Given the ethical lapses that are prevalent today what can be done to restore trust in the freemarket system and leaders in general?

Answer 1

The reason nobody trusts the free market system is that it has failed. In theory, in a competitive market, the consumer has a choice between options, and the option which most consumers like best prospers the most. If none of the options is satisfactory, it is relatively simple to establish a competing business. The ability to generate new options is crucial for the existence of the free market system. What has happened however, especially since the reign of Ronald Reagan, is that large companies have got larger and larger and finally so large that they are able to prevent the generation of new options which might compete with them. If such new options get off the ground, they are quickly bought out and absorbed into the mass of the larger corporation. Long-established competitors get merged. The result is a monopoly and not a free market system at all.

One of the side effects of this is that these huge corporations are capable of offering enormous bribes to governments. In the United States, the actions of the government are controlled by the bribes (called "lobbying") paid to the various legislators. Nobody can now trust the legislators except the companies that are paying them to pass the legislation which helps them get bigger and richer and stomp down any competition they might have.

What might be done is to systematically expose the amount of money which is paid to legislators and where it is coming from. Some voters at least might be persuaded to vote for less corrupt legislators. One problem is that many voters will expect that if that candidate is returned the system will change automatically. Unfortunately it will not--only if a majority of non-corrupt legislators can be returned can legislation be brought into place which will enable the generation of free-market options and more stringent controls on corruption.