Who wants to trouble with "moral scrupulosity", when we can pretend that the state-created capitalism we're cheering on isn't profoundly corrupt?
I tried to leave a few thoughts with Jefrey Tucker in response to his June 2 post, Scrupulosity and the Condemnation of Every Existing Business, but it looks like my immoderate use of links has landed me in moderation, again.
So, here are my comments, which I have confidence Jeffrey will soon personally let through (I fixed a typo and added a link):
Sorry, Jeffrey, but weren’t YOU exemplifying the same “moral scrupulosity” you now protest when you and others somehow found a way a couple of weeks ago to fault efforts by those who love fish to use markets to put water back into overdrawn Western rivers and streams (by finding ways to connect buyers of water with those with absolute homesteaded water rights)?
Further, it seems to me that there are good explanations for the rise of the “moral scrupulosity” that you can’t seems to get around to puzzling out — could it be that there’s a massive rise in corporate statism, or at least in the feeling that corporate statism is out of control? And of the sense that now is an important time for libertarians to point out such statism and to suggest ways to roll it back?
You suggest that our new shibboleth ought to be to “ask ‘do you love commerce?’ to ferret out real defenders of real markets as versus those who just enjoy standing in moral judgement (sic) over the whole world as it really exists.” Besides that being itself a very neat trick of standing in moral judgment of others, I would suggest a different question: do you love corporations? Those state-created entities that institutionalize moral hazard via an absentee shareholder class that was ab initio absolved of residual responsibility for the acts of the the legal fiction they own, and whose CEOs and executives operate without responsibility to any owners?
We have a serious and growing rot at the core of capitalism, easily visible in TEPCO, BP, the entire banking/securities/rating sector, Enron, the auto industry, Big Ag, Big Pharma, you name it. But for you, the real problem is a lack of cheerleaders for our rotten free markets!
Kind regards, your friendly enviro-fascist,
TT
PS: A few recent and relevant posts:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=%22moral+hazard%22
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2010/08/18/mises-on-bp-and-conocophillips.aspx
Friedrich, thanks for your comments.
Have you seen my suggestions here on reforms?
Immodest thoughts: To fix capitalism, we must get govt out of corp risk-mgt+get SHrs to start paying attn to risks http://bit.ly/kNAWFT
“Those state-created entities that institutionalize moral hazard via an absentee shareholder class that was ab initio absolved of residual responsibility for the acts of the the legal fiction they own, and whose CEOs and executives operate without responsibility to any owners?”
Tom you and I at least know the evil comes from “government” and their “help”. Grant at the expense of anyone else. Yes that’s big coprorations and “big” government. They are the tombstones of honesty. They are the defrauders and in fact the get legitmated by vote. And so we have them the deledefs.