Capitalism or Freedom
October 17, 2008
Sheldon Richman
"These measures are not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it," George W. Bush said in Orwellian tones Tuesday as he announced the partial nationalization of nine major American banks.
He was partly right, though not in the way he meant his words. There is no free financial market to take over. But that means there is no free market to preserve either. The moves he announced, which include government part-ownership of smaller banks too, were just more, albeit big, steps along the corporatist route the country has been following for generations...
There's an unfortunate phenomenon in politics. If a candidate says he favors markets but does little to actually free any markets once he becomes, say, president, lots of people will assume he's done so anyway. Evidence that he didn't won't matter. He will become known for his "laissez-faire, hate-the-government" policies -- even if such policies are nonexistent. Rhetoric gets all the attention.
But there's an asymmetry here. As noted, the most important deregulation of the last 30 years occurred, or at least was set in motion, by Jimmy Carter (trucking, airlines, banking, oil prices, telecommunications, and more) and Bill Clinton (banking). But no one accuses them of devotion to laissez faire. Yet Republicans who initiate little or nothing in this regard -- or worse, sponsor intervention such as protectionism -- are portrayed as Adam Smith reincarnate.
Do you sense that a political agenda overwhelms objectivity?...
The current political economy is a product of the past, and the past was not laissez faire...
The recent nationalization of the mortgage market and of major banks represent leaps in the degree of intervention. Still, they can be seen as a logical continuation of what has gone before. The crises produced by intervention summon forth further, more intense intervention. This is the way historical capitalism has worked.
Fortunately, we have an alternative: freedom and the free market.
read the entire essay
My thoughts: Perhaps it is time to totally abandon the word capitalism (the mixed economy verison) that is rapidly becoming corporatism. Supporters of freedom and free economy should embrace the terms free markets and laissez-faire.
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