/liberty/ - Liberty

>>80696

You're on the ancap board. You should know that what is meant by "capitalism" here is a very specific set of criteria rather than something which is historically contextualized, as it would be under a Marxist or Historicist analysis.

>>80697

Yeah, the ancrap definition is "when people trade I guess". It's completely useless.

>>80696

But a non-planned economy isn't capitalism because it isn't privately owned.

>>80697

>a very specific set of criteria

which is…?

>>80721

>"private ownership of the means of production,"

This is a good start. My question is where capitalism ends and something different begins, i.e. can you have private ownership but also have a central bank? Do taxes & welfare states fundamentally alter whether a system is capitalism by redistributing wealth, or would the state have to actually own & operate businesses to count as "non-capitalist"?

>>80771

>which is…?

It is the emergent economic behaviors which result from the freedom to exercise private ownership. Perhaps "extent of fulfilled preconditions" would be a better term than "set of criteria," since capitalism can exist in degrees rather than as an absolute yes or no condition like with socialism.

>>80775

You know you've got a few problems here, right?

The first three require a currency of state fiat, frankly. Anarchy is deeply in the red, because the state recognizes nothing. Demanding that the state bar labor unions loses twenty points, because of the inability of the workers to form an organization around selling certain types of goods.

I like that you threw a first draft out there. If we take it as it is, though…

>>80728

Throw the "control" ball on "commies" on the other end, and you'll see why commie economics = best economics.

Both your commies and your "socialists" are flagrantly ML, which explains the Left's beef with them.

I mean, that and, like, Krondstat, Ukraine, Poland…

>>80728

Very informative, thanks. I will be using this when arguing with neetsocs.

>>80696

>Does "capitalism" exist?

here it does https://discord.gg/Nm8nQh

>>80696

>Is it a mistake to lump every non-planned economy under the same name?

Capitalism is a planned economy. Capitalist firms are based on centralized planning and hierarchical management.

>>80728

Nice false dilemma you retard

>>80797

Capitalism is planned and not centralized, communism the opposite.

>>80696

Capitalism just means having a currency for things.

So yeah.

>>80807

>Capitalism is planned and not centralized, communism the opposite.

He means government planning.

Undre communism you need the government to plan everything or nothing gets done. Under capitalism you have the free market so you dont necessarily need central government planning although most capitalist governments do it to some degree.

>>80811

but under communism nothing gets done at all

>>80771

Capitalism is not Boolean. Private property would be a capitalist characteristic. Central banks would be mercantilist/corporatist.

>>80781

There are currencies that predate fiat that satisfy the first 3 conditions.

>>80812

>but under communism nothing gets done at all

Sometimes the government makes some grand plan. Like in DPRK They built a huge dam in one of their rivers. Their intention was to reclaim a load of farmland from the river but because Kim Jong knew fuck all about dams they ended up losing a lot of farmland and have had famines ever since.

>>80811

>Undre communism you need the government to plan everything or nothing gets done

There can be no governments under communism.

>>80823

And there can be no communism.

>>80824

THIS.

The type of communims that leftypol espouses has only existed, and can only exist in peoples imagination.

New question:

Can it be capitalism if markets exist and businesses are privately owned, but a business is legally defined as a cooperative in which employees own the company?

>>80728

Nice OC

>>80775

Nice. I like the "points system" approach.

>>80780

So I agree with the "existing in degrees" idea, and what I'm trying to do is find a realistic boundary between capitalism and other systems.

>>80797

I get what you're saying but my meaning is that a "planned economy" is planned at the national level. "Capitalism" is planned at the level of the individual firm or business. That's what I meant, bruh.

"Capitalism never existed" - noam chomsky

>>80838

If most means of production are owned and managed by the workers, then it’s socialism even if free market still exists.

>>80842

Depends on how it's organized. Socialism presupposes that worker's ownership is the only allowed form of organization because others are exploitative. Everyone working at Wal-Mart gets a share in the company profits every year they work there based on how well their store did that year. We don't call that socialism. If other forms of ownership are allowed and are not being actively suppressed then you may or may not have socialism based on other factors. This is why the lines between AnCaps/Mutualists and in many cases Syndicalists get pretty blurred.

>>80848

>Socialism presupposes that worker's ownership is the only allowed form of organization because others are exploitative.

Not necessarily. Liberal socialists believe that private ownership of the means of production should not be completely banned, but most firms should be owned and managed by the workers. Just like worker cooperatives can exist in a capitalist country, so can privately-owned firms exist in a socialist country (although there should be comparatively few of them). However, I think that most people from /leftypol/ would disagree with this.

>>80696

It does but not as the Marxists see it. Capitalism was invented by marx to have something to oppose. What "capitalism" is is the mutual exchange of goods (with a possible intermediate currency just for convenience sake). "Capitalism" is human nature.

>>81117

>Capitalism was invented by Marx to have something to oppose.

Wew

>>81117

if capitalism is just trade of goods then why not call it "trade" instead of capitalism?

>>80696

If by capitalism you mean people exchanging/accumulating capital, then yes. Today those transactions are highly regulated, and sometimes prohibited outright, but outside of Cuba/DPRK/etc. we live in a capitalist world.

>>81364

We do. It's called free trade/the free market.

>>81368

Then it's not just "trade," but "free trade?" How's "free trade" different from "trade?"

>>81396

>"How is not having a gun up against your head during a deal different from having someone pointing a gun at your head while you sign the fucking contract, pleb?"

>Today's "capitalism" is very different from the capitalism 100 or even 50 years ago. Is it a mistake to lump every non-planned economy under the same name?

Arguments of definition are useless, because they are simply arguing the semantics of word definitions. Call it whatever you want.

>Does having a market justify calling something "capitalism"?

This is the same problem as "is any given society a good example of socialism"?

There is some truth to the assertion "not true socialism" when it is generally used, because no country in any time period is a _perfect_ representation of ANY economic system whatsoever. The simple fact is that non-man-made events can effect economic outcomes, which fundamentally prevents any society from being a perfect experiment. Ergo, to have useful debates, you must accept that some societies are "closer" to socialist ones than capitalist ones, and vice versa. Of course, there will be disagreements about which ones lean closer to which side, but at least there are examples that are far enough in one direction that permit argument about the side-effects of the economic model.

>>80728

>commies, socialists

>state controls everythng and the more government the more socialister it is

>>81366

>by capitalism you mean people exchanging/accumulating capital

>capitalism is just simple exchange/commodity production

kys u fucken retard

>>80852

That's market socialism, which a lot of socialists oppose because it still involves commodity production

>>81439

Capitalism is about capital. Ownership of capital. Owning something implies the ability to use it / transfer it / etc.

>99.9% of people already know this and your a retard for asking this stupid question.

"your" a retard

>The real question is the current system of capitalism good or bad?

A real communist or Marxist wouldn't ask moral questions since it begs the introduction of metaphysics or relativism.

>>81426

>Arguments of definition are useless, because they are simply arguing the semantics of word definitions.

That's the entire point of the thread. To find a commonly agreed upon definition of capitalism according to /liberty/. Not everyone here agrees that capitalism means the same thing.

>This is the same problem as "is any given society a good example of socialism"?

Sort of. The question at issue is, "What is the defining essence of capitalism?" If it's the evolving system that has existed for the past three hundred or more years, then we should throw out idealistic definitions requiring totally free trade or total lack of coercion in the market, since such definitions have never matched reality nor are they achievable in practice.

There are people on this board who argue (convincingly) that things like intellectual property are actually a form of a economic rent that can only be maintained, in practice, by using force (most normally by the state.)

So, at the risk of muddying the waters a bit, the use of legal measures to enforce copyright law would actually not fit in with stereotypical ideas of capitalism since profits accruing from economic rent are really a pre-capitalist (or non-capitalist) form of accumulation. It has an entirely different dynamic to that of producing goods and services for the purpose of acquiring profits. The development of many revolutions (even those nominally claiming to be socialist) often occurred in countries where land reform (i.e. the stifling effect of economic rent) was a chief concern.

>>81456

>A real communist wouldn't use relativism

lol wut?

>>81444

If that's the definition we're going with, then capitalism has been in place since the dawn of civilization and, short of a sudden rise of neo-luddites/anprims, will continue to be in place.

>>81456

>when we should throw out idealistic definitions requiring totally free trade or total lack of coercion in the market, since such definitions have never matched reality nor are they achievable in practice.

1) In science, ideal mathematical values are used all the time that can not be reached in reality, because they are useful for examining what occurs as a given value moves closer to a limit. That doesn't imply that the ideal value should be redefined, because that would be incorrect mathematically. (Ex: The eq. impedance of a circuit element as its capacitance approaches zero). The situation is the same here; whether or not an ideal free market (emphasis on the word "ideal") is physically obtainable is irrelevant to its definition, and also irrelevant to whether or moving as close to it as possible is a good/bad idea.

2) By using the phrase "idealistic definitions requiring totally free trade", it shows that you already understand the definition of "capitalism" as it is used on this board, because you already understand what its ideal version looks like. Ergo, the question "Does capitalism exist?" was not asked in faith, it demonstrates that you would simply like the definition to be different.

>>81566

It is possible to determine if something is coercive or not, but not to compare the amount of compulsion in two different actions. Utilitarian methods, such as Rothbard's measuring of GPP and depredation, don't help, as destruction caused by regulations and war is obscure.