I’m continuing my reporting on the current installment of Conservative Estimate, the recently founded website that is devoted to demolishing Conservatism.
Yesterday, Mr. George showed that workers’ rights trump capitalists’ rights.
Today, he discusses how the capitalist fetish for private enterprise is not necessarily the best way to create goods and services in society.
Come with my over the orange delimiter to read our account of his argument.
Mr. George begins today’s installment by noting the Mythers’ penchant for private enterprise. They believe without exception that it is always superior to public services. He points out that this is mere prejudice, because there are many places in the world where public services have proved much more reliable than private enterprise.
He goes on to trace this fallacious belief to the Myth of Competition, which is itself almost entirely false:
Private enterprise supporters believe that competitive forces compel companies to do better than public services. This notion is beholden to the Myth of Competition, which, as we have already seen, is almost entirely false. It only works occasionally, and only when the business environment is such that competition does not interfere with the delivery of the goods or services. How many of us have bemoaned the fact that no company offers a really good cable service? Or that you can’t find a good hair stylist? Or that really excellent products and services go out of production? If competition is the secret of success, why do these things happen? And on the other hand, why do cooperatives succeed at all? And why do non-competitive non-profits succeed at all?
Then he reiterates the conclusion he arrived at while critiquing the Myth of Competition: that the real advances made by private enterprise, as well as by public services, come not from competition, but from creativity. Thus where the creativity is, there also is found the success:
[A] creative public enterprise with an intention to invent new, useful, life-enhancing products and services will always be superior to a competitive private enterprise that exists merely to get ahead of its competitors.
Private enterprise has no inherent superiority over public enterprise.
You can read the whole post
here.
Tomorrow Mr. George will discuss why Capitalism needs to be governed by some higher authority.
I’ll be reporting back each day as a new installment appears.
Tomorrow Mr. George will explain why Capitalism needs to be governed by some more responsible power.