Morgane post encompasses too much ideas I disagree with that need to be tackled one by one and clarified.
Neither are Theocracies.
More than 150 million want genocide do they? Western Representative democracy working beautifully
I have no idea what that means. It’s not a simple up or down vote. It has to do with who has power, which has to do with money. Good doesn’t win over bad every day, but some days it does.
Thats some bad arse democracy you thats worth saving! Yee haw!!
“Experience has shown that there is no spontaneous order.”
“Which experience?”
“The idea of an invisible hand balancing the system has been disproved.”
“How has it been disproved? Since the idea of the spontaneous order was implemented in economics, we went from 3 dollars per day of per capita income, to 100 dollars per day. Similar thing with life expectancy, and other criteria (Something you acknowledged yourself in other posts, as did Karl Marx).
Isn’t it the idea that economics can be ruled top-down by a special economic bureau that has been disproved by the experience of thousands of deaths?”
“And, about capitalism, no need to postulate a conspiracy. Each actor acts in its self-interest and the interests converge, sometime at the detriment of the system. Hence the idea of contradictions.”
“Each actor acts in its self-interest and the interests converge” The interests of Elon Musk (with Twitter) converge with the interests of Mark Zuckerberg (Meta)? Are you kidding me?
Free-market is made of competition (not convergence of interests), which is the very basis of free-market economy. Competition can lead potentially to the complete destruction of the opponent (see what happened to Kodak). If you deny that, I don’t know what I can say. Other than it’s conspiracy theory.
Also, the word “system” is very symptomatic of a structuralist way of thought. You don’t take society for what it is (a living body), but for a machine (which it is not).”
“And in the 70ths, the way the big petrol companies and some governments realized which effects the accumulation of carbon dioxyde would have in atmosphere, decided to hide it, and do nothing, and paid so called scientists to deny it give an idea about the way the system works.
Yes. Other companies saved billions of lives inventing Covid vaccines, cancer treatment, water sanitation system, etc. etc.”
OK
Point by point.
I am not defending a direction of economy by a bureaucracy, i do believe in a controlled free market, as a pis-aller.
Which experience has shown that there is no spontaneous order ?
History of economy.
Since the triumph of capitalism, we have gone from crisis and depression alternating with booms.
Only WWII took us of the 1929 crisis, … you may look at Keynes theories for Instance.
Yes, free market is made of competition, but for me the competitors share the same class interests.
A competitor can be destroyed but the system must survive.
Society is neither a machine, neither a living body, it is a conglomerate of people, united and separated by their social position, theirs jobs, their beliefs and so.
But, using sociology and psycho sociology, among other science, one can understand and influence it.
That’s a basis for political action, advertisement and so.
Incidentally a topic about the human body would interest me if science is kept very simple.
I never denied that some companies brought progress, sometimes the sames who abuse of their position. Look at the price of some drugs…
[Drug price spikes still unchecked, five years after controversy - Roll Call]
The free-market theorists showed that these crises (including 2008) were caused by a too strong intervention of the state in the economy.
I think you confuse too much the classical liberals who designed the liberal state (Montesquieu, Locke, Mill, etc.) with its democracy, freedom of speech, with the successful merchants, and the free market proponents such as Smith.
Did Montesquieu, Locke and Mill care a lot about free-market? A bit but not so much.
All of these people may share some similarities, but they do not form a homogeneous group of people.
“the competitors share the same class interests.” The problem is that since you wave realities which do not exist such as “class” you can make them tell whatever you want because they don’t exist in the first place.
“A competitor can be destroyed but the system must survive.” No. Entrepreneurs just want to make money, they don’t care about “the system”. And again, the “system” sounds like conspiracy theory.
The thing where I could agree with you is that conservatives in our liberal countries may indeed gather to form homogenous groups of people that reinforce those groups. I think this is what we see in France with the rich Catholics communautarism.
They protect their ideology (liberal conservatism) and religion (Catholicism), and their own position in the society hierarchy indeed (because of them forming a tight community in the first place, each individual/family can indeed use this community to enforce their personal/familial interests), but it has nothing to see with free-market economy.
On the contrary, because this communautarism might interfere with the liberty of individuals to start businesses, and I believe their conservative ideology can at some point promote politically illiberal regime, which at some point can lead to illiberalism even in economy.
So how can you speak in the name of working class people?
Economy is a spontaneous order, society is a living body, not a machine. So yes many changes and problems arise. But history and experience showed that overall it makes everybody better off, as you and Marx contended yourself….
How did they show that?
This is how I’ve always understood the 2008 Recession. Can you speak to any of it?
2 Likes
(DeepL translation from French checked by myself)
Everyone agrees that the immediate cause of the crisis is to be found in the credit excesses caused by US legislation on subprimes - privileged loans granted in the United States to the underprivileged classes. (…) In fact, as we all know, subprimes are the product of a law, the Community Reinvestment Act, which obliges US banks to reserve a certain number of credit lines for the underprivileged classes. The second manifestation of the state: the devastating effects of subprime mortgages were amplified by the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae agencies responsible for recycling subprime mortgages. These parastatal institutions were backed by the signature of the State. (Philippe Simonnot, La monnaie, histoire d’une imposture, Perrin, 2012)
(Original)
L’origine immédiate du déclenchement de la crise, tout le monde en convient, est à trouver dans les excès de crédit causés par la législation américaine sur les subprimes — ces prêts privilégiés accordés aux Etats-Unis aux classes défavorisées. (…) En fait, on le sait bien, les subprimes sont le produit d’une loi, le Community Reinvestment Act, qui oblige les banques états-uniennes à réserver un certain nombre de lignes de crédit à des classes défavorisées. Deuxième manifestation de l’Etat : les effets dévastateurs des subprimes ont été amplifiés par les agences Freddie Mac et Fannie Mae chargées de recycler les subprimes. Des institutions paraétatiques qui disposaient de la signature de l’Etat. (Philippe Simonnot, La monnaie, histoire d’une imposture, Perrin, 2012)
Is the crisis linked to the law or to the abusive use of the law ?
Has not the deregulation of the financial system by Reagan and co contributed ?
What of the pre WWI depression ? What of the 1929 crisis ? What of the high tech bubble in at the end of the 90ths ?
Do you know the first of the bubble known in our history ? It is the bubble of the tulips in Netherlands, in the 1630ths.
What is the cause of these bubbles : pure greed … Law can help, it is not the cause.
Another exemple 
[Mississippi Company - Wikipedia]
And, even if these bubbles burst can have strong effect upon real economy, they must not be mixed with the systemic crisis.
[Depression of 1920–1921 - Wikipedia]
[Great Depression - Wikipedia]
The causes are debated.
What is sure is that to recover from these series of depressions, we needed WWII and the welfare state linked with the Fordian/Keynesian compromise.
This compromise ended in the 70ths and since, we have a rampant depression in economy.
One explanation is the globalization.
And one exemple
Imagine a country with relatively fixed pools of firms and workers.
The level of wages result from a balance between supply and demand.
Individually, firms have interest to pay the lowest wages possible. But if the workers don’t earn enough to buy the goods, economy suffer and each firm does.
The interest of private business men conflicts with the collective interests of the firms.
The Fordian/Keynesian compromise solved this conflict. The fall of USSR, the globalization, the deregulation ended it.
And now, in West we have more and more poor workers and the depression goes on.
And, at least in France, the welfare state helps this poor workers, more and more, at a rising cost. It is a vicious circle.
Bernard Maris a left economist, told once that the crises will really ends when in West, the level of life of the workers will be the same as the Chinese ones.
Yes the state must be there, in particular to prevent monopolies and such.
Your line of thought is typical of socialism/communism: all must be perfect immediately and once and for all (see also the thread on Christianism and socialism, to see from where this line of thought is rooted). This is not how life works. Problem arises empirically, they are corrected empirically.
Precisely.
This is a typical argument of socialists and communists: use fear and resentment over and over again.
And you contradict yourself, because you and Marx contended that workers standards of living only improved since the Industrial Revolution.
Because the US is there to produce for us all the most advanced scientific and technological outputs, and pay for our security against foreign imperialist dictatorships. Is it France who was able to produce a Covid Vaccine, or the US? The Institut Pasteur was there to make statistics of the Covid infections… Oh, sorry, it is because the state did not donate enough money to the public institutions, I forgot.
May I recall you the amount of our public debt?
Do you know what was the life of the Chinese before “capitalism”, up to the 1980s and even 1990s? What has become today’s Chinese “middle class” (in their 10s, 20s, 30s at the time) could not eat meat, only rice. This is a real story.
Now the salaries of the Chinese factories workers have risen so much that the country is not attractive for companies to have their products built there (in addition of course of many other issues).
And do not take the Chinese in such pity, you do not know the amount of contempt they have for Europe (especially France) that they see as poor and technologically backward.
We needed WWII? So it is the free world who invaded Poland, France, etc.? If this is not conspiracy theory, what is that?
One thing I may agree with you is about the impoverishment of certain fringes of Western societies (the factory workers in particular).
I think this has to see with what was called “globalization”, but in fact corresponded to making business almost exclusively with authoritarian China. Having all the products manufactured in one such place could not but lead to these kinds of problem.
Note that this has in reality little to see with free-market theory, because free-market theory would want that factories (so, not only factories of one same country, but of many different countries) compete to get the projects.
This strategy had two reasons:
_One was to move away communist China from the USSR, for obvious security concerns. This has nothing to see with free-market theory.
_Crony capitalists, greedy politicians for whom it was beneficial to work exclusively with one (authoritarian) place. But this has nothing to see with free-market theory, on the very contrary.
_The other is the influence of economists such as Friedman on Reagan’s and others administration, who believed that economy can solve all problems on earth (the famous line we heard all day long at the time that with the rising of standards of living, the Chinese and Russians will end up calling for political and civil freedom). And now we see that economy did not solve all problems on earth obviously.
But here I don’t think Friedman meant to have all products manufactured in only one place, so we cannot blame him for this “globalization”.
I don’t imply that democracies wanted WWII or plotted to get it.
In fact they went very far, to far, to evade it. And the Nazis are the only responsible ones for it.
But, the fact is that WWII ended the 1929 crisis. It is a fact.
Without it, the crisis would have lingered as the present one does.
I am conscious of the costs and not happy they happened.
US economy recovered and was put on full employment.
And in Europe, the level of destruction was such that the rebuilding of it needed plan Marshall and set west on the path of growth and progress for the next 25 years.
[Post–World War II economic expansion - Wikipedia]
Immediate effects :
“I need not repeat the figures. The facts speak for themselves… These men could not have been armed and equipped as they are had it not been for the miracle of production here at home. The production which has flowed from the country to all the battlefronts of the world has been due to the efforts of American business, American labor, and American farmers, working together as a patriotic team.”
–President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Navy Day speech, October 27, 1944
" Raising an armed force was just part of America’s war effort. That force had to be supplied with the uniforms, guns, tanks, ships, warplanes, and other weapons and equipment needed to fight. With its vast human and material resources, the United States had the potential to supply both itself and its allies. But first the American economy had to be converted to war production.
The war production effort brought immense changes to American life. As millions of men and women entered the service and production boomed, unemployment virtually disappeared. The need for labor opened up new opportunities for women and African Americans and other minorities. Millions of Americans left home to take jobs in war plants that sprang up around the nation. Economic output skyrocketed.
The war effort on the “Home Front” required sacrifices and cooperation. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” was a common expression. Rationing became part of everyday life. Americans learned to conserve vital resources. They lived with price controls, dealt with shortages of everything from nylons to housing, and volunteered for jobs ranging from air raid warden to Red Cross worker."
[Take A Closer Look: America Goes to War | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans]
[The Basic Economic Effects World War II Had on the Global Economy]
→ “Without it, the crisis would have lingered as the present one does.” Wrong. The 2008 crisis in the US finished in 5 years. In 10 years in Europe (until 2016 or so) because Europe is not as free economically as the US.
→ “Without it, the crisis would have lingered as the present one does.” How do you know?
→ “But, the fact is that WWII ended the 1929 crisis. It is a fact.” What is the point of making this argument? So ok, the war appeared historically to have ended the crisis. An infinity of other things could have ended the crisis.
What is the relation with free-market theory?
It is only changing the subject, while reinforceing indirectly (and dishonestly) the communist/socialist mantra “capitalists needs war”, “capitalism leads to fascism”, “capitalism is imperialism”.
Please, don’t think for me. If i wanted to use this mantra, i would.
I disagree with you. In economy, there are short cycles and long cycles. The crisis and bubbles you are mentioning are short cycles.
For me in the long cycle, we are in a low phase.
And how WWII allowed the end of 1929 crisis ?
Read the links
The technological and scientific progress, the use of Keynesian policies, and the need to produce fast and cheap during the war. Then the damages caused during the war had to be repaired and whole Europe had to be rebuilt.
WW II implied a total renewing of the capital goods.
I don’t know what would have happened without WWII but i think that the long crisis would have lasted.
Humanity progresses by cycles.
During the 18th century, we got progresses in agriculture, during the 19th century we got steam, during 20th century we got petrol and electricity.
Each of these scientific and technological progresses was the source of global progress and prosperity, at least for the rich. the second middle of the 20th century was also marked by big progresses for the poor.
But each time, after a time, economy and progress stall, until the new wave of scientific and technological progress create a new current.
The new era of computing and electronics and artificial intelligence has not brought what was hoped for now.
Ah, the homo economicus guy. Now I see where you are coming from.
The human beings have been very poor until the implementation of two ideas (1) equality before the law (2) free-market theory.
From then on, their standards of living increased at extremely high rates all over the world.
Sure, if you average it out. It’s still implemented in a way that depends on their being very poor. A few billion of them.