I believe it was Glenn Reynolds who last week linked Janet Daley’s wonderful defense of capitalism in the wake of the G20 protests advocating the overthrow of the free-market system.
In this essay in Britain’s Telegraph, Ms. Daley offers one of the best nutshell defenses of capitalism I have read in recent days:
It is in the interests of the Left to talk as if capitalism and socialism were precisely analogous because then they can be seen as competitors and in bad times, the command economy as opposed to the market-based one can win the popularity contest. But this fallacious argument into which, I am sorry to say, a great many well-intentioned people are allowing themselves to be drawn is very dangerous: capitalism isn’t really an “ism” which is why the term “free market economics” is so much more apt.
When we make the case for capitalism, we are defending the political principle of freedom, not arguing for one kind of rigid economic organisation over another.
. . . .
The operative word in the phrase “free market economics” is ‘free‘.
We need remind people over and over again that capitalism is about freedom and that freedom includes not merely economic freedom, but political and artistic freedom as well. Under capitalism, the artist can create whatever product he wants and is protected in his endeavors just as is the entrepreneur in his economic activity or the “dissident” and writer in their speech.
Janet Daley reminds us that when we talk about capitalism, we’re talking about freedom. And those who seek to overthrow the system seek to replace a system which allows them the freedom to protest.
So, let’s remember that when we defend repeated encroachments on our liberty. And learn to defend that noble idea as did the founders of our great repubic.
Why do leftists and liberals dig tyranny? Surely they’d have no problem explaining, right boob?
Anyway like I always said, Bush can’t be a fascist dictator, Nazi etc. because if he were, the liberals would be in love with him. As usual, they proved they were full of it.
I absolutely agree with Daley. “ism” implies a system, whereas free-market economics is, beyond rules re. force and fraud, an anti-system. Marxists are literal conservatives, i.e. Luddites; they hate Schumpeter’s creative destruction most of all. I’m not sure if it’s primarily envy or insecurity.
“Capitalism” is nothing more than the name Karl Marx invented to refer to economic freedom without actually having to address it as “freedom”, and so that he could characterize freedom as just one of many economic models and thus present his own evil model as a better way.
The word Capitalism is nothing more than another leftist attempt to redefine freedom out of existence.
AE, there’s evidence of the word ‘capitalist’ being used since 1792. Marx used it 60 years later. If it took 60 years to turn an ist into an ism, then I’ll eat a very fetching hat.
As for the notion of ‘freedom’ and connecting it to ‘free market economics’, is there a place where the market ends, or should end? would you advocate deregulation and market competition for utility services like water? should markets be held accountable to environmental protection legislation, or is that seen by other people here as curtailing the free market,tyrannous, even? What about human services? Should the police force be opened to free market enterprise, with individual communities buying into private security firms with police powers? At what point does free market economics become free market anarchism?
The question really ought to be not how far the market should go (markets are quite good at a establishing their own limits) but where should the state be allowed to intervene.
The state is an inherently inefficient entity as we see with the National Health Care bureaucracies of Britain and Canada. Bureaucrats build shiny new offices for themselves, while patients wait outside hospitals in ambulances for hours because of treatment regulations. Muslims are provided surgery to restore virginity and transsexuals are given state-provided treatments because they are members of favored political groups, while women are denied life-saving breast cancer drugs.
The role of the state should be limited to areas where there is no compelling private alternative and to enforce a set of rules that encourages entrepreneurship and vigorous competition among private entities.
V the K – According to the New England Journal of Medicine and data from the OECD The US spends 14.6 percent of GDP on healthcare, Canada – 9.6, UK 7.7. Yet in the US, adults receive only 55 percent of reccomended care, on average. and that would only be for people who are insured, so these figures dont account for the health of about 40 million people. Are those your metrics for efficiency?
When forty people can do in 8 days for almost nothing a job the state needed 2 years and $4 million to do, one has to question the efficiency of government.
Yes, U.S. health care costs are elevated. But Britain also has “loser pays,” which discourages the tort actions that drive up U.S. health care costs. Also, Canada and Britain ration health care on a political basis, which results in a large number of people going to other countries for treatment, including the USA. The same way the USA’s economy acts as a welfare system for Mexico, it acts as a health care system for those who can’t get care in their own countries.
Also, the forty million uninsured number is bullcrap. It includes 10-12 million illegal aliens and up to 17 million people who are wealthy enough to pay for their own medical treatments.
V the K – The ways that litigation can be funded in the UK means that ‘loser pays’ has little tangible impact on the quantity or expense of tort action against the NHS. Indeed, ‘loser pays’ directly and significantly increases the cost of healthcare in Britain, as a majority of cases are settled by the NHS, and expenses are paid for by the unit that was responsible for the litigation in the first place. I called a friend of mine who is a medical negligence claims handler for the NHS for over 10 years for this information, and what I outline is a very truncated form of the detailed overview she provided me. Bottom line is that you appear to be wrong.
“I have a friend who says…” evidence fail to make compelling refutations. Tort liability is a huge cost-driver in the USA, and many claims (like John Edwards suing baby doctors out of business and getting rich enough to buy a hideous and gigantic home) are based on junk science.
The other part of the equation is that the medical market in the USA is already heavily over-regulated. The state mandates what coverage insurers are required to provide and limits competition among insurers.
Also, as stated, unlike in Britain in Canada, care isn’t rationed by denying breast cancer drugs to women, having 13 week waiting lists for CAT Scans, or six month waiting lists for life-saving surgery. If people die while awaiting care, that does tend to reduce the cost of treating them.
We’ve been experimenting with quasi-s-o-c-i-a-l-i-z-e-d health care in the USA for forty years now. Maybe be should try a market-based system instead.
Under my ideal health care system, there would be chains of retail medical clinics much like Walgreens Pharmacies or Lenscrafters. People requiring treatment for minor illnesses, standard check-ups, and the like would go to the clinics and pay out-of-pocket for services. Medical records would be available on-line and the clinics could dispense most medications on the spot. Traditional doctor’s offices would be available for those who were willing to pay, and to treat more serious or chronic illnesses.
Doctors would be protected from excessive liability by caps on malpractice suits. Tort laws applying to medicine would be changed to a British-style “loser pays” system. Punitive damages would be socialized… no longer going to attorneys or victims, but pooled into a system to provide care for the indigent.
Persons would have a vastly expanded menu of options for medical insurance, and would be able to tailor their coverage to their own circumstance. Car insurance covers accidents, not oil changes, and those willing to pay for their own routine care would pay lower rates. Government medical vouchers would be available for the very poor and assistance for catastrophic care would also be available through the Federal government.
So, in your system, those with the most money get the most care. By what process would you decide the cap on litigation? Is that plaintiff compensation caps or punitive damage caps?
No, healthcare isn’t rationed in America like it is in the UK. We have a triage system: society seeks to determine, within a given budget, the most effective treatment for the greatest number of people. While it means that, yes, there are limits to the drugs we can distribute, it also means that we don’t double our bankruptsy rate due to medical expenses.
It’s certainly very nice to avoid bankruptcies. But not so nice if the person who did NOT incur medical bills is dead because of it.
But that’s kind of an “American” way to think of it, isn’t it.
Maybe it’s just that people in America generally have more to live for?
So, in your system, those with the most money get the most care.
Same way in yours, they just leave the country to get it. Also, under your s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t system, people with most political influence and connections get the best available care. This is somehow more fair?
We have a parallel private health system that the vast majority of Brits who dont seek NHS treatment go through. The NHS also pays for patients to have operations in other countries, if it’s cheaper.
As for the political connections arguement that you make, I’m a little confused as to what you’re alluding to. All women get a set amount of IVF on the NHS. Breast cancer drugs are not restricted because women aren’t as poltically powerfull as men, its because government health agencies aren’t as politically powerful as drug companies and cannot negotiate reasonable prices. Drug costs hurt the privately insured as well, albeit in a different index of suffering, such as potential personal financial ruin.
<iWe have a parallel private health system that the vast majority of Brits who dont seek NHS treatment go through.
So, people have to pay not only enormous taxes to support a wretched system, and have to more out of their pocket to get access to decent care.
And this, to you and your countrymen, is fair and efficient?
No wonder Britain is in a fatal spiral of decline.
It’s not perfect, and the point you make is a point of poltical contention in Britain, but everyone is in the system, fundamentally.
I will freely admit that there are different arguements to be made, and different values to be practised. Both my parents and my older sister are doctors, and they take great pride in being in a system where they treat patients on the basis of need and not ability to pay. Below I quote from a ‘Harpers’ magazine article which reasonably cogently explains the proponent arguement for single payer health insurance:
The argument for single payer is straightforward. When everybody is in, you don’t have to spend a lot of time and money deciding who to keep out. You also don’t have to worry about what to do with the people you’ve kept out when they get sick anyway. (Uninsured sick people cost insurers nothing, but since they often end up seeking expensive emergency-room treatment, they cost taxpayers a lot.) If you want to quit your job and work someplace else, you can do so without fear of losing your health insurance, which means that labor is more mobile. And employers don’t have to carry the burden of benefits, which means that capital is more mobile. If you get sick, you don’t have to worry about losing your coverage or your house. Your insurance is paid for through taxes. And your taxes don’t go up just because you have a preexisting condition; under single payer, there is no such thing as a “preexisting condition.†Moreover, your provider—the single payer—has an incentive to keep you healthy your entire life, rather than just getting you to age sixty-five and then dumping you into Medicare. And if the experience of most other countries is any indication, the whole thing would cost a lot less than our current bloated mess of a system.
Inefficient? in places, but we still spend less on our healthcare than you.
That’s very true. Genuine capitalism is synonymous with freedom. It is a moral, economic and political system in which government punishes the use of force and fraud, i.e. crimes… and otherwise leaves people free to deal-or-not-deal with one another, as they wish. With force and fraud effectively denied as means for people to deal with each other, people then deal with each other by mutual, voluntary consent.
In that light, Ms. Daley’s statement is rather odd:
Not at all. As Ms. Daley herself just pointed out, capitalism is much more than a theory of economics.
Agreed.
Sure, why not? But realistically, if we merely ended government subsidies of business (the bailouts) and of lending (unsound money), our economy would be so much better in a few years that hardly anyone would care if every last market is privatized to the Nth degree. Let’s walk, before we talk about running.
Privately-owned resources are generally much better cared-for than publicly-owned. For example, federal forest lands are a mess, while privately-owned forest lands are regularly tended and re-forested. You can always find a counter-example but as a general tendency, private owners usually do better than public.
No. The three legitimate functions of government are police, courts and military. Government is necessary, and is instituted by human beings, to bring the use of force in a geographic area under objective control, i.e., the control of a neutral and impartial institution whose aim, both stated and actual, is to protect individual rights.
Free markets presume and require the type of limited government that I just described. There are no free markets without law and order. If you are thinking of the Murray Rothbard type of anarchists who advocate competing, private defense agencies – which should more realistically be called “gang rule” or “civil war” – well, they’re not to be taken seriously.
And it shows. People die waiting for operations, in Canada and the UK. In 2005, a Canadian court found that Canada’s single-tier system was, in and of itself, a human rights violation:
http://www.settlementswithoutstrikes.ca/DocumentViewer.aspx?elementId=105835&portalName=base
I don’t believe that for one minute. Your source may have said it; but I’m sure it’s a ‘cooked’ statistic / fundamentally false. International organizations are noted for their anti-free-market bias.
A comprehensive rundown, ILC. some interesting points, and I’m beginning to understand the way that ideas are bracketed on this particular forum. As a boy brought up by a lesbian household, i’ve had a particular understanding of gay politics and have been influenced by that. I’m interested in seeing what else is out there. I don’t agree with a large amount of what gets said in this forum, but it’s all part of the rich, chewy nougat of the American experience!
A comprehensive rundown, ILC. some interesting points, and I’m beginning to understand the way that ideas are bracketed on this particular forum. As a boy brought up by a gay household, i’ve had a particular understanding of gay politics and have been influenced by that. I’m interested in seeing what else is out there. I don’t agree with a large amount of what gets said in this forum, but it’s all part of the rich, chewy nougat of the American experience!
Oh, and the source for that was the new england journal of medicine, not really an international organization.