In response to Eric Aarons' `Why Communism failed' (Dissent no. 4, 2001) it is argued that the present "capitalist" system is in fact so regulated as to be a hybrid of capitalist and socialist principles. It has some success in putting economic power into the hands of most people, though it needs restraint to cope with market failures.

Financial derivatives have been singled out as the major villain in the latest crisis, particularly through speculative trading by banks. Yet little attention has been paid to the fundamental rôle that derivatives play in modern capitalism. Even less has there been a focus on how the boom in derivatives-trading was prompted by the crisis of profitability and capital-accumulation. This article shows that while derivatives were one means by which speculation took off, the momentum behind this was driven by low profitability. (...) That was why banks turned their mortgage-loans into derivative-driven securities, why pension-funds placed bets on commodity-futures and why countries such as Greece used derivatives to hide the real state of their finances. Derivatives helped determine the form and magnitude of the crisis, but were not its underlying cause. Proposed reforms of the derivatives-market ignore the fundamental determinants of the financial crisis, assuming it to be a failure of regulation. (shrink)

Although philosophers tend to differ in terms of the criteria that they offer for determining when market transactions should be morally prohibited, they tend to converge with respect to a certain methodological bias: they fail to reflexively consider how the existing politico-economic context bears on the way in which they formulate these criteria. After discussing the nature of actually existing, rather than idealized, markets, I consider four such offerings, which are either liberal egalitarian or communitarian, and I articulate how (...) this failure is manifested in their respective positions. I conclude by pointing toward an alternative approach to the question of marketization, one that is both methodologically and substantively more faithful to the scope of the underlying problems that this question raises. (shrink)

Observers of agriculture and theenvironment have noted the recent remarkable growth ofthe organic products industry. Is it possible for thisgrowth in the organics market to contribute toprogressive environmental and social goals? From theperspective of green consumerism, the organics marketis a powerful engine for positive change because itpromotes greater environmental awareness andresponsibility among producers and consumers alike.Given its environmental benefits and its ability touse and alter capitalist markets, organic agricultureis currently a positive force for environmentalism.Still, there are contradictions between (...) organic idealsand practice – e.g., the reductionism of organicstandards, the limitations of private organiccertification, and the widespread practice ofinput-substitution – that emerge through thedynamics of the capitalist market. As the marketmatures, these contradictions will increasinglyundermine the very environmental benefits that are thefoundation of organic agriculture. Fundamental change,therefore, is not likely to occur through the marketalone. There are ways, however, that the organicsmarket could contribute to a broader movement leadingto collective action. For instance, the organicsmarket tends to undermine commodity fetishism in theagrifood system, thereby strengthening civil society.In addition, the market provides space and resourcesfor social movement activity, such as in the struggleover the National Organic Standards. (shrink)

This article develops and defends a triadic account of structural domination, according to which structural domination (e.g. patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism) is a triadic relation between dominator(s), dominated, and regulator(s)—the constitutive domination dyad plus those roles and norms expressively upholding it. The article elaborates on the relationship between structure and agency from the perspective of both oppressor and oppressed and discusses the deduction of the concept of the capitalist state from the concept of capitalism. On the basis of these (...) definitions, it shows that structural domination under capitalism presupposes collective power but no joint agency or shared intentions on the part of the dominators. (shrink)

Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels (...) us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory. (shrink)

Producing a properly philosophical theory of capitalism as an open axiomatic system requires adding intensive multiplicities to the mathematical account of set theory, which allows only extensive multiplicities. Doing so enables us to understand pricing as a process of transforming intensive quantities into metric quantities, and thereby develop a diagram of the dynamics of axiomatisation and of the market as the two-sided and asymmetrical recording surface of the capitalist socius whose slope represents the infinite debt owed to finance (...) capital. The capitalist market axiomatises four kinds of flows – flows of liquid capital and abstract labour, of course, but also flows of raw materials and energy and of human populations. At the same time that axiomatisation conjugates these flows in denumerable sets to extract surplus-value, it connects flows in minor, non-denumerable sets that escape axiomatisation and may become revolutionary. Such minor connections would constitute the fabric of a post-capitalist axiomatics. (shrink)

Scott Arnold's recent paper, “Marx and Market Socialism,” advances a provocative thesis: market socialists are advocating an economic system that has a strong, internally generated tendency to revert to capitalism. They are, in short, “capitalist roaders”.

Friedrich A. von Hayek influenced many areas of inquiry including economics, psychology and political theory. This article will offer one possible interpretation of the ethical foundation of Hayek's political and social contributions to libertarianism and free market capitalism by analyzing several of his important non-economic publications, primarily The Road to Serfdom, The Fatal Conceit, The Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation and Liberty. While Hayek did not offer a particular ethical foundation for free market capitalism, he argued consistently (...) that free markets are liberating and, for the markets to be truly free and for individuals to participate freely in markets, they should be subject to little control. Beyond some very basic principles, such as the protection of private property, that enable the free market to function properly, individuals are both free to and required to determine their own ethical compass. The central question, then, is what are the ethical principles that underlie Hayek's view of the successful organization and operation of a free market? If formal rules and regulations must be kept to a minimum, then ethical behavior is an individual choice as well as an important foundation for the self-regulating free market. This article will argue that one possible ethical foundation underlying Hayek's libertarian justification for free market capitalism are Friedrich Nietzsche's "will to power" and noble/slave ethics. This article will rely primarily on Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil, Zarathustra, and the Will to Power. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction: Rawls Against Capitalism Rawls's Critique of “Welfare State Capitalism” Rawls (and Meade) on the Aims and Features of “Property‐Owning Democracy” Putting the Democracy into Property‐Owning Democracy: POD and the Fair Value of the Political Liberties Power, Opportunity, and Control of Capital: POD and Fair Equality of Opportunity Power, Status, and Self‐Respect: POD, the Difference Principle, and the Value of Equality Welfare State Capitalism and Property‐Owning Democracy: Ideal Types, Public Policy, and Real Politics Conclusion ‐ (...) Liberty, Equality, and Property‐Owning Democracy References. (shrink)

I argue that capitalism presents a threat to “democratic contestation”: the egalitarian, socially distributed capacity to affect how, why, and whether power is used. Markets are not susceptible to mechanisms of accountability, nor are they bearers of intentions in the way that political power-holders are. This makes them resistant to the kind of rational, intentional oversight that constitutes one of democracy’s social virtues. I identify four social costs associated with this problem: the vulnerability of citizens to arbitrary interference, the insensitivity (...) of markets to relevant interests, failures of trust in the market system, and the inhibition of social deliberation about matters of public concern. I make general two suggestions about how we might ameliorate these problems: First, as a way of introducing some measure of intentionality to large-scale patterns of business activity, the reconceptualization of such activity as participation in larger group actions; second, the development of deliberative bodies that bring together business actors, policy experts, and diverse citizens in an effort to better characterize and transmit the public values that business should serve. (shrink)

Incisive and engaging, The Free Market Existentialist proposes a new philosophy that is a synthesis of existentialism, amoralism, and libertarianism. Argues that Sartre’s existentialism fits better with capitalism than with Marxism Serves as a rallying cry for a new alternative, a minimal state funded by an equal tax Confronts the “final delusion” of metaphysical morality, and proposes that we have nothing to fear from an amoral world Begins an essential conversation for the 21st century for students, scholars, and armchair (...) philosophers alike with clear, accessible discussions of a range of topics across philosophy including atheism, evolutionary theory, and ethics. (shrink)

Friedrich A. von Hayek influenced many areas of inquiry including economics, psychology and political theory. This article will offer one possible interpretation of the ethical foundation of Hayek’s political and social contributions to libertarianism and free market capitalism by analyzing several of his important non-economic publications, primarily The Road to Serfdom, The Fatal Conceit, The Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation and Liberty. While Hayek did not offer a particular ethical foundation for free market capitalism, he argued consistently (...) that free markets are liberating and, for the markets to be truly free and for individuals to participate freely in markets, they should be subject to little control. Beyond some very basic principles, such as the protection of private property, that enable the free market to function properly, individuals are both free to and required to determine their own ethical compass. The central question, then, is what are the ethical principles that underlie Hayek’s view of the successful organization and operation of a free market? If formal rules and regulations must be kept to a minimum, then ethical behavior is an individual choice as well as an important foundation for the self-regulating free market. This article will argue that one possible ethical foundation underlying Hayek’s libertarian justification for free market capitalism are Friedrich Nietzsche’s “will to power” and noble/slave ethics. This article will rely primarily on Nietzsche’s On The Genealogy of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil, Zarathustra, and the Will to Power. (shrink)

A collection of classical and contemporary sources highlighting the radical potential of the individualist anarchist tradition.

Jerry Kirkpatrick's Montessori, Dewey, and Capitalism: Educational Theory for a Free Market in Education presents a provocative synthesis of the educational philosophies of Maria Montessori and John Dewey with the economic philosophies of Ayn Rand and Ludwig Von Mises. At the center of Kirkpatrick's thesis is his belief that public education be subject to a free-market model. Kirkpatrick holds that students can thrive in an educational system free from all forms of coercion, something he believes can only be (...) accomplished in a free-market educational system that is not bound by government intervention. He borrows from Ayn Rand in arguing that only the individual matters and that all forms of imposed authority .. (shrink)

This essay draws political theory into dialogue with recent work in economic history and the history of capitalism to develop an account of the unique injustice produced by capitalist slavery in the antebellum United States. Prevailing approaches to thinking about slavery in political theory tend to disembed it from its broader socioeconomic context, which has led theorists to overlook some of the distinctive horrors associated with capitalist slavery in particular. In response, I develop a theory of capitalist (...) slavery as expropriation, conceived as violent domination harnessed to the imperatives of capital accumulation. Capitalist slavery-as-expropriation encompasses two analytically distinct moments: the moment of confiscation, in which human lives and capacities are enclosed via commodification, and the moment of conscription, in which enslaved labor is mobilized via routine violence. Though enslaved people were not market subjects, this framework reveals the extent to which they were nevertheless subject to the market. (shrink)

This book examines how legal systems and mechanisms give shape to the capitalist economic system. In this regard, it focuses on the most important of these systems, such as monetary and financial law, company law, fiscality, contract and labour law. Further, the book provides a thorough analysis of the underlying ethical values of said legal systems and mechanisms. It also gives an overview of several potentially devastating related effects, such as poverty, the increasing polarisation between rich and poor, climate (...) change, and mounting debts at both the public and private level. The book concludes by presenting proposals for change. Given its critical analysis of legal systems and mechanisms in connection with the value choices dictated by economic ideologies, the book will be of particular interest to legal and economic academics, researchers and students, but also to policymakers, and, more generally, to anyone with a genuine concern for how the socio-economic order will evolve. (shrink)

Given the public’s affective responses to volatile global financial markets in recent years, one might expect that “we” as a society would interrogate capitalist conceptions of “value.” After all, if flows of abstract capital are untethered from tangible realities, as the 2008 collapse of global financial markets showed they can be, and if the supposedly concrete gains that people earn from their labors, such as pensions and salaries, remain vulnerable to the vicissitudes of this abstraction, then capitalism’s promises might (...) be thought to lose their appeal. Capitalist practices of value production work through anticipation, and the future of capitalism now appears to be bad for most people. Surely, one might .. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The recent study of African politics suggests that while African voters tend to be ambivalently positive about democratic reforms, they are even less supportive of market reforms. African states have, if anything, been ahead of their publics in instituting economic reforms. But African leaders have failed to explain or defend these policies to their electorates. This may reflect their own ambivalence—at best—about capitalism.

In this review, I will focus on how William Irwin’s The Free Market Existentialist manages to take a broad definition of existentialism and narrow it into dogma. Such narrowing limits the appeal of this book and causes an interesting discussion to fall short of its promised goal: a demonstration that libertarianism is compatible, and perhaps a natural fit, with existentialism.

This essay armies that Kant's philosophy provides a justification for free markets. The myths about Kant are that he was a recluse, knew nothing about business, and that his epistemology divorced reason from reality, while his primary interest was metaphysics. Yet Kant's categorical imperative demands obedience even in the face of uncertainty about the external world. Adam Smith described this principle as the inward testimony of an impartial observer. Smith and Kant put individual decisions at the center of morality, but (...) agreed that people have a tendency to make morally inferior choices. Those who propose to regulate the economy are as troubled by this tendency as those they regulate. The self-sacrifice prescription is economically, psychologically, and morally unstable. In recommending market competition. Smith was unconsciously applying a Kantian formula. Market decisions are individual decisions. Individuals prefer to do business with those they trust: this is an incentive to honesty. A morality that depends upon incentives is imperfect but superior to a morality imposed by force. (shrink)

State capitalism has recently come to the fore as a transversal research object in the social sciences. Renewed interest in the notion is evident across several disciplines, in scholarship addressing government interventionism in economic life in major developing countries. This emergent field of study on state capitalism, however, consistently bypasses the remarkable conceptual trajectory of the notion from the end of the 19th century to the present. This article proposes an intellectual-historical survey of state capitalism’s many lives across different ensembles (...) of writing: early Marxist pronouncements on state capitalism at the time of the Second International; theories of state capitalism evolved in the first half of the 20th century in response to the European experience of war and fascism; dissident portrayals of the Soviet Union as state-capitalist; post-Second World War theories of state-monopoly capitalism in the Western Bloc; examinations of state capitalism as a development strategy in ‘Third World’ nations in the 1970s and 1980s; and finally, today’s scholarship on new patterns of state capitalism in emerging economies. Having contextualized each of these strands of writing, the article goes on to interrogate definitional and conceptual boundaries of state capitalism. It then maps out essential institutional features of state-capitalist configurations as construed in the literature. In sharp contrast to 20th-century theories of state capitalism, present-day scholarship on the topic tends to retreat from the integrated critique of political economy, shifting its problematics of state-market relations to meso- and micro-levels of analysis. (shrink)

To grasp current trends within capitalism without abandoning the framework of Marx’sCapitalwe need to return to the category of ‘fictitious capital’ and make it central to our explanations. Based on the 2012 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Lecture, this essay combines reflections on Marx’s account of ‘fictitious capital’; an investigation of the role of bills of exchange; and an analysis of the recent turmoil in British and US banking. It looks at the way the opium trade, financed through the London (...) bill market, integrated a constellation of interests in the City with the labour of peasant households in India as parts of a unified accumulation process. Opium was vital to the fortunes of British capitalism for most of the nineteenth century. The merchant banks that were the mainstay of Britain’s form of capitalism were also the key element in the re-emergence of global finance in the postwar period. The concluding part of the paper deals with the current banking crisis and follows Hilferding in arguing that by providing liquidity to the markets for fictitious capital, speculation plays a crucial role in sustaining profitability for the bigger capitals. (shrink)

In this article, we explore how digital marketers think about marketing in the age of Big Data surveillance, automatic computational analyses, and algorithmic shaping of choice contexts. Our starting point is a contradiction at the heart of digital marketing namely that digital marketing brings about unprecedented levels of consumer empowerment and autonomy and total control over and manipulation of consumer decision-making. We argue that this contradiction of digital marketing is resolved via the notion of relevance, which represents what Fredric Jameson (...) calls a symbolic act. The notion of the symbolic act lets us see the centering of relevance as a creative act of digital marketers who undertake to symbolically resolve a contradiction that cannot otherwise be resolved. Specifically, we suggest that relevance allows marketers to believe that in the age of surveillance capitalism, the manipulation of choice contexts and decision-making is the same as consumer empowerment. Put differently, relevance is the moment when marketing manipulation disappears and all that is left is the empowered consumer. To create relevant manipulations that are experienced as empowering by the consumer requires always-on surveillance, massive analyses of consumer data and hyper-targeted responses, in short, a persistent marketing presence. The vision of digital marketing is therefore a fascinating one: marketing disappears at precisely the moment when it extends throughout the life without limit. (shrink)

This paper presents a longue durée account of the discursive emergence of ‘the market'. It seeks to develop understanding of the ‘crisis system' by showing that the crises of the present have their origins earlier than some critical realist scholars have suggested and can be better understood by the theorization of the generative mechanisms that emerged from the economic and political chaos of the early 1600s. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is employed to show that in the context of the (...) emergence of capitalism in England, these generative mechanisms resulted in the meaning of the word ‘market’ slipping loose of the geo-spatial semiotic bounds by which it had commonly been delineated – i.e. as a physical space in a town or city where goods were bartered or sold – and being re-semioticised to refer to abstract space where all acts of capitalist economic exchange, including those impacting upon the natural world, take place. (shrink)

Money markets are at the heart of financialized capitalism, as those markets that provide the funding liquidity needed for credit creation and leveraged trading. How have these markets evolved, grown, and become critical for larger financial flows? To answer this question, I distinguish an early period of financial globalization marked by regulatory arbitrage, offshoring, deregulation, and informal trading practices from a period of regime-consolidation marked by formal institutionalization. Concentrating on repo markets as the key funding sources for market-based banking, (...) I demonstrate that new institutional arrangements for these markets were initiated by private sector associations, but supported and authorized by public authorities. Bond trader groups codified new contractual arrangements and these were validated via reforms of bankruptcy codes and changes in central banks’ policy frameworks in the United States and European Union. Through these modifications and re-articulations in institutional conditions, transactions and large exposures on money markets became routine affairs—for shadow banking actors like money market funds as well as for commercial banks. The article concludes by discussing the continuity of regime-consolidation efforts after the transatlantic financial crisis and hypothesizes that they reveal “neo-patrimonial” features. (shrink)

Marx and Rawls seems to have a very different concept of justice. Marx argued that the concept of justice functions in the performance of the dominant ideological mode of production required for the conduct, as universally binding legal code. Rawls is argued that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, its law may be recognized by all such people: they are fair and reasonable to discuss the issue is how to equitably divide among themselves the burden of social cooperation (...) and interests. Although embodied in Marx and Rawls an important difference between the various positions still exist, but I believe that the concept of justice is obviously two different positions, is able to reconcile. Despite the different effects of Hegel and Kant, Marx and Rawls's view can still show the same place. In a clear political concept of justice, Rawls believes that acceptable principles of justice, must be in the social system can be implemented. This led to his "Kantian constructivism", close to Hegel's view, at this point, Marx laid him on the universal, social rejection of a priori principles of justice. I believe that both Marx and Rawls are asked, and what can be seen as a social system to achieve the principles of justice as fairness. However, during which there are two important differences. First, Marx's vision, seems to be a Hume and Rawls beyond the so-called "environmental justice" society, while Rawls , the social environment beyond the justice is utopian. Secondly, Marx believed that, as the social basis of market relations should be exceeded, because the relationship between these markets to include the producers of natural and social process of production of the products of labor and social alienation. Although environmental justice in the society beyond the market's demise may be, Rawls was declared to be a just solution in the competitive demands of any society, the demise of the market are not. I believe that, if Marx's rejection of the market, as a fundamental denial "commodity fetishism", then the position of Marx and Rawls will be able to reconcile. The author concludes that, in addition to Marx's concept of the future classless society with the ideal ingredients, capitalism and the market in the concept of justice, Marx and Rawls's position is very close. Man and Raids appear to have quite different views at justice. Marx claims that the concept of justice functions ideologically to represent conduct required by the prevailing mode of production as universally binding imperatives. Rawls claims that justice is the first virtue of society, whose principles may be agreed to by all persons who impartially and rationally deliberate on the issue of fairly dividing the burdens and benefits of social cooperation. I argue that these apparently different positions on justice can be reconciled, although important differences between the standpoints of Marx and Rawls remain. Despite the differing influences on them of Hegel and Kant, the views of Marx and Rawls can be shown to converge. In proposing an explicitly political conception of justice, Rawls argues that acceptable principles of justice must be realisable in social institutions. This brings his' Kantian constructivism 'closer to the Hegelian view, on which Marx bases his rejection of universal, socially transcendent principles of justice. I argue that both Marx and Rawls can be seen as asking what social institutions can realise principles of justice as fairness. Nevertheless, two important differences remain. Marx seems to envisage a society which transcends the 'circumstances of justice', as specified by Hume and Rawls, whereas Rawls a society beyond the circumstances of justice as utopian. Secondly, Marx claims that market relations should be transcended as the basis of society, since they inherently involve alienation of producers from the social process of production and from the product of their social labour. However, while elimination of markets might be possible in a society that transcends the circumstances of justice, Rawls claims that it is not possible in any society where a fair resolution of competing claims is necessary. I argue that the positions of Marx and Rawls can be reconciled if we take Marx's objection to markets as fundamentally an objection to the 'fetishism of commodities'. I conclude that, apart from the utopian element in Marx's conception of a future classless society, the positions of Marx and Rawls on the justice of capitalism and the market are quite close. (shrink)

This book examines the effects of the market mechanism on economies and societies. It argues that perfect competition has a tendency to promote adulteration of products and a general deterioration in quality. It also contends that it is very difficult for competitive firms to behave in socially desirable ways - being kind to the environment, contributing to worthy social programmes, handling redundancy humanely. The book goes on to propose ways in which these flaws might be remedied without subverting the (...) market mechanism. (shrink)

William Irwin, The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism. West Essex: Wiley Blackwell, 2015, 203 pages, $21.95, ISBN: 978-1-119-12128-2.

Liberalism generally holds that legitimate political power is limited and is to be impartially exercised, only for the public good. Liberals accordingly assign political priority to maintaining certain basic liberties and equality of opportunities; they advocate an essential role for markets in economic activity, and they recognize government's crucial role in correcting market breakdowns and providing public goods. Classical liberalism and what I call “the high liberal tradition” are two main branches of liberalism. Classical liberalism evolved from the works (...) of Adam Smith and the classical utilitarian economists; its major 20th century representatives include Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The high liberal tradition developed from John Stuart Mill's works, and its major philosophical representatives in the 20th century are John Dewey and, later, John Rawls. This paper discusses the main distinguishing features of the classical and the high liberal traditions and their respective positions regarding capitalism as an economic and social system. Classical liberals, unlike high liberals, regard economic liberties and rights of private property in productive resources to be nearly as important as basic liberties. They conceive of equality of opportunity in more formal terms, and regard capitalist markets and the price system as essential not only to the allocation of production resources, but also as the fundamental criterion for the just distribution of income, wealth, and economic powers. High liberals, by contrast, regard the economic liberties as subordinate to the exercise of personal and civic liberties. They are prepared to regulate and restrict economic liberties to achieve greater equality of opportunities, reduce inequalities of economic powers, and promote a broader conception of the public good. And while high liberals endorse markets and the price system as essential to allocation of productive resources, they do not regard markets as the fundamental criterion for assessing just distributions of income, wealth, and economic powers and positions of responsibility. The paper concludes with some reflections upon the essential role that dissimilar conceptions of persons and society play in grounding the different positions on economic justice that classical and high liberals advocate. (shrink)

Response to Philip Kain’s “Alienation and Market Socialism: Comments on Schweickart’s ‘Marx’s Democratic Critique of Capitalism’”.