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Capitalism posits that it should be legal to privately own capital goods. If I own something, that makes me the one who decides what to do with it.

by _0ffh 2y ago

forty 2y ago
There are systems which recognize private ownership which are not capitalists. Capitalism is just about the full control of means of production and of companies by capital owners as explained by your parent.
- _0ffh 2y ago
  Do you own a hammer? Well, that's a capital good, so you're a capitalist! Congratulations!
  - forty 2y ago
    If that hammer is the mean of production of some company and as a result of owning the hammer I can get all the profits of the company, while doing no work and the people doing the actual work with the hammer get only low wages , then this is indeed capitalism :)
    - _0ffh 2y ago
      The hammer allows the worker to be more productive than he would be without one, so he chooses freely to team up with the hammer-owner for a share of the additional value created by using the hammer. The endlessly repeated "but all muh profit goes to the evul capitalist" thing is logically nonsensical, as whatever share of the additional surplus generated by the hammer goes to the capitalist is by definition the capitalist's profit, however small. So you essentially demand to be handed someone else's property for no compensation at all, as that would be the only way for there to be no profit for the capitalist (if indeed, the product is successfully sold at all). The capitalist, who by the way is the one who invested not only in the hammer but in the raw materials needed for production, and who shoulders all of the risk and delayed gratification, while the worker gets a risk-free, immediate income, before the company even earns it's very first cent.
      - orwin 2y ago
        Exactly, i think you read way too much into what i said. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, i'm saying that's the definition. Capitalism is a production method where capital owners decide what should the labor do, unlike anarchist worker councils, or feudalist lords. But capitalism say nothing on free trade, absolutely nothing. You can be a communist country or an anarchist commune and implement free trade. I'm pretty sure native mexican communes are allowing free trade (because if they didn't Mexico would likely do something about it), despite having a non-capitalistic method of production (which sometime is feudal, which is to me the worst system of production, once again, i clearly never stated capitalism=bad, i'm just saying capitalism != free trade)
        _0ffh 2y ago
        > i think you read way too much into what i said Well, it seems like I really may have done that. I actually hadn't even noticed that my interlocutor had switched inbetween. > i'm just saying capitalism != free trade Right, unfortunately it's very late and I think I need a clearer head for an adequate answer.
        _0ffh 2y ago
        Okay, the part of "free markets are possible without capitalism" is quite obvious. But going back to the earlier messages, what happened is that I assumed that capitalism implies free markets (not the other way around), and that's not equally trivial. I think capitalism at least implies markets, because otherwise it makes no sense at all. Who would care to specialise in the production of any good if there was no way to profit from it by offering it on a market? But does it imply free markets? That probably depends on where you want to draw the line between free and non-free. Personally, I'm a purist in these matters. There does not currently exist any market that I know of, which I would consider to be really free. So by my standards I assumed too much in my original statement. In public discourse though, I usually try to adopt a choice of words more compatible with what I estimate is the prevailing POV, as it eases communication. By that standard, there exist plenty of free markets, and maybe the claim could be made that capitalism does imply free markets, unless one is happy to have discussions about nonsensical constructs.

Capitalism posits that it should be legal to privately own capital goods. If I own something, that makes me the one who decides what to do with it.

by _0ffh 2y ago

Capitalism posits that it should be legal to privately own capital goods. If I own something, that makes me the one who decides what to do with it.

forty 2y ago

There are systems which recognize private ownership which are not capitalists. Capitalism is just about the full control of means of production and of companies by capital owners as explained by your parent.

_0ffh 2y ago
Do you own a hammer? Well, that's a capital good, so you're a capitalist! Congratulations!
- forty 2y ago
  If that hammer is the mean of production of some company and as a result of owning the hammer I can get all the profits of the company, while doing no work and the people doing the actual work with the hammer get only low wages , then this is indeed capitalism :)
  - _0ffh 2y ago
    The hammer allows the worker to be more productive than he would be without one, so he chooses freely to team up with the hammer-owner for a share of the additional value created by using the hammer. The endlessly repeated "but all muh profit goes to the evul capitalist" thing is logically nonsensical, as whatever share of the additional surplus generated by the hammer goes to the capitalist is by definition the capitalist's profit, however small. So you essentially demand to be handed someone else's property for no compensation at all, as that would be the only way for there to be no profit for the capitalist (if indeed, the product is successfully sold at all). The capitalist, who by the way is the one who invested not only in the hammer but in the raw materials needed for production, and who shoulders all of the risk and delayed gratification, while the worker gets a risk-free, immediate income, before the company even earns it's very first cent.
    - orwin 2y ago
      Exactly, i think you read way too much into what i said. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, i'm saying that's the definition. Capitalism is a production method where capital owners decide what should the labor do, unlike anarchist worker councils, or feudalist lords. But capitalism say nothing on free trade, absolutely nothing. You can be a communist country or an anarchist commune and implement free trade. I'm pretty sure native mexican communes are allowing free trade (because if they didn't Mexico would likely do something about it), despite having a non-capitalistic method of production (which sometime is feudal, which is to me the worst system of production, once again, i clearly never stated capitalism=bad, i'm just saying capitalism != free trade)
      - _0ffh 2y ago
        > i think you read way too much into what i said Well, it seems like I really may have done that. I actually hadn't even noticed that my interlocutor had switched inbetween. > i'm just saying capitalism != free trade Right, unfortunately it's very late and I think I need a clearer head for an adequate answer.
      - _0ffh 2y ago
        Okay, the part of "free markets are possible without capitalism" is quite obvious. But going back to the earlier messages, what happened is that I assumed that capitalism implies free markets (not the other way around), and that's not equally trivial. I think capitalism at least implies markets, because otherwise it makes no sense at all. Who would care to specialise in the production of any good if there was no way to profit from it by offering it on a market? But does it imply free markets? That probably depends on where you want to draw the line between free and non-free. Personally, I'm a purist in these matters. There does not currently exist any market that I know of, which I would consider to be really free. So by my standards I assumed too much in my original statement. In public discourse though, I usually try to adopt a choice of words more compatible with what I estimate is the prevailing POV, as it eases communication. By that standard, there exist plenty of free markets, and maybe the claim could be made that capitalism does imply free markets, unless one is happy to have discussions about nonsensical constructs.