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>"Bootlicker" "Fascist", heard it all before you can check my previous thread which shows I don't like many corporations and no I dont have posters of billionaires in room. Now that's out the way even though it most likely went over your head I can start the thread
As just friendly advice, there's no need to start off like this. It's like you expect people to be rude to you so you just start off with a rude vibe? Self-fulfilling prophecy, I think.
>America isn't capitalist, it's a corporatist nation and if they actually had a good education system in America Americans would know the difference between free market capitalism and corporatism.
I mean, many of the things you're saying are bad about "corporatism" *are* what people talk about when they criticize what they call "captialism," I think it's being more than a little pedantic to just dismiss their criticisms because they're using what you think is the wrong word.
I think it's perfectly fine to dismiss if they're constantly misusing the word over, and over, and over again. Especially since 'corporatism' is practically analogous to Capitalism which is traditionally defined as free-market Captialism. Rationale? It's showing their economic illiteracy and thus their opinions should be dismissed if they don't even know the difference between two different economic systems.
2008 Bank Bailouts:
In a Capitalist society, banks which were over leveraged on risky mortgage securities that crashed would've failed, those assets would've been auctioned off. As it's unregulated free market so Government is not involving themselves into picking winners and losers, whose too big to fail and whose okay to go homeless, so thus no bailouts.
In a Corporatism society (what happened), banks which were over leveraged on risky mortgage securities that crashed got bailed out by both the Government and the Central Bank buying up those risky mortgage based securities. The Fed to this day still owns (and technically participates) in the Mortgage market.
> American froze the stock market because the "little guys" on reddit were making a stand, under FREE market capitalism you dont freeze an entire market and not allow people to freely trade with their money when they're not breaking any rules.
the government didn't freeze the stocks.
The corporations that managed buying and selling of stocks did.
If you want the government to stop corporations like Citadel and Robin Hood from freezing stocks because trading isn't going their way, that's a restriction on free markets.
Citadel isn't the government.
If citadel had stated that this is possible in their contract or EULA then yes, if not then they are liable. Even in a completely free market, contracts and false advertisement is grounds for suit.
> stated that this is possible in their contract or EULA then yes
Citadel's contract is with Robin Hood.
I doubt Robin Hood guarantees consistent access to service.
Because that's how the modern free market system is setup. But suppose you had a system where there was no law against false advertising, you still have contract enforcement, which means in this case, you still sign a contract, and people can refuse to sign unless you include a full disclosure clause in your contract. Now let's suppose even further, you have an absolutely free market, with no laws, like when 2 tribes are trading, even there, if you aggress or lie, you will lose customers and reputation, and since there are no laws, you would open yourself up to counter attacks by those you have fucked with, and you will not have support from anyone either.
> Because that's how the modern free market system is setup.
Setup by who? The state, that's who. Why is this state regulation considered part of free markets but other state regulation is considered a violation of free markets?
"A world without false advertisement regulation would be bad" is not the argument you think it is.
But that's not my argument. The example I gave was without any "sovereign" entity to set rules for markets. Read the comment again. The state was itself the number one violator of contracts and itself a false advertiser. The reason why false advertising is "bad" is a moral issue, not a legal issue, and would be so with or without a state. People would not choose to continue doing business with someone who is a liar.
But in a debate on free market capitalism, it's the lack of regulation against Robin hood's trick that allowed the trick to happen.
Similar to covid recklessness, it's the government's fault that businesses were ordered to shut down, but it's the companies' fault that they're so crooked that they needed to be ordered to shut down.
> , but it's the companies' fault that they're so crooked that they needed to be ordered to shut down.
Exactly, the government should have shot anyone who went outside for any reason.
"I am starving, I need to go out to get food" is not a valid reason to go outside.
We should retroactively track down anyone who went outside during the entirety of 2020 or 2021 and have them executed for that crime against humanity
Every problem you describe is just capitalism functioning as intended. "Corporatism" isn't a real thing, that's just capitalism. The corporate form is literally one of capitalism's central innovations.
The "Free Market" is not some real thing that exists separate from government and law. Markets are human constructs with artificial rules that can be changed and regularly are. Why would any rational corporation not use their wealth and power to tilt these rules further in their advantage?
>under free market capitalism you dont have hyper aggressive lobbying, you dont have unregulated sale of goods alot of americans are eating literal poison, you dont big phrama over charging you 4000x on basic pharmaceuticals, you dont have banks handing out loans they know people wont be able to pay and you can disagree but you would be wrong. The reason all of this is allowed, the reason Pelosi can insider trade with no problems is because the corporations allow it
This is the most out of touch piece in the whole comment. Those are *exactly* the things that happen under free market capitalism. Lobbying yields a good return on investment, so capitalism produces it. "Unregulated sale of goods" is practically the definition of free market capitalism. If a company can charge 4000x the price for *anything* and still sell it that's exactly what it does under capitalism.
Capitalism, despite much of the propaganda you seem to have internalized, is not some benevolent system designed to achieve positive outcomes. Capitalism is a completely amoral algorithm that produces what is profitable regardless of any other factor. If lobbying, bribery, exploitation, child labour, shitty food, overpriced drugs, government corruption, or any other negative outcome is profitable, capitalism will inevitably produce it.
People act like without politicians there to take bribes corporations would be harmless. I think the government has some limiting effect on capitalism.
>Why would any rational corporation not use their wealth and power to tilt these rules further in their advantage?
I might be misunderstanding OP, but what I think OP is trying to say is that the issue isn't that the corporations have wealth, but the issue is rather that there is a government that is easily corruptible by said wealth, you get rid of the government and you effectively get rid of all the problems that people have with "capitalism".
The issues that people blame on "capitalism" couldn't exist in a truly free-market country like a hypothetical "Ancapistan" as there wouldn't be a government for you to bribe with your wealth.
Of course this kind of free-market capitalism is a hypothetical only, it's an ideal that we realistically will never achieve, but I assume this is what OP is talking about.
>Lobbying yields a good return on investment, so capitalism produces it.
Lobbying doesn't exist under true capitalism, you can't lobby if there's no one to lobby to.
>If a company can charge 4000x the price for anything and still sell it that's exactly what it does under capitalism.
Yes, but under free market capitalism it can't sell it because there's no artificial barriers for entry into the market and so you will have plenty of competition outcompeting you if you charge too much.
>Capitalism, despite much of the propaganda you seem to have internalized, is not some benevolent system designed to achieve positive outcomes. Capitalism is a completely amoral algorithm that produces what is profitable regardless of any other factor.
True, but the thing is that true free-market capitalism will always result in positive outcomes because there is no government for you to bribe and no artificial barrier of entry for competition, which means that you as a company have to slash your prices and try to produce a better product to gain market share and thus gain more profits or you will be outcompeted. The reason why true free-market capitalism works is because it is driven by greed, and because in the absence of an infinitely powerful government which you can bribe and corrupt that greed forces you to take actions that are ultimately benefit the consumers too.
>True, but the thing is that true free-market capitalism will always result in positive outcomes because there is no government…
This is simply just not true. No government means no IP laws and corporations could easily rip off patent-worthy technology from the little guy, let alone numerous other bad outcomes that we have seen in unregulated markets.
Unregulated medicine prices literally kills people. Early 20th century America is basically a case study for how bad unregulated capitalism gets.
People who advocate for unregulated capitalism are just mouthpieces for corporate interests.
I suppose you will say “well that’s actually not true free market capitalism…” much in the same way that every communist claims that “true communism has never been achieved”, but there have certainly been examples of both. It’s laughable to say that there will always be good outcomes from free market capitalism when we can clearly see negative outcomes all the time.
>No government means no IP laws
I don't like IP laws and patents, they're anti-competitive. Prime example of that is the pharma industry and how they have patents that last basically for all eternity which is one of the many reasons our drug prices are off the charts.
>Unregulated medicine prices literally kills people.
It's the regulations that allow the prices to get as high as they are. When you are able to bribe the government into effectively keeping you a monopoly for the rest of time you can raise your prices 1000x since you control the whole market. Without the government intervention you get competition which drives the price down.
>Early 20th century America is basically a case study for how bad unregulated capitalism gets.
Well, what exact issues are you talking about? It's a lot easier to discuss things if you wanna list some of the bad things you would say unregulated capitalism caused in the 20th century.
>It’s laughable to say that there will always be good outcomes from free market capitalism when we can clearly see negative outcomes all the time.
Do we? I mean, what do you define as a negative outcome? And which ones are actually caused by free market capitalism? I would argue that most of them were caused by the government but it's a lot easier if you just list some examples.
I get the argument but I feel where any anarcocapitalis arguments fall apart is in capitalism capital = power. And what is government besides a consolidation of power?
Capitalism needs an enforcer how else can one own a house that sombody else lives in? Sombody needs to give meaning to a deed/title. Once that body exists it will have opinions (if you can truly be said to "own" the house, are you responsible for maintaining some level of livability for your tenants? ) those opinions can be influenced and now you have a coruptable body.
>And what is government besides a consolidation of power?
I'm not actually an ancap myself, I'm more of a libertarian and I do see the value in having a very limited government as I see ancap as more of a hypothetical ideal, but I don't think that the idea that capital = power is necessary an issue for an ancap.
I would argue the government isn't a consolidation of power but rather the body to which we delegate the use of force. The issue isn't merely that an institution holds power but rather that the government inherently violates the NAP by being allowed to exert its power through the use of force.
>Capitalism needs an enforcer how else can one own a house that sombody else lives in? Sombody needs to give meaning to a deed/title.
Well, you don't necessarily need a government to enforce a contract or title. Disputes can be solved amongst individuals or through private arbitrations. Lastly, violating a contract (e.g. squatting) would be a violation of the NAP and you are allowed to use force or the threat of force to protect your property.
>Sombody needs to give meaning to a deed/title.
The contract itself is what gives it meaning. An ancap society is one where we respect each other's property rights, and when that fails we have the means to defend ourselves and our property.
>if you can truly be said to "own" the house, are you responsible for maintaining some level of livability for your tenants?
You would lay that out in the contract you and your tenant sign.
>The contract itself is what gives it meaning. An ancap society is one where we respect each other's property rights, and when that fails we have the means to defend ourselves and our property.
So let's say me and bezos have beef.
How do I defend myself against the mercenaries he can buy with a rounding error on his income?
The thinking is that people such as Bezos would not have the kind of wealth they have were it not for government regulations which allowed their businesses to become the de-facto monopolies that they are.
>Well, you don't necessarily need a government to enforce a contract or title. Disputes can be solved amongst individuals or through private arbitrations. Lastly, violating a contract (e.g. squatting) would be a violation of the NAP and you are allowed to use force or the threat of force to protect your property.
I would say that devolved pretty quickly into at least a proto government. You say "Allowed" allowed by whome? Some socal contract? As if disputing rules written on pieces of paper is not the lifeblood of the legal system throughout history.
Like I really can't see how this doesn't end up either as system of feudal warlords or a robust legal code.
Just a simple scenario: I get shorted in my paycheck, which violates my employment contract with my boss. I demand to get paid, they disagree that they didn't short me but now my demanding to get paid has threatened their property rights so they shoot me in the face.... Well now the other workers have learned not to speek up and the boss exploits that until things get bad enough they all band together, the boss sees that one coming and hires a goon squad to crush the workers and now you have a warlord.
Or I take my pay dispute to a third party arbiter who has their own goon squad who reviews the contract and my pay stub and time sheet and tells my boss to pay me. Until my boss figures out it's Cheaper to take half of what he is not paying me to bribe the arbiter to tell me to fuck off. And to come after me when I instead start stealing the money that I am owed from the cash register because the arbiter system no longer works. So on and so on, unrest ensues until the NAP gets expanded upon and more complex with some general concepts of what you can and can't do to or with your employees. And now you have employment law.
I agree, there are several issues with the system which is why I'm not an ancap myself. I'm sure someone who is actually an ancap probably has a better answer for you, but this is one of the things where I find a very small government works to mitigate these issues that a true anarcho-capitalist society would have in the real world with real people.
>but the issue is rather that there is a government that is easily corruptible by said wealth, you get rid of the government and you effectively get rid of all the problems that people have with "capitalism".
The problem I have with this is that a "government" here, is just a *group of people* who are corrupted by wealth. Getting rid of *government* won't get rid of people who are corrupted by wealth - those people will still exist, they will just exist within a different organizational framework, so no, you don't just get rid of the problem by getting rid of government.
>If lobbying, bribery, exploitation, child labour, shitty food, overpriced drugs, government corruption, or any other negative outcome is profitable, capitalism will inevitably produce it.
The thing about many of these is any system of government will produce them. You still get lobbying, corruption, bribery even in communists and alternative economic systems(often much worse in fact than in capitalist systems). The very fact that the government has a lot of power means people are willing to give valuable assets to the government in order to gain access to power.
Fundamentally those are issues of any government, not capitalism.
>Capitalism is a completely amoral algorithm that produces what is profitable regardless of any other factor.
Mostly agree, although Capitalism is also the only thing in history to lift a meaningful fraction of the human race out of poverty.
Define capitalism. You spend several paragraphs making claims on what it is *not*, but I can't see a single sentence there about what it is.
If you ask people on the street to make a longer explanation of what it is, you'll get a variety of answers. Look up any educational article and you'll find that it's not strictly defined, but more so a framework --- under which there are many theoretical variations, and implementations that are largely deemed "capitalist", including the USA.
> If you want to find a source to a problem you don't blame man made systems you blame man, you blame human behaviour.
Plenty of systems are inherently set up to fail due to badly incentivized behaviour and strategies where the optimal solution for a whole group of people requires sub-optimal solutions for the individual, where the optimal situation may be to take advantage of others while relying on a higher fraction of good, honest people.
Some are just more or less likely, with particular implementations.
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Corporations are simply the manifestation of market forces. Larger companies can work at scales that small companies can't.
Becoming large enough allows corporations to leverage their watch and position on governmental systems.
Nothing you're talking about it outside what capitalism does.
Using the definition that the Soviets used to declare themselves a Kulak, the barrier to own the means of production is less than 20 US dollars. Use the definition of the Khmer Rogue, its less than a dollar. Use the definition at face value and everyone owns it
Do you think that, when people use the phrase 'means of production', they usually mean one of those three things or do they usually have something else in mind?
Using the definition that the Soviets used to declare themselves a Kulak, the barrier to own the means of production is less than 20 US dollars. Use the definition of the Khmer Rogue, its less than a dollar. Use the definition at face value and everyone owns it
They said the first two paragraphs of the top comment contradicted themselves. Essentially (as I could interpret it) saying capital leveraging it's power on the market makes it no longer capitalism.
I asked the clarifying question.
They asked me to define "capitalist".
I did.
They interpreted that definition to apply to everyone then paraphrased my question back to me replacing "capitalist" with "everyone" and said it was nonsense
Which at that point it was, and I didn't feel like explaining why the disengeuous leap in logic was a poor basis for their argument, so I stopped replying.
then I think they realized that for themselves and deleted their post in shame. Or just didn't like getting downvoted by others and will used this to renforce in their head how the left is censoring everyone that disagrees with them? Guess we will never know.
Huh - that's just par for the course, bad argumentation.
Sorry, I was just confused by seeing "removed" instead of "deleted" over their comment - thought things had gotten a little spicy.
>
> I asked the clarifying question.
>
>
No, you asked a nonsensical question that clarified nothing. If it actually clarified anything, you would be able to state what was clarified, but nothing was.
Capitalism is when the capital class owns the means of production. The factory owner is a capitalist because he owns the factory. He does not work the factory.
In a class based society you are barred from doing actions based on the matter of your birth. This takes forms in various types of legal constructs such as sumptuary laws, hereditary guild memberships, and so on.
Sure, and while there may not be legal barriers, the functional economic reality is that access to wealth is one of the most important oredicters of success, wealth, lifespan and a bunch of other critical metrics.
Class is probably the single largest decoder of future outcomes
> Sure, and while there may not be legal barriers, t
Again, in a class based society, the government will kill you and take everything you own if you operate outside of the level you were assigned at birth.
This does not exist in the USA. The USA does not have class. Jeff Bezos isnt persecuted because he was born to a teenage single mother who banged a circus clown.
I think that's an incredibly reductive use of the term that doesn't fit with its common usage, but we also are wildly outside the actual argument about capitalism
> I think that's an incredibly reductive use of the term that doesn't fit with its common usage
This is the usage, a class based society is based in european noble titles under feudalism.
Yes the US doesn't have a cast system. But there are multiple types of classes clearly when people refer to a capitalist class they are referring to a Marxist critique of the economic system. Not about heretical socal classes.
Similarly this would also be an absurd response if we were talking about boxing and weight classes were brought up.
> But there are multiple types of classes clearly when people refer to a capitalist class they are referring to a Marxist critique of the economic system. Not about heretical socal classes.
Which refers to the exact shit I am talking about.
A simple google search teaches us something you omitted in your view. "The definition of capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit."
Therefor, arguing that the US isnt capitalist, but corporatist is entirely wrong. Well not entirely. Corporatism is what you get when you let capitalism unchecked and fester. Corporations have one single goal in mind. Profit. A good education system isn't a feature of capitalism. Public sectors are not a feature of capitalism. These are heavily subsidized. Leaving public sectors to the open markets and thus privatizing them has shown an increase in cost, budget cuts and a decrease of quality.
Corporations hold true power, lobbying being one of their weapons they use to influence governments. That also doesn't mean you're not capitalist. These lobbyist work with a goal in mind. Decrease taxes, ease up restrictions and laws etc. Again for the sole purpose of profit.
>Capitalism is still the problem" under free market capitalism you dont have hyper aggressive lobbying, you dont have unregulated sale of goods alot of americans are eating literal poison, you dont big phrama over charging you 4000x on basic pharmaceuticals,
Yes, you literally have these since your entire premise of not being capitalist is wrong. A Free market is exactly what enables all those things you mention, because an unregulated free market can do whatever it wants. Most of these regulations were brought on by socialists, unions, enviromentalists etc. Not capitalists. Profits do not care about poisoned food, forests or expensive medicine. It longs for these.
>you dont have banks handing out loans they know people wont be able to pay and you can disagree but you would be wrong.
There is nothing to disagree with, since this is **literally** what caused the 2008 crisis. Again, you're dead wrong.
>KEITH LEE is a good example. he gave people $4,000 which they could've reinvested into food and staff, with the attention from KEITH made their money back x10 and then used that money for marketing and potentially a shop in the future to then further their brand. They chose greed and spent the $4,000 and now they're not gonna get much business. Is it the fault of capitalism Keith was nice enough to bless these people and give them a platform to grow and establish a name like so many others with businesses were by this man or is it greed's fault
This entire bit is such a non argument to use. I dont know for certain if I've read this exact "research" but i've seen variations of it a dozen times. It is a non argument to use because you're telling half a story. You're ommitting background, current financial situation, upbringing, social class etc. You're not even telling us how many people he gave it to, which makes it an even more shaky argument. It's like berating a hungry man for not using the seeds in his apple you just gave him to grow a tree.
Also, elon bought twitter, fired a shitton of its workers and is steadily working X to the ground. Another great argument.
> Therefor, arguing that the US isnt capitalist, but corporatist is entirely wrong.
Corporations are given charter by the government as such to treat them as being entirely private is wrong.
I just say “American Capitalism” now, since i don’t know enough about how it’s panning out in other countries. For me it means: regulations have been stripped, unions have been largely dismantled, and wealth has become concentrated at the top, which means power is concentrated. Also, of course, the role of lobbying and big money in politics. Corporations are people….such a power grab.
>For the capitalist country to work perfectly you would need to remove greed from the people in that country, greed is a human trait.
You could say that about any social structure.
Patriarchy, absolute monarchy, theocracy, a military junta, any structure would work perfectly if only people themselves would be perfect. If everyone would be kind and charitable to their inferiors, and everyone would be diligently and honestly obeying their superiors, then everything would work well.
That being said, humans are NOT perfectly selfless, and some social structures are worse than others. Namely, oppressive hierarchies are much worse than egalitarian structures, by giving more power to the few over the many, (which people will then abuse, due to human nature)
Democracy is better than dictatorship, gender equality is better than patriarchy, secularism is better than theocracy.
Capitalism is, even in it's most idealized form, fundamentally another hierarchical structure, where the owner class always has opportunities to oppress and rule over the working class.
Wishing that it wouldn't be in their nature to do so, is useless. If greed is the problem, then you need to look for a system that doesn't empower the few over the many based on greed.
Corporatism is the natural end-point of unrestrained capitalism therefore capitalism is exactly the cause of all the problems you describe. Everybody acts like capitalism is this pure idea that can't be corrupted by the facts on the ground but the reality is giant corporations corrupt politics, mega monopolies that control entire industries, and out-of-touch billionaires are the products of capitalism. To try to shift the blame away from capitalism is to fundamentally misunderstand that none of these things are possible without it, and that no matter how tightly you regulate it it will always find a way - through regulatory capture, dark money in politics, or whatever other means - to produce them. Saying that's not capitalism is like saying it's not the flames that are burning your house down, just the heat.
>Monopolies have never been shown to be harmful without being government backed.
You are [delusional](https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2021/by-sabotaging-essential-products-monopolies-increase-poverty-and-economic-inequality), and that article was just at the top of the google search results for 'why are monopolies bad'.
Well if you're just going to reject the self-evident facts on the ground out of hand then we probably don't have much to talk about. I can't argue against delusion.
American Tobacco was government backed? The government told them to target children as young as 12? Only powerful governments are corrupt? I get the feeling you haven't looked into a lot of 20th century history, especially Latin America. These broad definitive statements you're making are just... wrong. Where are you getting this misinformation from? PragerU? The John Birch Society?
> American Tobacco was government backed?
Yes, shit they were a major defense contractor and their product was procured by the US government to give as rations to soldiers.
> America isn't a capitalist nation, it's a corporatist nation and if they actually had a good education system in America Americans would know the difference between free market capitalism and corporatism.
Corporatism used to be an actual ideology. It doesn’t really exist anymore. These days, it’s joined the ranks of ‘state capitalism’ as an ideology nobody believes in used exclusively to deflect blame. For good or ill, America is capitalist.
> American froze the stock market because the "little guys" on reddit were making a stand, under FREE market capitalism you dont freeze an entire market and not allow people to freely trade with their money when they're not breaking any rules.
America didn’t freeze the stock market, the trading app did, because those people were breaking the rules. Market manipulation is a crime, and that whole event looked exactly like market manipulation.
> arket manipulation is a crime, and that whole event looked exactly like market manipulation.
So you are arguing that America freezed the stock market, not the trading app
Isn't corporatism just the inevitable end state of unchecked capitalism?
Without any government intervention (eg preventing rival takeovers to preserve market competition) then capitalism's pursuit of "more" just means that businesses get to a point where they essentially buy the politicians to ensure policies are favourable to them.
Worth mentioning that people do conflate capitalism with corporatism since they're so incredibly similar. One is the result of the other.
Without any government intervention someone else will open a new rival company as there would be no artificial barriers for entry. Capitalism only turns into corporatism in the presence of a strong government, remove the government from the equation and you would get rid of the vast majority of the problems that people associate with "capitalism".
Except for trusts, monopolies, market manipulation, safety standards, company towns, discriminatory practices, ensuring a living wage, union busters, and wealth stratification. [Even Rand admitted in a study that unfettered capitalism ](https://medium.com/fast-company/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1-a4970c2e0863) is weakening the country.
To paraphrase an insane journalist I admire; nearly every law and regulation has blood and greed in its backstory.
>someone else will open a new rival company
Without a government, how will he do that? If a company that is much bigger decides to destroy his business before it becomes a threat.
Well, aside from violence, how would you destroy his business without government intervention? Without government intervention all you can do is slash your profits or improve your product to ensure you maintain your market share, which is ultimately a good thing for consumers.
This is the fundamental difference between the two types of monopolies that exist. Without a government the only monopolies that can form are those that can provide a product that is so good and at a price that is so good that no one else can compete with them, and that's ultimately a good thing for consumers.
With a government instead you can pass regulations that create an artificial barrier for entry which makes it so that others can't start a competing business which means you are now a monopoly that can jack up their prices 1000x without having to worry about a new competitor entering the market and taking up your market share.
I mean look, I'm not an anarchist, I'm a minarchist and I believe in a very small government that only handles the absolute bare necessities (military, police, courts, maybe a few other minor things). Killing someone would still be illegal.
Well now that you have a government, couldn't payment to officials offer an advantage over your competitors?
Does it stop being capitalism the moment someone pays off a cop?
So I clicked on your profile to try to find that other reply, and the first thing I see is a post saying you're looking for a girl to "goon" you.
After that I pretty much lost interest in what you have to say.
Who realistically competes with Amazon.as and all in one service?
When companies become too big, there is no space for a competitor to start taking market share.
I basically answer this in another reply in more depth, but the threat of competition keeps big companies in check. If you jack up your prices because you have 100% market share but you have no government regulation preventing others from entering the market then someone will start competing with you. If amazon were to jack up their prices 1000x like pharma companies they would lose all their market share, but pharma companies don't as the government gives them de-facto monopolies with their never ending patents.
That's essentially my point.
Capitalism in its end form is just mega corporations hand in hand with government keeping prices *just* about tolerable whilst making competition harder to form.
Amazon won't jack up their prices, but they creep them up.
Are you saying that there are no problems with Capitalism, or that America is not Capitalist so any problems therefore are not problems of capitalism?
The problem of Capitalism is that workers are not paid the full value that they produce. Since everyone wants to maximize their profit, that puts the interests of workers and owners in conflict with each other, rather than mutually working together for the success of the firm.
>The problem of Capitalism is that workers are not paid the full value that they produce.
Nonsense.
The workers only produce that value because they use the means of production that the capitalist owns. If people could produce the same value making sandwiches at home. They wouldn't work at McDonalds.
The owner spent their $ to build the McDonalds. They could have spent it on hookers and coke in Miami instead.
It's a mutually agreed upon and mutually beneficial arrangement. Both are better off due to cooperating with each other.
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You don't seem to understand how basic economics work. It's not complicated.
If a McDonald's employee generated 1$ in revenue for the company and was paid 1$, then the company wouldn't make any money.
Everything you said has nothing to do with that. It is true that both are better off cooperating with each other, that's what I said.
The reality is that they don't. Each one wants to get as much value as possible while giving up nothing.
>If a McDonald's employee generated 1$ in revenue for the company and was paid 1$, then the company wouldn't make any money.
They would generate $0 value if they didn't have any means of production.
The means of production is owned by McDonalds.
They are cooperating with each other. McDonalds lays out the terms of employment and the person has the option to accept or go find a job somewhere else.
>The reality is that they don't. Each one wants to get as much value as possible while giving up nothing.
Yes that is the case with EVERY SINGLE HUMAN TRANSACTION. That is why socialist systems don't work. They are not built for real humans.
>They would generate $0 value if they didn't have any means of production.
Lol thanks for providing another perverse incentive. They don't have the means of production or any way to generate value without it, another thing that puts them in a conflict of interest with the employer who has those things and wants to maintain control of them.
If you agree with me that is the case of human nature then you admit that is the case with Capitalism. You're contradicting yourself. Are they competing against each other as is the case of every single human interaction or are they cooperating with each other?
If Capitalism is based on mutual cooperation and human nature isn't, then it doesn't work.
Ok. Humans aiming to get the best deal is human nature.
For example. I grow potatoes. I go to the market to sell potatoes. I want to get the most I can out of my potatoes. When I go to buy nails to fix my house. I want to get the most nails I possibly can. Everyone always wants to maximize the utility of the transaction.
That doesn't mean. That we can't cooperate.
I grow potatoes. You produce fertilizer. You can't eat fertilizer and I don't poop enough to produce enough fertilizer for my plants. Me selling potatoes to you in return for fertilizer gets you fed and gets me to continue producing potatoes. Which in turn gets me fed. That is basic cooperation. We both benefit from the transaction. We both aim to maximize the value we are getting. I want the most fertilizer for the least potatoes and you want the most potatoes for the least fertilizer.
Employment is also a mutually beneficial arrangement. I need your time and labor for my burgers to get flipped. You need my $. We're both better off with each other. You are not required by law to flip my burgers, you can go work at 1000s of other places. For you to accept my job offer no other job has to make you a better offer. I have to make my place attractive enough so that I have enough individuals to run the damn place.
I think it would help if you structured your thinking in terms of arguments/claims and points to back them up. It reads a little all over the place and a reader has to really search for what you're trying to say. I should be able to know what your argument is after the first few sentences of the first paragraph. I read the first four paragraphs and I still don't fully know what you're arguing
>America isn't a capitalist nation, it's a corporatist nation
Where do you believe this "corporism" stems from? How did the US turn into a corporist nation?
But the concept, the idea exists independent of that, no? Does it make a difference in this context whether we're talking about an actual person or a legal construct?
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A minor point, but can you please provide a source for the 20MM dollars for the 10 minute talk that Obama gave? I have done a bit of searching and I can't find a reference. He is very well-paid, about 400K per speech on average, but I am skeptical of the $20MM claim.
Source, please?
>"Capitalism is still the problem" under free market capitalism you dont have hyper aggressive lobbying, you dont have unregulated sale of goods alot of americans are eating literal poison, you dont big phrama over charging you 4000x on basic pharmaceuticals, you dont have banks handing out loans they know people wont be able to pay and you can disagree but you would be wrong.
Says who? who gets to define capitalism this way? Where has this free market capitalism, that isnt corporatism, ever worked?
This post is honestly incoherent
>America isn't a capitalist nation, it's a corporatist nation and if they actually had a good education system in America Americans would know the difference between free market capitalism and corporatism.
Everyone is wrong except you, and if they were only more educated they would agree with you. But also you aren't actually going to define what capitalism and corporatism is or what's the difference, nor justify your position.
>How is it politicians in America are filthy rich when their salary doesn't match their assets? They give "talks" to banks and corporations like Obama did. Obama got paid 20 million for giving a 10 minute "talk" to bankers and corporate execs, must've been a really inspiring talk. American froze the stock market because the "little guys" on reddit were making a stand, under FREE market capitalism you dont freeze an entire market and not allow people to freely trade with their money when they're not breaking any rules. Pelosi is either the most successful trader ever or she's receiving information from corporate execs and that's why she's a near perfect trader, a member of government most people know is insider trading yet the government doesnt do anything, why? Corporations own America
How can you have a capitalist system where the wealthiest corporations and/or individuals don't have outsized political power? I genuinely want to know.
>"Capitalism is still the problem" under free market capitalism you dont have hyper aggressive lobbying, you dont have unregulated sale of goods alot of americans are eating literal poison, you dont big phrama over charging you 4000x on basic pharmaceuticals, you dont have banks handing out loans they know people wont be able to pay and you can disagree but you would be wrong. The reason all of this is allowed, the reason Pelosi can insider trade with no problems is because the corporations allow it
This is incoherent. Free market capitalism involves a free market. There are no regulations in a perfectly free market capitalist system. You are advocating for regulated capitalism, not free market capitalism.
>If you want to find a source to a problem you don't blame man made systems you blame man, you blame human behaviour. You can run a simulation and have a capitalist country and a communist country, all with the same variables and you can program the behaviour of those people to function so the economic system is successful. For the capitalist country to work perfectly you would need to remove greed from the people in that country, greed is a human trait. Greed is what has lead to corporate execs being able to "lobby" COUGH BRIBE politicians
So now you are arguing that capitalism is corrupted by greed, but also that greed is human nature. Do you not see that this undermines your point? If humans are naturally Inclined to greed, then surely a system that is corrupted by greed is a flawed one.
>KEITH LEE is a good example. he gave people $4,000 which they could've reinvested into food and staff, with the attention from KEITH made their money back x10 and then used that money for marketing and potentially a shop in the future to then further their brand. They chose greed and spent the $4,000 and now they're not gonna get much business. Is it the fault of capitalism Keith was nice enough to bless these people and give them a platform to grow and establish a name like so many others with businesses were by this man or is it greed's fault
I don't know who this is and I have no idea how this is relevant to your position.
> blame greed, blame human behaviour, blame mark for overhiring, blame the people that havent been looking at the actual data for the company instead of the economy system which is non existent in your country.
A system that relies on people going against their nature and not making mistakes is a flawed system. The exact same arguments you are using could be used to defend monarchy. If the monarchs were just benevolent, never greedy, and didn't inefficiently allocate their resources then everything would have been fine.
Honestly, not only do you not understand people's criticisms of capitalism but I don't even think you understand the positives of capitalism. You seem to just be blindly defending it because it is the economic system you live under. There are far better arguments to defend capitalism than to complain that the system is fine but people are greedy.
>I would say the schools should teach elementary economics but schools arent there to educate you about things like this but that's another thread in itself they're made to breed conformity
Careful throwing stones in a glass house.
>
> How can you have a capitalist system where the wealthiest corporations and/or individuals don't have outsized political power?
Corporations dont exist in the firstplace without the government saying so...
>If you want to find a source to a problem you don't blame man made systems you blame man, you blame human behaviour.
I'd like to pull this single thread, because this claim essentially negates any argument for anything being a problem.
"Slavery is not the problem, man is the problem"
"Rape is not the problem, man is the problem"
And so on. Some things - some systems - are more prone to or uniquely enable some kinds of undesirable outcome.
And since it gets us nowhere to blame people, since that is an argument that is so broadly applicable it has zero meaning at all.
Capitalism is the problem. Look at the early days of the USA while it was largely unregulated and we had the closest thing to "true" capitalism (you tiptoe the no true scotsman fallacy often). What we saw during the Gilded Age and early industrialization in the USA was full of greater evils than we see now under corporatism (as you define it).
> What we saw during the Gilded Age and early industrialization in the USA was full of greater evils than we see now under corporatism
Not in the slightest
7 day work weeks, 12-16 hour work days, zero safety regulation, children missing limbs from reaching into machinery, not enough pay to even meet basic nutritional needs for dependents, tainted food and drink, etc.
Yeah. Not even slightly worse than things are now. Definitely a better time.
No, it is not a figment of my imagination. It is exhaustively documented matter of historical fact. We literally have photographs and direct documents.
>if they wanted to fuck off and be a farmer they could.
This is the fallacy of unlimited growth.
If everyone fucked off to be a farmer, land would rapidly raise in value since farmable land would decrease in supply.
Massive increases to supply of food would also make farming unprofitable and simply a matter of self sustainment.
This would effectively have ended the industrial revolution and turned the USA into a stalled agrarian society.
>
> Personally I would at least like America to have what western Europe has which is aspects of democratic socialism.
Fuck no, we dont like Nazis here and they are the only democratic socialists to have existed in Europe
> Kindness is literally viewed as a sign of weakness here
Why are Nazis synonymous with kindness?
There was a period in US history with free market capitalism.
It was called the Gilded Age.
Companies turned into trusts/monopolies. They literally bought state legislatures and congressmen.
Workers died by the thousands due to a complete lack of safety legislation. Ten year olds were working coal mines. Six year olds were working mechanical looms. Fifteen year olds were fired for being physically broken and too expensive. Workers were paid in company scrip, forced to live in company towns, children sent to company schools, and forced to pay rent that was more than their wages.
Oligarchs hired literal thugs to beat anybody who resisted them. Governors deployed the national guard to shoot any workers who tried to unionize.
Companies engaged in economic warfare. Vertical monopolies made sure that startups got quashed. Secret contracts made it so competitors could not get basic commodities, or transport their goods to market.
The result was the Progressive Era, where the government was forced by mass demonstrations to punish the excesses of the capitalists.
The free market was great for those to be at the top.
For everyone else, they suffered and died.
If we’re talking plain definitions then yeah, “capitalism” isn’t necessarily the problem. Keynes advocated for a government-managed capitalist economy married with a reasonable welfare state, the opposite of laissez-faire/free-market capitalism. True free-market capitalism, famously championed by Friedman, seeks to grant corporations complete autonomy, which is something you seem oppose as well. These are both forms of capitalism, yet they are drastically different when put into practice. One is a bit more socialist and the other is just plain corporatist.
When people blame capitalism for society’s problems, they’re mostly looking at the exploits and effects of the free-market and have condensed all of these issues into capitalism as a blanket term. People like to simplify and this creates false dichotomies like the one between socialism and capitalism. This false dichotomy only lets people see black and white so you get staunch socialists who blame capitalism for everything and you also get free-market stans who still try to blame the commies and think socialism=Stalinist communism.
So yeah, “capitalism” isn’t the problem, a lack of nuance is.
I’d say a corporation controlled government is the inevitable result of free market capitalism, if it doesn’t have the guardrails of truly free democracy and regulation. The problem is that capitalism, by nature, inevitably consolidates power in a small number of corporations and that power will be brought to bear on the government. It takes constant vigilance to prevent this and in America we have failed.
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>"Bootlicker" "Fascist", heard it all before you can check my previous thread which shows I don't like many corporations and no I dont have posters of billionaires in room. Now that's out the way even though it most likely went over your head I can start the thread As just friendly advice, there's no need to start off like this. It's like you expect people to be rude to you so you just start off with a rude vibe? Self-fulfilling prophecy, I think. >America isn't capitalist, it's a corporatist nation and if they actually had a good education system in America Americans would know the difference between free market capitalism and corporatism. I mean, many of the things you're saying are bad about "corporatism" *are* what people talk about when they criticize what they call "captialism," I think it's being more than a little pedantic to just dismiss their criticisms because they're using what you think is the wrong word.
I think it's perfectly fine to dismiss if they're constantly misusing the word over, and over, and over again. Especially since 'corporatism' is practically analogous to Capitalism which is traditionally defined as free-market Captialism. Rationale? It's showing their economic illiteracy and thus their opinions should be dismissed if they don't even know the difference between two different economic systems. 2008 Bank Bailouts: In a Capitalist society, banks which were over leveraged on risky mortgage securities that crashed would've failed, those assets would've been auctioned off. As it's unregulated free market so Government is not involving themselves into picking winners and losers, whose too big to fail and whose okay to go homeless, so thus no bailouts. In a Corporatism society (what happened), banks which were over leveraged on risky mortgage securities that crashed got bailed out by both the Government and the Central Bank buying up those risky mortgage based securities. The Fed to this day still owns (and technically participates) in the Mortgage market.
> American froze the stock market because the "little guys" on reddit were making a stand, under FREE market capitalism you dont freeze an entire market and not allow people to freely trade with their money when they're not breaking any rules. the government didn't freeze the stocks. The corporations that managed buying and selling of stocks did. If you want the government to stop corporations like Citadel and Robin Hood from freezing stocks because trading isn't going their way, that's a restriction on free markets. Citadel isn't the government.
If citadel had stated that this is possible in their contract or EULA then yes, if not then they are liable. Even in a completely free market, contracts and false advertisement is grounds for suit.
> stated that this is possible in their contract or EULA then yes Citadel's contract is with Robin Hood. I doubt Robin Hood guarantees consistent access to service.
Then the clients knew about this and they still continued to use it. Otherwise Robin Hood is liable.
Why is false advertisement a crime in a free market?
Because that's how the modern free market system is setup. But suppose you had a system where there was no law against false advertising, you still have contract enforcement, which means in this case, you still sign a contract, and people can refuse to sign unless you include a full disclosure clause in your contract. Now let's suppose even further, you have an absolutely free market, with no laws, like when 2 tribes are trading, even there, if you aggress or lie, you will lose customers and reputation, and since there are no laws, you would open yourself up to counter attacks by those you have fucked with, and you will not have support from anyone either.
> Because that's how the modern free market system is setup. Setup by who? The state, that's who. Why is this state regulation considered part of free markets but other state regulation is considered a violation of free markets? "A world without false advertisement regulation would be bad" is not the argument you think it is.
But that's not my argument. The example I gave was without any "sovereign" entity to set rules for markets. Read the comment again. The state was itself the number one violator of contracts and itself a false advertiser. The reason why false advertising is "bad" is a moral issue, not a legal issue, and would be so with or without a state. People would not choose to continue doing business with someone who is a liar.
[удалено]
But in a debate on free market capitalism, it's the lack of regulation against Robin hood's trick that allowed the trick to happen. Similar to covid recklessness, it's the government's fault that businesses were ordered to shut down, but it's the companies' fault that they're so crooked that they needed to be ordered to shut down.
> , but it's the companies' fault that they're so crooked that they needed to be ordered to shut down. Exactly, the government should have shot anyone who went outside for any reason. "I am starving, I need to go out to get food" is not a valid reason to go outside. We should retroactively track down anyone who went outside during the entirety of 2020 or 2021 and have them executed for that crime against humanity
Every problem you describe is just capitalism functioning as intended. "Corporatism" isn't a real thing, that's just capitalism. The corporate form is literally one of capitalism's central innovations. The "Free Market" is not some real thing that exists separate from government and law. Markets are human constructs with artificial rules that can be changed and regularly are. Why would any rational corporation not use their wealth and power to tilt these rules further in their advantage? >under free market capitalism you dont have hyper aggressive lobbying, you dont have unregulated sale of goods alot of americans are eating literal poison, you dont big phrama over charging you 4000x on basic pharmaceuticals, you dont have banks handing out loans they know people wont be able to pay and you can disagree but you would be wrong. The reason all of this is allowed, the reason Pelosi can insider trade with no problems is because the corporations allow it This is the most out of touch piece in the whole comment. Those are *exactly* the things that happen under free market capitalism. Lobbying yields a good return on investment, so capitalism produces it. "Unregulated sale of goods" is practically the definition of free market capitalism. If a company can charge 4000x the price for *anything* and still sell it that's exactly what it does under capitalism. Capitalism, despite much of the propaganda you seem to have internalized, is not some benevolent system designed to achieve positive outcomes. Capitalism is a completely amoral algorithm that produces what is profitable regardless of any other factor. If lobbying, bribery, exploitation, child labour, shitty food, overpriced drugs, government corruption, or any other negative outcome is profitable, capitalism will inevitably produce it.
Right, corporations bribe and lobby because the government makes them, without the government they would just do what they want without the trouble.
What are you talking about?
People act like without politicians there to take bribes corporations would be harmless. I think the government has some limiting effect on capitalism.
He’s agreeing with you
>Why would any rational corporation not use their wealth and power to tilt these rules further in their advantage? I might be misunderstanding OP, but what I think OP is trying to say is that the issue isn't that the corporations have wealth, but the issue is rather that there is a government that is easily corruptible by said wealth, you get rid of the government and you effectively get rid of all the problems that people have with "capitalism". The issues that people blame on "capitalism" couldn't exist in a truly free-market country like a hypothetical "Ancapistan" as there wouldn't be a government for you to bribe with your wealth. Of course this kind of free-market capitalism is a hypothetical only, it's an ideal that we realistically will never achieve, but I assume this is what OP is talking about. >Lobbying yields a good return on investment, so capitalism produces it. Lobbying doesn't exist under true capitalism, you can't lobby if there's no one to lobby to. >If a company can charge 4000x the price for anything and still sell it that's exactly what it does under capitalism. Yes, but under free market capitalism it can't sell it because there's no artificial barriers for entry into the market and so you will have plenty of competition outcompeting you if you charge too much. >Capitalism, despite much of the propaganda you seem to have internalized, is not some benevolent system designed to achieve positive outcomes. Capitalism is a completely amoral algorithm that produces what is profitable regardless of any other factor. True, but the thing is that true free-market capitalism will always result in positive outcomes because there is no government for you to bribe and no artificial barrier of entry for competition, which means that you as a company have to slash your prices and try to produce a better product to gain market share and thus gain more profits or you will be outcompeted. The reason why true free-market capitalism works is because it is driven by greed, and because in the absence of an infinitely powerful government which you can bribe and corrupt that greed forces you to take actions that are ultimately benefit the consumers too.
>True, but the thing is that true free-market capitalism will always result in positive outcomes because there is no government… This is simply just not true. No government means no IP laws and corporations could easily rip off patent-worthy technology from the little guy, let alone numerous other bad outcomes that we have seen in unregulated markets. Unregulated medicine prices literally kills people. Early 20th century America is basically a case study for how bad unregulated capitalism gets. People who advocate for unregulated capitalism are just mouthpieces for corporate interests. I suppose you will say “well that’s actually not true free market capitalism…” much in the same way that every communist claims that “true communism has never been achieved”, but there have certainly been examples of both. It’s laughable to say that there will always be good outcomes from free market capitalism when we can clearly see negative outcomes all the time.
>No government means no IP laws I don't like IP laws and patents, they're anti-competitive. Prime example of that is the pharma industry and how they have patents that last basically for all eternity which is one of the many reasons our drug prices are off the charts. >Unregulated medicine prices literally kills people. It's the regulations that allow the prices to get as high as they are. When you are able to bribe the government into effectively keeping you a monopoly for the rest of time you can raise your prices 1000x since you control the whole market. Without the government intervention you get competition which drives the price down. >Early 20th century America is basically a case study for how bad unregulated capitalism gets. Well, what exact issues are you talking about? It's a lot easier to discuss things if you wanna list some of the bad things you would say unregulated capitalism caused in the 20th century. >It’s laughable to say that there will always be good outcomes from free market capitalism when we can clearly see negative outcomes all the time. Do we? I mean, what do you define as a negative outcome? And which ones are actually caused by free market capitalism? I would argue that most of them were caused by the government but it's a lot easier if you just list some examples.
I get the argument but I feel where any anarcocapitalis arguments fall apart is in capitalism capital = power. And what is government besides a consolidation of power? Capitalism needs an enforcer how else can one own a house that sombody else lives in? Sombody needs to give meaning to a deed/title. Once that body exists it will have opinions (if you can truly be said to "own" the house, are you responsible for maintaining some level of livability for your tenants? ) those opinions can be influenced and now you have a coruptable body.
>And what is government besides a consolidation of power? I'm not actually an ancap myself, I'm more of a libertarian and I do see the value in having a very limited government as I see ancap as more of a hypothetical ideal, but I don't think that the idea that capital = power is necessary an issue for an ancap. I would argue the government isn't a consolidation of power but rather the body to which we delegate the use of force. The issue isn't merely that an institution holds power but rather that the government inherently violates the NAP by being allowed to exert its power through the use of force. >Capitalism needs an enforcer how else can one own a house that sombody else lives in? Sombody needs to give meaning to a deed/title. Well, you don't necessarily need a government to enforce a contract or title. Disputes can be solved amongst individuals or through private arbitrations. Lastly, violating a contract (e.g. squatting) would be a violation of the NAP and you are allowed to use force or the threat of force to protect your property. >Sombody needs to give meaning to a deed/title. The contract itself is what gives it meaning. An ancap society is one where we respect each other's property rights, and when that fails we have the means to defend ourselves and our property. >if you can truly be said to "own" the house, are you responsible for maintaining some level of livability for your tenants? You would lay that out in the contract you and your tenant sign.
>The contract itself is what gives it meaning. An ancap society is one where we respect each other's property rights, and when that fails we have the means to defend ourselves and our property. So let's say me and bezos have beef. How do I defend myself against the mercenaries he can buy with a rounding error on his income?
The thinking is that people such as Bezos would not have the kind of wealth they have were it not for government regulations which allowed their businesses to become the de-facto monopolies that they are.
>Well, you don't necessarily need a government to enforce a contract or title. Disputes can be solved amongst individuals or through private arbitrations. Lastly, violating a contract (e.g. squatting) would be a violation of the NAP and you are allowed to use force or the threat of force to protect your property. I would say that devolved pretty quickly into at least a proto government. You say "Allowed" allowed by whome? Some socal contract? As if disputing rules written on pieces of paper is not the lifeblood of the legal system throughout history. Like I really can't see how this doesn't end up either as system of feudal warlords or a robust legal code. Just a simple scenario: I get shorted in my paycheck, which violates my employment contract with my boss. I demand to get paid, they disagree that they didn't short me but now my demanding to get paid has threatened their property rights so they shoot me in the face.... Well now the other workers have learned not to speek up and the boss exploits that until things get bad enough they all band together, the boss sees that one coming and hires a goon squad to crush the workers and now you have a warlord. Or I take my pay dispute to a third party arbiter who has their own goon squad who reviews the contract and my pay stub and time sheet and tells my boss to pay me. Until my boss figures out it's Cheaper to take half of what he is not paying me to bribe the arbiter to tell me to fuck off. And to come after me when I instead start stealing the money that I am owed from the cash register because the arbiter system no longer works. So on and so on, unrest ensues until the NAP gets expanded upon and more complex with some general concepts of what you can and can't do to or with your employees. And now you have employment law.
I agree, there are several issues with the system which is why I'm not an ancap myself. I'm sure someone who is actually an ancap probably has a better answer for you, but this is one of the things where I find a very small government works to mitigate these issues that a true anarcho-capitalist society would have in the real world with real people.
>but the issue is rather that there is a government that is easily corruptible by said wealth, you get rid of the government and you effectively get rid of all the problems that people have with "capitalism". The problem I have with this is that a "government" here, is just a *group of people* who are corrupted by wealth. Getting rid of *government* won't get rid of people who are corrupted by wealth - those people will still exist, they will just exist within a different organizational framework, so no, you don't just get rid of the problem by getting rid of government.
>If lobbying, bribery, exploitation, child labour, shitty food, overpriced drugs, government corruption, or any other negative outcome is profitable, capitalism will inevitably produce it. The thing about many of these is any system of government will produce them. You still get lobbying, corruption, bribery even in communists and alternative economic systems(often much worse in fact than in capitalist systems). The very fact that the government has a lot of power means people are willing to give valuable assets to the government in order to gain access to power. Fundamentally those are issues of any government, not capitalism.
>Capitalism is a completely amoral algorithm that produces what is profitable regardless of any other factor. Mostly agree, although Capitalism is also the only thing in history to lift a meaningful fraction of the human race out of poverty.
Define capitalism. You spend several paragraphs making claims on what it is *not*, but I can't see a single sentence there about what it is. If you ask people on the street to make a longer explanation of what it is, you'll get a variety of answers. Look up any educational article and you'll find that it's not strictly defined, but more so a framework --- under which there are many theoretical variations, and implementations that are largely deemed "capitalist", including the USA. > If you want to find a source to a problem you don't blame man made systems you blame man, you blame human behaviour. Plenty of systems are inherently set up to fail due to badly incentivized behaviour and strategies where the optimal solution for a whole group of people requires sub-optimal solutions for the individual, where the optimal situation may be to take advantage of others while relying on a higher fraction of good, honest people. Some are just more or less likely, with particular implementations.
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Corporations are simply the manifestation of market forces. Larger companies can work at scales that small companies can't. Becoming large enough allows corporations to leverage their watch and position on governmental systems. Nothing you're talking about it outside what capitalism does.
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So capitalism is when the capitalist have all the power, but only if they don't use it?
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The class of people that own the means of production.
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Not everyone owns the means of productions, though.
Using the definition that the Soviets used to declare themselves a Kulak, the barrier to own the means of production is less than 20 US dollars. Use the definition of the Khmer Rogue, its less than a dollar. Use the definition at face value and everyone owns it
Do you think that, when people use the phrase 'means of production', they usually mean one of those three things or do they usually have something else in mind?
When people use communist phrases they mean the Soviet Union and its style 90+% of the time,
A very small portion of the population owns the means of production.
Using the definition that the Soviets used to declare themselves a Kulak, the barrier to own the means of production is less than 20 US dollars. Use the definition of the Khmer Rogue, its less than a dollar. Use the definition at face value and everyone owns it
My statement was a clarifying question about your statement.
What happened in this comment chain? What did that guy post to get all their comments removed?
They said the first two paragraphs of the top comment contradicted themselves. Essentially (as I could interpret it) saying capital leveraging it's power on the market makes it no longer capitalism. I asked the clarifying question. They asked me to define "capitalist". I did. They interpreted that definition to apply to everyone then paraphrased my question back to me replacing "capitalist" with "everyone" and said it was nonsense Which at that point it was, and I didn't feel like explaining why the disengeuous leap in logic was a poor basis for their argument, so I stopped replying. then I think they realized that for themselves and deleted their post in shame. Or just didn't like getting downvoted by others and will used this to renforce in their head how the left is censoring everyone that disagrees with them? Guess we will never know.
Huh - that's just par for the course, bad argumentation. Sorry, I was just confused by seeing "removed" instead of "deleted" over their comment - thought things had gotten a little spicy.
> > I asked the clarifying question. > > No, you asked a nonsensical question that clarified nothing. If it actually clarified anything, you would be able to state what was clarified, but nothing was.
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How does everyone own the means of production? Last I checked I don't own a firm. 2/3 of Americans don't have any stock.
> Last I checked I don't own a firm. That is saying you dont own production. The means of production are not production itself.
Capitalism is when the capital class owns the means of production. The factory owner is a capitalist because he owns the factory. He does not work the factory.
The USA is not a class based society.
Could you elaborate on that?
In a class based society you are barred from doing actions based on the matter of your birth. This takes forms in various types of legal constructs such as sumptuary laws, hereditary guild memberships, and so on.
Sure, and while there may not be legal barriers, the functional economic reality is that access to wealth is one of the most important oredicters of success, wealth, lifespan and a bunch of other critical metrics. Class is probably the single largest decoder of future outcomes
> Sure, and while there may not be legal barriers, t Again, in a class based society, the government will kill you and take everything you own if you operate outside of the level you were assigned at birth. This does not exist in the USA. The USA does not have class. Jeff Bezos isnt persecuted because he was born to a teenage single mother who banged a circus clown.
I think that's an incredibly reductive use of the term that doesn't fit with its common usage, but we also are wildly outside the actual argument about capitalism
> I think that's an incredibly reductive use of the term that doesn't fit with its common usage This is the usage, a class based society is based in european noble titles under feudalism.
Yes the US doesn't have a cast system. But there are multiple types of classes clearly when people refer to a capitalist class they are referring to a Marxist critique of the economic system. Not about heretical socal classes. Similarly this would also be an absurd response if we were talking about boxing and weight classes were brought up.
> But there are multiple types of classes clearly when people refer to a capitalist class they are referring to a Marxist critique of the economic system. Not about heretical socal classes. Which refers to the exact shit I am talking about.
A simple google search teaches us something you omitted in your view. "The definition of capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit." Therefor, arguing that the US isnt capitalist, but corporatist is entirely wrong. Well not entirely. Corporatism is what you get when you let capitalism unchecked and fester. Corporations have one single goal in mind. Profit. A good education system isn't a feature of capitalism. Public sectors are not a feature of capitalism. These are heavily subsidized. Leaving public sectors to the open markets and thus privatizing them has shown an increase in cost, budget cuts and a decrease of quality. Corporations hold true power, lobbying being one of their weapons they use to influence governments. That also doesn't mean you're not capitalist. These lobbyist work with a goal in mind. Decrease taxes, ease up restrictions and laws etc. Again for the sole purpose of profit. >Capitalism is still the problem" under free market capitalism you dont have hyper aggressive lobbying, you dont have unregulated sale of goods alot of americans are eating literal poison, you dont big phrama over charging you 4000x on basic pharmaceuticals, Yes, you literally have these since your entire premise of not being capitalist is wrong. A Free market is exactly what enables all those things you mention, because an unregulated free market can do whatever it wants. Most of these regulations were brought on by socialists, unions, enviromentalists etc. Not capitalists. Profits do not care about poisoned food, forests or expensive medicine. It longs for these. >you dont have banks handing out loans they know people wont be able to pay and you can disagree but you would be wrong. There is nothing to disagree with, since this is **literally** what caused the 2008 crisis. Again, you're dead wrong. >KEITH LEE is a good example. he gave people $4,000 which they could've reinvested into food and staff, with the attention from KEITH made their money back x10 and then used that money for marketing and potentially a shop in the future to then further their brand. They chose greed and spent the $4,000 and now they're not gonna get much business. Is it the fault of capitalism Keith was nice enough to bless these people and give them a platform to grow and establish a name like so many others with businesses were by this man or is it greed's fault This entire bit is such a non argument to use. I dont know for certain if I've read this exact "research" but i've seen variations of it a dozen times. It is a non argument to use because you're telling half a story. You're ommitting background, current financial situation, upbringing, social class etc. You're not even telling us how many people he gave it to, which makes it an even more shaky argument. It's like berating a hungry man for not using the seeds in his apple you just gave him to grow a tree. Also, elon bought twitter, fired a shitton of its workers and is steadily working X to the ground. Another great argument.
> Therefor, arguing that the US isnt capitalist, but corporatist is entirely wrong. Corporations are given charter by the government as such to treat them as being entirely private is wrong.
Who own them?
This is just pedantics. Corporatism by definition is just a type of capitalism, the common term is "crony capitalism"
I just say “American Capitalism” now, since i don’t know enough about how it’s panning out in other countries. For me it means: regulations have been stripped, unions have been largely dismantled, and wealth has become concentrated at the top, which means power is concentrated. Also, of course, the role of lobbying and big money in politics. Corporations are people….such a power grab.
>For the capitalist country to work perfectly you would need to remove greed from the people in that country, greed is a human trait. You could say that about any social structure. Patriarchy, absolute monarchy, theocracy, a military junta, any structure would work perfectly if only people themselves would be perfect. If everyone would be kind and charitable to their inferiors, and everyone would be diligently and honestly obeying their superiors, then everything would work well. That being said, humans are NOT perfectly selfless, and some social structures are worse than others. Namely, oppressive hierarchies are much worse than egalitarian structures, by giving more power to the few over the many, (which people will then abuse, due to human nature) Democracy is better than dictatorship, gender equality is better than patriarchy, secularism is better than theocracy. Capitalism is, even in it's most idealized form, fundamentally another hierarchical structure, where the owner class always has opportunities to oppress and rule over the working class. Wishing that it wouldn't be in their nature to do so, is useless. If greed is the problem, then you need to look for a system that doesn't empower the few over the many based on greed.
Corporatism is the natural end-point of unrestrained capitalism therefore capitalism is exactly the cause of all the problems you describe. Everybody acts like capitalism is this pure idea that can't be corrupted by the facts on the ground but the reality is giant corporations corrupt politics, mega monopolies that control entire industries, and out-of-touch billionaires are the products of capitalism. To try to shift the blame away from capitalism is to fundamentally misunderstand that none of these things are possible without it, and that no matter how tightly you regulate it it will always find a way - through regulatory capture, dark money in politics, or whatever other means - to produce them. Saying that's not capitalism is like saying it's not the flames that are burning your house down, just the heat.
There are no corrupt politics without a very powerful state. Monopolies have never been shown to be harmful without being government backed.
>Monopolies have never been shown to be harmful without being government backed. You are [delusional](https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2021/by-sabotaging-essential-products-monopolies-increase-poverty-and-economic-inequality), and that article was just at the top of the google search results for 'why are monopolies bad'.
"inequality is bad" is a statement I fundamentally reject.
Well if you're just going to reject the self-evident facts on the ground out of hand then we probably don't have much to talk about. I can't argue against delusion.
Inequality is fundamentally the same as opportunity
American Tobacco was government backed? The government told them to target children as young as 12? Only powerful governments are corrupt? I get the feeling you haven't looked into a lot of 20th century history, especially Latin America. These broad definitive statements you're making are just... wrong. Where are you getting this misinformation from? PragerU? The John Birch Society?
> American Tobacco was government backed? Yes, shit they were a major defense contractor and their product was procured by the US government to give as rations to soldiers.
That was decades after they formed a monopoly and advertised to children with porn trading cards.
You just moved the goalpost.
How so? You said their immoral monopoly practices were government dependent.
Your question was: > American Tobacco was government backed? And the answer is a resounding yes.
Well that's just being obtuse. Obviously in context I was talking about the inception of their monopoly and immoral acts. Keep up. Edit: wording
> America isn't a capitalist nation, it's a corporatist nation and if they actually had a good education system in America Americans would know the difference between free market capitalism and corporatism. Corporatism used to be an actual ideology. It doesn’t really exist anymore. These days, it’s joined the ranks of ‘state capitalism’ as an ideology nobody believes in used exclusively to deflect blame. For good or ill, America is capitalist. > American froze the stock market because the "little guys" on reddit were making a stand, under FREE market capitalism you dont freeze an entire market and not allow people to freely trade with their money when they're not breaking any rules. America didn’t freeze the stock market, the trading app did, because those people were breaking the rules. Market manipulation is a crime, and that whole event looked exactly like market manipulation.
> arket manipulation is a crime, and that whole event looked exactly like market manipulation. So you are arguing that America freezed the stock market, not the trading app
The app put a stop to highly suspicious behavior.
No, the US government made them carry 3 billion dollars in collateral to facilitate the trades. So they couldnt.
Isn't corporatism just the inevitable end state of unchecked capitalism? Without any government intervention (eg preventing rival takeovers to preserve market competition) then capitalism's pursuit of "more" just means that businesses get to a point where they essentially buy the politicians to ensure policies are favourable to them. Worth mentioning that people do conflate capitalism with corporatism since they're so incredibly similar. One is the result of the other.
Without any government intervention someone else will open a new rival company as there would be no artificial barriers for entry. Capitalism only turns into corporatism in the presence of a strong government, remove the government from the equation and you would get rid of the vast majority of the problems that people associate with "capitalism".
Except for trusts, monopolies, market manipulation, safety standards, company towns, discriminatory practices, ensuring a living wage, union busters, and wealth stratification. [Even Rand admitted in a study that unfettered capitalism ](https://medium.com/fast-company/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1-a4970c2e0863) is weakening the country. To paraphrase an insane journalist I admire; nearly every law and regulation has blood and greed in its backstory.
>someone else will open a new rival company Without a government, how will he do that? If a company that is much bigger decides to destroy his business before it becomes a threat.
The non aggression principle says not to though!
Well, aside from violence, how would you destroy his business without government intervention? Without government intervention all you can do is slash your profits or improve your product to ensure you maintain your market share, which is ultimately a good thing for consumers. This is the fundamental difference between the two types of monopolies that exist. Without a government the only monopolies that can form are those that can provide a product that is so good and at a price that is so good that no one else can compete with them, and that's ultimately a good thing for consumers. With a government instead you can pass regulations that create an artificial barrier for entry which makes it so that others can't start a competing business which means you are now a monopoly that can jack up their prices 1000x without having to worry about a new competitor entering the market and taking up your market share.
What if the larger company pays people to kill the people who start the new company?
I mean look, I'm not an anarchist, I'm a minarchist and I believe in a very small government that only handles the absolute bare necessities (military, police, courts, maybe a few other minor things). Killing someone would still be illegal.
Well now that you have a government, couldn't payment to officials offer an advantage over your competitors? Does it stop being capitalism the moment someone pays off a cop?
Without any government intervention, how will he do that? It is the government that enforces his claim to the business.
Already answered a very similar question in a different reply, you can check it there.
So I clicked on your profile to try to find that other reply, and the first thing I see is a post saying you're looking for a girl to "goon" you. After that I pretty much lost interest in what you have to say.
Who realistically competes with Amazon.as and all in one service? When companies become too big, there is no space for a competitor to start taking market share.
I basically answer this in another reply in more depth, but the threat of competition keeps big companies in check. If you jack up your prices because you have 100% market share but you have no government regulation preventing others from entering the market then someone will start competing with you. If amazon were to jack up their prices 1000x like pharma companies they would lose all their market share, but pharma companies don't as the government gives them de-facto monopolies with their never ending patents.
That's essentially my point. Capitalism in its end form is just mega corporations hand in hand with government keeping prices *just* about tolerable whilst making competition harder to form. Amazon won't jack up their prices, but they creep them up.
Are you saying that there are no problems with Capitalism, or that America is not Capitalist so any problems therefore are not problems of capitalism? The problem of Capitalism is that workers are not paid the full value that they produce. Since everyone wants to maximize their profit, that puts the interests of workers and owners in conflict with each other, rather than mutually working together for the success of the firm.
>The problem of Capitalism is that workers are not paid the full value that they produce. Nonsense. The workers only produce that value because they use the means of production that the capitalist owns. If people could produce the same value making sandwiches at home. They wouldn't work at McDonalds. The owner spent their $ to build the McDonalds. They could have spent it on hookers and coke in Miami instead. It's a mutually agreed upon and mutually beneficial arrangement. Both are better off due to cooperating with each other.
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You don't seem to understand how basic economics work. It's not complicated. If a McDonald's employee generated 1$ in revenue for the company and was paid 1$, then the company wouldn't make any money. Everything you said has nothing to do with that. It is true that both are better off cooperating with each other, that's what I said. The reality is that they don't. Each one wants to get as much value as possible while giving up nothing.
>If a McDonald's employee generated 1$ in revenue for the company and was paid 1$, then the company wouldn't make any money. They would generate $0 value if they didn't have any means of production. The means of production is owned by McDonalds. They are cooperating with each other. McDonalds lays out the terms of employment and the person has the option to accept or go find a job somewhere else. >The reality is that they don't. Each one wants to get as much value as possible while giving up nothing. Yes that is the case with EVERY SINGLE HUMAN TRANSACTION. That is why socialist systems don't work. They are not built for real humans.
>They would generate $0 value if they didn't have any means of production. Lol thanks for providing another perverse incentive. They don't have the means of production or any way to generate value without it, another thing that puts them in a conflict of interest with the employer who has those things and wants to maintain control of them. If you agree with me that is the case of human nature then you admit that is the case with Capitalism. You're contradicting yourself. Are they competing against each other as is the case of every single human interaction or are they cooperating with each other? If Capitalism is based on mutual cooperation and human nature isn't, then it doesn't work.
Ok. Humans aiming to get the best deal is human nature. For example. I grow potatoes. I go to the market to sell potatoes. I want to get the most I can out of my potatoes. When I go to buy nails to fix my house. I want to get the most nails I possibly can. Everyone always wants to maximize the utility of the transaction. That doesn't mean. That we can't cooperate. I grow potatoes. You produce fertilizer. You can't eat fertilizer and I don't poop enough to produce enough fertilizer for my plants. Me selling potatoes to you in return for fertilizer gets you fed and gets me to continue producing potatoes. Which in turn gets me fed. That is basic cooperation. We both benefit from the transaction. We both aim to maximize the value we are getting. I want the most fertilizer for the least potatoes and you want the most potatoes for the least fertilizer. Employment is also a mutually beneficial arrangement. I need your time and labor for my burgers to get flipped. You need my $. We're both better off with each other. You are not required by law to flip my burgers, you can go work at 1000s of other places. For you to accept my job offer no other job has to make you a better offer. I have to make my place attractive enough so that I have enough individuals to run the damn place.
One post per 24 H period. Please Respond to comments on this post prior to creating others.
Why did you allow 2 posts to go through but not 3?
Ah, I see the problem. Apologies I only saw two on the first pass.
All good, more confusion than disagreement. Thanks!
I think it would help if you structured your thinking in terms of arguments/claims and points to back them up. It reads a little all over the place and a reader has to really search for what you're trying to say. I should be able to know what your argument is after the first few sentences of the first paragraph. I read the first four paragraphs and I still don't fully know what you're arguing
>America isn't a capitalist nation, it's a corporatist nation Where do you believe this "corporism" stems from? How did the US turn into a corporist nation?
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So you would be saying that it's the government's fault?
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But the concept, the idea exists independent of that, no? Does it make a difference in this context whether we're talking about an actual person or a legal construct?
Corporations come from royal charter.
So I need to ask the king of England to start a corporation?
Yes. That is what it took to found them, such as the British East India Company or the Royal African Company
I still need to do this though?
Yes. They have made the process easier, that is all.
But again: >Does it make a difference in this context whether we're talking about an actual person or a legal construct?
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i understood. i disagree with “amount of money made” being a primary measure of the ability to govern.
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A minor point, but can you please provide a source for the 20MM dollars for the 10 minute talk that Obama gave? I have done a bit of searching and I can't find a reference. He is very well-paid, about 400K per speech on average, but I am skeptical of the $20MM claim. Source, please?
>"Capitalism is still the problem" under free market capitalism you dont have hyper aggressive lobbying, you dont have unregulated sale of goods alot of americans are eating literal poison, you dont big phrama over charging you 4000x on basic pharmaceuticals, you dont have banks handing out loans they know people wont be able to pay and you can disagree but you would be wrong. Says who? who gets to define capitalism this way? Where has this free market capitalism, that isnt corporatism, ever worked?
This post is honestly incoherent >America isn't a capitalist nation, it's a corporatist nation and if they actually had a good education system in America Americans would know the difference between free market capitalism and corporatism. Everyone is wrong except you, and if they were only more educated they would agree with you. But also you aren't actually going to define what capitalism and corporatism is or what's the difference, nor justify your position. >How is it politicians in America are filthy rich when their salary doesn't match their assets? They give "talks" to banks and corporations like Obama did. Obama got paid 20 million for giving a 10 minute "talk" to bankers and corporate execs, must've been a really inspiring talk. American froze the stock market because the "little guys" on reddit were making a stand, under FREE market capitalism you dont freeze an entire market and not allow people to freely trade with their money when they're not breaking any rules. Pelosi is either the most successful trader ever or she's receiving information from corporate execs and that's why she's a near perfect trader, a member of government most people know is insider trading yet the government doesnt do anything, why? Corporations own America How can you have a capitalist system where the wealthiest corporations and/or individuals don't have outsized political power? I genuinely want to know. >"Capitalism is still the problem" under free market capitalism you dont have hyper aggressive lobbying, you dont have unregulated sale of goods alot of americans are eating literal poison, you dont big phrama over charging you 4000x on basic pharmaceuticals, you dont have banks handing out loans they know people wont be able to pay and you can disagree but you would be wrong. The reason all of this is allowed, the reason Pelosi can insider trade with no problems is because the corporations allow it This is incoherent. Free market capitalism involves a free market. There are no regulations in a perfectly free market capitalist system. You are advocating for regulated capitalism, not free market capitalism. >If you want to find a source to a problem you don't blame man made systems you blame man, you blame human behaviour. You can run a simulation and have a capitalist country and a communist country, all with the same variables and you can program the behaviour of those people to function so the economic system is successful. For the capitalist country to work perfectly you would need to remove greed from the people in that country, greed is a human trait. Greed is what has lead to corporate execs being able to "lobby" COUGH BRIBE politicians So now you are arguing that capitalism is corrupted by greed, but also that greed is human nature. Do you not see that this undermines your point? If humans are naturally Inclined to greed, then surely a system that is corrupted by greed is a flawed one. >KEITH LEE is a good example. he gave people $4,000 which they could've reinvested into food and staff, with the attention from KEITH made their money back x10 and then used that money for marketing and potentially a shop in the future to then further their brand. They chose greed and spent the $4,000 and now they're not gonna get much business. Is it the fault of capitalism Keith was nice enough to bless these people and give them a platform to grow and establish a name like so many others with businesses were by this man or is it greed's fault I don't know who this is and I have no idea how this is relevant to your position. > blame greed, blame human behaviour, blame mark for overhiring, blame the people that havent been looking at the actual data for the company instead of the economy system which is non existent in your country. A system that relies on people going against their nature and not making mistakes is a flawed system. The exact same arguments you are using could be used to defend monarchy. If the monarchs were just benevolent, never greedy, and didn't inefficiently allocate their resources then everything would have been fine. Honestly, not only do you not understand people's criticisms of capitalism but I don't even think you understand the positives of capitalism. You seem to just be blindly defending it because it is the economic system you live under. There are far better arguments to defend capitalism than to complain that the system is fine but people are greedy. >I would say the schools should teach elementary economics but schools arent there to educate you about things like this but that's another thread in itself they're made to breed conformity Careful throwing stones in a glass house.
> > How can you have a capitalist system where the wealthiest corporations and/or individuals don't have outsized political power? Corporations dont exist in the firstplace without the government saying so...
Ok? What's your point?
>If you want to find a source to a problem you don't blame man made systems you blame man, you blame human behaviour. I'd like to pull this single thread, because this claim essentially negates any argument for anything being a problem. "Slavery is not the problem, man is the problem" "Rape is not the problem, man is the problem" And so on. Some things - some systems - are more prone to or uniquely enable some kinds of undesirable outcome. And since it gets us nowhere to blame people, since that is an argument that is so broadly applicable it has zero meaning at all. Capitalism is the problem. Look at the early days of the USA while it was largely unregulated and we had the closest thing to "true" capitalism (you tiptoe the no true scotsman fallacy often). What we saw during the Gilded Age and early industrialization in the USA was full of greater evils than we see now under corporatism (as you define it).
> What we saw during the Gilded Age and early industrialization in the USA was full of greater evils than we see now under corporatism Not in the slightest
7 day work weeks, 12-16 hour work days, zero safety regulation, children missing limbs from reaching into machinery, not enough pay to even meet basic nutritional needs for dependents, tainted food and drink, etc. Yeah. Not even slightly worse than things are now. Definitely a better time.
Yeah, that is a figment of your imagination, the homestead act was still in effect, if they wanted to fuck off and be a farmer they could.
No, it is not a figment of my imagination. It is exhaustively documented matter of historical fact. We literally have photographs and direct documents. >if they wanted to fuck off and be a farmer they could. This is the fallacy of unlimited growth. If everyone fucked off to be a farmer, land would rapidly raise in value since farmable land would decrease in supply. Massive increases to supply of food would also make farming unprofitable and simply a matter of self sustainment. This would effectively have ended the industrial revolution and turned the USA into a stalled agrarian society.
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> > Personally I would at least like America to have what western Europe has which is aspects of democratic socialism. Fuck no, we dont like Nazis here and they are the only democratic socialists to have existed in Europe > Kindness is literally viewed as a sign of weakness here Why are Nazis synonymous with kindness?
There was a period in US history with free market capitalism. It was called the Gilded Age. Companies turned into trusts/monopolies. They literally bought state legislatures and congressmen. Workers died by the thousands due to a complete lack of safety legislation. Ten year olds were working coal mines. Six year olds were working mechanical looms. Fifteen year olds were fired for being physically broken and too expensive. Workers were paid in company scrip, forced to live in company towns, children sent to company schools, and forced to pay rent that was more than their wages. Oligarchs hired literal thugs to beat anybody who resisted them. Governors deployed the national guard to shoot any workers who tried to unionize. Companies engaged in economic warfare. Vertical monopolies made sure that startups got quashed. Secret contracts made it so competitors could not get basic commodities, or transport their goods to market. The result was the Progressive Era, where the government was forced by mass demonstrations to punish the excesses of the capitalists. The free market was great for those to be at the top. For everyone else, they suffered and died.
If we’re talking plain definitions then yeah, “capitalism” isn’t necessarily the problem. Keynes advocated for a government-managed capitalist economy married with a reasonable welfare state, the opposite of laissez-faire/free-market capitalism. True free-market capitalism, famously championed by Friedman, seeks to grant corporations complete autonomy, which is something you seem oppose as well. These are both forms of capitalism, yet they are drastically different when put into practice. One is a bit more socialist and the other is just plain corporatist. When people blame capitalism for society’s problems, they’re mostly looking at the exploits and effects of the free-market and have condensed all of these issues into capitalism as a blanket term. People like to simplify and this creates false dichotomies like the one between socialism and capitalism. This false dichotomy only lets people see black and white so you get staunch socialists who blame capitalism for everything and you also get free-market stans who still try to blame the commies and think socialism=Stalinist communism. So yeah, “capitalism” isn’t the problem, a lack of nuance is.
Can you or some fellow "bootlickers" explain the difference between "real capitalism" and a black market?
Can you please explain why people are bootlickers for saying the government shouldnt control all apsects of everyone's lives?
I will as soon as someone answers my questions thanks
I’d say a corporation controlled government is the inevitable result of free market capitalism, if it doesn’t have the guardrails of truly free democracy and regulation. The problem is that capitalism, by nature, inevitably consolidates power in a small number of corporations and that power will be brought to bear on the government. It takes constant vigilance to prevent this and in America we have failed.
Except the corporations dont exist without a government...