Free-market Western democratic capitalism is sustainable, both environmentally and economically, and alone gives us the affluence and freedom to allow a sizable minority to divorce itself from the gritty daily tasks of production to critique and revile the very system that nourishes them.
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Samizdata quote of the dayJune 11th, 2012 |
 6 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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“Critique and revile” is one thing, but as Dr. Hanson points out, when Phaeton take charge of the chariot of the Sun – personages like Obama and Chu, etc. take reins of power – that is quite another bowl for flushing.
“Sustainable” is the wrong word. It implies that we are going to continue doing what we are doing now, and that is precisely not what capitalism delivers or should be delivering.
I disagree, Michael. “Sustainable” simply means that as an economic system capitalism can continue to function indefinitely. There is no implication that any particular business or business model can continue indefinitely. What we choose to do within that system can and will change over time, but the system of privately investing resources (“capital”) to produce desired outputs should not.
What laird said, and more.
Capitalism is an invented term, and it is fine as far as that goes, but what is of value is the freedom of choice than undergirds and defines it.
Some may form corporations, some cooperatives, some communes, some may work as independent farmers or artisans or merchants, some may be driven by an artistic vision, some by an engineering one, some by a committment to a profession, some by a love of letters.
And some by a desire to make as much money as they possibly can.
There is no guarantee of goodness, of positive outcomes without exception, of moral behavior, of progress without setbacks.
Freedom does not bring utopia, only the fullness of human possibility, good, bad, and indifferent.
Why is it sustainable? Because it is the natural condition that people will generally move toward if they have any opportunity at all.
People form associations, engage in trade, barter, try to get a good deal, try to take care of their families, hope to improve themselves as they define it.
Some will lie, cheat, steal, rob, defraud, and otherwise play falsely with others. This is the story of human failings as old as Hammurabi’s code, or the ten commandments.
The keystone, as in all human things, is freedom to live, develop, and strive toward that which we believe will lead to fulfillment. To happiness.
There is an absolutely grotesque discussion of all the imaginary things that statists think “libertarianism” is over at Volockh. It is all the more painfully clueless because their misconceptions are pronounced with such assurance, such unknowing obtuseness.
We have allowed our culture to be deformed by collectivist nonsense to the point where a free individual is considered dangerous, liberty unworkable, and independence of mind and spirit another utopian pipedream, while the guidance of a detached and all powerful elite is safe, wholesome, and the epitome of all that is just and good.
Reality now writes upon the wall, and it is clear we have been found wanting.
Only those who will accept nothing less than living as a free and independent human being can win the contest in which we are now engaged—to determine who will define the course of the future for our civilization.
The 21st century will confront those who love liberty with all the deadly and repressive demons that have destroyed so much, and so many, in generations past.
Capitalism, freedom, is sustainable because it unleashes the human creativity and ingenuity which was stifled for millenia by the dead hand of mysticism and muscle, of the shaman’s taboos and the lord’s sword.
As I have said many times, my children’s children’s children will walk among the stars as free men and women.
All they need is to be unleashed, and they shall own the universe. Freedom sustains itself.
Much as I admire VDH I think he is wrong. Capitalism in any meaningful sense has already disappeared. Freedom is very much on the wane. Securitarians far outnumber libertarians and hence in a full blown democracy people will always vote themselves more money from the public purse as each man tries to live at the expense of everyone else. As for the exercise of unfettered political power the people just love it. Besides, they realize that a state that is big enough to look after them must also be powerful enough to do so.
As De Jouvenel said:
“Where the idea comes from that men hold despotism in detestation I do not know. My own view is that they delight in it”
And so they do. And they will rejoice in the tyranny which will replace democracy when their irresponsibility has destroyed it.
The intentions of this writer were undoubtly good but….
What is “democratic capitalism”?
Does he mean the present state of affairs?
A credit bubble monetary and fianncial system.
A fiscal situation doomed to bankruptcy by an impossible Welfare State burden (in virtually every Western country).
And regulations coverning almost every aspect of human life.
Whatever this is, it is certainly not “sustainable”.
However, the writer is correct – the armchair intellectuals (living off the wealth that industrialists created in the past – and a few good men, Jon Huntsman, the Koch brothers….., still AGAINST ALL THE ODDS manage to create now) want to make the West even MORE collectivist and anti business.
They look at the world and (to them) it is not statist ENOUGH.
Perhaps it is my age – but I believe that anyone who looks at this world and decides that the problem with it is that it is not statist ENOUGH, is so far beyond rationality that trying to communicate with them is a waste of time.