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Comment by supremesaboteur | Hacker News Reader

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

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.

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 :)

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