Capitalism Isn't Corporatism or Cronyism
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AngelRho
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Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 45
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23 Jun 2022, 4:58 pm
Excellent opinion piece by Richard Salsman in Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardsalsman/2011/12/07/capitalism-is-decidedly-not-corporatism-or-cronyism/?sh=671daadd65e5
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Most people today can’t even fathom (let alone endorse or advocate) a government that’s strictly limited to protecting each person’s right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. They assume a government must be controlled by some pressure group or another, in a “zero-sum game” of unavoidable exploitation – that “power” is ubiquitous and ineradicable, while the only question is who wields it and whose head gets bashed in. They say “timocracy” is rule by the military for the sole benefit of the military, that “plutocracy” is rule by the rich for the sole sake of the rich, that “socialism” is rule by labor for the sake only of labor, that “capitalism” is rule by capitalists (or Wall Street bankers) for the singular benefit of capitalists, and that “democracy” is rule by people (i.e., the majority) at the expense of the minority (true!).
23 Jun 2022, 6:07 pm
I'm dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, and this is a f*****g awful piece.
Firstly, the first thing to note is that this article is ten years old - bit strange to post it here now as if it is new.
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Capitalism is the greatest socio-economic system in human history, because it’s so moral and so productive – the two features so essential to human survival and flourishing. It’s moral because it enshrines and fosters rationality and self-interest – “enlightened greed,” if you will – the two key virtues we all must consciously adopt and practice if we’re to pursue and attain life and love, health and wealth, adventure and inspiration
Capitalism is the greatest socio-economic system in human history, and it is very productive, but this author has a very strange idea of what constitutes morality, and the extent to which capitalism fosters rationality. I think most people would disagree with the notion that self-interest is one of the two key virtues, or that it needs to be adopted in order to live morally. Self-interest also isn't something that most people have any trouble with.
As for rationality, it's well-documented that capitalist markets do not always lead to rational allocation of resources. This is not particularly controversial among capitalism's proponents. Capitalism is probably better at allocating resources than state planning can be, but there are ways to change the rules to make capitalism work better (for example, banning false advertising).
Gosh, this article is long and has a lot wrong, so I'm not going to be able to frisk the whole thing. Instead I'm going to include some of the more laughable quotes that help to illustrate that the writer doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.
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These critics despise capitalism’s root ethic (self-interest) as “evil” and then blithely presume the system harms human beings or sabotages societal peace and prosperity.
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Capitalism arose during the Renaissance (1500s-1600s) and Enlightenment (1700s), which entailed a re-birth of reason, self-confidence, culture, and commerce – in short, the pursuit of one’s own personal happiness.
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We’ve had corporatism in the U.S. for roughly the past century, and it’s getting worse over time; it’s also the system we’ve seen in Europe since at least the time of Germany’s Otto von Bismarck, who launched the womb-to-tomb welfare state in the 1870s.
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In the interim, of course, Europe also imposed communism, socialism and fascism. The result, we know, was mass murder, world war, and the continent-wide destruction of wealth.
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Capitalism’s greatest intellectual champion, Ayn Rand
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Thus she called the U.S. “the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.”
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Most people today can’t even fathom (let alone endorse or advocate) a government that’s strictly limited to protecting each person’s right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.
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Today’s political “thinkers” can only imagine a government that’s controlled by one distinct group or another, which then systematically oppresses its rivals.
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it’s called “corporatism” (sometimes, synonymously, “cronyism” or “fascism”). Corporatism was the system originated almost a century ago by the American “Progressives,” and later by Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, and Roosevelt in the U.S.
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“social democracy” (socialism by vote)
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When a mixed economy fails, it’s not its capitalist aspect that fails – unless you believe freedom itself fails.
There were other bits I considered quoting (like the repeated insistence on conflating capitalism with Objectivism) but they weren't self-evidently ridiculous - explicitly using uncommon definitions of terms is a reasonable choice.
