The Road to Serfdom?

We are told that the State alone has the power to
coerce, and that it alone is capable of the denigration of human dignity.

That the State alone rendered a Holcaust, 11 million made burnt offering to the march of God through the world.

That alone in Society, the State compels, coerces, and kills.  

The State must die so that Man may live in freedom.

There Is No Cross Of Gold!

Inherent to the libertarian worldview, is as stated above, the belief that coercion belongs to the State alone and that power relationships beyond the purview of the State exist without compulsion.  

The individual exists without social context, such that their success or failure lies with their capacity rather than the constraints that social structure places on them.

Poverty is a sign of moral failure, prosperity one of the blessings bestowed upon those who have behaved well.

There is no cross of gold, no crown of thorns pressed down upon the  brow of all mankind.

The Market rewards those who are worthy, and punishes those who are not.

If you are poor, it's your own damn fault.

Those who would force upon the worthy the burden of caring for those who are not, commit a crime against mankind.  Those who would have the State compel those who grown wealthy as a result of their piety to be their brother's keeper, the seek to destroy freedom in the world.

Sic Semper Tyrannis!

The road to serfdom is one of a thousand miles, but the first step is to deny those who are worthy their due. Those who posit theories of democratic rights in the economy error beause they impose upon the natural freedom of the market the aberration of State compulsion.  Economic Democracy would only be warranted were it possible to prove that the Market and those economic institutions upon which the wealth of nations (and the prosperity of the pious) depend upon coercion and the existence of unequal power relationships.

Of course this is precisely the case, which is why the lamentations of the libertarians exist without virtue.

The State Origins of Market Power

Foremost among those economic insitutions demonstrating the extent to which markets depend upon State power in order to survive is that of the limited liability corporation.

While in previous eras, the manifestation of Capital was held to human dimensions by the lack of institutions permitting the pooling of Capital beyond small groups, in the current era, Capital has been given life quite literally in the form of the ficton of the corporate person.

Where without state enforcement of the legal fiction of corporate personality investors would be held jointly and severally liable such that shielding of private assets would not be permitted.  In the event of a corporate failure, the CEO might lost everything that they own in order to pay off creditors what they are due.  The institution of the corporation compels all in Society to accept the burden for those few in whom's hands wealth has been concentrated.

The growth of the Market as the organizing principle in Society this depends upon State compulsion.  Further, the State creates information assymetries yielding power relationships between the corporation and the consumer unequal.  Even more disturbing the combination of Capital is made upon request of incorporation, while that of labor is held suspect such that in the course of negotiating work contracts Labor is rendered into an unequal relationship with Capital. Relations between employer and employed thus depend upon State power so that contracts carry within them implicit coercion.

So again, I must ask those who argue the Market more humane and worthy than the State.

Tell me are we free like we want to be?

My purpose is not to argue for political authoritarianism to match economic authoritianism, rather I wish to argue
argue for economic democracy to match that we aspire to in our political life.  

The misfortunes laid upon the State have been seen to result from the belief that state action is in some form "the march of God through the world."  Those who would venerate the Market as an ordering principle in Society appear to suffer the same delusion.  There is nothing moral about a system that strips men and women of their dignity for economic gain. We must deprive the Market of those delusions we find dangerous in the State.

Economic democracy is a neccesity in order that man may live freely.