The light of capitalism

We know that the Light of Christ is a sure guide in matters of moral truth. 

I got talking to His Majesty about the Light of Christ the other day. He is not a member of the Church, naturally, and I think I described in an earlier post his not entirely favorable reaction when I brought him as a guest to an Elders’ Quorum barbeque. I’ve gotten the impression since that he actually enjoyed it more than he would let on at the time. He kind of likes to yank my chain like that. But he’s by no means ready to investigate the Church; as he puts it, he does not believein so many things.

So he said that, while he was not much interested in the Light of Christ as a sure guide to moral truth, he had always had a great interest in the Light of Capitalism as a sure guide to the pragmatic. He illustrated with a cartoon:

From the inestimable XKCD.Com

It has always been his view that the enlightened despot is wise to restrain his own impulse to plunder, and let his minions exercise a considerable amount of economic freedom. A well-regulated, well-functioning free market is good at generating valuable signals, as the cartoon illustrates.

And, no, “well-regulated” and “free market” are not contradictory. The problem is in the modern misunderstanding of the term “regulated.” His Majesty is a bit of a traditionalist and prefers the 19th-century meaning of the word.