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Comment by demonshalo | Hacker News Reader

> we are living in a capitalism world

Far from it. Far far far faaaaaaaaaar from it!

To what extent would we need more capitalism? Currently, you have companies literally able to shut down countries (see examples of cigarette giants suing countries), and companies like Comcast being so anti-competition that they sue towns trying to set up faster internet fiber lines. That's not even involving the massive influence companies have with government officials in legal means via lobbying. Companies aren't charitable, and yet they give millions upon millions to politicians... And then of course there is the hilarious trends of a politician passing laws and then somehow, repeatedly, getting cushy jobs with big oil / Comcast / etc after they exit government work.

The point I'm getting at is companies have far more power and far more sway than any one person, Government worker or private citizen, so at what point does a world become capitalist? Do we have to shut down government and literally be run by Comcast before we consider it a capitalist world?

Companies shutting down other countries and bribes are not a part of capitalism. These acts are dick-moves that can happen in a socialist or communist system also.

So if it doesn't matter which system we live in because corruption can happen in any system, why not quit masking the real issue by making it about capitalism? The real problem here is corruption and lack of accountability. That's equally likely in whatever system we choose.

The difference is, a working Government works for the people. Note I said a working Government. A company has no loyalty, no core incentive to work for anyone but themselves. They have no reason to be nice, and not do "dick moves" as you put it.

We can't expect companies to have morals, they should operate within the law. Governments must keep them in check, keep the laws safe for humanity.

To me, I extend this to anything that "matters". Ie, I believe in reformed health care because health care is too important to me to be handled by corruption. Insurance companies are not aligned with the peoples incentives. Just like how Cable is not aligned with my incentives either. They want to squash competition, stifle innovation, and fundamentally change an equal playing field of access and bandwidth.

And by that you mean that we live in what, communism? IMO what I can see 'around' is the capitalism at it's worst, with cash aggregation by top players. And who has the money has the power, as it was since the beginning of time.

It is possible to be far from a free market economy and still not be completely communist

I didn't mean that it has to be either capitalism or communism. What I meant is that IMO what we have right now is still a form of modern capitalism, albeit I agree that it became kind of twisted in comparison to the capitalism from the beginning of the 20th century.

If capitalism is getting to the form that Standard Oil followed at the turn of the last century, perhaps it is disingenuous to continue calling it capitalism?

Or maybe Standard Oil was a forefather of modern capitalism? Maybe that was a pure form of it? I'd say the idea that the state does not intervene in the market is heartwarming, but if the state doesn't protect it's people the market will abuse them. Anyway I'm sure that there is some economic forum, where this discussion would be more appropriate :)

And it is possible to be far from a free market economy and still be capitalist, because Capitalism and "free market economy" aren't synonymous.

Let me cite Wikipedia since it's good enough here: "Capitalism is an economic system and an ideology based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive markets." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism)

> Characteristics central to capitalism

The word "central" here implies that this definition, or summary, does not define capitalism per se.

The ISPs are not operating in "competitive markets", so they are not operating in capitalist markets.

This is the core issue. ISPs rarely compete, so they have little incentive to make their customer's lives better.

IMO fixing this should be the central push for the "save the internet" folks.

The system is Capitalism and the markets exist within it. It makes no sense to claim that some of those markets aren't capitalist for lacking competition. In other words, while competitive markets are a characteristic of Capitalism, not every market within the system needs to have strong competition, especially because another characteristic of Capitalism is that successful competitors tend to crush smaller ones and form monopolies.

The ISP market is no anomaly but just another facet of Capitalism.

Or more generally, those who have a say in resource allocation, have the power.

Therefore, this is a blatant power grab by the ISPs - suddenly they get to decide how to allocate a resource, however artificial that resource may be.

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