3 ms·

It's because capitalism isn't about competition or free market? It's about extracting rent on capital, hence the name?

by orwin 3y ago

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Guess, are we talking about capitalism as some strict academic definition? or the gestalt in the minds of the right? Think most people do include markets and competition as core to capitalism. But, other core features are, private ownership, and that labor doesn't own the production. And not spelled out, but it does often lead to rent extraction. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back-to-Basics/Capitalism https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back... • competition, through firms’ freedom to enter and exit markets, maximizes social welfare, that is, the joint welfare of both producers and consumers; • a market mechanism that determines prices in a decentralized manner through interactions between buyers and sellers—prices, in return, allocate resources, which naturally seek the highest reward, not only for goods and services but for wages as well;
- orwin 3y ago
  > Think most people do include markets and competition as core to capitalism. I would argue that this is liberalism, and a smidge older than capitalism. I think you can have multiple kind of capitalism, the old-school, robber-baron that you get in Mexico, Brasil, Russia; the liberal capitalism you get on the west (mixed with more or less socialism), and the weird semi-authoritarian capitalism that you get in China, Vietnam (mixed with more or less socialism too). Probably other exists. Only the liberal one in my mind has free market and competition as a core, its always a secondary effect of participating in the global economy for the others. At least it's my opinion at the moment, i'm not knowledgeable enough, so if you disgree, please do and explain, i want to learn.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    I agree with all that you are saying. If we started digging into details of each possible shade of 'capitalisms', we find a sliding scale of what features are most dominant. There are some that aren't as focused on 'competition' and 'markets'. I'd say that in all of your examples, they are there, just not as dominant, or somehow 'narrowly managed'. So we'd be arguing over the scale of each feature in each example. Not really right or wrong. I agree, it is mostly the global market that forces this on some countries with less competition.
- p_l 3y ago
  I'd argue that part of what enables the current issues is exactly the "hack" of making the gestalt believe that capitalism, free market/enterprise, the ideas of Adam Smith, etc. are all part of capitalism instead of things that at best partially overlap. This means that people who want to grow richer just by virtue of being rich can easily defend their actions by making any who complain into common enemy for everyone else. Because penalizing pure financial speculation and other rent-seeking behaviours, or predatory private equity, can be conflated this way with attack on ability of everyone to start their own enterprises, maybe walk away from a job and create their own, etc.

It's because capitalism isn't about competition or free market? It's about extracting rent on capital, hence the name?

by orwin 3y ago

It's because capitalism isn't about competition or free market? It's about extracting rent on capital, hence the name?

Guess, are we talking about capitalism as some strict academic definition? or the gestalt in the minds of the right? Think most people do include markets and competition as core to capitalism. But, other core features are, private ownership, and that labor doesn't own the production. And not spelled out, but it does often lead to rent extraction. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back-to-Basics/Capitalism https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back... • competition, through firms’ freedom to enter and exit markets, maximizes social welfare, that is, the joint welfare of both producers and consumers; • a market mechanism that determines prices in a decentralized manner through interactions between buyers and sellers—prices, in return, allocate resources, which naturally seek the highest reward, not only for goods and services but for wages as well;

orwin 3y ago
> Think most people do include markets and competition as core to capitalism. I would argue that this is liberalism, and a smidge older than capitalism. I think you can have multiple kind of capitalism, the old-school, robber-baron that you get in Mexico, Brasil, Russia; the liberal capitalism you get on the west (mixed with more or less socialism), and the weird semi-authoritarian capitalism that you get in China, Vietnam (mixed with more or less socialism too). Probably other exists. Only the liberal one in my mind has free market and competition as a core, its always a secondary effect of participating in the global economy for the others. At least it's my opinion at the moment, i'm not knowledgeable enough, so if you disgree, please do and explain, i want to learn.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  I agree with all that you are saying. If we started digging into details of each possible shade of 'capitalisms', we find a sliding scale of what features are most dominant. There are some that aren't as focused on 'competition' and 'markets'. I'd say that in all of your examples, they are there, just not as dominant, or somehow 'narrowly managed'. So we'd be arguing over the scale of each feature in each example. Not really right or wrong. I agree, it is mostly the global market that forces this on some countries with less competition.
p_l 3y ago
I'd argue that part of what enables the current issues is exactly the "hack" of making the gestalt believe that capitalism, free market/enterprise, the ideas of Adam Smith, etc. are all part of capitalism instead of things that at best partially overlap. This means that people who want to grow richer just by virtue of being rich can easily defend their actions by making any who complain into common enemy for everyone else. Because penalizing pure financial speculation and other rent-seeking behaviours, or predatory private equity, can be conflated this way with attack on ability of everyone to start their own enterprises, maybe walk away from a job and create their own, etc.