4 ms·
Capitalism is not synonymous with free market. A free market will inherently be captured by someone in the long run with capitalism. That's why things like an
by diob 5y ago
Capitalism is not synonymous with free market. A free market will inherently be captured by someone in the long run with capitalism. That's why things like antitrust came to be. Unfortunately, folks have grown quite naive.
Saying capitalism will just work (the invisible hand) is as naive as those who think unfettered communism would work. In both scenarios, there is a tendency for powerful groups to capture the market.
- yucky 5y ago>Saying capitalism will just work That's a strawman. I said the article in question, where a judge is telling people where they can and can not sell their labor, is the opposite of capitalism. Because it is.
- diob 5y agoHow is it the opposite of capitalism? Capital is being allocated such that this happens, yes or no? What you mean to say is this doesn't follow what you think capitalism should be, aka capitalism in theory. This is capitalism in practice, like it or not.
- Natsu 5y agoI don't think you're even communicating because you both have very different ideas of what "capitalism" even is. GP post will probably respond to you with something like "because it's literally the government interfering with a free market outcome" which is something libertarians basically want to minimize. Market freedom isn't a yes/no binary thing, you can have more intervention or less, and one could point out that both sides here seem to prefer the outcome with less intervention in this case. But I'm not sure it matters since the headline is a flat-out lie. It looks like they will actually get to start at new jobs, at most the new company has to send one person (not necessarily any of these) to work at ThedaCare (while employed by the new company with new wages) so it can operate temporarily while the courts sort things out. And ThedaCare has to pay their lawyers, compensate the new company for any use of their staff, hire new people, deal with the PR fallout of this (and probably no one wanting to work there), etc.
- diob 5y agoI guess, I do appreciate you responding. I just get frustrated when folks refuse to look at the downsides of a chosen path, regardless of that path (capitalism or whatever). Everything in practice is different from theory / idealism. That doesn't mean it isn't the thing, it just means that's reality. But refusing to acknowledge that means we can't fix it. It implies we just need to lean more into capitalism (or whatever we want to call USA's goings ons) to fix it, when that's what got us here in the first place.
- Natsu 5y agoI think there's a nomenclature problem there, people who advocate for capitalism are arguing for more freedom (e.g. against interventions like this), so it sounds to them like it would if someone said "don't pee on the electric fence" and someone replied "we already have that rule, but people are peeing on it anyway and it's causing terrible wounds" and then they go "what? that's literally what we're saying not to do." Then you can see why "well, it still happens anyway even in a system where that's a rule" leaves you kinda talking past each other.
- diob 5y agoI don't know I'm trying to explain it in basic terms. Capitalism favors whoever owns capital. Rules are an unavoidable part of participating in society, and thus it can follow that rules will tend to favor who owns capital. Basically, it seems to me like capitalists throw up their hands and do the "no true scotsman" whenever something doesn't follow their theoretical thinking. Which honestly is exactly what you're doing. Oh, this doesn't track? Well, that's because it's not capitalism, we have a nomenclature problem. So just throw out the thing that we don't like? Like it or not, capitalists, socialists, communists, etc. etc. all have to contend with the reality of their systems.
- yucky 5y agoBecause one of the basic tenets of capitalism is the ability to freely sell your labor. It's foundational to capitalism. It's a requirement. The five characteristics of Capitalism are 1)Economic Freedom, 2)Voluntary Exchange, 3)Private Property Rights, 4)Profit Motive and 5)Competition The linked story would violate several of those.
- diob 5y agoThat's a purist view. Capitalism leads to captures / collusion among those who own capital, same with other systems like communism. Most are forced to work paycheck to paycheck, freedom for them is more of an illusion.
- tored 5y agoI would only attribute 3) & 4) to capitalism. 1) is a political right but capitalism is an economic system so it doesn’t really say anything about that. 5) is market economy and with 2) you get a free market economy
- yucky 5y agoThere is no provision capitalism for forbidding a laborer from selling their labor to a different employer. That concept does not even exist in capitalism.
- tored 5y agoCorrect, because capitalism is an economic system, it is perfectly possible to run capitalism under a harsh dictatorship or a liberal democracy for that matter, thus laborer selling their labor to a different employer can either be allowed or disallowed, hence capitalism can never guarantee any economic freedom as previously claimed.
- yucky 5y agoCommunism is an economic system too, so I suppose one could acquire capital and hire laborers under a communist system, using this logic?