5 ms·

How Did American Capitalism Mutate into American Corporatism?

36 points by agarren 2y ago

BMc2020 2y ago
Jeffrey Albert Tucker is an American libertarian writer, publisher, entrepreneur and advocate of anarcho-capitalism and Bitcoin. For many years he worked for Ron Paul, the Mises Institute, and Lew Rockwell.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  In other words a lunatic.
  - throwiforgtnlzy 2y ago
    Yep. The worse circumstance is when a lunatic champions a legitimate cause be it technological authoritarianism, the absurd concentration of corporate power, or income inequality. It's worth remembering that "libertarian writers" advanced deregulation and climate change denial tropes for decades, and "libertarianism" is itself a billionaire-manufactured and -evangelized sock puppet ideological religion concocted with the help and credibility of Laissez-faire, pro-corporate economists and riding the coattails of a philosophically-bankrupt fiction writer who makes the irrational leap that reality (to a human observer) can ever be a known, unbiased, and concrete certainty. https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Virtue-of-Stupidity-A-Critique-of-Ayn-Rand-and-Objectivism https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Virtue-of-Stupidity-A-C...
- pinewurst 2y ago
  Also, “Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times”
- jaybrendansmith 2y ago
  An hominem. Just because he appears to be a loon on paper doesn't mean his point is invalid. I found myself nodding a few times in his essay, it's been predicted by many science fiction authors that we'd eventually end up in a corporate state of some kind. All that remains is private drone armies to complete the final step to dystopia. There are very obvious things that need to be done, I'm sure if the author had made recommendations he would have immediately lost me. My own recommendations would be to remove money from elections, reduce lobbying, trust busting. These pragmatic solutions will take a political groundswell to actual make happen, but it appears the public are unaware of the root cause of their pain.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    you're the one claiming he's a loon mon ami. to some he may just be extra qualified
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jokethrowaway 2y ago
[flagged]
- krapp 2y ago
  If the US was actually a socialist country, I would be able to afford higher education and healthcare.
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    No, that's a free market economy with a strong social safety net and/or price controls. If the US were actually a socialist country, you would not need to buy higher education and healthcare.
    - glitchc 2y ago
      It has a safety net, sure, but it's by no means strong.
    - zmgsabst 2y ago
      Arguably, most don’t do either in the US. Government typically secures the financing for education; government regulations (eg, mandated insurance) and policies (eg, mandated ER) are a substantial fraction of healthcare. More so if you include the VA and MediCare. Neither is something that resembles a free market.
  - theendisney 2y ago
    I dont think wanting [more] things for yourself is the road to socialialism. It reminds me of people praying for more or better things for themselves. Why would the gods of capitalism care for that? Why would any god?
alphazard 2y ago
Because the cost of rent seeking is exceeded by the value of the rents.
sien 2y ago
Car companies in 1910 would have been real bastions of free enterprise. By 1950 they had massive lobbyists and all the rest. All large industries wind up working with government. The tech companies didn't have them initially because they were not that big. But now that they are huge of course they work with the US government. The US government and big business have interests that sometimes converge but to say it's all corporatist is overstating it. The US government still engages in anti-trust. Companies would sit there and be really annoyed by various actions taken by the US government.
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  >> Car companies in 1910 would have been real bastions of free enterprise. By 1950 they had massive lobbyists and all the rest Car companies couldn't produce cars between February, 1942 and October, 1945, because the federal government ordered them to produce weapons instead. There was certainly at least one car company executive that resisted that, he got called a fascist. Free enterprise was completely suspended. 100%.
  - parl_match 2y ago
    > There was certainly at least one car company executive that resisted that, he got called a fascist. That's not really the whole story, lol.
    - rufus_foreman 2y ago
      Whole story of course is longer than that, lol.
      - parl_match 2y ago
        Right, and your simplification is misleading and misrepresents the whole story.
  - m463 2y ago
    Don't understand the point. (not bad considering other countries used involuntary workers during that time period)
seo-speedwagon 2y ago
This is also why neither the left nor the right, nor Democrats or Republicans, nor capitalists or socialists, seem to be speaking clearly to the moment in which we live. [...] I truly wish these companies were genuinely private, but they are not. They are de facto state actors. More precisely, they all work hand-in-glove and which is the hand and which is the glove is no longer clear. Epoch Times guy is really onto something here. It's crazy that there's no existing body of literature that explores how the ways in which a society's productive forces and relations (its "base", if you will) interacts with its other institutions like government, media, etc. (its "superstructure", if you will). But here we are. He's the lone Cassandra, his desperate cries falling upon deaf ears.
- moshun 2y ago
  I’m not sure if you’re joking so forgive me if the sarcasm missed me, but there is a gargantuan body of work on this subject. It’s central to theories Marx developed and was expanded on by both his contemporaries and more modern scholars in fields like political economics, sociology and cultural studies. Some reading around this: Louis Althusser: "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970) Antonio Gramsci: "Prison Notebooks" (1929-1935) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: "The German Ideology" (1845) and "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" (1859) Honestly it’s astonishing that so few (especially in the US) have an understanding of these points of view and are left reading sources like the Epoch Times to form a view of capitalism that isn’t “I love it, even though I don’t what it is”.
  - seo-speedwagon 2y ago
    I was indeed being sarcastic. I found it pretty galling that this guy claimed no one is speaking to these things when, as you pointed out, there is a massive body of theory dating back over 150 years that addresses these things with diligence and scholarly rigor. You did much better than me by actually providing some references!
    - yodon 2y ago
      >I was indeed being sarcastic You might want to take this as an opportunity to re-read Poe's law[0]. It does in fact always apply on the internet. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
morninglight 2y ago
Start here and work backwards... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC .
red-iron-pine 2y ago
presumably, post US Civil War. the "Gilded Age" and all that. Also the age of actual snake-oil salesmen and literally blowing smoke up your ass. excesses of which are best exemplified by The Jungle, the Pullman Railcar Strike, or the fact that union leader Eugene Debs got ~3% of the US national vote -- the highest ever for a socialist candidate, even now -- while in federal prison (or leading labor riots). Or how John Company managed to take over most of India, etc. There is an attempt to create a narrative that this is a new thing, but it's been a thing forever.
johnea 2y ago
techno-corporatism = capilalism It's sort of sadly funny to see the author try to appoligize for a basic tennet of modern US capitalism: make more money at all costs (to others) Every single issue he describes is due to unregulated capitalism. Once the "market" is eliminated by virtue of one overwhelmingly dominant vendor, who gets to guide the magical invisible hand?
nataliste 2y ago
I mean, it's not rocket science how it happened. Here's a short PSA from 1946 that breaks it down: https://archive.org/details/Despotis1946 https://archive.org/details/Despotis1946

36 points by agarren 2y ago

BMc2020 2y ago

Jeffrey Albert Tucker is an American libertarian writer, publisher, entrepreneur and advocate of anarcho-capitalism and Bitcoin. For many years he worked for Ron Paul, the Mises Institute, and Lew Rockwell.

forgetfreeman 2y ago
In other words a lunatic.
- throwiforgtnlzy 2y ago
  Yep. The worse circumstance is when a lunatic champions a legitimate cause be it technological authoritarianism, the absurd concentration of corporate power, or income inequality. It's worth remembering that "libertarian writers" advanced deregulation and climate change denial tropes for decades, and "libertarianism" is itself a billionaire-manufactured and -evangelized sock puppet ideological religion concocted with the help and credibility of Laissez-faire, pro-corporate economists and riding the coattails of a philosophically-bankrupt fiction writer who makes the irrational leap that reality (to a human observer) can ever be a known, unbiased, and concrete certainty. https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Virtue-of-Stupidity-A-Critique-of-Ayn-Rand-and-Objectivism https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Virtue-of-Stupidity-A-C...
pinewurst 2y ago
Also, “Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times”
jaybrendansmith 2y ago
An hominem. Just because he appears to be a loon on paper doesn't mean his point is invalid. I found myself nodding a few times in his essay, it's been predicted by many science fiction authors that we'd eventually end up in a corporate state of some kind. All that remains is private drone armies to complete the final step to dystopia. There are very obvious things that need to be done, I'm sure if the author had made recommendations he would have immediately lost me. My own recommendations would be to remove money from elections, reduce lobbying, trust busting. These pragmatic solutions will take a political groundswell to actual make happen, but it appears the public are unaware of the root cause of their pain.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  you're the one claiming he's a loon mon ami. to some he may just be extra qualified

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jokethrowaway 2y ago

[flagged]

krapp 2y ago
If the US was actually a socialist country, I would be able to afford higher education and healthcare.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  No, that's a free market economy with a strong social safety net and/or price controls. If the US were actually a socialist country, you would not need to buy higher education and healthcare.
  - glitchc 2y ago
    It has a safety net, sure, but it's by no means strong.
  - zmgsabst 2y ago
    Arguably, most don’t do either in the US. Government typically secures the financing for education; government regulations (eg, mandated insurance) and policies (eg, mandated ER) are a substantial fraction of healthcare. More so if you include the VA and MediCare. Neither is something that resembles a free market.
- theendisney 2y ago
  I dont think wanting [more] things for yourself is the road to socialialism. It reminds me of people praying for more or better things for themselves. Why would the gods of capitalism care for that? Why would any god?

alphazard 2y ago

Because the cost of rent seeking is exceeded by the value of the rents.

sien 2y ago

Car companies in 1910 would have been real bastions of free enterprise. By 1950 they had massive lobbyists and all the rest. All large industries wind up working with government. The tech companies didn't have them initially because they were not that big. But now that they are huge of course they work with the US government. The US government and big business have interests that sometimes converge but to say it's all corporatist is overstating it. The US government still engages in anti-trust. Companies would sit there and be really annoyed by various actions taken by the US government.

rufus_foreman 2y ago
>> Car companies in 1910 would have been real bastions of free enterprise. By 1950 they had massive lobbyists and all the rest Car companies couldn't produce cars between February, 1942 and October, 1945, because the federal government ordered them to produce weapons instead. There was certainly at least one car company executive that resisted that, he got called a fascist. Free enterprise was completely suspended. 100%.
- parl_match 2y ago
  > There was certainly at least one car company executive that resisted that, he got called a fascist. That's not really the whole story, lol.
  - rufus_foreman 2y ago
    Whole story of course is longer than that, lol.
    - parl_match 2y ago
      Right, and your simplification is misleading and misrepresents the whole story.
- m463 2y ago
  Don't understand the point. (not bad considering other countries used involuntary workers during that time period)

seo-speedwagon 2y ago

This is also why neither the left nor the right, nor Democrats or Republicans, nor capitalists or socialists, seem to be speaking clearly to the moment in which we live. [...] I truly wish these companies were genuinely private, but they are not. They are de facto state actors. More precisely, they all work hand-in-glove and which is the hand and which is the glove is no longer clear. Epoch Times guy is really onto something here. It's crazy that there's no existing body of literature that explores how the ways in which a society's productive forces and relations (its "base", if you will) interacts with its other institutions like government, media, etc. (its "superstructure", if you will). But here we are. He's the lone Cassandra, his desperate cries falling upon deaf ears.

moshun 2y ago
I’m not sure if you’re joking so forgive me if the sarcasm missed me, but there is a gargantuan body of work on this subject. It’s central to theories Marx developed and was expanded on by both his contemporaries and more modern scholars in fields like political economics, sociology and cultural studies. Some reading around this: Louis Althusser: "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970) Antonio Gramsci: "Prison Notebooks" (1929-1935) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: "The German Ideology" (1845) and "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" (1859) Honestly it’s astonishing that so few (especially in the US) have an understanding of these points of view and are left reading sources like the Epoch Times to form a view of capitalism that isn’t “I love it, even though I don’t what it is”.
- seo-speedwagon 2y ago
  I was indeed being sarcastic. I found it pretty galling that this guy claimed no one is speaking to these things when, as you pointed out, there is a massive body of theory dating back over 150 years that addresses these things with diligence and scholarly rigor. You did much better than me by actually providing some references!
  - yodon 2y ago
    >I was indeed being sarcastic You might want to take this as an opportunity to re-read Poe's law[0]. It does in fact always apply on the internet. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

morninglight 2y ago

Start here and work backwards... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC .

red-iron-pine 2y ago

presumably, post US Civil War. the "Gilded Age" and all that. Also the age of actual snake-oil salesmen and literally blowing smoke up your ass. excesses of which are best exemplified by The Jungle, the Pullman Railcar Strike, or the fact that union leader Eugene Debs got ~3% of the US national vote -- the highest ever for a socialist candidate, even now -- while in federal prison (or leading labor riots). Or how John Company managed to take over most of India, etc. There is an attempt to create a narrative that this is a new thing, but it's been a thing forever.

johnea 2y ago

techno-corporatism = capilalism It's sort of sadly funny to see the author try to appoligize for a basic tennet of modern US capitalism: make more money at all costs (to others) Every single issue he describes is due to unregulated capitalism. Once the "market" is eliminated by virtue of one overwhelmingly dominant vendor, who gets to guide the magical invisible hand?

nataliste 2y ago

I mean, it's not rocket science how it happened. Here's a short PSA from 1946 that breaks it down: https://archive.org/details/Despotis1946 https://archive.org/details/Despotis1946