First, it rather sounds like a decadent feudalism to me.
Second, there is nothing mandatory about letting people starve in an emergency. Adam Smith says that the government should undertake what cannot so expediently be accomplished by the market.
Third, the thing which distinguishes capitalism as a theory from other forms of profit- seeking, such as feudalism and mercantilism, is the reliance on economic specialization and uncoerced exchange to promote economic efficiency. Those are the two primary points argued in The Wealth of Nations.
I have often laughed to myself at the floundering that goes on when someone suggests that Nazism and Socialism are much the same. I have several times intervened to bail out the hapless liberal and try to set the record straight. But I am always amazed that no one thinks to make the fundamental point: socialism intends to promote social democracy, that is, relative equality among citizens. Nazism was in favor of hierarchy, not equality, and therefore was essentially unlike socialism.
Similarly, the difference between capitalism and these other forms of profit- seeking is that capitalism relies on free markets, including a free market in labor. Just as there cannot be a truly socialist regime that continues with feudal titles, there cannot be a truly capitalist regime that employs slave labor. It is a matter of finding voluntary exchange and honesty in contracts the best policy in the long run.
My wife is from Kansas City, and in the late 70s, there was a "nightclub war" in Little Italy. Bombs were thrown, fires were set, all kinds of shenanigans went on, because the Mafiosi behind it all couldn't accept normal economic competition, but had to go outside of the rules to try to shape the market through coercion. Again, that is not capitalism, that is just the way the Mafia operates. |
