Introduction

Blog Purpose
     To interpret historical events using the paradigm of the "shadow free market."

Markets
     A market is an economic phenomenon characterized by a price system established via consensual exchanges between buyers and sellers. A "free market" is such a system not subject to political or hegemonic forms of non-consensual behavior (e.g. conquest, confiscation, legislation, etc.).
     A "hampered market" is one where political factors impose non-consensual exchanges or forcibly interfere with consensual exchanges. A further complication of the hampered market is that seemingly consensual, actually-occurring exchanges may not have occurred in the absence of imposed exchanges or in the presence of prevented exchanges. If a free market is a market where there is no institutional interference with consensual exchanges, it seems safe to say that most if not all markets have probably been of the hampered variety.

The Shadow Free Market
     I analyze historical phenomena from the point of view of what I call the "shadow free market." I define the shadow free market as manifestations of consensual exchanges of property that are eradicated, hampered, or driven underground by the state. The events that I choose to examine will also somehow be interpreted as highlighting the conflict between consensual and non-consensual modes of action characteristic respectively of the free and (to a greater or lesser extent) hampered markets.
     Furthermore, although one can't know for certain, I'll suggest that certain events in the actually-existing hampered market could have been manifested in a Bastiatian free market as well, and that the shadow free market paradigm is useful in understanding how consensual behavior functions in the actually-existing world.

Comments Policy
     Comments are welcome, but I publish only those comments whose content is potentially interesting to the blog reader (as judged by myself), or failing that, allow me to make a response whose content is interesting.