> You say we don't have a free market now, I guess you refer to the United States - don't know about all places, but I feel a purely free market capitalism is practically unachievable unless you go into an anarchist society.
You could, but no one should want that. As I said this goes back to my comment about pure ideologies, they are almost always bad. Ideologies are meant to be principles, default ideas that work **most** of the time, but no ideaology should ever be applied in the absolute.
Nor does capitalism (or any ideology) require itself to be applied absolutely. Capitalism as a principle applied most of the time, and other principles used where they apply is completely in line with capitalism, and should be the goal of a capitalist.
> I feel the Oxford dictionary definition...
as I said words dont have a single definition, that is certainly one of them. It is distinctly different than free-market which is another definition. Since private ownership and free market are two halves of the same coin I find the distinction largely irrelevant. If the market isnt free then you dont truly completely own your products since someone else can force you to sell it as a price other than what it is worth. You dont truly own a thing if you cant choose when and how to sell it.
Language is a werid thing, a word means whatever you mean it to mean. There is no "right" there is just varying degrees of adoption, some terms are used by some people.To me the more important part is that capitalism is well defined in a technical way so it is useful. When we talk about capitalism as a principle of free markets, its useful. Using it as a catch all term that isnt well defined isnt so much wrong, as it is just not useful and is counter productive.
Silly to assume Canadians would vote blue or red. Canadians aren't stupid enough to buy into a 2 party myth. Chances are they would all vote for the green party.
@bonifartius the reason I went with bowtie was to show off the accent colors of the shirt. Thanks
@kopimi They are used less, but they have a place.
Watchdog group accuses RFK Jr. of voter fraud - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/rfk-voter-ny-accusations-00196984
#Capitalism Explained...
#Quotes from @freemo conversations in digestible bullet points...
💬 ✒️ Capitalism (free markets), in it's correct meaning, is not a rule so much as an ideological guideline, and in reality should be in a #mix of many things, where #capitalism is only an #influence of *some* things (not all).
💬 ✒️ We don't live in a country that is a pure capitalism, or even much of a capitalism at all...
Right now we don't have free markets, and that's the point.
💬 ✒️ Not only is it not a free market, but it is quite far away from being one.
All-in- version...
💬 ✒️ We also shouldn't strive for capitalism (free markets) as the default, it's not a rule so much as an ideological guideline, and the reality should be a mix of many things, where capitalism is only an influence.
=====================
3 Capitalism (free markets) Tips:
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☑️ is a way of doing things as a guideline - and not for everything to be done in this way.
☑️ Capitalism isn't a binary word to say government is or isn't Capitalism since it's mixed.
☑️ #Plutocracy probably as better word.
#Plutocracy as a best word to replace Capitalism maybe.
Capitalism perhaps does not mention the rich explicitly -
specifically the rich is perhaps more what people mean sometimes! 💰 🤑
(Plutocracy = #political #system governed by the #wealthy people)
Perhaps "Capital" in the word also helps people not see or assume centralization rather than the many versions, including Free Market version which is important next to the word as a kind of sub-type of it"
🔗 Capitalism (free markets)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
@cobratbq yea but why dont they fly when their born? Vestigial organs make sense.
@dick Its common for animals to loose a capability as an evolutionary advantage. Basically if it isnt benefiting you much then you are wasting energy maintaining the systems for it, so if flying isnt worth the cost it could be lost.
Why do all insects (that I can think of) start their life in a stage that crawls (usually wormlike of some kind) and usually end their lives in a form that can fly. I cant think of any insects that start being able to fly and then their final form is flightless.
Im guess its because the final stage is the stage that mates and flying is critical to mating in some way.
> You mention the "me and you" example of doing a trade without rules and force- PERFECT- But the reality today is the opposite - there are rules and force beyond the 1 time deal and anything more regular between us is wanting to be regulated or punished (basically)... or within more people difficult.
This goes back to what i was saying about seeing it not as a government type or a pure all or nothing ideology but rather just one among many ideologies that should influence the way you structure a government, but not be seen as a hard rule.
More specifically, we dont live in a country that is a pure capitalism, or even much of a capitalism at all... You are right we **dont** have free markets, thats the point. Markets are highly regulated, and there are big players that control it (including the government). Not only is it not a free market, but it is quite far away from being one. That said we also shouldnt strive for one, while capitalism (free markets) should be the default for sure, its not a rule so much as an ideological guidline, and the reality should be a mix of many things, where capitalism is only an influence.
For example there is a strong argument that healthcare shouldnt exist in a free market system because the laws of supply and demand break down since a person would pay anything (usually) to live one more healthy day. So the supply is limited but demand is effectively infinite. So free market cant work in health care. That said the solution there isnt universal or single payer health care. The solution is to design a system that addresses this problem, and that solution would look like co-op based healthcare which would restore free market pressures since the patients are also the owners.
> So are we in Capitalism?
Again this goes back to what im saying, you arent in a capitalism or not. It isnt a binary thing that a government either is or isnt a capitalism, thats kindergarten way of thinking about it. There are many things we handle in mostly capitalist ways, like the buying and selling of gold, thats fairly capitalistic. But the buying and selling of cars is far from a free market, we fix the price of cars such that gasoline powered cars are artificially more expensive than electric ones (through taxes and other mechanisms), so the buying and selling of cars is far from capitalism in the USA in many ways. That said, like i said, it isnt a bad thing to not follow an ideology as a pure idea, in fact, its good we dont.
transmisogynist is someone who is hateful towards trans people presenting as a woman? New term for me.
But yea people are silly with how much their rhetoric oversimplifies things.. to the point of absurdity.
@cobratbq Ha! Won't be the last time!
@896c3ee86294d9f9c09ee357334aef4be4f7828508aa9810d6938d3ce054cc31
As far as I know his medal wasnt actually revoked. But this isnt an absurd representation. I would completely expect this to be an actual response and wouldnt even bat an eye wondering how absurd it is because its the norm now.
> That's like an illegal operation or incompatible way of looking it it sometimes. What's a beautiful bird worth?
There is nothing about capitalism that says you need to "sell the planet"
Free market capitalism only dictates that the market be free (no one can fix the market), it does not dictate that everythign and anything must be up for sale. If society decides its illegal to kill pretty birds because they are endangered that is perfectly in line with capitalism.
This comes back to the issue with the idology i touched on where I talked about it being viewed often as an absolute or all encompassing attribute. When you try to think of **Everything** about a government being dictated by capitalist ideology it wont work because it is only an idology defining that markets should be free, ti doesnt define what should be allowed to be sold or any of the thousands of other attributes of a government (like environmental protection).
If you still think capitalism means "anything for sale and no rules go" then you still arent getting what capitalism really is. It just means that if me and you make a trade no outside force is going to force my hand and set a price other than the natural market price of the good.
Jeffrey Phillips Freeman
Innovator & Entrepreneur in Machine Learning, Evolutionary Computing & Big Data. Avid SCUBA diver, Open-source developer, HAM radio operator, astrophotographer, and anything nerdy.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, USA, currently living in Utrecht, Netherlands, USA, and Thailand. Was also living in Israel, but left.
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(Above pronouns are not intended to mock, i will respect any persons pronouns and only wish pronouns to show respect be used with me as well. These are called neopronouns, see an example of the word "frog" used as a neopronoun here: http://tinyurl.com/44hhej89 )
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