Capitalism and individual freedom rights

Regardless of whether we think about individual liberty as the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints (negative liberty) or we consider collective liberty as the possibility to take control of one’s life and fundamental purposes (positive liberty), there is no doubt that freedom must be defined in relation to the availability of options. However, since options may be incompatible one must frequently balance them. For instance, we have a tradeoff between privacy and safety or between individual and collective wage negotiations.

Equally, when analyzing the relationship between capitalism and freedom, one needs to consider the freedoms essential for capitalism as well as the way it contributes to the many freedoms. Indeed, capitalism is an economic system that requires two fundamental freedoms – private property and freedom of exchange – and these two types of freedom enhance further other forms of freedom, namely the freedom of association required by joint ownership and free consumer choice and the freedom of information necessary for free trading.

Overall, by promoting individual wealth, capitalism contributes to the creation of more options and individual choice thus overcoming one of the major obstacles to liberty. But, through its principles, it also promotes many other fundamental freedoms not directly related to material goods.

For instance, freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression is promoted by the capitalist’s drive to advertise its products and services. This commercial interest can only be achieved with freedom to choose the channels to reach clients and a free media.

Freedom to contract and exchange is indispensable for competitive markets and it can only be achieved by freedom of movement, absence of coercion and access to information. Freedom of information, like the freedom of expression is crucial for commercial as well investment decisions. Since asymmetric information is a major source of market inefficiency, capitalism thrives better under free markets.

Likewise, free peaceful assembly is a requirement of capitalism so that employers, employees and consumers can discuss their relative interests both in private and in public places, such as conferences, fairs and exhibitions. This freedom extends also to the right to establish unions and peaceful union picketing to persuade other parties to a wage bargaining.

Freedom of association is crucial under capitalism not only for representation purposes, but also to pool private property into forms of joint ownership, namely joint stock companies. Moreover, by separating personal from corporate responsibility through limited liability, capitalism manages a substantial reduction in risk which is essential to foster entrepreneurship.

Most importantly, capitalism generally promotes peace because all forms of social unrest and war destroy assets, production and profits. The profit motive requires all the above mentioned liberties and, not surprisingly, all totalitarian regimes (whether pro or anti-capitalism) are usually searching for new excuses and ways to control capitalism.

To resist such attacks on freedom, it is important to understand when the fundamental freedoms that capitalism requires and promotes can be subject to some restrictions. For instance, freedom of expression does not mean that corporations are free to lie and manipulate consumers and investors. Likewise, freedom of assembly does not mean that such assemblies may be used to collude on illegal and anti-competition practices. Just like the right of association does not mean that it can be used to establish cartels or the right to information allows them to procure insider information from privileged parties.

The definition of such limits on business freedom is usually controversial and difficult to delimit. In particular, there is a widespread tendency to consider that the role of the state is to protect individual freedom against business practices. This is erroneous, because the state and capitalism should not be adversaries but allies in the promotion of freedom. To avoid this dangerous error it is important that regulators understand the differences between market capitalism and other “distorted” versions of capitalism because only the first guarantees the pursuit of liberty.

To conclude, we should not assume that people are either extremely naïve or evil. All restrictions to freedom must be carefully assessed and, if needed, the error should be on the side of liberty.

Political contributions and democracy

Representative democracy has become a very expensive activity. For instance, in 2008 the USA presidential candidates raised more than $1.8 billion in campaign funds, an 80% increase in relation to the 2004 campaign . The Democratic presidential nominee alone, Barack Obama, raised a total of $745.7 million in private funds for his election campaign.

It was the first time in the history of presidential public financing that a major party nominee declined to accept public funds for the general election. Is this a good or bad development and what it says about market capitalism?

The controversy between public and private financing has a long history, especially in what regards the special advantage that private financing may give to incumbents and special interest groups (e.g. trade unions and business associations) over the election process .

In abstract, the freedom of association principle should go with the principle of free financing. However, since public office gives those elected an ample scope for decisions that favor private interests, such power has a monetary value that may supersede the public service motivation. Therefore, the rule of free financing cannot be easily upheld under representative systems.

For this reason, under systems of state capitalism, capping campaign spending and restricting its financing to public funds may prove a better solution to secure a level playing field in democracy.

However, in countries close to market capitalism, why shouldn’t the candidates be able to tender some of their policies to special interest groups? For instance, party A could tender the easing of regulations in the financial sector, more private outsourcing of public services, more arms spending, etc. against political campaign contributions.

There is one fundamental reason why that cannot be made. It would be impossible to create a competitive market for political funding because of the asymmetric nature of the benefits received by the special interest groups and the public in general. Imagine for instance that one thousand banks can earn each 100 million dollars from deregulation while 200 million voters can save one thousand dollars from tighter deposit protection. That is, banks could earn up to 100 billion while depositors could save up to twice that amount. However, this difference may not be enough for voters to outbid the banks because their gain is only a potential saving while that of the bankers is a certain gain.

So, it is unquestionable that market capitalism requires the regulation of political contributions. And, in fact, all democratic countries regulate them, namely by limiting contributions by foreigners, by contractors of public services, trade associations, unions, regulated corporations, etc. These are usually complemented by rules on public disclosure.

Nevertheless, these limits and rules are easily evaded through soft dollars and by setting up special vehicles to make contributions (e.g. foundations, think tanks, etc.) or through the media and other unrelated intermediaries.

So, a level playing field in political campaigning must be promoted more vigorously, namely by capping the size of donations to small amounts, limiting the amount of advertising, etc. However, such limitations must be based in the principles of constitutional liberalism. Otherwise, the strong positive synergies that exist between market capitalism, constitutional liberalism and representative democracy are lost.