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I mean, I agree with you (I just said sometimes people call it that, not that it is that) but I don't think anything you said really contradicts it being a kind

I mean, I agree with you (I just said sometimes people call it that, not that it is that) but I don't think anything you said really contradicts it being a kind of capitalism. After all Lenin and Stalin and Trotsky disagreed literally violently with each other but Soviet Communism is still a label that contains all their efforts and systems.

ch4s3 4y ago
Right but they were fighting over the direction of a type of political economy that predated all of them. Smith and other original thinkers that framed capitalism did so in opposition to mercantilism. Capitalism was a reaction to. And in many ways criticism of mercantilism.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Did Adam Smith invent capitalism? Did he advocate for capitalism? I still don’t really understand what we mean by capitalism
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    He is often called the "Father of Capitalism", based on his two surviving works The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). He is also often referred to as a founder of modern economics. In this case what we mean by capitalism loosely is a system of private property, free/open trade, market based pricing mechanisms, economic decisions being made by individual actors, etc.
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      Right, he burned his other work. So, private property was certainly there before Smith, as were individual economic decisions. But, there was a lot more price standardization and government planned trade. So, is capitalism the same as a market economy? I feel like there are endless debates about capitalism and socialism but they are tribalized notions without clear definitions. Eg, are market regulations anticapitalist if they are government imposed or are they procapitalist if they support greater market health?
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        > So, is capitalism the same as a market economy? Not exactly, but that is a necessary condition. I think another necessary condition is that prices are set by the market and that the state isn't deeply involved in trade. Obviously there are grey areas, but it seems pretty clear that the export focused state trade policies of mercantilism were not capitalism.

ch4s3 4y ago

Right but they were fighting over the direction of a type of political economy that predated all of them. Smith and other original thinkers that framed capitalism did so in opposition to mercantilism. Capitalism was a reaction to. And in many ways criticism of mercantilism.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
Did Adam Smith invent capitalism? Did he advocate for capitalism? I still don’t really understand what we mean by capitalism
- ch4s3 4y ago
  He is often called the "Father of Capitalism", based on his two surviving works The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). He is also often referred to as a founder of modern economics. In this case what we mean by capitalism loosely is a system of private property, free/open trade, market based pricing mechanisms, economic decisions being made by individual actors, etc.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Right, he burned his other work. So, private property was certainly there before Smith, as were individual economic decisions. But, there was a lot more price standardization and government planned trade. So, is capitalism the same as a market economy? I feel like there are endless debates about capitalism and socialism but they are tribalized notions without clear definitions. Eg, are market regulations anticapitalist if they are government imposed or are they procapitalist if they support greater market health?
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      > So, is capitalism the same as a market economy? Not exactly, but that is a necessary condition. I think another necessary condition is that prices are set by the market and that the state isn't deeply involved in trade. Obviously there are grey areas, but it seems pretty clear that the export focused state trade policies of mercantilism were not capitalism.