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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.
I'd add to that list:
*... value determined by the market participants
Also, "free" as in "freedom", (or free beer, too, if that brings in more customers).
@Pat yes those sound like valid additions to me.
What about common resources?
Common resource = a resource that can't be owned or controlled by a single entity (like air, scarce oceanic resources, EM (electromagnetic spectrum), etc.)
@Pat depends. If it is enforced by a government then it clearly is an anti-capitalist property. If however it is more like a commune where private owners voluntarily pool their resources then that is perfectly within capitalism.
By the way, while I feel capitalism as a property serves the vast majority of use cases I do not feel a pure and absolute capitalism in every regard is necceseraly the ideal.
Capitalism is the existence of free markets. Free markets work great if and only if there is an inherent and reasonable equilibrium point which can be reached by supply and demand. While this works great for most things there are cases where supply-demand breaks down and capitalism doesnt work well. Healthcare I think is a good example of that. A person will pay every penny they have to live just one day longer in most cases. The demand is infinite and the supply finite. Capitalism fails under such a market.
By common resource I mean something that can't be owned, like air (atmosphere) where it just flows around and if someone uses it or alters it (pollution) then it effects everyone. I think that is one of those cases where there needs to be some government to handle that.
Also, you mentioned infinite demand/finite supply. There is an opposite condition also where wealth accumulates so that very few can actually have meaningful participation in markets, i.e., a lot of poor folks and a few rich folks, then the market participants are reduced to only the few rich folks. Markets work better when there are a lot of participants and liquidity.
@Pat In technical terms we would call those public utilities or or simply "the commons". And yes a capitalism doesnt really address those in and of itself. Commons are a good example of why an ideological pure capitalism where there is no regulation of any meaningful kind doesnt work. Capitalism is a fine idea for 90% of the stuff we deal with but things like public commons are precisely where you need something more than capitalism to address it.
