In the biblical book of Genesis, Pharaoh is troubled by a dream: “And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fat-fleshed; and they fed in a meadow. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and lean-fleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill favoured and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine.”
As interpreted by Joseph, this dream foretold seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine.
Pharaoh’s dream is an excellent metaphor for capitalism — an economic system in which the state intervenes in the market on behalf of privileged classes. Only under capitalism, the dearth results not from natural conditions like drought or blight, but from human-made conditions. And unlike Pharaoh’s dream, which portended misfortune both for his realm and for himself, for capitalists this is a good dream.
You see, capitalists — as opposed to legitimate actors in a free market — make money by obstructing production and reducing productivity. Thorstein Veblen, the founder of institutional economics, observed that most of the revenues accruing to the propertied classes are rents from “capitalized disserviceability.” Most of their so-called “property rights” are property in the right to prevent production taking place except on their terms. A good example is landlordism, the enforcement of absentee title against those who actually first cultivate vacant and unimproved land, and their heirs and assigns. By this means landlords are able to reap where they did not sow.
Sometimes to accomplish this it is necessary to deliberately impair the productivity of new technology in order to make it more amenable to the extraction of rents. Hence Monsanto’s genetically-modified seeds, which are deliberately designed with a built-in terminator gene to prevent them from reproducing — so the farmer always has to buy more seeds from Monsanto (in fact Monsanto attempts to enforce patent rights against seed-savers even beyond the first sale, in cases where the seeds are capable of reproducing). Hence e-books sold to libraries, which are designed to self-destruct after a few readings so the publisher can keep selling replacement copies. And hence, more generally, digital copyright law whose sole purpose is to impose artificial inefficiencies on what would otherwise by nature be the instantaneous replication of information at zero marginal cost.
In the industrial field, the lords of artificial scarcity intend to hobble the potential productivity of 3-D printers by DRMing the CAD/CAM files and criminalizing the production of hardware capable of circumventing DRM.
The good news is that this strategy is futile. As Cory Doctorow pointed out, the computer is a machine for copying bits, without limit, at zero cost. A business strategy based on preventing the copying of bits is doomed to fail. And more generally, the collection of profits by impeding the free flow of information and the copying of improved techniques is doomed to fail. No matter how totalitarian the information lockdown the proprietary content industries attempt to impose through the state, the forces of information freedom are always one step ahead. Such laws simply speed up the mainstreaming of encryption, proxy servers, and the relocation of site hosting to countries like Iceland outside the DRM Curtain.
In the case of industry, a proprietary regime is simply unenforceable. Legally or not, open hardware hackers can easily replicate open-source desktop machine tools using … desktop machine tools. And they can strip CAD/CAM files of DRM as easily as file-sharers currently do from music and movies. Industrial patents are enforceable only in an environment of low transaction costs, like what prevailed under mass production. In the old days, the transaction costs of enforcing patents were low because a handful of oligopoly manufacturers produced a handful of similar designs, and marketed them through a handful of nationwide retail chains. What happens when a garage microfactory in every neighborhood is downloading design files from The Pirate Bay and producing knockoffs of proprietary designs, or making generic spare parts to keep GE and Westinghouse appliances running? What happens when they market their manufactured goods in a hundred thousand Mom-n-Pop stores and neighborhood bazaars?
We’re approaching victory in the five-thousand-year war between natural abundance and artificial scarcity.
Translations for this article:
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, Capitalism: Pharaoh’s Dream, Dhaka, Bangladesh New Age, 10/24/12
This article does a poor job for lack of defining capitalism as a term. In the end, however, it is much easier to decry instances of fraud as fraud, rather than assuming people agree with your terminology considering capitalism is viewed in so many ways.
Omitting the authoritarianism of the state as a contributing factor in the limitation of market freedom by anti competitive agents is an oversight too important to proceed from in trying to make the arguments the author intends the reader to understand.
Hrm, maybe you missed it. The term capitalism is defined in the first sentence of the third paragraph and addresses state authoritarianism as a factor. Or am I misunderstanding you?
"capitalism — an economic system in which the state intervenes in the market on behalf of privileged classes."
I like that this article defines capitalism. Many articles do not. Precision is lovely.
Not to belittle your comments, but I don't feel Mr. Carson intended to define capitalism and authoritarianism is implied through the idea of the "legality" of the patents in question.
It helps to recognize that capitalism stems from injustice and exploitation — and that it has been upheld via state authority since the beginning — in order to understand the terms usage in this manner.
You are correct in a strict sense that the piece provided a definition, however, I sympathize with Pep. To redefine capitalism as evil-by-definition merely for the purpose of calling it evil is completely gratuitous. In any case, who is interested in someone's novel definition of "capitalism?" Answer: nobody.
Our purpose should be to promote freedom, not engage in endless word-mincing and term-juggling. Shall we leave that divisive waste of time to those with nothing better to do?
Monsanto is ALL patents and no terminator gene, FYI. This is a problem in its own right, because terminator genes (or gene deletor, an advanced form of terminator gene that overwrites the "upgrades" if a compound is not applied during germination) would prevent the unintended SPREAD of GMOs. As it stands, the lack of a terminator gene means that cross-contamination of natural/organic crops with GMO crops is possible, which can be terrible for the ecosystem surrounding the GMO-using farm.
Absent patents, one could reasonably expect Monsanto to employ terminator or gene deletor approaches to keep captive their customer base, which in and of itself is pretty terrible… but at least GMO contamination of organic gene pools wouldn't be a problem. Here the State is both enabling capitalized disserviceability AND contributing to the destruction of the biosphere.
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Its tricky business from here out.
You are right: our purpose should be to promote freedom, not engage in endless word-mincing and term-juggling. But unfortunately we have this annoying fact: there are different uses of the word capitalism, and furthermore different feelings about the meanings and implications of the term. Heck, the term divides the anarchist movement (see here: http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/faq.html#pa…. This really frustrates communication for everyone, friend and foe alike.
With this in mind, if one looks at the history capitalism and the use of the word one will find that Kevin Carson's definition of capitalism above is neither redefining nor novel. (And, I will admit, such a use was once confusing and insincere sounding to me, ridiculous even. I credit the public school brain washing and the American Mythos' successful branding of the word on its own terms. But that's just me.)
Look at the content headings for the wikipedia entry for capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
One can see there are multiple types of capitalism, it has a wild history, there is a variety of perspectives on it, and even the etymology of the term is a bit stunning. And just touching on the history of capitalism, one sees that it really gets started under merchantilism if not earlier under late feudalism. These are hardly ethical and moral economic systems, so as an anarchist looking at the word capitalism historically it's hard to imagine wanting to associate with it at all. Historically speaking it is one vile brand name!
But things change. Words change. Trends change. Anarcho-capitalism is on the rise. Sure, why not. Good! It's just really weird and creepy sounding to the old school left wing anarchists who mean something quite different (and historically more accurate) by the term capitalism. And thus why it's good to be precise with terms (and if possible learn to speak in a multitude of ways depending on the audience, ideological friend or foe alike.)
Make sense?
::Peace::
Great comment!
I would like to add a few more related links for those that end up reading these comments.
Libertarian Anticapitalism by Charles Johnson http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2011/08/libe…
The Many Monopolies by Charles Johnson http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/the-many…
Capitalism, Corporatism, and the Freed Market by Sheldon Richman http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/capi…
Block Says Yes to Capitalism by Sheldon Richman http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2010/0…
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Fortycal: "Our purpose should be to promote freedom, not engage in endless word-mincing and term-juggling."
No doubt. So why are you here bellyaching about how Kevin Carson uses the word "capitalism" wrong, rather than discussing the argument that he communicates in the article? If the argument is a good argument, it can survive any terminological decision, for good or for ill, about the usage of the term "capitalism" (a usage which Kevin makes absolutely clear at the beginning of the article). If it's a bad argument, then it will be bad whether or not you allow it to be read on its own terms.
And as for WHY someone might want to define "capitalism" the way KC does, see: http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/charti…
So why are you here bellyaching about how Kevin Carson uses the word "capitalism" wrong, rather than discussing the argument that he communicates in the article? If the argument is a good argument. visit
The trade we want abides no special, coercive privilege; the society we want countenances no arbitrary, political authority.
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