I hear so many pseudo-free marketers and pseudo-capitalists and pseudo-conservatives talk about how the police and sometimes even military should be nationalized and publicly funded. I'm gonna be short with this because it doesn't have to be long and because I'm feeling lazy, but, that's communism. You are a mixed-market, communist/capitalist hybrid if you want anything to be nationalized, including police, the military, roads, anything. I once heard someone say "if you want to force me to pay for your police system, you're violating me to make it so that others might not get violated". I personally don't know if I'm in support of miniarchy or whatever, but you can't be a capitalist if you want anything to operate in a communist way.
What do you mean? If I am not wrong, or if I've not misunderstand your op. You are supporting the privatization of police and military, no? But where do you have doubts and why?
I'm not being personally partial about anything, other than mentioning the fact that most "capitalists" still want to nationalize some things, such as police, mainly. Miniarchists usually claim to be capitalists and support "minimal government", which by that, they usually mean "making police work communistically by communistic public funding". I hypothesize this to be caused by most capitalism supporters being non-rich, and they know that their property wouldn't be well protected under anarcho-capitalism, so they want to rely on the rich to fund the police for them.
Capitalism can't exist without a state. The two are one. Who will enforce property rights? Without police there are no property rights, because there is nobody to enforce the notion of theft, and nobody to protect the wealthy. The police have always existed to infiltrate and imprison the poor while protecting the rich and aristocratic. This extends to the court system where the poor have little representation, and the rich can get away with crimes by hiring teams of lawyers to find loopholes. Theft is only punishable if it is small and illegitimate, when thieves have enough money and influence the system co-opts them and they become a legitimized part of the power structure.
All of those things can be overcome and the wealth can be taken by a popular uprising. The reason police are protected is because there exists a widely spanning united judicial system. There is recourse for shooting a cop. If there was no system as such, what would be the recourse for killing a bodyguard? How about one body guard killing another? Or corporate sponsored mercenaries battling each other for control of resources? Every corporation is like a sub-government within the wider government as it is. What I mean is that the government isn't that different from a wide-reaching corporation (or body, collective) with established means of obtaining and managing services and resources.
In many corrupt societies there already exists a kind of privatized police force by way of the mafia. In countries like Russia and Mexico, the businesses pander to the mafia, who secretly wield power through violence and extortion. It could be argued that the introduction of capitalism into Russia was introduced through the mafia-run black market. The police are not strong enough to stop them, so they begin making deals with officials. Without a government, these mafias would just become the government. If you look at it through a historical view, this is how many governments are originally established, through a takeover of society by the most successful warlords. It doesn't really increase business, it simply means there are more palms to grease to pay for "protection". When you think about this from a standpoint of what is "pro-capitalist" wouldn't you say that governments with a higher level of protection fosters the "rights" of the marketplace? It seems libertarians/minarchists forget or ignore the power of organized crime to become a major player in the market when there is a lot of privatization.
First of all you're not talking about communism, for in the classical theoretical meaning of that term it would imply, amongst other things, that those firms would be utterly horizontal, that is to say without any sort of hierarchy. However it is not necessarily inconsistent. I would agree with you that in the way it is often done that it is inconsistent, but there are certainly justifications of a socialized system of police (we'll leave it at that for now) whilst a privatized system of everything else. A capitalistic system necessitates that there be police officers and the like who support property rights. If this system were lent out to an unaccountable and irresponsible bidder (for instance let's say that evil monopolist X buys out the police system) then he could use force against others with impunity. This is not the case so long as the police system is public and government run because force cannot be used against other people. Consumer sovereignty and the rights of individuals are maintained, and so people will naturally gravitate towards the most efficient firms which can provide the lowest prices and the highest quality goods. If individual property rights are disregarded, however, then we see that this breaks down because the police firm could force people into purchasing their services, in a very real way making a new kind of government. In this way one could argue that a government system which nationalizes certain services is necessary to prevent another government system which is even more negative. With this being said I certainly disagree with Vergilius that a government is necessarily required in order to maintain capitalism, it is certainly theoretically possible (and not being not being utopian). It depends entirely upon general attitudes, the way this is brought about, and the precedents that follow. EDIT I also find that most conservatives aren't really pro-capitalist except in rhetoric. The interventions and limitations to capitalism would make it just as dangerous as anything liberals recommend.
It is all about control and control is what everyone are after. In terms of government, its no different. This reminds me of a quote from Hitler. He said something to the effect that the national socialists had no need to nationalize industry, so long as the people were nationalized. In terms of the US system, we see a similar approach. Big government and Big industry team up to control the masses. After all, who gets bailed out? Is it you or me? Nope. You have to write big checks for politicians to be too big to fail. Then those same politicians can turn you into GE who paid no income tax last year. It's good work if you can get it.
Why can't you have both? The existence a "communist market" (which I don't think is really a market) would affect a capitalist market and vice-versa, but neither necessarily destroys the other. Being affected, or skewed (which I think is the word marketeers use when they're referring to a market being affected in a way they don't like), does not necessarily mean that a market is either destroyed or rendered moot.
The Communism/capitalism model works really well in China. Wages in China In 2009, the average monthly wage of those employed in primary industries was only 1,196 yuan (188.421 USD), less than a quarter of the average wage of those working in financial services 5,033 yuan (792.911 USD), and the computer services industries 4,846 yuan (763.450 USD). http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/100206#part2 $188.42 a month for working in a factory, $792.91 for financial services workers, and computer service workers taking home a whopping $763.45 a month. That's much better than the United States wages for the same jobs....isn't it?
You really don't even understand capitalism. Capitalism requires government to protect private property what you keep referring to is Plutarch or maybe corporatism but it is not capitalism. Capitalism is a statist ideology, all forms are, they require a state. You should really just use the words free market, private-property anarchism or libertarianism.
The Chinese model has a lot of ups and downs to it. Ironically enough it embodies everything that the original communists hated most, ruthlessly cutting out everything human and sacrificing it for sheer financial betterment. About 40 million peasant farmers have seen their land confiscated, wealth inequality is rampant, and there's mass environmental degradation to a scale that's never been seen before in China's rush to modernize. At the same time one must wonder exactly how much of the growth is genuine and whether or not the mass subsidization of industries and partial state ownership will actually yield lastingly profitably entities. Investment in China is still partially uncertain because of the possibility that the regulatory/interventionist pressure could heat up rather quickly. With all of this being said the Chinese model has displayed itself to be one of the most affective models for growth that has ever been seen in terms of real wages. We'll see how it works out, although the case study might not last much longer depending upon what happens to the regulatory environment.
It's all relative. In the United States the average Computer Services worker makes $4420 a month. Even if the Chinese computer services worker's salary went up 25% in one year to $763.450 USD. He/she's still only making 17.26% of what his American counter part makes.
