Thread by @JWMason1

Big news: Mike Konczal’s Freedom from the Market is out. I got an early copy of the book and read it last month, but now that it’s officially published, you too can, and should, acquire and read it. Here’s a thread on interesting stuff from the book. 1/ thenewpress.com/books/freedom-…

The book is organized around a series of public programs for the non-market organization of various areas of economic life drawn from past 200 years of US history, that were conceived of as protecting or expanding freedom. 2/

First chapter is free land - distributing federal lands in West as homesteads. Might seem like odd example of “freedom from the market,” since at first glance is a program for distributing private property more widely. Idealized “market” often imagined as small farmers. 3/

But as he shows, early advocates homesteads were making larger challenge to idea of land as simply private property. On one hand, wanted to break up large landholdings; on other, to exempt homes from seizure in bankruptcy. Both imply organic link between family and land. 4/

Groups like Working Men’s Party also made case for free land by linking “land monopoly” to creation of “surplus laboring population” for large employers, reminiscent of Marx on primitive accumulation. (Mike, for good reason given nature of book, doesn’t make this link.) 5/

Natural extension of this line of argument would be the redefinition of property rights in land in post-Civil War south, with owners no longer required to fence in land to exclude. Brings out difference btw property in land for own use, vs as means of controlling labor. 6/

My favorite anecdote from this chapter: in the 1850s Horace Greeley (early popularizer of homestead idea) and Frederick Law Olmstead (designer of Central and Prospect parks) teamed up to buy artillery for the anti-slavery militia in Kansas. 7/

Next is free time, on the late 19th/early 20th century movement for shorter working days as a movement for freedom from the boss. Develops idea that private property appears as a relationship between a person and a thing, but is always really a relationship between people. 8/

“Our commonsense understanding is that you own your property… But property is really a horizontal relationship between people… I own my house not because I have a special relationship with the bricks and wood, but because I can exclude other people from using it.” 9/

Productive enterprise is a form of cooperation between people. To say someone owns it just means they have veto over collective activity going forward without their ok. Labor regulations then are not violations of property rights but just different allocation of them. 10/

Chapters 3 and 4 (newest to me) are on prehistory of social insurance in the early 20th century. A lot on Frances Perkins, who (I didn’t know this) witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist fire firsthand, perhaps spurring her commitment to labor rights. 11/

Perkins on FDR: “I would like to think he would have done the things he did without his paralysis, but knowing the streak of vanity and insincerity that was in him, I don’t think he would have.” Among other things a case for diversity in hiring! (That last is me, not Mike.) 12/

On origins of Social Security, the book makes 2 key points: the priority on making the program “simple — very simple” (FDR’s words) vs optimal design, and the importance of the mass movement for the more radical Townsend Plan in creating political space for Social Security. 13/

Most of ch 3 and some of 4 is on Isaac Rubinow, who I’m ashamed to admit I’d never heard of before. Apparently first person in US to make broad principled case for public health, disability, old age insurance, 20 years before his ideas were ([partially) realized in New Deal. 14/

Two key tensions come out in discussion of Rubinow. 1, between case for social insurance as solution to market failure vs provision of basic human needs. 2, between private insurance as a failure (showing need for public insurance) vs as a model (showing its possibility). 15/

Interesting bit: in 1910, Civil War pensions as “de facto disability and old age pension system delivered benefits to more than 25% of American men over 65, accounting for a quarter of the federal government’s expenditure.” 16/

Ch 5 is on public childcare during WWII, one of the great paths not taken (or rather, taken a few steps and then turned back) in history of US welfare state. Brings in household labor as third term along with private (market) and public (state). 17/

Vast reproductive labor sustains conditions for market activity, but pursuit of profit undermines it. Tension between public action to maintain existing structures of social reproduction (family, etc) vs substituting public structures. Tricky ground for anti-market movements. 18/

“For conservative thinkers, extension of the marketplace into the family is seen as bad insomuch as it undermines authority of men in their homes. Often those who fight for freedom from the market fall into a trap of … romanticizing any alternative to market dependency.” 19/

Makes me think of Christopher Lasch, who imo fell into just that trap. But on the other hand also of Fogelson’s history of early 20th C rent strikes, which emphasizes how women’s leadership in fights against landlords grew out of responsibility for maintaining household. 20/

During WWII problem of reproductive labor posed more directly - labor on childcare isolator not available for producing munitions. To facilitate women’s labor in war industries, federal government created over 3,000 childcare centers, with capacity for 130,000 children. 21/

Some private employers also built childcare facilities, like Henry Kaiser’s, “designed from a child’s point of view, including windows for a small child’s eye”, open 24 hours, with “medical services, a sewing facility to fix torn clothes, and drop-in clinics for emergencies.” 22/

Central point here is that earlier public childcare had been imagined as anti-poverty program, to be limited to most needy families, and with monitoring of parents to be sure they were on path back to being able to take care of their children properly at home. 23/

Military by contrast “had no interest in stigmatizing workers, hiring case workers, or splitting programs access into deserving and undeserving. It wanted bombers and was willing to … arrange for the care infrastructure necessary” to get the workers to build them. 24/

This case for socializing reproductive labor worked during war but was inadequate afterwards, when it was no longer so urgent to make women’s labor available outside of home. Case for continued public childcare programs was split between ... 25/

…arguments that 1) women’s market labor was still needed 2) poor families couldn’t make ends meet without women working outside home, or 3) women’s participation in society required option to work even with small children. 3rd pointed to universal program but didn’t win out. 26/

Interesting issue touched on here is tax deductibility or or not of childcare expenses. In 1939 the federal tax authorities ruled against couple seeking to deduct them: “We are not prepared to say that care of children .. is other than a personal concern.” 27/

Next chapter looks at public health care, but from interesting angle: critical role of Medicare and Medicaid in forcing desegregation on Southern hospitals. 28/

Themes in background of earlier chapters are foregrounded here: the better track record of universal public programs in narrowing racial gaps vs efforts to regulate private actors, and the limited power of courts for promoting change (vs upholding existing power structures). 29/

As he notes, Brown v Board of Ed had minimal impact on school segregation; real change only came with 1964 Civil Rights Act. And southern hospitals - which segregated patients, dining facilities, entrances, etc. - didn’t regard Brown as having any implications for them. 30/

It was only threat of not getting access to federal Medicare and Medicaid funds that compelled Southern hospitals to desegregate, with dramatic results for narrowing black-white gap in health outcomes. 31/

(As aside, Medicare was signed into law on July 30, 1965 and went live, covering 17 million people, on July 1, 1966. Compare that to rollout of the ACA! I’m tempted to say, snarkily: Of course we no longer have access to the advanced computer technology of the 1960s.) 32/

A critical element of the ability of Medicare to function as a battering ram to knock down hospital segregation was that program administrators could themselves decide on compliance with nondiscrimination rules, vs waiting on a court. 33/

Also important was the focus on equality of outcome, rather than just process: “The hospital had a responsibility to take corrective action if ‘there is a significant variation between the racial composition of patients and the population of the service area.’” 34/

(will finish tomorrow)

Next is Free Economy. Might seem at first glance like a non sequitur. But what it’s really about is disentangling “the economy” — seeing productive activity we collectively engage in as something distinct from the property rights and money payments thru which it’s organized. 35/

The challenge - stepping back from the book - is that there are a number of developments that are logically distinct, but as a more or less contingent historical fact, occurred together, and which we’re encouraged to think of as more or less equivalent. 36/

Over past 200 years, seen generalization of money payments and property rights; industrialization, greater role of specialized, longlasting means of production; more hierarchical workplaces with workers and bosses; and large-scale division of labor, organized by corporations. 37/

There are connections between these developments, but in principle distinct. Can imagine world with mainly larger scale, centralized production, but no profit motive; or where profit is decisive but most production is local & small scale. Lots of existing examples of both. 38/

Because of how money payments, property rights, workplace hierarchies, and technical conditions of production are linked today, we treat them as equivalent. “The economy” means both concrete activity of production and money payments through which that activity is organized. 39/

“Free economy” then doesn’t mean freeing economy as such from some external constraint, but recognizing distinct elements of what we call the economy - ownership versus production, businesses as a community vs property - and freeing these different elements from each other. 40/

Back to the book: Chapter 7 is organized around 3 institutions: the public corporation, the public domain, and the public utility. All represent ways of organizing the field of “the economy” different from the framework of private property owners interacting through markets. 41/

Corporation was historically body endowed by law with particular rights and privileges in return for performing some specific function. Even since general corporate charters started being granted in the early 19th century, corporation has remained a quasi-public entity. 42/

Best discussion of impossibility of getting corporation from private contracts is David Ciepley’s. As he says, impossible for contract to immunize signers from legal liability for anything they do together, or shield their pooled assets from creditors. 43/ du.edu/ahss/polisci/m…

Sociologically, corporation is community. As emphasized by Chandler, corps produce for market but aren't organized internally on market principles. People work together not out of individual interest, but via direction from superiors and commitment to collective project . 44/

As book says, corporation “is a social being, invoking connections to places and people… It is a legal being as well, able to enter into contracts... It is also a dense network of relationships” among workers, suppliers, customers, bankers, communities, and yes shareholders. 45/

In 19th C, legal owner of business usually also active manager. Turn of 20th C rise of public corporations, and with it separation of ownership and control, made it harder to see firms thru sense of private property. 46/

For a while looked like corporations might evolve back toward original role. Book quotes Berle and Means: If "corporate leaders set forth a program of fair wages, service to their public, and stabilization of business, … passive property owners would have to give way.” 47/

But passive property owners didn't want to give way. In 1970, Milton Friedman announced reassertion of shareholder rights: “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Profits.” Idea developed by Michael Jensen, put into practice by corporate raiders of 1980s. 48/

(IMO best account of all this remains chapter 6 of @DougHenwood's Wall Street.)

“What if the law was deployed to … motivate managers to strictly serve shareholders, instead of trying to run an enterprise balancing the needs of labor, suppliers and others… The power of the law could force firms to become the mere property of their shareholders.” 49/

May overstate case: Collective activity of group of people cannot be “mere property”, whatever law says. But it's true and important that from 1980s there's been renewed effort to treat businesses as if they were private property in same straightforward sense as your shoes. 50/

Moving on to public domain: Starting point is Thomas Jefferson: “If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all the others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea.” 51/

(Fair to interject here that if you have direct control over human labor, you don’t need to control it indirectly via exclusive rights over means of production, like land or ideas. You may even regard those rights as impediments to your direct exploitation. Jefferson is bad.) 52/

Early understanding of patents and copyrights was as a necessary evil to encourage creative work, whose scope should be as limited as possible. Alternative view, which is dominant today, is that people have inherent ownership rights in “their” ideas without limit. 53/

Latter view on rise by 1982, when MPA head Jack Valenti told Congress that “creative property owners must be accorded the same rights and protection [as] all other property owners.” Note that framing assumes what it needs to argue for, that IP rights are ownership rights. 54/