I don't get how you go from “you should be able to know what runs on your computer” to “we should eliminate private ownership and free trade”.
Your ability to truly control what runs on your machine decreases every day. Want to keep being able to talk with your friends and family? Better update the respective app, even though it removed one of the key features you relied on or enjoyed. Oh hey, now another feature you really liked is subscription-only! No going back, either, once you updated you're locked into that functionality forever.
Oh yeah, if you don't update automatically, you'll just constantly be harassed by manipulative dialog boxes that say never let you actually say "no", your choices are "yes I submit" or "maybe I'll give in to your demands later". All these coercive features are strictly driven by exactly one thing: profit. That is the absolute defining factor of all coercive functionality in modern software.
The primary driver of open source software is providing something useful to empower people and improve their lives (even in a trivial sense like some inconsequential mini-game or utility only the author cares about).
The primary driver of proprietary software is profit. Actual benefit to humans is literally secondary -- if businesses could ship software that is made with zero lines of code and provides zero benefit to anyone, but people still paid $100 for it? They'd absolutely ship that without hesitation!
Really, I can talk about this dichotomy all day, because I've been recognizing this extreme contrast increasingly every day for years as I became more and more disillusioned by the increasing hostility I've experienced from the OSes and software I thought were trying to empower me but truly only care about extracting money from me (with usefulness seeming like a side effect begrudgingly fulfilled).
On the other hand, I can easily imagine a communist government requiring people to use certain proprietary software.
Property rights and voluntary exchange are the main characteristics of capitalism. What else do you want to abolish, if not that?
Example: I want to sell my labor to B for a salary, but due to corporate ownership being banned I am not allowed to. If you just limit the size of corporations, that will still happen when B has grown a bit and is unable to hire more people due to having hit the cap.
What if we transfer the company to some other entity? Well, I want to sell my labor to B, not to that new entity. Maybe I'm friends with B, or maybe I believe in B's vision, maybe B is giving me joint ownership of the corporation, or some other reason, doesn't matter why it still is a legal limitation.
So this has nothing to do with capitalism, it happens under every single system unless you have strong forces to prevent it. If you ban companies, then informal companies will appear in the form of mafias or similar (we call medieval maffias nobles), and those will completely ignore any regulations and therefore be the worst kind of capitalism.
Capitalism is the idea of the market regulating itself, no?. Regulation / Government is a mixed economy (Socialism (edit: this is incorrect)) at best.
The whole talking point (when it is convenient) around "free enterprise" is the lack of regulation, see neoliberalism.
Regulation is also not the answer when the people in charge of regulation are or are funded by the corporate entities being regulated.
Worker cooperatives or really any economic system that privileges socially intentional results is simply a better model. I'd much rather own the means of my production than have someone else regulate the work I also do for someone else. I'd also happen to need less government and have more agency to care for the welfare of others. Hmmm..
No, markets completely regulating themselves would be anarchism. Protecting your property rights and your contracts is a form of regulations in itself, that is the fundamental part of capitalism and is what enables large companies to form without military might.
Protecting property and contract rights encompasses many things, such as protecting your property from being taken from you via unfair means such as extortion etc. This necessitates limiting others property rights, others can't just build a wall around your property and force you to sell it for example.
> Regulation / Government is a mixed economy (Socialism) at best.
No, that is just regular capitalism. Socialism doesn't allow privately owned companies. Are you from USA? They misunderstand this part a lot, thinking that Europe isn't capitalist or something.
Huh, I am from the U.S. and I wasn't aware that Socialism was sort of all or nothing. (I'm not a socialist). I would say that it is presented differently (or at least culturally differently) where I am. Good catch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism says:
> The degree of competition in markets and the role of intervention and regulation, as well as the scope of state ownership, vary across different models of capitalism. The extent to which different markets are free and the rules defining private property are matters of politics and policy.
I do think that the point of my comment is definitely still at play, even if regulation is absorbed into the definition. Happy to speak more to it.
----- I can't seem to reply to comments, so let me rephrase.
"Huh, I didn't know that, thanks for the learning opportunity! I'm very used to hearing Socialism thrown around as a boogeyman in my country whenever a policy is mentioned that benefits people disenfranchised by the aggregation of capital into the hands of a few. I think my point is still valid, regardless."
But it is, socialism is when there is no private ownership of the means of production, that is core to it. Europe has social democracy combined with capitalism, there is no socialism there. Social democracy has nothing to do with socialism, they are completely different concepts.
Edit: Some social democracy might stem from socialist movements, but there is none of that left today. No part of Europe is moving towards socialism, they are all happily capitalist with a majority of their economies being in the private sector.
Social democracy is mainly about the government serving the people and ensuring everyone gets to live a decent life. So health care, social security etc. The same thing USA does but a bit more. It doesn't have anything to do with the means of production except trying to ensure that the system serves the people.
> I think my point is still valid, regardless.
Yeah, but unless you think that taxation is theft and thus violates property rights there is nothing that prevents a capitalist state from taxing people with excess and giving that to people in need.
The "taxation is theft" crowd aren't pro capitalism, they are pro anarcho-capitalism which is essentially just anarchy. Don't listen to them.
Okay, definitely sorry for the confusion. Let me sort of explain where I'm coming from.
My primary point is pretty simple.
> any economic system that privileges socially intentional results is simply a better model.
I do think it's very counterintuitive for a word like "Captialism" to have a slippery meaning with regards to regulation, so maybe we could agree on the following assertion:
--- Capitalism is an economic system that privileges private ownership over social intention ---
If that is acceptable, then I'd like to break it down from my perspective. My understanding of work has way more to do with (social) agency and (our) my ability to provide intentional value than it has to do navigating a bloated system that is undermined by corporate interests. Please note that I am most certainly not taking a cue from Europe on the economic situation in the U.S. as I think the landscape (literally) is a bit different.
If Capitalism can be demarcated by privileging private ownership and enterprise over social intention, I believe the value proposition is that the nature of competition will create social value (jobs that give people money to eat) as a side effect of producing and distributing "innovative" products that speak to social desires. (demand). If the company cannot be competitive, perhaps there is no demand, or they can't pay well, then it's accepted that the company probably shouldn't exist.
There is also a strong notion of individual agency, in which a motivated go-getter can work hard and do well for themselves and their family.
So, I think it's fair to say that the virtuous parts of Capitalism are the idea that anyone can pull themselves out of poverty, and the mechanic of self regulation, which speaks to the ability for Capitalism to eventually meet social intention in a roundabout way.
My assertion is that mechanic of Capitalism (competition) might eventually meet social intention eventually at first through the virtue of self regulation, but the further it drifts, the harder it this becomes.
Of course, we can slap some government, social welfare, and regulatory committees on it, so now social intention (which absolutely should be exercised by meaningful work) becomes contingent on voting every so often.
Meanwhile, wealth is aggregated into the top 10% or 1% of the population, and since people are not perfect, we end up with laws like money is considered free speech, so private interests end up having a dominant say in legislation. It is not surprising that the U.S. has a wildly polarized 2 party culture, when considering how bad the current system is for both parties.
If we have more of our individual agency deferred to government, then we have more taxes and less freedom. If we don't, people starve and/or literally die.
This mechanic is absolutely a double bind with no apparent answer, aside from rethinking the mechanic of the original value proposition.
I like paying taxes for streets and schools and welfare, even though I don't have kids. I don't like paying taxes to bail out large corporations and banks who (with the government's help) reduce our social agency in the first place. So yeah, one is not theft, but think the other absolutely is.
Contingency on government for social intention in a place where hostage politics, voter suppression, and gerrymandering are very *real* things, is not a good thing.
So in all, the critique is largely against the "effects" of advanced capitalism, but also the "competitive mechanic" that allowed it to get that way in the first place.
I don't think a collective mechanic like open source is the answer either, unless developers start privileging GPL.
No, that's anarcho-capitalism.
Monopolies restrict competition, obviously.