4 ms·
Usually "true capitalism" means one of two things: 1. Capitalism where there is no government or regulatory interference, and the "invisible hand of the free m
by danudey 3mo ago
Usually "true capitalism" means one of two things:
1. Capitalism where there is no government or regulatory interference, and the "invisible hand of the free market" produces some kind of utopian society based purely on every business abiding by rules enforced by no one, where somehow corporations don't take advantage of workers they way they do now despite there being no laws against it.
2. The same thing but sarcastically because it's obvious that that system would be demonstrably worse than the restricted version of capitalism that we have now.
- leonidasrup 3mo agoThe "invisible hand of the free market" works only, if you have many market participants competing one against another. When a participant wins the competition you get monopoly, when multiple participants collude you get oligopoly, or cartel. Market can not solve this. Historical examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC
- inigyou 3mo agoIf competition was economically efficient, it would happen. Monopolies prove that monopolies are efficient.
- bmicraft 3mo agoEfficient at generating the most value for shareholders? Probably. Efficient at price/performance of product sold? No.
- danudey 2mo agoYes, which means that we can easily see that capitalism does not optimize for a better world or a more practical market or a better product, but instead optimizes for extracting the maximum wealth possible from the market and consolidating it as much as possible.