Big questions are being thrashed out these days. One of the biggest is this: do we want capitalism or socialism? Unfortunately, the online discussions I've witnessed have been, to put it as politely as I can, terrible. (For an example, see this one between
Jul 2, 2023·edited Jul 2, 2023Liked by Sheldon Richman
Sun. 23/07/02 16:00 EDT
Hi Sheldon,
I've been thinking for weeks about what you wrote, and about this particular topic for longer.
You wrote: What the free-market advocate must not do is let his interlocutor get away with claiming that "our capitalist system" is the free market.
Suppose that the libertarian idea is the most potent threat, indeed the ONLY threat, to the people (let's call them "The Elite") who want to rule over others.
How might The Elite neutralize or at least attenuate this threat?
that portray "capitalism" as a system in which large, privately-owned corporations legally commit aggression, and a feckless, corrupt, and frequently complicit government is almost powerless to keep the "capitalists" at bay?
Would it promote articles such as Eric Zuesse's (Privatization Is At Core Of Fascism https://strategic-culture.org/news/2015/08/25/privatization-is-at-core-of-facsism/ ), in which "privatization" is conflated with "private property" and the idea that "publicly elected (government) leaders ... are answerable to everyone at ballot-boxes"?
|Privatization thus replaces public, government-owned, assets, by privately owned assets, and so it |transfers control from publicly elected (government) leaders (who are answerable to everyone at |ballot-boxes), to private ones - to private stockholders who decide how those assets will be used - |regardless of whether the asset happens to be schools, or hospitals, or land, or natural resources, or |roads, or whatever. Anything can be privatized. Anything can be run by an elite, by an ‘owner.’ Fascism |tries to maximize that: private ownership of what was formerly public property.
and "...renaming fascism as «libertarianism» or «neo-liberalism», has fooled the masses to think that it’s pro-democratic." ?
I would think that after years of being inundated with such talk, significant numbers of people might begin to think that "property is theft" and "freedom is slavery".
Of course, this is all just a crazy conspiracy theory and any resemblance to reality is strictly coincidental.
|Then if "capitalism" is a package-deal term, so is "socialism" - it conveys opposition to the free market, |and opposition to neomercantilism, as though these were one and the same.
|
|And that, I suggest, is the function of these terms: to blur the distinction between the free market and |neomercantilism. Such confusion prevails because it works to the advantage of the statist |establishment: those who want to defend the free market can more easily be seduced into defending |neomercantilism, and those who want to combat neomercantilism can more easily be seduced into |combating the free market. Either way, the state remains secure.
Sun. 23/07/02 16:00 EDT
Hi Sheldon,
I've been thinking for weeks about what you wrote, and about this particular topic for longer.
You wrote: What the free-market advocate must not do is let his interlocutor get away with claiming that "our capitalist system" is the free market.
Suppose that the libertarian idea is the most potent threat, indeed the ONLY threat, to the people (let's call them "The Elite") who want to rule over others.
How might The Elite neutralize or at least attenuate this threat?
Would it call our current system of fascism "our capitalist society" or "capitalist countries", as John Stossel frequently does (as examples, see https://youtu.be/RVBPgvY3TbU?t=250 and https://youtu.be/QVh3dcdepkc?t=301)?
Would it promote books like Jennifer Government by Max Barry:
https://teketen.com/liburutegia/Jennifer_fovernment-Max_Barry.pdf
that portray "capitalism" as a system in which large, privately-owned corporations legally commit aggression, and a feckless, corrupt, and frequently complicit government is almost powerless to keep the "capitalists" at bay?
Would it promote articles such as Eric Zuesse's (Privatization Is At Core Of Fascism https://strategic-culture.org/news/2015/08/25/privatization-is-at-core-of-facsism/ ), in which "privatization" is conflated with "private property" and the idea that "publicly elected (government) leaders ... are answerable to everyone at ballot-boxes"?
|Privatization thus replaces public, government-owned, assets, by privately owned assets, and so it |transfers control from publicly elected (government) leaders (who are answerable to everyone at |ballot-boxes), to private ones - to private stockholders who decide how those assets will be used - |regardless of whether the asset happens to be schools, or hospitals, or land, or natural resources, or |roads, or whatever. Anything can be privatized. Anything can be run by an elite, by an ‘owner.’ Fascism |tries to maximize that: private ownership of what was formerly public property.
and "...renaming fascism as «libertarianism» or «neo-liberalism», has fooled the masses to think that it’s pro-democratic." ?
I would think that after years of being inundated with such talk, significant numbers of people might begin to think that "property is theft" and "freedom is slavery".
Of course, this is all just a crazy conspiracy theory and any resemblance to reality is strictly coincidental.
From Rothbard's "Left and Right": Forty Years Later by Roderick Long (https://mises.org/library/rothbards-left-and-right-forty-years-later ):
|Then if "capitalism" is a package-deal term, so is "socialism" - it conveys opposition to the free market, |and opposition to neomercantilism, as though these were one and the same.
|
|And that, I suggest, is the function of these terms: to blur the distinction between the free market and |neomercantilism. Such confusion prevails because it works to the advantage of the statist |establishment: those who want to defend the free market can more easily be seduced into defending |neomercantilism, and those who want to combat neomercantilism can more easily be seduced into |combating the free market. Either way, the state remains secure.
See also:
You Have Two Cows
https://hs.fisd.us/ourpages/auto/2013/4/26/45748248/Two_Cows.pdf