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Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

Nope. Capitalism == free markets == non-coersion. We have a highly mixed economy now, not capitalism.

If you consider large government bureaus (public, or "private" via regulation, like, say, Verizon) to define "capitalism" just because there are large amounts of money involved ("capital"), you are defining the term by non-essentials. There were also large amounts of money in the USSR.

Capitalism lost because of European intellectual influences in America; the existing defense of the ideas of the founding fathers was insufficient to stem the tide.

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>>Capitalism == free markets == non-coersion

Wrong. Capitalism is synonymous with free enterprise, not free markets. And free enterprise simply means that enterprises (rather than states) own the means of production.

Agreed. We can definitly have unrestricted free markets with community owned syndicates and still be able to create tailored products and respond to demans.

IMO, we need to start talking about workplace democracy if we're going to continue to entertain the idea of corporate controlled society, so that the common person can at least get their vote back (indirectly, by choosing who leads the company which bribes officials...).

IMO, we need to stop having people control one another. There is no self-interested reason to do it, from anyone's point of view.

I definitely agree with you. I subscribe to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism.

That said, many, many, people believe that most people are not competent, and need to be taken care of/controlled/limited.

Arguments I usually have to fight against are: What to do about crime. What to do about "evil" people. What to do about property rights. What to do about control in decisions.

I think "libertarian socialism" is a worse than worthless contradiction.

There is a simple solution to all the problems you mention, which is to have a government that uses retaliatory force, but not initiatory force.

America had one for about a century, and now there is the intellectual machinery needed to go back to that system and to define and defend it much more vigorously. Unfortunately, a majority of "advocates for freedom" are mucking around with things like "libertarian socialism" and "anarcho-capitalism" which are contradictions in terms and won't work.

> I think "libertarian socialism" is a worse than worthless contradiction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

Well, most libertarians are subjectivists. There is no possibility of objective knowledge of reality. You're showing your true colors.

Unfortunately for you (until or unless you stop fighting the truth), objective knowledge is possible.

Nope. Your definitions are contradictory.

There is no such thing as a "free enterprise" without a "free market", and vice versa.

To the degree you do not have a "free market," you have government regulation. To the degree you have government regulation, successful enterprises are organs of the state.

Free markets == free enterprise == capitalism. Why? Because they all just fall out of "the government only uses force to stop other people from initiating force and retaliating against them when they do," which is a proper government. And, as a sidenote, this is what the US Founding Fathers set up, to the closest extent they could.

>>There is no such thing as a "free enterprise" without a "free market", and vice versa.

Your understanding of what is meant by "free enterprise" is false. Source: I have a degree in Economics and wrote my senior's thesis on this subject.

"Free enterprise" in this context means the enterprise has internal freedom - i.e. it is owned and controlled by non-state actors, as in people like you and me. These non-state actors can do whatever they want. Yes, there are still rules and regulations they operate under, but this does not mean that they are not free.

The language "free enterprise" is specifically used to distinguish capitalism from communism, where the state controls the means of production, i.e. the enterprises (e.g. factories) are owned by the government, which typically exerts authoritarian control over them and determines what should be produced and how. The enterprises in communism have no internal freedom: they follow the government's orders. If the government says the factory should produce computers, that's what the factory produces. If the governments says it should produce tanks, that's what it produces. Whereas in capitalism, enterprises can produce whatever they want as long as they do it legally. They are still free.

> Yes, there are still rules and regulations they operate under, but this does not mean that they are not free.

Under rules and regulations, an enterprise is not free to allocate its capital at it desires, produce the products it desires, market them in the way it desires, and sell them to who it desires.

The degree to which that is true depends on the scope of the rules and regulations. If the only one is that there is a 5% income tax, the enterprise loses 5% of its freedom to allocate its capital. In reality, in our mixed economy, companies operate under many, many restrictions. In areas like finance and telecom, we have full-on regulatory monopolies: an enterprise has no freedom without permission, and new permissions are not being granted.

I am fully aware that academic economists consistently define things according to non-essentials, and the only thing I can do is reject that. A "free enterprise" must mean what the words "free" and "enterprise" mean in the English language. Anything else is a barrier to rational thinking.

If economists want a word for an enterprise that can "do whatever it wants, but still operates under rules and regulations," they (properly) have to make a new word for it, not re-use existing words that mean something different.

Actually, though, there already is a word for that: a "contradiction." An enterprise cannot be free and not-free.

Unfortunately, many academic economists want to "earn" their bread and butter by peddling contradictions to students and the public, and they deserve the very highest moral condemnation for it.

Why? Because that kind of behavior leads to recessions (such as the perma-recession we are currently in), depressions, and the rise of authoritarianism (fascism being one example from recent history). It leads to suffering and mass-killing.

Source: Reality.

To the degree that you are a victim of this, you should rethink your views. To the degree that you are a perpetrator (if at all), you should be ashamed of yourself.

>>If the only one is that there is a 5% income tax, the enterprise loses 5% of its freedom to allocate its capital.

Sorry, this is an extremely naive point of view. I'd even call it juvenile.

The mature way to look at it is this: the enterprise is paying 5% of its income as tax in order to have the freedom of using roads, having access to security (police, firefighters, etc.) and use all the infrastructure established by government.

>>A "free enterprise" must mean what the words "free" and "enterprise" mean in the English language. Anything else is a barrier to rational thinking.

In the very English language you speak of, context defines a lot of the meaning. And the context here is a discussion of economic terms. You can reject that all you want. The fact remains that "free enterprise" means what it means, not what you want it to mean.

I'm going to have to refrain from responding to the rest of your post, as it simply reads like a bunch of anti-intellectual nonsense.

So in a reality where 99% of government spending is not spent on infrastructure, you use the infrastructure argument to waive me off as juvenile? This is an ad hominem cop-out.

> The fact remains that "free enterprise" means what it means, not what you want it to mean.

You have ignored my point that your definition is a contradiction in terms.

Moreover, our discussion is a discussion about politics and the economy, not an economics textbook or paper.

So why don't you just make your argument in plain English?

Because it relies on invalid definitions to get it to appear to make sense.

That would be an unsubstantiated allgeation if I had not shown that your term is contradictory. I did.

> I'm going to have to refrain from responding to the rest of your post, as it simply reads like a bunch of anti-intellectual nonsense.

I don't think people who peddle contradictory terms deserve the title "intellectual," so I don't think my comments were anti-intellectual.

If you actually see a contradiction between my analysis and reality, you should be able to state it simply. That you didn't point out such a contradiction, suggests to me that you don't actually see one.

As a sidenote, I have enough respect for some economists to find it hard to believe that they are all using the term in the way you say. Of course, many economists simply (and reasonably) stay away from any political topic.

>> Capitalism == free markets == non-coersion

I love how libertarians redefine words to mean what they want!

"Libertarians" are not a homogenous group.

What he's referring to in mainstream libertarian literature is called "anarcho-capitalism". This is well known in the libertarian sub-culture. A distinction the above commenter likely just doesn't know yet.

Very similar to how everyone seems to perceive socialism to be authoritarian-communism. Fallacies are everywhere, hardly unique to libertarians.

I am the accused know-nothing above commenter.

In fact, I know presiely what "anarcho-capitalism" is, and I totally reject it.

An actual system of freedom (which capitalism falls out of) requires people to be protected from the initiation of force by a government. Anarcho-capitalism is simply a power vacuum that will be filled (99% of the time, in a dangerous way).

Moreover, I am not a libertarian, I am an Objectivist (the philosophy the libertarians stole 10% of and started taking out of context when they started their modern movement).

To respond to your other point, the fundamental political axis is freedom on the one side, and authoritarianism on the other. It doesn't particularly matter if that is wrapped up as socialism, communism, fascism, or whatever.

I'm not a libertarian. Libertarians have stolen 10% of Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, and taken it out of context. That is why they make no sense, intellectually. I am an Objectivist.

Capitalism and free markets just "fall out of" a government that does not coerce people, and does not allow people to coerce people.

I already provided some evidence that my account is proper. I mentioned the issue of improperly defining things by non-essentials. I don't think you have presented a viable counter-argument.

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