THIS IS FALSE: “capitalism is not a political concept” – Andrew J Galambos.
THIS IS TRUE: Capitalism is not a *rhetorical* concept that relies upon the process of debate for the purpose of decision-making about the use of resources within a geography. However, capitalism is a political concept, because it relies upon the **absence** of rhetorical debate for the purpose of decision-making about the use of resources in a geography. And it requires agreement upon the *absence* of authoritarian property definitions, and managerial administration of property and transactions. Any principle that requires unanimity of compliance in a population is by definition political.
Property rights require unanimity of compliance in a population. And creating those rights (albeit expressed differently in different cultures) is the purpose of government. Some governments create horrid property rights, others egalitarian. All nations have property rights of some sort. But few have individual property rights. And it’s individual property rights that permit economic calculation and incentives in a vast division of knowledge and labor.
Therefore Capitalism is a political concept even if it does not include a dependence upon the process of debate for the purpose of allocating resources. Capitalism is a process of utilizing and allocating resources and providing incentives to serve one another. It is a political concept. It simply does not depend upon the decision-making of politicians – managers. Even totalitarianism is a political process because some number of people must be incentivized to comply with the totalitarian edicts for the purpose of compelling those people who are non-compliant.
The capitalist system simply acknowledges that the market is superior to both managerial socialism, authoritarianism, and classical republican rhetorical debate. Because the purpose of the market is to allow us to cooperate in large numbers WITHOUT debate when our minds are incapable of possessing sufficient knowledge, and we are not capable of coordinating actions in a vast division of knowledge and labor.
Nor is debate capable of providing the individual incentives needed for peaceful cooperation, since there is no ordered agreement on the use of resources in a population, nor can there be agreement on the use of resources other than under market prices.
This is the fundamental criticism of socialism that brought about its end. it is not that socialism is immoral. It is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for people to cooperate, to calculate, and to possess incentives for increasing production that then causes decreases in prices by any other means, whether rhetorical or dictatorial. – CD.
We have given up on socialism, which means the destruction of private property. We have instead, adopted redistributive socialism, which treats all property as collective, and where individual property is a temporary right for the purpose of cooperating and coordinating, and where rights to commissions on the use of property are determined by the state.
This democratic socialism is simply a slower way of destroying a civilization than individual property rights.
That there may be limits on the concentration of capital is not unreasonable. If money and property can be used to distort the market, or for political ends, then this is the exercise of power that is not in the interest of citizens. Therefore there must be limits on the use of capital. Especially under fiat money, where all money is effectively borrowed from average citizens.
