The importance of free markets is shown by the correlation between wealth creation and the degree to which markets are free. Unfortunately what we are now learning is that conservatives have focused too much on free markets and not enough on freedom. The relationship between freedom and responsibility is not trivial or limited to individual freedom. Collective enterprises have moral obligations as well as individuals. Overlooking this reality will force segments of the population to adopt unsophisticated philosophies such as Marxism.

Too often conservatives adopt the same naturalistic point of view that liberals have. Even if they are religious they refer to natural law and a version of Darwinian economics that relies on competition to impose a kind of moral order. Natural law however is unavoidably amoral because nature is amoral. They may be more willing to accept that every human is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness according to God given rights but God given rights have little to do with natural law.

While sophisticated liberals will argue against freewill objectively sophisticated conservatives disassociate freewill from collective enterprise. While it is well understood that concepts such as freewill are abstract it has been conveniently forgotten that abstractions have physical consequences. Money like freewill is entirely abstract yet few people would doubt the lack of money has no physical consequences. While Adam Smith clearly understood that capitalism had to be bolstered by a moral foundation modern conservatives seem to have forgotten that lesson outside of personal morality. They may be more generous with charity than liberals but have little interest in living wages.

The problem with abstractions are they tend to be absolute in a complex chaotic world where there are no absolutes. That applies equally to freewill and money. Freedom is always both relative and limited. If you remove government oversight the Mathew principle insures monopolies. Like all hierarchical systems monopolies over time will become tyrannical and corrupt government. That government will then become tyrannical. Although the opposite is possible it's a symbiotic relationship that is unavoidable.

Freewill is the foundation of morality. Over regulation and monopolies limit freewill and by extension agency and dignity. After WWII the shackles were taken off in the U.S. and high wages produced a short lived golden age. While consumerism has its own moral issues the relationship between poverty and crime in a wealthy hierarchical system is undeniable. Bread and circus empowered by cronyism has never in history produced a moral or high functioning society. But luxus almost always corrupts a society and leads to bread and circus and cronyism. Cronyism is the enemy of free markets in the same way nepotism is.

Competition is only meaningful if it is regulated by rules and rule enforcers. The foundation of competition is morality. Without morality the players and rule enforcers corrupt each other. It is necessarily dependent on freewill as a non voluntary system is short lived. A society in which everyone does not have the opportunity for agency and dignity will revert to natural law and natural chaos.