Saturday, January 15, 2011
Nothing Natural about It
The sharp historical division between labor and capital ownership is not a natural emergent feature of the market economy but largely the conscious result of government privilege.
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8 comments:
I would have said "inflation and the boom/bust cycle."
That too.
I've heard that argument for a long time, that market economies "naturally become dominated by a few firms" but never with much context to it. It makes sense that cartels and monopolies could only occur under a capitalist/statist system. Do you know of any good information on the topic?
I'd like for it to be true, but if I made that assertion and somebody called me on it the best argument I could make would be an argument from authority. My friends wouldn't find that argument persuasive.
You can find historical information in Franz Oppenheimer's The State; Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy, The State; Arthur Ekirch's The Decline of American Liberalism, Kevin Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy and Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective. Carson will direct you to more books and articles.
Labor and capital became separated in their efforts to exclude each other from control of the government (and so, to control it exclusively). Without government power to fight over, the two would end up with no rational course of action but to cooperate overtly.
Thanks Sheldon. I'll check it out.
I didn't read the article or publication. Did it mention Boycott ? Self-sufficient Iran ?
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