Agnapostate
Rookie
- Banned
- #61
It's a common fallacy that the mixed economy is a "combination" of capitalism and socialism. In fact, it's simply a form of capitalism, the three major forms in the West being rightist Anglo-Saxon capitalism, centrist or center-left liberal democratic capitalism, and leftist social democratic capitalism (and related forms of Rhine capitalism might qualify).
The fallacy of the "combination" is based on the linear economic spectrum, the woefully incomplete line that ranges from a "pure" laissez-faire economy to a "pure" command economy. Since both are theoretical abstractions with no history of existence, however, we have to refer to the capitalist economy with centralized governmental planning and the command economy with allocative market structure as the two primary economic systems that industrialized society has functioned under. And most importantly, we have to note that governmental programs that in fact strengthen conditions and thus sustain that order of private ownership are hardly "socialist" in nature. Hence, liberalism and socialism are in fact opposing ideologies.
Next, republican market socialism would probably be the economic system most in line with the Constitution and Framer intent. The "laissez-faire" prescriptions offered by classical liberal thinkers during a period in which agrarian conditions and relatively egalitarian land distribution were expected to maintain equitable economic conditions are largely inapplicable to modern economic and more broadly societal conditions in which large-scale industrial development after the phase of the primitive accumulation of capital has spawned corporate capitalism, a state-supported economic structure that involves market and wealth concentration and thus, consolidation of primary influence over government and near-complete ownership and management rights over industry by an elite financial class. That problem exists even aside from the fact that many classical liberal philosophers and economists (most notably Adam Smith) were significantly more protectionist in nature than they are disingenuously depicted as by modern rightists. Moreover, the economy as a whole was not as drastically unregulated as is commonly perceived and support for regulation amongst the Founding Fathers was not as sparse as is commonly perceived. In fact, Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, was effectively the first to comprehensively advocate the infant industry argument (a protectionist trade argument, if you're unfamiliar with it) in his Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury on the Subject of Manufactures.
Regardless, the main point is that classical liberal philosophy generally offers a defense of property rights based on individual appropriation of the product of one's labor that many classical liberal theorists expected to result in relatively egalitarian conditions. No defense of vast corporate structure that modern propertarians defend as legitimate fixtures of fair market exchange and the massive concentration of wealth that they defend as the earned reward of entrepreneurial spirit can be drawn from that philosophy. It's an obvious reality that the conditions of presently existing capitalism are not those "without a formal class structure...and a dispersed and relatively diverse population composed of small entrepreneurs," as this article describes them. Our capitalist economy is not composed of independent producers and artisans, but of large-scale corporate structure and rampant concentration of wealth and property. The reality is thus that modern propertarians (disingenuously self-identified "libertarians") have effectively co-opted classical liberal arguments just as effectively as they stole the "libertarian" label from European anarchists, thus committing what appear to be property violations more severe than any that they regularly decry. For example, the political scientist Robert Dahl (A Preface to Economic Democracy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) notes this:
Sound adaptation of the more libertarian elements of the classical liberal philosophy would thus probably lend support to libertarian socialism today, particularly libertarian market socialism, such as the mutualism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (though more likely a minarchist variety, not his anarchist form). We could also look to more broadly democratic market socialism such as that today advocated by figures such as David Schweickart and the aforementioned Theodore Burczak. The reason for this is that democratic market socialism is able to maximize legitimately competitive market enterprise through its elimination of monopolistic and oligopolistic conditions, and more broadly, market and wealth concentration. It's also able to promote personal possession rather than "private property" in that their is greater focus on individual possession and consumption rights rather than the "right" to own massive corporate structure, which permits the utilization of hierarchical and authoritarian wage labor as an element of internal firm structure, which is flatly undemocratic in both de jure and de facto terms. There is a corresponding support for workers' democratic ownership and management in such market socialist models. I don't advocate democratic market socialism myself; I advocate decentralized participatory planning, specifically in the form of anarchist communism. I simply believe that democratic market socialism is more compatible with classical liberal principles as adapted to a modern context than presently existing capitalism is. If not, then massive wealth and property re-distribution at the very least would be necessary to imitate the egalitarian conditions that classical liberalism was then to be applied to, but I think this impractical, and not far from democratic market socialism anyway, so we might as well attempt to implement a framework of public ownership.
The fallacy of the "combination" is based on the linear economic spectrum, the woefully incomplete line that ranges from a "pure" laissez-faire economy to a "pure" command economy. Since both are theoretical abstractions with no history of existence, however, we have to refer to the capitalist economy with centralized governmental planning and the command economy with allocative market structure as the two primary economic systems that industrialized society has functioned under. And most importantly, we have to note that governmental programs that in fact strengthen conditions and thus sustain that order of private ownership are hardly "socialist" in nature. Hence, liberalism and socialism are in fact opposing ideologies.
Next, republican market socialism would probably be the economic system most in line with the Constitution and Framer intent. The "laissez-faire" prescriptions offered by classical liberal thinkers during a period in which agrarian conditions and relatively egalitarian land distribution were expected to maintain equitable economic conditions are largely inapplicable to modern economic and more broadly societal conditions in which large-scale industrial development after the phase of the primitive accumulation of capital has spawned corporate capitalism, a state-supported economic structure that involves market and wealth concentration and thus, consolidation of primary influence over government and near-complete ownership and management rights over industry by an elite financial class. That problem exists even aside from the fact that many classical liberal philosophers and economists (most notably Adam Smith) were significantly more protectionist in nature than they are disingenuously depicted as by modern rightists. Moreover, the economy as a whole was not as drastically unregulated as is commonly perceived and support for regulation amongst the Founding Fathers was not as sparse as is commonly perceived. In fact, Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, was effectively the first to comprehensively advocate the infant industry argument (a protectionist trade argument, if you're unfamiliar with it) in his Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury on the Subject of Manufactures.
Regardless, the main point is that classical liberal philosophy generally offers a defense of property rights based on individual appropriation of the product of one's labor that many classical liberal theorists expected to result in relatively egalitarian conditions. No defense of vast corporate structure that modern propertarians defend as legitimate fixtures of fair market exchange and the massive concentration of wealth that they defend as the earned reward of entrepreneurial spirit can be drawn from that philosophy. It's an obvious reality that the conditions of presently existing capitalism are not those "without a formal class structure...and a dispersed and relatively diverse population composed of small entrepreneurs," as this article describes them. Our capitalist economy is not composed of independent producers and artisans, but of large-scale corporate structure and rampant concentration of wealth and property. The reality is thus that modern propertarians (disingenuously self-identified "libertarians") have effectively co-opted classical liberal arguments just as effectively as they stole the "libertarian" label from European anarchists, thus committing what appear to be property violations more severe than any that they regularly decry. For example, the political scientist Robert Dahl (A Preface to Economic Democracy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) notes this:
Sound adaptation of the more libertarian elements of the classical liberal philosophy would thus probably lend support to libertarian socialism today, particularly libertarian market socialism, such as the mutualism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (though more likely a minarchist variety, not his anarchist form). We could also look to more broadly democratic market socialism such as that today advocated by figures such as David Schweickart and the aforementioned Theodore Burczak. The reason for this is that democratic market socialism is able to maximize legitimately competitive market enterprise through its elimination of monopolistic and oligopolistic conditions, and more broadly, market and wealth concentration. It's also able to promote personal possession rather than "private property" in that their is greater focus on individual possession and consumption rights rather than the "right" to own massive corporate structure, which permits the utilization of hierarchical and authoritarian wage labor as an element of internal firm structure, which is flatly undemocratic in both de jure and de facto terms. There is a corresponding support for workers' democratic ownership and management in such market socialist models. I don't advocate democratic market socialism myself; I advocate decentralized participatory planning, specifically in the form of anarchist communism. I simply believe that democratic market socialism is more compatible with classical liberal principles as adapted to a modern context than presently existing capitalism is. If not, then massive wealth and property re-distribution at the very least would be necessary to imitate the egalitarian conditions that classical liberalism was then to be applied to, but I think this impractical, and not far from democratic market socialism anyway, so we might as well attempt to implement a framework of public ownership.
