There's no corruption in capitalism. Really. [Battles with Integrity]

From Harper's Index for October 2006:

Minimum amount of USDA farm subsidies since 2000 that have been paid out to people who do not farm: $1,300,000,000

Minimum value of “small business” contracts given out by the U.S. last year that went to Fortune 500 firms: $1,200,000,000

Dairy Industry Crushed Innovator Who Bested Price-Control System

I get really frustrated when folks claim that our socio-cultural-economic system rewards people who work hard and punishes layabouts. Many people who self-identify as conservatives rail against 'the Welfare state', even as they support initiatives that provide government assistance to those (rather, companies who purchase their candidates of choice) unable to compete in the market without help. Cornel West describes some of these people as free-market fundamentalists. At first I thought this was a misnomer, as these free-market fundamentalists don't hew to a strict view of the free market, where each actor has an equal chance in the market to face off against his or her competitors. Then I realized that 'fundamentalist' means less a fundamental interpretation of the intent of the original concept, and more a personal interpretation about how to self-justify one's own prejudice, nevermind the consequence. Just like much other fundamentalism, really.

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While I don't agree with Prof. West about much, I'll give him credit for that little turn of phrase. Lazy-arse corporate welfare queens...

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However nutty (and/or inscrutable) some of his ideas may be, Prof. West does get in the occasional zinger from time-to-time.

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Even a stopped clock is right twice a day :-)

I don't think your conclusion that corruption is a result of capitalism follows from your premise. Corruption is a result of corruption. There was gobs of it under socialism too.

I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea. I don't intend to claim that corruption comes from capitalism. There's corruption in most every kind of formalized societal makeup. It's part of man's basic self-interest. What I did not explicitly state is that we claim our society is less corrupt than others, when in fact the corruption is instead focused at the top, rather than spread more evenly throughout society. While our cops are generally, I would argue, less likely to take a bribe than in some other countries, our politicians are no less so.

I think the point was that capitalism (or at least, a "free market") is no protection from corruption. "Conservatives" seem to like to point out the corruption in non-free market societies; this is just a rejoinder.

I am not convinced that paying people not to farm is entirely a bad deal, if you're willing to use money as a blunt instrument to make people do what you think they should do.

As for small business and Fortune 500 firms, if all of that money went to spinoffs and subsidiaries of those Fortune 500 firms, and those spinoffs and subsidiaries run largely independent of those Fortune 500 firms, I'm not convinced that's so bad either. Those entities can be quite independant of the parent companies while still being "owned" by their parents.

But the idea of small business loans, and the stated goal of the SBA, "to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise," belies the fact that those aren't Small Businesses, they're just small branches of Big Business. Oh, and who gets the profits from those little 'largely independent' companies? When someone says the words, "Small Business" are we talking about Jim's six-person roofing operation, or are we talking about the latest tax shelter for MBNA? Free competitive enterprise indeed.

As for paying folk not to farm, it might have been a reasonable thing to do back when family farmers needed help as a result of overproduction, but now the vast majority of farm supports are going to corporate welfare so that companies can make money by selling crops for less than the cost of producing it. Your taxes and mine at work. You call that free-market? I call it welfare for people who already own private jets.

First, "free competitive enterprise" and "free-market" were your words, not mine. You may call it free-market, I did no such thing.

A small branch of a Big Business isn't always a tax shelter -- it's a way for a Big Business to be nimble and flexible like Small Businesses are. Twice I have worked for small branches, and they are very different from their parent companies.

Paying folks not to farm can make sense if it ensures that the soil is properly being taken care of and that the market isn't being totally screwed over. Both of those bother me as a libertarian, but destroying the soil by making wheat until nothing else can be grown just because wheat is the most profitable doesn't help everyone.

Actually, "free competitive enterprise" are the SBA's words, right from their mission statement. It's great that small branches of big companies are more nimble than the big companies that own them, but does that mean they should get taxpayer dollars? The original intent of the SBA was to help folk who don't already have deep pockets. Now instead, folk like you and me (without deep pockets) get to pay folk like IBM and ExxonMobil (whose pockets are somewhat more capacious).

Paying folks not to farm was somewhat reasonable 75 years ago, when it was necessary to keep some folk from starving. Now, it's corporate welfare, pure and simple. If the market is resilient, then farmers can stop growing wheat for a couple years, and switch to soy for example, which replenishes the soil (which is what family farmers have done for dozens of generations), price supports undermine the resilience of the markets.

Battles with Integrity

There's no corruption in capitalism. Really.

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September