No, that is way too charitable. Capitalism has three defining components. 1. its top down. 2. it has the capital class for which it is named. 3. It has the state.
The political economy arguement is the only one that really matters when it comes too capitalism. Its more bankerism than anything else. It not compatible with powersharing because its about definitively give more power and power over others to those who arbitrarily have more money. It is not dynamic, comparitively experimental, or efficient. Its purest expression is the corporation and its wealth extraction.
Cooperatives are bottom up. They keep the wealth with the people who actually produce and do not over value trade. Capitalism is not this great system that is misunderstood. Even its name means something like gangsterism and it has failed, it was a stage, it is obsolete.
The normal mode of operation for capitalism is wage slavery. There was a 30 year exception once in its history and that was because of a period of strong social democracy. Otherwise its never held a middle class or been a desirable system. Its normal mode is wage slavery or straight slavery. Its bringing us the greatist stupidity in the history of mankind where allowing idiots to pursue oil profit is going to get us is a nuclear war over pottable water and food.
No the state is not inherient to capitalism as you can have things like anarcho-capitalism. What you are describing there is NOT capitalism. It is fascism. Do not get them confused. Capitalism is not named after a capital class. It is named after the pursuit and aquisition of capital, that is wealth, money. From the poorest pauper to the richest king every capitalist seeks to enlarge his own wealth and store of capital.
You really need to read up on Adam Smith who was a capitalist and was most notably AGAINST corporations. In fact he was probably one of the founders of modern economics. When you introduce limited liability you remove the accountability which keeps businessmen honest and accountable to their customers. Same thing with regulations. Customers need to have options as do businessmen and both need to take responsibility for their choices regardless of whether they’re buying or selling.
If capitalism is obsolete @Warren then create something better to replace it.
Milton Friedman was always saying you can’t trust successful capitalists to defend capitalism. It is their interest to use the government or establish a government that would let them to prosper without competing.
Seriously, half if the comments on this thread don’t make sense because people have differing ideas of what capitalism is.
They think they hate capitalism but seem to advocate private ownership of factors of production & markets.
If anyone is against capitalism, please state who should control who trades with each other, and who should own factors of production other than individuals?
Its called cooperatism. Note the “tism” and it sounding a bit like what it is meant to replace. Point on the anarcho- capitalism, but let us not get caught up in utopian revisionist oxymoronic constructions. The best we’ve ever done is state monopoly capitalism under a social democratic state. Relying on selfishness and glutony to drive the invisible hand will only marry the psychopath to luck and produce tyrrany. Its as nonsense as talk about the lion trying to spread his genes literally.
Fresco’s resource based capital free economy recognizes automation and the obsolence of top down capitalism- the only kind of capitalism there has ever been as class despite what Smith would have wanted, class was always the essence and goal of capitalism in practice.
And a note on facism, it never meets that term for me without the state as religion aspect. And let us not rely on uncritical dumbed down wikipaedia versions of what capitalism is. This idea of trying to remove political economy from economic analysis is an idea with about as much merit as racism and comes from the same place.
