Can Capitalism Survive?

Chapter 1

Capital_251-300.indd 287 1/3/12 7:57 PM Chapter 1 The Businessman and the Defense of Capitalism The question before this house is not whether the survival of capitalism is in doubt (this is admitted). The question for us, as it was for Lenin at an earlier time, is, What to do? His concern was how best to hasten the collapse of capitalism; our concern is how to postpone or ward off that collapse. Frankly, I feel more at ease as the diagnostician than as the therapist. Cancer is still easier to identify than to cure and so is overexpanded government. Admittedly , diagnosis must usually precede therapy. After a lengthy diagnostic examination, the doctor looks up at the patient in some puzzlement and asks, "Have you had this before?" To this the patient replies, "Yes," and the doctor says, "Well, you've got it again." Quite obviously something more than this is needed. Proper therapy usually rests upon diagnosis of the specific problem, including some notion of how the patient got into his fix, whatever it might be. Capital_251-300.indd 288 1/3/12 7:57 PM 288 ° Can Capitalism Survive? I begin then with the question, "What is our problem ?" In an earlier sentence, I identified the problem as that of overexpanded government. This is not really correct for the purposes of therapy. Overexpanded government is, in fact, but the most noticeable, objectively evident symptom of our problem. Our problem is in the form of a set of ideas whose implementation calls for the use of force, and government is that agency of society given a monopoly of the right to use force. For so long as those ideas are dominant in society, Behemoth will continue to grow. Nor is it useful for those who hold and espouse those ideas publicly to regret the associated growth in government and all its instrumentalities . Thus Senator Edward Kennedy has said recently that "one of the greatest dangers of government is bureaucracy," and Senator Gaylord Nelson has said, "The federal bureaucracy is just an impossible monstrosity." All well and good, but that growth in bureaucracy which they so rightly lament is the necessary and inevitable outcome of the ideas that these two (and others) have so well and so convincingly espoused. What are these ideas that produce bureaus as larvae do moths? They can be expressed in various ways but their essence is to be found in the following related propositions: ( 1) There exist individuals and groups in society who know not only what is best for them but what is best for others as well. Capital_251-300.indd 289 1/3/12 7:57 PM The Businessman and the Defense of Capitalism • 289 (2) This wisdom, when combined with the coercive power of the state, can be used to produce "the good society." An accurate verbalization of these ideas is to be found in the statement of Newton Minnow, who said as chairman of the agency controlling television in this country, "What is wrong with the television industry in this country is that it is giving the viewers what they (the viewers) want." Compare this, for example, with these words from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.1 Some of you may see in other idea-systems (such as economic determinism, relativism, envy, or what have you) the real source of our malignancy. God, my wife, my children, and all of you know that I am fallible, 1 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library , 1937), p. 423. Capital_251-300.indd 290 1/3/12 7:57 PM 290. Can Capitalism Survive? and perhaps I have chosen poorly in...