So if your question is in good faith let’s break it down a little.
Capitalism is a economic system. It may have some liberal or conservative slant inherently, but in theory there isn’t anything implicit.
A liberal or conservative economic policy would be how you manage that economic system. Liberal economic policy should tend to favor rules and regulations to account for the flaws of unchecked capitalism. Conservative policy tends towards less regulation, relying on the market system to set prices for goods and services.
Personally, I’m liberal because the ultimate goal for any capitalist is a monopoly. Often in that situation, you get an unequal power dynamic that allows a company to stay ahead of competition or bully them out of the market, preventing the market from setting prices. Additionally liberal policy tries to regulate negative externalities, such as companies dumping chemicals in a river (such as when the Ohio river caught on fire leading to the creation of the EPA). Frankly, these are real problems inherent in capitalism that conservative policy doesn’t address because it makes the rich richer. It’s pretty disingenuous to argue that liberal policy is there to benefit the rich.
Anyway, that’s a super basic breakdown. None of that is say there isn’t corruption from the rich and greedy in politics. Frankly, money equating to political influence is crazy and has allowed the weathly to completely shape world policy. If you want change, look to rank choice voting systems or other ways to move more choice and power back to voters.
I appreciate you trying to answer a question in good faith, but you’re conflating ‘liberal’ with ‘vaguely left-leaning’, and none of what you’ve said makes any sense outside of current US political ‘discourse’ where ‘Liberal’ means ‘slightly left-wing’.
What you describe as liberal economics is closer to Keynsianism or Social Democracy.
In economics, the ‘Liberal’ school of thought is generally against regulation and interference in the market, seeing it as being ‘self-regulating’. In economic terms, Reagan and Thatcher were Liberals - hence them being associated with ‘Neoliberalism’.
The whole thing you said about Capitalism tending towards monopoly is actually a very Marxist/Socialist idea - Liberal economic theory tends to argue that monopolies form because of government and that they wouldn’t occur in a truly free market (although its more nuanced than that, there’s major disagreements over ‘Natural Monopolies’ etc. within the Liberal school). Source: look up any Liberal economist/thinker and their view on monopolies. E.g Friedman, J.S Mill.
Capitalism being an economic system doesn’t make it apolitical. ‘In theory’ Liberalism and Capitalism are very very closely intertwined, it’s not implicit, it’s absolutely explicit if you read any Liberal political or economic theory.
Also the idea of slightly changing our voting systems as the way to drive change is quite hilarious. Sure, moving away from FPTP would probably help a bit, but it’s not like countries with other systems are doing fine. These issues are more fundamental. And historically, fundamental change has never occured through small technical adjustments to political systems.
Good response! Thanks for the further reading! I was never an economics student, this post just felt like disingenuous US political arguments so I appreciate someone with a real background chiming in!
I’m not an expert by any means, but did Politics and Economics as my undergrad and did decently well in it; am happy to share my knoweldge. Also wanted to apologise if parts of my previous post seemed a bit condescending, wasn’t my intention.
Would be happy to debate/discuss more at any point if you’re interested.
Figure I might as well drop some more reading recommendations:
Specific to the topics of the discussion:
Chapter 14, from 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
This basically expands on the meme, and explains the connection between liberal economics and ‘pro-rich’ economics, in only 9 pages. Not very in-depth, but quite good and readable - although note that this book is very much a pop-economics polemic, and Chang is an Institutionalist economist and very skeptical of ‘free market’ economics. He’s fairly controversial among economists, but not super radical or anything.
Link to pdf of this chapter only.The whole book is free to borrow on Archive.org.
Chapter VIII ‘Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor’, from Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.
For a free-market take on monopolies, although a bit of an outdated take (the data has changed a lot, but the general arguments are still relevant). Free on Archive.org
Are markets efficient or do they tend towards monopoly? The verdict is in, by Joseph Stiglitz
Pretty short article that expands on our discussion about monopolies in the modern world.
Link to article
Chapter 2, Section 3 of ‘The Poverty of Philosophy’ by Karl Marx
This is basically Marx arguing against Proudhon, so a lot of it is weird out of context, but does sum up Marx’s views on monopolies. As with most Marx, not super easy to read, but very interesting.
Link to text from Marxists.org
Chapter 2, ‘Liberalism and Liberal Thinkers’, from 101 Great Liberal Thinkers by Eamonn Butler
A summary of liberal ideas, written by a self-described (neo)Liberal and founder of the Adam Smith Institute.
Freely available from the American Economic Association
More Generally Relevant / In-Depth Stuff:
The Wordly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner
Is a nice and readable intro to the history of economic thought, would recommend for an enjoyable read and broad overview.
Available to borrow on Archive.org
Economics: The Users Guide by Ha-Joon Chang
This is somewhat of a ‘pop-economics’ text so is quite readable, but also has solid knowlege. Chapter 4 has a nice summary of some of the major schools of thought, and there’s a lot of interesting economic history in here as well.
Available to borrow on Archive.org
Market Reasoning as Moral Reasoning: Why Economists Should Re-engage with Political Philosophy by Michael Sandel
Short article with interesting arguments about the limits of economics as a field, especially in considering the moral implications of allocating resources using markets.
Freely available from the American Economic Association
Chapter 3, ‘The Nature of Heterodox Economics’ from ‘Essays on the Nature and State of Modern Economics’ by Tony Lawson
Although this one is very academic, chapter 3 is only about 20 pages long and has a fairly good summary of some of the assumptions and criticisms of ‘modern mainstream economics’ vs ‘heterodox economics’. The rest of the book is excellent as well, it’s focused on a critique of modern economics and its attempts to be a ‘hard science’ by using lots of maths and models, with questionable results.
Link to a pdf here.
Chapter ‘The Place of Liberty’ from An Introduction to Political Philosophy by Jonathan Wolff
Especially recommend the section on problems with liberalism
Available to borrow on Archive.org
The Economy by Core Economics
This is just a textbook, not exactly light reading but it’s free and written by some pretty high-profile (mainstream) economists. It’s what I was mainly taught from so if you’re interested in what they teach at mainstream econ courses but want to skip the whole ‘paying massive tuition fees’ part, here it is. Link to the textbook on their website.
Also, Marginal Revolution has good stuff on econ on their YT channel and website; they are very pro-free market.
Hope this is interesting and/or useful, have a nice day!
I appreciate your effort, but my comment probably wasn’t what you would call “good faith”.
Even leaving aside the rather odd US scale, a liberal economic system is inherently capitalist, since capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production, wage labour, exploitation of workers and pricing in a market.
All this is still present in what you call a liberal economic system (even if some of these effects are dampened) without touching the root of the problem, so it is indistinguishable from, or even equal to, capitalism, whether in an unregulated or regulated flavour.
Where is the difference?
So if your question is in good faith let’s break it down a little.
Capitalism is a economic system. It may have some liberal or conservative slant inherently, but in theory there isn’t anything implicit.
A liberal or conservative economic policy would be how you manage that economic system. Liberal economic policy should tend to favor rules and regulations to account for the flaws of unchecked capitalism. Conservative policy tends towards less regulation, relying on the market system to set prices for goods and services.
Personally, I’m liberal because the ultimate goal for any capitalist is a monopoly. Often in that situation, you get an unequal power dynamic that allows a company to stay ahead of competition or bully them out of the market, preventing the market from setting prices. Additionally liberal policy tries to regulate negative externalities, such as companies dumping chemicals in a river (such as when the Ohio river caught on fire leading to the creation of the EPA). Frankly, these are real problems inherent in capitalism that conservative policy doesn’t address because it makes the rich richer. It’s pretty disingenuous to argue that liberal policy is there to benefit the rich.
Anyway, that’s a super basic breakdown. None of that is say there isn’t corruption from the rich and greedy in politics. Frankly, money equating to political influence is crazy and has allowed the weathly to completely shape world policy. If you want change, look to rank choice voting systems or other ways to move more choice and power back to voters.
I appreciate you trying to answer a question in good faith, but you’re conflating ‘liberal’ with ‘vaguely left-leaning’, and none of what you’ve said makes any sense outside of current US political ‘discourse’ where ‘Liberal’ means ‘slightly left-wing’.
What you describe as liberal economics is closer to Keynsianism or Social Democracy.
In economics, the ‘Liberal’ school of thought is generally against regulation and interference in the market, seeing it as being ‘self-regulating’. In economic terms, Reagan and Thatcher were Liberals - hence them being associated with ‘Neoliberalism’.
The whole thing you said about Capitalism tending towards monopoly is actually a very Marxist/Socialist idea - Liberal economic theory tends to argue that monopolies form because of government and that they wouldn’t occur in a truly free market (although its more nuanced than that, there’s major disagreements over ‘Natural Monopolies’ etc. within the Liberal school). Source: look up any Liberal economist/thinker and their view on monopolies. E.g Friedman, J.S Mill.
Capitalism being an economic system doesn’t make it apolitical. ‘In theory’ Liberalism and Capitalism are very very closely intertwined, it’s not implicit, it’s absolutely explicit if you read any Liberal political or economic theory.
Economics is inherently political.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/#Libe Sections 3 and 4 of this are a decent starting point.
Also the idea of slightly changing our voting systems as the way to drive change is quite hilarious. Sure, moving away from FPTP would probably help a bit, but it’s not like countries with other systems are doing fine. These issues are more fundamental. And historically, fundamental change has never occured through small technical adjustments to political systems.
Good response! Thanks for the further reading! I was never an economics student, this post just felt like disingenuous US political arguments so I appreciate someone with a real background chiming in!
You’re welcome!
I’m not an expert by any means, but did Politics and Economics as my undergrad and did decently well in it; am happy to share my knoweldge. Also wanted to apologise if parts of my previous post seemed a bit condescending, wasn’t my intention.
Would be happy to debate/discuss more at any point if you’re interested.
Figure I might as well drop some more reading recommendations:
Specific to the topics of the discussion:
More Generally Relevant / In-Depth Stuff:
Hope this is interesting and/or useful, have a nice day!
Economic liberalism
I appreciate your effort, but my comment probably wasn’t what you would call “good faith”.
Even leaving aside the rather odd US scale, a liberal economic system is inherently capitalist, since capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production, wage labour, exploitation of workers and pricing in a market. All this is still present in what you call a liberal economic system (even if some of these effects are dampened) without touching the root of the problem, so it is indistinguishable from, or even equal to, capitalism, whether in an unregulated or regulated flavour.
USian detected.