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Yves Smith
7 comments:
It looks like Yves Smith/Susan Webber has never bothered to read the actual history of the "robber baron" era. As Gabriel Kolko showed in 1963 in his "Triumph of Conservatism", the elite could not gain monopoly power under laissez faire and concocted "progressive regulation" to effectively attain their goals.
http://tinyurl.com/atv56vr
I guess that puts her in the same class as Mr. Pilkington who writes and writes about the Austrian School without having a clue as to even the subject matter he claims to be an expert on.
The 'robber baron' label came into use before the progressive era, to describe plutocrats that had amassed vast wealth and power throughout the laissez-faire period, often through shady means.
According to Bob corporations corrupt government, therefore we should get rid of government and let corporations control everything.
It's a pretty stupid argument.
According to Bob corporations corrupt government, therefore we should get rid of government and let corporations control everything.
No. Acknowledge that the elite is limited if they cannot employ the state to further their schemes. Then rigorously enforce a prohibition upon fraud and the initiation of force. It is pathetic and absurd for you to argue that such a strict regime somehow leads a priori to an inevitable failure to enforce any such proposed strict rules.
Colour me sceptic. Institutional structures are always advanced to impose a power structure within a given human group.
'Laissez-faire' is an illusion, even like a monetary capitalism is (which was constructed by the modern states by the capitalist class which was growing up and clashing against the old order), constructed to serve the interests of a given group of individuals at certain point in history. Ideologies and social constructs are built or thrown up as long as they are useful.
All these concepts are just in your mind, the real exchanges are always through human interaction in terms of of relationships (pretty much always in terms of power) and there is not such thing as an objective clearing mechanism or machinery which works with its own 'natural laws' like a 'market'. Such this always be skewed or curved or mutated to serve the different group of interests existing at a given point in time.
"Acknowledge that the elite is limited if they cannot employ the state to further their schemes."
I can't acknowledge that because it's a ridiculous statement.
As for the rest of it, I'm not particularly interested in discussing your imaginary little world right now.
Ignacio said... "Institutional structures are always advanced to impose a power structure within a given human group."
You beat me to it. The whole question since the advance to the rule of law is about legislation and enforcement, which implies institutions of government. How to prevent their being hijacked by special interests is a problem that hasn't been solved and laissez-faire hasn't provided a solution either.
The concept of "right" is also bound up in an institutional framework. The assumption of inalienable rights to personal freedom and alienable property is the basis of Locke's social and political thought. This is not the state of nature (Hobbes) but is implicitly cultural and institutional, hence susceptible of being hijacked by the more powerful. This has been the course of history, both previous to the rule of law and subsequent to it.
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