QuoteReplyTopic: Socialism Vs Meritocracy Posted: 09-Dec-2005 at 14:14
Originally posted by Genghis
The idea that the 'capitalist' market was 'free' was exploded almost a century ago now, in the '30s at least with Joan Robinson, but by Thorsten Veblen even before that.
If that were true then why do most mainstream economists still embrace this idea, they aren't stupid and they don't have much of a tangible incentive to defend a market they don't benefit from as most are members of academia and not industry?
The straightforward answer to that is they don't. I don't think you will find one significant economist anywhere who would assert that the economies of the West, including the USA, are 'free'.
The US economy is heavily regulated and interfered with six ways from Sunday. There are agricultural subsidies, controls on the import of textiles - even controls on the export of ciomputers and software, subsidies in the form of corporate welfare all over the place, subsidies in the placing of defence contracts.
Even the Stock Exchange is closely regulated: look at the restrictions on insider trading and selling short. In fact it gets more closely regulated every year. There are government controls on unionisation and strike action. The Fed controls interest rates.
All that is government interference with the market, quite apart from the effect on 'free' action of oligopolistic co-operation, and either overt or tacit price-fixing.
Then bear in mind copyrights, trademarks, patents.... The idea that markets are 'free' is a total illusion.
The WorldCom trials, the Enron trials ... probably thousands of similar court cases. The idea that most fortunes are earned by people working in a way that benefits society is pretty baseless (though, agreed, it soes sometimes occur).
Those are a handful of individuals, while there are millions of millionaires, it is a logical fallacy to claim that all millionaires are like the heads of Enron and MCI Worldcom.
I never claimed they were all the same. You asked me to point to some. If you want some more, look at who's on the board of News Corporation or the NYSE. Check out the names Kennedy and Rockefeller and Bush and Chandler.
That's just off the top of my head.
(And I'm not, incidentally, saying that the US is any worse than anywhere else in this regard.)
And countries that have stayed impoverished have usually done so because of the lack of access to the controlled markets of the west. In free markets, cheap agricultural products would be flooding the western world, and farmers in the rich countries would be going out of business.
There is an arguable case for supporting one's own agriculture (and other similar industries) but you cannot then argue that the markets are free.
I agree with you totally here, the protectionist and uncapitalistic farm subsidies of the United States and the EU are terrible ideas and cause for much suffering. If the West and Third World abolished their tariff barriers each would be much better off.
We obviously are thinking of different definitions of "free", I mean that businesses are able to make their own decisions, not that they can do whatever they feel, be it intellectual property theft or any other such things.
What you point out as things that make the economy un-free such as regulation do not make it comparable to a command economy in any substantial sense.
We obviously are thinking of different definitions of "free", I mean that businesses are able to make their own decisions, not that they can do whatever they feel, be it intellectual property theft or any other such things.
What you point out as things that make the economy un-free such as regulation do not make it comparable to a command economy in any substantial sense.
No, but it means the classical formulations of economics based on a free market driven by a profit-maximising ethos just don't work.
As a set of economic theories, 'free-market capitalism' is a failure just as systems based on Marxist economic doctrine fail. For rather similar reasons, actually - they're based on ideology rather than empiricism.
We obviously are thinking of different definitions of "free", I mean that businesses are able to make their own decisions, not that they can do whatever they feel, be it intellectual property theft or any other such things.
What you point out as things that make the economy un-free such as regulation do not make it comparable to a command economy in any substantial sense.
No, but it means the classical formulations of economics based on a free market driven by a profit-maximising ethos just don't work.
As a set of economic theories, 'free-market capitalism' is a failure just as systems based on Marxist economic doctrine fail. For rather similar reasons, actually - they're based on ideology rather than empiricism.
GCLE, just because the market isn't a "pure" free market doesn't mean that most of the laws of the free market don't apply. The complete free market is a platonic idea, has never existed and can never exist. The free market I'm referring to is one where most decisions are made by the individual business owners, not ALL, that would be impossible. And what you're saying about "free market capitalism" being dead is patently not true, I just took a course on economics this semester and spent several hours talking with my econ professor in his office about economics, if the idea of the free-market is dead he didn't get the information.
What you were saying earlier about the economy being a "hereditary plutocracy" is illogical. According to your definition a society would become a hereditary plutocracy whenever parents are allowed to pass anything onto their children. Unless the governmenet somehow mandated that children get the exact same education, healthcare, and income until the age of 18 then it wouldn't fit your definition.
We obviously are thinking of different definitions of "free", I mean that businesses are able to make their own decisions, not that they can do whatever they feel, be it intellectual property theft or any other such things.
What you point out as things that make the economy un-free such as regulation do not make it comparable to a command economy in any substantial sense.
No, but it means the classical formulations of economics based on a free market driven by a profit-maximising ethos just don't work.
As a set of economic theories, 'free-market capitalism' is a failure just as systems based on Marxist economic doctrine fail. For rather similar reasons, actually - they're based on ideology rather than empiricism.
GCLE, just because the market isn't a "pure" free market doesn't mean that most of the laws of the free market don't apply. The complete free market is a platonic idea, has never existed and can never exist. The free market I'm referring to is one where most decisions are made by the individual business owners, not ALL, that would be impossible. And what you're saying about "free market capitalism" being dead is patently not true, I just took a course on economics this semester and spent several hours talking with my econ professor in his office about economics, if the idea of the free-market is dead he didn't get the information.
I was an economics professor[1] for a while, though I only taught postgraduates. Gave it up because there were easier and pleasanter ways to make a living.
Ask your professor about Joan Robinson and Thorsten Veblen - the two I quoted earlier. Or Harvey Leibenstein. Or Michael Bacharach. Or Herb Simon, the only Nobel winner I had friendly contact with.
Ask him about tacit price-fixing and oligopolies in general. Ask him about how the PC software market is organised and controlled. Or movie distribution. Ask him about the effect of 'corporate welfare', and of restrictions on trades union activities.
[1] In the US or French sense. In the UK, just a 'lecturer'
What you were saying earlier about the economy being a "hereditary plutocracy" is illogical. According to your definition a society would become a hereditary plutocracy whenever parents are allowed to pass anything onto their children.
Not quite. That takes care of the 'hereditary' bit, but not the 'plutocracy'. What makes America plutocratic is the dependence of the political process on money, a phenomenon which isn't true at all in Europe generally.
Inherited wealth is only incompatible with democracy when the wealth gives the possessor undue influence.
Unless the governmenet somehow mandated that children get the exact same education, healthcare, and income until the age of 18 then it wouldn't fit your definition.
Well, I happen to believe in universal health care and equal-access education. With that taken care of, and with low caps on the amount of money that can be spent on political campaigning - plus free access to equal-time television, I don't think that equal income is so important.
In case I haven't made myself properly clear, it's the plutocracy I'm opposed to, not so much the inheritance aspect.
And what you're saying about "free market capitalism" being dead is patently not true, I just took a course on economics this semester and spent several hours talking with my econ professor in his office about economics, if the idea of the free-market is dead he didn't get the information.
I was an economics professor[1] for a while, though I only taught postgraduates.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Share Topic
Printable Version
Google
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Windows Live
Yahoo Bookmarks
reddit
Facebook
MySpace
Newsvine
Furl
Topic Search 
Topic Options
Quote 
Topic: Socialism Vs Meritocracy
