Context for the Bailout - Confessions of a Monopolist

[Caleb]

AND YOU ALL THOUGHT YOU HAD HEARD THE LAST OF ME!!!

Welcome back! 

[John Edward Mercier]

You can't appropriate a shovel as that is someone's stored labor. Capital is stored labor.
The $700B was not appropriated... as those appropriating it did not labor to produce it at anytime... current or past.

[jaqeboy]

Corporate Capitalism Explained:

[jaqeboy]

References I can read up on you and Jack's original meaning of capitalism?

I've been finding things from various eras and various ideologues, but here's one from FEE, Foundation for Economic Education from February, 1985. Admittedly, I haven't worked this back to the early 1800's yet - hope there are a few of you still awake by the time I get there  :

Capitalism: Yes and No
By Clarence B. Carson
...
Capitalism: A Value-Laden Word

The same does not go, however, for "capitalism." [read the article to get the context] It does not have a commonly accepted meaning, proponents of it to the contrary notwithstanding. As matters stand, it cannot be used with precision in discourse. And, it is loaded with connotations which make it value laden. Indeed, it is most difficult for those who use it from whatever side not to use it simply as an "angel" or "devil" word, i. e., to signify something approved or disapproved. Meanwhile, what that something is goes largely unspecified because it is hidden beneath a blunderbuss word.

My considered opinion is that capitalism is not a descriptive word at all in general usage. Dictionary-like definitions may give it the appearance of being descriptive. One dictionary defines it as "a system under which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are in large measure privately owned and directed." On the face of it, the meaning may appear clear enough. We can come in sight of the difficulty, however, if we turn the whole thing around and look at what is supposed to be signified, shutting out of our minds for the moment the word used to signify it. Suppose, that is, that we have a set of arrangements in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods "are in large measure privately owned and directed." I am acquainted with such arrangements, both from history and from some present day actualities.

But why should we call such arrangements "capitalism"? So far as I can make out, there is no compelling reason to do so.
...

[jaqeboy]

From the Carson, FEE article:

For another, linguistically, it does not stand for private property, free enterprise, and the free market. It is false labeling to make it appear to do so. Capitalism means either a system in which capital [people with the most bux] holds sway, which is largely what Marx apparently meant, or an ideology to justify such a system.

This is basically what I am trying to say - when you say the C-word, this is what it means to most people, though I know many people use it a variety of other ways. Thanks for hearing me out.

[BillKauffman]

From the Carson, FEE article:

For another, linguistically, it does not stand for private property, free enterprise, and the free market. It is false labeling to make it appear to do so. Capitalism means either a system in which capital [people with the most bux] holds sway, which is largely what Marx apparently meant, or an ideology to justify such a system.

This is basically what I am trying to say - when you say the C-word, this is what it means to most people, though I know many people use it a variety of other ways. Thanks for hearing me out.

And then the people with the bucks use the state to protect their profits otherwise the market forces price to cost and squeezes out profits.

The question then for right-libertarians is how interested are they in critiqueing the underlying property assumptions when there is no more state...if these property assumptions are attacked then capital will no longer be able to command labor and labor will command capital.

In my opinion the more right-libertarians are interested in challenging these assumptions, the more they are in possible alignment with the goals of left-libertarianism (equal liberty).

[jaqeboy]

And another usage, from a current article (19 October 2008) on History News Network, Liberty & Power: Group Blog:

William Marina
American Conservatism is "Gone With the Wind"

...
American Conservatism, to the extent it existed, is "Gone With the Wind!" Whatever one says about Marx, certainly some later thinkers of that School, along with some early Americans over a century ago, saw this rise of Finance Capitalism, as opposed to earlier Industrial or Entrepreneurial varieties. Carroll Quigley in 1961 correctly called it "Financial Capitalism," in The Evolution of Civilizations.
...

[jaqeboy]

From Sheldon Richman, FEE, News & Commentary

The Goal Is Freedom: Capitalism or Freedom

October 17, 2008
by Sheldon Richman

...
A System of Exploitation

This is the system that honest industrious people have labored under for generations. It is not an exaggeration to call it a system of exploitation. (Earlier libertarians had no trouble using that word.) Yes, general living standards have risen dramatically throughout American history. But that only shows that something short of complete economic freedom goes a long way. The freedom permitted, however, takes place within a system of political constraints that shifts wealth from the industrious to the political class and its well-connected business allies who have never liked the free market because competition doesn't respect yesterday's market share. (After all, they gave us the Progressive Era and backed the New Deal.) People outside the political class may be quite affluent by world and historical standards, but if they would have been wealthier still -- and, importantly, more independent -- in a free market, then they have suffered an injustice.

This system is the one most people know as "capitalism," a name "given currency in the highly charged formulations of Karl Marx and other enemies of private property," Clarence Carson wrote 23 years ago in The Freeman. "The word 'capitalism' still carries the overtones of this Marxian analysis." Many of us have used this term as a synonym for "free market," but increasingly this is being revealed as a tragic error. [see jaqeboy comments earlier] Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand defined "capitalism" as laissez faire (a "dubious undertaking," Carson says), but the historical system bearing that name was not laissez faire. Rather, it was, as Carson put it, "the legalization and institutionalization of a preference for capital." No system in which officials can create inflation, trade restrictions, patents, bailouts, licensing, and other privileges can be described as free.

The recent nationalization of the mortgage market and of major banks represent leaps in the degree of intervention. Still, they can be seen as a logical continuation of what has gone before. The crises produced by intervention summon forth further, more intense intervention. This is the way historical capitalism has worked. [highlighting and emphasis added!]

[John Edward Mercier]

References I can read up on you and Jack's original meaning of capitalism?

I've been finding things from various eras and various ideologues, but here's one from FEE, Foundation for Economic Education from February, 1985. Admittedly, I haven't worked this back to the early 1800's yet - hope there are a few of you still awake by the time I get there  :

Capitalism: Yes and No
By Clarence B. Carson
...
Capitalism: A Value-Laden Word

The same does not go, however, for "capitalism." [read the article to get the context] It does not have a commonly accepted meaning, proponents of it to the contrary notwithstanding. As matters stand, it cannot be used with precision in discourse. And, it is loaded with connotations which make it value laden. Indeed, it is most difficult for those who use it from whatever side not to use it simply as an "angel" or "devil" word, i. e., to signify something approved or disapproved. Meanwhile, what that something is goes largely unspecified because it is hidden beneath a blunderbuss word.

My considered opinion is that capitalism is not a descriptive word at all in general usage. Dictionary-like definitions may give it the appearance of being descriptive. One dictionary defines it as "a system under which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are in large measure privately owned and directed." On the face of it, the meaning may appear clear enough. We can come in sight of the difficulty, however, if we turn the whole thing around and look at what is supposed to be signified, shutting out of our minds for the moment the word used to signify it. Suppose, that is, that we have a set of arrangements in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods "are in large measure privately owned and directed." I am acquainted with such arrangements, both from history and from some present day actualities.

But why should we call such arrangements "capitalism"? So far as I can make out, there is no compelling reason to do so.
...

Because your 'stored labor' would be privately owned and directed.

[John Edward Mercier]

From the Carson, FEE article:

For another, linguistically, it does not stand for private property, free enterprise, and the free market. It is false labeling to make it appear to do so. Capitalism means either a system in which capital [people with the most bux] holds sway, which is largely what Marx apparently meant, or an ideology to justify such a system.

This is basically what I am trying to say - when you say the C-word, this is what it means to most people, though I know many people use it a variety of other ways. Thanks for hearing me out.

And then the people with the bucks use the state to protect their profits otherwise the market forces price to cost and squeezes out profits.

The question then for right-libertarians is how interested are they in critiqueing the underlying property assumptions when there is no more state...if these property assumptions are attacked then capital will no longer be able to command labor and labor will command capital.

In my opinion the more right-libertarians are interested in challenging these assumptions, the more they are in possible alignment with the goals of left-libertarianism (equal liberty).

Neither can command the other, there is no inherent hierarchy between stored and current.
Profits are the results of productive labor... for example you could dig the ditch with your hands or a stick, but a shovel increases the productivity of your labor. If the shovel is part of your 'stored labor' (either through production or purchase with labor) then no outside capitalization of the process occurs.

Its why Proudhon went from Anarchist to Federalist. He failed along the same path as Austrian School Economists... technology. He could never have envisioned say a backhoe and the productive efficiency of ditch digging it would bring. The same way Malthus could not.
Its not fair to pick on these men though... due to the limits of understanding in their time. Sir Isaac Newton had it right for a long time... until Einstein theorized relativity.

[BillKauffman]

Neither can command the other, there is no inherent hierarchy between stored and current.

Thn why does capital command labor today and not the reverse?

[John Edward Mercier]

Neither commands.

People are mistaking management for capital. The concept of is that through proper management that efficient use of stored and current labor will result in greater results. I say concept because in reality it seldom works... returns are many times the result of  market inefficiencies.

[jaqeboy]

Here's a good one for you anti-capitalist, pro-free market context-understanders:

Free Enterprise: The Antidote to Corporate Plutocracy, by Keith Preston, attackthesystem.com, 2007

Perhaps the efficacious gift to the present corporate order by the state has been what Kevin Carson calls "the subsidy of history," a reference to the process by which the indigenous inhabitants and possessors of property in land were originally expropriated during the course of the construction of traditional feudal societies and the subsequent transformation of feudalism into what is now called "capitalism", or the corporatist- plutocratic societies that we have today. Contrary to the myths to which some subscribe, including many libertarians, the evolution of capitalism out of the old feudal order was not one where liberty triumphed over privilege, but one where privilege asserted itself in newer and more sophisticated forms. As Carson explains: ...

The article has an extensive bibliography and is well-footnoted

[John Edward Mercier]

His 'privilege' is land ownership?

[jaqeboy]

His 'privilege' is land ownership?

I'll have to finish the article. This was just an early paragraph... Better yet, let's both finish the article