A Classical Liberal Rethinks the Market System: Invitation to an Intellectual Odyssey Dwight D.

. Murphey Wichita State University, retired The significance of this article lies in its invitation to all supporters of a free-market economic system to join the author in an intellectual odyssey that will involve rethinking many of the conceptual premises that underlie capitalism. It is especially significant because the author himself approaches the subject not as an opponent of a market economy, but as a long-time supporter of it. As the article shows, he believes that capitalism has changed its nature under the impact of globalization and, further, that advances in nonlabor-intensive technology will require adding a broad-based system of income distribution to the market system. If a profound rethinking of the classical liberal underlay of capitalism does not occur, he warns, the market economy, which has served as the economic foundation for a free society as classical liberals envision it, will cease to serve the great bulk of the population, and will thus lose its legitimacy. Key Words: Capitalism, Market Economy, Shared Market Economy, deindustrialization, non-labor-intensive technology, technological revolution, market ideology, intellectual odyssey. Not long ago in the mid-1990s Americans were deeply concerned about the outsourcing of jobs, the hollowing-out of their countrys industrial base, and the growing inequalities of income and wealth. These phenomena had, of course, deeply rooted causes that deserved much consideration. The concern over those causes has, however, ebbed and flowed with events that have spread new issues before the American public, making a clear understanding difficult. The original concern abated with the economic boom that followed in the late 1990s. Then the Great Credit Crisis of 2007-2009 tore away the rose-colored glasses although this time with an understandable focus not on the long-term, fundamental causes of economic displacement so much as on the complex destructive policies and social values that precipitated that particular crisis. The Great Credit Crisis of 2007-2009 The causes of the financial meltdown in late 2008 have been much commented upon, and it will not be my concern to deal with them here, since my intention is to examine factors that are at work concurrently with and beyond them. They were, however, far-reaching in themselves, and by no means mere incidentals. As is well known, the causes included (1) the Federal Reserves long sponsorship of monetarily expansionist bubbles first in the

Address for communication: dwightmurphey@sbcglobal.net.

stock market and then in housing (signifying a profound failure in the monetary policy upon which American society had come to rely); (2) social policies that encouraged, indeed insisted upon, mortgage loans to a great many borrowers (particularly minority borrowers) who could not afford them; (3) the relaxation of margin requirements and other regulations that had placed crucial limits on financial speculation; (4) the packaging of loans into securities (without meaningful Securities and Exchange Commission oversight, critical evaluation by the pivotal credit rating agencies, or truly independent accounting reporting) that were sold to investors worldwide who did not or could not exercise due diligence about their soundness; and (5) problems of ethics and character, especially as shown by banks and other financial institutions, that make us recall Emersons phrase abuses in which all connive. The fact that the economic crisis in the United States spread quickly to hit countries throughout the world highlights yet another problem that is inherent in the 2008 meltdown. This is that the gigantic world capital flows and the scale of trans-national competition have taken the control of economic events out of the hands of national and local governments and of central banks. In his 2008 book The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy, economic adviser and commentator David Smick says that the whole thing is unbelievably fragile. It is a house of cards that could come tumbling down for any number of reasons. A Problem at a Deeper Level: Deindustrialization and Low-Wage Global Competition With the focus on these more obvious flaws, the deeper problem of overall deindustrialization was again lost sight of. Even the assistance that was given to keep the American automobile companies alive in 2008 and 2009 was discussed only in the context of those companies, and not of the industrial system as a whole. Little attention is given to what is inevitably the inability of workers in an advanced society to compete with incredibly low-cost foreign labor (so long as labor remains a major factor of production). The acceleration of communications, transport and migration, and the development of a worldwide financial market, have gone far toward making each country's economy a mere subset of a worldwide competitive market. Only in recent years have the percentages of imports and exports in relation to the total American economy increased rapidly. As this worldwide market continues to mature, virtually everyone will be in close competition with everyone else. The globalization has produced a relentless drive to reduce costs. As so many business management books have said, anyone who does not cut costs again and again, while at the same time increasing quality and adding innovative new products, will be undersold and forced out of business. The economic systems of the present, as of the past, are centered around scarcity, the need for production and work. To live, everyone who is not supported by relatives, friends or government must find a place in that

productive system to obtain income from it. That is, entrepreneurship or work in some form is a necessity not just for production but for peoples' participation and consumption. Indeed, our cultures and moralities are centered on it. We judge each other by performance in these terms; and everyones livelihood depends upon it. Nothing is more fundamental to each countrys economy and culture. Now, however, the global economy puts workers in the advanced nations into direct competition with hundreds of millions of workers by no means all low-skilled, since many of them are increasingly highly trained from among the poorly-paid peoples of the Third World. Profits for firms and investors who stay ahead of the competitive curve shoot up, but the inexorable process of supply and demand, given the immense source of lowcost labor, trends the wages downward in the developed countries potentially to depths unimaginable to Americans. Many authors see this as an impending crisis for workers in the advanced economies as they come under increasing pressure about how to find a place in the economy. Patrick Buchanan is a conservative who in his 1998 book The Great Betrayal showed that he is fully aware of this. Likewise, global financial adviser David Smick recognizes it in his book The World is Curved (2008): Mere wage earners, relative to those with a global stock portfolio, cant participate in this wealth creation. It is commonplace to say that this inability would be overcome if only there were a level playing field of equal labor legislation and environmental regulations. But this inability would only in small part be mitigated if all other peoples were somehow induced to adopt the same rules that are in force in the United States and even if all of the many protectionist barriers that other nations impose against imports from America were scuttled. (I dont mean to suggest that the United States does not also intervene into trade.) Those disparities between the United States and the rest of the global market are relevant, to be sure; but the deeper problem is the presence of vast populations that create an overhang of labor that must necessarily bid, on a purely supply and demand basis, the price of labor far below what American workers have enjoyed. With the recent revolution in transportation, communication, finance and migration all producing globalization that overhang of labor is no longer stationed at a remote distance from the United States, but is right on the countrys doorstep. With an iron-clad devotion to global free trade ideology blocking a consideration of this fundamental inability to compete, there is little chance that even a correction of the many other factors that most immediately lead to the crisis of 2008 will make the American economy truly healthy. New booms will almost certainly be created, hopefully (but not assuredly) to a less destructive extent than the ones that preceded the 2008 meltdown; but that will not mean that the hurricane of competitive obliteration will stop its ongoing destruction of the American economy. The unmitigated free trade ideology that became dominate in the United States and among the world elite well before the end of the Cold War causes most observers to insist that there is no reasonable alternative to

allowing the competition to force the closure of so many of the most productive enterprises in the advanced economies. In fact, such observers insist that the closures are a good thing (and even cite them as an example of the economist Joseph Schumpeters much-lauded concept of creative destruction). An examination of this ideology (which an examination of the concepts will show is ill-suited to a free society and a market economy) will be one of the principal undertakings of the book to which this article is an introduction. Because much of what we say here runs directly counter to what almost everybody believes he knows about economics and free-market principle, it is important that readers give serious attention to the books discussion of the conceptual foundations of a free society and market economy. Even before the book examines the ideology itself to evaluate its sufficiency, it is apparent that capitalism has under the impact of globalization and an overall deterioration of values profoundly changed its nature from what it has been in the United States historically. Instead of serving the great body of the people a broad middle class --, it has become transformed into something best described as a crony capitalism that marries a global elite to an uncaring ideology and to a politics that primarily services interest groups. In effect, such a form of capitalism has left those who are loyal to the market economy in the dust. It no longer deserves automatic loyalty from those who wish to remain true to the free market in the best sense. In his 2009 book Enough, John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Mutual Fund Group, quotes Felix Rohatyn: Only capitalists can kill capitalism, but our system cannot stand much more abuse of the type we have witnessed recently, nor can it stand much more of the financial and social polarization we are seeing today. Two Distinct Phases, Operating Simultaneously It would help if an examination of all of this could be made simple. Simplicity is rendered impossible, however, by the fact that the long-term forces (i.e., those distinct from the immediate causes of the 2008 crisis) have to be understood (and met) in two very distinct parts. 1. The first of these is the one just mentioned: the hollowing-out of the American and other advanced economies by the competition from low-cost labor in the global market. The fact that the economic rewards will go to the owners of the technology makes it all the more important that the people of a nation such as the United States that there be no hollowing out that they retain their ownership of productive assets, and not let them slip away to foreign buyers who hold American dollars because of the massive trade deficits the United States has been incurring for so long. The need for the ownership of productive assets implies a vital link between (1) the need to reindustrialize despite low-cost foreign labor and (2) the need to distribute broadly the rewards of capital ownership in a world in which the return will almost entirely go to the owners of technology. Of course, the advancing adoption of non-

labor-intensive technology will over time lessen the role of low-cost foreign labor. The need, however, is to maintain a robust technological base in the United States until that day comes so that it will be there to provide the rewards of capital. I have long been an advocate of a market economy. I hope that gives me some standing with which to urge others who also favor free markets not to close their minds to an essential point that must now be made: that if those economies are to retain or, more to the point, reestablish a major industrial base, they will have to be shielded from that competition to the extent necessary for the purpose. The advantages of intense competition for innovation will have to come from within their internal markets, which are extensive. International trade can be welcomed, but only to the extent that is consistent with the heretofore advanced economies regaining and maintaining their industrial base. Vigorous internal competition can be accomplished if the trend toward gigantism in business is reversed. This will require breathing new life into the anti-trust laws (which in recent years have been desiccated by well-meaning but ill-advised market ideology arising especially out of the Chicago School of Economics) and into establishing a framework of competition within the domestic market. 2. The second part of the analysis pertains to longer-term forces that are rapidly coming upon us, and are in fact already underway, but that many people are inclined to downplay as unduly futuristic. This second aspect is that even if reindustrialization is accomplished, the revolutionary sweepingaway of almost everything we have been accustomed to in business and even in society will continue. The world is experiencing an exponential growth of science and technology, especially of computerization. Even with the impediments and slowing that economic crises can cause, the possibilities are staggering. What to this point has been obvious has been the displacement caused in the United States by cheap labor in the world market. But there is another displacement beyond that one, and it comes from the new technologys ongoing substitution of robotics, computerization, biotechnology, and other labor-saving processes (such as computer integrated technology (CIT) and mechanical harvesting) for work as the world has known it. As this advances, gainful employment will recede as a source of support for peoples lives (even though until a system that will allow them to share in the productivity is devised they will no doubt scratch harder and harder to find forms of work that will provide them a living, and this inevitable scratching will provide the outward appearance of a traditional economy to those who dont see how desperate it will be becoming). As millions scratch for a place, the great bulk of the rewards will go to those who own the technology. It is easy to see how radical a change this will cause in societies as we have known them historically. Hence, I call it a destructive factor even though, at the same time, it offers the astonishing affluence just mentioned. The world will find it necessary to adapt to what Jeremy Rifkin has aptly called the end of work. Automation will take the place of the labor that has

formed the basis for economic and social relations throughout history. Displacement from low-cost Third World labor offers to be, relatively speaking, a short-term phenomenon (even though it is very important in that short term and will have to be overcome if a given countrys economy is to maintain or regain its industrial base). The non-labor intensive processes will soon undercut, cost-wise, even the poorly-paid workers of the Third World. When something can be made at almost no cost in a scientized setting, there is a competitive undercutting of the ability of people everywhere to fill a role as workers. The result will be a crisis even more for the low-paid workers of the Third World than for people in the advanced economies. But the latter need to realize that insulation from foreign competition won't be an adequate solution (except temporarily to reinstate the industrial base), since it won't address the technological undercutting of the wage system and of much business enterprise that will be occurring at home. As the demand for work diminishes, remuneration will spring more and more not mainly from work, but from capital. This will make it essential that, to live, people in general will need to be plugged into the vast flow of wealth that can be created by the technology. They will need to be plugged in especially if they are no longer able to sustain themselves through jobs. This second phase of reducing the need for work is already long underway, even though it is nevertheless accurate of think of it as still in its incipient stages. Implications of the Diminishing Demand for Labor The technological revolution that is ushering in the second aspect merits additional explication. It offers at one and the same time (1) almost unthinkable promise and (2) vast economic and social upheaval. The new economic revolution includes three favorable factors, which are accompanied, however, by a fourth that is potentially destructive of civilization itself unless managed with a wisdom that Americans current ideologies militate against. The three favorable factors are (a) a flowering of science and technology beyond anything thought possible by earlier generations; (b) the growth of a global market, highly competitive (itself an enormously favorable development if the advanced economies take the necessary steps to maintain their industrial base and to keep its elements within a manageable scale); and out of these, (c) the prospect of astonishing affluence. It no longer seems unrealistic to predict near-utopian possibilities from all of this (mitigated seriously by the vagaries of human character). Food, goods and services of kinds that we haven't even thought of yet, health care, entertainment: the prospect is within sight that all can be produced at low cost and in massive volume. The potential as we look into the future is present for affluence, not just in the industrialized countries but everywhere. The science and technology are here or rapidly advancing. The destructive factor follows from the first three: the threatened displacement of hundreds of millions on a world scale, very likely billions of people in all walks of life by the downsizing that will increasingly be forced everywhere by non-labor-intensive technology. This produces a relentless

drive to reduce costs. As so many business management books have said, anyone who does not cut costs again and again, while at the same time increasing quality, will be undersold and forced out of business. The thought that we are just at the threshold may be startling when we consider the new innovation that has already come into being (and indeed has been occurring, albeit at a slower pace, for centuries). Because we are just at the beginning, and the main potential lies slightly ahead, most people even now don't grasp the changes or, to the extent they do, don't appreciate the displacement they will cause. Those who think seriously about these things are in for an intellectually wrenching time. (Those who dont think them through will simply be drenched in confusion.) What is necessary is that the products of the new science and technology be fully put to use, that the inertia of existing ways not serve to block them and that civilized order and humane values be maintained while societies churn their way through revolutionary times. So great are the needs in the world that a full realization of this affluence will occupy humanity, even under the best of conditions, for a very long time. The means, however, are coming into our possession. Accordingly, mine is not a "Luddite" perspective that opposes the new science and technology. Those are, in fact, the wings that can carry the world's billions into a better future. (Environmentalists rightly see a threat to world ecology, but the new technologies offer to be a great deal cleaner than those of the past, and many can even lead to a muchimproved environment.) A Radical Reexamination is Needed Although large international companies will reap enormous benefit from the new labor-saving technology, the displacement of many millions of people will create a crisis of legitimacy for the global market system and for the entire classical liberal theory of a market-centered free society unless a society becomes structured in a way that will allow everyone to share in the productivity of the economy. In itself, the economic crisis of 2008 will have required much rethinking and many reforms just to address the issues raised by that crisis, including reestablishing the ability of governments and central banks to control events. Then, second, the issues raised by global competition from low-cost foreign labor must be resolved, with an eye toward stopping the trade deficits and toward reindustrializing. And, third, the end of work makes it imperative even though there will be great ideological resistance to doing so to embark upon a radical reconsideration of everything we have thought about society and the lives of individuals. This will point toward continuing a vigorous market economy while at the same time constructing a mechanism for the entire populations sharing in the economys output: thus, the concept of a shared market economy, by which I mean one in which large sums are pumped into business through index mutual funds, and the income from the funds is distributed through an independent agency to the public at large,

providing income from the on-going business economy even to those who do not have employment within it. Such a fundamental rethinking will continue what has long been an intellectual imperative for the classical liberal philosophy of a free society. It was a leading free-market economist, Lord Lionel Robbins, who wrote: _However much you may believe in liberty for its own sake, you are unlikely, unless you are mentally unbalanced, to recommend liberty if there is reason to believe that liberty must necessarily involve chaos. Therefore, before the leaders of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liberalism could recommend liberty in economic relations, it was necessary that there should exist a body of thought which showed, or which purported to show, that, if left uncontrolled save by due process of law, individual initiative in the economic sphere would not lead to economic disaster; that is to say, it was necessary to show that the interplay of spontaneous self-interest would harmonize for the public good. For precisely this reason, the rationale for such a system of capitalismwith-broad-based-public-distribution requires a reexamination of several of the main pillars of free-market thinking. When those pillars are revisited, it becomes evident that they are very much in need of emendation. The rethinking will be forced upon us no matter what point of view we presently hold. It will be especially important for those who, like this author, have long embraced the intricate philosophical system that undergirds freemarket capitalism. That is why I have headed this article (and thus the introductory chapter of my book) with a title that invites everyone, and most especially free-market thinkers, to become engaged in an intellectual odyssey. What is needed is much free-wheeling discussion, to which I hope my thoughts contribute. Editors note: Dwight D. Murphey has long been the associate editor of this Journal, but necessarily the views he expresses in this article are his own rather than an official position of the Journal. He is an enthusiast for the new open source publishing, and so has chosen to place the book to which this article is an introduction (A Classical Liberal Rethinks the Market System) on his collected writings web site for free public access and downloading. That site is www.dwightmurphey-collectedwritings.info