9 ms·

It is important to disguise between: 1. capitalism as a form of free market. 2. capitalism as a form of corporatism, the kind that practiced by German conglom

It is important to disguise between: 1. capitalism as a form of free market. 2. capitalism as a form of corporatism, the kind that practiced by German conglomerates before and after the WWII. We can argue that 1 has never being tried any where. As markets are never really free currently. Number 2 is what the author and most people who don't like about capitalism. It is a form of authoritarianism rather than capitalism, just as how Soviet and China pretend to be communist while they were just practicing authoritarianism.

Rinzler89 2y ago
Not just German conglomerates, see the Korean Chaebols and their Japanese equivalents. They're nearly as powerful as the state itself.
piva00 2y ago
In that sense 1. is just fantastical wishful thinking. There's absolutely no way for complete free markets to exist without any sort of governmental interdiction to set rules and regulations, in the bare minimum for societal safety measures, and on a larger scope to try to minimise societal damage caused by an absolute free market. A complete free market would allow companies to sell toxic products (including food), would allow slave labour, would allow price dumping and other anti-competitive practices, so on and so forth. Absolute free marketism is as fantastical as believing in utopian Communism.
robertlagrant 2y ago
> It is important to disguise between: 1. capitalism as a form of free market. 2. capitalism as a form of corporatism. We can argue that 1 has never being tried any where. As markets are never really free currently. This is the fallacy of the excluded middle. There are plenty of markets that look a lot more like 1 than 2. You can have 1 with regulations. A free market is about who's allowed to trade with whom, e.g. can I buy a car from Japan without the government adding something to the price tag (a tariff; in addition to the tax also added to the price tag)? You can say in the extreme that regulations are not free market, or at least how they are currently implemented. Possibly state-funded bodies could generate safety logos instead of regulations, and people could check for the logo for their product, and shops could only sell with that logo, and it might work similarly, but without regulations, but instead by consumer choice. I don't see a lot of practical difference, though. Regulations are often (or should be, in a decent capitalist system) about enforcing minimums for fair competition. So a bank has to offer so much insurance on balances. A toy company has to make sure it doesn't use cheaper toxic materials. And companies can compete within that framework. That's still pretty free trade, and definitely a capitalist system. Types of corporatism are too broad a church to discuss, unless you specify which type you mean. But they are often nothing to do with capitalism.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  The term "free", whether its in free markets or free speech, really makes it binary rather than a spectrum. You either have a free market or you don't, there's no in between. That doesn't make it a bad thing, to be clear. Very few people actually want free speech, they want some level of control on what can be said. It sounds moral to argue for free speech so we've invented the term "free speech absolutism" to allow people in the middle to stand on that moral ground. At the end of the day though, if you want limits on speech or markets you don't want them free, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with someone landing on that moral opinion.
  - the_gastropod 2y ago
    One of the requirements for markets is a system of law. A system of law definitionally reduces the freedom in a system. There is no such thing as an “absolute” free market. I think once you’ve understood why that’s true for markets, you’ll understand it’s exactly the same for free speech. Free speech absolutism is an incoherent stance.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      The definition of markets is extremely simple/vague [1]. Sure we have added laws on top to make more people more comfortable participating, but where exactly is the fundamental requirement for laws to allow people to exchange goods? With regards to speech, you simply just can't have free speech if there are limits. You aren't free to say whatever you want, and there's nothing wrong with that view. I totally understand why hate speech makes people uncomfortable and why some (a majority?) think it should be banned. Those people have just come across a reason why they don't actually agree that free speech is a fundamental right, instead preferring some speech to be restricted if a majority of people disagree with it. The argument that you can have free speech with limitations is incoherent and goes against the entire concept. Finding a different term for some middle ground of partially regulated speech is totally reasonable, but claiming that its free is a misuse of the words. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_(economics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_(economics)
    - 2y ago

Rinzler89 2y ago

Not just German conglomerates, see the Korean Chaebols and their Japanese equivalents. They're nearly as powerful as the state itself.

piva00 2y ago

In that sense 1. is just fantastical wishful thinking. There's absolutely no way for complete free markets to exist without any sort of governmental interdiction to set rules and regulations, in the bare minimum for societal safety measures, and on a larger scope to try to minimise societal damage caused by an absolute free market. A complete free market would allow companies to sell toxic products (including food), would allow slave labour, would allow price dumping and other anti-competitive practices, so on and so forth. Absolute free marketism is as fantastical as believing in utopian Communism.

robertlagrant 2y ago

> It is important to disguise between: 1. capitalism as a form of free market. 2. capitalism as a form of corporatism. We can argue that 1 has never being tried any where. As markets are never really free currently. This is the fallacy of the excluded middle. There are plenty of markets that look a lot more like 1 than 2. You can have 1 with regulations. A free market is about who's allowed to trade with whom, e.g. can I buy a car from Japan without the government adding something to the price tag (a tariff; in addition to the tax also added to the price tag)? You can say in the extreme that regulations are not free market, or at least how they are currently implemented. Possibly state-funded bodies could generate safety logos instead of regulations, and people could check for the logo for their product, and shops could only sell with that logo, and it might work similarly, but without regulations, but instead by consumer choice. I don't see a lot of practical difference, though. Regulations are often (or should be, in a decent capitalist system) about enforcing minimums for fair competition. So a bank has to offer so much insurance on balances. A toy company has to make sure it doesn't use cheaper toxic materials. And companies can compete within that framework. That's still pretty free trade, and definitely a capitalist system. Types of corporatism are too broad a church to discuss, unless you specify which type you mean. But they are often nothing to do with capitalism.

_heimdall 2y ago
The term "free", whether its in free markets or free speech, really makes it binary rather than a spectrum. You either have a free market or you don't, there's no in between. That doesn't make it a bad thing, to be clear. Very few people actually want free speech, they want some level of control on what can be said. It sounds moral to argue for free speech so we've invented the term "free speech absolutism" to allow people in the middle to stand on that moral ground. At the end of the day though, if you want limits on speech or markets you don't want them free, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with someone landing on that moral opinion.
- the_gastropod 2y ago
  One of the requirements for markets is a system of law. A system of law definitionally reduces the freedom in a system. There is no such thing as an “absolute” free market. I think once you’ve understood why that’s true for markets, you’ll understand it’s exactly the same for free speech. Free speech absolutism is an incoherent stance.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    The definition of markets is extremely simple/vague [1]. Sure we have added laws on top to make more people more comfortable participating, but where exactly is the fundamental requirement for laws to allow people to exchange goods? With regards to speech, you simply just can't have free speech if there are limits. You aren't free to say whatever you want, and there's nothing wrong with that view. I totally understand why hate speech makes people uncomfortable and why some (a majority?) think it should be banned. Those people have just come across a reason why they don't actually agree that free speech is a fundamental right, instead preferring some speech to be restricted if a majority of people disagree with it. The argument that you can have free speech with limitations is incoherent and goes against the entire concept. Finding a different term for some middle ground of partially regulated speech is totally reasonable, but claiming that its free is a misuse of the words. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_(economics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_(economics)
  - 2y ago