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Peter Saunders on capitalism’s bad PR:
Capitalism lacks romantic appeal. It does not set the pulse racing in the way that opposing ideologies like socialism, fascism, or environmentalism can. It does not stir the blood, for it identifies no dragons to slay. It offers no grand vision for the future, for in an open market system the future is shaped not by the imposition of utopian blueprints, but by billions of individuals pursuing their own preferences. Capitalism can justifiably boast that it is excellent at delivering the goods, but this fails to impress in countries like Australia that have come to take affluence for granted.
It is quite the opposite with socialism. Where capitalism delivers but cannot inspire, socialism inspires despite never having delivered. Socialism’s history is littered with repeated failures and with human misery on a massive scale, yet it still attracts smiles rather than curses from people who never had to live under it.
That might be because they’re stupid. Read on.
This is an excellent article by Saunders.
He also comes up with a number of interesting solutions as to why intelligent people advocate anti-capitalist policies (something that has genuinely puzzled me as the evidence in favour of capitalism is overwhelming)
Robert Nozick has noted that intellectuals spend their childhoods excelling at school, where they occupy the top positions in the hierarchy, only to find later in life that their market value is much lower than they believe they are worth. Seeing ‘mere traders’ enjoying higher pay than them is unbearable, and it generates irreconcilable disaffection with the market system.
Posted by pommygranate on 2008 01 12 at 07:09 AM • permalinkPlus:
“...capitalism offends intellectual pride, while socialism flatters it… We distrust evolved systems, like markets, which seem to work without intelligent direction according to laws and dynamics that no one fully understands.
Nobody planned the global capitalist system, nobody runs it, and nobody really comprehends it. This particularly offends intellectuals, for capitalism renders them redundant. It gets on perfectly well without them. It does not need them to make it run, to coordinate it, or to redesign it. The intellectual critics of capitalism believe they know what is good for us, but millions of people interacting in the marketplace keep rebuffing them. This, ultimately, is why they believe capitalism is ‘bad for the soul’: it fulfils human needs without first seeking their moral approval.”
Ah yes, Chief. Rudd’s famous reference to “Brutopia”. Had to love Costello’s response to that:
We have unemployment at 4.5 per cent. We have had 300,000 new jobs in the last year and we have had 2 million new jobs over the last 10 years. The Leader of the Opposition says that all of this represents free market fundamentalism, and he describes this economy as Howard’s Brutopia… There has been some speculation as to what a Brutopia is. I can now authoritatively inform the House that Brutopia is a fictional country which appears in several Donald Duck stories... Labor [is] drawing inspiration for its economic analysis from a Donald Duck magazine, Mr Speaker! This is the evolutionary cycle of the Labor Party. We have now moved from Mark Latham’s roosters to Kevin Rudd’s ducks, Mr Speaker. Managing the Australian economy, which is a $1 trillion economy, takes experience and commitment—and you do not get your analysis from Donald Duck comics. It is much more serious than that.”
I’m a diehard capitalist and I tend to reject this idea that we have “too much stuff”.
With my credentials established, let me say however, I am increasingly worried about people who believe the Government will provide, and don’t have a first-aid kit (because they can call an ambulance) and don’t have a fire extinguisher in their kitchen (because they can call the fire brigade) and don’t have torches (because they have electricity).
And then the environmental disaster happens…
# 11 Dan,
Have back up generator, 10,000 litres of water, a hiugh capacity fire pump and several cases of beer. Is this sufficient?
Posted by surfmaster on 2008 01 12 at 08:31 AM • permalinkSocialism, left liberalism, whatever you want to call it, has become a secular religion and it is not surprising that it is so strong in the US where practically everyone has religion in some shape or form.
Religion has been described as the opium of the masses and socialism is the opium of a certain kind of intellectual, unfortunately the most common kind of intellectual. But never mind, the best kind of intellectuals are on our side. Not that many people know about them, how many of youse lazy bludgers have even heard of Ludwig Mises, the sleeping giant of the 20th century?
#14 My thoughts exactly. I reckon KRudd culled an “ist” to make himself less scary to the women, children and the animals. Socialist democrat is what he wants to pretend to be. What he is, is a good ole socialist spiv to the bottom of his cockles. Mebbe even below the cockles. There’s no problem that lashings of other peoples money and government control can’t fix, hey Kev?
Capitalism lacks romantic appeal. It does not set the pulse racing in the way that opposing ideologies like socialism, fascism, or environmentalism can.
That’s because it isn’t a bloody ideology. It’s just what happens when everyone is left alone to go with what gets their pulse racing. The pulse-racing romantic appeal of ideologies is based on the prospect of being able to say “I am the keeper of the ideology and now all you people have to do what I say”.
Or to put it another way, a long time ago a family friend became Vic manager of Greenpeace. He confided to my father “It’s amazing how many girls you can sleep with if you really care about the environment”.Posted by ooh honey honey on 2008 01 12 at 09:35 AM • permalink#6 Ruddles is being trendy here in ranting on about Christian right wing extrenmists. This is the left’s response to islamic
exterminismextremism.It’s utter buddles, ruddles.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 01 12 at 11:58 AM • permalinkOr to put it another way, a long time ago a family friend became Vic manager of Greenpeace. He confided to my father “It’s amazing how many girls you can sleep with if you really care about the environment”.
I think that summarizes the intent of most every leftie…..they want fuck everyone.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 01 12 at 12:38 PM • permalinkJanice: ignorance can be cured; stupidity is forever. I’m betting on stupidity for most of these people, because the evidence of the past century would have cured mere ignorance.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2008 01 12 at 01:23 PM • permalinkIf you’re feeling especially masochistic (or in the mood to crack some heads with the clue-by-four), here is the IMDB page for “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Scroll down to the bottom and check out the “Why are you Americans so anti-communism” thread.
Ye freakin’ gods.
#13 - Rafe, I think you’ll find there’s a greater knowledge here of people like Mises than the tone of your question implies.
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2008 01 12 at 04:27 PM • permalinkRe #25, Achillea, that was an incredibly STUPID question. More so given the forum, but, hey, who ever said lefties had common sense?
I almost linked to this to explain one reason why Americans are anti-communist, but I thought the idiot would miss the point, given the attitude of the left towards the deaths of millions.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 01 12 at 04:41 PM • permalinkNicky and I found this fabulously subversive film Small Town Story starring Jeffrey Lynn, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale jr and Marilyn Monroe(!).
It’s subversive because it defends capitalism moreover it defends big business making profits.
Here’s a brief synopsis:
Ex-war hero becomes ex-Senator, returns to home town after being voted out of office after one term. Takes on his uncle’s newspaper to stump for various crusades that will get him re-elected.
The first is big business and pollution but the only big business in town is already doing the right thing.
So our hero finds another cause: big business makes too much money.
After taking a hammering in the paper the big business owner, a very pleasant, non-stereotypical tycoon puts another alternative point of view:
‘Business has to make a profit in order for customers to make a profit,’ he says. ‘Your paper sells for five cents but people get more than 5c value from it, they use it to make decisions that enhance their lives and make them money. That’s what I do’.
In the end the tycoon is proved right, a young girl needs to be medivaced out of the town and the only one with a plane is the tycoon who pilots it himself. As an aside, he also notes that the pumps that run the ventilators the girl is are from his factory.
Best of all, thanks to capitalism, this movie is free to download over the Internet because it’s out of copyright and free to download from http://www.archive.org.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2008 01 12 at 04:56 PM • permalinkJust a question: How many of these laborious Laborites whining about Brutopia and Affluenza are poor?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 01 12 at 05:11 PM • permalinkThe young like socialism because it sounds like such a good idea. But then they discover human nature and realise socialism is like George Jetson’s hovercar - a pipe dream. Those who push on with socialism past 30 are either stupid (Traceeeee Hutchison) or see it as a path to power (Julia Gillard) or a way to get rich (Phillip Adams).
#30 - TRJS
My personal favorite is the poster who delivers the whole diatribe about what big meanies management was to union organizers (even gasp killing one or two). Completely ignoring the tens of millions butchered in the Russian and Chinese communist revolutions alone, he then accuses defenders of capitalism as ‘historically ignorant.’
Rafe, it’s quite natural that the people who benefit from capitalism (I think “liberty” is probably a better word) haven’t heard of Mises or Hayek or Friedman, because it isn’t an ideology, or a cult, or a religion, and therefore it doesn’t need charismatic leaders. It doesn’t need selling. People don’t need to be told that they have desires. They work that out for themselves, and they just want to act on those desires.
Ideologies make it their business to tell people that their desires are wrong.
The argument that capitalism is an ideology is a huge straw man. Free markets are what happen when the punters are left alone. Markets are the world free of ideology. And if some people want V8 plassies in their backyards, and some others want to jet to Darfur to make sure they’re not using plastic bags, and all the others in between, well hi! meet the human race in their natural habitat.Posted by ooh honey honey on 2008 01 12 at 06:53 PM • permalink# 28 Yes I hope so, I have been promoting in Australia since 1985!
# 36 Fully agree, I prefer to talk about free trade or the market order rather than capitalism. Adding that a market is not a big impersonal force, it is something that just happen when people buy, sell and swap things!
Greene
Give us some of your best from that period: I ‘m sure someone here could help with the kicks.Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2008 01 12 at 08:01 PM • permalinkJ.M Heinrichs…... There are too many to choose from….....I once thought Jimmy Carter was a good President. How’s that for infantile idiocy ? Or, the time I told my father ( a professional soldier , and an honorable and intelligent man)that the U.S. govt was a malignant force, or words to that effect.
If I was a catholic I’d go to confession every day seeking absolution.Since I work in a university and know many avowed Marxists, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not ignorance or stupidity that leads them to become Marxists, it’s that they’re a particular variety of Mike Royko’s sheep who are destined to be shorn. Royko included all those who get conned by someone who offers “pie in the sky by and by” like those who mail money to TV evangelists.
Thus, the condition shares something with a peculiar kind of religiosity. The point is, the sheep will be shorn, it’s just a matter of who is doing the shearing. Marxism is kind of like a Ponzi scheme. There is a Marxist pecking order that delivers prestige (especially, in the Western countries), money, and some power based on one’s position in this ‘classless’ society. They’re constantly looking for new converts to build up their personal position.
At any rate, they’re parasites who refuse to admit it. I have one colleague who almost died because she found out that she wouldn’t be able to use her laptop in a remote area of ‘the People’s Revolutionary Camp’ because: a) there was no wireless signal, and; b) there was no electricity. Imagine that!!
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2008 01 12 at 09:54 PM • permalinkRafe, one problem is that von Mises’ magnum opus “Human Action” is like William F. Buckley’s descriptin of Hayek’s “Constitution of Liberty,” a book that was written to be rediscovered. Freidman reached a larger audience because he wrote many books for noneconomists in a less snooze-inducing style.
As for knowing these guys’ work, Hayek is my favorite economist (Sowell is my favorite living economist). He pretty much summed up his work in “The Fatal Conceit” towards the end of his life. It is a short book, and in my opinion ought to be read by every school student before leaving high school. I must admit, it made me wonder why so many libertarians are keen on Hayek (or so they say). His respect for traditions goes counter to their refusal to accept anything that they cannot make an explicitly articulated logical case for, based only on assumptions they accept and no others.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2008 01 12 at 09:57 PM • permalink# 43 “Human Action” is practically useless for all but the most devoted nerds, it takes 200 pages to get to anything that is recognisable as economics for the man in the street. If only Readers Digest had condensed it the way they condensed Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” (which is on line). I have threatened to condense HA but I think only to irritate the good folk at the Mises Institute.
“Human Action” is about the same size (900 pages) as the two volumes of “The Open Society and its Enemies” which has been condensed recently to about 100 pages.
Yes, Hayek’s last book upset a lot of libertarians (it was edited and allegedly largely written by Bill Bartley). There are some bits which provoke the thought that it is a flawed jewel.
The stark lesson of the twentieth century is that socialism is a marvellous idea that doesn’t work, and capitalism is a terrible idea that does.
- Rob Foot, Quadrant, April 04.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 01 13 at 06:47 AM • permalinkI’m not an acamedemic, so I’ll stick with Frank Zappa:
“Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
Posted by spot_the_dog on 2008 01 14 at 01:54 AM • permalinkCOMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both cows. The government sells the milk in government stores. You can’t afford the milk.
AUSTRALIANISM: You have two cows. You take one to the beach and teach it to surf, then you bung the other one on the barbie, drink some VB, and laugh at the idea of a surfing cow.
a few more to give the flavour
EUROPEAN UNIONISM: You have two goats. The EU declares them to be fruit in order to conform to a rare Belgian custom of making Cow Jam (jam being required to have at least 45% fruit).
EUROPEAN UNIONISM: You have two cows. The EU develops a quota system that “limits the gas emissions from flatulent cows.” You sell your carbon allotment, not the milk.
TALIBANISM: You have two cows. At first, the government makes them wear burkas, but later shoots them because “they are Hindu religious symbols.”
UNITED NATIONISM: You have two cows. France vetoes you from milking them. The United States and Britain veto the cows from milking you. New Zealand abstains.
Saunders’ piece is a good one, but as is the case with a lot of pro-capitalist writers, his explanation for why so many intellectuals dislike capitalism is way off. They dislike capitalism, because they think that (1) it only serves the bourgeois class and that (2) it is an oppressive political-economic system. Hence socialism is a liberating ideology, even if it requires an interim dictatorship before the state withers away and we all have what we need.
Rather than speculating on the psychology of the left or questioning the intelligence of leftists, we need to argue against (1) and (2) and challenge the notion that socialism is a philosophy of liberation. We also need to defend the classical liberal notion that the State’s involvement in everyday civil society should be kept to a minimum. Leftist thought effectively begins with Hegel’s and Marx’s critique of this view of the State.
Posted by Bill Ramey on 2008 01 14 at 12:46 PM • permalink
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Peter Saunders writes quite well, and he’s got some excellent points.
I quite like his points about the morality involved in capitalism and socialism.