• intensely_human@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    1 month ago

    People just use the word capitalism to refer to any economic practice they don’t like.

    No, detaining someone on a ship until they pay you is not capitalism. Capitalism is based on free markets. Being imprisoned on a ship isn’t a free market.

    • HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 month ago

      This is however, a practice that results from the government being effectively corporate controlled. Which is the end result of allowing your free markets to run wild and allowing corporations to acquire that much power, money, and influence.

      A pure capitalist system actively selects for this kind of bullshit. The most ruthless and unethical companies end up winning in the end. And those same companies are buying our politicians.

      People blame capitalism when the system clearly favours the rich over the poor to such a dystopian extent that a man is allowed to be held hostage by a corporation

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 month ago

        Yes. Free markets eventually degrade into centrally-planned systems.

        That does not mean that centrally-planned systems are an aspect of capitalism, any more than a pile of decaying bones is an aspect of a family pet.

        Free markets degrade over time. That does not invalidate their utility; it just means they are like all other phenomena in being temporary.

        • HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 month ago

          centrally-planned systems are an aspect of capitalism

          Isn’t that the end goal of capitalism? Winning is having control of all the capital right? How can you divorce the implied, if not explicit, end goal of a system from the system itself?

          pile of decaying bones is an aspect of a family pet.

          How is this not an aspect? It’s the inevitable end of any living thing, much like capitalism and the heartless exploitation of literally everything