Capitalism and Democracy

[AlexMerced]

http://libertyisnow.blogspot.com/201...democracy.html

Capitalism and Democracy
by Alex Merced

Detractors to Capitalism often will make satire of the idea of "the invisible hand" as if Free Market Capitalist believe there is an actual invisible hand. The Invisible hand is a metaphor for much more beautiful and plausible idea; that the actions and choices of every individual under no coercive influence can best manage scarce resources. I mean to anyone who calls themselves anti-establishment, how can this not be a beautiful idea, the lack of central power, the freedom from a top down world. Detractors will then make arguments about "Market Failure" essentially making claims that the market doesn't achive impossible and often impracticle goals such as EQUAL income distribution.

Proponents such as myself are always glad to point out any problems that do exist tend to often if not always come from the results of barriers to entry through prohibitions and costly regulations that inhibit the amount of choice and diversity that makes a market works to it's best ability. Essentially to believe in Free Market Capitalism is to believe in a sort of Market Democracy where instead of decisions being the votes of all individuals but by the purposeful actions of all individuals.

Detractors will claim that you can't trust people to make the right decisions with their resources and their lives, so of course you need a coercive foce such as government to correct these "failures". In order to choose who sits in government to make these corrections detractors will be proponents of a democratic process... believing that the choices of all individuals will put best people in power, basically a market for government power. My questions then becomes, if you don't believe peoples decisions individually can manage resources then how can you claim that those same individuals decisions on who to manage will be any better?

The counter arument would be "Like the markets, we believe it should be a regulated process", thus comes all the campaign finance rules, ballot access measures, and other regulations of the democratic process. Although, if this is a market process these regulations should achieve the same results we see in the market limiting choice thus limiting the ability for individuals to truly take actions that make the market mechanism work at finding the most valued result.

Bottom line...

[NewFederalist]

I am NOT sure capitalism and democracy can coexist. Capitalism with a constitutional republic perhaps but a democracy... I think not.

[idirtify]

I am NOT sure capitalism and democracy can coexist. Capitalism with a constitutional republic perhaps but a democracy... I think not.

Well technically no, it can’t (inferring that we are talking about “free-market” capitalism); since pure democracy is merely the fascism of the majority. I think what alex is trying to say is that capitalism is a (better?) form of democracy, where people vote with their purchases; and that ANY regulation of consensual trade is counterproductive to the whole point of it.

[heavenlyboy34]

I am NOT sure capitalism and democracy can coexist. Capitalism with a constitutional republic perhaps but a democracy... I think not.

Pure Democracy is inherently anti-capitalist, which is why even the worst of the founders were against pure democracy.

[AlexMerced]

I agree, democracy is essentially a market in coercion which is the anti-thesis of a free market.

The point I was trying to make that the mechanism that makes markets work is the same mechanism that supposedly makes democracy "work"

so to criticize the invisible hand, you must equally criticize democracy

in the sense that both use the mechanism of aggregating the actions of many individuals to come out to some result

[RedStripe]

except capitalism has never existed without coercion, and no system is free of some level of coercion.

capitalism is just that system in which the coercive apparatus of the state is directed at protecting the class system that came out of the feudal system - owners and workers. That's why it's called capitalism - not because capital is some new thing - but because it is a system that serves the interests of capital (once, the owners of capital, and increasingly ethereal legal institutions composed of capital directly, such as the corporation) rather than the interest of, say, labor.

a system that uses coercion to serve labor - to place economic control and political power in the hands of people - its thus a socialist system

libertarian socialism (bottom up socialism) ftw

[AlexMerced]

except capitalism has never existed without coercion, and no system is free of some level of coercion.

capitalism is just that system in which the coercive apparatus of the state is directed at protecting the class system that came out of the feudal system - owners and workers. That's why it's called capitalism - not because capital is some new thing - but because it is a system that serves the interests of capital (once, the owners of capital, and increasingly ethereal legal institutions composed of capital directly, such as the corporation) rather than the interest of, say, labor.

a system that uses coercion to serve labor - to place economic control and political power in the hands of people - its thus a socialist system

libertarian socialism (bottom up socialism) ftw

I disagree, but I think we both agree on eliminating the main corcive institution of the government. Capitalism or Socialism mixed with a government of any size will always oppress somebody.

You need stateless voluntarist communities with people who consent to the system they are paricipating in... none of this social contract BS

[swirling_vortex]

except capitalism has never existed without coercion, and no system is free of some level of coercion.

capitalism is just that system in which the coercive apparatus of the state is directed at protecting the class system that came out of the feudal system - owners and workers. That's why it's called capitalism - not because capital is some new thing - but because it is a system that serves the interests of capital (once, the owners of capital, and increasingly ethereal legal institutions composed of capital directly, such as the corporation) rather than the interest of, say, labor.

How is capitalism coercion? Capitalism is an economic system based on the voluntary market transaction system where the means are privately owned. Capitalism creates capital, which is simply a by-product of production. It doesn't serve only one interest, otherwise no one could accumulate capital. The laborer is treated as equally as the producer in a free market system. Serving labor exclusively creates exactly what you accuse capitalism of.

a system that uses coercion to serve labor - to place economic control and political power in the hands of people - its thus a socialist system

libertarian socialism (bottom up socialism) ftw

First, libertarian socialism is an oxymoronic statement since you would need to use some sort of governing force in order to prevent people from practicing capitalism and you would need some form of governance to serve the interest of the labor unions (which would also mean taxation and regulation). The "libertarian" part of it would quickly dissolve away.

Then, you also have to factor that socialism doesn't exactly work since it doesn't serve your interest, only those who are connected in the power structure benefit from it. If you must favor one group's interests, then you ultimately take that away from someone else, thus creating tyranny.

Finally, capitalism doesn't forbid one from creating a commune of some sort. Capitalism can easily co-exist with it, but socialism cannot. Of course, such communes turn out to be inefficient, which is why you don't see a ton of them sprouting around.

I'd recommend this article from Rothard: http://mises.org/daily/2197

[RedStripe]

I disagree, but I think we both agree on eliminating the main corcive institution of the government. Capitalism or Socialism mixed with a government of any size will always oppress somebody.

You need stateless voluntarist communities with people who consent to the system they are paricipating in... none of this social contract BS

Yea i just think if you start looking into the process of actually dismantling the state you'll run into a host of problems. One would be the ownership of property, which would need to be radically reformed...

[AlexMerced]

Yea i just think if you start looking into the process of actually dismantling the state you'll run into a host of problems. One would be the ownership of property, which would need to be radically reformed...

the operation of any state will always have problem, cause the portion of the population that doesn't consent will always fight against it and throw a wrench in many of mechanisms that make it work.

Voluntarism is key