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Comment by nielsbot | Hacker News Reader

That is not what people generally mean when they say capitalism.

Most generally: "A socio-economic system based on private ownership of resources or capital."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/capitalism#English

As for the unfairness:

Capital accumulates capital, debt accumulates debt. When you accumulate capital, you can own resources (land). This means those with capital will accumulate power.

You can talk about being "bad at capitalism" but the implies you assume everyone starts with equal opportunity (capital, land, power).

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Your definition an d his are the same. Private ownership of resources or capital = I can freely trade my stuff with others for other stuff.

There is a distinction drawn in the definition between capital goods and goods in general. This is the classic "can you own a toothbrush in a communist country" argument and the answer is, as it always has been, of course yes.

If you can find a toothbrush. And if your neighbors don't turn you in to the secret police for toothbrush hoarding.

Most people just stay on the waiting list for years.

You can have aspects of socialism and capitalism in a single system. These all-or-nothing examples are naive or disingenuous.

> Most generally: "A socio-economic system based on private ownership of resources or capital."

That's circular and moronic.

Even the big about "private ownership of resources" is couched in terms that make it sound as if the person saying it is being excluded and treated unfairly. Do you know which resources capitalism lets a person own, or which person might own it?

Your money in your savings account, and you.

> You can talk about being "bad at capitalism" but the implies you assume everyone starts with equal opportunity (

It doesn't. It does assume they're adults that don't whhine about not everyone ending with inequal outcomes.

It's only circular if you assume that "Capital" doesn't have a definition. It does: Capital is resources that can be invested into the generation of more resources. In order to meet that definition, resources need to have a few characteristics: They either need to be tools of production in of thenselves (like a factory, or a hammer), or they need to be able to be turned into tools (say, iron ore), and they need to be possessable (an RF band or an idea or land only becomes capital when a system ensures it can be possessed), and they need to transferrable (your face isn't capital, the rights to your likeness are).

"Private" in this case distinguishes the system from other where, say, only the state can own capital.

> Capital is resources that can be invested into the generation of more resources. In order to meet that definition

"Capital" is my savings, or my toolbox. Or any number of things which are mine.

Pretending that it's $30 billion of investor financing, so that you can goad others into stealing it is disingenuous.

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