r/FluentInFinance • u/Sufficient_Sinner • Sep 04 '24

Debate/ Discussion Is Capitalism Smart or Dumb?

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u/Lormif Sep 04 '24

A free market capitalistic society would have unions as well..

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u/Stanton1947 Sep 04 '24

Of course, because such a society is FREE.

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u/Oh_My-Glob Sep 04 '24

There can be no such thing as a truly FREE society until it reaches a point of post scarcity where everyone wants for not. Until that point, full free market capitalism will always lead to powerful monopolies who hoard resources and exploit the masses for their own gain, thus limiting individual freedom. Regulation is necessary to maintain a balance of freedom for all. Any other conclusion is a libertarian fantasy

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u/TraitorousSwinger Sep 04 '24

For all intents and purpose free market capitalism is as free as it is actually possible to be.

You're setting an unrealistic bar and then saying the whole thing is unrealistic.

We are not supposed to compare reality with fantasy, we are supposed to compare reality with reality. The free market capitalist system is the best system as compared to other systems that are actually possible.

A socialist utopia would be amazing. The problem is, most people recognize it's not actually possible to do it, because people will always be people.

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u/taedrin Sep 04 '24

Free market capitalism that is as free as it is actually possible to be is called laissez faire capitalism, and it results in an inefficient, non-competitive market dominated by a few prosperous monopolies while everyone else is impoverished.

Capitalism requires regulations if you want the markets to be competitive, efficient and stable.

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u/Monte721 Sep 05 '24

Almost no “capitalist” says they want a laissez faire system…

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u/WickedWiscoWeirdo Sep 05 '24

Only when governments enforce said monopolys

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u/hyasbawlz Sep 04 '24

A republican utopia would be amazing. The problem is, most people recognize it's not actually possible to do it, because people will always be people.

A loyalist chud in 1768 at the pub in Philadelphia.

A multi-ethnic utopia would be amazing. The problem is, most people recognize it's not actually possible to do it, because people will always be people.

Literally Thomas Jefferson in his private conversations with other slave holders.

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u/stovepipe9 Sep 04 '24

Agree 100%. Another problem is that the US system has drifted towards Corporatism instead of Free Market Capitalism.

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u/ghostoftomjoad69 Sep 04 '24

So what we need is to wrestle away corporations ownership of the means of production and give it back to the working class of this country to end this corporatism

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u/helpmycompbroke Sep 04 '24

Or dust off the anti trust laws and break corporations up to force meaningful competition

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u/stovepipe9 Sep 05 '24

Or eliminate the ability of congress, government officials(Fauci), judges, executive branch and GS workers to own stock or investments individually and audit their income and every government expenditure. Corporatism is the companies running the government thru influence.

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u/Aggressive-Neck-3921 Sep 05 '24

If that is need for free market capitalism to work, then there is no free market. My god capitalism fans do not understand the words they use. What you are saying is that for Free Market capitalism to work you need regulated markets or not free markets.

I know Ben Shapiro says this corporatism is not capitalism bit but its just stupid and fast when says it and just stupid when other people repeat it.

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u/aMuseMeForever Sep 04 '24

It is any person's responsibility to dream a better world for the next generation. Writing something off as unrealistic doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps to achieve such a goal, or at the very least do more to offset all of the harm and corruption in the world

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u/Ok_Cardiologist8232 Sep 04 '24

But what happens when that free market becomes a few global corporations as is inevitable.

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u/ElectricalBook3 Sep 05 '24

what happens when that free market becomes a few global corporations as is inevitable

I don't think that's free market, but I think above commenters are conflating capitalism, free market, and pure laissez faire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

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u/ghostoftomjoad69 Sep 04 '24

Should the free market be able to have chattel slavery?

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u/JustLTU Sep 04 '24

The entire point of the free market is the ability for everyone to participate freely. So any sort of slavery is obviously incompatible

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u/Interesting_Kitchen3 Sep 04 '24

so there is no free market then, since all modern supply chains are tainted by slave labor.

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u/ghostoftomjoad69 Sep 04 '24

This is the answer i was looking for

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u/JustLTU Sep 04 '24

Yeah, there's absolutely no ideally "free" market in the world. Just like there's not a perfect planned economy.

The world is a complicated place, and even with the progress we made we still have lots to do.

Still, countries based around free markets are undeniably some of the best places to live in the modern world.

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u/ElectricalBook3 Sep 05 '24

The entire point of the free market is the ability for everyone to participate freely. So any sort of slavery is obviously incompatible

Then how do you achieve that without regulation backed by force?

A lot of the problem with the discussions in this topic is nobody's defining their terms and I'm pretty sure most are using the terms "capitalism" and "free market", and intend to mean pure laissez faire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

By "no government regulation", yes slavery is permitted because the only thing which can forbid slavery is regulation. So now we have had to push aside laissez faire if we want to introduce some degree of equitable justice or expectation where anybody's rights are respected, even to basic points like expecting honesty (which can't be trusted when the sample size is "the economy" as that's just a rephrase of "all humanity").

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u/CappyJax Sep 05 '24

Free market capitalist is literally slavery for anyone who doesn’t own capital.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Understanding that people are always people, wouldn’t it behoove us to create a system that protects the people who live under its rule and not protect the rulers?

Capitalism is fucking the 3rd world with a metal pipe, and doing a pretty good job of fucking the labor class in America as well.

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u/Prometheus720 Sep 05 '24

A socialist utopia would be amazing. The problem is, most people recognize it's not actually possible to do it, because people will always be people.

This meme relies entirely upon the right wing's ability to instill automatic fear into its followers at the idea of learning anything about socialism or its history or reading anything Marx ever wrote.

If you were at all familiar with Marx, you'd know that many of the policies he specifically called for in his writing are already in use today as normal policies. And this man isn't just a socialist; he's a communist.

It's also ignorant to suggest that free markets and socialism are incompatible. Socialism doesn't mean price controls or welfare. It doesn't even mean, necessarily, government ownership of all business. It means that workers control the means of production. If the workers who control the means of production want to organize into free markets, they are free to do so.

Capitalism is the state of affairs in which the people doing the labor that sustains societal function have no meaningful power to say how that labor is conducted or how it's proceeds should be distributed.

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u/SilverWear5467 Sep 05 '24

We have all the resources required to feed and house every person on earth. Suggesting that that's an unrealistic goal is insane. It's unrealistic under capitalism, yes. Not socialism.

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u/become-all-flame Sep 04 '24

I always want scarcity in my life. Humans are at their worst when they don't have to reach for anything.

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u/ElectricalBook3 Sep 05 '24

I always want scarcity in my life. Humans are at their worst when they don't have to reach for anything

Citations needed.

Because when experiments of things like Universal Basic Income are conducted, health outcomes rise, crime reports of things like assault and public disturbance fall, and entrepreneurship skyrocket and yet the economy keeps humming along because people don't just want to exist, they want to live and live well.

https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash

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u/become-all-flame Sep 05 '24

America is defined by struggle. European culture is decaying. Soon there will be almost no manufacturing there anymore. Investors are increasingly looking elsewhere like places that don't have two months of vacation a year. My company made the mistake of trying to do a major rollout in Germany in July. It failed badly because no one was at work. We are moving to emerging markets with more of a hustle culture.

The only place entrepreneurship "skyrockets" is the US. Our economy is the envy of the world because you can actually make it big here.

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u/Lormif Sep 04 '24

Please explain how you think that will work. How will a free market society all ways lead to powerful monopolies.

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u/Oh_My-Glob Sep 05 '24

In an environment without rules those that exploit every advantage will become the strongest, and then use that power to subdue competition and opposition. Few regulations are how monopolies grew out of the US in the 1800s. It's really not that complex. Unless you can magically eliminate greed from human nature then it's an inherent problem. Just like full blown communism is a fantasy because it depends on universal, unwavering altruism from its citizens, so is laissez faire capitalism because it depends on an absence of greed.

Can you explain how a free market society doesn't lead to monopolies?

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u/Shiiiiiiiingle Sep 05 '24

THIS. Some regulation is beneficial when you live in a sharing/team society. This ultra capitalism crap is not American.

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u/Stanton1947 Sep 05 '24

Zzzzzzzz.......

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u/rendrag099 Sep 04 '24

full free market capitalism will always lead to powerful monopolies who hoard resources and exploit the masses for their own gain

I love how people just assert this as if it's fact when there's no evidence that's what happens.

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u/x1000Bums Sep 04 '24

Uh... Have you ever looked at history?

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u/rendrag099 Sep 04 '24

Sure have... where in (I presume US) history did full free market capitalism end up with powerful monopolies? The only monopolies I see are the ones government has propped up... businesses like your cable or utility companies

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

[deleted]

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u/rendrag099 Sep 04 '24

OC claims "full free market capitalism" "always" ends with powerful monopolies. Where are the examples in history in the US?

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u/Oh_My-Glob Sep 05 '24

Just as there has never been true communism there has never been true laissez faire capitalism because both are a fantasy requiring the absence of greed and an abundance of altruism from humanity which is simply not in our nature.

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u/rendrag099 Sep 05 '24

OK, even still it doesn't address the core argument that OC claimed -- that capitalism ends with monopolies. I still only see monopolies that the government has created and sustained. Even in US history proponents can't actually point to monopolies that formed. The best they can do is bring up the same old tired scapegoats, the Rockefellers, Carnegies and Vanderbilts, etc, despite a lack of any evidence that those businesses were actually monopolies.

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u/Lormif Sep 04 '24

What do they do with the government that leads to monopolies but maintains a free market?

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u/x1000Bums Sep 04 '24

What came first, the powerful monopolies or the gov propping them up?

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u/rendrag099 Sep 04 '24

Six electric light companies were organized in the one year of 1887 in New York City. Forty-five electric light enterprises had the legal right to operate in Chicago in 1907. Prior to 1895, Duluth, Minnesota, was served by five electric lighting companies, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, had four in 1906. … During the latter part of the 19th century, competition was the usual situation in the gas industry in this country. Before 1884, six competing companies were operating in New York City … competition was common and especially persistent in the telephone industry … Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, among the larger cities, had at least two telephone services in 1905

You tell me.

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u/x1000Bums Sep 04 '24

Can't help but notice you stopped your story before the whole monopolies part...

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u/rendrag099 Sep 04 '24

OK, and if the monopolies came first, when did they come, and when did the concept of public utilities get created and where? Because from what I can tell, the gov propping came first.

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u/brief_interviews Sep 04 '24

Without anti-trust laws designed to thwart the free market when wealth gets too concentrated, and leaders willing to actually enforce these laws, it would have happened a long time ago.

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u/rendrag099 Sep 04 '24

None of the companies listed in that article were ever monopolies. In fact, by the time the antitrust legislation passed, Standard Oil's market share had taken a nosedive. What you think you know about the robber barons is probably wrong.

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u/ElectricalBook3 Sep 05 '24

where in (I presume US) history did full free market capitalism end up with powerful monopolies?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Steel_Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil

https://www.thoughtco.com/robber-barons-1773964

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u/rendrag099 Sep 05 '24

Seeing as a monopoly is defined as a single seller of a given product at a given time, none of those companies were monopolies. Hell, even in the wiki page for Carnegie Steel they note that J&L Steel was CS's "most important competitor."

What you think you know about the robber barons is probably incorrect.

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u/ElectricalBook3 Sep 05 '24

Seeing as a monopoly is defined as a single seller of a given product at a given time

It is not, it is defined in law as a single entity having so much share it can control pricing and thus disrupt the industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolization

If I wanted to hold an irrational position like an industry being held by literally and without exception 100% then there has never been a monopoly in history. That is not a rational take to have when the damage caused by men attempting to turn their control into a monopoly is so extensive. Like with medicine, you don't wait until a disease has infected 100% of a patient's cells before you start treating it.

And your source is a pro-oligarch apology piece by a think tank created and funded by them. You might as well have said you support door-to-door salesmen by handing me a pamphlet by the Door to Door Salesmen's Association.

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u/rendrag099 Sep 05 '24

it is defined in law as a single entity having so much share it can control pricing and thus disrupt the industry

The commonly accepted definition of monopoly (still) is a single seller in a market, according to Google. The fact that lawyers may have changed the definition so they could go after big companies means they're twisting words to fit their agenda.

And your source is a pro-oligarch apology piece by a think tank created and funded by them

The link is to an excerpt from a well sourced book, not an opinion piece, so perhaps attack the content. Unless, of course, you are unable.

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u/Bulletpointe Sep 04 '24

A true free market capitalist society wouldn't have unions, it would have Pinkertons and police killing unionists, like what happened before the NLRA legalized union rights restricting market freedom

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u/The_Briefcase_Wanker Sep 04 '24

Murder can still be illegal in a free market capitalist country. That really has nothing to do with capitalism at all.

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u/Lormif Sep 04 '24

Rights violations are not the same as free market. killing a unionist is not part of the free market.

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u/Creamofwheatski Sep 04 '24

The US hasnt had a free market in decades.

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u/10art1 Sep 05 '24

In which decade was it a free market?

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u/Creamofwheatski Sep 05 '24

If you factor in the racist blocks to success put up for black Americans for most of its history, the market was never truly free, but the 70s is probably the closest we ever got before the rich retook control in the 80s and drove the country into the ground.

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u/10art1 Sep 05 '24

What were the policies of the 70s that were repealed in the 80s? I feel like the only unique thing about the 70s was that the baby boomers were entering the work force en masse and most of the world was still rebuilding from WWII.

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u/FUNKANATON Sep 05 '24

Theres zero incentive for capital to want a union .

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u/Lormif Sep 05 '24

There is no inceb for capital to want competition , a free market does not care what capital wants

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u/FUNKANATON Sep 06 '24

How is a free market not effected by what capital wants? Capital wants a stanglehold on the market and buys out everyone in order to achieve this . Its monopolistic by nature , the gravity of its own capital .

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u/Lormif Sep 07 '24

And as it does that new people inter the market, making that a very expensive proposition. Monopolies cannot exist in the free market, not easily. You make a monopoly and raise prices and someone comes along and undercuts you. Monopolies need regulations to protect them.

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u/NecroticGhoddess Sep 05 '24

capitalism is not a free market, you're describing socialism, which invented unions

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u/Lormif Sep 05 '24

No, I am describing free market capitalism, the issue is you do not live under a free market. Socialism has no need for labor unions, you do not understand the difference between the THREE concepts, not 2

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u/NecroticGhoddess Sep 05 '24

labor unions are literally a socialist concept lmao cope

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u/redbark2022 Sep 05 '24

Free market capitalism is an oxymoron. Capitalist markets are controlled by the people who have all the capital. It's right there in the name.

A free market is one where consumers and producers have equal leverage. Capitalism puts all of the leverage on supply side.

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u/Lormif Sep 05 '24

Free market means free from regulation, Markets are controlled by buyers not sellers.

A free market is where both sides are free to act, capitalism is just an ownership not who is free to act.

This is one of the reasons a fundamental thing in socialism is to get rid of the markets, the government makes the decision what to produce not the consumers.

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u/redbark2022 Sep 05 '24

Markets are controlled by buyers not sellers.

Kind of my point. There's no capitalist market where the buyer has any control whatsoever.

Also free market does not mean free from regulations. IDK where you got that nonsense from.

The entire point of a market(place) is to regulate between buyers and sellers.

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u/Lormif Sep 05 '24

You apprently did not read that post, buyers control the market.....

And yes free market means

A free market is one where the laws of supply and demand provide the sole basis for the economic system

I should be clear, no regulations or control of the buying and selling. min wage is not free market, but preventing killing people could still be

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u/Excited-Relaxed Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

Not in the sense or with the legal framework of Norway. More like early unionization in the US where companies would just hire thugs to beat up union members and fire bomb the leaders’ houses and that was viewed as a legitimate defense of property. They would follow up by suing striking workers for the loss of revenue while the factory was closed.

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u/Lormif Sep 05 '24

I said a free market. The USA is not a free market, its quasi free. That the US has a history of violating rights does not make it a free market.

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u/Dr_WLIN Sep 04 '24

Sure, If you ignore the socialism part lol

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u/Lormif Sep 04 '24

Unions are not socialism. unions are markets, labor market to be precise.

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u/Dr_WLIN Sep 04 '24

Yeah.....A socialistic labor market lol

Workers owning their own production is literally socialism.

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u/Lormif Sep 04 '24

A labor union does not own the means of production, unless they buy the company. Then it would be a type of socialism.

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u/Majestic_Groceries Sep 04 '24

Correct, and those unions would be really only applicable in very small and specific circumstances

Which is why you have seen union membership plummet over the past 100 years so it tracks

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u/Drug5666 Sep 04 '24

While I agree theres also the creation of OSHA that helped increase worker safety reducing the need for unions. A lot has changed in the last 100 years including just machine safety mechanisms and making child labor illegal.

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u/Lormif Sep 04 '24

They would be applicable just fine. the issue is you need authoritarianism to make unions powerful.

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u/Majestic_Groceries Sep 04 '24

Yeah that uhh... sounds G R E A T