@avlcharlie @mapto @volkris

Now that is a complicated question. But usually the main way its accomplished with what we call antitrust laws. When enforced (and the usa has enforced thrm but not as strongly as it should) they effectively make monopolies illegal.

Of course the other key is keeping corruption in check and money out of politics, which isnlikewise a difficult task to do, but critical to a healthy capitalism

@freemo @avlcharlie @mapto @volkris very interesting discussion. Just thought I'd like to point out that comparisons between Communism and capitalism are tricky because while capitalism is viewed primarily as an economic system (and democracy as a political system that everyone assumes underpins it), Communism is a political, philosophical and economic system.

The problem is that there have been no real life examples of "pure" Communism ever existing, except perhaps

@dashrandom

Communism, like capitalism, is often abused as a word. On its own it has nothing to do with marx. It simply means any system where the means and distribution of production are controlled by the government, and socialism is where onky the means of production is owned.

Marx just had a very specific view of a system of government which he felt included communism with other supporting principles to make it work. Its more appropriate to call his system marxism

@avlcharlie @mapto @volkris

@freemo @avlcharlie @mapto @volkris I beg to differ. Marxism is a philosophy (with his species-being and alienation concepts), Communism is an ideology that the workers are exploited by those who control the means of production, and thus the only way to stop being exploited is to seize the means of production.

@dashrandom @avlcharlie @mapto @volkris

How is a philosophy and an ideology even different. No clue how your arguing that marxism is not a more specific form of communism.

@freemo @avlcharlie @mapto @volkris my response was to your statement that Communism has nothing to do with Marx. Marx was the founder of Communism, it kind of implies it when he wrote the Communist Manifesto. Saying communism has nothing to do with Marx is like saying Higgs has nothing to do with the Higgs-Boson. Marxism is a way of thinking, Communism is a way of looking at the world and living life. You can be Marxist, but not Communist. You however, cannot be Communist but not Marxist.

@dashrandom @avlcharlie @mapto @volkris

Communism was first enacted by the Jews in ancient israel thousands of years before marx was even a sperm.