Nel corso della storia Il capitalismo è stato minacciato, non tanto dai difetti economici innati, come direbbero i marxisti, quanto dalla sua dipendenza e dalla sua commistione con la politica.
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... Michael Moore ends his film Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) with a catechism: “Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people, and that something is democracy.” By “democracy,” Moore means collective control of the means of production—that is, socialism... The term “socialism” appears on, but is buried deep within, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) 1 website, despite its repeated invections against the economic status quo and its vague call for “a new socio-political and economic...
... countries that tried socialism—the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, and North Korea—were hellholes...
... Socialist governments murdered about 100 million (and perhaps many more) of their own citizens, making socialism about as lethal as the 14th-century Black Death...
... Yet, despite this, many people who oppose socialism and support markets find capitalism morally uninspiring. Sure, capitalism performs better than socialism. But, we worry, that is just because we are so selfish...
... But many people worry this just shows we are not altruistic enough for socialism...
... Socialism asks us to supply benevolent philosopher-kings, but the best we can come up with is a Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot. It seems the problem is with us. Since we are selfish, greedy, and fearful, maybe market-based economies are the best we can do...
... Even capitalism’s greatest defenders seem to agree. Adam Smith tells us, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest...
... Bernard Mandeville, in his famous poem “The Grumbling Hive,” says capitalism runs on vice much like biodiesel engines run on food waste...
... Finally, there’s Ayn Rand, “Goddess of the Market,” 7 who defends capitalism by arguing that selfishness is a virtue and altruism is evil...
... Socialism seems to answer to a higher moral calling. Perhaps the best evidence of this is that socialists so often defend their view in moral terms...
... The problem with socialism thus seems to be that it asks too much of us—it asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to share, and to never take advantage of power...
... Socialism says, “All for one and one for all.” But we’re more comfortable with something like, “Every man for himself.”...
... you probably accept the view just described: That markets are a kind of moral compromise, and that if we could harness the best within us, we would dispense with capitalism...
... The best spokesperson of this widely shared view is the philosopher G. A. (“Jerry”) Cohen...
... I debate Cohen in order to undermine the widespread belief that socialism is morally superior to capitalism...
... Unlike many Marxists, he doesn’t rely on convoluted dialectics or postmodernist piffle...
... Cohen first has us imagine a camping trip among friends. Everyone wants everyone to have a great time. When the campers bring their equipment to the campsite, they stop asserting ownership rights over their stuff, and instead treat everything as a common bounty... The campers maintain a perfect community of perfect equality... campers are living by socialist principles...
... Now, Cohen says, imagine what the camping trip would look like if the campers began to act like people do in real-life capitalism. Imagine Harry demands better food because he is good at fishing. He refuses to put his skills to use unless he gets the best fish. Sylvia demands privileges after she finds an apple tree in the woods. She refuses to share unless she gets a break from the communal chores. Leslie demands extra payment for her special knowledge of how to crack nuts. Morgan, whose father left him a well-stocked pond 30 years ago, gloats over having more food than the others.... these repugnant behaviors are just what we see in real-life capitalist societies...
... Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, Clarabelle Cow, Pete (defined as a cat), and Professor Ludwig Von Drake, and many other characters, live together in a village. There is no hierarchy among them. 2 They have separate goals and projects, but also share common aims, such as the goal that each of them should have a fulfilling life...
... For example, there are communal spaces, such as amphitheaters, racetracks, obstacles courses, and parks...
... There are also privately owned spaces and things. Mickey Mouse owns a clubhouse that he shares with his friends. Minnie owns and runs a “Bowtique,” a hair-bow factory and store. Clarabelle Cow owns and runs a “Moo Mart” sundries store and a “Moo Muffin” factory. Donald Duck and Willie the Giant own farms. Professor Von Drake owns various inventions, including a time machine and a nanotech machine that can manufacture “mouskatools” on command...
... There is no violence or any threats of violence—force is not necessary to maintain social order...
… Village life is not all about work! The villagers spend much of their time having fun. They enjoy lightly competitive or non-competitive games, going on adventures, and producing art and music. Sometimes they do these activities alone, sometimes together in small groups, and sometimes with everyone as a whole…
… When bad luck strikes—e.g., when some baby ducks must be taught to fly, or when a baby dragon is lost, or when the Tick Tock Time Machine accidentally turns half the villagers into babies, or when a Gooey Goo spill creates five copies of Goofy—the villagers happily come together as a team to solve the problem, making use of their different skills and abilities…
… Everyone operates on principles of mutual concern, tolerance, and respect…
… You could imagine instead a version of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village in which—as in socialism—the collective (or its representative, the socialist government) asserts its rights over all pieces of land or equipment, or over everyone’s bodies, minds, and talents. 3 You could imagine that the collective or the socialist government decides who will be allowed, for example, to use the hot-air balloons, or what color bows Minnie will make…
… Now, most people would hate that. We probably wouldn’t let our children watch that kind of show…
… And this means that most people are drawn to the capitalist ideal, at least in certain restricted settings…
… The moral principles realized in the Clubhouse Village include the principle of voluntary community, the principle of mutual respect, the principle of reciprocity, the principle of social justice, and the principle of beneficence…
… Part of what it means to have mutual respect is to believe that every individual matters as an end in herself…
… In the USSR, Venezuela, or Cuba, cooperation is based largely on greed and fear. A person does not care fundamentally, within socialist interaction, about how well or badly anyone other than herself fares…
… many others would instead say that while it is all right for the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village to be run on capitalist lines, there are features special to the Clubhouse Village that distinguish it from the normal life in a modern society and that consequently cast doubt on the desirability and/or feasibility of realizing Mickey Mouse Clubhouse principles in a modern society…
… The idea is that the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village is a small village, inhabited by unusually virtuous characters, removed from the complexities of everyday life…
… The first putative reason why capitalism is infeasible is that people, so it is often said, are insufficiently cooperative, generous, tolerant, and respectful to meet its requirements, however cooperative, generous, tolerant, and respectful they might be in contexts as special and limited as the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village…
… Yet many political scientists say that once we move past the confines of a small village, like the Clubhouse Village, we cannot make do without a powerful central authority, which maintains a powerful police force and military, imposes rules through commands, backs up these commands through violence and threats of violence, and that maintains a monopoly on the use of violence as a method of social control….
… Perhaps in the distant future, with advances in human moral motivation and social technology, the principles of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Village could be realized…
… G. A. Cohen contends that we should not rest content with what we have. We can envision a better world free of oppression. We should strive to achieve that vision, if we can. I agree…
… Capitalism is not just better than socialism from an economic point of view, but inherently better from a moral point of view….
… even if everyone were morally perfect, capitalism would still be preferable to socialism…
… Imagine a world much like ours, but with one big difference: in this parallel world, everyone is morally perfect…
… Some philosophers think there is no point asking Cohen’s question. They say the answer might provide us with little practical advice about what to do here and now…
… When I first read Cohen’s Why Not Socialism?, I realized that the essential flaw was that he was not comparing like to like. I recognized that he argued for the inherent moral superiority of socialism by comparing idealized socialism to realistic capitalism…
… Arguments for capitalism, private property, and market economies often rely upon the idea that these institutions are a response to human failings, and that under utopian conditions, we would have no need of them…
… More recently, Schmidtz has argued, in his “The Institution of Property,” 4 that private property is justified in order to ensure that people maintain rather than destroy resources. Private property prevents what ecologist Garrett Hardin calls the “tragedy of the commons.”…
… And so, again, Cohen concludes that private property and markets are merely useful social technology in light of human vice…
… I noticed that the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse presented the capitalist ideal: a voluntaryist, anarchist, non-violent, respectful, loving, cooperative society…
… The Clubhouse Villagers are close enough to morally perfect (and their society was small enough) that they could dispense entirely with private property. Many of the instrumental justifications for markets and private property do not apply to them. Nevertheless, even though the villagers are even more virtuous than Cohen’s socialist campers, the villagers have private property in the means of production. They have privately owned stores, farms and factories. And, in watching the show, I saw that it makes sense that they would have private property and markets, even if, strictly speaking, they don’t need to do so… Private property makes their lives better. The best way to see that it makes sense is just to watch the show, and see if you have any moral complaint against their capitalist activities…
… The philosopher Loren Lomasky points out that people (and by extension people-like mice, ducks, and giants) are project-pursuers. They have ideas and visions that they want to implement. Pursuing projects over the long term is often part (if not the only part) of what gives coherence and meaning to our lives…
… Willie the Giant wants to farm. In an imaginary ideal socialist economy, the nice socialists would no doubt let Willie plow the collectively owned fields with the collectively owned plow. But that’s not good enough. Willie wants a farm that he can shape according to his vision…
… Another closely related reason for having private property, even in utopia, has to do with the sheer aggravation of always having to ask permission…
… People have a need to feel “at home” in the world… The important point is that most of us need both—we need at times to participate in a larger community, and we need at times to escape to our private ventures and spaces. Without private property, we cannot do the latter… We form relationships with some objects, with some of the things we own, with the books we write, with the artwork our children make us, and so on…
… There is another reason for private property, when we try to practice utopia on a grand scale: The limits of our knowledge. We have imperfect information… I don’t know enough about other people, what their needs and desires are, or how different objects fit into their plans or projects…