Gene Epstein on Adam Smith's anti-free market arguments

[Adam] Smith's book, The Wealth of Nations, includes a whole range of sustained arguments that were anti-free market and even pro-socialist.  Ignoring these arguments by Smith is not only dishonest, it's dangerous.  The more we elevate Smith to the status of the founder of free enterprise, the greater the danger that enemies of the free market will strike back by citing Smith against us.  This anti-capitalist gotcha gang that has cited Smith against us already includes the left-wing critic Noah Chomsky, theologian and progressive writer Harvey Cox, Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, and even an Occupy Wall Streeter who ran from a copy of The Wealth of Nations while arguing with free marketeer Peter Schiff.

~ Gene Epstein, "Is Adam Smith the Founder of Free Market Economics?," debate between Mark Skousen and Gene Epstein, The Sofo Forum, 16:30 mark, June 13, 2017

Bill Bonner: takeaways from the GameStop frenzy

So what was that all about, we wonder?  All the sturm and drang?  All the huffing and puffing on the part of bystanders?  Everybody seemed to get worked up about it. 

The shorts thought they were doing God’s work – helping Mr. Market find the appropriate price for GameStop shares.  The longs all wore white, too, confident that they were on a crusade to stop the rich from taking over the world. 

The only “takeaways” for us from the whole saga were that the Fed’s bubble must be getting ready to pop (the madness of the gaming crowd is reaching a fever pitch)… and that hatred towards “the rich” is running high – and growing.

~ Bill Bonner, "The Aftermath of the GameStop Short Squeeze," Rogue Economics, February 3, 2021

Kevin Duffy clears up confusion about capitalism

capitalism: achieve ends (making money) without using violence 

politics: achieve ends through violence (obfuscate by calling it "democracy") 

political capitalism: mix the two 

Left: blame capitalism for all ills 

political establishment: mislabel Milton Friedman a capitalist

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, October 6, 2020

Pope Francis on capitalism and the coronavirus

The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom.  It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at ‘promoting an economy that favours productive diversity and business creativity’ and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut.

~ Pope Francis, "Pope: Market capitalism has failed in pandemic, needs reform," Associated Press, October 4, 2020

Dick Costolo on greedy capitalists

Me-first capitalists who think you can separate society from business are going to be the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution.  I'll happily provide video commentary.

~ Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter, tweet, September 30, 2020

National Review defends central planning... in the name of defending capitalism

The tensions that arise among the demands of these different institutions [family, religion, schools, civic associations, political bodies, and more] and the commitments that constitute our social order can often be addressed by individuals setting priorities in their own lives. But there are also instances when dealing with such tensions requires politics. This means that sometimes our economic policy has to be determined by more than purely economic considerations — by our sense of the kind of society we want to be and the kinds of goals we want to pursue together. Overall economic growth is one such vital goal, as surely everyone agrees. But there are other goals that matter, including equity, cultural vitality, social order, family formation, piety and religious liberty, individual and national self-sufficiency, personal liberty and communal self-determination, and moral traditionalism and moral pluralism, among many others. Ordering these frequently competing or contradictory ends in hard cases is part of what our politics is for, and the argument for capitalism cannot be an argument for putting economics above all else.

To suggest that our commitments to market ideals must be moderated in this way, and also that they should be allowed to moderate some of our other commitments, is not to attack capitalism, but to defend it... [C]apitalism needs conservative defenders, and deserves to have them.

~ Yuval Levin, "The Free-Market Tradition," National Review, May 2, 2019

Eric Hoffer on business corruption and capitalism

It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labour unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a non-capitalist environment.

~ Eric Hoffer, philosopher (1902–83), New York Times, April 1971

Laura Tyson blasts the "free market frenzy" of the 1980s

The free-market frenzy in the United States during the past decade demonstrates some of the pitfalls of unregulated capitalism.

~ Laura Tyson, Los Angeles Times, January 1990

Kevin Duffy on the anti-capitalist mentality

At the root of our problems is a lack of morality and critical thinking. We accept that coercion (i.e. government force) is the solution to all problems. Who pays for it? The "wealthy." We justify this theft (and abdication of our own responsibility) by dehumanizing those who, by hard work, risk taking, vision, resiliency and serving consumers (i.e. the rest of us) got rich. Then we attack the very system - the free market - that allowed this miracle to take place.

It's all very sick and contrary to our own self interest, of course, but most fail to see it that way. Instead, they swallow whole the pro-state propaganda that's been fed to them since birth by politicians, history teachers, mass media, and movie producers.

~ Kevin Duffy

Malcom X on the death of capitalism (1962)

It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture…It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely.

Malcolm X, racial activist, 1962

Michael Moore on the death of capitalism

And I think, really, what we’re seeing now, we’re seeing the end of capitalism. The end of capitalism as we know it and I say good riddance. It hasn’t helped the people or the planet.

~ Michael Moore, filmmaker, as appeared on the Larry King Show on CNN shortly after the presidential election of 2008

John Mackey on exploitation, entrepreneurship, and the profit motive

Politically, I drifted to the Left and embraced the ideology that business and corporations were essentially "evil" because they sought profits. I believed that government was "good" (if the "right" people had control of it) because it altruistically worked for the public interest.

[I'd been taught that] business and capitalism were based on exploitation: exploitation of consumers, workers, society and the environment. I believed that "profit" was a necessary evil at best and certainly not a desirable goal for society as a whole. However, becoming an entrepreneur completely changed my life. Everything I believed about business was proven to be wrong.

No one is forced to trade with a business; customers have competitive alternatives in the marketplace; employees have competitive alternatives for their labor; investors have different alternatives and places to invest their capital. Investors, labor, management, suppliers — they all need to cooperate to create value for their customers.

In other words, business is not a zero-sum game with a winner and a loser. It is a win, win, win, win game.

~ John Mackey, founder and CEO, Whole Foods Market, "The Transformation of John Mackey," Mises.org, June 13, 2008, by Ralph R. Reiland

Jesse Eisinger: "Free-market ideology is in the process of imploding"

Crises create opportunities for political realignment. After years of chasing the New New Thing, we now need, in the phrase of the moment, a New New Deal. We have had our decades of celebrating financial deregulation and a Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, who genuflected at the altar of the free market. But now Big Government has rushed to bail out banks and investment institutions. Free-market ideology is in the process of imploding. Liberals have longed for an opening to roll back what political scientist Jacob Hacker has called the "great risk shift."

~ Jesse Eisinger, "It's (Really) the Economy, Stupid," Portfolio, May 2008

Ron Paul on the post-Enron assault on capitalism

Corruption and fraud in the accounting practices of many companies are coming to light. There are those who would have us believe this is an integral part of free-market capitalism. If we did have free-market capitalism, there would be no guarantees that some fraud wouldn't occur. When it did, it would then be dealt with by local law-enforcement authority and not by the politicians in Congress, who had their chance to "prevent" such problems but chose instead to politicize the issue, while using the opportunity to promote more Keynesian useless regulations.

Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It's not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!

To condemn free-market capitalism because of anything going on today makes no sense. There is no evidence that capitalism exists today. We are deeply involved in an interventionist-planned economy that allows major benefits to accrue to the politically connected of both political spectrums. One may condemn the fraud and the current system, but it must be called by its proper names – Keynesian inflationism, interventionism, and corporatism.

~ Congressman Ron Paul, "Has Capitalism Failed?," speech before the U.S. House of Representatives, July 9, 2002

Frederic Bastiat on socialist objections to anti-statists

"… every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

Frederic Bastiat, The Law, 1850, from the section titled "A Confusion of Terms"

Ayn Rand on the anti-capitalistic mentality

The American businessmen, as a class, have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular achievements ever recorded in the economic history of mankind. What reward did they receive from our culture and its intellectuals? The position of a hated, persecuted minority. The position of a scapegoat for the evils of the bureaucrats.

~ Ayn Rand

Gordon Gekko: "Greed is good"

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed—for lack of a better word—is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed—you mark my words—will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

~ Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas), from the movie Wall Street, released December 11, 1987

(Movie clip)

Kevin Duffy on the anti-capitalistic mentality

A businessman doesn't necessarily become Charles Manson when he puts on his pinstripes, just as a politician doesn't magically become a choir boy when he gets inside the Beltway.

~ Kevin Duffy, Bearing Asset Management, January 26, 2004