Some Defend-President-Obama-no-matter-what-folks here will do anything to divert,

[BainsBane]

128. Capitalism and individual rights go hand in hand

Last edited Sun Jul 20, 2014, 12:54 AM - Edit history (1)

(Cont. of my first post to you)
The very notion of rights as resting in the individual is a development of the classical 18th century liberalism that was the political justification of and corollary to capitalism.

Misunderstanding about the Founding Fathers attacking corporations, I believe, comes from confusion over historical context and vocabulary of the era. I provide an example from a leading history of Brazil, now retired from Yale, Emilia Viotti da Costa. She is writing about the ideas underlying Brazilian independence, which shared the same influences as those that gave rise to independence in the American English colonies.

In Europe, liberalism was originally a bourgeois ideology, intimately related to the development of capitalism and the crisis of the seigneurial [feudal] world. Liberal notions were born out of the struggles of the bourgeoisie against the abuses of royal authority, the privileges of the clergy and the nobility, the monopolies that inhibited production, and traditional obstacles to free circulation, free trade, and free labor. In their struggle against absolutism, liberals defended the theory of social contract, stressed the sovereignty of the people and the supremacy of the law, fought for the division of powers and for representative forms of government. To destroy corporate privilege, they made freedom, equality before the law, and the right to property universal rights of men. And to the traditional regulations that inhibited production and trade they opposed free trade and free labor. Although rooted in an expanding capitalist economy and in the experience of the bourgeoisie, the liberal message was universal enough to appeal to other social groups that, for one reason or another, felt oppressed by institutions of the 'ancien regime' The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~triner/ModernLA/Liberalism.htm

People see opposition to "corporate privilege" and they think of modern-day multinational corporations. Corporate in that era in fact meant the power of groups, like the Church or royal monopolies. The word first came into use in the 16th century, according to Merriam Webster's Dictionary:
Origin of CORPORATE

Latin corporatus, past participle of corporare to make into a body, from corpor-, corpus
First Known Use: 1512

At that time, nor in the late 18th century, did there exist entities similar to GE or Citgroup. The corporation as we understand it today, as an organ of big capitalist interests, did not exist in that era. The above reference to challenges to corporate privilege refers to exclusive rights wielded by the Church , the Crown, and royal monopolies under mercantilism, not capitalist business corporations as we understand the term today.

Classical liberalism emerged in opposition to mercantilism, economies in which the Crown controlled and benefited from commerce, and granted exclusive licenses to certain businesses (be they slave traders, tobacco monopolies, or other commercial entities) that were allowed to trade with their approval. Any commerce that existed outside of that was illegal, hence piracy. Liberals like Adam Smith championed free trade as a more efficient than mercantilism and free-wage labor as more efficient than slavery. These were fundamental tenets to capitalism, and were at the foundation of the American Republic, hence the Constiution's emphasis on individual rights.

Like you, Smith believed capitalism was natural and would take care of itself (the invisible hand). It's superiority as an economic system was seen as so inevitable, simply removing restrictions would allow free trade, and hence--they believed--liberty, to prevail. (Sounds a bit like George W Bush and the neo-cons, doesn't it? There is a reason that the term neo-liberalism is used to describe privatization).

The US Republic was established according to the liberal ideas of men like Smith and John Locke. Our constitution bears their influence and as such is a quintessential capitalist document. The founding of the US is inseparable from the development of capitalism itself, and its political structures are meant to promote the "free" development of capital and liberty, which are seen as synonymous.

Now, if one does not believe that capital and liberty are synonymous or that capital takes care of itself but is instead carefully nurtured by the state, as I do, then one approach is to examine the structures and consequences of the capitalist state. http://bobjessop.org/2013/11/04/the-capitalist-state-marxist-theories-and-methods/

It is not the only approach, and I do not suggest it as absolute truth, but it is historically grounded . It most certainly is NOT libertarianism. It is how I interpret history, and I cannot present a bourgeois interpretation rooted in American mythology as fact. I must leave that to others who buy into those ideas, of which there are many.