David Ricardo, Adam Smith, and Thomas Malthus—was like citing a wizard in a fairy tale to explain how a locomotive worked. Liberals conceived of the market as a collection of rational actors pursuing their own interests. All had equal access to information and an equal choice to participate or not participate. Every transaction was separate from all that preceded or followed. These were the foundational ideas of free labor and laissez faire. They had arisen in opposition to slavery and feudalism, and had done effective work against them, but they seemed virtually irrelevant in the new
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