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Comment by C0mm0nS3ns3 | Hacker News Reader

It's hilarious that you would attribute that to capitalism when the Fossil Fuel and Gas industry was one of the most subsidised industries over the last 100 years. Capitalism is against government helping any kind of company :)

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They're fine with subsidies when it suits them.

>Capitalism is against government helping any kind of company :)

Was that ever the case? I can't think of many industries that didn't see direct help from the government in one way or another.

> I can't think of many industries that didn't see direct help from the government in one way or another.

That might be a necessary evil but has nothing to do with Capitalism. Throughout the time we've seen different degrees of government involvement in the market. Capitalism claims the less government involvement, the better. There can be a discussion if a purely Capitalistic market (0 government involvement) can exist but claiming government helped industries are the result of capitalism is just wrong.

Capitalism is financial democracy. The market (aka the people) vote with their money. If a company goes down, that's ok, another one will replace it if it was a company that produced a necessary product. The Government getting involved in this process is very anti-capitalistic. Takes away the freedom of people to vote with their money and instead incentivizes companies to ignore the people and just lobby and play the system that the government put in place. So calling that Capitalism when it's the very thing Capitalism tries to avoid is an anti-truth.

You do realize that governments created both markets and capitalism right? Markets are older than capitalism and have been tools for governments to provision themselves. In fact, anthropologists couldn't find a society that voluntarily chose markets. Markets are a product of conquest. Capitalism is a product of the feudal system collapsing. Capitalism cannot exist without a strong government because it requires markets, a legal framework that allows you to own property, and a working financial system.

I don't know exactly how you define markets or capitalism but I'm pretty sure when small tribes meet and exchanged merchandise (money was not even a thing then) that's a text book definition of a market. And a Capitalist market at that, 0 government involvement. The person who had the best cows was getting all his/her's cows sold while the person who's cows were not taken care of was run out of business. That's Capitalism in it's essence. That's long before even the concept of a country existed.

Have you talked to actual capitalists? Like, people who actually own capital? They don't want handouts to their competitors, but want them for themselves. If you own a business, of course you want government subsidies.

But wait, you are probably talking about market purists. Those don't really exist in the business world.

I mean, it would be stupid if the government involved itself into the market to not take advantage of that. What exactly are you proposing? That a company would want the competitors to get handouts and not want them for themselves? That's dumb. So of course if you take it as a given that the government will manipulate the market, companies would want to take advantage of that to get a leg up.

Companies that are market purists don't exist? Any company that outperforms their competitors wants the government to stay out of it. Any company that's behind will want the government to step in so they can take advantage of that and not get run out of business.

Only some factions of capital use that rhetoric, and often don't even mean it.

Capitalism is only maintained through state power exercised by the capitalist ruling class.

> Capitalism is only maintained through state power exercised by the capitalist ruling class.

Your confusing Capitalism with Government Aided Corporatism :)

This is the same argument that communists use all the time

"Socialism/Communism is great and we should all live under that system as it is self-evidently the best"

"Well, there were some pretty bad aspects of the USSR and communist China, maybe we should take heed of those."

"Actually, I now choose to define communism as a perfect, not-yet-realised ideal. Any criticism you have of the closest existing system is actually a criticism of State Capitalism and not applicable to real communism."

---

"Capitalism is great and we should all live under that system as it is self-evidently the best"

"Well, there are some pretty bad aspects of the capitalist systems, maybe we should take heed of those."

"Actually, I now choose to define capitalism as a perfect, not-yet-realised ideal. Any criticism you have of the closest existing system is actually a criticism of Corporatism and not applicable to real capitalism."

Fair point. That might be the case... I fail to see how Capitalism inevitably requires Big Government in the same way that Communism inevitably requires centralized power but it might be my problem and you might be right. I'll have to spend more time thinking about it.

I always thought about it as an indirect connection. Capitalism -> Economic Prosperity -> People become more socialist -> Big Government that undermines Capitalism. But that might be wrong. Have to think about it some more.

Thank you for your reply!

Regulatory capture is part of capitalism

Didn't find any mention of capitalism here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture.

Not sure on what basis you make this statement.

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