Misunderstanding Capitalism

[aociswundumho]

It has EVERYTHING to do with human nature and the state of man and why your theories are out of date, thin, and proven a failure BECAUSE of man's greed.

People are greedy - but government regulators are people too. If human beings are as awful as you are implying they are, then giving a tiny handful of them political power over everyone else will make thing worse, not better.

Your theories do not allow for criminals let alone common greed. Which we know is rampant.

So they don't work. And that's why.

But the only way your theory works is if politicians are morally superior to the rest of us. Good luck coming up with any evidence for that.

 

[Bok Tuklo]

The latest academic trend is to say that slavery is somehow a part of capitalism. They talk about how slaves were considered "property" and were bought and sold and used to make the slave owner a profit. These superficial terms give the impression that slavery is akin to a free market firm doing business, but this is the opposite of the truth. The ultimate in private property is ownership of your own person. You cannot alienate (transfer control of) your body, so no one other than you can own yourself. Thus slavery is a violation of private property rights and not at all compatible with capitalism.

That is sophistry. You claim "Capitalism is simply when property is held and controlled in private hands" and then go on to arbitrarily claim what can or cannot be considered property.

 

[The Mark]

People are greedy - but government regulators are people too. If human beings are as awful as you are implying they are, then giving a tiny handful of them political power over everyone else will make thing worse, not better.



But the only way your theory works is if politicians are morally superior to the rest of us. Good luck coming up with any evidence for that.

Obviously we can't trust that elected officials will remain vigilant, unless we remain vigilant about their actions and holding them accountable.
As voters. And citizens.

 

[aociswundumho]

That is sophistry. You claim "Capitalism is simply when property is held and controlled in private hands" and then go on to arbitrarily claim what can or cannot be considered property.

It is not "arbitrary" to claim you own your own physical body.

 

[The Mark]

It is not "arbitrary" to claim you own your own physical body.

But what if your parents signed an indefinite indenture contract that lets the organization who holds it do whatever experiments they wish on you?

And they control the laws where you live so that's legal.



Yes, I know that's slavery.

 

[mrjurrs]

I think this is another misunderstanding of capitalism. It's not a political system at all. You can have a democracy, oligarchy or even an authoritarian dictator and have a capitalist economy. All that's required is the protection of private property rights.

Got any examples of a totalitarian capitalist?

 

[aociswundumho]

Obviously we can't trust that elected officials will remain vigilant, unless we remain vigilant about their actions and holding them accountable.
As voters. And citizens.

How? I don't even know what they do all day, and neither do you. When a government regulator meets with high-ranking executives at GiantCorp®, how the hell can anybody monitor that?

 

[mrjurrs]

Walmart’s U.S. average hourly wage is now $16.40

Walmart hikes hourly pay by $1 for more than 550,000 workers ahead of the holidays

Walmart said Thursday that it is raising the hourly wages for more than 565,000 store workers by at least $1.

www.cnbc.com

Paying an entry level worker $16.40 is "fascist"?

What is the correct hourly wage for a job that requires no education or experience?

On average, a married heterosexual couple have one testicle each.

Walmart and McDonald's are among top employers of Medicaid and food stamp beneficiaries, report says

Walmart and McDonald's are among the top employers of beneficiaries of Medicaid and food stamps, according to a GAO study commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

www.cnbc.com

 

[The Mark]

How? I don't even know what they do all day, and neither do you. When a government regulator meets with high-ranking executives at GiantCorp®, how the hell can anybody monitor that?

Require them to keep records of the meeting, with consequences for not doing so that exceed any possible benefits by at least one order of magnitude.

If GiantCorp could on the outside save $10 mil by getting the regulator to look the other way, the fine has to be at least $100 million.
If the regulator could make $1 mil in kickbacks or job offers from GiantCorp, blacklist them from the industry.

 

[aociswundumho]

But what if your parents signed an indefinite indenture contract that lets the organization who holds it do whatever experiments they wish on you?

What about it? That's no different in principle than if the parents torture their own child.

And they control the laws where you live so that's legal.

What does legal have to do with property rights? Civil forfeiture laws, for example, are nothing but legal robbery.

Yes, I know that's slavery.

 

[Bok Tuklo]

It is not "arbitrary" to claim you own your own physical body.

Yes. It is. If we want to start arbitrarily demarcating what can't be considered property I'm going with all natural resources including land, air, and water.

 

[Crovax]

On average, a married heterosexual couple have one testicle each.

Walmart and McDonald's are among top employers of Medicaid and food stamp beneficiaries, report says

Walmart and McDonald's are among the top employers of beneficiaries of Medicaid and food stamps, according to a GAO study commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

www.cnbc.com

There isn't some magic walmart employee getting paid $1000/hr messing the average up. The max hourly salary is like $25/hr

And if you look at the study the % of employees is very low and in the case of Massachusetts the leading employer of employees that need medicare benefits is the state itself.

 

[NWRatCon]

The other day I was watching a YouTube video discussing a TV show. They claimed the show was anti-capitalism because it showed the government tricking/forcing some local people out of their land in order to hand it over to a company who would presumably strip mine it. That's not capitalism. Capitalism would be the company offering money for the land, and if the locals reject the offer, then that's the end of the story.

It seems people associate capitalism with any economic activity and with any private individual or firm making a profit. This is not so. Capitalism is simply when property is held and controlled in private hands. If I start a charity, solicit donations and then use the money to buy food and medicine for the poor, that's capitalism. If I own a piece of land and I make it a nature preserve, that's capitalism.

I often see criticisms of capitalism regarding crimes committed by wealthy people or firms to advance their interests. That's not capitalism, that's just a crime. If a company decides to cut costs so they can lower their prices below the competition that's capitalism. If a company decides to burn down the factory of their competition, that's a crime.

The latest academic trend is to say that slavery is somehow a part of capitalism. They talk about how slaves were considered "property" and were bought and sold and used to make the slave owner a profit. These superficial terms give the impression that slavery is akin to a free market firm doing business, but this is the opposite of the truth. The ultimate in private property is ownership of your own person. You cannot alienate (transfer control of) your body, so no one other than you can own yourself. Thus slavery is a violation of private property rights and not at all compatible with capitalism.

What other ways is capitalism mischaracterized?

Your wobbly, simplistic OP started fine but then went completely off the rails by the last paragraph. Slavery most certainly was, and is, a capitalistic enterprise. Nothing you've posted contradicts that.

On the other hand, capitalism is far more than just the private ownership of property, but it certainly is based upon that. Private ownership is not the beginning and end of "capitalism".

 

[iguanaman]

The other day I was watching a YouTube video discussing a TV show. They claimed the show was anti-capitalism because it showed the government tricking/forcing some local people out of their land in order to hand it over to a company who would presumably strip mine it. That's not capitalism. Capitalism would be the company offering money for the land, and if the locals reject the offer, then that's the end of the story.

It seems people associate capitalism with any economic activity and with any private individual or firm making a profit. This is not so. Capitalism is simply when property is held and controlled in private hands. If I start a charity, solicit donations and then use the money to buy food and medicine for the poor, that's capitalism. If I own a piece of land and I make it a nature preserve, that's capitalism.

I often see criticisms of capitalism regarding crimes committed by wealthy people or firms to advance their interests. That's not capitalism, that's just a crime. If a company decides to cut costs so they can lower their prices below the competition that's capitalism. If a company decides to burn down the factory of their competition, that's a crime.

The latest academic trend is to say that slavery is somehow a part of capitalism. They talk about how slaves were considered "property" and were bought and sold and used to make the slave owner a profit. These superficial terms give the impression that slavery is akin to a free market firm doing business, but this is the opposite of the truth. The ultimate in private property is ownership of your own person. You cannot alienate (transfer control of) your body, so no one other than you can own yourself. Thus slavery is a violation of private property rights and not at all compatible with capitalism.

What other ways is capitalism mischaracterized?

Sadly American women do not own their bodies anymore. Fascist State Govts. do. You gloss over the fact that capitalism can easily be abused if Govt. does not strictly regulate it. The incident you gave is an example of crony capitalism where the Govt is used by business for their own profit.

Crony capitalism, sometimes called cronyism, is an economic system in which businesses thrive not as a result of free enterprise, but rather as a return on money amassed through collusion between a business class and the political class. This is often achieved by the manipulation of relationships with state power by business interests rather than unfettered competition in obtaining permits, government grants, tax breaks, or other forms of state intervention[1][2] over resources where business interests exercise undue influence over the state's deployment of public goods, for example, mining concessions for primary commodities or contracts for public works. Money is then made not merely by making a profit in the market, but through profiteering by rent seeking using this monopoly or oligopoly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

 

[NWRatCon]

Well, I suggest you are comparing "classic capitalism" against "modern" or "convenient capitalism".

I think, rather than "classic", it's simplistic. So simplistic, in fact, as to be meaningless. There are many "kinds" of "ownership", thus many forms of "capitalism". In modern parlance, as you note, a lot of freight is added to definitions, some of it justified, some not.

 

[Liberty One]

That is sophistry. You claim "Capitalism is simply when property is held and controlled in private hands" and then go on to arbitrarily claim what can or cannot be considered property.

I explained why a person cannot be owned by another person in my post. Maybe my argument was wrong or unclear, but it certainly wasn't arbitrary.

 

[Liberty One]

Your wobbly, simplistic OP started fine but then went completely off the rails by the last paragraph. Slavery most certainly was, and is, a capitalistic enterprise. Nothing you've posted contradicts that.

On the other hand, capitalism is far more than just the private ownership of property, but it certainly is based upon that. Private ownership is not the beginning and end of "capitalism".

This looks like an example of misunderstanding capitalism. Slavery is a violation of property rights, hence, not capitalism.

 

[Liberty One]

You gloss over the fact that capitalism can easily be abused if Govt. does not strictly regulate it.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I would venture if you gave an example, it wouldn't be an example of capitalism.

 

[NWRatCon]

This looks like an example of misunderstanding capitalism. Slavery is a violation of property rights, hence, not capitalism.

In your very limited opinion. I understand the impetus for trying to define capitalism in a way that is comfortable to your worldview, which appears to be extreme libertarianism (Ayn Rand fan?), but you avoid both the complexity and defects by eliding most of the conception.

How do natural resources fit into your conception? Externalities? How about alienation of property? Relationship to government? Labor? How do markets operate? Regulation? Capitalism, as I noted, does not end at "private ownership". Even your objection modifies that concept.

 

[The Mark]

What about it? That's no different in principle than if the parents torture their own child.



What does legal have to do with property rights? Civil forfeiture laws, for example, are nothing but legal robbery.

Legal means that unless you change the laws, there are no legal consequences for them doing it.

And I think civil forfeiture laws need some serious revisions.

 

[Liberty One]

In your very limited opinion. I understand the impetus for trying to define capitalism in a way that is comfortable to your worldview, which appears to be extreme libertarianism (Ayn Rand fan?), but you avoid both the complexity and defects by eliding most of the conception.

How do natural resources fit into your conception? Externalities? How about alienation of property? Relationship to government? Labor? How do markets operate? Regulation? Capitalism, as I noted, does not end at "private ownership". Even your objection modifies that concept.

I haven't read every economist, but of the most free-market kind, I've read works by Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, Bob Murphy, Tom DiLorenzo, Fredrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises. Not a single one has ever claimed that slavery was compatible with capitalism--quite the opposite. Slavery clearly is a violation of private property rights. They have even tackled the question of whether someone could voluntarily sell themselves into slavery and the answer is no. Since you cannot alienate control over your body you cannot sell yourself into slavery. So I think it's pretty clear that you are trying to define capitalism in a way that is comfortable to your worldview, and not me. I think you fit pretty well the point of my post in that you misunderstand capitalism. The idea that slavery is somehow compatible with capitalism, as I pointed out, requires ignoring all economic thought on the issue and relying solely on surface comparisons, like using the term "property" to describe a slave. Basically this is a child's argument and belies and complete lack of understanding of the issues at hand, or a willingness to prevaricate to an absurd degree.

 

[NWRatCon]

I haven't read every economist [obviously], but of the most free-market kind, I've read works by Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, Bob Murphy, Tom DiLorenzo, Fredrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises.

Thank you for demonstrating my point. I took you for a Randian, and you confirmed my suspicions.

So I think it's pretty clear that you are trying to define capitalism in a way that is comfortable to your worldview, and not me.

Quite, quite the contrary. If one limits one's view of "capitalism" to the views of radical, both extremely limited and extreme, as well as idiosyncratic, thinkers, one misses the grand scope of economics, or any challenges to preconceived notions.

I think you fit pretty well the point of my post in that you misunderstand capitalism.

I find your perceptions (or, actually, gross lack thereof) incredibly amusing. Be well. Enjoy your fantasy life.

 

[Liberty One]

Thank you for demonstrating my point. I took you for a Randian, and you confirmed my suspicions.

Quite, quite the contrary. If one limits one's view of "capitalism" to the views of radical, both extremely limited and extreme, as well as idiosyncratic, thinkers, one misses the grand scope of economics, or any challenges to preconceived notions.

I find your perceptions (or, actually, gross lack thereof) incredibly amusing. Be well. Enjoy your fantasy life.

Prevarication it is.

 

[NWRatCon]

Prevarication it is.

I don't think you even know the definition of that word, either.

 

[Jacksprat]

The other day I was watching a YouTube video

That is the problem right there.