Posted on 12/31/2010 6:16:53 AM PST by verdugo
....By purely capitalist standards, capitalism does not work and never has.
What, precisely, does a capitalist mean when he says that capitalism works? Simply this: that the capitalist system can provide a relatively stable and prosperous economic order without a lot of government interference in the market. That is to say, capitalism is basically “self-regulating,” and needs no outside force, such as government, to balance supply and demand and ensure prosperity. ... But he cannot fail to notice, if he is intellectually honest, that capitalism has never been a stable economic order without the heavy involvement of the government. And if this system that we pronounce “working” is really one that requires the heavy hand of government for its stability, can we really call it “capitalist” without at least adding some modifier.....The people who argue that “capitalism works” are the same people who argue that we should have less government interference in the market. Now, I am all for less government; however, the plain fact of the matter is that capitalism cannot function without this interference; capitalism relies on an expanded state to balance aggregate supply and demand. Consider this fact: in the period from 1853 to 1953, the economy was in recession or depression fully 40% of the time. Since 1953 the economy has been in recession only 15% of the time.. Consider the following chart, which depicts the American economy in the period from 1900-2006 (click on the CHART to see a better version)
I did read it. The first sentence on the "blog" is above. And the idea esposed by G. K. Chesterton is still nonsense. Return to the "old order" (Prior to "Enlightenment") is still Feudalism nonsense.
I would not call anyone dishonest, without having extensive proof. He likely does not show the economy from the beginning of the nation, we are living in the industrial age, not an agrarian economy. The period from 1850’ till present is more relevant to our times. Besides, the chart does not come from the author, it comes from another source, he is using someone elses chart.
You are too simplistic in your thinking, and you write as if people understood you. Saying “Chesterton”, “Catholic”, “fuedalism”, “enlightment’, “distributist”, and such, does not define anything.
Capitalism Needs Heavy Government Involvement SOURCE:Book: "Toward A Truly Free Market", by John C. Medaille, Published 2010 | 2010 | John C. Medaille
Amen brother. We cede too much by allowing the Marxists to define the economic lexicon. I believe in economic freedom, not so much in Marx’s “capitalism”, which carries the connotation of greed and the love of money.
I would not call anyone dishonest, without having extensive proof. He likely does not show the economy from the beginning of the nation because it was a different time than today. We are living in the industrial age, not an agrarian economy. The period from 1850 till present is more relevant to our times. Besides, the chart does not come from the author, it comes from another source, he is using someone elses chart.
In the government directed economy the reason we have major recessions is the government’s response time. by the time the problem is identified, corrections developed, COORDINATED, and DIRECTED response initiated the nature of the problem has changed. All too often the initial correction will aggravate the issue because workers at the face of the problem have already initiated corrections.
In a nongovernmental directed economy your response cycle is much shorter because you cut out the coordination and direction phases. A shorter response time means more frequent but less extensive depressions.
Bottom line - the depression can not be corrected until every politician has gotten every erg of political energy out of it first.
Original source of "distributionist" theory.
“Catholic”
I never used the word, but it is self explanatory.
“fuedalism”
The "old order" (before Capitalism) ie. Monarchy
“enlightment"
Product of the Reformation movement.
“distributist”
The anti-Capitalist subject of the book.
Simple, perhaps. But none of the above seems complicated.
No, the government expanded during Reagan's term. That doesn't mean that Reagan was the agent who drove the expansion. In fact, it was Tip O'Neil's Dem congress that refused to cut spending. They broke agreement after agreement to cut spending, then blackmailed Reagan into signing their inflated budgets. Reagan went along because it was the only way to get the military built up to combat the Soviets. Your implication that Reagan was a partisan of bigger federal government is counterfactual.
When it comes to expanding the federal gov't, it's much more important to control the U.S. House of Reps than to control the White House. Note that the one slight pull-back in federal government expansion was when the republicans controlled Congress during Clinton's term. That doesn't make Clinton the driving force behind reducing the fed government. Clinton may have been a moderate democrat, but he dragged his feet at every turn when it came to reducing the government. It was the republican House that drove this process.
Many on this board come from communist countries. Many, such as myself, spent a lot of time living in communist or post-communist countries. I lived in the Czech Republic for a number of years, and lived a house owned by a woman whose family lost everything in the expropriations of '47 through '52. I can't imagine her being comfortable with the idea of "government interference" in the economy. Would you be willing to tell us what country you come from, and what you lost? I'm sure you would find plenty of sympathy if you put your cards on the table.
Almost all Western European countries went through a capitalist phase between mercantalism and embracing socialism-lite. It was European socialism that Marx wrong-headedly critiqued, setting the norm for the left in regarding economics as static, rather than dynamic. Likewise Canada.
Even Russia was briefly capitalist between the freeing of the serfs and the imposition of Bolshevism. On some measures, the present Russian Republic is more capitalist than the U.S. presently.
Japan is an example of off-and-on capitalism. There was a capitalist period c. 1920 (when parlimentary democracy and fascism was a near-run thing that went the wrong way) and again after the American occupation. South Korea is capitalist since being freed form the Japanese yoke. Australia is another example, and arguably India.
That’s actually my point. You just exprssed it a different way.
Thank you for your insight and opinion.
If you leave entrepreneurs and small businessmen alone, they create new jobs, invent new goods and services, and prevent the consolidation of onwersship in the hands of a few. Government should get out of the way. Currently, the US government encourages CRONY CAPITALISM through direct subsidy and tax incentives: BIG BANKS, ethanol, wind energy, solar, etc. f the government got out of the way, the markets would flourish and crony capitatlism would fall away due to effective competition.
The free market system is being subverted through overreach of the government and the shreading of our Constitution. Obama and GK Chesterton are a page apart but the text is the same.
You’re Correct.
Back at ya. Thanks goodness for Free Republic.
bttt
Thanks.
But did those systems ‘fail’ or were they altered by legislation, progressivism, etc.?
I am not much of a scholar on ‘economic’ history of various countries of the world.
Fools rush in where wise men fear to thread.
re:I can’t imagine her being comfortable with the idea of “government interference” in the economy.
Where did the author or I say that we were “comfortable with the idea of government interference”? We are both saying the complete opposite.
Essentially all of the excesses Marx critiqued were not due to the free market's operation, but to the suborning of state power on behalf of the rich: toss union organizers in jail, turn a blind eye when the Pinkertons or their European analogs roughed up workers, or worse still have the law and the police side with money, rather than impartially enforce justice. Most, though not all, of the problems we have in the current economic downturn are similarly due to the exercise of state power, whether on behalf of the poor (forcing banks to abandon sound lending practices for political reasons) or the rich professional managerial class (Wall Street and bank bailouts).
Of course, there have been and are useful roles for the state in economic development besides those essential to capitalism--the impartial enforcement of property rights and contracts and provision of a stable currency--I've enumerated examples before:
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