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I disagree. Many complaints about capitalism are often rebuffed with some form of "No True Scottsman" fallacy when people raise this points about capitalism. De

I disagree. Many complaints about capitalism are often rebuffed with some form of "No True Scottsman" fallacy when people raise this points about capitalism. Defenders of communism fall into the same trap. I don't see what's so controversial about the simple fact that capital markets will not significantly reduce global human suffering. Some will benefit tremendously, significantly more than others, and there's no correction mechanism for that. If we look back a few decades, it seems like there was a sea-change in thought around capitalism after WWII. Prior to the war, it was seen as an imperfect system but our best option. Something I don't think it's hard to argue with. Now, we place capitalism on a pedestal and blame its shortcomings on impurities of its implementation-- again, similar to academics who had to defend Marxism/Leninism vs its implementation in the Soviet Union.

humanrebar 9y ago
My basic point was that "capitalism" is a term not understood broadly enough to be meaningful. Your (justified) complaint about "No True Scotsman" fallacies supports my point. As does your critique of the shifting feelings about capitalism over the years. My main point was that people criticizing capitalism and the people defending it are rarely talking about the same thing. I have seen people defending capitalism (as defined in dictionaries and wikipedia) that obviously are referring to the canonical definitions. I have seen, though less frequently, people criticizing capitalism in the same sense. It seems like you might be one of these, though most of the time the solutions to capitalism look mostly like tweaked capitalism with another label attached. For example, a progressive wealth tax doesn't (directly) dispute the importance of wages, property rights, market-based pricing, etc. Likewise, proponents of rent control aren't in favor of a centrally controlled housing authority that sets and approves rents (as opposed to a market based solution).

humanrebar 9y ago

My basic point was that "capitalism" is a term not understood broadly enough to be meaningful. Your (justified) complaint about "No True Scotsman" fallacies supports my point. As does your critique of the shifting feelings about capitalism over the years. My main point was that people criticizing capitalism and the people defending it are rarely talking about the same thing. I have seen people defending capitalism (as defined in dictionaries and wikipedia) that obviously are referring to the canonical definitions. I have seen, though less frequently, people criticizing capitalism in the same sense. It seems like you might be one of these, though most of the time the solutions to capitalism look mostly like tweaked capitalism with another label attached. For example, a progressive wealth tax doesn't (directly) dispute the importance of wages, property rights, market-based pricing, etc. Likewise, proponents of rent control aren't in favor of a centrally controlled housing authority that sets and approves rents (as opposed to a market based solution).