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That's my point entirely. Capitalism does not breed competition, it breeds success for the private investor. Which in their case, they used government to kill c
by criley2 13y ago
That's my point entirely. Capitalism does not breed competition, it breeds success for the private investor. Which in their case, they used government to kill competition and increase profit and personal outcomes, not increase competition and increase outcomes for all.
The idea that we can't blame Capitalism for its corruption is laughable. The greed motivation of Capitalism is WHY that corruption exists! Because they want personal success MORE than they want success for all, so they make a decision that benefits themselves/their investment at the cost of society.
The outcome of Capitalism without strong regulation in that era was a corruption of weak regulators, corruption of government, and a destruction of competition.
I guess you could argue "but what about Capitalism in absence of government entirely" but that sounds too much like the Communists and their "but but TRUE communism, without a state, would TOTALLY work, I SWEAR!"
- sp332 13y agoI'm having trouble with one point of your argument. You seem to be arguing that people who are not capitalists are not greedy or corrupt?
- dragonwriter 13y agoNo, I think the argument is that the greed and corruption of people who are not capitalists aren't as important to the outcome of capitalism, because capitalism is a system in which the economy is organized around the interests (including, inter alia, greed and corruption) of capitalists. Which is why the socialist critics of the dominant economic system of the developed world of the early-mid 19th Century coined the name "capitalism" for the system they were criticizing.
- sp332 13y agoThis is bizarre. So, if an individual socialist person in a capitalist economy is corrupt, that's not as big a problem as a capitalist being corrupt?
- dragonwriter 13y ago> So, if an individual socialist person in a capitalist economy is corrupt, that's not as big a problem as a capitalist being corrupt? In GP, "capitalist" -- and I would have thought this was crystal clear from context -- was used in the sense of "member of the class deriving sustenance principally through ownership of capital" (e.g., as would be opposed to "labor") not in the sense of "proponent of the economic system known as capitalism" (e.g., as would be opposed to "socialist".)
- sp332 13y agoThat's the opposite of what I got from the context, sorry. In fact criley2 defined capitalism as a system of capital ownership. Anyway, criley2 seems to be calling all greedy people "capitalists", and using this definition to argue that other economic systems produce less corruption. That argument gets even less coherent, if you're claiming that guarding your capital is somehow more selfish than guarding your labor.
- criley2 13y agoHe was correct, Capitalist refers to a very small number of people who own and manage capital. My definition (the textbook definition), was describing a system of capital ownership. Unless you labor under the delusion that capital is not owned by a very small number of people, I do not know how that definition caused you to think the exact opposite of the definition. Also, I am not wielding "greedy" as an insult, as I clarified immediately after using it. This is a greed motivated system. It is what it is. It is not an insult, it is a description. I apologize if you disagree but I am not really interested in debating if water is wet.
- sp332 13y agoSure :) I'm just wondering how a different system would deal with greedy people. If the system discourages greed, doesn't that increase the incentive for greedy people to corrupt the system?
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Capitalism does not breed competition, it breeds success for the private investor. Right. Its called capitalism because its a system driven by serving the interests of capital.