Capitalism is Pro-Market and Pro-Consumer, All at Once

Every once in a while I learn something new. Actually, I try to learn something new every day, but I am talking about learning something unexpectedly. Today I noticed in an opinion piece by Stephen L. Carter that he used a phrase in an unexpected way:

"...I wrote in praise of Luigi Zingales’s book, “A Capitalism for the People.” At that time, I examined his call for elevating pro-market values over pro- business values."

What caught me off-guard was his use of "pro-market" and "pro-business" in a way that indicated they were completely different.

Being born an American, having read John Locke and Adam Smith, Stewart Brand, "The Discipline of Market Leaders", several Warren Buffett biographies, several textbooks on economics, Ayn Rand, and many, many newspapers over the years, among other sources, I was sure that I understood what the phrase "pro-business" meant.  Clearly, it means "favoring open markets and open competition by reducing barriers to trade and facilitating information flow by marketplace mechanisms." Right?

Then what does "pro-market" mean? Doesn't it mean "favoring open markets and open competition by reducing barriers to trade and facilitating information flow by marketplace mechanisms?"

You can see my dilemma. If "pro-market" and "pro-business" mean exactly the same thing, then how could you "elevate" one over the other?

The solution to the mystery is strictly perception. When Carter (and Zingale?) use the phrase "pro-business", they don't mean "open markets." They literally mean, "favoring business over consumers." This is a quite a surprise, as few hardcore capitalists would ever have considered that meaning. No true capitalist thinks that government should favor business over consumers. It is all about the markets. This is an absolute, with no room for negotiation on the meaning.

It looks like there is a cultural divide over the use of an economics term.  Pro-consumer groups use the phrase "pro-business" in a way that makes them look Marxist from the perspective of the capitalists. When a pro-consumer person like Carter says "pro-market is better" the response of the capitalist is "now you are finally starting to be correct in your thinking"(!). Which I am sure would shock Carter, though he shouldn't be.

So if both capitalists and pro-consumer advocates believe in pro-market policies, what the heck does "pro-business" mean? I have to conclude that a pro-business government, which chooses to support businesses over consumers, is either fascist or communist, but it is certainly authoritarian or a corrupt oligarchy. (If you squint, you might just see modern China in that definition, though that would be too harsh a judgment.) It is a very short stride from "pro-business" to state-controlled businesses that are held as sancrosanct because their output serves the people as a whole, not some little individual "consumer brat."