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Comment by xibalba | Hacker News Reader

If Chomsky’s solutions are bunk, what is the value of his argument?

See also: the last 250 years of economic history.

Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological flamewar. That basically always heads into less interesting discussion.

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And 250 years of economic history shows that unhindered capitalism is a disaster. The only reason capitalism appears so so successful is because it has been balanced with more progressive policies.

And massive corporate welfare

"Unhindered capitalism"

"it has been balanced with more progressive policies."

That doesn't sound like unhindered capitalism.

Times when capitalism has been unhindered have led to market crashes, galloping inequality and depressions. Times when capitalism has been balanced with progressive policies have led to stability and growth, not only for the already rich.

So that sounds like a mixed economy is best where capitalism provides the growth and progressive policies counter balance the bad tendencies.

That's certainly a respectable opinion, yes, but some believe that these progressive policies are only possible temporarily or in countries that use various legal and kinetic means to maintain an advantage over other countries, etc..., so it's not a settled question that social democracy is the end of history.

I think the trouble other folks are having with your prior comment was that there has never been an "Unhindered capitalism" anywhere on Earth within the last several hundred years. Religious, societal, political, etc., factors beyond, and in addition to capitalism, have always held significant sway in any society that has been realized so far.

Capitalism is to be understood as a political economy, not as some abstract economic-only concept that is impossible. A political economy is more capitalist in so far as private ownership of capital faces fewer restrictions and insofar as power is correlated to political ownership. Like all political systems, there are practical limits, but a system in which the power of capital is unrestrained and where very few restrictions to capital ownership exist can be called "unhindered capitalism", and these certainly existed.

So by "unhindered capitalism" you mean “partially-hindered capitalism”?

No, I mean unhindered capitalism, capitalism being a real political economy rather than the impossible to define purely economical conception of capitalism. Capitalism is not just an economic system, it has necessary political implication, such as a strong state, an active police force, a class system, etc...

Why would you assign 100% of the ‘real political economy’ to capitalism, given the very obvious existence of non-capitalist forces that exist in the ‘real political economy’?

I don't, but it's clear that there were societies where the vast majority of the political power served capital, so from then on you can say that they were unhindered capitalism. Of course, there is always some political power that is not wielded by capitalists, even merely because the state requires a military and capitalism requires the state, but since that is inherent to capitalism it can still be said to be part of capitalism without any restraint.

‘ but since that is inherent to capitalism it can still be said to be part of capitalism without any restraint.’

It certainly seems like your assigning 100% of it.

It is inherent to capitalism that not 100% of political power belong to capitalists, yes. That's not equivalent to what you claim I said.

If they don’t have 100%, how can they engage in unhindered capitalism? If the other forces hold even 1% of the total, they by definition can hinder the capitalist forces.

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