Francis Meville says:
I used for a long time to think the same thing, that only socialism and especially the threat it might prevail for good forces capitalism to work well. Now I must say something else.
What passes today and as capitalism and is more and more triumphing under the name of capitalism, I mean the Ayn Rand ideology of utter individual irresponsibility towards one’s neighbor and contempt for all do-gooders, is not at all the essence of capitalism. Had such an ideology been prevalent in Europe for the few past centuries, there would have never been any such thing as Western modern civilization, it would be quite like more Africa. Actually, many, many more most underdeveloped and impoverished societies of the world have know the Ayn Rand mentality for millennia.
Capitalism needs a paradoxical combination of both Promethean generosity to make the world something far grander, and of capacity to function in a world of greed and scorn.
Milton Friedman never was a capitalist nor in reality nor even also in dream, he always was a world-mob-bribed tenured professor of the kind you may find countless examples in poor oriental despotic systems like Haiti, he would have never been hear of had America taken the wise decision not to allow universities (nor Hollywood) to be built on her soil and referred to the ancient model of Sparta than of Athens, especially in regard of the fact that practically no great invention and absolutely no American invention of the kind that made our technological world possible has ever taken place within or near a University campus.
Real capitalists really dislike the state and do everything to renounce to it like to the sin of flesh, they love the provincial town of their business over all fancy capitals of the world, so-called contemporary capitalists, like pedophile and brothel-operating church rats, say one must dislike the state but count on her alone to get rich and connected, and the town they like best if not alone is Capitol hill : they are court intriguers more akin to those of Arabian Nights. Except as an ideology force-fed to the yokels, except as a virtual reality emanating from Hollywood, capitalism is now dead, as the cowboys are.
Exactly as was the cult of feudal chivalry that was made to enjoy its highest prestige among the scorned populace in 17th century Louis XIV France right at the time Richelieu had ordered the destruction of the last real feudal forts and put to death the last knights who hadn’t turned into mere courtiers in Versailles, right at the time the great minds of France were rejecting and condemning one after another the magical mentality surrounding the power of God-appointed noblemen and saints they were still imposing more forcefully than ever over the masses they despised.
While astrology together with all late medieval and Renaissance lore was more and more condemned as ridiculous and uncouth as well as biblically evil by all the reputedly learned people, it enjoyed a heyday as a staple subject for the paperback books to be printed and sold to the poor and semi-literate by the “Blue Editions” guild of Troyes.
If you happen to seriously believe today in the grandeur of heroes like Ford or Edison, worse still if you really happen to invent something concrete and new to get from rags to riches with, like devising a programming language, you will be laughed at at best by everyone in the Republican Party, by everyone at Harvard School of Economics, by everyone one Wall Street, your fate will be far more problematic than in Stalin’s Russia.
The ideology is more capitalistic than ever, as was the feudalistic ideology in the years just preceding the French Revolution. While the ideology is more capitalistic than ever, a new mode of production has formed and has already got the upper hand, a new mode of production no longer based on the capacity to transform the world through industrial invention and production (something now left over to the slaving and starving peoples), a mode of production rather based on the capacity to transform the image of the world perceived by the senses and the masses.
In my defense, I would like to say that there is no one definition of capitalism, that capitalism, like socialism or Communism, means whatever people are using the word to mean at that time, which means that it can mean different things at different times or even different things to different people at the same time, and no one is ever going to agree on what it means.
The definition of capitalism today is whatever the capitalists think it means, whatever they are using the word to refer to. If they are referring to this modern Ayn Randist Hellhole, well, so be it, that indeed is the definition of capitalism 2014. Of course some other country could always come up with some other model and call that capitalism too, and they would also be right.
Echoing a sixties refrain shouted from the barricades: “One, two, many capitalisms! Or, one, two, many socialisms!”
My definition of socialism encompasses anything that involves a large, intrusive regulatory state that operates in the interests of limiting the profits of capital. This includes social spending. Social spending limits the profits of capital.
Why do you think capitalists hate it so much? It takes money from the capitalists as a tax and gives it to citizens as a service via the state. The capitalists hate it because that is one less dollar in the capitalist economy that could have been used more productively if invested privately instead of publicly. They also hate it because it limits the profits of capital by taking from the capitalist’s surplus as a tax and giving it to the state. Money taken out of workers pockets to spend by the state is less money that can be spend at capitalist storefronts.
One definition of capitalists is that the capitalist is the person who thinks that they should be no limits on the profits of capital. He wants to maximize profits, period. Anything that gets in the way of maximizing profits he hates. Yet the only reason that civilization exists at all is because there is a state in between the wolves (the capitalists) and their prey (the consumers and workers).
This state exists in order to regulate and tax capital with the general purpose of limiting the profits of capital. With unlimited profits and (no limits placed on the profits of capital), such is a hellhole made. The bedrock basis of any civilization occurs when socialists start putting limits on the profits of capital in the interest of the greater good.
So, once again, definitions:
Capitalist: One who believes that no limits should be placed on the profits of capital.
Socialist: One who believes that there should be limits placed on the profits of capital, and is willing put those limits in place via the state.
Conclusion: Markets obviously are run by capitalists. That is what they do best after all. There does need to be some intervention in markets, but this is not an area where the state excels, so the less intervention, the better. At times, they state needs to step in to save the capitalists from themselves because no one is less prudent, more reckless and and more suicidal than the capitalist. There are times when state intervention serves to actually make the market run better. At those times, intervention works wonders.
Governments must be run by socialists, that is, those who believe that the profits of capital should be limited instead of maximized. While limiting profits in favor of civilization, the socialist state still seeks to maximize the productive forces if only to meet the needs of the people and for no other reason.
Problem:
Capture of the state by the capitalists leads to chaos, neo-feudalism, backwardness, Latin Americanization and Third Worldism and the creation of Hellholes everywhere. Capitalist rule has never worked anywhere at anytime and probably it is a natural law that it cannot never work and will always produce a dystopian Libertarian-style state, the antithesis of civilization.
Solution: Keep the capitalists out of the state. The state is the domain of the socialists, not the capitalists. See that market over there? That’s the domain of the capitalists. Now all you capitalists run along now and go play over there in your market and we will call you when it’s suppertime, ok? Ideally, the capitalist market is a tool for the development of the productive forces. The state utilizes this tool as a craftsman utilizes any tool. The tool is utilized to produce its maximum of benefits while limiting the inevitable downside and negative forces of the tool when left to run amok with no adult at the wheel.
