Toby Rogers has been one of the heroes of the medical-freedom movement since before most Americans knew there was a need for a medical-freedom movement. (His cost-benefit analysis of the Covid-19 vaccines is just one example of what he has contributed here.) He recently wrote a lengthy post in which he asks, essentially, "since both free markets and the progressive regulatory state have failed, what's next for humanity?"

My reply to Toby follows.

Toby,

I hope you are sincere in welcoming corrections. Because there are some fundamental errors here, and I hope you will be open to hearing about them.

Let me start by saying that there is a story about free markets that is told to everyone who goes through a government school in America (and I imagine elsewhere). The story goes something like this: "Free markets are all well and good in theory, but in practice they produce monopolies that are no longer accountable to their customers and must be reined in by the government."

This story is a lie. And if you understand why the government lies about all the other things it lies about, I think you'll understand why it has an interest in perpetrating this lie too.

With that in mind:

1. You say: "The dirty little secret of classical liberalism is that it came to depend on both slavery and colonial empire to infuse wealth into the system."

In fact, colonial empire was a drain on the British economy. Yes, it made a few people – "John Company", and other cronies, along with the crown itself – very wealthy. But it did so at the expense of everyone else in Britain.