Exploitation, Crony Capitalism, and the State

By On July 17, 2012 · 14 Comments · In Exploitation, Links

Everybody knows what Marx thought about capitalism and exploitation.

But if you think that a powerful state is the solution to the problem of exploitation, perhaps you ought to familiarize yourself with a different theory of exploitation.

 

 
  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Russell-Arben-Fox/763735290 Russell Arben Fox

    You ask in the video, “What is the alternative to capitalism?” But then you go on argue on the basis of the assumption that there are, actually, only two options: capitalism, or coercion-susceptible regulatory-capture-prone state-centric capitalism. Somehow it seems to me that there are options not being mentioned here.

    • Aeon Skoble

      Not really. There’s a system in which all exchanges are voluntary, and the alternatives are systems with (varying degrees of) coercion. I took Matt’s point to be that because political “exchange” is not voluntary, it will necessarily be expolitive, as opposed to voluntary exchanges, which are mutually beneficial.

      • Hume22

        While sympathetic, I would say that *all* systems are in fact “systems with (varying degrees of) coercion.”

  • k.f. ochstradt

    Good point by Russell Arben Fox.

    Giving a false choice is as ludicrous as supporting corrupted versions of an ideal form of “capitalism.”

    One can reject Marx, reject corrupt regulatory capitalism, and reject “pure” capitalism too. And that doesn’t leave one 6 feet under the ground, dead in a grave.

    It only leaves one outside capitalism. And I’m pretty sure there is plenty of evidence throughout human history of social entities (“communities” or “societies” or whatever you’d like to call them) using exchange systems that don’t require “capital” or any “-ism” affiliated with it.

    I’m pretty sure most of us Americans have experienced exchanges of goods or services where no money changed hands. Where money wasn’t needed.

    I know I have. Plenty of times. I’ve even done legal work on the barter system.

    Let’s not pretend there aren’t alternatives outside “pure” capitalism. It’s a bogus argument to suggest otherwise.

    • ben

      Free trade with money = “capitalism” = bad
      Free trade without money = “not capitalism” = good ??

      I don’t think that makes much sense.

      Today’s system of government-enforced, -monopolized and -abused currency has little to do with potential voluntary uses of private currency in a real free market.

      It is not whether people happen to use some form of currency for facilitating market transactions or not, that makes all the difference – it’s whether the transactions can happen freely without coercive outside interference or not.

      And that is indeed the political choice that is available in practice: More economic freedom, or less – the latter requiring bigger, more totalitarian, more corruption-susceptible government.

      All those “other alternatives” proponents fail to acknowledge that their imaginary “alternative systems” for how economic transactions could happen, either
      a) would have to be set up by a coercive central government restricting people’s economic freedoms and forcing them to play along with that system, or
      b) could happily exist among willing participants *within* a free market (i.e. “capitalist”) society.

      • j r

        Maybe I am missing something, but you seem to be implying that only governments can coerce. The reason this is a conversation about alternatives is because the BHLs start from the acknowledgment that private actors can be as coercive as governments. Free markets can be corrupted by non-government actors.

        • http://www.facebook.com/les.nearhood Les Kyle Nearhood

          I certainly do not think that non-government entities can ever be as bad or worrisome as a State can be. Regulation of businessmen is warranted because they will certainly collude, abuse the environment, and other mischief from time to time as the desire for short term gain sometimes overrides the long term well being of the company.

          But that in no way puts them in the same boat as a Government (such as the USA) which can (and has, sometimes recently) imprison you, censor you, conscript you, subject you to unknowing experimentation, fine you, tax you, coerce you, attempt to limit your choices through social engineering, and get you involved, collectively, in foreign adventures.

          To indicate that there is any sort of equality in these two things is not a serious argument.

    • TracyW

      What does it mean for an exchange system to not require “capital”?

      The scare quotes imply that you are using the word “capital” in a way that’s not the conventional meaning. But once someone combines scare quotes with a negative (in this case “don’t require”), I find it virtually impossible to figure out the intended meaning.
      It’s one thing to talk about an exchange system not requiring capital (whether such a system exists in the real world is a separate matter, but I can follow the idea). It’s a slightly different thing to talk about an exchange system that requires “capital”, that implies that it requires something that’s like capital, but isn’t really capital, as per the conventional meaning of capital. I can follow that idea too.
      But I don’t follow talking about a system that doesn’t require something that isn’t capital (as conventionally understood.)

    • http://www.sandiego.edu/~mzwolinski Matt Zwolinski

      Given the loaded and ambiguous nature of the term, “capitalism” might not have been the best choice of terms. The contrast I want to draw is between government and the free society. And I think capitalism understood as “free markets” is a part of the free society, but it is certainly not the whole. As you point out, the activities of families and other elements of civil society are free in the sense I support but not really helpfully understood as “capitalistic.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/les.nearhood Les Kyle Nearhood

    I think the word that best describes what we have been trending to in recent years is “economic Fascism”. In Fascism, the leading movers and shakers in society conspire to move the markers in their direction. Big Business, big labor, the Government, and the Media all are in cahoots. A perfect example is the recent Auto-Bailouts which violated the bankruptcy law. Far form being a bailout, they caused many shareholders as well as some workers, and many dealerships to be wiped out. In favor of allowing the union to keep it’s bloated pension program. There were no real structural reforms which would have happened in bankruptcy, Instead taxpayers had to foot the bill.

    In an economic fascist system some large factors make out well, but consumers, taxpayers and small and medium businesses pay through the nose.

  • liberty

    In the video you say:

    “When the government wants to use your money to bail out GM, you don’t have a right to say ‘no’.”

    “Politicians gain from the contributions they get from big business. Business gains from the favors it gets from government”

    “Those who can afford political influence get the benefits. Those who cannot afford it suffer the consequences.”

    This describes the US system very well – I entirely agree with it. However, in some societies this would be completely untrue. In a decentralized, democratic system in which there are checks in place that prevent people being able to buy political favor and in which the voice of the people does say whether a bailout is OK, and the people are well informed about policy because the area over which policy is determined is small enough to learn about each new policy, and because there is good, smart, media which discusses policy rationally… sound like a fantasy – an impossible utopia?

    Well, it’s not. It’s just across the pond.

    (Don’t bother posting Daily Mail articles showing corruption. Is it perfect? No. But it’s a hell of a lot closer than the US.)

    • http://twitter.com/amlorusso Antonio Lorusso

      If you are referring to the UK, banks were bailed out by the UK State around the same time that the USA did, and overall freedom is (and has been) going in the wrong direction. Not my idea of an impossible utopia. Or anything remotely close.

      • liberty

        Yes, banks were bailed out (and since then there has been discussion about how to restructure banks so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again) — still, I don’t think that banks are a great example of how the UK is so much better: it is perhaps the one sector that is still owned by old money which used to run the country.

        But in most other respects I think the UK government is night/day from the US, in terms of accountability, actually providing for the general welfare and for the people and things that the people as a whole want – so that even if only a portion receive (e.g., disability care) and only a minority (e.g., the rich) pay for most of it, the country as a whole has understood this, debated it, discussed it only, heard the concerns, and generally voted for it. Yes, a few rich might be upset about it, but their concerns were heard and their money wasn’t just taken without debate and used to give to politically connected cronies. To me it seems completely different from what goes on in the US.

        • http://twitter.com/amlorusso Antonio Lorusso

          You are labouring under an absurd illusion of benevolent and thoughtful UK politicians. I’ll leave you to your illusions. Thanks for the discussion. Goodbye,