Kevin Carson's review of "Mind and the Market"

Kevin reviews a book I confess I have not read, The Mind and the Market by Michael Shermer. See interviewed at Reason TV if you are so inclined.

BTW, it is not my intention to defend Shermer here and I don't want to. Shermer's book is actually irrelevant here. I actually agree with many of Carson's criticisms...but not all. And therein lies the basis for this post.

Anyway, as a periodic reader of Kevin's stuff, I have always found his views insightful, interesting and worth pondering. In general, I'm usually in agreement with much of what he says and most certainly with the spirit of what he says. And I probably agree a lot more than with him than may lead on in the rest of this post.

Without getting in too deep, there are some fundamental tenets to his views that I simply find puzzling and almost "incongruent" with libertarianism...not vulgar libertarianism or right libertarianism (his pet peeve...which I also think he defines to widely at times)...but just basic general libertarianism 101 and free markets in realistic and practical setting that takes everyday human action into account.

First of all, he once again shows his contempt for "the corporation" as legal structure...I assume because it's a creation of the state and therefore a validation of the state's unfounded legitimacy in a true free market? If so, fair enough. Personally, I'm indifferent to the legal structure of a corporation. Perhaps the implications of even saying this shows a fundamental rift in our views because my view accepts (or at least tolerates as acceptable) the legitimacy of the state as an enforcer/arbiter of law and property issues. I'm not sure on this for Carson.

Beyond that, what I find puzzling is how any defense of capitalism that has corporations is instantly "vulgar" or necessarily a defense of crony capitalism.

Having said that, I agree whole-heartedly with his critiques of privilege, entrenched interests, subsidies and all that state coddling and interference that drives most any libertarian mad...whether right, left, "vulgar" or what have you.

I'll stop there for now. Any thoughts?

But it would seem that in Carson's view, such views are mutually exclusive.

was the main attraction for me...

I interested in evolutionary game theory as it applies to the market for different reasons than Shermer; in my case, primarly in providing a analytical framework that dispels the free rider "problem" in terms of public goods.

With respect to Carson, he's an anarchist, specifically a mutualist, although he has updated mutualism to incorporate a marginal theory of value. Carson's critique of the corporation frequently centers around how the State externalizes the cost of corporate size and scale...

And I'm against those externalizing costs via the state. Nonetheless, I guess what really gets me is the instant equating of any defense of our economic system with being a corporate apologist.

In the purest and most discriminating sense, yes, libertarians should be outraged at how the state unfairly empowers corporations and I suppose inside and to themselves, they'd rather do away with all intervention that works in the corporation's favor.

The problem is one of context. When Carson cites someone like Shermer being a so-called coroporate apologist, he knows the paradigm that Shermer arguing within. Shermer is arguing against statist tendencies not anarchic. He is arguing against the further dismantling of any semblance of a free market economy we may have. If the opposition were indeed more "free market anarchist" or "mutualist" or "agorist", Shermer's arguments, I suspect, would be much different.

I doubt many of these "vulgar libertarians" would defend our status quo or even expeditiously define "free markets" as they do if the audience was more in tune with Carson's viewpoint. But it isn't...not by a long shot.

I get the sense that Shermer and other "vulgar libertarians" were to argue from a pure free market standpoint, they would simply be marginalized as cultists and extremists and the force against further state control would grow even stronger.

Now, does that mean that Shermer and others like him can't take any useful advice from Carson's critique? Of course not. But to dismiss them as corporate apologists is a bit harsh, IMO. I prefer to call them "overly pragmatic and a bit careless" libertarians.

THe main problem with the corporation as a state entity is that it is legally required to bring profits for shareholders. But in a free market, profit is but one value a business owner may have among many. If the boss works for himself, he may put personal reputation, compassion, or concern for the community ahead of profits in certain situations. But a corporate CEO accountable to shareholders is ethically bound not to put these other values into account (or only do so for public relation purposes). The state-created corporation ends up distorting the market by making profit the only value, as opposed to being one value among many.

That said, I also believe the two things we can do to get out of the recession is a) abolish corporate income taxes, and b) repeal Sarbanes-Oxley. These will get more people working, sooner, than any other stimulus package we may try.

I believe that in addition to the problem identify by Wilson that corporations are driven only by profit and not by other values a business owner may have, corporations as state created entities are given special privileges not available to a normal individual. For example, I have read libertarian arguments against same sex marriage benefits because these benefits, while discriminatory when given only to heterosexual couples, would still discriminate against single individuals if extended to any type of couple. The problem is the state offering special benefits, tax privileges, and the like. Corporations would fall under this category.

While looking at the Amazon reviews of this book I saw a discussion called New Age Thinking: the OTHER enemy of rationality. I'm often caught up in defending science from conservative attempts at hijacking, but we do have to keep our guard up against leftist attempts at hijacking it also. While leftists irrationalists are less influential than the conservative irrationalists, their influence may increase if Democrats gain increased power...and a failure to criticize them may make it easier for conservatives to critcize rationalists.

FWIW, do you think liberty is dependent on rationalism? Clearly, there isn't an absolute dependency, since people could be irrationally supportive of anything. However, I think that irrationalism/emotionalism is generally a threat to liberty because emotions are strongly influenced by group identity. Furthermore, irrationalists typically don't have a strong sense of objectivity, so they are likely to pressure others to adopt their own (subjective) attitudes/beliefs.

between rationalism and liberty. I can say however that it depends on your definition of rationalism in this case.

Increased human liberty has steadily increased since the Renaissance so there must be some there there.

On the other hand, I find any time of "New Age Thinking"...if it comes to mean the state of mind that Hayek spoke against in the Fatal Conceit...to be antithetical to liberty.