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You can have a capitalist economy with a non-democratic government. China’s government isn’t very communist these days.

sgjohnson 8y ago
Yes, but again, you can’t have a capitalist economy with a government that wants to control your every move and the way you think.
- manfredo 8y ago
  Singapore has done pretty well, and they're definitely a democracy in name only. More of a "benevolent dictatorship". I suppose the Singaporean government doesn't try to control "your every move and way you think" but they do crack down hard on people that criticize the government in a substantial manner. A city-state probably has a much different kind of ruler-ruled relationship than one of the largest countries on the planet, though.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> You can have a capitalist economy with a non-democratic government. It's possible, but vanishingly rare, outside the sense in which non-Leninist/Maoist socialists describe Leninist/Maoist regimes as “state capitalist”, but while there is a case that that is a legitimate label, it mostly relies on “state capitalism” being a different-but-related system to traditional capitalism (which one might label “private capitalism”.) > China’s government isn’t very communist these days. China’s economic system is more like the form of corporatism found in fascism (whether the political system is otherwise fascist is a discussion for a different time) than either communism or capitalism, though if one subscribed to the idea that traditional Leninist/Maoist systems are “state capitalism”, that form of corporatism could be seen as a hybrid capitalism that shares elements of both state and private capitalism, but again that requires a broader-than-standard definition of capitalism, where the standard definition is specifically private capitalism.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Is it really vanishing rare? Most of the dictatorships I can think of are capitalist. Egypt, Russia, Thailand, Iran, as random examples. They’re not total laissez-faire economies, but neither are democracies.

Yes, but again, you can’t have a capitalist economy with a government that wants to control your every move and the way you think.

manfredo 8y ago
Singapore has done pretty well, and they're definitely a democracy in name only. More of a "benevolent dictatorship". I suppose the Singaporean government doesn't try to control "your every move and way you think" but they do crack down hard on people that criticize the government in a substantial manner. A city-state probably has a much different kind of ruler-ruled relationship than one of the largest countries on the planet, though.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> You can have a capitalist economy with a non-democratic government. It's possible, but vanishingly rare, outside the sense in which non-Leninist/Maoist socialists describe Leninist/Maoist regimes as “state capitalist”, but while there is a case that that is a legitimate label, it mostly relies on “state capitalism” being a different-but-related system to traditional capitalism (which one might label “private capitalism”.) > China’s government isn’t very communist these days. China’s economic system is more like the form of corporatism found in fascism (whether the political system is otherwise fascist is a discussion for a different time) than either communism or capitalism, though if one subscribed to the idea that traditional Leninist/Maoist systems are “state capitalism”, that form of corporatism could be seen as a hybrid capitalism that shares elements of both state and private capitalism, but again that requires a broader-than-standard definition of capitalism, where the standard definition is specifically private capitalism.

mikeash 8y ago
Is it really vanishing rare? Most of the dictatorships I can think of are capitalist. Egypt, Russia, Thailand, Iran, as random examples. They’re not total laissez-faire economies, but neither are democracies.