That's the same argument that says "USSR/DDR/Cambodia/NK/etc was no real communism".
We might excuse a few diversions from a political/economic system, but after some point, like with anything else, capitalism is what capitalism does time and again.
It seems like corruption is simply endemic to the human condition. It has nothing to do with capitalism/communism/etc. Whatever the system happens to be, we will find a way to corrupt it.
Having said that, I find it to be rather unproductive and pessimistic to assert corruption is endemic to humanity and has nothing to do with ideology. Instead I would argue that the nature of the corruption has everything to do with the ideological foundations of said system.
How so? Is corruption different somehow depending on the ideological foundations of the system? Corruption is corruption. Every system has rules. When you subvert those rules for personal gain, that's corruption.
Of course.
Different systems enable, empower, and encourage, different types of corruption.
(Corruption being an abstract word, in programming terms there's no corruption "class", just corruption instances. So the nature of those corruption instances depend on the classes defined in the program -e.g. capitalism.c- you're running...).
(And of course share some basic corruption types, present in all societies/systems, e.g. theft -- the POSIX of corruption).
Check the @pjc50, @Traster etc comments at the top.
And @humanrebar already put this in abstract form: "It's worth noting that luminary capitalists like Adam Smith were very much concerned with privately enabled rent seekers in addition to government enabled ones"
Those are specific examples of corruption here in the US. Are you asserting that you wouldn't be able to find the same corruption, for example, in China?
Please provide a single example of corruption that can occur under capitalism, but wouldn't occur under another economic system. Because I'm asserting they do not exist.
> And @humanrebar already put this in abstract form: "It's worth noting that luminary capitalists like Adam Smith were very much concerned with privately enabled rent seekers in addition to government enabled ones"
Yes, he was perfectly right to. There are always private parties. Even under communism.
This kind of blank-slate, "New Soviet Man" idea has been tested and found lacking.
I'm saying that some types of corruption are endemic to certain systems. And if we see these types of corruption time and again on a system, then the system enables that type of corruption.
>It seems like corruption is simply endemic to the human condition. It has nothing to do with capitalism/communism/etc. Whatever the system happens to be, we will find a way to corrupt it.
My argument wasn't about corruption in general (which we will always have under every system), but about a certain type of enterprise-related corruption, that can't be brushed away by "no true Scotsman/capitalism", as if 'truly adhering' to the ways of capitalism would eliminate it.
Just because people are creative and invent new ways to be corrupt doesn't mean captilist societies are indifferent.
I would expect people skeptical towards corporations to see some common ground here.
If a system of government promotes X then there will appear X-related corruption. Capitalist governments promote enterprises, thus appears enterprise-related correction. Governments which promote the church will foster church-related corruption, etc. etc..
I don't see how this observation about capitalism is a particularly interesting one. Perhaps you could make some ground with "and capitalism uniquely allows this corruption to flourish on a scale never seen before" but that's not what I've seen in these kind of kneejerk criticisms.
Governments which are the party will promote party corruption. [looks at China] Yup. Checks out.
And by that standard, I'll take capitalism every day of the week:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-in-extre...
A good deal of research justifiably focuses on what life is actually like and the nature of exploitation in capitalist societies, and especially under neoliberalism. I'd point you to the work of D.K. Foley, Dumenil and Levy, Roberto Veneziani, Naoki Yoshihara, G.A. Cohen and John Roemer on those points.
That sort of ignores the actual theory of communism, but so far it's a pretty accurate assessment.
Some people will do that in any system, it's human nature.
Now, in a system that has the rule of law you cannot be prevented to do something that isn't illegal. This is actually the best (or least bad) system we've come up with.
It's childish to blame capitalism.
Jeff Bezos can amass $100 billion in wealth and donate it to philanthropic causes, but if he decided to open source AWS or pay his workers a living wage, or pay publishers a reasonable price for books, etc, he wouldn't have $100 billion in the first place.
What national economic system can function without people exploiting the system for personal gain?
The top 5% of children in some measure of ideal traits for just ruling are whisked away to a bubble where they are educated for the purpose of governing, with no opportunity to ever rejoin the general populace. They have absolute power but no opportunity to benefit themselves or their families.
That or we could tax externalities globally.
That's a baseless claim.
If anything, empirically it's true. It's the opposite idea that's fairy tale baseless...
So he's not subject to max SSN and Medicare taxes?
Could you sketch out your idea a bit more? At the moment, I'm not getting it.
"forced" can happen in more ways than one. Workers in third world sweatshops aren't forced by law to work there, but they are forced by capitalism to work there to feed their families.
Also: Exploit (v)
2. To use selfishly for one's own ends.
I don't believe that Bezos or other employers are acting selfishly when them employ people, even when they make a margin on that labor. (In fact, if they don't make a margin on that labor, they would be better off to stop employing that person, meaning the situation where the employee and employer both make money on the deal is the most stable state.)
There are tons of ways to force people that don't involve putting a gun on their head...
I would argue that this is not strictly speaking true. There are successful companies which don't (seemingly) put profit first. Examples include Morning Star (tomatoes, not the newspaper)[1], Mondragon[2] and perhaps most co-operatives in general.
Capitalism very clearly and unapologetically forces this, while some people imagine that, somehow, that constraint does not apply in other systems.
no, that’s too strong a claim. capitalism’s innovation is that it redirects greed into productive uses and allows personal gain in the process. so it explicitly accounts for our greed but doesn’t depend on it. it allows more pro-social forms of trade and competition as well.
the reason it seems so heartless/exploitative is that highly competitive markets push the competitors to extremes and money is used to keep score. and people cheat easily; some not to lose, some to win at all costs. (even in non-highly competitive markets this happens if status is highly sought by owners/execs)
In a systme that has the rule of law, the lawmakers can choose to make certain behaviours legal if or when they harm the society. For example, private and corporate tax loopholes can be closed, and corrupt behavior can be outlawed or a liability instituted that the harmed party can claim.
It's childish not to blame capitalist governments for allowing certain kinds of corruption that are left to fester.