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OK, I see your point :) Here's what I mean: Capitalism is (as democracy) not a yes/no thing. Instead, it is one extreme of a scale and every state has a value

OK, I see your point :) Here's what I mean: Capitalism is (as democracy) not a yes/no thing. Instead, it is one extreme of a scale and every state has a value on that scale and can can be more or less capitalistic (democratic). Less capitalistic in this context means more centrally planned, typically by an actor of the state (government, council for economic planning, ...). The problem I see in the typical use of the word "capitalism" is that many flaws of the current system are blamed on the "too capitalistic" side while I'm convinced the reason lies on the "too centrally planned side", i.e., we have too little capitalism. Hence my reaction to the word "post-capitalism" which sounds to me as if someone against torture wrote an article about "post-humanism" as a follow-up to "the obsolescence of human dignity" (where clearly humanism and dignity aren't the problem, rather it is the lack thereof). So, yes, we had and have capitalism to some extent everywhere (including Soviet Russia) but plain capitalism is very hard to find and even more so in the last 50 years. In fact, even Singapore has a central bank and I bet HK has one, too.

dragonwriter 12y ago
Sure, even approximately pure capitalism has been dead in the West for more than 50 years (closer, I think, to 80) because capitalism was because of many of the problems it caused for the vast majority of society that were identified by the critics who named the system in the 19th century (though the replacement wasn't generally what those critics advocated though it incorporated some elements of it to form the modern mixed economy). But, while that has in some cases mitigated or showed the growth rate of the problems that caused poor capitalism to be rejected, it hasn't chef them, and those same problems are often the things that provoke criticism of the current system. I don't think that the problems that were mitigated by a retreat from pure capitalism will be further mitigated by a return to it.

dragonwriter 12y ago

Sure, even approximately pure capitalism has been dead in the West for more than 50 years (closer, I think, to 80) because capitalism was because of many of the problems it caused for the vast majority of society that were identified by the critics who named the system in the 19th century (though the replacement wasn't generally what those critics advocated though it incorporated some elements of it to form the modern mixed economy). But, while that has in some cases mitigated or showed the growth rate of the problems that caused poor capitalism to be rejected, it hasn't chef them, and those same problems are often the things that provoke criticism of the current system. I don't think that the problems that were mitigated by a retreat from pure capitalism will be further mitigated by a return to it.