Another Friday, another podcast by the Voice of Saruman. This week the ZMan’s talk was a condemnation of Free Market Capitalism or as he characterized it “Marketism.” Now, I’m far from an adherent to all of the ZMan’s opinions but I think it would benefit even the most strident libertarian to listen to this argument.
In my youth I was a pretty strong adherent to the idea that whatever I built was my own business and the government had no right to tell me how I could run it. But after witnessing the stalinist policies of Silicon Valley and their cronies in the rest of big business I’m perfectly willing to see the Department of Justice crush them if for no other reason than to pay them back for the damage they’ve done to regular people that ran afoul of their twitter mobs and sjw finks.
But I digress. Forget the ZMan’s other dissident right beliefs. Listen to his arguments and examples. He makes a whole lot of sense. Capitalism is not a religion it’s a tool. If it doesn’t serve the needs of the people then it’s a bad tool and needs to be fixed.
[…] said, there’s a nagging sense that, for all that abundance, things are amiss. There’s a strong tug of to that undercurrent among conservatives today. Material […]
Yeah, this week’s podcast was a good one. I’m like you—I can’t go along with everything the Big Z says or writes, but he is _truly_ an original thinker. His insights are unlike anything I’ve read. Your second paragraph tracks with my own thinking/experience.
The Dissident Right and the ZMan in particular are correct about the problems and the issues we face but their conclusions about how different groups can and can’t interact seem too extreme.
If we were to:
1) Curtail illegal immigration
2) Incentivize the return of manufacturing jobs here
3) Eliminate reverse discrimination policies
4) Restore freedom of association to the Bill of Rights
I could see Americans of all stripes prospering in this country again. Nothing wrong with keeping a positive outlook. If the Dissident Right turns out to be correct I can always reconsider my position.
Haven’t listened to the podcast yet but will. My thought are generally that capitalism is an extremely effective market mechanism until the largest players are large enough to distort the pricing mechanisms. I’m pretty sure there is some math function that describes the marketing function in terms of the number of players and the relative size of the largest 10% (or whatever %) and the relative effectiveness of mechanisms to stop or limit collusion. And there’s always this question: what competing economic system is more efficient? Pretty sure communism and socialism have been repeatedly tried and found wanting. Pretty sure… Read more »
To summarize his arguments, certain things shouldn’t be monetized for instance the human family. Lowest product cost doesn’t provide an optimum environment for humans to live in. For instance, if Amazon is allowed to complete its total destruction of the retail world then you’re probably not going to have the the local Mom and Pop shop around to sponsor your kid’s little league team. In fact you won’t have a little league team because the millenials won’t be able to have children because they won’t have any jobs. And the other point he makes is that free market is pretty… Read more »