4 ms·
Why are you assuming capitalism and free markets are mutually inclusive? Not to get into a discussion of semantics, but US Capitalism is very dependent on the f
by hiou 12y ago
Why are you assuming capitalism and free markets are mutually inclusive? Not to get into a discussion of semantics, but US Capitalism is very dependent on the free flow of capital via investments and loans. The government sets all of that up and corporations essentially just handle the operations for it. There's definitely some free market aspects, for example there are usually a couple corporations competing to obtain as much of the market share for that responsibility, but there never has been, at least in the last 100 or so years anything like full on laissez faire free market economics in the US. The companies are not a whole lot more than government utilities with a little bit of free market competition and flexibility mixed in on top.
- bmmayer1 12y agoI'm not saying they're mutually exclusive. I'm saying we're not a capitalist country or a free market country. US "capitalism" is not dependent on the free flow of capital--it's arguably very unfree flow of capital when it seeks out legislatively assigned winners at the expense of taxpayers or worse, corruptively assigned winners at the expense of honest participants in the market. In other words, Adam Smith would be disgusted with our current society. I wrote a blog post about this: http://brianmayer.com/2012/07/what-adam-smith-really-said-about-government/ http://brianmayer.com/2012/07/what-adam-smith-really-said-ab...