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#capitalism is not...
* ... large corporations
* ... greed
* ... the rich taking advantage of the poor
* ...unfair labor wages
capitalism is...
*... fair market prices determined by value
*... markets that are not and can not be manipulated
*... fair wages for fair work based on the value contributed
*... poor people having equal chance as rich to market their skills
*.... a free market, a fair market.
@freemo In my opinion, you describe free markets, not capitalism.
This is a potentially never-ending semantic debate, of course. But I do think it's important to make the distinction. Precisely because state capitalism leads to large corporations, greed, and high time preference culture and societies.
@raucao free markets (that is markets defined by private trade without price fixing) is effectively the definition of capitalism.
State capitalism does not lead to greed or any of the other negative effects... The **state** leads to that. generally because the state suggests centralized control and power and that is contrary to free markets which is where the state has little or no control, which states dont want. So when capitalism exists it is often erroded by the state. So state anything often leads to a lack of free market and thus a lack of capitalism.
@raucao No thats not correct. Capitalism is not simply private property. Capitalism is where **trade**, industry **and** property are controlled by private ownership. The trade part is essential here and ultimately is why free market is baked into the definition of capitalism.
@freemo Again, just because free markets are part of the perfect version of capitalism neither means that free markets cannot or did not exist without capitalism, or that capitalism with *mostly* free markets hasn't conquered the world and is still capitalism as the basic economic system.
@freemo ... Would you agree that communism has never been tried then? Because you seem to be saying that true capitalism immediately died and was replaced by [please insert what you call it here] in all countries that once had it.
@raucao I wouldnt use that wording.. A pure form of capitalism has never been tried. just as a pure form of communism has never been tried. Pure forms of anything tend to not exist, nor would we want them to, ideological purity without situational awareness would be devastating.
That said communism as a central tenant of governments has been quite common just as capitalism as a central tenant has been common. If we want to pick apart why governments fail or succeed we would have to look far beyond simplifications of a single attribute like capitalism or communism.
I would say no myself. Ideologically pure communism or capitalism has never existed and can not exist. Ideologically pure ideas themselves simply cant exist because the world is far too nuanced. It becomes self-contradictory if you refine the ideas too much.
At best we can have these ideas as central tenants and we may refer to that as capitalism or communism and we just ignore the fact that it isnt "pure" for the same reason we dont expect something to be absolute zero.
@freemo Capitalism first and foremost describes private property. And even though it performs best with free markets, and doesn't work at all without markets, it certainly can exist without *entirely* free markets.
Thus, saying that state capitalism is not capitalism at all, is the same as calling all past attempts at communism "not communism".