Posted on 07/01/2014 7:42:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Free Markets Killed Capitalism: Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Wal-Mart, Amazon and the 1 Percent’s Sick Triumph Over Us All
Monopoly is back: Barry Lynn on the concentration of American economic power -- and how we can restore fairness
Barry C. Lynn is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of two important books, “End of the Line” and ”Cornered,” the latter of which describes the dramatic return of monopoly to the American landscape. Both books had a big effect on me when they appeared, as did Lynn’s periodic articles in Harper’s Magazine describing the concentration of economic power in all sorts of different industries. One of the reasons his books startled me is the weird silence of virtually all our other popular economic writers on the subject. Monopoly is back, in a massive way, and yet it seems as though even liberals often have trouble talking about it. If we’re really going to do something about inequality, however, it’s time we looked this thing in the face.
Barry Lynn and I sat down and talked it over last week. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation.
Monopoly: It sounds like a very old-fashioned problem. It sounds like an economic issue from the 19th century. Is it still a problem today?
Yes, absolutely, a huge problem. The American economy is more concentrated today than it’s been in more than a century, since the days of the plutocrats. Pretty much every sector of the economy is dominated by a few Goliaths, sometimes a single dominant corporation. And this poses immense economic and political dangers, to growth and the quality of our jobs, and to our democracy itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Bingo! You got it.
The thing is, in a free market, there may be a monopoly for a time, but the monopoly will only exist for as long as it is economically viable and provides actual value to the people who patronize it. That's because it still has to operate in accordance with the laws of economics.
Whereas a government monopoly can run indefinitely at a a loss, until it bankrupts the entire economy, as the government continues to operate it by printing money that has less and less value, until society ultimately collapses when the money become worthless.
Leftist economists make me sick.
You attach “ism” to anything and it turns evil.
Big Business forced the gay agenda and global warming agenda on us. They are going to force every other left agenda on us. is that a problem?
A 1% is a family that makes around $350,000 per year gross. A good income but hardly a millionaire. They are normally people who own small business like a retail store or franchise. Several of the people I met in business where the vaunted and diabolical 1%. Most often they where home improvement company owners who worked eighty or more hours a week.
Believe me, 1% are mostly working for a living and employing many people who rely on them for a pay check.
Of course through magic almost all congressmen and Senators are 1%’s even if they enter Congress dead broke. Somehow they all seem to become the Worlds greatest real estate and stock speculators.
Mike Lee is pretty much on our side of the argument:
The other day I was at the dentist, having a great time inhaling nitrous oxide as anaesthetic for a procdure when I had the following thought:
At the end of your life, or anywhere in the middle for that matter; anything whatsoever you read in the Atlantic Monthly, Salon and all manner of similar navel-gazing magazines discussing subtle nuances of nothingness, so painstakingly constructed by the intellectual titans who inhabit these publications; versus developing and enjoying your life according to simple, time-proven and fundamental principles, is vanishingly meaningless.
When big businesses collude, it is anti-free market. Most of the real bad guys in Atlas Shrugged were big business crony people.
Excellent observations and conclusions. Would that more Americans were aware of these facts.
This is the jack hole who wrote “What’s the matter with Kansas?”....a leftie bit of nonsense suggesting that conservatives are too stupid to vote in their own beat interest.
So you’re saying free markets are possible without capital?
I’m guessing you think “capitalism” (your quotation marks, not mine) differs from captial-based economic systems.
Capital is stored value. Capital is good. It’s also pretty much unavoidable. If you cut enough firewood to last all winter, you’ve stored up capital, and thank goodness for that.
The notion that some of us are putting forward is that “Capitalism” is a political movement in which government is deeply involved in economic matters. The politicians want to get friendly with the businessman and the businessman wants to get friendly with the politician. Capitalism is inherently about cronyism.
Free markets don’t involve politicians. They involve buyers and sellers.
“Free markets don’t involve politicians. They involve buyers and sellers.”
And when a seller screws a buyer or vice-versa, to whom does the free marketer appeal.
Even F. A. Hayek concedes that some government is necessary for a functioning free market — most especially, a captial-based system.
Not what I said.
“Capitalism” as a term doesn’t mean free people buying, selling and producing freely. Wasn’t this a term coined by Karl Marx? What is state capitalism?
Imagine if FDR had his way and there was no price/cost competition within an industry, and government would decide who was allowed to get into an industry or not. It would still have been “capitalism”, but it would not have been what you mean by the term.
Free market economics are what the world needs.
We do not need a “capitalism” where government picking winners and losers, subsidizing some while taxing others, regulating small competitors out of business at the behest of the large business who donate to the right politicians. Where government decides who is allowed to make and sell a widget or grow peanuts.
It might be “capitalism” but it is not freedom and it is certainly not free markets.
All of these bad things I mentioned are still “capitalism”.
CAPITALISM is meaningless without free markets and free competition.
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I’m not sure we are on different sides, I just think we are using words differently.
That’s not the point I’m making.
Fraud, theft, etc. — buyers and sellers need restitution when crime has been committed. So you need courts and government and laws. I’m not arguing for Anarchism. I’m not even arguing for Libertarianism.
I merely point out that Boeing, General Motors, General Electric — basically all the big players in the modern economy, are companies that get money and/or favorable treatment from the federal government. Just look at the bailout of General Motors. There is nothing remotely “free market” about that.
Government has a role to play. But picking winners and losers is not the proper role of government. But it seems to me that this is a primary role that the government is playing. And it’s been that way for a long time.
Part of the problem here is that the government is huge. They spend trillions of dollars every year. It’s our money. But government spends it to reward friends and punish enemies. It distorts the entire economy. It pumps up the stock market. It drives the Federal Reserve. There is no Free Market. There is merely a highly regulated system of Capital flow which is nothing less than political manipulation.
Oh, yes, Free markets. England was a nation of tea shop, millinery, and tobacco shop when Hitler invaded Poland. And England’s shop owners almost got their fannies kicked because the nation had little heavy industry—corporations, Mac.
Yes, I do believe we’re on the same side, interested in the same thing: Maximum (not absolute) individual freedom, especially in the economic sphere.
And yes, we are using words differently. A layman, non-econ major guy like me thinks capitalism equals an economic system where shareholders (individuals) own companies.
This is the first time I’ve seen someone equate capitalism to state capitalism. They already have a term for state capitalism: “crony capitalism”.
So I don’t see the benefit in changing the meaning of “capitalism” to state capitalism.
Thanks for clarifying.
“Government has a role to play. But picking winners and losers is not the proper role of government. But it seems to me that this is a primary role that the government is playing. And it’s been that way for a long time.”
Agreed. Especially with your specifics. Although I can see Boeing’s reasons for linking itself to the government, GE has less reason to be this way.
Jack Welch must be puking as he watches his hand-picked successor Immelt (a Republican?) become such a government suck up.
We’re going to learn about Free Markets and Capitalism from Salon and Barry Lynn?
That’s like trying to teach Christianity by reading from the Koran.
Rich people who want to perpetuate their political ideology.
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