To the editor:

A recent letter ended with the appeal “Let the free market rule, not Big Brother.” Big Brother, of course, is the title George Orwell gave the ruler of Oceania in the novel “1984.” Except for his large portraits with their ever-watching eyes, he was invisible, unapproachable, and his aims and methods oppressive in the extreme. This hardly describes the Lawrence City Commission. Unlike Big Brother, the commission members have to deal with voter sentiment, potential lawsuits and other limits on their authority.

But the writer asks us to consider rule by the market over rule by government.

A free market serves the private interests of those who make use of it to buy and sell products and services. This is legitimate. The omission isn’t free to consider only the private interests brought to it, but is obligated to consider them as part of the broader needs of Lawrence. No market can be expected to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” to quote the U.S. Constitution.

To allow private people to make zoning decisions based on self-interest in place of an elected group of men and women sworn to act for the common good would frustrate the purposes set out in the Constitution. Private interests already have too much influence on government decisions. We need to reduce the influence, not abandon government to it.

Paul Fairchild,

Lawrence