Comments Elsewhere

I think before we can get any traction on this question we need to be clear about what the competing claims are about. When you “challenge those who argue that FDR ‘saved capitalism’” to provide further information, (1) what do you think your interlocutors are using the word “capitalism” to mean? and (2) what are you using the word “capitalism” to mean?

I ask because there are several different uses of the word “capitalism,” including (1) a voluntary economic order under conditions of laissez-faire et laissez passer (“the free market”), (2) active government support for big business through forcible accumulation, monopolization, and protection of industrial capital (“state capitalism” or “the corporate State”), and (3) a particular form of labor market, in which most goods are produced by wage-laborers working for a boss who owns the means of production (“the wage labor system,” or “boss-directed labor”). But (3) is orthogonal to either (1) or (2) (it could in principle exist under either system) and (1) and (2) are in fact mutually exclusive. (1) has almost never existed in its pure form in human history; (2) and (3) have been very common, especially over the past 150-200 years. (I discuss the terminological issues in more length elsewhere, e.g. at http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/03/31/anarquistas_por.)

So it seems to me that I need to know what “capitalism” means, before I can have any idea of whether FDR saved it, destroyed it, left it untouched, or never even came upon it in the first place.