for the benefit of small minority.

Now,one interesting question we could ask about that claim is

is it true? But another just as important, but neglected question is

even if it is true, what is the alternative to captalism

The usual suggestion is political regulation and control.

But if our concern is to minimize exploitation, we need to ask whether this alternative really

makes sense. After all, citizens are in a position of tremendous vulnerability relative

to the state, and lobbyists, bureaucrats, and elected officials will often be tempted

to exploit that vulnerability for their own private gain.

Think of the way in which our political institutions subsidize large agro businesses, bail out

auto companies, cartelize the banking industry through the Federal Reserve System, and so

on. All of these policies benefit the interests of the economically powerful and politically

well connected at the expense of ordinary citizens. That's not a free market at work;

that's big government. And politics is unlike markets in that political exchanges aren't

voluntary. When the government wants to use your money to bail out GM, you don't have

the right to say no. And this means there's no guarantee that the exchange will be mutually

beneficial. When politics is involved, one party's gain usually comes at someone else's

expense. Politicians gain from the contributions they receive from big business, and big business

gains from the favors they receive from government. Sure those favors have a cost, but because

government has the power of coercion, it can force third parties to pay that cost. Those

who can afford political influence get the benefits, and those who cannot afford it suffer

the consequences. This is how politics works. And it's not because we have bad people

in office and need to get nicer people in. It's because of the structural nature of

politics, because the state has the power to impose its decisions by force on the public.

Just hoping that the state will use its power on behalf of the vulnerable isn't enough.

We need to ask ourselves, if we really want to reduce the amount of exploitation in the

world, is increasing the power of the state really the best way to do it?