Wild capitalism

“ Wild capitalism ” is a picturesque and dépréciative expression recent used primarily by certain movements of left and altermondialists.

A slogan anticapitalist

Certain opponents with the Capitalism, in favor of a controlled economic system, arrange capitalism in the modes considered in their eyes as consubstantial with the concept of Sauvage taken in a pejorative direction. For them “wild capitalism” is thus a pleonasm.

According to some, capitalism “would corrupt” the men and would lead to the worship of the money and the reign of the every man for himself. Thus, in Paraguay, the particularly odious behavior of a manager of store (during a fire, it had made close the doors so that the customers do not leave without paying, causing nearly 400 dead), becomes the symbol of the misdeeds of capitalism, so much so that a " day of capitalism sauvage" was founded.

Parallel to the criticism of the supposed Ultralibéralisme to have the influence on the developed companies, this association of ideas remains frequently used by some critical, to indicate anti-trade-union practices on behalf of some Multinationale S contemporary (e.g. Wal-Mart closing the first of its power stations where workmen had syndicated). The contractors or of the shareholders always eager to generate more profits (cf Homo œconomicus ), would atomize the workers for better exploiting them, with the complicity or the passivity of the politicians, elected officials however by these same people (cf for example the preserving Révolution).

Thus, the expression is used by certain critics of the Leave-to make like the American Sociologue Frank Thomas, which thus qualified “extreme capitalism” ( extreme capitalism ) like the resultant of a “populism of Marché” of which he sees the origins in the Années 1920, reconciling the rebellion of the Années 1960 with the speculative fever of the Années 1980.

A call to a controlled capitalism

For others, which do not reject the Capitalisme in its gasoline, “wild capitalism” (with the the United States one speaks about extreme capitalism ) is a label categorizing a capitalist system only subjected to the laws of the offer and request without regulation nor Interventionnisme on behalf of the State, describing a system close to the economic philosophy of the Leave-to make which the anarchist-capitalists defend. They prefer to him, like certain “moderated” liberals, a mixed mode where the market economy is doubled of a political form of control or regulation.

The Catholic church, as well as other confessions, fustigate they also regularly the individualistic principles of capitalism, in the name of fraternal values and humanistic, but while condemning the Marxisme.

An anthropological point of view

Some could describe as “wild” a form of capitalism which would create a separation marked between economic and social. Indeed, for the anthropologists and Karl Polanyi, the economy “is enchased in the social one” and this is intrinsic with the nature of the human society. So some could consider that the Capitalisme incentive with “désenchâssement of the economy” compared to the social one “wild” because was opposed to the nature of the economy in the human society.

Other uses

One dated and located historical time

Some Historien S apply this expression to the abusive social practices of certain leaders of Entreprise S in North America and to the the United Kingdom between the Industrial revolution and the Grande depression, the State sometimes limiting or prohibiting the trade-union organization employees and imposing of the dangerous or inhuman work conditions. The Pape Jean-Paul II also used this expression to refer to this period in its Encyclique Centesimus Annus in 1991, although the term also qualifies, very often, of the current social misdeeds charged to the Capitalisme.

A capitalism post-Soviet of the gangster type

Thanks to a description of the transition from the Soviet mode economic from Poland (and by extension all countries of the ex- Eastern bloc) to another mode says “wild capitalism”, Jacques Nagels sees in “wild capitalism” a transitional stage where a system of coercion of state where reign clientelism, corruption and arbitrary, leaves room to a market economy managed by gangster groups, verreux politicians and corrupted police officers who share more or less illegally at one time common goods. “Wild capitalism” would flower on ashes of old the Maffia legal of state, as the parallel economies thrive in mode of prohibition, and the black-markets in mode of strong taxation, the question of one return to the balance (self-regulation that would think most liberal), or of the moral legitimacy of the Leave-to make vis-a-vis violent one groups, being again posed. Brutality takes here then again the direction of “cruelty”, by noting that this one not being posted as in the world which the altermondialists see, but is an occulted jungle though very present.

Vis-a-vis criticisms

In the strict logic of the Economic liberalism, the concept of “wild capitalism” constitutes a contradiction, which one hears “wild” like “not-organized” or as (it is a connotation of this word) “cruel”.

On the not-regulation

With regard to the first meaning, capitalism cannot exist without rules which frame it and allow him to develop, the “invisible Main” smithienne (or the spontaneous Ordre) precisely requiring a reinforcement normative (and if possible institutional) to avoid its smothering. The constitution of trust S, or Trust S, constitutes a probable consequence in the long term capitalism not framed; also sees one this one obtaining as of 1890 in the United States the Sherman Act, then others Anti-monopoly acts with the wire of time. The monolithic monopolies whose existence distorts the market (Standard Oil, Bell…) are burst in a legal framework in small entities. Even IBM prepared there with any chance in the Années 1970. Lastly, of the laws prohibit any commercial agreement between suppliers of the same type of product (technical collaboration remains authorized).

In other words, the Leave-to make would not merge of anything with the Anomie. The opponents with leave-making think that a system requires a conscious and voluntarist Directorate of Political Affairs. The partisans of the Economic liberalism estimate that a planning exists indeed in liberal system: that of the companies which establish their plan of growth by market research. These companies are worried some seriously, any error of appreciation of the one being able to be made profitable by another which will fill its failure by gaining at the same time market shares on it.

On the violence of the system

The “flexibility” of the liberal system has as a counterpart a certain instability: factory shutdowns and Dismissal S “to follow the market”, for example. The system would however remain acceptable if the personnel laid off quickly found a place in another company with work conditions and at least equivalent wages, i.e. if the dynamism aimed by the system were well with go and without damage for the Salarié S.

The partisans of the economic liberalism think that the policy is not the remedy for the company but its evil, to it (or the excess of) driving Dirigisme according to them of the coercion and the legal domination of the man on the man by a caste of nonresponsible politicians - contrary to the industrialists - on their own sums of money, therefore according to them less justified and less enlightened. Fault for the moment of model having proven reliable vis-a-vis the Capitalism, they oppose like the philosopher Alain the commercial order which exploits the seduction with the official or military order, whose spring is the constraint.

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