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Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History)

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Remember when the Hamiltonians who were in favor of a strong central Roman-type government and were against federalism usurped the lable "Federalists" for themselves? (see Cecelia Kenyon's 'Men of Little Faith') The Romanist elites have been confusing onlookers with Orwellian doublespeak long before Eric Blair was ever born!

On both sides of the Atlantic, mercantilists and other corporate statists veiled their anti-capitalist behavior with the rhetoric of capitalism. In other words, they called (and continue to call) their behavior "capitalism" when in reality their behavior was (and is) anti-captalist.

The result is many books like this one, that rightfully criticize the destructive behavior of corporate statists but wrongly refer to them as "capitalists" and to their anti-capitalist behavior as "capitalism".

However, if you translate the word "capitalism" to "corporatism", you have a book that is powerfully accurate when describing the behavior of corporatists. For example, on p. 64 Braudel says "Capitalism only triumphs when it becomes identified with the state, when it is the state". Anyone familiar with the economics of free enterprise knows that statement is a contradiction in terms - capitalism is opposed to statism and "state capitalism" is an oxymoron. But when you translate the word "capitalism" in Braudel's statement to "corporatism", THEN you have something quite valuable:

"Corporatism only triumphs when it becomes identified with the state, when it is the state".

Now this is spot-on! And that's exactly what is happening today. Economic fascists have successfully confused even their critics be calling themselves capitalists and free enterprisers when they are nothing but corporate statists. Part of the problem for the critics was that they were seeking to prove that the system of corporate statism they wrongly refer to a capitalism was identified with social and individual selfishness and egoism, when it was really the result of statist elites and monopoly power.

This book is important then for its observations of corporate statists, a breed of statists. But the Great American Corporatists are wrongly referred to as capitalists. This should be read alongside Ludwig von Mises's 'Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evaluation' where he stressed the role of the state in creating corporatist forms and hence "class interest", although he preferred the sociologically more accurate term "caste" to "class".

This is an accessible summary of the theses that propel Braudel's great work and the conclusions that he derived. It should be treated not as a substitute for immersion in "Capitalism and Civilization", but as a compelling inducement to the same.