Anti-Capitalist Newspeak
Written by Dixie Flatline
On the Mises forum, it’s normal to see a mutualist or left-libertarian protest the use of the word capitalism. The argument goes that instead we should be using “free market” or “market anarchy”.
Why? The reasoning is that too many people misunderstand the word capitalism and think it is the American economic system. It’s not even an argument that the word capitalism means something different than the Austrian or right-libertarian (anyone who is not a left-libertarian apparently) usage, but rather that since a lot of people misuse and misunderstand the word, they now own it. The word is now defined by it’s misuse.
This has already happened with terms like liberal, anarchist, anarchy, laissez-faire, liberalism and libertarianism to name a few.
I refuse to let the lowest common denominator define the language I will use. These are the same people who do not understand, and lack the curiosity to discover why inflation occurs. The same people who vote for the lesser of two evils. The same people who cheer for war when it starts, then cry about it later. The same people who want to bailout Main Street by placing a tax burden on their children, and their children’s children. The same people who worship Reagan and the Clintons. Who think that natural disasters are good for the economy and that America can spread freedom and democracy abroad with the barrel of a gun.
Why would I care what ignorant and loathsome people think? Why would I allow them to frame the debate through their stunted and twisted perception of language?
The answer is, I don’t care, and I won’t allow someone to place limitations upon the debate.
Capitalism. It’s a great thing.
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Niccolo
The fact is, you’re wrong on any level you attempt to define capitalism as.
Not only do most people define capitalism as the American system today, but they’ve always defined it that way – whether it be the American system or the British one.
Whether by history or by language, you’re wrong to use the word capitalism. Unless you really do like state backed capital and the current system, in which case you’re just despicable.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/82/ante/ante1.html
Comment — October 6, 2008 @ 11:00 am
Dixie Flatline
Nicky, that’s argumentum ad populum. All you are doing is making my point.
Your STR article as Ante Simtapalic was poorly received (correctly so) in the STR forum if my memory doesn’t fail me.
Comment — October 6, 2008 @ 11:28 am
Mike
These are the same people who do not understand
A challenging thesis, and one liable to alienate many potential allies. It may be the case that your defense of the use of the word rests on a body of thought they have simply never been exposed to, and with which they would resonate if they were. It’s frustrating, I know, but to write off large group of potential allies who at least share the goal of eliminating the state seems a greater risk than remaining silent or remaining in the discussion to teach.
Comment — October 12, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
Dixie Flatline
No risk, no reward. I’m not going to let the blathering mass of looters define what language I should use, and to redefine words to suit their purposes and context.
Maybe I am limiting myself, but is there really “more gooder, less evilish”? I’m not so sure.
Comment — October 12, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
David Z
The problem that you’re speaking of here, is a purely semantic confusion. It doesn’t matter if you call it “capitalism” and I call it “zoop,” as long as we both know what the other person means. Fighting over terminology is stupid. The fact of the matter is that in common discourse, if I use the term “capitalism,” I’ve already alienated myself from the discussion, because *most* people understand that capitalism = state-capitalism. My individual opinion doesn’t matter, and I’m tired of wasting wind trying to convince them that this definition of theirs is inaccurate. In terms of strategy, sometimes it’s better to just roll with the punches.
I don’t like to see language muddled any more than it already has been, so I understand where you’re coming from.
Comment — October 15, 2008 @ 11:47 pm
John Petrie
I’ve thought the same things that you wrote in your post and that David Z. wrote in his comment. I don’t bring it up because who really needs another definition/semantic argument when there are more pressing matters to raise my blood pressure?
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Karl Marx coin the term capitalism (or capitalist)? I would guess it was in the Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital, but maybe it wasn’t him. If it was him, then the argument that “capitalism” really means corporate-State socialism holds a little more water.
However, leaving out history and taking only the etymology and the dictionary definition of the word itself, I think capitalism is best defined as the economic system with private ownership of the means of production (businesses); Dictionary.com adds distribution and exchange of wealth to “means of production.” The word capitalism alone in no way implies socialism or State ownership, direction, guidance, regulation, taxation, confiscation, protection, redistribution, or oversight of any kind. State capitalism implies, basically, the privatized-privilege-and-profit/socialized-loss economy that we suffer under; anarcho-capitalism implies private economic activity without monopolistic government screwing things up, i.e., market anarchy.
Comment — November 10, 2008 @ 6:32 pm