Statism ≠ Socialism; Pro-Market ≠ Pro-Business
Posted by Kevin Carson on Feb 5, 2010 in Commentary • 24 commentsIn a recent column Sheldon Richman treated right-wing mouth frothing about Obama’s “socialism” and “Marxism” with exactly the dismissive tone it deserves:
“Despite what some popular right-wing talk-show hosts claim, Obama is not pushing Marxism, revolutionary or otherwise. The threat is not from socialism in the sense of State ownership of the means of production, much less a proletarian uprising. Rather, he’s pushing good old American progressive-corporate elitism, or corporatism. (Some would simply call it capitalism.) It is anti-free market, but not anti-business.”
If Goldman-Sachs and the auto industry are the new hotbeds of socialism, it’s been a remarkably successful ideology. It’s a success comparable converting the largest cotton planters in South Carolina to abolitionism ca. 1850—while they continued to work their plantations with slave labor.
There used to be a joke in the old Soviet Union about how Leonid Brezhnev proudly showed off his dacha, his car, and his GUM department store shopping privileges, etc., to his mother. When his growing uneasiness in the face of his mom’s silence finally became too much, Brezhnev brought the issue to a head: “Mama, aren’t you pleased that I’ve done so well?” “Well, of course I’m proud of you, Lyonya. But what will happen to you if those awful Communists ever take over?”
Government interventionism does not equate to “socialism,” any more than being in favor of free markets implies a “pro-business” stance. Business interests are some of the biggest supporters of state intervention in the economy, and some of its biggest beneficiaries.
Carlos Watson, at Fast Company, made the mistake of equating libertarianism to the interests of the business community. The best thing that could happen to libertarianism, he said, would be if some prominent CEOs joined the movement.
“If Libertarians want to have a real impact in 2010 or 2012, they need to recruit from the business world, where their values will resonate most. Places like Silicon Valley, Austin, and Seattle. You don’t have to look far to find high-profile CEO types who are likely Libertarians hiding out in the major parties.”
Um, where exactly did Watson get the idea libertarian “values” would “resonate the most” in the business world? From what I’ve seen, the business world’s values are reflected in the remarks of former ADM chief Dwayne Andreas:
*”Tell me, what do they do for us in Bulgaria? Do they fix the prices? Or is there some kind of a free market?”
*”There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians.”
*“The competitor is our friend , the customer is our enemy.”
Watson’s proposals sound like the kiss of death for libertarianism’s credibility for anyone who doesn’t see workers and consumers as just a bunch of parasitic moochers propped up by Galtian supermen like J. Montgomery Burns. It’s the perfect recipe for branding libertarians as “pot-smoking Republicans” till the end of time.
Silicon Valley CEOs? Austin and Seattle? Sure—I’ll bet the folks at HP and Microsoft are just champing at the bit to scale back the digital copyright regime and the rest of our draconian “intellectual property” laws. While he’s at it, why not some execs from the music and movie industries? Or maybe some Monsanto and Cargill execs who’d like to play the United Fruit role in a remake of Guatemala, to “protect the free market” with gunboat diplomacy?
The single biggest way corporate CEOs could remove the stigma of “free market libertarianism” (falsely so-called) among the general public would be if somebody leaked internal corporate memos to the effect that genuine free markets would hurt their profits. We need another Dwayne Andreas/Ken Lay type to privately write, in so many words, that “government regulation enables us to fuck Grandma Millie” and that “the free market is our enemy.”
But if Watson had his way, the libertarian strategy would be to attract people like Lay and Andreas who see fake free markets as a way to HELP them fuck Grandma Millie.
That would be a “victory” for libertarianism, I guess—if it were the equivalent of an “abolitionist” movement that preferred recruiting plantation owners to freeing slaves.
The idea that government owned auto manufacturing, government owned retirement planning via social security, government owned transportation via subsidised bus systems and Amtrak, government owned medical services via medicare and the impending health-scare reform to name but a few is anything less than socialism just astounds me. So called anarchists who claim in their sociopathic world view that they are against the state, are not at all. They merely want to replace the current state with another. Forced economic planning is what it is. If your goal is maximum liberty and freedom for the individual, than any kind of socialism is the wrong answer. That includes both the Soviet answer to socialism, and the fascist answer favored by Franco, Hitler, Mussolini and the last (insert your favorite random number here) American presidents.
To claim that because American socialists tend to prefer including business in their diabolical plans, and that because business and property owners in the US tend to prefer to engage the always willing power of the state as an ally does nothing to refute the argument that the only path to individual liberty is through a completely free market based in individual property rights.
I am quite frankly amazed that the above article was written by anyone claiming to hold freedom and liberty as a value. Please correct me if I am wrong, but my impression upon reading this is that you see some kind of positive value in socialism, and that for some unaccounted for reason, the extant government ownership of the means of production do not fit your definition of socialism. You claim that corporate participation in this scheme of economic planning negates the existence of socialism. I disagree. When in history have planners ever shied from fattening their own wallets in the name of “good for the community”.
I’m extremely disappointed with this article and am left wondering exactly who’s side you’re on.
Thank you for your time,
Brian Singer
Brian Singer, the issue is “know your enemy”, target identification. Sure, for certain purposes it doesn’t matter, as in the old joke about how to tell the difference between a brown bear and a grizzly: if you see a bear coming after you, climb a tree to get away from it; if it climbs the tree after you, it’s a brown bear, but if it just knocks the tree down, it’s a grizzly.
But if you weren’t sure whether meningitis (say) was from a virus or a bacterium, knowing which would make a lot of difference to choosing the right treatment – even though the first symptoms that alerted you were the same.
So, no, corporatism is materially different from full blown socialism, despite doing the same harm to ordinary people; if nothing else, the former gets corporations on side and makes them the natural allies of the enemy and not of yours – just as the article points out. It’s precisely the conflating of the two diseases that you are doing that led people into mistaking their enemies for their friends in that way – and it matters for choosing what to do about the threat.
Brian, what exactly do you know about socialism? I’d be pretty impressed if you could tell me much — if anything — at all about that doesn’t make some sort of bizarre equivocation of socialism with Marxism or centralized planning.
But what the fuck do I know. I’m just a sociopath.
The fact that you take this piece as an attempt to “refute the argument that the only path to individual liberty is through a completely free market based in individual property rights” indicates you’re reading it in the light of a lot of incorrect assumptions.
I don’t consider business acting through the state to be “socialism”; nor do I consider government ownership and/or control of the economy, as such, to equal “socialism.”
A major segment of the nineteenth century socialist movement, a segment to which I trace my own intellectual roots, did not favor such action at all. It considered state-enforced artificial property rights and artificial scarcity, and the monopoly rents resulting from them, to be the main engine of economic exploitation; they considered a totally free market, without such artificial property rights, to be the best way to achieve socialism. Recognition of the first homesteader as rightful owner of land, and the elimination of titles to vacant and unimproved land, would drive land rent down. Free competition in the supply of credit would drive interest down. And to update the model for the present, eliminating patents and copyright would eliminate the portion of the price of goods that reflects embedded rents rather than labor and materials. Eliminating zoning, licensing and “safety” laws whose main effect is to impose overhead costs on small business operators and force them to “get big or get out” would drastically reduce the overhead burden of daily life and create a far more agile, resilient, low-cost economy.
Even the state socialists, of whom Friedrich Engels was the most extreme example, did not consider state control of the economy as such to be a sufficient condition for socialism. Even Engels, like the rest of the socialist movement, defined “socialism” as the political and economic power of the working class. The nationalizations of communications, transportation, mines, etc., that were taking place in Western Europe, Bismarck’s “Junker socialism,” etc., were in Engels’ view simply laying the possible groundwork of socialism. So long as capitalists controlled the reins of political and economic power, such state control of the economy was just another stage in the development of monopoly capitalism, with capitalists operating through *their* state to stabilize and rationalize the system and guarantee themselves profits. If the workers seized power, this state element might be built upon in the ensuing development of socialism. But it was not, in itself, “socialist” in isolation from any political context.
It was only in the 1920s that it began to become commonplace to equate state control, as such, with “socialism.” And that tendency never became universal.
I am for a stateless society. What do I care if the Libertarian party recruits chief executive officers or not? What magic things happen in 2010 and 2012 to create a stateless society?
There are clearly state-oriented circus events relating to things they pretend are elections, but that has to do with the state affirming its authority and control over the people. The pretense that the election provides “consent of the governed” is quite laughable. But, suppose you are interested in having the Libertarian party win elections, what has that to do with a stateless society?
Your concerns about Watson are on target, certainly. If there are people in Austin, Seattle, or Silicon Valley interested in a stateless society, they are most likely involved in open source programming, the development of encryption software for use by the general public, or the development of newer and better, less centralized forms of digital money. There probably are such people, and some of them may be involved in some sort of business enterprise and be known as “chief executive” or “head cook and bottle washer.”
On the other hand, you have guys like John Mackey who clearly want a smaller government, but keep going to libertarian-type events (if one may stretch the point for FreedomFest and Mark Skousen’s CIA friends) and announcing loudly that the libertarians have to shut up about drugs and guns. I’ve found his speech on that topic quite sickening. But, as with Jim Rogers, it seems to be the same speech every time, so one can at least skip it and know what was said.
Nor am I convinced by guys like Peter Schiff who runs Euro Pacific capital. He’s obviously interested in party politics, as a Republican. His “end the Federal Reserve” comments are good, but his pro-war-with-Iran idiocy is clearly statist. Nor is it clear that someone like Ron Paul can be reliably anti-state given his endorsement of Lamar Smith and his campaign for “liberty” endorsing Ken Buck in Colorado. Rand Paul is clearly a violent war monger who wants to continue the war in Afghanistan and was just endorsed by Sarah Palin.
The only top of a company who comes to mind as persistently and sincerely anti-state is Doug Casey of CaseyResearch.com. He introduces himself as an anarchist and atheist. He jokes about never having held a regular job because the applications used to ask “Do you favor overthrowing the United States government by force or violence” and he always checked “violence.”
But, again, what would be the point of even talking to Doug about the Libertarian party? Doug is anti-state. He’s not for creating a new party structure to seize control of the reins of the state, especially not one as corrupt as the LP. After all, if Doug, or anyone, wanted a corrupt political machine to seize the reins of the state, they could find plenty of that in the DNC and GOP, right?
This whole critique of Watson seems beside the point. So what? So what if he thinks 2010 or 2012 could be a banner year for yet more Libertarian party nonsense? Who cares? In the 39 years since the LP was founded, they have overseen an expansion of the federal budget by more than 17 times.
Where is the success to point to? In two human generations they could certainly have something to show for all the effort by on the order of 100,000 total members ever. Maybe success in Alaska, or in Orange County? There are more libertarians by philosophical preference in Orange County than anywhere else in the world, both in raw numbers and per capita. And where is the evidence that Orange County has less government? Zip. Nada. The LP actually elected people to office in Alaska, for a while, didn’t they? Do they still? Nope.
The liberty movement is pointless if it is just another way to get Republicans elected. It is just as pointless if it is meant to replace the Republicans with Libertarians. How does it create a stateless society to, say, have three or four or fourteen political parties?
If a stateless society could only be created by pursuing party politics, isn’t it time to give up? And if a stateless society can be created, as I believe it can be, without reference to elections and other forms of coercion, then shouldn’t we be about our business?
The state and the state’s elections are not part of a stateless society. How can involvement in the state, or its elections, ever be a part of creating one?
If you feel you must blog about party politics, why not NolanChart.com?
Ugh. Semantics, semantics, semantics. Words have no inherent meaning, Kevin. If this group of sounds means to a significant enough number of people “state ownership or control,” then that is what it means. Language is dynamic. Definitions are emergent. Dictionaries are ways we capture and feed back that emergence – and if you consult dictionaries, you will find that government control is explicitly part of the definition of socialism in virtually all dictionaries (and of course “collective” control over the means or production as an economic system has always meant a functional state in praxis). You waste everyone’s time when you insist on using obsolete definitions and arguing semantics. It’s the etymological fallacy.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Etymological
Socialism = Statism
eg.
socialism
NOUN
1. a political theory advocating state ownership of industry;
2. an economic system based on state ownership of capital;
Princeton University Wordnet
socialism
noun [U]
any economic or political system based on government ownership and control of important businesses and methods of production
Cambridge Dictionary of American English
so·cial·ism
NOUN:
1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.
American Heritage English Dictionary
Main Entry: so·cial·ism
Pronunciation: \?s?-sh?-?li-z?m\
Function: noun
Date: 1837
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Merriam-Webster
socialism
[From English social: relating to human interation or community.]
1. (politics) A form of collectivism that emphasized state ownership of the means of production and justified subordination of the individual to the community, but often through democratic means and with less of a totalitarian or authoritarian bent than communism.
The Ism Book
etc.
“Words have no inherent meaning,” therefore, we should consult the dictionary.
Great.
That’s right, Andrew, words themselves have no inherent meaning. They mean whatever people use and understand them to mean. Language is dynamic. Definitions are emergent. Dictionaries are a dominant way we capture and feed back what words are being used and understood to mean. Other possible sources would include things news aggregators, opinion polls, popular discourse, etc. To cling to obsolete definitions and get offended when others don’t is childish and counterproductive to effective communication.
I think if anyone can be justly described as “offended” over someone else’s usage, it was Brian Singer in his initial comment.
“In a recent column Sheldon Richman treated right-wing mouth frothing about Obama’s “socialism” and “Marxism” with exactly the dismissive tone it deserves”
…
If I was going to take offense, though, I’d probably be more offended by your equating of businessmen to plantation slaveowners, which is rhetoric in my opinion only slightly less helpful to libertarianism than framing the debate in Marxism or attempting to reargue the labor theory of value.
whakahekeheke:
“That’s right, Andrew, words themselves have no inherent meaning. They mean whatever people use and understand them to mean.”
Right. And that’s why it’s absurd for you to argue that the definitions you favor are more correct simply because they happen to be a in a bunch of dictionaries.
Dictionaries are by far the dominant tools literate human beings use to determine the currently “correct” definitions of words. Read the posts to which you reply.
“That’s right, Andrew, words themselves have no inherent meaning. They mean whatever people use and understand them to mean. Language is dynamic. Definitions are emergent.”
I fail to see how this argument succeeds against Carson’s attempted revival of an outdated definition of “socialism.”
If definitions are emergent, can’t they also be RE-emergent?
Even if historically “socialism” was never even used in Carson’s sense to begin with, then perhaps he’s the point from which a new definition is emerging.
If definitions are emergent, then they have to emerge from somewhere, right?
whakahekeheke:
“Dictionaries are by far the dominant tools literate human beings use to determine the currently ‘correct’ definitions of words.”
I don’t think that’s true (people typically determine the “correct” definitions for words by witnessing those words being used by others, not by consulting disctionaries), but assuming that it is, what’s your point?
If I wanted to start a campaign against child molestation, I could call it the “Pro-Pedophile Group” and attempt to change the definition. It could theoretically work, with pedophile coming to mean someone who is against child molestation, but it would be a stupid thing to do as it would obviously confuse the public and I would spend most of my time arguing semantics instead of campaigning against child molestation.
However, that wasn’t the point of my reply, which was to the OP’s titularly indicated “Statism ? Socialism” that was expressed in the article. (”In a recent column Sheldon Richman treated right-wing mouth frothing about Obama’s “socialism” and “Marxism” with exactly the dismissive tone it deserves” etc.) Criticizing those who are correctly using the dominant modern definition of ’socialism’ for doing so is inane, especially when you’re supposed to be an opponent of what they’re decrying. Never mind he’s employing the unnecessarily divisive and functionally pointless ‘left vs. right’ dichotomy…
If you want to watch a thread bog down in inanities, see Cal whakahekeheke’s fr33 thread here. Then stop responding to the silliness. Or not, if you really have nothing better to do…
http://www.fr33agents.com/1676/1676/
I certainly agree the comments thread on that particular article got bogged down in inanities, but I know the article itself convinced a number of people to abandon the term… so it was not a total loss.
Cal Miles, everybody.
Cal, pray tell, what is evolution?
Merriam-Webster defines it as such:
1 : one of a set of prescribed movements
2 a : a process of change in a certain direction : unfolding b : the action or an instance of forming and giving something off : emission c (1) : a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state : growth (2) : a process of gradual and relatively peaceful social, political, and economic advance d : something evolved
3 : the process of working out or developing
4 a : the historical development of a biological group (as a race or species) : phylogeny b : a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations; also : the process described by this theory
5 : the extraction of a mathematical root
6 : a process in which the whole universe is a progression of interrelated phenomena
I would like you to note several very important elements of these definitions: none of this mentions natural selection (or even Lamarckian Evolution) or punctuated equilibrium/teleological change or any other related necessities to have a complete definition of biological evolution. It also seems bizarre that definition 2.c would be shared with biological “evolution”, which doesn’t make any sort of claims that an evolved organism will necessarily have better, more complex, or even functions with utility after a mutation.
So this is, in fact, a rather incomplete and by some standards WRONG to the point of self-contradiction by definition, but it is still the definition in my dictionary that weighs heavier than a newborn baby. Not only that, but you have one word simultaneously describing several different very different concepts. A political or social change most certainly isn’t a biological change or extraction of a mathematical root.
Do you see where I’m going with all of this….
That entry is not “wrong” by any standard, and yes complexity theory is employed in biological evolution, and implications of “better” by various criteria are often involved. You’ll also notice that 2c does not contain the word ‘necessarily’ and that there are three alternative adjectives there…
“a theory that the various types of animals and plants have their origin in other preexisting types and that the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations; also : the process described by this theory”
Now, that does in point of fact imply natural selection, but you’re missing the point, Jesse. It’s not that dictionaries provide you with detailed and comprehensive histories of complex theories or movements, but rather that they provide you with the best way to capture was the words fundamentally mean. They are emergent authority on definitions. And the problem with “socialism” is not just that it does not mean freedom or opposition to statism or something, but that its dominant meaning is statism (second being collectivism, which is a problem in itself). It would be like if you looked up “evolution” in a dictionary and got:
—
1 : a theory that the Abrahamic God created the Earth 4000 years ago
2 : constancy
—
Do you see where that went?
Cal, I would point you towards the work of S J Gould and the well spoken QualiaSoup (both authorities on evolution) so that you might be better educated in understanding evolution. Evolution makes no inherent claims or statements about complexity, as all interpretations of complexity are untestable from the next. Carl Sagan put it, “…the simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, is based on an elaborate logical underpinning…” which means the scope of complexity is merely in the eye of the beholder. Complexity rarjely enters the picture within the domain of evolution. Moreover, “better” in any sense to do with evolution is an altogether loaded concept, and every self-respecting scientist keeps arms distance from such a word unless defined into a very narrow context. Humans can’t see in the infrared spectrum, but other species can- which is “better”?
As for the definition, it could equally apply to the (now defunct) Lamarckian theory of evolution, so no, it is not narrowed to the confines of natural selection. Had I no knowledge of genetics, anthropology, or microbiology (or for simplicities sake, biology in general, as is the case most often) after having read that definition, if some huckster told me that giraffes necks were long as a matter of induced utility from them stretching their necks to reach the higher leaves would sound completely plausible, despite its contradiction to reality. A dictionary is simply no sound source for actually identifying the nuances of political economy or social theory.
Aside from that,
That is, aside from that, you seem to be all too willing to surrender to the definitions of an authoritarian socialist, as opposed to the longer standing of historical socialism embodied in Dejacque, Proudhon, Hodgskin, Bakunin, Tucker, et. al.
Whaka-whatever: I’m afraid you have me confused. If definitions are “emergent”—changing, evolving over time—then why should we just accept the dictionary’s definition of this particular word at this particular point in time as the final authority on that definition for the rest of eternity?
Myself, I’m not exactly on board with a campaign to redefine or reclaim some outdated definition of socialism. I’m just struck by the inconsistency of the particular argument you’re using against doing that. Definitions change and evolve, but not this particular definition from this point forward…? Because that’s what the dictionary says at this point in time…?
Should we also assume that if Kevin eventually succeeds in making his definition the popular usage so much so that the dictionary changes its definition to his, you would have no objection to that on the grounds that definitions are evolving and the dictionary captures the popular usage of words as they emerge…?
(“Keep in mind, there is no ‘ultimate objective meaning’ of any word – language is dynamic.” Yes?)
You see, you’re hanging your hat on a rather thin reed.
As for your analogizing to redefinitions of pedophilia and evolution, those are nice attempts at straw men, but they’re hardly analogous to the context we are discussing here. Unlike “socialism,” there is no historical ambiguity with respect to usage of “pedophilia” and biological “evolution.” And if anything, since Kevin is trying to reclaim a previously used but now displaced definition, he would have the better claim that it is in fact the current usage of socialism that is the equivalent of redefining pro-pedophilia as being anti-pedophilia or evolution as being creationist.
BTW, how is that campaign to introduce “emergentism” to the libertarian vernacular coming along?
Whaka: In Sheldon’s column which I cited, and in the language I used to cite it, “socialism” was paired very closely with “Marxism.” And the demographic segments most prone to calling Obama a “socialist” are also the ones who accuse him of being a “Marxist.” In that context, it makes sense to debunk the suggestion that he’s a “socialist” in the sense of using the state to promote left-wing or working class goals. Even in common usage, it’s more common to treat “socialism” as a political alignment with the left and with labor than as simple statism per se. And it’s perverse IMO to refer to policies that largely benefit, and are largely framed by a coalition of large corporations and investment bankers, as “socialist.”
I didn’t equate “businessmen” in general to anybody, but rather the prominent corporate CEOs that Carlos Watson explicitly referred to. And I equated them to slave owners only in the sense that a “free market” that favors the interests of CEOs is as oxymoronic as an “abolitionist” movement that favors slave owners. It’s as odd for a class of people who directly benefit from corporatism to support a movement aimed at ending it, or for such a movement to frame its appeal to the main class it would hurt, as for the parallel case of slavery and abolitionism.
I “frame the debate” in neither Marxist nor Austrian terms, although I borrow heavily from both ideologies and incorporate them into my own framework.
Regarding my attempts to “reargue the labor theory of value,” I would suggest that the “helpfulness” of those attempts (as with my use of some Marxist concepts in framing the debate) should be judged on the basis of how well I prove my case. And in my experience, there have been very few critics of my argument who can even accurately restate either the labor theory of value or its points of contention with the marginalist-subjectivist theory, with any degree of coherence. Schulman’s recent performance here was a good example. Bob Murphy, whose critique appeared in JLS, was a notable exception.
If I was going to take offense, though, I’d probably be more offended by your equating of businessmen to plantation slaveowners, which is rhetoric in my opinion only slightly less helpful to libertarianism than framing the debate in Marxism or attempting to reargue the labor theory of value.
I am going to take a wild guess and say that Cal’s next post will be a meticulous point by point response that refutes all posted criticism of his argument, and he will refuse to give up a single millimeter of his absolutely flawless position.
This will continue until the number of posts register in the triple digits. You are all wrong. Only Cal is correct.
I am going out to buy my emergentism bumper sticker now.