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Yes and those are wrong as well. One can not try to peddle "non-voluntary" as something exclusively directly violently coerced and ignore all the in-direct asp

• rayiner 6y ago
  Your definition is a good one: the “voluntary exchange” in capitalism is narrow—it refers to exchange that is not “directly violently coerced.” Most people advocating capitalism would agree that this is what they mean by “voluntary exchange.” And you can make a perfectly good argument that this notion of what’s “voluntary” is inadequate. But in mercantilism and slavery, transactions are “directly violently coerced.” So they’re not examples of capitalism even by your own definition of what constitutes “voluntary. Put differently, when folks criticize capitalism for having an insufficient notion of “voluntary exchange” that only focuses on “violent coercion” (and there is a huge amount of literature on that) they’re acknowledging that capitalism excludes violent coercion. But then they turn around and apply the “capitalism” label to mercantilism and slavery, which are based on violent coercion!
  • jahaja 6y ago
    My point is not to broaden the definition of voluntary, but to emphasize that voluntary exchange itself has never been a crucial part of Capitalism. So both slavery and Imperialism can not be discarded from the incentive structure set up by Capitalism. Capitalism will simply exploit whatever there currently is to be exploited, without any ethics. The historical record, both past and present, is very clear on this.