Is ‘real’ capitalism the answer

In board-rooms the belief has taken root that the advance of capitalism is irreversible. The market-based system that developed in the West has spread to nearly every country in the world. Faced with the near-universal triumph of market forces, many have concluded that capitalism has won out in a process of evolution like that which occurs among species. Intensely innovative and enormously productive, capitalism seems to have driven every other type of economy to extinction.

The problem is the capitalist system, not the capitalists. Capitalists, big and small, are like everybody else. Much that they do is distinctively noxious, but the economic structure makes them do it. In an age when the very idea of class struggle is widely disparaged, a healthy animosity towards the few who own almost everything should not be dismissed out of hand. In one way or another, hatred of capitalism’s high-flyers, not just capitalism itself, played a positive role in every progressive social movement of the past two centuries. But class hatred is hard to maintain towards a few very conspicuous late model capitalists: the kind behind iPhones and Google searches and social media. They seem too hip to hate. Many in Occupy Wall St took part in the mourning Steve Jobs rather than celebrating the demise of another capitalist. Unlike the Koch brothers Gates and Buffet  hardly seem like the unprincipled, cutthroat bastards of capitalism’s dark past even if they are still part of corporate America. They are rich beyond measure and they are a leading force behind corporate domination of everything. They can’t help it; they are too damned smart. It doesn’t look like they are exploiting anybody or doing anyone (except their competitors) harm goes the story. Yet, they are the modern day counterparts of the tycoons workers used to hate, the same robber barons in jeans and open-necked shirts. They treat their workers in Silicon Valley very well it seems. This makes business sense: it would be counter-productive to super-exploit the creative types upon whose ingenuity tech corporations depend. The others, the ones who do the ‘manual work’, are another story. Many of them toil out of sight halfway around the world, and the miseries they endure hidden.

We need to restore perspective, therefore, remember Wall Street and its corporate boardrooms where sharks abound everywhere, buying political influence at local, state and national levels.  We must not forget the hordes of lesser, but still filthy rich wannabes who serve themselves and Mammon.

In capitalist economies, the way to acquire untold riches is to gain monopoly, or near monopoly, control over something for which there is a great demand. The “invisible hand” of the market then does the rest. The invisible hand of the market is seen to be benign. Warlords, nobles and kings relied on visible hands to establish and secure their riches. Their wealth was based on plunder and theft and the ex post facto justification than for securing wealth directly. For that, the use or threat of state force was essential. Nevertheless, the difference between the invisible hand of the market and the visible hand of the state is not as great as is commonly supposed. Market allocations are unintended consequences of multiple, uncoordinated exchange relations, each of which is entered into voluntarily – without express coercion. Pro-capitalists take this to mean that they are free. Their guiding idea being that individuals have private property rights to do what they want with the resources they own, provided only that they do not use them to harm identifiable others. Market-generated distributions of income and wealth in private property regimes are, in the libertarian view, beyond reproach. Therefore if, on this basis, the very few end up with everything or almost everything, while the vast majority have nothing or almost nothing, no one can justifiably complain on grounds of freedom or justice. The capitalist case is not to blame capitalists for any harm they do, provided they play by the accepted rules.

Socialists point out that, even were the pro-capitalist case sound, it would apply only to ideal capitalist markets and nothing like them has ever actually existed, except in highly artificial conditions, and nothing like them ever will. The capitalist downplay the importance of the difference between the ideal and the actual because they think that actual cases approximate the ideal closely enough. They do not.  Their assumption that force plays no determinative role, is profoundly unrealistic because real world capitalist markets do not, and probably cannot, exist outside a coercive infrastructure.  The old way of accumulating great fortunes is still with us. Force is no longer all there is, but it is as important as it ever was. This is especially evident in places where capitalist markets impinge on pre- or alternative capitalist economic structures.  They ruling class still  rely on the states they control to create and sustain their claims to the resources that markets then generously reward. State power underlies the legal framework within which markets operate; and is indispensable for securing the level of social order that is necessary for markets to function and flourish.  The forms and limits differ, but the reality is everywhere the same. The robber barons who made off like the bandits figured this out a long time ago. Their later-day counterparts know it too. The old time robber barons were inclined, when convenient, to pollute recklessly and to lay waste to the rivers and fields around their factories and mines. Their successors in the industries they pioneered are still at it.

Rand Paul, can be relied on to talk complete sense about the madness of war, right up until people get scared by beheading videos, and then he’s in favor of the madness of war. He has backed canceling all foreign aid, except for military foreign “aid” up to $5 billion, mostly in free weapons for Israel. He used to favor serious cuts to military spending, but hasn’t acted on that and now has John McCain’s support as a good “centrist.” He supports racist policies while hoping not to be seen doing so, and was against the Civil Rights Act before he was for it. He thinks kids should drive 10 miles to find a good school or get educated online.

John D. Rockefeller’s advisors had him make good public relations – for himself and for his class. The idea was to get people to stop hating capitalists and to love capitalism. He would pass out shiny new dimes to street urchins.  But the method was demeaning. It was charity, at best; at worst, it was a desperate effort to buy love. These are not winning strategies. Gates and Buffet now have their elaborate foundations to perform essentially the same purpose, pennies for Africans. The very existence of so-called well-meaning capitalists is indeed one of the evils of the capitalist system!

Adapted from this