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Capitalism is:
- freedom to own property
- freedom to use or trade property you own
- freedom to trade services for property or other services
Who says those weren’t/aren’t capitalist? By my definition they are, to the extent that they meet the criteria.
The items listed have nothing to do with capitalism. More like "things you often find" or "things you wish were true", or more aptly, "things you are told are true, but are misleading". "freedom" to own things is not a freedom nor is it guaranteed in a capitalism economy nor is it true when faced with anything other than a nascent capitalist economy where other actors make the decision of who owns what, beyond your own agency.
I'm not sure you know what capitalism is now.
Raise up the lowly (by giving them as much freedom as possible and leveling the field between them and the powerful), bring down the lofty (by regulating them to the extent that their power takes freedom away from the lowly)... that's the ideal economic policy as I see it :)
Tried to post earlier, but got rate-limited for pissing off dang a while back.
Guess I was wrong about the definition of “capitalism”.
I don't know where you're getting this idea. There are coherent and accurate ways to measure how liberalized an economy is.
> standard of living measurements tend to be optimized for particular economic structures
They are optimized for measuring human welfare, through measures like access to and quality of food, healthcare, education, life expectancy, incidence of disease, cost of goods and services, infrastructure, etc. That they empirically end up favoring economic liberalism speaks to the effectiveness of the latter.
> not comparable across significantly different economic systems without problems
How so? If the very same country historically fares better under periods of economic liberalism, and worse under periods of economic authoritarianism, how is that not a valid data point for the effectiveness of economic liberalism versus authoritarianism?
Empirically speaking, perhaps it's not what you do, but how you do it?
Literally none of the Western European countries are socialist. They are all market economies. As the Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said:
I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.
Similarly Jeffery Sachs notes:
The eastern countries must reject any lingering ideas about a “third way”, such as a chimerical “market socialism” based on public ownership or worker self-management, and go straight for a western-style market economy...The main debate in economic reform should therefore be about the means of transition, not the ends. Eastern Europe will still argue over the ends: for example, whether to aim for Swedish-style social democracy or Thatcherite liberalism. But that can wait. Sweden and Britain alike have nearly complete private ownership, private financial markets and active labour markets. Eastern Europe today has none of these institutions; for it, the alternative models of Western Europe are almost identical.
> Countries like Venezuela and Argentina have been a mess under... "economic liberalism".
On the contrary. Those countries have fared much better under economic liberalism.
Even the US, which is usually a poster-child for economic liberalism, is far more of a planned economy than most people think. The housing market lives and dies by fanniemae/freddiemac federal subsidies, mortgage insurance, and lending policies. The healthcare market--given that many ailments and infirmities are ones of old age--is primarily driven by medicare and would go into freefall without it. Many of the higher branches of engineering are, directly or indirectly, dependents of the military industrial complex. The educational complex would shrivel and die without federal loan programs and heavy state subsidies. Every state does not need three dipshit universities and a dozen community colleges, but every state has them.
Even the Republicans know all of this. That is why all of their austerity talk ends in nickel-and-dime cuts to programs that serve the disenfranchised (welfare reform), or children (medicaid), and the debt continues to skyrocket. They know that if they make significant cuts to any of the gravy trains, there will be economic hardship and hell to pay come election time.
As for Argentina, ask someone who went through the 2001 crisis what they think. Menem devoutly followed the free market religion. Didn't stop things from going down the drain.
Why do you think it's false? I can't fathom why you think Denmark is not a market economy. Have you ever been there? How do you think the Danish economy functions?
> The housing market lives and dies by fanniemae/freddiemac federal subsidies, mortgage insurance, and lending policies.
Which contributed to the subprime mortgage bubble and subsequent financial crisis.
> The healthcare market--given that many ailments and infirmities are ones of old age--is primarily driven by medicare and would go into freefall without it.
What makes you think healthcare would go into "freefall" without Medicare? Medicare is primarily funded by payroll taxes and premiums paid by enrollees. Where did you think this money came from? Thin air?
> Many of the higher branches of engineering are, directly or indirectly, dependents of the military industrial complex.
Ok...
> The educational complex would shrivel and die without federal loan programs and heavy state subsidies.
The U.S. spends a fortune per student relative to other OECD countries, yet has mediocre outcomes. I have no idea why you think education would "shrivel and die" without this wasteful spending, inefficiency, and corruption.
Between 1970 and 2012, the full amount spent by all levels of government on the K–12 education of an individual public school student graduating in any given year, adjusted for inflation, increased by 185%. The average funding by state governments increased by 120% per student. However, scores in mathematics, science and language arts over that same period remained almost unchanged. Multi-year periods in which a state's funding per student declined substantially also appear to have had little effect.
> As for Argentina, ask someone who went through the 2001 crisis what they think.
Can you point to the relevant liberalization policies which you think made the situation worse?
Typical medicare recipient blows through his entire lifetime contribution in two years. It is propped up through progressive taxation and gobs of public debt. Medicare spending for 2017 was around $700B[0]. US healthcare spending for 2017 was $3.5T[1]. That's roughly 20% of the market. It is totally a socialist program.
As for post-secondary ed, when the whole thing is propped up through state and federal monies, what would happen to that market if it were limited to earned money, and cut off from other peoples' money? Education, the goal, has little to do with it. It's about the direct and indirect employment that comes from it. Even the Republicans aren't going to touch that.
This was Argentina's economic policy prior to the crash: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Menem#Economic_policy
Most of these economic theories and belief systems are just cover for raw power. When old people who vote want free healthcare, they're socialists. When old people who vote want fatter dividends and lower inheritance taxes, they're capitalists. All at the same time!
[0] https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/the-facts-on-medica... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-spending/u...
"Nominally"? What planet do you live on?
The definition of a market economy, in case you're unfamiliar with it, is an economic system in which decisions regarding resource allocation (including investment, production, and distribution) are determined by price signals created by supply and demand. In particular, the factors of production (land, labour, and capital) are guided by production markets, not government diktat. In other words, this is the bulk (greater part, vast majority) of all economic activity.
> Typical medicare recipient blows through his entire lifetime contribution in two years.
If this is true (I don't have a source for this claim), where do you think this money is coming from?
> It is propped up through progressive taxation and gobs of public debt.
Precisely... debt and taxes. Mostly taxes.
> Medicare spending for 2017 was around $700B[0]. US healthcare spending for 2017 was $3.5T[1]. That's roughly 20% of the market. It is totally a socialist program.
You seem to be confused about what socialism is. An economy with a social safety net is not the same as a socialist economy. The fact that Medicare comprises 20% of healthcare spending doesn't make the United States a socialist economy. (This is not even addressing the question of whether it would be better to have a less authoritarian system.)
> As for post-secondary ed, when the whole thing is propped up through state and federal monies, what would happen to that market if it were limited to earned money, and cut off from other peoples' money?
What do you think would happen?
> This was Argentina's economic policy prior to the crash: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Menem#Economic_policy
You're dodging the question, so I'll repeat it: Can you point to the relevant liberalization policy which you think made the situation worse?
> Most of these economic theories and belief systems are just cover for raw power.
Quite the contrary. Economic policies have real-world consequences. There are strong theoretical and empirical reasons to believe that some economic policies are better than others. One would have to engage in some intense self-deception to believe that all economic policies are equally effective.
People who hate on "capitalism" are often (I think) troubled by the behavior of rich/powerful people. I am too. But the solution isn't to remove property rights.
Example?