Huffington: Capitalism isn’t evil, but this isn’t capitalism

In her review of Michael Moore new movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Arianna Huffington had this to say about the current state of economic affairs:

In the film, Michael describes capitalism as evil. I disagree. I don’t think capitalism is evil. I think what we have right now is not capitalism.

Image by Erich Vieth
Image by Erich Vieth

In capitalism as envisioned by its leading lights, including Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, you need a moral foundation in order for free markets to work. And when a company fails, it fails. It doesn’t get bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. What we have right now is Corporatism. It’s welfare for the rich. It’s the government picking winners and losers. It’s Wall Street having their taxpayer-funded cake and eating it too. It’s socialized losses and privatized gains.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. Avatar of Jay Fraz
    Jay Fraz

    It is amazing how far market fundamentalism reaches. Even little ol Arianna Huffington is spouting their stupid rhetoric.

    1. Avatar of Erich Vieth
      Erich Vieth

      Jay: Maybe I don't understand. How do you define "market fundamentalism?" Although Huffington doesn't see capitalism as an problem, based on her writings she is not a market fundamentalist, as I understand that term. Quite the opposite. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_fundamentalis

      For the evidence, see this quote by Huffington:

      It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire capitalism by treating it like the discredited ideology it inarguably is.

      http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12

  2. Avatar of Jay Fraz
    Jay Fraz

    Libertarians (the group whose rhetoric got us into this mess IMO, or more accurately right libertarians as their is so much international confusion over the term cause they lack the balls to create their own term or use the "propertarian party") constantly use the statement, it is not working cause it is not capitalism! It is over regulated!(except for the property rights, they need more/stronger those).

    Is mine an overly gut based reaction. Yes, but as long as we allow the language to frame the issue, we have lost before the argument begins. The libertarians will ALWAYS argue that everything that doesn't work doesn't because it is not capitalism cause of the government. That is what Arianna just said, "The banks were over regulated"(due to bailout). It should have been MIS-regulated as they did not run the economy into the ground to get the bailout.(Next time they probably will though now that they really know how)

    Is she a market fundie, No. But she needs to avoid the language of the libertards otherwise we will not have the rhetorical ammunition when dealing with those who are on the fence on the issue as we have already lost to the frame, hell, Arianna just lost to the frame. "We need more bank regulation!". This statement will automatically lose because everywhere the bank "bailout" will be perceived as regulation, we don't want those. We don't need Cato, Manhatten, CEI etc. choosing our words for us as their words have spikes on them our leaders seem too stupid to avoid.

    I hope that is clear, I don't have time to do better at the moment, I may clarify better later.

    P.S. I agree the banks should have failed. But this is a war of words.

  3. Avatar of Niklaus Pfirsig
    Niklaus Pfirsig

    Well Capitalism is not inherently evil. The way that it is applied can be however.

    What we currently have is not capitalism, but Corporate Imperialism.

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