Can capitalism reproduce itself without cops, spies, armed forces, weapons of mass destruction, etc., without any repression of unions, political parties, social movements, etc. -- especially in poor nations, most importantly during a politico-economic crisis?
Howard Zinn quotes Adam Smith:
***** Big Government for Whom?
by Howard Zinn
The Progressive magazine, April 1999
...Adam Smith, considered the apostle of the "free market," understood very well how capitalism could not survive a truly free market, if government was not big enough to protect it. He wrote. in the middle of the eighteenth century: "Laws and governments may be considered in this and indeed in every case, a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods, which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence."... <http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/BigGovernWhom_Zinn.html> *****
It seems to me that the venerable political economist during the glorious days of the Scottish Enlightenment summed up the nature of capitalism very well above. Capitalism (a mode of production) dictates a form of rule ("a combination of the rich to oppress the poor").
Yoshie