…from its petty detractors. I wish that we could come up with some other word for free market systems, though — “capitalism” is intrinsically a Marxist concept.
[Via (and viva) Veronique, a most sensible Frenchwoman]
27 thoughts on “Defending Capitalism”
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I usually say “free enterprise” or “economic freedom”.
How about free market?
How about free market?
It’s not a word. It’s a phrase. I’m looking for a word.
A phrase doesn’t sound so bad to me. “Capitalism” has four syllables after all.
The biggest challenge in defending capitalism is that the current political vehicles for the market economy, conservatism and libertarianism, are deeply unappealing to those who aren’t already true believers. If you want economic liberalism to spread then you’ll have to develop styles of economic liberalism that will appeal to people whose sensibilities are profoundly different from libertarians and conservatives. If you are not willing to do this and insist that the libertarian and conservative styles are the only legitimate ones, then be prepared to see pro-market ideas ghettoized and rejected by large portions of our population. We need idea entrepreneurs not ideologues. The future of market liberalism will not be libertarian or conservative, but something that perhaps hasn’t been imagined yet. Whatever it is it will have to capture the imagination and inspire people who will never accept conservatism or libertarianism. This is a great challenge, but also a great opportunity to break out of old, outdated ways of thinking. All ideas need to be updated for their times. You can’t expect the kinds of arguments for free markets that appealed to people in the 50s,60s,70s to appeal to people as we move forward in the 21st century. We are desperately in need of an upgrade. The current economic crisis is of course being seized upon to advance an anti-capitalist agenda, the proper response is not to just repeat yet again the same old conservative/libertarian slogans and arguments. We need to be more imaginative.
James Bowman says in his review of Michael Moore’s latest fakeumentary that what Marxists call “capitalism” is simply the socialist word for “life.”
a is a
“Free market” works for me.
“The free market isn’t important because it is more efficient, the free market is important because it is free.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“Free market” and “free enterprise” are redundant terms.
The correct terms are “market” and “enterprise”.
The people who want to stop people from freely trading in markets and freely engaging in enterprise should be forced to use the negative and fascist adjectives that correctly describe their proposals.
We thereby make freedom the default (and hence largely undescribed) setting and require the fascists to come up with strings of adjectives and terms.
The fact that “capitalism” doesn’t have any satisfactory term can thereby be made an advantage (as it should be).
This is similar to the argument against “human rights” legislation.
I disagree, Bret. Even if your market is heavily mothered, it still is a market.
Whatever name you give it, you defend it the same way you defend your ability to breathe air: if a man tries to talk you out of it, he is to be dismissed as a loon; should he try to take it by force, you respond in kind.
Karl, yes, but that’s the point I’m trying to get across: Make those who advocate illiberality apply the adjectives.
The default (non-adjectival) form of the word should be the one which stands for the concept free of arbitrary, government-imposed constraints.
Otherwise we unconsciously buy into the socialist narrative, for example that the ‘free market’ is just one of many special cases of market.
They won’t — they’ll just re-define the words so the adjective is implicit.
They’ll just call it a “regulated” market, and for those who trust government more than private actors it will sounds like a good thing.
Reciprocal-ism
antistatist.
The statist view is that anything can be improved with the application of more government. As in: the New Deal was a failure because it wasn’t big enough.
Antistatism isn’t “astatism” – meaning “without state” but the opposition to statism. Nor is it anarchy. So in any area, the antistatist approach is to figure out what the minimal amount of government interaction could reasonably be.
In the area of policing markets, the government involvement could be restricted to preventing non-trade interactions (theft, con-games, company-store issues). That would include close scrutiny of monopolies, near-monopolies, and any market with a short list of competitors. Any market with 2000 competitors is far more likely to be a “free market” than one like The Big Three automakers. Design taxes accordingly.
This leads to a pretty strict concept of what to do with anything that’s “Too big to fail.” That is: it was clearly way too big in the first place. Haul out the buzz saws, split it into five chunks at the departmental level, dump & sue the entire upper executive class without parachutes, infuse cash and send the chunks of the company free almost immediately.
If those chunks are still failing – let them. It isn’t the perfect solution for any of the chunks or the company – but it is something that can be clearly articulated and enforced. But the executives will suddenly give a damn about doing risky things for some inexplicable reason. Unlike where we are now with the white-shoe-types know they’re invincible.
Al, that’s a good point. It’s worth noting that neither the Bush or Obama administrations have bothered to try to fix the “too big to fail” problem. Somehow it’s ok to throw considerable sums of money at sufficiently large businesses, but not to fix the problems that lead to that spending.
“regulated market” is, again, redundant. All markets are self-regulated.
Could they say “government regulated market” to describe their proposals? No, even that is an oxy-moron. It’s either a market or its controlled by bureaucrats. It can’t be both. What we usually have is a mix of market and non-market activity within the one institution we call, inaccurately, call a market.
Don’t let the other side get away with re-defining terms. It’s something Americans are far too easy with.
Marx coined the term Capitalism in reaction to Old World European mercantilism, where the few elite ruled the many. In the ew World, America, individual freedom was established and that produced a free market and enormous prosperity. So, the two are separate terms, as cited in http://www.claysamerica.com.
The problem with the “capitalism” Marx criticized in the 1880s was that it was really just cronyist featherbedding with the private sector, as opposed to the cronyist Communist Party featherbedding that has invariably resulted everywhere Marx’s ideas have been tried.
In fact, to some extent Obama is more the kind of “capitalist” Marx was criticizing, than any president we’ve had in the last 100 years.
If you are not willing to do this and insist that the libertarian and conservative styles are the only legitimate ones, then be prepared to see pro-market ideas ghettoized and rejected by large portions of our population.
Only temporarily, friend. The superiority of the free market is not a fashion statement, subject to the vote of the majority. It’s a law of nature, like the Second Law of Thermodynamics or the law of energy conservation.
If “large portions of the population” wish to take a rest from reality, and, as you say, reject these propositions, they will suffer the same fate as if they rejected the proposition that germs cause disease or that perpetual motion machines are impossible. Id est, they will be extinguished, and a more rational and sensible competing population will fill their ecological niche.
Stein’s Law
Turn it around:
Capitalism’s opponents claim that an economy cannot function efficiently, fairly, or “justly” without guidance from an all-knowing Central Planner.
The opposite of an evolutionary market system is Economic Creationism.
<seconds Mike G.’s nomination>
Liberty.
Socialism and Marxism were never about economics, they were about goodness. So make the goodness argument explicit, and do not allow socialists to change the terms of the debate. Say “I believe in liberty, not socialism.”
Yours,
Tom DeGisi
I wish I could say it as well as Carl:
The superiority of the free market is not a fashion statement, subject to the vote of the majority. It’s a law of nature…
Competition and transparency are the key elements in my opinion. Regulation interferes with these laws of nature and also confirms our representatives to be morons as well.
The problem is anticompetitive actions by large companies do need to be dealt with but the waters get pretty well muddied in most of those cases.