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I'm well familiar with this viewpoint. I was and still largely am sympathetic to its (at least idealized) intentions, however too often it became obvious that t

I'm well familiar with this viewpoint. I was and still largely am sympathetic to its (at least idealized) intentions, however too often it became obvious that those who hold it forget all about Hanlon's Razor. Not every policy failure is a deliberate conspiracy and to paint them as such is dishonesty. More often than not, those who subscribe to these conspiratorial views of "big evil Capitalism coming to get you" become blinded to actual solutions and end up perpetuating the very problems they purport to wish to solve.

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
I mean even these avowed anarcho-capitalists have pretty much the same criticism of the World Bank as John Pilger: https://c4ss.org/content/80 https://c4ss.org/content/80 How do you feel about The State as an institution?
- andrewjl 6y ago
  I'm not an anarcho-capitalist if that's what you're asking. Anarcho-capitalism is a great idealization but remains unsuitable for the real world. It's very hard to discuss the State without referencing Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, etc. Over the past century min-anarchism (of which I at least consider anarcho-capitalism to be a variant of) in general has not offered anything convincing to solve the issues they raised. I'm not optimistic it will do so in the next century either. I'm open to having my mind changed though. How does one assure security with a minimal "night watchman" State? Note that security does not just mean physical security, but also an intangible feeling of safety in the sense that one can go outside without fear of anything untoward happening to them. And I'm well familiar with Ben Franklin's aphorism. Nevertheless it is a real issue and one that the U.S. Constitution solved reasonably well. Edit: Also I find it hard to take seriously anybody that references "neoliberal policies" as that article does. What does that even mean? Free markets? Property rights? Movement of capital? All those things are ingredients to prosperity, in my view. Often "neoliberal" ends up just being those parts of capitalism that one doesn't like. And of course everyone has their own subset. Mass confusion, non-stop arguments over I'm not sure what exactly ensue.
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    It’s interesting that you take your own unfamiliarity with a term to somehow suggest that the person using the term doesn’t know what they’re talking about. You could just look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
    - andrewjl 6y ago
      > it quickly took on negative connotations and was employed principally by critics of market reform and laissez-faire capitalism - from the Wikipedia article you linked "Capitalism when it does something I don't like" isn't a definition. If you want to criticize laissez-faire capitalism then use the proper term for it, not some squishy, mysterious neologism. Unfortunately when that happens, this becomes a discussion on comparative political economy. Those these critics tend to lose on the merits. Hence they insist on the mystification.
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        Neiliberalism is a proper economic term, used and defined by real economists, and Ha-Joon Chang im particular, in his book "Economics, the User's Guide". If you read it, you might stop criticising other people for things you don't know. You will also find out that neoliberal policies have delivered quite poor ecobomic results conpared to kenzian and shumpeterian alternatives
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
According to [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) there is no need for deliberate conspiracy, because of bad incentives, immanent to the structure of our current systems. Of course that does not necessarilily exclude deliberate gaming of the system.
- andrewjl 6y ago
  So instead of a technical discussion on how to improve incentives, governance, etc we'll concoct fun, semi-fictional storylines and cash in on the book / film sales. Got it! Perhaps the so-called "critics" of corporate greed are really just telling on themselves...

TaylorAlexander 6y ago

I mean even these avowed anarcho-capitalists have pretty much the same criticism of the World Bank as John Pilger: https://c4ss.org/content/80 https://c4ss.org/content/80 How do you feel about The State as an institution?

andrewjl 6y ago
I'm not an anarcho-capitalist if that's what you're asking. Anarcho-capitalism is a great idealization but remains unsuitable for the real world. It's very hard to discuss the State without referencing Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, etc. Over the past century min-anarchism (of which I at least consider anarcho-capitalism to be a variant of) in general has not offered anything convincing to solve the issues they raised. I'm not optimistic it will do so in the next century either. I'm open to having my mind changed though. How does one assure security with a minimal "night watchman" State? Note that security does not just mean physical security, but also an intangible feeling of safety in the sense that one can go outside without fear of anything untoward happening to them. And I'm well familiar with Ben Franklin's aphorism. Nevertheless it is a real issue and one that the U.S. Constitution solved reasonably well. Edit: Also I find it hard to take seriously anybody that references "neoliberal policies" as that article does. What does that even mean? Free markets? Property rights? Movement of capital? All those things are ingredients to prosperity, in my view. Often "neoliberal" ends up just being those parts of capitalism that one doesn't like. And of course everyone has their own subset. Mass confusion, non-stop arguments over I'm not sure what exactly ensue.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  It’s interesting that you take your own unfamiliarity with a term to somehow suggest that the person using the term doesn’t know what they’re talking about. You could just look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
  - andrewjl 6y ago
    > it quickly took on negative connotations and was employed principally by critics of market reform and laissez-faire capitalism - from the Wikipedia article you linked "Capitalism when it does something I don't like" isn't a definition. If you want to criticize laissez-faire capitalism then use the proper term for it, not some squishy, mysterious neologism. Unfortunately when that happens, this becomes a discussion on comparative political economy. Those these critics tend to lose on the merits. Hence they insist on the mystification.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      Neiliberalism is a proper economic term, used and defined by real economists, and Ha-Joon Chang im particular, in his book "Economics, the User's Guide". If you read it, you might stop criticising other people for things you don't know. You will also find out that neoliberal policies have delivered quite poor ecobomic results conpared to kenzian and shumpeterian alternatives

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

According to [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) there is no need for deliberate conspiracy, because of bad incentives, immanent to the structure of our current systems. Of course that does not necessarilily exclude deliberate gaming of the system.

andrewjl 6y ago
So instead of a technical discussion on how to improve incentives, governance, etc we'll concoct fun, semi-fictional storylines and cash in on the book / film sales. Got it! Perhaps the so-called "critics" of corporate greed are really just telling on themselves...