The very term “capitalism” has become a bone of contention among some members of this forum. Perhaps this controversy could be solved if those who use the term “capitalism” to mean anything specify between “state capitalism” and “free market capitalism”? Here is an article by Rothbard on the subject:
Capitalism is the opposite of socialism. The only way you can have socialism, is to first have capitalism. Only when someone has private ownership, can they defer that ownership to the collective. However if all property is collectively owned, then there is no opportunity for private property ownership.
I think the argument is silly and counter-productive. The opposite of capitalism (private ownership) is socialism (public ownership). While the world becomes more socialistic, I absolutely reject abandoning the term Capitalism, it is not only limiting the arsenal of communication we have for our ideas, but it could possibly signal the defeat of our ideas for good!
After all, we’ve surrendured “liberal”, “liberalism”, “libertarian”. At what point do we stop inventing names for our ideologies (mutualist, syndicalist, communist, anarcho-this and that) and stand our ground? The backpedalling means that the statists and their brainwashed, dumbed down masses are constantly defining the rules of the game, and guarantee we can never win.
I don’t know if it is because people are too lazy to defend “our words” or what, but I hate admitting defeat when I know I am right. That’s some real messed up Sun Tzu stuff if we think we can win by retreating.
I think we should abandon the term.
See here, especially the “Anti-Concepts and the “Package Deal”” part.
But Long again is playing to"what most people mean".
My point isn’t that a majority of people judge the words incorrectly, it’s that if we constantly defer to the ignorant (and becoming more ignorant) masses, then we can never win because we are allowing the least qualified people to dictate the rules of the game, and change them at will, because we offer no resistance to it.
Take anarchism. I brought it up with a 24 year old who is dating my cousin. The first words out of his mouth, “You want mayhem”?
And that is what we have allowed the masses to define anarchism as.
It’s all well and good to continue the retreat, to fashion new and more complex names for everything (which leads to the promotional speed bumps when dealing with the masses, who may not even be capable of pronouncing the words we devise) until they come for your brand of libertarianism. When your anarcho-capitalism, or mutualism or anarcho-syndicalism gets redefined by the masses to mean something totally different than you had intended it to mean.
I hate to quote Alex Jones, but this is an Information War. We’re not going to win by continuing to surrender territory.
The problem with trying to “recapture” terms is that people respond to sound bites, and if our sound bites contain terms that are defined in ways that aren’t readily accessible to people, we’ll never be able to get our ideas across.
Under the influence of Rothbard, I used to frequently make that distinction. I still make the distinction sometimes just to demonstrate the difference between the free market as a concept and the actual real world of what’s called “capitalism” (a corporatist system with a state backing up big buisiness). However, I tend to shy away from using the term “capitalism” entirely and prefer to talk about the actual relevant concepts.
Sigh. You accept a false dichotomy, since either term represents a package deal or can refer to a plurality of things. You have to be more specific. Otherwise, the dichotomy is clearly incoherant.
So the way you’re defining them, “capitalism” is private ownership and “socialism” is collective ownership. The problem is that this breaks down logically, since within “capitalism” there can be multiple people owning something, and within “socialism” there can be exclusive control of resources. At such a point it’s time to go back and check your premises, since clearly this starts to logically fall apart.
What is “public ownership”? Are private individuals, viewed in sum, not the same thing as “the public”? If by “public ownership” you mean “state ownership”, then isn’t the term “public” a misleading misnomer? Since what’s called “public property” actually is exclusively controlled by the government, it most certainly isn’t “public” in any true sense. So is it really “public ownership” that you oppose, or is it “state ownership”? And by what good reason does it make sense to only support exclusive control by an individual while opposing anything that is inclusive or group-oriented? It makes no sense. The whole dichotomy breaks down.
I am not playing semantics here, I am showing the dichotomy to be logically incoherant and the terms to be inadequate for accurately describing what one really means.
That depends on whom you’re trying to communicate with (and on the mode and manner of communication). In rational discussion, if one’s interlocutor is confused about the meaning one assigns to ‘capitalism’, simply correct him and proceed with the debate (similarly with ‘anarchism’). Of course this won’t work if one is trying to release a new idea to the ignorant masses.
To me, the very idea that we should go out of our way to fight for words is downright silly. What’s important are the ideas/concepts. I’m not going to abandon discussion of concepts in the name of “saving” labels.
I’ve generally favoured abandoning “capitalism” in favour of “free market” but what you said struck a chord with me. However, I dont see how we could ever take back “liberal,” and I think “capitalism” is probably close to reaching the point of no return. Maybe it’s lost and we need to focus on defending “free market” (it is being usurped by statist conservativers).
Good. That was my goal.
You may well be right. I’m not totally focused on the word capitalism, but how constant surrender renders us impotent.
Not trying to be negative, but that one will be lost as well. Most leftist-socialists can’t stand the notion of an evil market, they already conflate it with the right wing and capitalism [sic]. “The market” is an epithet, and a free market lacks regulation. Regulation = good btw. At least it does to the people we allow to define Capitalism and such for us.
It’s totally frustrating.
BP, while you are of course entitled to your opinion, as is Rod Long, and you are both sure to produce thousands of pages of philosophical masterworks, laced with big words and references to obscure individuals, the blood and guts, street level battle is being lost every day. And the plane of intellectualism you guys choose to compete on, has already been abandoned by the statists, because not only do they know they cannot win (so your battles are basically for self-gratification) but they know no one is watching.
Most people don’t care. The current efforts are occuring on the satellite equivalent of ESPN 3 Balochistan.
I won’t even speak to how you undermine words the same way that Carson does, perhaps naive to the fact, thay you’re slitting your own tongue, and helping the statists marginalize your dissent and diminish your ideas.
I came looking for Mises’ Lions and found only Kittens. He said he regretted not being bolder, and yet now his den is inhabited by people who can’t walk softly enough for the statists. Très triste.
I fail to see how rejecting misconceptions commonly held by statists and rejecting false conceptions that help statists play the old game of divide and conquer is “helping the statists marginalize your dissent and diminish your ideas”. I don’t “undermine words”, and what’s more important are ideas, not labels.
The way in which you characterize me as if I’m somehow conceding to statists is truly absurd. I’m rejecting misconceptions that are held by most statists (and apparently many libertarians). For example, the use of the term “public property” to refer to state control is simply logically incoherant, and a dichotomy between “capitalists” (who dominatly are statists) and “socialists” (who diminantly are statists) is absurd in terms of the broad libertarian paradigm. You seem to have this matter entirely backwards. I don’t see how fighting for the use of a particular definition of “capitalism” in anyway constitutes “fighting the statists” or that I’m somehow “giving up the battle” by not wasting my time being a partisan for a label.
I really wonder: what is your heirarchy of values? Is “capitalism” at the top of your heirarchy of values? Or is “liberty” at the top? From my perspective, liberty is at the top and “capitalism” (in the free market sense of the term) is something that logically follows and is only an economic manifestation of liberty. While I do think that liberty is a necessary or inherent component of “capitalism” (again, in the free market sense), I don’t think that “capitalism” and “liberty” are synonamous in any pure sense. Liberty is a more broad concept and “capitalism” is only an economic term. Free market “capitalism” is something derived from liberty in the heirarchy or latticework of concepts, it is not a first principle. I am a proponent of individual liberty first and foremost, not merely a partisan of “capitalism” divorced from context.
No, you don’t see it.
Or wasting your time being partisan about anything.
You’ve completely missed the point. It’s not about the word capitalism.
It’s not about fighting the statists. That’s oversimplifying it. It’s about standing up for what you believe in. Whether the word is capitalism, liberalism, anarchism etc.
One day, they might come for the word Agorist. Or left-libertarian. Will you wait until it is too late to resist, or will you continue to not only allow others to define your own terms, but actually participate in dismantling your language and heroes, until all that is left is newspeak?
I don’t need an answer. The question is rhetorical.
I’m not allowing others to define my own terms. I’m not dismantling my own language. In fact, what I’m doing is the exact opposite. I’m rejecting the terms that others use to misidentify me and dismantling their language. I’m rejecting the bulk of common political language as a bunch of package deals, false dichotomies and anti-concepts. What I believe in are certain concepts, and such concepts cannot be summed up in common political language very well. A single label is not enough. I only believe in labels such as “capitalism”, “liberalism” and “anarchism” in their contexts, not in and of themselves divorced from context. I’ll only use such terms when put into their respective contexts, for the purpose of clarity in communication.
I think the issue can be avoided and objections overturned before they even come up if one simply takes a page out of Mises’, Rothbard’s, Hoppe’s book(s) and provides simple definitions for any terms they are employing if their audience might find them ambiguous. This also makes it easier for the audience to grasp the conclusions drawn from any arguments made. It also makes the pejorative attacks of opponents seem more childish and ideologically motivated when they are contrasted to simple well reasoned positions, which is precisely the problem which we are facing with regard to the terminology we use.
I agree that if one is going to use such terms one should very explicitly and clearly define them in their respective contexts and take adequate consideration of how they relate to other concepts. However, I don’t think that many libertarians have been particularly effective at doing that, and sometimes fall into some cliche semantic traps themselves. I’ve seen a lot of debates between libertarians and people from various other camps in which neither of the two sides really understand eachother’s positions and the whole thing consequentially ends up being an endless series of straw men, or a long drawn out debate that may seem sensible at face value is based on a false assumption from the start that both sides are using as a starting point.
Look, it’s not like anyone “came for” the words “capitalism” or “anarchy.” Those words existed long before the libertarian movement claimed them for its own, and they meant exactly what ordinary people think they mean today. I mean, if I’m not mistaken, the word “capitalist” was introduced by Marx himself!
But more than that, the problem we’re facing is one endemic to the use of stylized monikers to refer to core concepts. I understand why people do that, but it’s always going to be inherently prone to linguistic bastardization. “Liberal” seems like the best example; liberal viewpoints emphasize freedom and equality as the two core values to be promoted by a political system. But the way liberals talk about freedom and equality today is radically different from the way that the classical liberals used the terms. And that’s how it will always be when you slap vague names on your concepts in order to categorize yourself as “a [something]”.
In any case, why can’t we just talk more precisely and be done with the argument? Why can’t we just point out that we believe in a right to self-determination? Or that we’re in favor of radical decentralization of State functions?