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Capitalism is property rights and economic freedom. There's nothing inherent to it that requires monopoly. Natural monopolies can occur but are perpetually unst
by tetrometal 6y ago
Capitalism is property rights and economic freedom. There's nothing inherent to it that requires monopoly. Natural monopolies can occur but are perpetually unstable provided there are no artificial barriers to entry. Of course, those barriers exist (one form is regulatory capture), but they are not capitalistic. Absent those artificial barriers, even natural monopolies must behave over the long term as though competitors exist, or they will be created.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Capitalism is property rights Capitalism is property rights Capitalism is a very specific model of property rights and economic freedom as far as consistent with that model, which was designed—incrementally, over a long time—to advance the power interests of a particular clases (mostly not collectively, but as the aggregate of individuals in that class leveraging their growing power to advance their personal interests.) Confusing it with “property rights and economic freedom” more generally is just as wrong as doing the same with feudalism, which likewise featured a particular model of property rights and economic freedom so far as consistent with that model of property rights.
- tetrometal 6y agoOne could probably dream up a thousand theories about why capitalism was developed, but it really doesn't matter to me. What matters is what the theory is and whether or not it's true. And history has borne it out: societies that adopt strong individual property rights coupled with economic freedom have delivered unprecedented wealth to their people at all levels, while societies that focus on the collective at the expense of the individual and upon outcomes instead of opportunities flounder and regress.