Capitalism's Right-Wing Wrecking Crew

Imagine for a moment that Bill supports X. Now imagine that Bob supports Y, which is against X. Also imagine that a third person named Ben comes around and takes up the cause of X and claims to represent ideals that you agree with. Chances are that Bob is probably your enemy because he is against what you are for and you are for what he is against, while Ben is probably your friend because he claims to stand for the same things you stand for. Now imagine that Bob gets in power and implements Y, but Y turns out to be a failure. Now imagine that Ben gets into power preaching about X but instead implements Z, which turns out to be a failure yet still claims that is in favor of X. Who is Bill's friend now and who is his enemy? Logic dictates that even if Bill isn't Bob's ally, he is in some sense his friend because he has done more to hurt the cause of Y than he has to help it by demonstrating its absurdity, but Ben should be Bill's enemy because even if he opposes Y he may be the only chance that Bob has of redeeming himself since Bob can defeat X by conflating it with Z.

The following demonstration actually applies quite correctly to a situation in the real world. Bill is a libertarian, Bob is a generic man of the left (he could be anything from a liberal Democrat to a Marxist), and Ben is a Republican. Libertarians are in favor of free market capitalism while the left is in favor of a strong government role in the economy, and as a result the two ideologies are generally seen as being more enemies than friends regardless of their agreements on social issues and foreign policy. Because the right claims to stand for free markets, it is generally assumed that they make natural allies with the libertarian movement even if the two groups disagree on many things. However, even if the right's opposition to the left is genuine, I find their support for authentic free markets to be painfully false.

Authentic free markets are just as much about removing business from politics as they are about removing politics from business. Libertarians are as vehemently opposed to business controlling government as they are to government controlling business, whereas the right is only opposed to the latter. The Republican Party, even if enemies of socialized medicine, high taxes, and other shibboleths of the left, have also been the biggest champions of corporatism. The Republicans do not understand the difference between being pro-market and "pro-business" and as a result they see nothing wrong with using subsidies to prop up big industries and using protectionist measures to make sure that their corporate allies do not face stiff, particularly foreign competition. Additionally, the right believes that "privatization" means sub-contracting government services out to selected companies. Blackwater anyone? What about the scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center? All products of the Republican idea of "privatization." However, authentic privatization consists not in awarding government contracts to private companies but in removing government from the picture altogether and opening things up to free market competition. In Republican-speak, "free market solutions" means big government programs like school vouchers and No Child Left Behind instead of local control and free market education, faith-based initiatives instead of actually working to cut welfare programs and replacing them with authentically private charity, and a government-pharmaceutical complex instead of authentic free market healthcare and healthcare choice. Finally, and most importantly, Republicans want to use US military might to aid the interests of American businesses abroad whereas libertarians are non-interventionists. Republicans are not, by any means, proponents of a free market.

If you want to know just how big of a failure that Republican policies have been just turn on the news and research economic trends. The right continues to claim to represent free markets and they continue to warn that if the Democrats get in power they will make government bigger by creating new programs and new regulations. Indeed, there are many on the left who would love to see our country become more like socialist Scandinavia and who despise our limited government, free market traditions. These leftists may very well get their way with a Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama to lead them, but it will not be because of their own merit. The successes of the left will be a result of the Republican right and the only thing that has kept proponents of free markets from repealing the socialist measures of the 20th century has been the Republican right. When the Republicans go around preaching about free markets and then enacting corporatist, rather than free market policies, it only hurts free markets because it allows the left to point out their failures and refer to them as representing the cause of free markets. As a result, when libertarians come forth presenting a case for laissez-faire they are only seen as desiring to enact a much more radical version Republican policies. In the mind of the public free markets are inextricably linked with corporatist Republicans and as a result there are many who will never see libertarianism for the progressive ideology it is.

This problem with Republicans is nothing new; it has been going on since the 19th century. Republicans, virtually from their founding, have used government to benefit corrupt business interests and stood in contrast to the true proponents of laissez-faire and enemies of government-granted privilege. The Republicans and their Wall Street friends nearly killed capitalism altogether when their bad monetary policies under the nascent Federal Reserve combined with protectionism led to and exacerbated the Great Depression, and the whole time they preached about "free markets" even when what they were doing was quite the opposite. With such a poor record it is beyond any doubt that capitalism must divorce itself from the right because the right has done more to soil capitalism's reputation than to aid it. The right has always stood for privilege, corporate control of government, protectionism, social authoritarianism, and imperialism; libertarians have always stood for meritocracy, separation of business and state, free trade, social tolerance, and non-interventionism: these are two separate political traditions. If libertarians are ever to learn anything it must that the enemy of their enemy is not their friend. Let the left destroy itself with its idiotic socialistic policies, but an alliance with the right can only make us weaker and allow foolish liberals to win. The right wing and the Republican Party have never been proponents of capitalism; instead they are capitalism's wrecking crew.

SOURCES

Hal Brown, "Bush's Blackwater," Capitol Hill Blue

Mike Hall, "Privatization Tied Deplorable Conditions at Walter Reed," AFL-CIO

J.H. Huebert, "The School Voucher Myth," LewRockwell.com

Rep. Ron Paul, "Faith-Based Socialism," LewRockwell.com

"Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve," Ludwig Von Mises Institute