While perhaps not the only source of the problem, a major part of it is the false dichotomy between state capitalism and state socialism. This false dichotomy is reinforced by vulgar libertarians, who use free market rhetoric to defend presently existing corporatism. Take, for example, wage slavery. Most people know it exists, because they experience it themselves: low pay that’s constantly being cut, along with their benefits, and little or no alternative options for employment. Many people, perhaps most people, are reduced to living paycheck to paycheck, constantly having to worry about just putting food on the table; all thanks to the artificially limited competition of the state capitalist marketplace. And then there’s the free marketeers, so-called, who say everything’s just fine. They agreed to work for those low wages. It’s all consensual. It’s all their fault. And of course, for wanting the wealthy to help pick up the tab on their childrens’ educations, (so that maybe, just maybe, they won’t have to endure the same wage slavery when they grow up), they’re greedy evil bastards, because apparently a few hundred billion in revenue, built off their sweat, isn’t enough for Wall Street. (You know, that gang of retards who thought it was a bad thing when they found out CostCo wasn’t treating their employees like worthless pieces of human excrement.) They’re told “hey, that’s just the nature of the game; private property, love it or leave it”; they’re hearing it from both sides, the socialists and the capitalists. Wal-Mart put all your mom and pop shops out of business? Hey, that’s just the free market. Don’t like it? Too bad!
But the one thing no one dare mention, not the state socialists, not the state capitalists, and most certainly not the vulgar libertarians, is that the deck is stacked and free market reasoning, therefore, just doesn’t apply. Many, perhaps even most, presently existing property titles are a complete fraud having no connection whatsoever to legitimate acts of homesteading. We have property by mere government decree, not by virtue of human labor mixed with the raw materials of the Earth. Wal-Mart lobbies for an eminent domain “taking” in damn near every town they open up shop, so they don’t have to pay market value for the land, but hey, it’s big business so it must be good, right? Same goes for damn near every sector of the economy. Lots of regulations and “takings” and licensing and selective prosecution of nonsense laws, a whole system designed to keep out competition and ensure monopoly. Sometimes its quite blatant, like with Microsoft, which gets all of its revenue, 100%, from government intervention in the market in the form of information protectionism; but hey, they turn a big profit, so they must be good. Let’s write up a bunch of articles on Mises defending them from those big bad meanies in government, because those are the real culprits. Microsoft isn’t the state, it’s capital, and capital’s good, just like capitalism’s good. And so the lies are spun, and most people know its complete BS, but the only alternative they hear is nationalization, central planning, an end to the tyranny of private property, or at least the only thing they know of as private property. Speculation in unused resources? Hey, it’s private property! The government said so! As if by magic, for the vulgar libertarians the government has all of a sudden become an authority on what’s right; the state socialists, to their credit, are at least consistent.
Maybe a bit of honesty would help improve the situation. Let’s start with this: the present system of state capitalism is not a free market or anything even remotely resembling a free market; the present system exists for the enrichment of the parasitic political class, big business and the state, at the expense of the exploited productive class, honest entrepreneurs and laborers. Trying to defend those who collude with the state using free market reasoning is asinine; trying to pretend that the very real exploitation of the present system doesn’t actually exist is equally asinine. Let’s continue with this: most existing corporations get a majority of their profit by virtue of the state’s actions, therefore they are extensions of the state. The state, as a thing incapable of legitimately owning anything, has no property, so anything claimed to be state property, or the property of those corporations deriving half or more of their revenue from the state, directly or indirectly, are unowned and open for homesteading; the employees of those corporations, having transformed those resources into productive use, are the legitimate homesteaders. Hey, look at that. When we defend private property we’re not just shilling for a bunch of multinational conglomerates. And a large number of white collar and blue collar workers just got back what’s rightfully theirs according to libertarian principle, so oft and conveniently ignored by the vulgar among us. Moving on, let’s try this: big businesses as they presently exist are bloated monstrosities subject to the same economic calculation problems, internally, as exist in centrally planned state socialist economies, and thus cannot survive the competition of a free market, so they only maintain their present size by virtue of state protection and subsidy. Centralized business structures are emulations of the state hierarchy, they are not a natural expression of market forces. A free market is more likely to produce, by competitive pressure, a situation where hierarchical wage-for-labor has been completely supplanted, or nearly so, by inter-entrepreneurial relationships. Hey, look at that, a real ownership society, not that nonsense Shrub was trying to sell. I think you get the picture. (And if you don’t, well I’ve been up since yesterday morning so please excuse me if my rant has turned incoherent.)
Or we can continue (and I’m sure the state socialists would love it if we did) to peddle the same old tired load of utter BS - a mental contagion we picked up from our ill-advised alliance with statist American “conservatism” - that everything would be just fine and dandy if only we left those poor downtrodden rich people alone. You know, like Bill Gates, because clearly Windows has enriched all our lives and doesn’t actually look like something a 15 year old with the IQ of carrot shat out on his keyboard during an epileptic fit. Behold the wonders of a “free” market! And if you don’t like it, you’re an idiot!