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Capitalism is simply a combination of the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law. How

by anm89 7y ago

Capitalism is simply a combination of the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law. How could this ever solve anything? It's not a solution, it's a framework. It's like saying that Ruby on Rails is the solution to your company. We'll by definition it can't be. It can be used to do whatever your company needs but the framework can't be the company as it doesn't do anything useful in a vacuum. However it's certainly a much better model than generating an HTTP stack in assembly to make your SAAS business. It solves a real problem that allows you to operate but it doesn't solve your higher level problem. Capitalism is exactly the same. The lack of it can cause major problems. The existence of it cannot solve many problems but it can provide the only efficient framework in which many problems can be solved.

mikestew 7y ago
Once in a while I don't downvote a well-deserving comment (and I am not saying parent(s) are one of those) because a child comment would get buried. I think parent comment is sketchy at best, but this comment is a nice perspective that makes it worth wading to. Just like one can use RoR to make shitty websites, and RoR is just the tool here, one can use capitalism to...oh, you know where this is going.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Rodney Stark says that the distinguishing mark of capitalism is that (at least part of) the profits are re-invested in better tools for productivity gains. In this view, "the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law" are prerequisites, but they aren't capitalism. Capitalism is what you do once you have that foundation in place.
- anm89 7y ago
  From wikipedia: "Rodney William Stark is an American sociologist of religion". Whoever this guy is, he doesn't matter enough to get to redefine capitalism. Being in the general field of economics would be a start.

by anm89 7y ago

mikestew 7y ago

Once in a while I don't downvote a well-deserving comment (and I am not saying parent(s) are one of those) because a child comment would get buried. I think parent comment is sketchy at best, but this comment is a nice perspective that makes it worth wading to. Just like one can use RoR to make shitty websites, and RoR is just the tool here, one can use capitalism to...oh, you know where this is going.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

Rodney Stark says that the distinguishing mark of capitalism is that (at least part of) the profits are re-invested in better tools for productivity gains. In this view, "the existence of property rights, money, and the right to freely enter into contracts except when prohibited by law" are prerequisites, but they aren't capitalism. Capitalism is what you do once you have that foundation in place.

anm89 7y ago
From wikipedia: "Rodney William Stark is an American sociologist of religion". Whoever this guy is, he doesn't matter enough to get to redefine capitalism. Being in the general field of economics would be a start.