classical Marxism, is propped up by a coercive state.

 

I think that it's definitely a straw man, coming from a very obvious traditionalist conservative bias, to assume that anyone who supports those causes in any way must be a cultural marxist. Would you be willing to accuse Roderick Long and Wendy McElroy of being marxists? Or, perhaps for good reason, would you be willing to grant that these causes haven't always been statist or socialist causes? Or do you genuinely think that pluralism as such is essentially marxism? By the way, I know of quite a few white nationalists who are 100% in line with this viewpoint: "cultural marxism" is the ultimate enemy, and they see it everywhere. Allegedly simply not being a downright racist or a theocrat or a paternalist makes one a "cultural marxist".

In short, I see no reason why having some degree of sympathy for those causes and being a pluralist automatically makes one a cultural marxist. To my knowledge, cultural marxists believe that literally all existing inequalities between races, classes and genders can be attributed to oppression and various nurture factors. I don't think one has to believe that to support the listed causes, at least understood in context. Cultural marxism is an extreme position, the opposite of the extreme of traditionalist conservatism which essentially proclaims all existing inequalities between said groups to be "natural". Personally, I reject both views as naive.

Brainpolice:

Brainpolice:

Byzantine:

Freiheit:

Does anyone have any good examples, articles, books, etc. that show how capitalism and the free market promote social progress (i.e. women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, general tolerance, equality, etc.)? 

Cultural Marxism isn't progress.  In fact, it's a house of cards that, like classical Marxism, is propped up by a coercive state.

 

I think that it's definitely a straw man, coming from a very obvious traditionalist conservative bias, to assume that anyone who supports those causes in any way must be a cultural marxist. Would you be willing to accuse Roderick Long and Wendy McElroy of being marxists? Or, perhaps for good reason, would you be willing to grant that these causes haven't always been statist or socialist causes? Or do you genuinely think that pluralism as such is essentially marxism? By the way, I know of quite a few white nationalists who are 100% in line with this viewpoint: "cultural marxism" is the ultimate enemy, and they see it everywhere. Allegedly simply not being a downright racist or a theocrat or a paternalist makes one a "cultural marxist".

In short, I see no reason why having some degree of sympathy for those causes and being a pluralist automatically makes one a cultural marxist. To my knowledge, cultural marxists believe that literally all existing inequalities between races, classes and genders can be attributed to oppression and various nurture factors. I don't think one has to believe that to support the listed causes, at least understood in context. Cultural marxism is an extreme position, the opposite of the extreme of traditionalist conservatism which essentially proclaims all existing inequalities between said groups to be "natural". Personally, I reject both views as naive.

Agreed.  Opposing racism, sexism, and general intolerance is hardly Marxist.

Brainpolice:

I recently wrote about precisely this problem. While the marxists are wrong in essentially attributing all inequalities to nurture while more or less ignoring nature, traditionalist conservatives such as yourself engage in the opposite error by essentially portraying all inequalities as "natural", as if it's in a vacuum and detached from political and cultural influences. In this view, the status quo and existing inequities can be legitimized and defended as "the natural order", while all proposals for meaningful changes can be brushed off as utopian before even being given a chance to be explored. This is an erroneous and dangerous worldview that breeds stagnation and regress. Progress (in real terms) is not possible without deviation from the norm.

I don't think I have ever justified all current inequalities. I argued in the Cultural Conservatives We Need a New Word thread that I support an immutable framework of the family and judeo-christian morailty from which everything else can change- giving foundations for continual progress.

wombatron:

Agreed.  Opposing racism, sexism, and general intolerance is hardly Marxist.

Of those wonderfull isms that mean pratically nothing. Before anyone actually wants to argue about racism read this I wrote on my blog (the-eclectic-rambler.blogspot.com)

With all the Ron Paul racism allegations it prompted me to think would be a cogent definition of racism. dictionary reference defines racism as :

Supposing though that the employer believed that the two candidates for the job were identical but chose the white man over the black. Is this racist? Well not necessarily. Is giving preferential treatment to your children and family racist? It is an inherently discriminatory act but no one ever calls this racist. But as is obvious races are merely an extrapolation of the family so it thus makes sense you will prefer the one more like you than less. So no racism here either.

Suppose that you are employing people in Saharan Africa and you have a policy of employing only blacks since they are more likely to have sickle cell anaemia than whites and thus not susceptible to malaria (I think I remember this correctly but it makes the point). This is now a decision solely based on race but again is not necessarily racist. It would be the same as appointing an able bodied man over a guy in a wheel chair to be in your rugby team because there physical attributes are going to determine how good they are. This of course leaves open to debated whether certain races are more intelligent than others in the same way that Negroes are in general stronger than whites- look at athletics. So no racism here.

The only possible cogent definition of racism is that one believes that another race is morally inferior to another. So one believes that another race is ontologically inferior and deserves to live less than his own race. So examples of this would be those of the eugenics movement who saw blacks as less evolved than whites and so were not to be afforded the same (legal) rights as whites.