Welcome to “Intellectual Leadership in the Public Square” I’m Pat Conroy. This Blog is not a spur of the moment thing, although this “moment” in our history calls for it. It draws directly from my book, Let’s Get Civil: Healing Our Fractured Body Politic, 2019. That book grew out of Intellectual Leadership in Education, 1999, which I spent most of the ‘90s writing. Twenty five years of research, thinking, and writing have gone into this blog. If the title of this blog and I seem audacious, well, I must admit I recognize that, but I want to assure the audience that it is not casual. I just ask the audience to give it and me a shot. I worked to make your work worth it. Let’s get started
Intellectual may not sound inviting. Just intellectual? You might ask. Not Practical? Let’s talk about those terms.
Intellectual is Practical when well done.
Intellectual is not just abut what we think. It is also, and more importantly, about how we think. Paying attention to how we think improves what we think.
The United States is a Democratic Republic in which citizens enjoy both personal freedom and political liberty.
We must not take our freedom and liberty and Democratic Republic for granted. We must be aware of them, think about them, value them, and protect them. The ability to protect them depends on how we think about them because that drives what we will do to protect them.
With all of this being true, for all the good that comes with our Democratic Republic, we still have problems to face and solve. Our Founding Fathers may not have given us a perfect system, but they designed it so that we can improve it. To do that, we must pay attention to how we think and what we think and how we conduct discourse in the public square. We need intellectual leadership to help us think, act, and argue effectively.
Why intellectual leadership? Because to solve these problems we the people must conduct rational discourse that leads to agreement, commitment, and action. Actions that support the laws, policies, and programs we create to solve these problems.
It’s not just about making laws, it’s about making laws that we the people either support or agree not to oppose.
Reaching that kind of agreement represents an enormous intellectual and emotional challenge. Reaching that kind of agreement is enormously practical. It is about what we think and what we do. And it depends on how we think and how we argue.
In order to “win this argument,” in order to demonstrate the importance of intellectual leadership, let me start with a major question facing our country, a question that we the people already feel and even talk about, but have not been able to solve.
The question, actually some versions of the same question are: Why can’t we the people win an argument for economic justice? Why does the gap in wealth keep growing? Why can’t we fix our economic system so that it is just? Answering all of these questions depends on how we answer the question: How do we think about economics?
Answering that questions helps us understand what we must do to fix our economic system because it tells us how we must think about economic justice.
Here is how most of us think: Capitalism is good, Communism is bad, and socialism leads to communism so socialism is bad. That’s not accurate, there is far more to it, but it’s how far too many of us think.
What is true is that if socialism is practiced within an authoritarian government, it can’t be distinguished from communism.
However, if socialism is practiced in a democratic republic along side capitalism, both capitalism and socialism can thrive. That’s the conclusion of my argument, and it is useful to present it up front. Of course, stating a conclusion is not the same as making an argument for it. Let’s get to my argument, see how that conclusion is reached, and see how convincing it is.
Let’s ask, How do we fix our economic system so that it is just?
To help us think, let’s use an intellectual tool. Tools help us work. (I love tools.) Intellectual tools help us think. “The Golden Mean” is an intellectual tool. How does it work?
To find the golden mean, we must identify the extremes of our topic. Identifying the extremes helps us think about the mean, the middle ground. Let’s see how it helps us think about our economic theory.
What are the extremes of our economic theory? Our parts are capitalism, socialism and communism. Obviously, communism is one extreme. But what is the other extreme? Notice, our tool is making us think, making us work while also helping us work. It confronts us with a question that has not been asked and that must be answered: What is the other extreme of our economic theory?
Isn’t that interesting. No one talks about the other extreme of our economic theory. Everyone knows about communism, but no one can even name the other extreme.
We know that capitalism is good. We know capitalism generates wealth, and that’s good. We also know that capitalism is not good at distributing wealth justly.
Geoffrey Hinton is a British-Canadian computer scientist, cognitive scientist, and cognitive psychologist known for his work on artificial neural networks, which earned him the title "the Godfather of AI," He also was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 2004.
He has recently been quoted in Fortune predicting that artificial intelligence will lead to a surge in unemployment and also a surge in profits as companies replace workers with AI. But it’s not the technology’s fault, he told the Financial Times, attributing it instead to capitalism.
Notice his expertise: computer scientist, cognitive scientist, cognitive psychologist. And yet, he seems incapable of thinking beyond our current theory of economics: capitalism is good; socialism and communism are bad. He may be ignorant, but he’s not stupid. Indeed, he is brilliant. We will discuss this duality, ignorant but not stupid often.
Hinton predicts that AI combined with capitalism will increase economic injustice and has no explanation for it. He seems more interested in making sure we understand that AI will not be the cause.
We know that capitalism can create economic injustice. It’s fair to say that left to itself, capitalism creates economic injustice. Still, capitalism is too good to be an extreme of our theory. Without capitalism, we cannot generate enough wealth to distribute.
I have provided intellectual leadership by providing the golden mean as a tool to help us think about our economic theory.
Now I’m going to provide intellectual leadership by providing the other extreme of our intellectual theory. First I will provide it, then I will demonstrate that it is actually an active and dangerous economic system that must be included in our economic theory.
The answer: Mercantilism.
We need to know and think about mercantilism so that we understand that it is the extreme of capitalism.
Knowing that our economic system includes mercantilism, capitalism, socialism and communism demonstrates the power of the Golden Mean. It has forced us to identify the extremes of our economic theory and has revealed the mean, although we have some work to do with it since both capitalism and socialism appear as the mean.
The Golden Mean has helped us identify mercantilism and thereby complete our theory.
Notice: I am attempting to win the argument for intellectual leadership by increasing our understanding of economics. We have improved how we think, how we reason, and we will use that increased capacity to reason as we continue this discussion.
We have some idea what capitalism, socialism and communism are, but what is mercantilism?
First: it is the economic system that our Founding Fathers rejected and replaced. Our Founding Fathers did not just reject the monarchy. They also rejected mercantilism and replaced it with capitalism.
How is it possible that we know so much about the monarchy and so little about mercantilism? Let’s fix that.
European monarchs used mercantilism from the 16th to the 18th century. America was the first country to reject it.
During Feudalism (9th to 15th centuries) European monarchs claimed personal ownership of all their nations' wealth and resources (lands, mines, forests, rivers, lakes, etc.). The monarch distributed such wealth to nobles and reclaimed it as they saw fit, mainly as a means of controlling those with whom they shared wealth and power. That authoritarian control of wealth and resources preceded mercantilism and continued in it. What changed was the kinds of controls that monarchs exerted over their economies.
Monarchs used mercantilism to take control of their economies as they had their political systems and foreign policy.
Mercantilism views economics as a zero sum game: for every winner, there’s a loser.
Mercantilists compete to win in a most hostile manner. Thy don’t seek just to be victors. They also seek to make their competitors lose. They have no sense of “mutual benefit.” It’s dog eat dog.
Mercantilists make laws that help them and harm others, other countries and even their own subjects.
Monarchs placed tariffs on other countries and suppressed fair wages for their subjects.
Monarchs collected taxes to enrich themselves, not to benefit their subjects.
Mercantilism serves authoritarian rulers and dictators even today.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of Xi Jinping uses mercantilism to enrich Xi and members of the CCP.
Putin is a dictator with oligarches he has created and controls. His economic system is mercantilism
The point: mercantilism is alive and operating today. It is a threat to both our economy and our Democratic Republic.
Mercantilism is all about increasing the wealth and power of rulers and the ruling class at the expense of other nations and their subjects.
Mercantilism and communism must be rejected because they do not work and they cannot work in a democratic republic. Mercantilism rejects democracy because a functioning democracy would vote out authoritarian rulers and mercantilism.
The rational argument for rejecting mercantilism is so persuasive that it feels like we don’t need a moral argument.
Where the moral argument becomes helpful, even necessary, is when we argue that We the People must control capitalism so that it does not slide into mercantilism.
We will get into protecting capitalism, keeping it from sliding down the slippery slope to mercantilism, next; but before we go on, let’s be sure to notice that we have done intellectual work that is practical.
We learned to think differently about economic theory and that has helped us think differently about economic justice. We are doing intellectual work that is practical.
I hope that my providing intellectual leadership has helped win the argument for its importance in the public square. Let’s go on.
We used a bare bones description of mercantilism to establish it as the other extreme of communism in our economic theory. Now let’s take a minute and learn a bit more about it before we discuss capitalism.
Mercantilism’s goal was to maximize the nation’s wealth as measured in the accumulation of gold and silver by the monarch. Today, wealth includes precious metals and much more. Still the goal is clear, accumulate wealth for the monarchs, the authoritarian leaders, and ruling class.
Mercantilism promoted governmental regulation of a nation's economy for the purpose of augmenting state power at the expense of rival national powers. With the establishment of overseas colonies in the 17th century, mercantilism became both nationalistic and imperialistic. Americans can quickly acquaint themselves with the abuses of imperialism by recalling the economic abuses heaped upon the American colonies by the British crown:
Imposing high tariffs in England on goods imported from the colonies.
Forbidding colonies to trade with other nations.
Forbidding goods to be carried in foreign (not English) ships, the Navigation Acts.
These rules were imposed upon the colonies as subjects of the crown. There was no discussion, no input, no liberty.
Policies applied in England that aided that nation’s trade and the monarch’s accumulation of wealth included:
Subsidizing exports to create a competitive edge.
Banning the export of gold and silver, even for payments. It was too precious and belonged to the crown.
Promoting manufacturing and industry through research or direct subsidies but mainly for the enrichment of the monarch.
Limiting wages which increased profits that went to the crown.
Maximizing the use of domestic resources as opposed to free trade.
Some of these policies seem to make sense for any nation. It is helpful to focus on the fact that any good, any profits, that resulted from these policies, accrued mostly to the benefit of the monarch or oligarches.
Building wealth was understood as a zero-sum game: If someone gains wealth someone else must lose wealth. As Americans, we can recall the abuses of mercantilism to the colonies. But a quick review of it also allows us to realize that when the major goal of an economic system is the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the monarch or oligarches, no attention is paid to the just distribution of wealth.
Putting a premium on low wages promotes both of mercantilism’s major goals: It accumulates wealth in the hands of the monarch and ruling class, and it increases their power.
It also creates widespread poverty. In Russia, it creates laws and policies that benefit the oligarches and impoverishes a vast majority of the Russian people. It can only be sustained by a totalitarian form of government, which Putin with his abundant skills learned while in the KGB and has mastered while in power. If an economic system can be sustained only within a totalitarian form of government, it must be rejected. Let’s turn now to capitalism.
Again, our purpose: We are attempting to win the argument for, demonstrate the benefit of, intellectual leadership in the public square by demonstrating its value in understanding and promoting economic justice.
Capitalism:
Adam smith (1723-1790) published The Wealth of Nations in 1776. He invented capitalism.
He also launched a vigorous attack against mercantilism and for free trade and capitalism.
Smith called the economic system used by monarchs during that time the “mercantile system.” It later came to be called mercantilism.
What we must remember is that capitalism was invented as an argument against mercantilism and as an economic system to replace it. One of the goals of capitalism, from its creation, has been to extinguish and replace mercantilism. And yet, radical capitalists put capitalism on the slippery slope to mercantilism.
Capitalism creates free trade and private ownership of resources and production in order to create private profit and private wealth.
Wealth moved from the monarch to people. That’s what “private ownership” means. It’s owned by people. By individuals, not by “the people,” not by the collective. That’s communism.
Capitalism promotes the economic well being of individuals which results in capitalists supporting individualism in moral reasoning. We will discuss that later when we’ll see that it’s a big deal.
Our Founding Fathers rejected and replaced both mercantilism and monarchies when they instituted capitalism and our Democratic Republic.
That historical fact allows us to see that capitalism is irreplaceable in our Democratic Republic. Most Americans realize that there is something wrong in our economy: economic justice is missing. But we have trouble thinking about how to fix our economy without doing irreparable harm to capitalism and therefore also doing harm to our Democratic Republic.
Identifying both extremes of our economic theory has allowed us to identify both mercantilism and communism as extremes that must be avoided. Now we can see that we do not need to harm capitalism, we need to protect it from mercantilism just, as we will see, we must protect socialism from communism.
Why are mercantilism and communism extremes, why are they bad? Both require authoritarian forms of government to survive. Both destroy democracy which destroys both liberty and freedom. They don’t work. They destroy themselves in practice.
Capitalism and socialism work best when they work together in a democratic republic. That is one of my important conclusion. I must explain it, demonstrate it, make and win the argument for it.
When capitalism operates within an authoritarian governing system, it cannot be distinguished from mercantilism; just as when socialism operates in an authoritarian governing system, it cannot be distinguished from communism.
Capitalism worked in China under Deng Xiaoping because it combined capitalism with socialism. It also created very successful capitalists who sought greater liberty which threatened the CCP’s power and authority, its very existence.
It is this economic system that Xi Jinping is destroying in order to reclaim the CCP‘s authority. He is returning to communism and CCP authoritarianism. He is making sure that democracy doesn’t replace the CCP’s authoritarian rule. This was not as clear to me when I was writing Let’s Get Civil. It is unarguable today.
Actually, an argument can be made that what Xi is doing is installing a form of Putin’s mercantilism in China. He is making members of the CCP into oligarches. It won’t work. It will destroy the Chinese economy.
We have a brief but useful understanding of mercantilism and capitalism. Now let’s take a look at communism and socialism. Obviously, there are ways in which they are similar. What is really important to know is how they are different.
Communism:
Communism creates public ownership of all property, resources, and means of production. Everything belongs to “The people.” Ownership does not belong to individuals. It belongs to “the people” which, in practice, means that it belongs to the state, the government.
The government makes all decisions about what is produced and sold and how much everything costs. It also controls hiring and wages. It has not worked anywhere for a few reasons.
1. Communism rejects capitalism. That’s the problem: no economic system generates wealth like capitalism.
2. Communism tries to distribute wealth justly but it doesn’t generate enough wealth to distribute. And even where it does generate huge amounts of wealth, think Russian oil, it doesn’t distribute it justly. That is evident in every place it has been Tried: Russia, China, Eastern Europe, etc.
3. Communism requires an authoritarian form of government and those in authority use their authority to accumulate excessive amounts of wealth. (Human nature.)
Communism destroys itself in practice. However, because it can only operate in an authoritarian governing system, its economy fails but its dictator and oligarches remain in power. The government can be replaced only through revolution. There are no democratic processes available to replace the government.
Clearly, it is one extreme of our economic theory.
Socialism:
There are different versions of socialism that make quite a bit of difference. I have selected some useful generalities. They all help us understand that socialism is compatible with capitalism.
1. As it relates to political systems, socialism can thrive in a democracy if it works side by side with capitalism. It does not require a totalitarian form of government to sustain it.
2. If socialism operates within a totalitarian form of government, it cannot be distinguished from communism.
3. When socialism works along side capitalism, in a democratic republic, the state collects taxes on wealth earned by capitalists and capitalist enterprises and distributes this wealth through socialist policies and enterprises.
4. The state uses the revenue it collects from capitalist enterprises to pay for products and services delivered by the state or socialist enterprises created by the state.
5. Socialism also distributes wealth by making laws that require fair wages and benefits.
6. Socialism does not generate wealth. It is a cost center in any economy. All capitalist enterprises have cost centers that support the programs that generate wealth, the profit centers. It shouldn’t be a surprise to capitalists or anyone else that a nation’s economy, like any business, must have cost centers.
7. All successful applications of socialism are accomplished alongside successful capitalist enterprises. Both systems work best in concert with each other. Capitalist enterprises generate a tremendous amount of wealth and socialist enterprises distribute some of it justly.
Capitalism generates wealth for individuals. That fact must be preserved. In a sound economy capitalism thrives. It generates a tremendous amount of wealth and a huge percentage of that wealth goes to capitalists and their employees and other capitalists in other capitalist enterprises.
It is not that capitalism does not distribute wealth at all. The problem is that it does not distribute it justly. Again, just some of the wealth generated by capitalists and capitalist enterprises is collected and distributed justly by socialists and socialist enterprises.
These seven points change how we think about both socialism and capitalism. How we think, our ideas, our intellect. This is intellectual work. Let’s keep thinking.
Socialism calls for social ownership and democratic control of some areas of the economy.
Which ones? This is one of my favorite discussions. Why? Because the answer is so clear, so unarguable, and yet it seems to be unknown or at least rarely discussed in universities, journalism, and the public square. It’s not a secret, but it is not part of hardly any conversations about economics and economic justice. Let’s have that convesation here.
Those segments of the economy that don't involve a willing buyer and a willing seller cannot be fair. Therefore, they cannot be run as capitalist enterprises.
My wife and I have had a lot of success buying cars and pick-up trucks. Why?
Because if we don’t like what the seller is asking, we can walk away. And we have. And we’ve come back. And the seller has come down in their price. If they don’t come down, we can walk away and have. And they can sell it to someone else.
We can’t make the seller reduce their price and the seller can’t make us buy at the price they want. We are willing buyers working with willing sellers.
One of the ways that capitalism distinguishes itself from mercantilism is that capitalism is designed to operate among willing buyers and willing sellers. Capitalism seeks win/win arrangements except where it is run by radical capitalists.
If parents need medical care for their child, they cannot enter into equal negotiations with a health provider. Yet that happens all too frequently within our current health care system.
The government must intervene to make health care available and affordable to all. However, we cannot expect the government to make health care just If We the People don’t demand it.
We the People are still working to understand, think clearly about, and implement adequate socialist enterprises that will provide affordable health care to all. This is a major intellectual challenge in our society and government.
It becomes a lot simpler when we think clearly about it. Not easy, but simple.
Without economic justice there can be no social justice at all: No education justice, no medical justice, no food justice, no housing justice, no social justice at all.
Where private ownership doesn’t work, state ownership is required. We discuss health care and other social issues in our discussion of social justice. Education gets its own episode.
This has been intellectual work.
We have more work to do so that we understand how capitalism and socialism can work together in our economic system and our democratic republic.
We understand that if socialism is not controlled it can lead to communism which destroys socialism and capitalism and our Democratic Republic.
If capitalism is not controlled, it can lead to mercantilism which destroys capitalism and socialism and our Democratic Republic.
We have done a lot of good intellectual work and it helps us think more clearly and pursue economic justice more confidently.
Next, we must look at how capitalism and socialism can form our golden mean and preserve our Democratic Republic with our liberty and freedom.
Before we go, please subscribe and give us a thumbs up. We need a large audience from all over the social and political spectrum. We need to rebuild the group that can call We the People.
You can contact me at patconroy317@gmail.com.