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This is a bit similar to claiming that communism is great, because all the times when it was tried and there were problems weren't real communism. If capitalis

This is a bit similar to claiming that communism is great, because all the times when it was tried and there were problems weren't real communism. If capitalism tends to inevitably lead to corruption of government and the undermining of democracy etc in the long run, then that's an interesting critique, which can't just be swatted away with "yes but the result isn't capitalism".

mindcrime 8y ago
If capitalism tends to inevitably lead to corruption of government That's a pretty big if.
- JetSetWilly 8y ago
  Yes it is - but my point is that it is a reasonable discussion to have, and any attempt to avoid even having the discussion by saying "oh it isn't my theoretical pure capitalism" doesn't work.
- s2g 8y ago
  It's absolutely true.
- Clubber 8y ago
  I would argue capitalism (or any economic system really) always corrupts government, it's just a matter of degree. Farmer A gives free goats (or his daughter in marriage) to farmer B who is in charge of allocating newly acquired tribal farmland. Farmer A gets a good, fertile pasture with a stream, farmer Z might get a bunch of rocky hillside.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mpweiher 8y ago
> If capitalism tends to inevitably lead to corruption of government Everything tends to lead to corruption of government, in fact most forms of government are the corruption we see as the problem here. The key point of liberal democracy is to put mechanisms in place to prevent this from happening.
- JetSetWilly 8y ago
  Well maybe, but there's a question of degree. Free Market / Capitalism proponents, will argue until they are blue in the face about how much more clever and intelligent and better actors in a free and competitive market will behave compared to alternative systems, so why wouldn't these actors also apply that competitive edge to the business of "corrupting the government for personal gain" and end up doing the corruption better than an alternative system would? Perhaps you could have a liberal democracy that copes fine in one era with various built-in systems to combat corruption, but if you make the market more competitive/free-er/better then it can no longer cope in subsequent eras? Who knows, but it certainly seems to match my perceptions of certain countries following market liberalisation.
  - nickik 8y ago
    > end up doing the corruption better than an alternative system would? Because the same people who advocated free markets also thought long and hard about the problems of corruption. Lets remember that scottish enlightment thinkers are not just responsable for many of these ideas but also many of the ideas about how to design parlaments and politics in general. The reason a govenrment in a mostly capitalist state can be resistant is because it can be keeped relativly small and focused a small number of task. There are a large number of safeguards that can be built into the governemnt as long as the government has a limited scope. I also think that as long as government focus on the essentials, a large part of the population will agree that what the government does is good. The mechanism however to not scale having a government that needs to fight massive wars and plan the economy. In his book 'Road to Serfdom' Hayek goes into details about the tention between powerful government action and democratic institutions.
nickik 8y ago
But is not the case that it inevitable that it leads to large amounts of corruption. As we can see that in the real world many of the most economically free governments are also amoung the least corrupt. It seems to me that any system of economic organisation that has a goverment will have some level of that problem, its absolutly impossible not to have the problem in concept. The question is what system would you want where you can effecivly minimise the power of these effects. I would argue that having a small less powerful governmnet that is bound by rules (constiution for example) is the most resistant. As soon a government gets bigger monitoring gets harder, oppertunity for corruption get larger, negative effects of bad regulation have larger scope and so on.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  > As we can see that in the real world many of the most economically free governments are also among the least corrupt. I suspect that "among the least corrupt" is necessary for "most economically free". Or to put it another way: Corruption destroys economic freedom, because those economically on top at the moment use the corruption to write rules that keep others from being able to challenge them.

mindcrime 8y ago

If capitalism tends to inevitably lead to corruption of government That's a pretty big if.

JetSetWilly 8y ago
Yes it is - but my point is that it is a reasonable discussion to have, and any attempt to avoid even having the discussion by saying "oh it isn't my theoretical pure capitalism" doesn't work.
s2g 8y ago
It's absolutely true.
Clubber 8y ago
I would argue capitalism (or any economic system really) always corrupts government, it's just a matter of degree. Farmer A gives free goats (or his daughter in marriage) to farmer B who is in charge of allocating newly acquired tribal farmland. Farmer A gets a good, fertile pasture with a stream, farmer Z might get a bunch of rocky hillside.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mpweiher 8y ago

> If capitalism tends to inevitably lead to corruption of government Everything tends to lead to corruption of government, in fact most forms of government are the corruption we see as the problem here. The key point of liberal democracy is to put mechanisms in place to prevent this from happening.

JetSetWilly 8y ago
Well maybe, but there's a question of degree. Free Market / Capitalism proponents, will argue until they are blue in the face about how much more clever and intelligent and better actors in a free and competitive market will behave compared to alternative systems, so why wouldn't these actors also apply that competitive edge to the business of "corrupting the government for personal gain" and end up doing the corruption better than an alternative system would? Perhaps you could have a liberal democracy that copes fine in one era with various built-in systems to combat corruption, but if you make the market more competitive/free-er/better then it can no longer cope in subsequent eras? Who knows, but it certainly seems to match my perceptions of certain countries following market liberalisation.
- nickik 8y ago
  > end up doing the corruption better than an alternative system would? Because the same people who advocated free markets also thought long and hard about the problems of corruption. Lets remember that scottish enlightment thinkers are not just responsable for many of these ideas but also many of the ideas about how to design parlaments and politics in general. The reason a govenrment in a mostly capitalist state can be resistant is because it can be keeped relativly small and focused a small number of task. There are a large number of safeguards that can be built into the governemnt as long as the government has a limited scope. I also think that as long as government focus on the essentials, a large part of the population will agree that what the government does is good. The mechanism however to not scale having a government that needs to fight massive wars and plan the economy. In his book 'Road to Serfdom' Hayek goes into details about the tention between powerful government action and democratic institutions.

nickik 8y ago

But is not the case that it inevitable that it leads to large amounts of corruption. As we can see that in the real world many of the most economically free governments are also amoung the least corrupt. It seems to me that any system of economic organisation that has a goverment will have some level of that problem, its absolutly impossible not to have the problem in concept. The question is what system would you want where you can effecivly minimise the power of these effects. I would argue that having a small less powerful governmnet that is bound by rules (constiution for example) is the most resistant. As soon a government gets bigger monitoring gets harder, oppertunity for corruption get larger, negative effects of bad regulation have larger scope and so on.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
> As we can see that in the real world many of the most economically free governments are also among the least corrupt. I suspect that "among the least corrupt" is necessary for "most economically free". Or to put it another way: Corruption destroys economic freedom, because those economically on top at the moment use the corruption to write rules that keep others from being able to challenge them.