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> you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism) That isn't capitalism, you just described a mar

> you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism) That isn't capitalism, you just described a market. Markets existed for thousands of years before capitalism was created.

beaconstudios 8y ago
Yeah I know, but my point was that the market plus money is the indivisible unit of capitalism. You can take any other aspect away and it will still be capitalism. Unless you think some other fundamental characteristic is also required? I'm open to that idea. Private ownership of the means of production isn't really one because that existed during early market economies too.
- bildung 8y ago
  Yes, private ownership is one condition, but not the only one. I'd add capital intensive production (building plants and machinery for automation), the existance of a labor market and the existance of a big class of people lacking ownership of the means of production, thereby being forced to sell their labor on the market. And you have a class of people living off of the profits generated by the means of production (in contrast to feudalism, where people also lived without working, but the means came from fiefs, not from the market).
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    throwing in all these requirements leaves you with a definition of capitalism that pretty tightly matches the system we have right now. This is my main issue with criticisms of capitalism - they (rightly) criticise the system we live with right now but instead of looking into individual rules, entities and interactions that cause the problems, we declare that (to quote the comment I objected to) "it's not clear [...] that one can have the baby without it spoiling the bathwater.". It's terribly reductionist to take a complex interlocking system and say "it's not working, we need to get rid of it!" because chances are that the problems could be fixed within the system itself. Or in software terms, I think our current form of capitalism is in need of refactoring, not rejecting as fundamentally broken.
    - bildung 8y ago
      > throwing in all these requirements leaves you with a definition of capitalism that pretty tightly matches the system we have right now. Because it's important to differentiate markets from capitalism! Otherwise feudalism would have been capitalism, too.

beaconstudios 8y ago

Yeah I know, but my point was that the market plus money is the indivisible unit of capitalism. You can take any other aspect away and it will still be capitalism. Unless you think some other fundamental characteristic is also required? I'm open to that idea. Private ownership of the means of production isn't really one because that existed during early market economies too.

bildung 8y ago
Yes, private ownership is one condition, but not the only one. I'd add capital intensive production (building plants and machinery for automation), the existance of a labor market and the existance of a big class of people lacking ownership of the means of production, thereby being forced to sell their labor on the market. And you have a class of people living off of the profits generated by the means of production (in contrast to feudalism, where people also lived without working, but the means came from fiefs, not from the market).
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  throwing in all these requirements leaves you with a definition of capitalism that pretty tightly matches the system we have right now. This is my main issue with criticisms of capitalism - they (rightly) criticise the system we live with right now but instead of looking into individual rules, entities and interactions that cause the problems, we declare that (to quote the comment I objected to) "it's not clear [...] that one can have the baby without it spoiling the bathwater.". It's terribly reductionist to take a complex interlocking system and say "it's not working, we need to get rid of it!" because chances are that the problems could be fixed within the system itself. Or in software terms, I think our current form of capitalism is in need of refactoring, not rejecting as fundamentally broken.
  - bildung 8y ago
    > throwing in all these requirements leaves you with a definition of capitalism that pretty tightly matches the system we have right now. Because it's important to differentiate markets from capitalism! Otherwise feudalism would have been capitalism, too.