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You're right. Regulation is not explicitly Marxist. My edit was born of a frustration with the general bias in this community in which advocating for capitalism

You're right. Regulation is not explicitly Marxist. My edit was born of a frustration with the general bias in this community in which advocating for capitalism or free markets is guaranteed to earn you down votes.

radmuzom 12y ago
You are making the false assumption that capitalism = free market. One might argue that after taking into account historical context, modern capitalism is completely opposite to free markets. For example, in a free market, labour unions would be as powerful as the owners of capital - in the modern world, capital owners have a disproportionate influence on law-making to subdue this power. A very good example in the recent past is the wage collusion by Apple, Google and many other companies (working to preserve the interests of the capital owners) to suppress the power of the free market.
- jwallaceparker 12y ago
  > You are making the false assumption that capitalism = free market. anarco-capitalism = free market crony capitalism != free market I use the term capitalism to describe the anarco flavor. Capitalism is defined as the private ownership of production, and when this idea is adhered to rigidly you end up with something exactly like or closely approximating the anarco-capitalist flavor. > in the modern world, capital owners have a disproportionate influence on law-making to subdue this power. You're right. It's abhorrent but this is not capitalism, this is a mixed economy (state capitalism or crony capitalism) in which firms use government to buy influence over the marketplace. I am not advocating for that.
acdha 12y ago
Again, you're being down voted because you're dishonestly redefining those terms – HN crowd leans heavily capitalist, as you'd expect in a community started by people going to invest or found successful companies. You weren't advocating for free markets, you are pretending monopolies don't exist except where created by the government. That's simply ahistorical nonsense. Calling people Marxist for quoting Adam Smith would be an amusing troll if you didn't sound like you actually believe it.
- jwallaceparker 12y ago
  > you are pretending monopolies don't exist except where created by the government There is a strong case for this view, and it is shared by many well-regarded economists throughout history. And I haven't redefined the terms: http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly
  - acdha 12y ago
    > There is a strong case for this view, and it is shared by many well-regarded economists throughout history. Citation needed > And I haven't redefined the terms: http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly Even ignoring the question using a heavily-biased resource, that page would not need to mention “government-sanctioned monopolies” if there were in fact no other kind.
    - jwallaceparker 12y ago
      Here's Hayek and Friedman on monopoly: http://principlesnotmen.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/does-the-free-market-inherently-lead-to-monopolies/ http://principlesnotmen.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/does-the-fr... Rothbard, Sowell, Mises and others share this view. Google their names followed by the word "monopoly" for an abundance of material. http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly "A monopoly is a grant of special privilege by the State, reserving a certain area of production to one particular individual or group." in bold in the middle of the page. If I can't quote a university that advocates for the Austrian view without you labeling it bias, there's no point to this discussion. You accused me of redefining monopoly. I point to an entire school of economics that defines monopoly as I defined it. You dismiss it as bias.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      The definition of "monopoly" in terms of government sanction is very common (its one of two common legal definitions); of course, the other common legal definition (and the more common economic definition) is " the ownership or control of so large a part of the market- supply or output of a given commodity as to stitle competition, restrict the freedom of commerce, and give the monopolist control over prices." [1] There's obviously a pretty fundamental problem with any discussion of economics which limits itself to the former kind of monopoly and fails to at least discuss the latter kind (even if it uses a different name for it for some reason). And there's equally obviously a problem with any discussion of monopoly in economics which ignores that the use of the term in economics usually means the latter, not the former (while in law, "monopoly" without other qualifications in certain contexts does mean the former, though in other contexts -- e.g., anti-trust, it means the latter.) [1] Both definitions illustrated here: http://thelawdictionary.org/monopoly/ http://thelawdictionary.org/monopoly/

radmuzom 12y ago

You are making the false assumption that capitalism = free market. One might argue that after taking into account historical context, modern capitalism is completely opposite to free markets. For example, in a free market, labour unions would be as powerful as the owners of capital - in the modern world, capital owners have a disproportionate influence on law-making to subdue this power. A very good example in the recent past is the wage collusion by Apple, Google and many other companies (working to preserve the interests of the capital owners) to suppress the power of the free market.

jwallaceparker 12y ago
> You are making the false assumption that capitalism = free market. anarco-capitalism = free market crony capitalism != free market I use the term capitalism to describe the anarco flavor. Capitalism is defined as the private ownership of production, and when this idea is adhered to rigidly you end up with something exactly like or closely approximating the anarco-capitalist flavor. > in the modern world, capital owners have a disproportionate influence on law-making to subdue this power. You're right. It's abhorrent but this is not capitalism, this is a mixed economy (state capitalism or crony capitalism) in which firms use government to buy influence over the marketplace. I am not advocating for that.

acdha 12y ago

Again, you're being down voted because you're dishonestly redefining those terms – HN crowd leans heavily capitalist, as you'd expect in a community started by people going to invest or found successful companies. You weren't advocating for free markets, you are pretending monopolies don't exist except where created by the government. That's simply ahistorical nonsense. Calling people Marxist for quoting Adam Smith would be an amusing troll if you didn't sound like you actually believe it.

jwallaceparker 12y ago
> you are pretending monopolies don't exist except where created by the government There is a strong case for this view, and it is shared by many well-regarded economists throughout history. And I haven't redefined the terms: http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly
- acdha 12y ago
  > There is a strong case for this view, and it is shared by many well-regarded economists throughout history. Citation needed > And I haven't redefined the terms: http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly Even ignoring the question using a heavily-biased resource, that page would not need to mention “government-sanctioned monopolies” if there were in fact no other kind.
  - jwallaceparker 12y ago
    Here's Hayek and Friedman on monopoly: http://principlesnotmen.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/does-the-free-market-inherently-lead-to-monopolies/ http://principlesnotmen.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/does-the-fr... Rothbard, Sowell, Mises and others share this view. Google their names followed by the word "monopoly" for an abundance of material. http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Monopoly "A monopoly is a grant of special privilege by the State, reserving a certain area of production to one particular individual or group." in bold in the middle of the page. If I can't quote a university that advocates for the Austrian view without you labeling it bias, there's no point to this discussion. You accused me of redefining monopoly. I point to an entire school of economics that defines monopoly as I defined it. You dismiss it as bias.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    The definition of "monopoly" in terms of government sanction is very common (its one of two common legal definitions); of course, the other common legal definition (and the more common economic definition) is " the ownership or control of so large a part of the market- supply or output of a given commodity as to stitle competition, restrict the freedom of commerce, and give the monopolist control over prices." [1] There's obviously a pretty fundamental problem with any discussion of economics which limits itself to the former kind of monopoly and fails to at least discuss the latter kind (even if it uses a different name for it for some reason). And there's equally obviously a problem with any discussion of monopoly in economics which ignores that the use of the term in economics usually means the latter, not the former (while in law, "monopoly" without other qualifications in certain contexts does mean the former, though in other contexts -- e.g., anti-trust, it means the latter.) [1] Both definitions illustrated here: http://thelawdictionary.org/monopoly/ http://thelawdictionary.org/monopoly/