You're right; that was my mistake. I should have described it as an operating subsidiary or a controlled entity; "wholly-owned" was a careless misstatement. But I do think that the point about BP stands after the correction.
My recent post M@MM for July 2011 and August 2011: Vices, Crimes, Corporate Power, Privatization, and mo’ Problems.

The best proof is proof by example.

Maybe so, but I suspect it really depends on what you are trying to prove. In any case, the ability to prove by example requires an interlocutor who's willing to take your examples seriously. David Graeber has a nice passage about how far this kind of argument actually gets you in practice — because the demand for examples is driven by an expectation that the Anarchist can't possibly fulfill (an anarchy which in every respect looks exactly like a modern nation-state, right down to the territorial monopoly), and a willingness to shift the standards ad hoc in order to rule anything she mention out of court.

So, having ONE place in the world that is actually free should be the goal rather than changing entire structures.

Sure, but part of the problem is that the "entire structures" are systematically aligned towards using overwhelming violence and political power to ensure that there is no one place in the world that is actually free. If the goal is to find somewhere without a state, and the entire habitable Earth (as well as most of the inhabitable Earth) is covered in states, their armies, their air forces, and their navies, then you need to get some state to fail before you have your place to build an example. And you should keep in mind what the United States does to "failed states."

My recent post M@MM for July 2011 and August 2011: Vices, Crimes, Corporate Power, Privatization, and mo’ Problems.

Thomas,

Thanks for the replies.

In re: (1), whether or not you’re right to characterize those sort of economic projects “leftist Utopianism,” again, my point is that I didn’t say (and don’t believe) that those are the only forms of economic activity that are going to be on offer in a free society. What I did say is that a certain kind of argument used to dismiss them apriori is really a non sequitur.

Maybe you think that there’s another, different argument which shows that anything but a conventionally capitalistic firm would be unsustainable, or overwhelmingly out-competed in a freed market. Certainly, below, in (6), you suggest another, different line of attack — that they are forms of organization which somehow conflict with “deep seated human impulses,” etc. If so, OK, we can talk about that; but it’s a different argument from the argument that I was responding to, and you’ll need to keep in mind that I have more to say on the subject than what you’ll find in a paragraph narrowly concerned with another, different point; that the list you just quoted is intended as suggestive, not exhaustive; and so on.

In re: (2), the claim about the net effect of government interventions is not an “assumption;” it’s the conclusion of an argument. Part of the argument is contained in the body of the article, and the rest is alluded to insofar as restrictions of space would allow (I mention, e.g., Gabriel Kolko’s work on the historical backgrounds and economic effects of “progressive” regulation; I might also mention the work of David Beito on grassroots mutual aid, Butler Shaffer’s work on antitrust law, etc.). Maybe you think the argument is a weak one, but of course you should keep in mind that there may be more to it than what you could find outlined in one general-audience magazine article (certainly, I’ve written a lot more on the subject, and referred to many people who’ve written much more on it than I have). In any case though, I do sketch the outlines of a response to exactly the worries you raise here: I already specifically responded to the claim about economies of scale in the paragraph you were quoting above, and I give some specific reasons for thinking that the main effects of “the complex web of restrictions” are not actually what their “progressive” sponsors claim them to be, but rather tend to favor monopolization and cartelization, by suppressing start-up competitors. Again, maybe you think that this argument is not strong enough, as presented, to justify the conclusion I draw from it. And maybe it’s not. But if so, it seems like you’d do better to actually reply to the points that I made on the subject, rather than repeating the same objections I already replied to in the article as if I had been too busy dream-spinning to ever hear tell of such a thing as OSHA or an antitrust lawsuit.

In re: (5), you make fun, but it’s a serious point. My article spends more or less no time at all on any question about the ethical status of corporate commerce. I’ve certainly got something to say about it (and have said so elsewhere), but when I’m being accused of ignoring economic principles in order to suit my own preferences, I really do have to insist that the central point of the article (the purely economic point that the patterns of corporate commerce as we know them are substantially the result of an identifiable set of political interventions, and are — therefore — not good examples of market forces at work) is a point that makes no significant claim at all about the ethical status of any of the people or organizations engaged in it, and it is not refuted by arguing about whether or not big corporations are “evil,” good, noble, base, delightful, unsightly, or utterly humdrum.

In re: (6), OK. Then I will gladly tell you that I have no problem with so “assessing” or so “arguing.” If “true libertarianism,” as you understand it, means refusing to “assess” any social relationship, or pattern of social interaction, “as undesirable” so long as it “arose through the exercise of individual liberty,” or ever to argue with someone as to whether a choice they freely make is in fact the right choice to make, then “true libertarianism” sounds like a form of voluntary imbecility, and I’m happy to apostasize myself from it.

You call this a “strawman” of your view, but in what particular respect have I misrepresented you? I asked you if in your view “true libertarianism” is supposed to require no social relationship, or pattern of social interaction, should be subject to criticism, or to attempts to persuade others against it, if it arises consensually. You seem to have answered fairly directly that that is indeed your view, although apparently you prefer the even broader word “assess” to “criticize,” and the word “argue” to “persuade.” But if assessing any voluntary relationship as undesirable is “pseudo-libertarianism,” just what sort of “intelligent cultural criticism and non-violent persuasion” do you intend to leave for the true believer? And, since, again, such criticism and such non-violent persuasion is itself entirely non-coercive, and in no way violates the person, property or individual liberty of anyone who happens to hear it or to be the subject of it, what does this call for a sweeping norm against such talk have to do with the truth or falsity of someone’s libertarianism?

But in any case this seems like special pleading. On the one hand, you want to rule out arguments against the desirability of capitalistic relationships by appealing to this sort of quietism. And yet when it comes to the arguments against the desirability of non-capitalistic relationships, you seem to think you have a very good idea already of what sorts of social relationships are desirable, and which are not, as reflected in your attempt to justify some of them, and to dismiss others as sterile and utopian, by appeals to “deep seated human impulses.” As for those “deep seated human impulses,” I had already read the previous post, and I’m pretty sure that you and I differ pretty radically about just what those impulses are, and also what it is that “seats” them “deeply” where they occur. But while that’s an interesting psychological or anthropological question to contemplate, I don’t really know what if anything it is supposed to decide about libertarian politics. It’s natural for humans to crap in the woods, but civilization gives us toilets, and it’s natural for women to die in childbirth before they reach middle age, but we’ve generally thought it worth our while to make some deliberate effort to change and improve on our natural capacities and life-cycles.

Thomas,

Thanks for the replies.

In re: (1), whether or not you’re right to characterize those sort of economic projects “leftist Utopianism,” again, my point is that I didn’t say (and don’t believe) that those are the only forms of economic activity that are going to be on offer in a free society. What I did say is that a certain kind of argument used to dismiss them apriori is really a non sequitur.

Maybe you think that there’s another, different argument which shows that anything but a conventionally capitalistic firm would be unsustainable, or overwhelmingly out-competed in a freed market. Certainly, below, in (6), you suggest another, different line of attack — that they are forms of organization which somehow conflict with “deep seated human impulses,” etc. If so, OK, we can talk about that; but it’s a different argument from the argument that I was responding to, and you’ll need to keep in mind that I have more to say on the subject than what you’ll find in a paragraph narrowly concerned with another, different point; that the list you just quoted is intended as suggestive, not exhaustive; and so on.

In re: (2), the claim about the net effect of government interventions is not an “assumption;” it’s the conclusion of an argument. Part of the argument is contained in the body of the article, and the rest is alluded to insofar as restrictions of space would allow (I mention, e.g., Gabriel Kolko’s work on the historical backgrounds and economic effects of “progressive” regulation; I might also mention the work of David Beito on grassroots mutual aid, Butler Shaffer’s work on antitrust law, etc.). Maybe you think the argument is a weak one, but of course you should keep in mind that there may be more to it than what you could find outlined in one general-audience magazine article (certainly, I’ve written a lot more on the subject, and referred to many people who’ve written much more on it than I have). In any case though, I do sketch the outlines of a response to exactly the worries you raise here: I already specifically responded to the claim about economies of scale in the paragraph you were quoting above, and I give some specific reasons for thinking that the main effects of “the complex web of restrictions” are not actually what their “progressive” sponsors claim them to be, but rather tend to favor monopolization and cartelization, by suppressing start-up competitors. Again, maybe you think that this argument is not strong enough, as presented, to justify the conclusion I draw from it. And maybe it’s not. But if so, it seems like you’d do better to actually reply to the points that I made on the subject, rather than repeating the same objections I already replied to in the article as if I had been too busy dream-spinning to ever hear tell of such a thing as OSHA or an antitrust lawsuit.

In re: (5), you make fun, but it’s a serious point. My article spends more or less no time at all on any question about the ethical status of corporate commerce. I’ve certainly got something to say about it (and have said so elsewhere), but when I’m being accused of ignoring economic principles in order to suit my own preferences, I really do have to insist that the central point of the article (the purely economic point that the patterns of corporate commerce as we know them are substantially the result of an identifiable set of political interventions, and are — therefore — not good examples of market forces at work) is a point that makes no significant claim at all about the ethical status of any of the people or organizations engaged in it, and it is not refuted by arguing about whether or not big corporations are “evil,” good, noble, base, delightful, unsightly, or utterly humdrum.

In re: (6), OK. Then I will gladly tell you that I have no problem with so “assessing” or so “arguing.” If “true libertarianism,” as you understand it, means refusing to “assess” any social relationship, or pattern of social interaction, “as undesirable” so long as it “arose through the exercise of individual liberty,” or ever to argue with someone as to whether a choice they freely make is in fact the right choice to make, then “true libertarianism” sounds like a form of voluntary imbecility, and I’m happy to apostasize myself from it.

You call this a “strawman” of your view, but in what particular respect have I misrepresented you? I asked you if in your view “true libertarianism” is supposed to require no social relationship, or pattern of social interaction, should be subject to criticism, or to attempts to persuade others against it, if it arises consensually. You seem to have answered fairly directly that that is indeed your view, although apparently you prefer the even broader word “assess” to “criticize,” and the word “argue” to “persuade.” But if assessing any voluntary relationship as undesirable is “pseudo-libertarianism,” just what sort of “intelligent cultural criticism and non-violent persuasion” do you intend to leave for the true believer? And, since, again, such criticism and such non-violent persuasion is itself entirely non-coercive, and in no way violates the person, property or individual liberty of anyone who happens to hear it or to be the subject of it, what does this call for a sweeping norm against such talk have to do with the truth or falsity of someone’s libertarianism?

But in any case this seems like special pleading. On the one hand, you want to rule out arguments against the desirability of capitalistic relationships by appealing to this sort of quietism. And yet when it comes to the arguments against the desirability of non-capitalistic relationships, you seem to think you have a very good idea already of what sorts of social relationships are desirable, and which are not, as reflected in your attempt to justify some of them, and to dismiss others as sterile and utopian, by appeals to “deep seated human impulses.” As for those “deep seated human impulses,” I had already read the previous post, and I’m pretty sure that you and I differ pretty radically about just what those impulses are, and also what it is that “seats” them “deeply” where they occur. But while that’s an interesting psychological or anthropological question to contemplate, I don’t really know what if anything it is supposed to decide about libertarian politics. It’s natural for humans to crap in the woods, but civilization gives us toilets, and it’s natural for women to die in childbirth before they reach middle age, but we’ve generally thought it worth our while to make some deliberate effort to change and improve on our natural capacities and life-cycles.

1. Thomas: What it [a freed market] would look like — in Johnson’s dreams — is a kind of leftist Utopia: “Independent contracting, co-ops, and worker-managed shops.”

Actually, if you’ll look at the article, that was a list of some things other than conventionally capitalistic firms that are also examples of the division of labor (“specialization and trade”); it’s part of a brief response to a common argument that anti-corporate positions like Tucker’s somehow run counter to the discoveries of economic science regarding gains from trade or the division of labor. If you think it’s supposed to be an exhaustive list of what I think a freed market would look like, then you are mistaken.

2. Thomas: This, of course, is pure guesswork — and wishful thinking — about the effects of abolishing all regulations, whether they superficially favor labor, business, or consumers.

Maybe. But I did give an argument for the position I actually defend — viz., certain forms of commerce are effectively subsidized, and certain other forms of social activity are suppressed, by a network of existing regulations, monopolies, and wealth-transfers (the “Many Monopolies” which are discussed throughout the article). Now, normally it is the case that when a form of activity is subsidized, we can conclude if the subsidy is removed then, ceteris paribus, we will get less of it; and more of the substitute goods at whose expense it was subsidized.

Now, you could respond in various ways to this kind of ceteris-paribus claim — you could offer some concrete objection to my analysis of the Many Monopolies as effective subsidies to corporate commerce; or you could agree with that analysis, but make an argument that after the removal of the subsidies, ceteris will not be paribus, and that some other economic factor will step in when the subsidies are gone; or you could argue that even though the things I mention may favor particular forms of commerce at the expense of market freedom, there really is no net subsidy in the final analysis, because of the restraints or penalties that are inflicted on the same forms of commerce that I say are subsidized; or…. But to simply wave it off as “guesswork,” rather than the conclusion of a specific argument, seems premature.

3. Thomas: The subtitle of Johnson’s analysis should be “Small is beautiful.”

I’ll be sure to notify my editor. But you did catch the bit about not having any problem with large-scale production, etc., yes?

4. Thomas: It reads like a nostalgic lament for pre-industrial America,

This is ridiculous. One of the major purposes of the piece is to discuss how much 19th century America sucked, and it simply has nothing to say about “pre-industrial America,” except insofar as it mentions some of the forms of mass violence and dispossession earlier in the 19th century which helped set the stage for developments later in the 19th century (e.g. Indian removal, slavery, the invasion of Mexico, etc.). Of course, I can hardly control what something “reads like” to you, but if you’re reading a “nostalgic lament” I have to insist that that is something you’re bringing to the text, not something the text is offering up to you.

5. Thomas: as if large corporations are evil per se.

Well, I didn’t say they’re “evil.” I said that they are subsidized enterprises, and thus not good examples of free market dynamics at work.

Their ethical status is a separate question, and I think that varies a lot from case to case. Those that push for, and profit most from, coercive monopolies, tax-funded bailouts, etc. are, in my view, much more blameworthy than those that simply happen to benefit from a legal environment that they didn’t create. But the ethical question there is an issue totally separate from the economic question about the effects of a subsidy, and however blameworthy or blameless a subsidized activity may be, when you remove the subsidy, you’re going to tend (ceteris paribus) to get less of it.

6. Thomas: The ranks of self-styled libertarians abound with social engineers who would, if they could, override the social order with their own visions of how that order should look.

Lord alive. “Override” here could mean one of two things: either you are accusing me (if I am supposed to be one of these “social engineers”) of (a) being willing to criticize a social order as undesirable even though it arose through the exercise of individual liberty, and recommend that other people choose different ways of conducting their social and economic lives; or else (b) being willing to forcibly suppress a social order that arose through the exercise of individual liberty, and coerce people into putting their persons and property to uses that better aligns with my “effete sensibilities” (really, dude?).

If the charge is (a), then I plead guilty. But if “true libertarianism” means that one simply has to abandon any possibility of intelligent cultural criticism, and non-violent persuasion by means of education and free association, well, then I’m happy to be a “pseudo-libertarian.” But this sort of “overriding” has nothing to do with violating anyone’s individual liberty or invading anyone’s person or property, so I’m not sure what’s supposed to be so “pseudo” about it.

If the charge is (b), then I can only say that this is a ridiculous calumny, and certainly not based on anything in the article I wrote, which is strictly concerned with removing government controls, not with adding or preserving them. And if you are going to make it, then I challenge you to back it up — by producing a single example, in “The Many Monopolies” or in any other thing that I have written in the last 8 years or so, in which I advocated using legal force to “override” a social order that emerged from the free exercise of individual liberty.

crispy,

No doubt, but how does that make it a "moral accomplishment" on the part of the psychopathic abuser? It was better when Stalin died than when he was alive, but I don't think death counts as a "moral accomplishment" for Josef Vissarionovich, at least not under any ordinary usage of the term "moral."

…but that’s a say-so.

Well, no, that does not follow — not unless you have just ignored my specific claim to the effect that “What they’ve earned is a matter of what they do,” not what they or someone else say about what they do. Perhaps you disagree with this claim; but if so you need to give an argument against it, not just proceed with an argument that presupposes its falsity.

My intent in citing “the government is bigger than anyone” is to counter the argument that “property is what you can hold in your hand”.

OK, so you’re countering an argument that nobody in this thread made. But why?

You made a claim earlier that one cannot have property protections without government, and NoPublic responded with a way that you could. The claim was not that anything someone successfully defends is (therefore) their property; rather, the claim was that if something is someone’s property, it can indeed be successfully defended even without the state. Your entire argument seems to be a confusion of claims about necessary condition with claims about sufficient conditions. And your response seems to amount to “Well, property is what the government can hold in its hand, because government is more powerful than anybody.” The bit after the “because” is false (governments fail and fall all the time), but even if it were not, what you’ve just recommended is no less authoritarian than the theory you thought you were responding to.

How does that deny the notion that abstract concepts can be treated as property–protected, exploited, transferred, sold, repossessed, etcetera?

Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about here. NoPublic’s implicit objection to “intellectual property” laws? I don’t think I said anything about that one way or the other. (As it happens, I am against so-called “intellectual property,” but I’m not very interested in arguing the reasons why here — I don’t think it has much to do with this thread of conversation.)

The businessman running the cafe can “have a problem” with whatever he wants. What I am honestly saying is that he shouldn’t be able to deal with his business problems by having his competition arrested. I don’t believe that it’s government’s job to protect the bottom lines or captive markets of the economically privileged. Do you?

As for the police and lemonade, I’m sure that nobody in government very much likes making little kids cry. However, it is manifestly clear that they are willing to threaten children with fines and arrest if that’s what it takes to rigorously The Rules — which in this case happen to be Rules designed to enforce a set of anticompetitive regulations expressly designed to uphold the economic privilege of local capitalists.

Decent people often end up doing something cruel without quite realizing it, when they pursue a fixed policy, but decent people will generally stop and reconsider their life choices when they see that, for example, the Rules that they are insisting on involve pointless hostility towards innocent children, taking away a kid’s lemonade stands even though the kid isn’t hurting anyone or anything by having it, threatening children with insane punishments simply for playing a game without specific, detailed permission in advance. Realizing that you have made a child cry for no real reason at all is the sort of thing, in real life, outside of political power-trip la-la land, often serves as an effective reductio of the kind of rules you’ve been insisting on. But if there is one thing that legalistic sanctimony does, it is to do everything it can to cripple people’s sense of decency, and to obliterate any sort of scruple or principled argument in favor of the crudest appeals to authority.

And that is why I believe in getting legal force out of human relations to the extent that it is possible to do so.