The trouble with capitalism as a political philosophy, is that it isn’t one. Capitalism is an economic principle and mechanism, but it is not politic. That is that it does not concern itself with the many, nor does it have any interest in the well being of people. In capitalism people are resources, in politics people are people.
One of the lessons of the recent financial turmoil is the recurring reminder that, in the end, governments, on behalf of the people, bear the final responsibility for the welfare of people, and thus must act as the ‘backer of last resort’ for the economy. Without social support this inevitably leads to corporate welfare. There is no other choice: if one believes that the welfare of the people is dependent on the merchants of capitalism, it follows that maintaining the welfare of the people requires the support of the merchants.
The trouble with this is that the merchants are not innately directed by the welfare of the people, and they make very ineffective distributors of social security. It is not in their DNA, and nor should it be. Give a bank a billion and they will use it to make money, what else would you expect from a bank?
If you really want to let capitalism have free reign then you have to make sure that social security is there first. That way corporations can rise and fall according to the laws of the market without having to be rescued by the tax payer, this is the ideal that market fundamentalists espouse. The mechanism of capitalism is dependant for its long term health on the death of unsuccessful ventures, and so society must isolate itself from such deaths, as much as it can.
By providing the social infrastructure detailed in the Standards of LIFE, one can let the market go. When the fates of corporations are not a threat to the basic fabric of the society they thrive in, then they are liberated to pursue their raison d’etre. Furthermore, the micro economic enablement at the core of the Standards of LIFE further isolates the welfare of the public from the failure of any particular enterprise and from the natural cycles of specific industries.
True capitalism, it turns out, actually requires that there is a proper system of social support in place, in order to avoid the unhelpful intervention of governments in the form of corporate welfare.
Standards of LIFE 