3 ms·

I don't quite disagree, but I think his point is that capitalism breeds cronyism. Thus, they're one in the same.

• pitaj 8y ago
  Statism breeds cronyism in proportion to the power the state has over the market. Politicians need to get their dirty hands off the throat of the market.
  • AlexandrB 8y ago
    This is wrong for a variety reasons. Ranging from the way money and power are intimately linked (even if you exclude cronyism as a mechanism). To the way that concentrated money can create its own markets or overrule existing ones by force (see heavily subsidized "startups" like Uber driving taxis out of business). But let's assume you're right. The problem then is that the purpose of society is not to create efficient markets, it's the purpose of efficient markets to maintains and support a functional society. Markets are a means not an ends. On their own they have no moral compass, they're simply a distributed genetic algorithm seeking supply/demand maxima. There's nothing intrinsic about the structure of capitalism that suggests it tends towards a fair and equitable society. Indeed, large companies have a long history of supporting and co-operating with some of the worst dictators in history. The state, when it works, can be a means of directing market forces - either through taxation or regulation - towards ends that society thinks are beneficial. I don't get a vote in how IBM or Microsoft or Facebook operate. I do get to vote for representatives who I think will keep these companies in check and, for example, stop Facebook from surveilling me everywhere I go. I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in solutions to cronyism that mean I have even less power over my environment.