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Capitalists Who Fear Change
bill_mcgonigle writes "In his essay 'Capitalists Who Fear Change,' author Jeffrey Tucker takes on 'wimps who don't want to improve.' From DMCA take-downs on 3D printing files to the constant refrain that every new form of music recording will 'kill music,' Mr. Tucker observes, 'Through our long history of improvement, every upgrade and every shift from old to new inspired panic. The biggest panic typically comes from the producers themselves who resent the way the market process destabilizes their business model.' He analyzes how the markets move the march of technology ever forward. He takes on patents, copyrights, tariffs, and protectionism of entrenched interests in general, with guarded optimism: 'The promise of the future is nothing short of spectacular — provided that those who lack the imagination to see the potential here don't get their way.'"
fearing change is contrary to the genuine intent of capitalism. So it is in error to say capitalist are fearful of change. But control freaks... that's different.
It's generally not the people who create things, make things, or provide useful services who fear change. They can adapt. But if you've spent your life's effort working your way into control of a particular set of cash registers, change is very threatening indeed.
The larger the government is, the more is can be used as a cudgel to take down smaller competitors by big business.
Reduce regulation, reduce the power the federal government wields and inherently big business only has the power of whatever intellect they have multiplied by the money they have on hand.
The smaller government is the more small businesses will thrive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What regulations would you reduce? I hear that all the time but little to nothing in specifics except ways that put more power into corporate hands / push costs off on to the citizens of the country.
Reducing government regulation only leaves a power vacuum that big players in the private sector (transnational corporations, etc.) would gladly fill. These new overlords would gladly oppress the public if it meant a secured source of profit, and they wouldn't have to worry about the pesky constitutional limitations our government operates under.
Reducing government influence is the same as reducing public influence. I don't want to return to the Gilded Age just for promises of a more efficient capitalism.
The incumbents prefer the status quo because that's where they make their money. If you're entrenched then change is bad.
Now apply this premise to fossil fuel companies.
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I'd start by wrapping up business and closing down Freddy and Fanny. Just to know how deep the shit is. Of course they won't do that. It might allow a open secondary market for home loans to develop. There would be players. Capital is searching for safe harbor. Transition would be a bitch, but delay will only increase the pain.
Less ambitious then closing the fed, besides we don't want to destabilize the dollar. The euro is about to do us a favor. Last currency standing, capital flight etc.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's not that the "No True Scotsman" fallacy doesn't exist; it does. But sometimes it turns out it really was an Englishman.
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Is it a NTS though if the alleged fallacy-rebuttal is in fact part of the definition of something? If by definition fear of change truly is contrary to the genuine nature of capitalism then it is not a fallacy to genuinely assault the legitimacy of claiming the title "capitalist" applies.
That's what I call the "No True Scotsman Fallacy Fallacy". The fact is that a Scotsman is one by birth, and so there's an easily described definition of a Scotsman. You are or you aren't, and a simple birth certificate check will ell.
"Capitalist" also has a definition, but it's not as cut and dry as "Scotsman". Still, it's pretty obvious that while anyone can claim to be a capitalist, some people are so far outside the definition that they clearly aren't. That's not a fallacy.
Here's how I usually handle it. It seems that most people who use the NTSFF are lefties. Fine. If Joseph Hazelwood claims to be an environmentalist that means that some environmentalists like to get drunk and trash wildlife refuges by spilling millions of gallons of oil in them, right? No, it would mean that he's a crackpot.
Oddly, Nobody pulls out the NTSFF when you put it in those terms.
Do you have ESP?
What the poster really meant to say was: "This post conflicts with my dearly held and totally unexamined assumptions and ideas about capitalism. I am incapable of addressing it in any coherent fashion so I will instead wave my hands and imply that the original poster is ignorant and a liar because he said things that make me uncomfortable."
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
When confronted with this fact they either ignore it, minimize its threat, offer up irrelevant counter arguments or offer up solutions that make no sense whatsoever, such as eliminating government altogether.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
By the same token, there are two types of communism - a pure type where all resources are shared by the people for the good of the people. The other is what we end up with, and is closer to fascism.
The dream market will never exist. It will always degrade into something else.
SteveFoerster opined:
Too many people on all sides of the ideological map don't understand there's a gigantic difference between capitalism and corporatism. In one, you actually have free markets, and inefficient businesses actually lose money and go under. But in the corporatist system we have, executives of giant corporations (which rely on limited liability that couldn't even exist in a real free market) cozy up to policy makers for mutual advantage. They're as different from each other as either is from socialism.
Man, am I sick of this argument.
"I fiercely defend free-market capitalism! But we don't actually HAVE free-market capitalism ... we have corporatism, instead. And, er, Ludwig Von Mises!"
Give to me a break.
We will NEVER have free-market capitalism. It's a mythical state of being, like pure communism. We will always have a tilted playing field, because human beings are not perfectable. People are crooked - or, at least, enough of them are that any economic system that depends on "fair play" to work WON'T.
Full stop.
The libertarian utopia is as much a pipe dream as the communist one, and for the same reason: both depend on humans to act in perfectly logical, reasonable, and predictable ways. They won't. They can't. Humans are irrational, short-sighted, emotional beings, not robots. Just as they're not content with "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," they're not willing to compete without seeking an edge, literally by hook or by crook. YOU may be willing to compete on a level playing field - but it only takes a few scammers and con artists to upend that field to the point where EVERYONE starts scrambling for an unfair advantage.
That's why regulated markets exist. Because humans lie, steal, and cheat - predictably so. Regulators come into being in an attempt to address those problems. Do the regulators get coopted, or misidentify problems and therefore apply inappropriate strategies to correct them? Oh, hell yes. That's because those regulators are themselves human beings, for which see above.
And around and around and around it goes.
FUCK Ludwig Von Mises. He isn't talking about the real world. The real world is crooked, unfair, and messy - and it's never magically going to change into the ideal, free-market condition about which libertarians, Randroids, and other such shut-ins so endlessly hyperventilate. Pull your collective heads out of your determinedly-individualistic asses, and DEAL WITH IT. There IS no ideal free market economy. There never WILL be an ideal free-market economy. And any philosophy that depends on the existence of an ideal free-market economy is a PIPE DREAM.
Grow the fuck up.
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