Robert B. Reich, University of California, Berkeley : As we’ve come to expect from Sheldon Wolin, a tightly argued and deeply revealing book about the dangers of unconstrained capitalism for our democracy.
And lord knows we can’t have unrestrained capitalism in the United States.
In point of fact, we have not had unrestrained capitalism in the United States for at least a century - as Reich, as a chief constrainer, should damned well know.
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Isn’t this the logical outcome of embracing governmental regulation to restrain capitalism?
How much intellect does it take to see that government is not administered by some inherently benevolent species concerned only with the well being of us humans?
How much intellect does it take to grasp that the power to regulate business is the most corrupting power of all?
How much intellect does it take to conclude that additional regulation is precisely what’s needed to make all this worse?
Alfred Centauri asks “How much intellect…?”
More, apparently, than is possessed by the “intellectuals.”
Actually, “unfettered” or “unrestrained” capitalism is an oxymoron anyway. Capitalism requires the rule of law, which is a very serious restraint. In fact, it is the only system where the powerful are actually restrained!
“Managing” the evils of unrestrained capitalism is the new solution to America’s problems being promoted by George Soros. (He is, after all, intimately familiar with exploiting markets so who better to teach us, right?) I watched him spout the same garbage on PBS the other night. He is putting his money on Obama and that is reason enough for me not to vote for him.
” . . . economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled.”
On the contrary. The real miracle, wrought by the rule of law and freedom of economic activity, is that power in this country has not already coalesced into a single monolith of back-scratching corruption (although it certainly exists), as it tends to do under other systems and has tended to do throughout human history.
Rather, it is smothering regulation, and the temptations such control offers to bureaucrats and monopolists alike, which would bring about the sort of economic feudalism Wolin and Reich think already exists.
I think I see what you’re getting but I propose that some clarification is in order.
The terms ‘unfettered’ or ‘unrestrained’ capitalism implies a truly free market in the sense that all trade is voluntary under terms consented to by both parties. Clearly, this implies that there is no government interference in the market.
However, that does not imply that there is no rule of law! As you point out, governmental protection of individual property rights (through the ‘rule of law’ as you put it) is a ‘must have’ for a truly ‘free’ market.
Such a ‘rule of law’ though, is not a restraint on capitalism, it is part and parcel to it. Such a ‘rule of law’ is a restraint on those that choose to use force, e.g., fraud and coercion instead of the free market to gain wealth. Thus, the ‘rule of law’ (protection of individual rights) is a crucial ingredient of capitalism.
Exactly! Well said.
How much intellect does it take to see that government is not administered by some inherently benevolent species concerned only with the well being of us humans?
Because Lord knows, business practices today sure are benevolent…
Why stop at a century? Lincoln used his “corrupting” power to regulate free trade - he abolished slavery. How evil of him.
We have never, ever, in the history of this country, had unrestricted, unregulated free trade. Its existence is a fiction.
Who says they have to, or even should be? Perhaps you think businesses should be altruistic at their heart?
Perhaps you think businesses should only seek profit in order to give it to whatever your definition of “the needy” happens to be?
Perhaps you don’t actually understand capitalism or free markets at all?
Did I say that I thought business should be altruistic? Read what I say, not what you think I said, please.
I just find it foolish to think that capitalism is somehow more altruistic then government. Capitalism is no more benevolent than government, and is often a good deal less benevolent. (I’ll refer you to slavery, yet again since you missed it somehow, as an example of exactly why pure unfettered capitalism is explicitly not good for everyone.)
Odd, most rational people would consider slavery a most profound violation of individual rights. To the extent that the government allowed slavery, it failed in it’s obligation to protect individual rights.
The fact that you consider the abolition of slavery a business regulatory action serves to reveal the depth of your moral bankruptcy.
Matthew Hooper,
You have completely missed the point. The benefit of capitalism with regard to freedom isn’t that it’s more altruistic. It’s more de-centralized. Centralization is the greatest threat to freedom.
And that’s and example of the depth of your misunderstanding. Pure capitalism is characterized as “a society in which individual rights are consistently respected and in which all property is (therefore) privately owned”
As much as you would like it to be, slavery cannot be used as an example of unfettered capitalism. How would you explain the role of slavery in objectively un-capitalistic societies?
Ding, ding ding! You hit the point, sir. Unrestricted capitalism will buy, sell, or flat-out ignore your rights as an individual, if government does not enforce them… through regulation.
Capitalism *is not ethical*. Libertarians somehow keep fantasizing that is it. It isn’t. It is amoral at best. As Mr. Wolin is pointing out - far better than I can - unrestrained capitalism is a danger to our society. It has to be regulated, or we end up looking like a Dickensian novel.
So pleased you agree with me.
You’re absolutely right but in a way you don’t (and may never) grasp.
You’re very confused. Capitalism isn’t a volitional creature, people are. People may try to buy, sell, or flat-out ignore your individual but capitalism cannot.
One cannot enforce individual rights by infringing those very same rights. To believe otherwise is to believe in a contradiction.
I seem to sense, through your haze of condescension, that you feel that government is incapable of creating an ethical society.
Perhaps you feel, as most libertarians seem to, that mankind is inherently ethical, and government just needs to get out of the way?
Good luck with that.
Alfred Centauri,
“The fact that you consider the abolition of slavery a business regulatory action serves to reveal the depth of your moral bankruptcy.”
Hooper is, in fact, using the exact same arguments that the slaveholders made, namely the necessity of coercion in human trade and existence. After all, they hated laissez-faire capitalism as well, and distrusted the notion of human liberty.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/fitzhughcan/menu.html
It isn’t capable in principle. Ethics (morality) is a matter of choice. Using the threat of force to make a person or a society act in some way completely removes the element of ethics.
Perhaps I feel that government must objectively and forcefully protect individuals from fraud and coercion and any other form of force.
Perhaps I believe that an individual has the right to use or dispose of his property however he sees fit to the extent that he does not interfere with others rights to do the same.
Perhaps I believe that a man is not inherently ethical but instead can only be ethical by choice.
Perhaps I believe that reason is man’s only guide to ethical action.
Perhaps I believe that the most benevolent society is the one in which each person is free to act in his enlightened (informed by reason), long-term self-interest and that this is only possible when the government has a monopoly on the use of force to punish those that violate the rights of others.
Perhaps, perhaps I’m an Objectivist.
I liked Richard John Neuhaus’s quip: Socialism is the religion people get after they lose their religion.
Perhaps you need to open the newspaper…
“Reason” is by no means a universal human trait. Maybe all men are capable of it, but the vast majority of people choose not to exercise it. And non-idiots generally take advatage of the idiots, rather than trying to correct them. It’s much more rewarding, and far less frustrating.
Objectivism, Libertarianism, Communism. They all fall down in the light of that stark truth. If we all were rational, well behaved, and charitable, these governmental systems work just dandy.
But no, Ms. Rand, we *do* need government to impose safety standards and controls of corporations. A reputation for safety does not even begin to benefit a corporation enough to matter.
And no, Mr. Narveson, people will cheerfully kill and rape each other if government leaves them along. I give you Somalia as a case study.
We way all be capable of reason, but mankind as a whole is entirely unreasonable. Pretending otherwise is foolish.
Matthew:
If free marketers speak too glowingly of the ‘invisible hand’ and the ‘efficient allocation of resources’, you risk making a similar mistake by assuming some inherent wisdom or fairness in regulation.
Just as creative destruction is untidy, regulatory regimes are hardly designed and administered by philosopher-kings. Messy sausage-making, it is. I don’t think it’s an either/or dichotomy.
The keys, I think we can agree, are mechanisms for recourse and seeking redress in the event of abuse by unscrupulous participants and oppressive regulation.
That’s incorrect. Reason is a human trait; in fact, it is the highly developed faculty of reason that most differentiates the human animal from all others. Perhaps what you meant to say is that not all humans choose to reason.
Nonsense. What you fail to grasp is that falsely representing something (the food you serve in a restaurant, the product you make for resell, the manufacturing processes you use, etc.) to be safe for individuals is fraud and as such, punishable by the full force of the government.
in an incompetent government that doesn’t protect the individual rights to be free from force and coercion? I agree. Do tell, what part about
don’t you get? How in the name of reason could you think that Somalia’s government is representative of the government I describe above?
Nonsense. What you fail to grasp is that falsely representing something (the food you serve in a restaurant, the product you make for resell, the manufacturing processes you use, etc.) to be safe for individuals is fraud and as such, punishable by the full force of the government.
Brush your teeth with some Chinese toothpaste and tell me that with a straight face. If all governments, everywhere, behaved in the nice, reasonable, polite way you’re suggesting they do, then maybe - just maybe - unrestrained capitalism would work. Unfortunately, pretending that it could happen is not a serious political or philosophical opinion.
How in the name of reason could you think that Somalia’s government is representative of the government I describe above?
Heh. Atheists are so darn cute when they swear.
I was referring to James Narveson’s argument in The Libertarian Idea that people would voluntarily lay down their ability to kill and injure each other if the state got out of the way. It’s a seminal work on the libertarian ideal, and part of the history of the idea you’re so busily defending. Perhaps a smidgin of historical research is in order?
In fact, government is never altruistic. Every dollar given was taken at the point of a gun, cancelling out any altruism. As a business, or person, when given, it is done freely , with no damage done to another without acceptance.
You miss the mark so widely here, as to be laughable. Are you really contending that slavery is an institution of capitalism?
It has been often said that capitalsim is a lousy system, just better than all the others. And much more ethical than the others.
You are projecting. Mankind, as a whole is quite reasonable and, as a result, quite successful.
Bad example, given that people cheerfully kill and rape each other as a function of government.
There you go again, confusing capitalism with communism. Anybody here in capitalism land still purchasing Chinese toothpaste?
Did it not occur to you that the Chinese toothpaste incident occurred despite all the regulations in the U.S. and Chinese economies? From the NYT article:
To turn your phrase around… Unfortunately, pretending that regulation can prevent these type of incidents is not a serious political or philosophical opinion.
Why do you think unrestrained capitalism would not discourage such incidents?
Wouldn’t importers be liable for the safety of the products they import?
Wouldn’t it be in an importer’s rational self-interest to take reasonable precautions, i.e., perform due diligence such as, for example, periodic independent lab testing of toothpaste?
Wouldn’t failure to perform such due diligence leave the importer open to serious criminal and civil prosecution if their product proves defective and the cause of harm?
Wouldn’t regulation actually give the importer an excuse by being able to claim that ‘he followed all the regulations’ so it’s the regulatory agency at fault, not him?
I’m not libertarian nor do I defend the libertarian ideal if such a thing actually exists. Perhaps paying attention to what my arguments actually are is in order?