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Comment by dandare | Hacker News Reader

> Only that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century capitalism is done.

I am really tired of all these off-hand attacks on capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system. It is characterized by private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. If you prefer a centralized or shared economy, that is fine, although I was born in a communist country and I bet you have no idea what you wish for.

Capitalism is not responsible for some local injustice, corruption, or mistreatment of workers. If you think there is no corruption in a dictatorship or that communism is a worker paradise you are grossly misinformed. Europe runs on capitalism too, but Europe also has strong worker protections and ethical norms.

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"21st-century capitalism" is a system - it is characterized by low worker negotiating leverage, a fragile social safety net, and low or nonexistent effective taxes on businesses. He may have been better served by qualifying it as "21st-century American capitalism", but in context that is quite clear.

There were specific kinds of corruption and abuses that the Soviet system encouraged and abetted; there are specific kinds of corruption and abuses that the current American system encourages and abets. The system is indeed responsible for those abuses, just like any other system.

Yes, you have described the 21-century American political-economic system. What do you gain by adding the word "capitalism"? How are these negatives caused by defining characteristics of capitalism? How do you explain that other developed nations do not suffer from these problems despite also running on capitalism? Use Occam's razor. By adding unnecessary qualifiers to your statement you are decreasing the relevance of your statement, not increasing it.

It's incredibly frustrating that "21st-century capitalism" has become a shorthand for the anti-free market clusterfuck of a system that we've ended up with. The ignorance displayed by so many people blaming "capitalism" makes me feel like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Also, there's an argument to be made that America is not actually truly capitalist.

The government intervenes in the market all the time, especially now. Nothing big is allowed to fail. $Trillions to keep the party going.

That's not capitalism.

Even Buffett is sitting this "recovery" out because he can see the lack of a free market.

Isn't this the same rhetorical move that communists/socialists get accused of all the time? How can you claim that the most ideologically capitalist country on the planet isn't actually capitalist?

To be fair, a lot of the criticism of communism/socialism really is misguided :). But is US the most ideologically capitalist country on the planet? Or is that is just election campaign populism? Few examples: US has high barriers to enter certain markets in the form of bureaucracy and incumbent market manipulation. US has low overall taxation - 25% of GDP, (which is good) but the taxes come disproportionally from the poor. Then the portion of transfers back to the people is lover than average causing effects like #27 place in social mobility.

"No True Scotsman"

That is not how you use the No True Scotsman fallacy. US is not the world economy, US economy is not defining characteristics of capitalism.

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