Editor, The Wall Street Journal
To the Editor:
Thomas Frank laments that "market logic" promotes transactions that he finds unappealing, such as surrogate-mother contracts ("Rent-a-Womb Is Where Market Logic Leads," Dec. 10). True, the ability of men and women to transact in any ways that they choose is, as long as those transactions don't violate the same rights of others, a feature of the market. And it is a gleaming, glorious feature, largely because it protects ordinary people from the frenzied arrogance of Mr. Frank and his ilk who presume that society should be organized to gratify their personal aesthetics.
How ironic that on a day when the top news story is a politician's attempted sale of a U.S. Senate seat – a seat in a chamber whose members thrive by forcibly taking wealth from some and giving it to others – Mr. Frank should criticize private, voluntary contracts that create life.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Don Boudreaux is the Chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University and a Business & Media Institute adviser.
