
Is capitalism a threat to democracy? - anarbadalov
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/is-capitalism-a-threat-to-democracy
======
mindcrime
Simple answer: No.

More nuanced answer: not exactly. Not Capitalism per-se anyway. But clearly
you can see an unhealthy degree of commingling of big government and big
business, in a way that is damaging to society at large. But to my mind:

a. that's corruption, not capitalism

b. that's an argument against big government, not an argument against
capitalism

~~~
gameswithgo
In the absence of big government, big corporate will become defacto government
even more easily.

~~~
mschuster91
Actually, we see this with the social media giants live in action: they may
decide to terminate your account at any time for arbitrary (or none at all)
reasons for your whole life, and you have no way of legal recourse.

There have been way too many stories alone on HN about people losing e.g.
their entire mail archives or Youtube deleting evidence videos of war crimes,
to let this situation continue for any longer.

Government needs to finally recognize the importance of social media to modern
society... after all, telcos are not allowed to arbitrarily cut you off
(especially not for life!). Why should social media be treated differently?

~~~
seanp2k2
Telcos can’t cut you off, but ISPs can. I guess dial up is potentially still
an option, but internet access is much more relevant than telephone access in
2018.

~~~
mschuster91
> Telcos can’t cut you off, but ISPs can.

Well, ISPs are replaceable (okay, they will offer different speeds). Get cut
off, select another ISP (or mobile data).

A telco is not easily replaceable though, as the phone number is your unique
handle that often cannot be changed easily (which is why you have the right to
keep your number in Europe across providers)...

~~~
xg15
> _Get cut off, select another ISP (or mobile data)._

Comcast customers would like to have a word with you.

~~~
sli
Yeah, that particular point is _technically_ true, but in reality it is
absolutely false. Far too many people simply do not have competing options.
ADSL and satellite are not really competing options if your third option is
fiber.

I'd say it's reasonable these days to expect regular people (especially the
18-34 demo) to actually rely on the speeds you get with fiber. ADSL and
satellite, by comparison, are slow as molasses.

A number of those folks could probably survive with a mobile data hotspot, but
that is really not ideal for a house or apartment.

------
david927
I, for one, am looking forward to the nuanced, subtle discussion that will
ensue here.

For the love of all that is holy, please don't comment unless you've read the
article and want to discuss what it is trying to say.

~~~
faizshah
I just don't understand why people think they can refute an argument that's
been fleshed out into a book by writing a couple offhand sentences in response
to a long form article on the book. Presumably the author would address
popularly held assumptions to the contrary of his provocative argument in the
book.

------
vollmond
"Is freedom a threat to democracy?" is another way to word the headline.

~~~
linuxftw
No. But democracy is a threat to freedom.

~~~
yosito
It's only a threat to the freedom of the privileged, but it protects the
freedom of the vulnerable.

~~~
s2g
OH god no. Democracy is a system which can _easily_ trample on the freedoms of
the vulnerable. It's why you need to engineer your actual system of government
to give representation to the vulnerable that is hard to ignore.

~~~
yosito
Democracy _is_ a system designed to give representation to the vulnerable. I
suppose you're saying that it's possible to have a poorly designed democracy
such as one that gives representation to the majority at the expense of the
minority, which I agree with.

~~~
monocasa
Pure democracy can be described as three wolves and a sheep deciding on what's
for dinner.

~~~
yosito
Ha! That's funny. :) But not entirely accurate. The word "democracy" comes
from the word "deme" which essentially a group of individually weak people who
band together to make sure that they're all represented against other groups.

~~~
monocasa
A deme was (and is) just a small municipality. There were plenty of powerful
people who were members of and essentially ran a deme.

------
neuralk
An article with a title like this, people are only responding to the question
(which is rhetorical anyway). The OP submission has only been up 1 hour at the
time of this comment and the vast majority of the 100+ comments here are
addressing only the title question or reactions to it. None mention Polanyi
and few discuss the author's most salient points at the end of the article.

~~~
noir-york
Polanyi as a thinker isn't frankly particularly imaginative or interesting:
for someone who read British economic history, it appears he missed Adam
Smith's Moral Sentiments, political liberalism, and the rise of a
parliamentary labour movement in England (as opposed to a revolutionary
party).

If Polanyi had considered the above he wouldn't have come to the conclusion
that the two possibilities are either socialism or fascism.

The prescriptions - social welfare, etc - at the end of the article are known.
The question is why they haven't been implemented in the US (they have in most
other Western counties to various degrees).

I address other points in another comment below.

------
_Codemonkeyism
Capitalism and free market are two things. I wished people would be more
specific with words. Many things happened together so things were conflated.

The core idea of capitalism is that ownership of companies is based on
invested capital not people.

Also see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company)

I think it's better to discuss individual things like private property,
capital ownership of companies, monopolies, free markets, consumerism,
imperialism (along the lines of Standard Fruit Company) etc. on their own
merit, not throwing everything on one pile - even if things interact,
influence and lead to each other.

------
gimmeDatCheddar
For anyone who doesn't have time to read the whole article, the conclusion is
pretty much "No, as long as we have a strong social safety net."

IE capitalism with some elements of socialism to preserve individual liberties
and dignities when economies slow down. Which sounds reasonable to me as a
capitalist but also as a human being.

~~~
Analemma_
> For anyone who doesn't have time to read the whole article, the conclusion
> is pretty much "No, as long as we have a strong social safety net."

Well, then the answer is "yes". The whole issue being debated here is whether
capitalism inevitably leads to a concentration of wealth which can then be
leveraged into political power to create more concentration of wealth in a
positive feedback cycle. The theory goes that after a couple iterations of
that cycle, the wealthy will dismantle the social safety net entirely so they
can cut their taxes.

Which is exactly what we're seeing right now.

~~~
gimmeDatCheddar
1) When competition is allowed to enter the market, we eventually have an
equilibrium where the right number of competitors is producing a good or a
service at the best price and highest quality possible. That is capitalism.
When concentrations of wealth are leveraged into political power, you have
cronyism in the government. That's not a fault of capitalism itself.

2) The wealthy cutting their taxes does not necessarily mean the social safety
net has to be dismantled. You can have lower taxes and a high safety net. It
all depends on what your tax revenue is and where you spend it. The US has
trillions in tax revenue coming in every year, and yet we had something like
60 billion dollars of medicare fraud in a single year, exorbitant spending on
useless military ventures, etc. If we slashed wasteful spending and fraudulent
activities at the governmental level, we could afford a lot more safety net
with less tax revenue.

The issue is that cronyism in government results in government only ever being
satisfied with getting by with more funding and more budget, and never less.

~~~
spiralx
> When competition is allowed to enter the market, we eventually have an
> equilibrium where the right number of competitors is producing a good or a
> service at the best price and highest quality possible. That is capitalism.

No, that's a highly theoretical model that doesn't exist in the real world.

> When concentrations of wealth are leveraged into political power, you have
> cronyism in the government. That's not a fault of capitalism itself.

No True Capitalism eh? Why would a capitalist not use their capital in
whichever fashion would lead to gaining even more wealth? Whether that be
monopoly, collusion, or political power?

~~~
gimmeDatCheddar
It does exist in the real world, although it can sometimes become obfuscated
by government regulation and intervention. Example: Entering the
pharmaceutical space to produce cost-effective generic medicines in order to
steal market share from the big pharmaceuticals is hard because of government
red-tape.

Using capital as leverage for political influence is not a central tenet of
capitalism. You can be a capitalist and remain entirely outside the political
realm. Some capitalists are known to use their capital for expensive
philanthropic ventures or to support candidates who want to raise taxes.

Why did you ignore my comment about tax revenue and spending, by the way? That
was the meat of the post.

~~~
spiralx
> Using capital as leverage for political influence is not a central tenet of
> capitalism. You can be a capitalist and remain entirely outside the
> political realm.

If capitalism is based around rational self-interest, why would anyone exclude
political power as a means of increasing their wealth? It would be deeply
irrational to avoid such an avenue.

> It does exist in the real world, although it can sometimes become obfuscated
> by government regulation and intervention. Example: Entering the
> pharmaceutical space to produce cost-effective generic medicines in order to
> steal market share from the big pharmaceuticals is hard because of
> government red-tape.

Yes, regulations will interfere with the unfettered pursuit of profit, but
that's by intent.

> Why did you ignore my comment about tax revenue and spending, by the way?
> That was the meat of the post.

Because it didn't really seem to make much of a point. Yes government spending
priorities could be different and I'm sure there's wastage that could be
lessened - although I'd guess less than you think. Cronyism exists in any
organisation of more than one person.

~~~
gimmeDatCheddar
> If capitalism is based around rational self-interest, why would anyone
> exclude political power as a means of increasing their wealth? It would be
> deeply irrational to avoid such an avenue.

Not true. It is in our best and most rational self-interest to participate in
philanthropy and in building a nice society that we can live in, enjoy, and
make a profit in. Capitalism and philanthropy and a social safety net are not
mutually exclusive, which is why (like I already said) there are capitalists
who vote for candidates who want to increase taxes and increase spending on
social goods and services.

In fact I'd argue that it's only capitalists who can properly invest and
sustain a strong safety net. That's why countries like Switzerland and Denmark
are capitalist countries.

> Yes, regulations will interfere with the unfettered pursuit of profit, but
> that's by intent.

The example of it being hard to enter the pharmaceutical space to produce
cost-effective generics is an example of government regulations prohibiting
cost-reducing competition.

You can pursue profit while offering a good or a service that is less
expensive and higher quality than the alternatives.

> Because it didn't really seem to make much of a point. Yes government
> spending priorities could be different and I'm sure there's wastage that
> could be lessened - although I'd guess less than you think. Cronyism exists
> in any organisation of more than one person.

But the point was that it isn't capitalism that is responsible for that
cronyism. And that the wealthy wanting tax cuts does NOT mean that the wealthy
need to dismantle the safety net in order to get their tax cuts. We can afford
both tax cuts and a safety net if we eliminate cronyism in the government.

~~~
dragonwriter
> But the point was that it isn't capitalism that is responsible for that
> cronyism

If by “capitalism” you mean the real-world economic system for which that name
was coined by it's critical you are wrong.

If by “capitalism” you mean the abstract theory created to provide propaganda
to justify that system _after_ it already existed, you are, well, still wrong,
because that propaganda tool serves to protect the actual source of the
problem.

> And that the wealthy wanting tax cuts does NOT mean that the wealthy need to
> dismantle the safety net in order to get their tax cuts. We can afford both
> tax cuts and a safety net if we eliminate cronyism in the government.

The wealthy don't want tax cuts independent of cronyism and social safety net,
they want cronyism in their favor, including particular forms of tax and
social safety net cuts.

------
dsr_
According to many economists, yes.

Capitalism does not appear to have a stable mode with a low Gini coefficient.
Power that derives from wealth becomes concentrated, which is clearly anti-
democratic.

Democracy is only viable as a decision-making process in societies where
everyone is more or less equal. When people gain power at the expense of
others, the result is that the system may remain nominally democratic, but
becomes more and more of a plutocracy.

In Marx's view, the abuse of the 99% by the 1% would inevitably lead to
revolution, violent or otherwise. He then tried to come up with a method of
economic organization that could be fair and stable after that revolution.
It's not clear that this method has ever worked on a scale larger than a
kibbutz or cooperative, but it's also clear that most families are run as
communes, though this is rarely discussed.

Somewhere in the trek from startup partnership to corporation there is a shift
from commune-like organization to dictatorial/plutocratic organization. I
don't know if anyone has done an organized study.

~~~
spiralx
> but it's also clear that most families are run as communes

Hunter-gatherer groups also operate on a cooperative basis where food sharing
is an integral part of their social organisation. The trouble is whether this
sort of model scales beyond Dunbar's number, something that few political
models seem to take into account IMHO.

------
whataretensors
Anti free market hit piece disguised as an article using questionable
interpretation of history. This is propaganda for the middle and upper class.

~~~
s2g
> This is propaganda for the middle and upper class

uh, how would this not be propaganda against the middle and upper classes?

~~~
whataretensors
Look at the vocabulary and reading level used to determine the target. It
pushes a narrative right out the gate and uses a story format with fancy fonts
to reinforce it.

------
ancorevard
"Is the freedom to choose what to Sell and what to Purchase a threat to the
freedom to choose political leadership?"

No.

In fact, you cannot have the one without the other.

~~~
vertexFarm
And what if you are free to purchase that political leadership and use it to
curtail the freedom of others? And use it to skew the system and hoard wealth
so nobody can ever buy it back? Hm?

I swear, an-caps just don't consider the actual consequences of their
ideology. Just once I wish y'all would think something through all the way to
the end and consider the possibility of non-ideal situations.

~~~
moate
No such thing as anarcho-capitalists. Just Neo-Feudalists. The State no longer
controls the means of violence, those with the most money become de facto
lords capable of hiring their own mercenary protectors and creating small
states. Everything becomes monopolies through consolidation or destruction of
competition using stronger economic force by exploiting the lack of
regulation. The 1300's come back in vogue.

------
yosito
I'd answer this question by asking another: Is it profitable to destroy
democracy? If so, someone is going to try it. That doesn't mean capitalism is
any less compatible with democracy than socialism or any other system. But if
we value democracy we need to defend against economic forces that threaten it.

~~~
juliangoldsmith
I'd agree with this, and take it further: if there is any person or group of
people who stand to gain something by destroying freedom or democracy, you can
assume they will do so. To repeat the quote commonly misattributed to Thomas
Jefferson, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

------
trumped
The fact that lobbying/bribes are legal in the USA is a bigger threat to
democracy. Companies being considered people whenever it's convenient is not
really helping either.

------
ThomPete
Yes it is but that's a moot point. Democracy is also a threat to capitalism
and if we don't have the right check and balances in place democracy is a
threat to minorities.

As the saying go, democracy is the worst kind of system besides all the other
systems.

No system is perfect but a democracy based on capitalism is as good as we know
how to make a system because it handles "irrational agents" fairly well.

The right way to approach this is to look at how is capitalism a threat to
democracy and then make sure we have the proper mechanisms to deal with that.

------
badrabbit
Would I get downvoted if I said democracy is a mere target a country can only
use as it's goal? What I am saying is, there is no truly democratic country.
To my best knowledge, in every supposed democratic country there are groups or
individuals that yield far greater power than the average citizen when it
comes to influence over the political process.

Imperialism has feudals,communism has party members, totalitarianism has
oligarchs (and friends of the leadership) where as democracy has the 1% and
their cronies.

Corruption is not an ideology but a moral and ethical failure. One can
maintain an uncorrupt conscious a character of integrity (when it comes to
politics at least) regardless of the system of government.

Money,power and a sense of security are all deceptively corrupting vices.
Corruption is prevalent in any government that tolerates people who have
failed to overcome those vices as politicians and public officials.

It's not capitalism or lack of it that is corrupting but rather a society that
tolerates what it knows to be vile and filth in exchange for a bigger picture
or in pessimistic complacency towards the ruling class.

------
roymckenzie
A good book that demonstrates how hyper-capitalism is inconsistent with
Democratic rule is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

------
mychael
Short answer: No.

You can't have political freedom without economic freedom.

~~~
Stranger43
The problem here of cause is that economic freedom being linked to real world
property is a limited good that can be owned and inherited.

And if a good can be owned and inherited it can be used restrict other peoples
access to said good, And if economic freedom can be used to restrict freedom
it can be a tool of oppression.

When Marx talked about how property was the inevitable bane of Smiths ideals
he was not just hallucinating but basing his critique on the failed attempt to
create equality and freedom through capitalism he was living in.

The problem is of cause that while Marx got the criticism right Engels failed
to get the solution right.

------
nickik
This is interestign article, but sadly I must say that I have some very large
problmes with it. The article is to large to go threw all the historical
details.

I would argue the article is very nice example of what is sometimes called
history as popular myth. Many historical periods or events have many different
interpretations and one is favored depending on politics. This piece nicely
collects all of these and makes a nice overall story out of it that then
perfectly leads into the politcal system favored by all non-communist modern
leftist, scandinavian capitalism. How could anybody disagree with this logical
chain?

On thing that bugs me is that recessions are only blamed at those in power
during the recession, while ignoring structural problems that existed before.
It all only went bad in 1973, before that it was awesome, nothing happened
before is responsable for the problems.

Also calling the economy of the 60s 'Keynsian' is just a slightly strange
leftists phrase that is not really used by econnomists. Keynsianism has
perticular technical defnition, it does not mean big government with
regulation. Many this about this version of the 60s and how the left loves to
call it 'Golden Age Capitalism' and then follows it up with 'but it was
actually Socialism, look at the marginal tax rate'. This is a highly stylised
version of events works thanks to selective selection of metrics.

Most economist agree that the Great Depression was caused by central bank
mismangment. We know know this quite well, and people like R. G. Hawtrey
(worlds most well known economsit back then) prediced the Great Deflation
pretty exactly, with the correct explaition that we still use today. It had
nothing to do with free markets, or the evil small government polices of the
20s. Much the same argument could be made about 2008.

Again, one can not take account of the whole article in single comment, but I
would just point out that there are many different interpretations of these
events. One could easly turn it around and tell a equally convincing story
with the opposite point.

------
eruci
No! At least not in the sense that its alternatives are.

------
jimmywanger
Democracy is a threat to capitalism.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC0ZB2/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC0ZB2/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

Basically, it explores how democracy and rule of law are fundamentally not
reconcilable, especially when ethnic/religious tensions are inflamed. If an
ethnic immigrant minority somehow gets influence (economic or political)
people get rapidly irritated. Look at Jews and Chinese. The tyranny of the
majority is not compatible with the rule of existing laws, when the existing
laws can be changed with the majority.

------
rayiner
Jonah Goldberg has a good take on this in his new book.[1] His basic theory is
that capitalism and democracy is not self-perpetuating (kind of like gains at
the gym). Societies constantly have to defend and justify it in the face of
new challenges and humans' innate tendency toward tribalism.

[1] [https://www.weeklystandard.com/adam-keiper/in-suicide-of-
the...](https://www.weeklystandard.com/adam-keiper/in-suicide-of-the-west-
jonah-goldberg-defends-capitalism-in-a-big-way)

------
debacle
Are there any capitalist systems that don't tend towards hierarchical
structures? Corporations are hierarchical to a great degree, but what would a
system look like that incorporated the benefits of democracy into a capitalist
entity?

In a democracy, people are in theory given a level playing field through
voting that means that Bill Gates's vote is just as valuable as anyone else's.

In capitalism, people are given the ability to create value to their fullest
extent. A single individual could find him or herself creating value
outstripping that of thousands of people. Even on small teams, there are great
deviations in contributed value. Capitalism is highly volatile, and I would
argue the stronger and more natural system as compared to democracy.

Both democracy and capitalism are capable of generating evil and tyranny. The
intent of democracy is to create a foundation for a stable society in situ. I
think it's very possible to create a democracy that does not progress. On the
other hand, capitalism is innately progressive via market competition and
trade.

Technological progress and social progress seem to have an odd dance. The goal
of technological progress is to create more fit capitalist entities which
compete better in markets, but individual consumers are the end route fitness
function. The goal of social progress is to elevate the standard of living for
individuals, but it might not be easy to prove that democracy is the best
known system for raising that standard of living, because so much of one's
standard of living is defined by technological progress.

I would argue that capitalism is a more natural system than democracy, and
thus more durable. A healthy democracy is an artificial system of good, and a
perfect democracy cannot exist in the real world. Again and again, democracy
has shown itself flimsy during difficult times.

~~~
spiralx
> In capitalism, people are given the ability to create value to their fullest
> extent.

In capitalism people have the ability to create value to the extent they have
the capital to do so, a requirement which excludes most people from achieving
what they could.

~~~
debacle
I don't mean to sound dismissive, but that's a knowledge problem. Many people
have no idea how to procure capital, nor what capital procurement even
entails. There are few viable routes to becoming an entrepreneur, and most
people would agree that the most viable route is learning from other
entrepreneurs.

For me, learning how to operate a business required a lot of reading, failure,
and bad decisions. For someone who has easy access to the knowledge that I had
to work hard to attain, becoming successful has a much shorter path. For
someone who doesn't even have a map (many people in poor or socially
disadvantaged communities), it requires a level of tenacity and drive that is
very rare.

So while I agree with you that most people are excluded from maximizing their
potential, I think the root cause is not a lack of capital, but a lack of
knowledge about how to interact with capital.

~~~
spiralx
> So while I agree with you that most people are excluded from maximizing
> their potential, I think the root cause is not a lack of capital, but a lack
> of knowledge about how to interact with capital.

And do you not think that this is a function of how much capital one has
access to in the first place? Leaving aside the research showing how poverty
affects development, those born to families with wealth will have both more
knowledge of how to interact with capital and more access to capital in
general.

You seem to be both acknowledging that there is a stacked deck and claiming
that there is a level playing field where everyone can achieve their true
potential.

~~~
debacle
There is no stacked deck. No one cheated because they have business savvy
parents or friends. Everyone can go to busines school, or learn things the
hard way. The knowledge is there, and the people who have great enough desire
find it. Teaching it universally would be a great social good.

------
Stranger43
The problem is of cause that capitalism is a fiction that have never existed
in the real world, with the "movement" that calls itself capitalist being
captured by the mercantilist it was supposed to oppose as soon as it started.

And mercantilism which is what most economist is promoting as capitalism is
basically feudalism by economic means and as such pretty much inconsistent
with democracy the second you have a zero sum economy(which the west will for
the foreseeable future be facing), especially when you remember that feudalism
rose out of the concept of hereditary property not divine right(that came much
later) as most textbooks state.

Weather capitalism is compatible with the real world is a much bigger question
that few economist dare to ask because the last one to do so ended up founding
communism as a response to the complete failure of Smiths actual ideals to
survive in the real world.

------
tobbe2064
Tldr;

The premises of the article is that the free market is to cruel for a
democracy and that when it demands a sacrifice to greate people will tend to
vote for populists

There is nothing in the article concerning corruption or propoganda.

------
noir-york
Is capitalism a threat to authoritarianism?

The Chinese Communist Party certainly was worried that capitalism would pose a
threat. Turns out the Party is doing just fine.

"capitalism", i.e., a market-based economy is flexible and can be harnessed to
serve whatever purposes a society desires.

So, no capitalism is not a threat to democracy, or communism for that matter.

Let's not forgot that capitalism is a recent invention. Kings and emperors
were imposing their rule on their poor subjects without the help of free
market economies for most of human history.

Right wing resurgence is back because the parties of the left forgot who gave
birth to them - the working class. "Working class" is anachronistic now. The
children of the working class became middle class. The new working class is
now the middle class, increasingly being hollowed out.

What's to stop authoritarianism:

1\. remove proportional voting. Coaltions allow parties to divide up the
electorate. On the other hand, forcing parties to win 50%+1 of the vote forces
parties to take broad-based policies that appeal to wide swathes of the
electorate.

2\. Invest in a social safety net. Education, healthcare and affordable
housing promote social mobility, and more importantly, give peace of mind to
those in the middle class who are afraid of losing the gains made by their
parents.

3\. Campaign finance reform. Its easier to turn out the vote and raise funding
when parties turn to identity politics because nothing is more personal - and
fires one up more - than appeal to one's identity.

Identity politics is cancer on democracy. Both left and right play the game
and identity politics should be banned in a liberal (the John Stuart Mill
kind) democracy.

4\. Ban _targeted_ political advertising. A liberal democracy needs a shared
public space, and a discussion among all voters. _Targeted_ political
advertising breaks up that public space into millions of shards. Another
option could be to force parties to post publicly all political adverts for
everyone to see.

I ought, indeed, need to know what a party's policies are regarding pensioners
or education even though I am neither a pensioner nor have children. Why?
Because my taxes will be funding such items.

5\. The left needs to be remember its origins. Sounds simple eh?

6\. Finally, we need to drop the left-right way of identifying policies. It
reduces policies which impact people and society into a basic for/against
divisive manner. There is a better way.

Enough for today :)

------
stolson
Unchecked capitalism and barely regulated monopolies? Absolutely. But that's a
less flashy headline.

------
dredmorbius
I'm disappointed in this thread. Not the post itself, but the discussion, most
of which seems 1) utterly divorced from the article, 2) largely (and on
several sides) reduced to ideological rhetoric and axe-grinding, singularly
both uninformed and uninformative, 3) voluable (approaching 200 comments as I
write) and far more noise than signal.

It's about whaat I'd expect if you'd asked a diverse group of 1550s Europeans
to civilly diiscuss Catholocism vs. Reformation.

(I've spent a fair bit of time researching the history of the notion of free
speech. Among northern Europeans, there's generally been a specific carve-out
_against_ free speech to Papists, as they were frequently referred to....)

There are only four references to the key individual within the article, Karl
Polanyi. Three of those reference the lack of reference to him. (I've just
added a fifth reference, though also of a nonproductive meta-commentary.)

There are several likely reasons for this. One is that "capitalism" and
"democracy" are themselves both poorly defined, and cultural shibboleths:
signifiers of group affinity far more than semantically functional terms. I'd
read economics myself ay uni and would have been pressed to give aa coherent
definition until relatively recently. Even now, that's more by calling up a
definition, or set of definitions, than something that comes readily to mind.

E.J. Mishan was a Chicago-trained, though very much _not_ a Chicago-scool,
economist of the 2nd half of the 20th century. He examined, and questioned,
many fundamental precepts of economics, including the meaning and definitions
of "free market". (Close to though not identical with "capitalism".)

Mishan notes that "free market" may refer to one or more of the following:

1\. The private ownership of capital, or productiive (nonhuman) assets

2\. The private management of economic enterprise

3\. The decentralization of economic enterprise

4\. Competitive enterprise

5\. A price system

6\. A market system

He also notes that these definitions my either rely on, or oppose, one
another. E.g., pricate ownership (1) tends to centralisation, opposing
decentralisation (3).

[http://booksc.org/ireader/28521331](http://booksc.org/ireader/28521331)

[https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1975.11503319](https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1975.11503319)

Other authors, of late Naomi Wolf in _Shock Doctrine_ , have pointed out the
affinity of free-market advocates, Milton Friedman in particular, with
authoritarian and genocidal dictators. Similar parallels were drawn in the
1930s with fascist Italy and Germany, and you can find similar sentiments in
the works of J.S. Mill and Adam Smith.

But for discussion, HN can and should do far better.

------
forapurpose
It's not at all an academic argument but a critical issue being resolved right
now; the preference for capitalism over democracy is openly argued and put
into practice:

* You may recall Peter Thiel's argument that democracy and "freedom" (i.e., his freedom to act as a capitalist) are incompatible, and therefore we should limit the former. Thiel is close to the U.S. president, and his people are advisors in the White House and other branches.

[https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
thiel/educatio...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-
thiel/education-libertarian)

* Also, the recent U.S. Secretary of State, as well as other members of the administration, openly said the U.S.'s foreign policy should prioritize "economic interests" over democracy and human rights.

[https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tillerson-pushing-human-
righ...](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tillerson-pushing-human-rights-
abroad-creates-obstacles/story?id=47190743)

* Finally, as much as HN doesn't like to discuss this issue, we also can't bury our heads in the sand: The nationalist and racist politics in the U.S. are also anti-democracy,[0] and by devaluing democracy they open the door to capitalism-over-democracy. Probably not coincidentally, the nationalists and the capitalism-over-democracy people (like Thiel and Tillerson; let's call them oligarchs) ally in the coalition that supports Trump and the GOP. For example, the GOP actively works the limit voting, the foundation of democracy, by people they don't like.

That coalition, of the nationalists/racists and the oligarchs, are a threat to
democracy in the U.S. (and probably elsewhere). It's only an anecdote, but a
wealthy person whom I had respected intellectually told me, 'I voted for Trump
and I'd vote for him again - I'm a businessperson and business is good'. Their
argument is implicitly framed around the idea that capitalism is all that
matters.

And I'll add that it's very short-sighted: You only need to look around the
world and see that democracy breeds economic prosperity like nothing else in
the history of humanity. The democracies are all the wealthiest countries in
the world; the corrupt oligarchies are all poorer, and had been for millennia
before democracy. In fact, the wealth of corrupt oligarchies today comes from
selling to wealthy democrats and profiting on the peaceful international order
and world trade established by the democrats. The world of corrupt oligarchies
(and monarchies, etc.), before democracy, was poorer by orders of magnitude.

...

[0] Why are nationalism and racism anti-democracy? The necessary foundation of
democracy is universal human rights; for example the founders of the United
States made it the basis of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... That to secure
these rights, Governments are instituted among Men". On a practical basis, if
the other person doesn't have rights then neither do you; if it's ok for
someone to take away their vote then why shouldn't they take away yours?
Nationalism and racism say that rights are not universal at all, but that they
depend on nationality and race.

------
fallingfrog
Of course it is! That's like asking, is monarchy a threat to democracy?
Capitalist corporations are basically just little kingdoms.

~~~
fallingfrog
I mean the very first corporations weren't even _little_ kingdoms, they were
big ones like the east India trading company, which operated as quasi
sovereign states. And they still operate that way, just on a smaller scale. If
you think we are currently living in an age of democracy right now you're
crazy or just not paying attention.

------
snappyTertle
Democracy is a threat to capitalism.

------
shmerl
Capitalism - no. Greed and lust for money - yes.

------
platz
for all it's ills, capitalism is very anti-fragile in the sense that regions
that that fail (perhaps even because of capitalism) become cannibalized and
therefore stabilized by the greater system.

It may not provide much security for individuals, but it is very effective at
self-perpetuating the scheme.

------
yathern
The subtitle:

> The idea that authoritarianism attracts workers harmed by the free market,
> ___which emerged when the Nazis were in power_ __, has been making a
> comeback.

Makes me disappointed for the state of discourse that occurs today. The
article itself is better than the subtitle made me infer - ending essentially
with a nuanced 'No'.

But these transparent attempts to make you form an emotional response to an
issue by eliciting images of Nazi Germany I find borderline disrespectful.

------
ghouse
Unregulated capitalism, perhaps. However, I don't think the US has capitalism
(well-regulated or otherwise) today.

Today we have a system where gains are privatized, losses are socialized, and
market-participants can coerce their elected officials to tilt the market in
their favor. This is not capitalism.

~~~
rascul
Capitalism is simply the private ownership of resources and production for
profit. We have that. We could certainly do it better, though.

------
eximius
No, but greed is.

~~~
vertexFarm
Can you even have capitalism without greed? Greed is just a pejorative term
for self-interest, which is a core assumption in the treatise of capitalism.
It can't exist without it.

It just needs to be limited. You can't have lassis-faire capitalism forever
because the people who are most successful will change the initial conditions
and it will no longer be lassis-faire. So you need some kind of control
outside the free market. The free market alone is not corruption-proof in any
way.

~~~
quadrangle
> Greed is just a pejorative term for self-interest

Greed is a _correctly_ pejorative term for pursuing power and wealth _beyond_
what people actually need to live well enough. Self-interest prior to reaching
that point is not greed.

Capitalism is defined as _private_ ownership of means of production and core
resources. It doesn't inherently require greed.

I agree with your second paragraph, btw.

------
kazinator
> _Basically there are two solutions,” Polanyi wrote in 1935. “The extension
> of the democratic principle from politics to economics, or the abolition of
> the democratic ‘political sphere’ altogether.” In other words, socialism or
> fascism._

This article is predicated on using _democracy_ as a synonym for
_constitutional representation_ , which it isn't.

Democracy literally means rule by the people: majority rule. If you can't get
married because you're gay, that is democracy at work: the majority doesn't
like some aspect of your life, and that's that.

Democracy can be _de facto_ a form of fascism.

~~~
noir-york
Indeed, which is why modern democracies, or at least Western ones, don't
describe themselves as democracies (except only as shorthand), but republican
liberal* democracies.

* liberal here meaning political liberal (JS Mill liberalism), and not what is understood by "liberal" in US politics.

~~~
dragonwriter
The UK is a western democracy and does not describe itselg as a republican
anything, though opponents to certain elements of the current constitution
describe themselves that way.

There is an overlap between democratic republics (or, to use the less common
phrasing, “republican democracies”) and limited representative democracies,
but they aren't the same.

~~~
noir-york
The UK is what is called an aristocratic republic* as it retains the Roman
Republic's setup: - Sovereign / House of Lords (Senate) / Lower house.

The US Founding Fathers copied England, and Rome's model but replaced the
sovereign with a President.

Representative democracies are necessarily republics - although some, like my
country, skip the upper house. Rome introduced consuls / republican model
because the population was too large, unlike the Greek polis, to be
politically manageable. Rome of course was not a democracy.

*or monarchic. I am away from my books so cannot confirm exactly the term. Sorry.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The UK is what is called an aristocratic republic* as it retains the Roman
> Republic's setup: - Sovereign / House of Lords (Senate) / Lower house.

Republican Rome was distinguished from both preceding and succeeding Roman
governments by not having a sovereign head.

~~~
noir-york
Yep, Augustus didn't like sharing power :D He must have felt guilty about it
though because the Empire post-republic tried to keep up the appearance of
Rome as Republic, if not in substance.

------
Jamerson
This reads like an onion article. I'll take free market capitalism and any
government over socialism. These people represent a kind of "democracy" that
wants to threaten Capitalism, which is the real danger.

------
2RTZZSro
Seizing the means of the people to rebel is the real tyranny

------
dragonwriter
Capitalism isn't a _threat_ to democracy since the main distribution of power
is by capitalist elite rule with democratic institutions constrained by
capitalist economic power structure, and has been for the whole history of
modern democratic political institutions.

The article might more properly ask the question “is capitalism with fig-leaf
democracy inherently unstable”?

------
petraeus
The only way to fix democracy is to make voting mandatory, but the elites in
power have no motive to change the system. In fact they have all the reason to
keep the status-quo. The current version of democracy is a treat to democracy
itself.

~~~
debacle
It's an interesting question, and it's commonly debated in the US whether
voting should be mandatory. It's been debated since the 1700s whether all
eligible voters should be forced to vote.

But there are systems in place where voting is mandatory. Wouldn't studying
the political knowledge of these countries in comparison to countries with
similar socioeconomic demographics allow you to determine if mandatory voting
leads to more effective democracies?

------
hapnin
"Is [Abstraction A] a threat to [Abstraction B]?"

No. Human beings who put money and control of land and resources over and
above the welfare of other human beings are a threat to us all and always have
been.

I wish sociopathic hypergreedy control freaks were viewed the same way we
perceive pedophiles instead of being rewarded.

~~~
vertexFarm
I'm confused as to why you think that just because two concepts are abstract
they can't interact with each other. How do you explain that logic?

Do we claim that capitalism cannot produce hyper-greedy sociopaths? Because I
would argue that it distills those people better than most systems. We need
some form of modified capitalism which has some checks and balances. We did
have that system for a long while, but the controlling agencies got captured
by private interests and we can all plainly see the risk involved there.

But it's pure capitalism. People who say pure capitalism would have an even
playing field discount the possibility that the winners on that level playing
field would change the playing field to benefit them forever. What is keeping
the playing field level? Not the market. The market doesn't limit systemic
drift.

~~~
hapnin
My point is that abstracting practical human evil to an "ism" removes
responsibility from the actors who commit the evil.

------
jrs235
Why do so many people put democracy on a pedestal? Majority rules scares the
shit out of me. We don't need what the majority wants. We need protection for
minorities. The greatest minority being the individual. So long as a person
isn't physically harming others leave them alone and let them be. Mobocracy, a
majority without limits, is worse than a relatively steady and stable
dictator.

~~~
quadrangle
Democracy means rule by the people. It does NOT require that majority-rule be
the mechanism (that is itself about the worst mechanism for democracy, second
only to minority-rule).

~~~
jrs235
Thank you for replying. Thank you for clarification and correcting my
defaulting to "Democracy is sometimes referred to as "rule of the majority".

------
major505
Well, I will not subscribe to the new yourkers for just an article, but my
anwser wold be hell no. Intervencion of govern in the free market.... maybe.

~~~
pjmorris
I'd argue that the primary interventions of government in the free market
involve the creation and support of currency, and the provision of property
rights. It's hard for me to imagine a market of any significant size without
those things. The absence of government intervention may not be what
capitalism wants.

~~~
major505
I'm ok with govern creating a small set of rules and enforcing them. But as
litle as possible. Specially in types of business that aren't vital to
population. I can understand certain rules like in insurance companies of some
types of banking services.

I'm not ok with intervencions, like the banks bailout of 2008, the the
goverment just save banks that should have break. This kindo f intervention
isn't fair form most of the market, and should be avoided.

~~~
krapp
>This kindo f intervention isn't fair form most of the market, and should be
avoided.

Even if it means a global market collapse and depression?

