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> So profiteering off government contracts is nothing more than the extraction of wealth I would agree with this statement. However I wouldn't call this capita

> So profiteering off government contracts is nothing more than the extraction of wealth I would agree with this statement. However I wouldn't call this capitalism. It doesn't seem like "free-market" anything when the government is footing the bill. There's an enormous amount of cronyism... was the work actually bid out, and evaluated fairly? Is the work even something that actually needs to be done, or is it more of a make-work project, or a spend-to-justify-our-budget project? Were small, non-connected firms allowed to bid, or was it an add-on to a pre-existing engagement? Private companies, especially large ones, are guilty of the same but government usually tops the list for wasteful and inefficient spending. So yes, it is indeed profiteering, and these huge consulting firms have perfected it. But it's only because the government keeps rewarding them over and over, so who can blame them for scooping it up? But this is not capitalism.

constantcrying 3y ago
It is capitalism because it is bad. Even though it directly contradicts what every single "pro capitalism" thinker ever said, enormous state investments into massive, but useless systems are absolutely capitalist praxis.
jmyeet 3y ago
> It doesn't seem like "free-market" anything ... First, "free market" itself is a myth. Second, that's a tenet of libertarianism or neoliberalism. In reality, "free markets" is a stalking horse for deregulation and privatization, which is wealth extraction from the government to the wealthy. Like I said, capitalism has nothing to do with markets. It's merely how capital is created and accumulated. You talk about cronyism and the process and have skipped right passed the most important question: why is this even being outsourced in the first place? Why is public transit privatized (eg the UK)? It's needless wealth transfer under the guise of "efficiency". European democracies are starting to discover they're on the same path of the USA: starving national healthcare and then using those "failures" are reasons to privatize it. Reportedly, with Brexit, the US administration wanted the NHS to be privatized as part of any favorable trade deal with the UK. Think about that. Now we see a cost-of-living crisis because of restricted supply and institutional buyers buying up the supply. Mortgages are massively bigger than even a generation ago. The cost of college education is out-of-control, as is healthcare. Debt is being built into every facet of your existence to extract as much wealth as possible from you and to keep you a compliant worker.

constantcrying 3y ago

It is capitalism because it is bad. Even though it directly contradicts what every single "pro capitalism" thinker ever said, enormous state investments into massive, but useless systems are absolutely capitalist praxis.

jmyeet 3y ago

> It doesn't seem like "free-market" anything ... First, "free market" itself is a myth. Second, that's a tenet of libertarianism or neoliberalism. In reality, "free markets" is a stalking horse for deregulation and privatization, which is wealth extraction from the government to the wealthy. Like I said, capitalism has nothing to do with markets. It's merely how capital is created and accumulated. You talk about cronyism and the process and have skipped right passed the most important question: why is this even being outsourced in the first place? Why is public transit privatized (eg the UK)? It's needless wealth transfer under the guise of "efficiency". European democracies are starting to discover they're on the same path of the USA: starving national healthcare and then using those "failures" are reasons to privatize it. Reportedly, with Brexit, the US administration wanted the NHS to be privatized as part of any favorable trade deal with the UK. Think about that. Now we see a cost-of-living crisis because of restricted supply and institutional buyers buying up the supply. Mortgages are massively bigger than even a generation ago. The cost of college education is out-of-control, as is healthcare. Debt is being built into every facet of your existence to extract as much wealth as possible from you and to keep you a compliant worker.