Return to "Capitalism": The Known Reality
Re: P.S.
(#52393)
by Aeon J. Skoble on February 4, 2005 at 2:33 PM
by Aeon J. Skoble on February 4, 2005 at 2:33 PM
What you say here about labels is all true - I rarely use "capitalism" with lefties because for them it's definitionally bad -- but this also goes to your use of the word "anarchism." For pretty much everyone, that's definitionally bad too. Not that I have any better suggestions -- anti-statism? radical libertarianism? market liberalism? -- but the deck is already stacked against you using the a-word.
Re: P.S.
(#52398)
by Roderick T. Long on February 4, 2005 at 2:59 PM
by Roderick T. Long on February 4, 2005 at 2:59 PM
That's true, and maybe I'm being inconsistent in remaining fond of "anarchism" as a term. But I do see one difference:
There are plenty of people who have no fundamental objection to the system that most libertarians call "capitalism" but who still object to the term because it has negative associations for them.
By contrast, people who have no fundamental objection to the system that I call "anarchism" tend to object to the term, when they do, only because it has negative associations for others (i.e., for people who, given their current views, wouldn't like anarchism even if it were called something else).
There are plenty of people who have no fundamental objection to the system that most libertarians call "capitalism" but who still object to the term because it has negative associations for them.
By contrast, people who have no fundamental objection to the system that I call "anarchism" tend to object to the term, when they do, only because it has negative associations for others (i.e., for people who, given their current views, wouldn't like anarchism even if it were called something else).
Re: P.S.
(#52400)
by Roderick T. Long on February 4, 2005 at 3:07 PM
by Roderick T. Long on February 4, 2005 at 3:07 PM
Plus, one can be a "market liberal," or even a "radical libertarian" (e.g., Chris) without being an anarchist. and "anti-statist" might convey merely being against statism rather than being against the state.
Rand embraced terms like "capitalism" and "selfishness" as a kind of the-hell-with-it defiance. I'm not inclined to embrace those terms, but I confess my liking for "anarchism" expresses a similar mood.
But there's another factor. I'm a big fan of the 19th-century individualist anarchists and think they had many things right. "Anarchism" stresses libertarianism's continuity with that tradition while "capitalism" has the reverse effect.
Rand embraced terms like "capitalism" and "selfishness" as a kind of the-hell-with-it defiance. I'm not inclined to embrace those terms, but I confess my liking for "anarchism" expresses a similar mood.
But there's another factor. I'm a big fan of the 19th-century individualist anarchists and think they had many things right. "Anarchism" stresses libertarianism's continuity with that tradition while "capitalism" has the reverse effect.
Re: P.S.
(#52418)
by Lisa Casanova on February 4, 2005 at 6:04 PM
by Lisa Casanova on February 4, 2005 at 6:04 PM
In a course I took about Latin American democracies, the teacher used the term "corporatism" to refer to a historical stage in Latin America when many countries sought to promote economic development and push industrialization via very heavy government involvement in industry and partial socialization of the economy, and applied the term to this type of system in general. I used the term to explain to someone the distinction between capitalism as I believe in it and the system we have in the U.S. I said that I would consider the system we have here to be corporatism, meaning a kind of capitalism where companies compete in markets but are in bed with the government, and don't hesitate to use government to achieve their ends when it suits them. I don't know if using that term might help define the debate more precisely.
Re: P.S.
(#52751)
by Kevin Carson on February 7, 2005 at 5:41 PM
by Kevin Carson on February 7, 2005 at 5:41 PM
I usually hesitate to sign onto discussion boards that require logins, because I'm horrible at keeping track of the passwords. But this is too interesting to pass up.
A very thought-provoking post, Chris--and some great discussion in the comment thread. I'm currently digesting a blog post on the main points here, but thought I'd add my $0.02 on this interesting discussion of the term "socialism."
Mises' equation of "socialism" with state ownership/planning was ahistorical IMO, and flew directly in the face of earlier usage.
Even Friedrich Engels, arguably the father of "vulgar Marxism," only saw state involvement in the economy as a step toward socialism, or maybe even a precondition--not as socialism itself. Even for Engels, "socialism" still carried its earlier meaning of a system in which the actual workers exercised real political and/or economic power. As an unreconstructed Tuckerite, I still hold onto the earlier usage of "socialist" myself, along with the "free market" label.
Engels argued in Anti-Duhring that state ownership and control might serve as a bridge to socialism, if workers seized political power. But if capitalists retained power in the state, state ownership and control would function as a component of an overall capitalist system of class-rule. Engels saw the Junker Socialism or "gas light socialism" of his day as just another example of the capitalists acting through their own executive committee, the state, to stabilize and plan capitalism and make their profits more secure. And he certainly would have ridiculed the use of the term "National Socialist" by the corporatist regimes of a later generation.
For Engels, the mixed economy had a dialectical character. The capitalists played a leading role in creating it for their own purposes; but some aspects of it (like the welfare state) were created at least partially in response to pressure from outside, from the working class. And although both state ownership/planning and the welfare state might be used by capitalists as an instrument of their own class-domination, the state became an arena of struggle in which the working class contested capitalist control over the mixed economy and attempted to redirect it to their own purposes.
So even for a state socialist like Engels, whether statism was a precursor of socialism or only an intensifier of capitalist exploitation depended on the outcome of the class struggle in the political arena.
The issue is further complicated by the assertion of Rosa Luxembourg and other assorted libertarian communists that the statist system implemented in the USSR was not "socialist" at all, because it was in its essence a class system for exploiting the worker. Luxembourg coined the term "state capitalist" to describe it, with the Party apparat replacing the old capitalists as owners of the means of production and extracting surplus value through the state. The Frankfurt School people argued that Marxist-Leninist systems were a post-capitalist form of class society, which they called "bureaucratic collectivism." As Luxembourg put it, a post-capitalist collectivist society was inevitable--the only question was whether it would be socialism or barbarism.
Me, I like Immanuel Goldstein's term "oligarchical collectivism."
Sorry for the long rant.
A very thought-provoking post, Chris--and some great discussion in the comment thread. I'm currently digesting a blog post on the main points here, but thought I'd add my $0.02 on this interesting discussion of the term "socialism."
Mises' equation of "socialism" with state ownership/planning was ahistorical IMO, and flew directly in the face of earlier usage.
Even Friedrich Engels, arguably the father of "vulgar Marxism," only saw state involvement in the economy as a step toward socialism, or maybe even a precondition--not as socialism itself. Even for Engels, "socialism" still carried its earlier meaning of a system in which the actual workers exercised real political and/or economic power. As an unreconstructed Tuckerite, I still hold onto the earlier usage of "socialist" myself, along with the "free market" label.
Engels argued in Anti-Duhring that state ownership and control might serve as a bridge to socialism, if workers seized political power. But if capitalists retained power in the state, state ownership and control would function as a component of an overall capitalist system of class-rule. Engels saw the Junker Socialism or "gas light socialism" of his day as just another example of the capitalists acting through their own executive committee, the state, to stabilize and plan capitalism and make their profits more secure. And he certainly would have ridiculed the use of the term "National Socialist" by the corporatist regimes of a later generation.
For Engels, the mixed economy had a dialectical character. The capitalists played a leading role in creating it for their own purposes; but some aspects of it (like the welfare state) were created at least partially in response to pressure from outside, from the working class. And although both state ownership/planning and the welfare state might be used by capitalists as an instrument of their own class-domination, the state became an arena of struggle in which the working class contested capitalist control over the mixed economy and attempted to redirect it to their own purposes.
So even for a state socialist like Engels, whether statism was a precursor of socialism or only an intensifier of capitalist exploitation depended on the outcome of the class struggle in the political arena.
The issue is further complicated by the assertion of Rosa Luxembourg and other assorted libertarian communists that the statist system implemented in the USSR was not "socialist" at all, because it was in its essence a class system for exploiting the worker. Luxembourg coined the term "state capitalist" to describe it, with the Party apparat replacing the old capitalists as owners of the means of production and extracting surplus value through the state. The Frankfurt School people argued that Marxist-Leninist systems were a post-capitalist form of class society, which they called "bureaucratic collectivism." As Luxembourg put it, a post-capitalist collectivist society was inevitable--the only question was whether it would be socialism or barbarism.
Me, I like Immanuel Goldstein's term "oligarchical collectivism."
Sorry for the long rant.
Return to "Capitalism": The Known Reality
by Roderick T. Long on February 4, 2005 at 1:48 PM