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.â€
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 tradeâ€); 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.â€
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 engineersâ€) 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.