More lefty economics -
The best thing about the internet is that you can click directly from AnnCoulter.org to MotherJones.com - an act of pure intellectual subversiveness. Mother Jones is a reliable source for old-school, unreformed liberalism - but every once in a while something new stands out. This interview with Princeton professor of Sociology and Public Affairs Douglas Massey about his new book is one of those: his goal is to try to reconcile the left with the market economy and use it to advance their causes and values.
Read the whole piece - the professor's aim is a good one, and his ideas sound pretty reasonable on their face. The key element is the bright-line divider between conservative and liberal thought that Massey identifies: whether you believe markets are a natural-state condition or a purely social construction. I think it is impossible to understate the importance of this distinction no matter which side of the line you fall on. This core belief colors almost every policy position of both right and left.
Predictably, I am firmly in the natural-state camp. Massey repeatedly asserts that a market cannot exist without government because government creates the rules and institutions of the market, and ensures fairness in competition. The problem is that reality simply doesn't bear this out: black markets existed in every non-capitalist society from Bolshevik Russia to communist Vietnam in the face of the most extreme measures to eradicate them, just as the markets for heroin and cocaine thrive today in spite of governmental opposition. There is a market wherever there is a demand - it arises out of individual wants and needs.
Massey believes that markets flow from institutions, however. It's clear from his statements that he views command economies and market economies simply as different breeds of the same horse - only that the command economies resulted in widespread deaths and abuses of power, while market economies have produced better results. The underlying assumption here is that economic power comes from the top down - government determines the system and values, not the people. Honestly, this is a fascistic and pessimistic philosophy.
Read the whole piece - the professor's aim is a good one, and his ideas sound pretty reasonable on their face. The key element is the bright-line divider between conservative and liberal thought that Massey identifies: whether you believe markets are a natural-state condition or a purely social construction. I think it is impossible to understate the importance of this distinction no matter which side of the line you fall on. This core belief colors almost every policy position of both right and left.
Predictably, I am firmly in the natural-state camp. Massey repeatedly asserts that a market cannot exist without government because government creates the rules and institutions of the market, and ensures fairness in competition. The problem is that reality simply doesn't bear this out: black markets existed in every non-capitalist society from Bolshevik Russia to communist Vietnam in the face of the most extreme measures to eradicate them, just as the markets for heroin and cocaine thrive today in spite of governmental opposition. There is a market wherever there is a demand - it arises out of individual wants and needs.
Massey believes that markets flow from institutions, however. It's clear from his statements that he views command economies and market economies simply as different breeds of the same horse - only that the command economies resulted in widespread deaths and abuses of power, while market economies have produced better results. The underlying assumption here is that economic power comes from the top down - government determines the system and values, not the people. Honestly, this is a fascistic and pessimistic philosophy.
posted by rattlerd at 7:38 AM
2 Comments:
I would agree that markets are as inevitable as kids trading marbles, so they seem to be autonomously generated.
Corporations, on the other hand, clearly ARE a social construction. The corporate form is a privilege, purchased from government, to protect the shareholders from the liabilities that would befall partners.
This sort of middle ground, as usual, satisfies nobody, and therefore is probably accurate.
I agree - the corporate form is something we've invented to facilitate business, make it easier to pool capital, transfer ownership, manage risk through limiting liabilities as you point out, etc.
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