Six people reblogged my last “small newspaper” post and added commentary. I will now continue the debate by addressing the key points of each reply. I recommend reading each author’s original post so you can decide for yourself if I properly represented their arguments.
Let me briefly explain my beliefs on the role of government. The purpose of a state is to protect people from each other by protecting their property rights; basically, libertarianism. I believe we need police, courts, and a military, but that those institutions must be under the control of objective laws. I think consolidation of power under subjective laws (ie, the current US system) is the biggest threat to our freedom and survival.PART ONE
First up is Optimisto, who concludes with the following:
Since the government has to manage the economy- they must take on the responsibility of keeping the playing field even, otherwise progress is stunted.
There is no law preventing a man from sacrificing his children in a religious ceremony; any sacrifice would simply count as murder. Likewise, specific economic laws are unnecessary as long as basic property rights are protected.
There are dangerous implications in the seemingly innocuous belief that the government has to manage the economy. It is not as bad as a partnership between church and state, but it is bad for the same reason: it enables a concentration of almost-unchecked power.PART TWO
Squashed replied with an analogy of two men (me and him) competing in the chicken market:
There are a few unethical things I could do to screw up Jakob’s sale and get a better price for my chicken. I could hire a thug to beat up Jakob. I could lie and say that Jakob’s chicken has a contagious bird flu. I could throw spurs on one of my chickens, have it peck Jakob’s only chicken to death, and then sell the customer one of my other chickens for three times what Jakob would have sold for. That last one is sort of what the big newspaper tried to do.He is correct that all three examples (battery, fraud, destruction of property) are unethical and properly illegal. But he is incorrect in equating the newspaper’s aggressive advertising rates with destruction of property. They lowered their own rates; they did not bomb the competitor’s printing press.
What if I move to SF and pour money into my own alt-weekly that costs nothing and has no ads? Would I be penalized in the same way? What is the minimum amount of wealth I must possess in order to qualify as a “little guy” in the court case? Would the ACLU support my freedom of speech — my right to publish any ideas I want and distribute them as I see fit?
PART THREE
iputitonyou claims thatall ‘pure’ forms of political ideology have failed when taken to their respective horizons. Socialism, Marxism, Libertarianism, and even Capitalism all fall apart when you factor in the human element.He is correct that no society has ever fully implemented capitalism.
Historically, the societies which have come the closest to free market capitalism have been the ones whose standards of living have most drastically increased overall (not just for the rich).There is no doubt that competition is advantageous to the consumer, so I’m curious as to how you can reconcile pure capitalism with its inevitable slope towards monopoly and commodification?Monopolies are created and maintained by government intervention.
A government stifles competition by helping one firm or by hindering its competitors. If businesses A and B are competing, and B is given a tax break, his costs will drop and he can offer the same product as A for a lower price.
Furthermore, bureaucracy in general tends to favor large, established companies. Consider the relative difficulty of complying with FCC regulations between a scrappy startup and a sprawling, entrenched corporation like Verizon.
If you define “monopoly” as someone like Google, who dominates the search market by offering a vastly superior product, then I see no conflict. They earned — and continue to earn — their dominance fairly.
PART FOUR
Rabsteen says thatThe government ensures that corporations function according to the public good because 1) corporations have a responsibility to the community in which they operate and 2) the market is an instrument of the state (not something that exists outside the state) which is used and ought to be used for the betterment of the people the government represents.Most people feel a visceral sense that “the public good” is a virtuous goal to pursue. I advocate capitalism, in part because I believe it can bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number. The problem is that “the public good” means different things to different people, and has been used, historically, to persuade well-meaning people to accept all sorts of injustices. Calls to support “the public good” or “national greatness” or “equality” often come at the expense of some individual’s rights. I firmly believe that the protection of all individuals’ rights are necessary in order to maintain a free society.
I agree that corporations, like individuals, have only one responsibility to their community: the responsibility to not infringe on anyone else’s rights. And viciously low ad rates are an infringement on nobody’s rights.
I also believe that companies generally do provide for the betterment of the people. It isn’t cost-free betterment, but the MacBook I’m typing on has absolutely made my life better, as do the clothes I’m wearing and the couch I’m typing on.If anything we should be talking about how the government isn’t doing enough to ensure that corporations act on behalf of the public good.I agree with the sentiment that corporations are doing harm to the public. But this harm is caused by government involvement in businesses; the only way to end that relationship is for the government to do less. The government needs to undo more — a difficult strategy when most problems are “solved” by adding complexity to an already convoluted system.
PART FIVE
mills, who, like me, enjoys using italics and boldface type in his blog posts, says,I believe in capitalism but do not perform the magic trick free-market-obsessives do: transforming a functional system into a moral value. There is nothing moral or ethical about capitalism except this: when properly adjudicated, it maximizes practical freedom for citizens.I’m not sure what is meant by “practical freedom”, or whose actual freedom must be sacrificed to achieve it. If the goal is actual freedom (absence of physical coercion) there is only one way to achieve it: free-market capitalism. I realize this is a tough pill to swallow when our existing non-free economy is frequently and inaccurately labeled as one. Fortunately, there is a good explanation for this confusion: a would-be tyrant can gain power by demonizing the ideology that best restricts its consolidation.
However, capitalism, like any system, has structural problems which require correction; as pure democracy needs checks and balances to prevent tyranny of the majority, so pure capitalism needs restraint to prevent tyranny of the capitalized.A business which makes a trillion dollars a year does not become a tyrant until it violates someone’s rights. A entity is not tyrannical because it is big; it is tyrannical because it is big and it physically hurts someone or destroys his property. A law-abiding corporation, regardless of its wealth, cannot restrict your freedom of speech or force you to sell your house or prevent you from competing with it unless it has help from the government (the only entity which can use force).
Businesses make money, governments are allowed to use force. I believe those two entities must be kept separate. Confiscation of property is wrong; funneling that tax-wealth to the only people who are allowed to use force is dangerous. And when the relationship between both entities is consensual, the effects are cataclysmic.In the US, there was a time when the majority favored the disenfranchisement of blacks; more recently, the majority opposed the legalization of interracial marriage. Lodwick, who believes that government ought not interfere in the rights of individuals to aggregate power and control their lives, might suggest we accede to the majority just as we’d allow any corporation to do whatever it wants with “its property.”Protecting property rights is the only way to protect individuals from the will of the majority.
We must not confuse economic “power” (ie, wealth) with political power. Our government-economy often does mix the two; each of us is intellectually responsible for disentangling them.And the market is not a value to be senselessly defended when it’s manifestly clear, at least to economists, that unrestricted capitalism is unsustainable.
Unrestricted capitalism has not yet existed; further, there are plenty of respected economists who write popular books defending its principles.
OUTRO
On a personal note, I am thoroughly disgusted by our current system. Like you, I see injustice almost everywhere I look, widespread poverty that we have no excuse for, and a consolidation of corporate-government power that confuses and oppresses almost everyone. I differ from the mainstream because I think radical change is necessary. This change must be initiated by citizens (not a superhero president) and must come about through intellectual and non-violent means.Our system is flawed at its core; the modern promises of “change” will do nothing because all that’s changing are some superficial details. In my last post, I said it was like an obese person switching from hotdogs to hamburgers. A more accurate metaphor for our candidates’ promises would be “changing” from a hotdog-with-ketchup diet to a hotdog-with-mustard diet.
I would like to thank everyone for their thought-out and cordial replies. This proves not only that Tumblr is a good platform for public debates, but that true debate on the Internet is possible. When personal attacks materialize, public discourse dissolves; intellectually, we owe it to ourselves to keep things civil.
(there was also a belittling reply from yosephwest which I will not address on the grounds of his ad hominem attacks)
Our lovely discussion continues. (sidenote: my hearty congratulations to all participants for raising the level of discourse on the internet above its usual level of zero. This level is also known as digg commenter level.)
I’d like to address a few points from Jakob’s response, in order to clear up a few confusions:
Most people feel a visceral sense that “the public good” is a virtuous goal to pursue. I advocate capitalism, in part because I believe it can bring the greatest happiness to the greatest number.
I’m not sure utilitarianism does the moral work your otherwise libertarian approach needs. The greatest happiness for the greatest number sounds good, but is fraught with moral problems. For instance, it does not distinguish between individuals. By that I mean if a few have to die for the greater good, then so be it. This is a perfectly acceptable utilitarian calculus. Not only is this inconsistent with libertarianisms’ focus on individuals (and their rights), but it is also inconsistent with the liberal principle of equality that all western democracies afford their citizens. This is a small point, but worth while.
I firmly believe that the protection of all individuals’ rights are necessary in order to maintain a free society.
I absolutely agree with you. The problem is that there will be reasonable disagreement between rights holders—and it is not clear how libertarianism will resolves these disputes. For example, in the US, Amish citizens may not educate their children past the primary level. Yet each individual has a right to education. Similarly, the tradition of arranged marriages continues among immigrants living in the United States. Which right is more important—the right to practice one’s own culture or the right to choose one’s own life partner?
I want to leave this aside and make one more point. You are thinking of freedom in its purely negative form (i am free from…) but positive freedom (i am free to…) makes no appearance. Why? What if I want to be free to live in a country where no one makes so much more money that it’s difficult to be friends?
I understand your skepticism of the term public good, and you’re right, it has been used in some awful ways. But I think it’s worth salvaging even if by “public good” we mean a minimum level of social cooperation. It doesn’t haven’t to be ideologically charged.