Capitalism and Government Are Friends After All

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-13/capitalism-and-government-are-friends-after-all.html



***SNIP

There is this idea, not discussed because it is so widely accepted even on the political left, that some sort of independent, free-standing market exists with its own laws, similar to those of natural systems, such as the law of gravity. Democrats want to poke, prod and regulate this market; Republicans say they want to leave it alone. But this so-called free market doesn’t exist, not even as a valid concept. Governments create markets.

Creating Markets

Government is responsible for every aspect of the market economy, from writing the laws defining private property, corporations and intellectual property, to building the roads on which commerce depends. When business was simpler, centuries ago, government built simple markets. Today, it creates more complicated ones.

It took centuries of evolution to arrive at today’s system of property ownership, where a piece of land can be measured, bought and sold like a commodity. For thousands of years, kings handed out patents -- essentially a grant of government power -- for land (thus “land patents”) or as a grant of monopoly power to sell something, say salt or bricks. In 1474, the Venetian Senate was the first to set up a patent system aimed at promoting invention. The new law let inventors know, in advance, that they would be rewarded with limited monopoly rights for significant new creations. Other nations copied this.

Governments have invested in physical infrastructure, such as roads, ports and waterworks, for as long as they have existed. A high point was New York State’s construction of the Erie Canal in 1825, inspired by an earlier federal plan for roads and canals put forward by Thomas Jefferson’s brilliant treasury secretary, Albert Gallatin. Paul Johnson, the conservative British historian, called the Erie Canal the greatest public-works project of all time in terms of the wealth it created. Today’s discussion in the U.S. of state and federal investment in high-speed train lines is a continuation of the long debates over which kinds of infrastructure to invest in.

[Zalatix]

1. Without government, you have no means to protect Capitalism from basic animal nature.

A patent, indeed all concepts of property ownership, is worth nothing unless you have the means to enforce it.

Without a solid Government you have no reliable means of enforcement. Even your henchmen are liabilities in that case.

[tama]

2. Yep

But I'm intrigued by your choice of words to ask, do you prefer solid Government to protect Capitalism or "basic animal nature"?

[Zalatix]

3. The answer to that is kind of complicated.

We're in an era where the Government exists solely to protect Capitalism, or the masters thereof.

This status quo will only lead, in the end, to basic animal nature for those who are NOT the masters of Capital.

It will come to a point where the only way out is the total collapse of Government, in order to bring down the masters of Capital so the working class can have a chance to rebuild.

Most people fear anarchy and a new Dark Ages. What no one realizes is that we're headed for a world where anarchy and Dark Ages rules the 99% while the 1% watch safely from their gated communities. Protected by drones. Once that condition sets in, it will be fundamentally impossible to undo. Only extinction will cure that.

[tama]

4. Yes it is complicated

But I don't see and experience anarchy as Dark Age or any other symbol of dystopia. I associate anarchy with freedom and democracy and peaceful cooperation, with friendship. And less alienation from our animal and organic nature.

Is socialism what you hope, state socialism?

[Zalatix]

5. Socialism, or at least an economy where the wealth trickles up.

An economy where the bottom 80% of the populace controls, perhaps, between 60% and 80% of the world's wealth, would be much more equitable.

[tama]

7. Did you know

that socialism was originally internationalist ideology, ultimately aiming for liberation from states and borders?

And that best known varieties of national socialism are stalinism and fascism?

[Zalatix]

8. Stalinism and Fascism are NOT Socialism. They are perversions thereof.

[tama]

9. Agreed

And the difference is that Socialism means internationalism, not divide and conquer nationalism. I'm pressing this point because your islamophobic argument against internationalism in the other thread is not socialism. It's perversion of socialism just like stalinism and fascism.

[Kindly Refrain]

6. The CIA's mandate since 1947

has been to open the world to US trade. They have done this effectively all around the world using tools such a assassinations, coups and general disruption.

[Odin2005]

11. Got proof of that tin-foil nonsense?

[Kindly Refrain]

12. Sure, right here from cia.gov

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no3/article05.html

"Promotion of free trade is another sweeping policy that enjoys broad support, even as US regulations and legislation at times pull us in the opposite direction. Support for free trade is premised upon the belief that every country has a comparative advantage in some products, which it can use to develop a trade pattern that benefits itself and its trading partners. Until the current economic crisis in South America, US trade officials were often faced with a dilemma: Should Washington support MERCOSUR, the customs union in the Southern Cone of South America that promotes free trade among its members but imposes high tariffs on outsiders?1 What about Brazil, a member of MERCOSUR whose tone on trade issues bordered on anti-US rhetoric—was that country a friend or a foe in Washington’s effort to promote free trade? Free-traders said “foe,” but the administration determined that because MERCOSUR drove regional economic integration and trade expansion it was compatible with US objectives."

[Odin2005]

10. Private property requires government to enforce it's existence.

[JHB]

13. Bingo, and it's that well known Marxist cesspool "Bloomberg.com" saying it openly

A market without "government interference" is one that consists of "I'll give you these deer hides and strips of dried meat for those arrowheads and stone axe.