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Comment by cryptonector | Hacker News Reader

Capitalism isn't a theory. It's an emergent result of letting people own themselves, property, and the fruits of their own labor while also letting them trade their property and labor. Thus capitalism is freedom. To replace capitalism with any theory requires identifying which freedoms you mean to constrain or abandon altogether.

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>Thus capitalism is freedom.

Capitalism is absolutely compatible with slavery. If you eat seafood, you almost certainly have eaten food harvested by a slave.

Not to mention the numerous historical examples.

Capitalism is not compatible with forced labor. It may be compatible with slavery if you define slavery in a way that includes consensual labor. Systems that are partly capitalist may be compatible with forced labor, but in this case the part that allows the forced labor is not the capitalist part of the system and the blame should rest on the system not being capitalist enough.

For example, Resolution No. 9855 in Venezuela allows the government to force workers to move from their current jobs to work in farm fields or elsewhere in the agricultural sector for periods of 60 days. That is forced labor. But it is not to be blamed on capitalism; in fact, it would have been prevented by capitalism.

Nonsense. Capitalism coexisted with the literal buying and selling of humans as property.

If you want to redefine those systems as not real capitalism, you should also redefine all of the "communist" systems as not real communism because they were nowhere close to the textbook definition of communism. Textbook communism is stateless, while all of those examples had a state.

My definition isn't (see above). But nothing is perfect. It's hard not to trade even with the enemy, whatever their practices might be. What are the alternatives that don't even lead to slavery? Communism certainly does, but capitalism does not (even if we do some trade with nations that use slave labor).

EDIT: And I should add that capitalism, along with Enlightenment values, has been the biggest force for freedom and prosperity yet.

>It's an emergent result of letting people own themselves, property, and the fruits of their own labor while also letting them trade their property and labor.

I'm not sure what system you're talking about, but what you're describing is certainly not Capitalism or freedom. Capitalism does not give people the full fruits of their labor, it allows the owner to steal the surplus value off of the workers, creating inequality. Surplus value being the capital left once the equipment, wages, and bills have been paid, and without surplus value the business would not continue to exist. That's not exactly freedom. There's nothing in any radical left wing ideology that says you can't trade your personal property or labor, private property doesn't exist. I'm also not sure a system that requires homelessness and poverty is "freedom", or one that requires people who can't afford health insurance to purchase it or die. I'm not sure a system that puts 1 in 100 in prison based on racial profiling and petty crimes, and does nothing to help them, creating a large recidivism rate for the sole benefit of prison slave labor is called 'freedom'.

It is imperative that far left wing influences keep capitalism in check, or it will run away into pure corruption like it is now.

Capitalism gives people the full fruits of their labor except when they voluntarily decide to give the fruits of their labor to someone else, possibly in exchange for something. Why would anyone do this? Specialization and trade. Maybe they are more productive if they can work with other people. Maybe they need access to capital. Maybe they prefer having something liquid, like money, instead of fruits that they cannot do much with. Maybe they prefer to have a stable income in the short term instead of having an income that depends on their productivity and the desirability of their fruits for other people in the current market conditions. But in any case it has to be voluntary—otherwise, it is not capitalism.

I agree that the prisons are bad, but the system that puts people in prisons is the state, not capitalism. Be sure to blame the right ideology. Same for the homelessness and poverty—to some extent it is impossible to prevent them because of scarcity, but to a great extent they are due to rent controls, zoning laws, restrictions on trade, deadweight loss from taxes. Again, be sure to blame the right ideology.

>Capitalism gives people the full fruits of their labor except when they voluntarily decide to give the fruits of their labor to someone else

A lot of people don't have a choice otherwise, except homelessness and poverty. Not exactly a 'free' system. Runaway free market Capitalism creates this problem as it sends money to the very top leaving the rest to fight for a small portion of the pie. Working is not voluntary in USA unless you already have plenty of money, or are supported by someone with money.

>to some extent it is impossible to prevent them because of scarcity

There's no such thing as scarcity of pretty much anything in USA. We have 18.9 million vacant homes, with 3.5 million homeless [1]. We throw away 150,000 tons of food every single day [2]. There's no scarcity there, it's just capitalism at work.

I'm putting the blame on the correct ideology. None of this would happen under a sane system with checks and balances. What you're seeing right now is _raw capitalism_ at work.

[1] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-skip-bronson/post_733...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/18/american...

> A lot of people don't have a choice otherwise, except homelessness and poverty. Not exactly a 'free' system.

Right. The system we are in is not a free system and those are indeed problems with this system.

> Runaway free market Capitalism creates this problem as it sends money to the very top leaving the rest to fight for a small portion of the pie.

Crony capitalism creates this problem, not free market capitalism. Crony capitalism is an opposite of a free market.

> Working is not voluntary in USA unless you already have plenty of money, or are supported by someone with money.

It is voluntary. It is unfortunately necessary too, in many cases, but again, the United States are only weakly capitalist.

> There's no such thing as scarcity of pretty much anything in USA.

The United States’ GDP per capita is $59,501. That’s scarcity.

> We have 18.9 million vacant homes, with 3.5 million homeless [1].

I just mentioned rent controls. I agree that this is bad, but it’s got nothing to do with capitalism.

> None of this would happen under a sane system with checks and balances.

Agreed. We might disagree about which system this is though.

> What you're seeing right now is _raw capitalism_ at work.

Either we’re not using the same definition of capitalism or it isn’t. I am anarcho-capitalist. Raw capitalism looks like not having a state, or at the very least having only a minimal state. What I’m seeing is Donald Trump imposing tariffs on solar panels, washing machines, and imports of steel and aluminum. Raw capitalism this is anything but.

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