COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

I define Rand as an a priorist because Rand (and other libertarians) start from the premise that "freedom" (defined as the absence of coercion) is the essential, necessary quality for human beings. They then proceed to define the market as "non-coercive" and the state as "coercive". This, despite the fact that the creation of markets depended on the coercive action of the state for their creation and maintenance.

Yet any example that can be mustered to show instances where the creation and functioning of markets depended on the coercive power of the state, will be quickly denied as not meeting the definition of the "market" as a non-coercive form of social organization.

We can contrast Rand's definition of capitalism as an "ideal" that never existed in human history with Karl Polanyi's definition of the self-regulating market. In "The Great Transformation," Polanyi demonstrated a commitment to an Aristotelian method by asking how the system of self-regulating markets differed from other social systems and then proceeding to describe in detail how this system functioned. This is the opposite of the Randian or "Objectivist" or "Libertarian" approach.

This is not, by the way, to argue that Polanyi and substantivist anthropologists made no mistakes. However, substantivist propositions can be tested, and can be potentially falsified.

-- Chip Poirot, Visiting Senior Lecturer, Mary Washington College (posted 4/19, 10:05 a.m., E.D.T.)

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