The free market grows and explores like an organic system, formed by billions of minute democratic decisions made by consumers every hour. Its unique ability to adapt means it can rise to any challenge, including environment crisis. Those who wish to contain this power - and to plan our futures from the centre -  are gravely mistaken, argues Madsen Pirie.

Like a virus, free market capitalism mutates to take advantage of new opportunities and to move into new territories. Unlike a pathogenic virus, however, it is symbiotic with human nature, and is one of the most benign institutions that human beings have ever created, perhaps even the most benign. This is the main reason why capitalism will survive and prosper after the pandemic: it is not a fixed thing, but something that has shown remarkable strength in adaptability and endurance, and in its ability to change with changing circumstances.

It was not created deliberately, but emerged as a consequence of the ways in which people behave towards each other. In only a few hundred years it has lifted almost all of humanity out of subsistence and starvation, and given billions of people the chance to seek and enjoy better lives. It enables people who will probably never meet to interact spontaneously with each other for mutual advantage. It has given humanity the wealth that has fostered advances in medicine and sanitation, as well as access to opportunities never available before.