Talk:Capitalism/Archive 13

message: I removed the first statement "As capitalism means ultimate Individual Economic Freedom" because this is not NPOV. As two counterpoints I can give you the fact that under the existing forms of capitalism, 90 to 95% of population have to work for hire and take orders from someone all their lives. Another counterpoint is that capitalism is founded on private property which is a system of RESTRICTIONS on freedom of other people to interact with various objects in three-dimensional space (this is from property rights economics). In this context, "The Ultimate Individual Economic Freedom" would be anarchy, not capitalism.
Bublick439 19:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's why I reverted Dullfig's edit. It was extremely POV, not to mention quite inaccurate. -- infinity0 20:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So what would economic freedom be then? A law forbidding people from getting jobs? If people want to work for someone else instead of going into business for himself, and they are free to do so, that's economic freedom. And, your claim that private property is antagonistic to economic freedom is bizarre. If a person does cannot own the product of his labor in what sense can he be economically free? RJII 20:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: RJII, stop trying to pick an argument. The guy's just expressing his opinion. You know very well about the counter-arguments against the points you just made. -- infinity0 20:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In response to RJII's question, a system that would be closer to economic freedom than capitalism is a system where the majority of people can work for themselves, i.e. not take orders from somebody else and not being controlled by any one individual. Neither capitalism nor socialism fit that description. Participatory economy may fit the bill but it is rather theoretical at this point. My less radical answer would be mixed economy as opposed to pure capitalism. Why? The short answer is because the mixed economies are more "voluntary" being the result of democratic government, whereas pure capitalism can only be imposed by an undemocratic government and thus is very much coercive (examples: Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, The Gilded Age in the USA). Bublick439 20:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: If there is no private property then how could there be an economy? What is traded in an economy other than private property? Private property is a a fundamental requirement for economic freedom. RJII 02:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

text: inheritance is just another aspect of absolute right to private property. More to the point, the absolute right of the deceased to decide what happens to his property when he is dead. It was his property in life, he should decide what happens to it after he is dead. That is why I have a big problem with inheritance tax, because the property was never the government's to begin with, what claim does the government have to the property? it is confiscation plain and simple.  Dullfig 06:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Simiarly, please note that "capitalism restricts freedom" is also your POV (and mine too). The current section there is OK I think, and does not make any unnecessary/biased judgements. -- infinity0 20:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticisms of Capitalism: edits

message: MrV back.  I've never understood this "working from yourself is taking orders and thus an encroachment on freedom" argument.  Everyone earning an income takes orders.  You never escape this, especially if you work for yourself.  No one selling a service will ever be able to get away with doing it "their own way" -- you do what the client wants.  Period.  The marketplace dictates how you do your job.  When you earn a fixed income from mainly one entity, sometimes called "wage labor" or, more insultingly, "wage slavery", someone else takes those marketplace signals and transforms them into tasks for you.  You're not obligated to do any of it.  It's just that if you don't, your services aren't worth very much.  Do employers impose arbitrary "orders", unrelated to customer demands?  Of course.  But in order to do so, they have to pay a so-called "compensating differential".  No law requires it; it emerges from marketplace negotiations.  The claim that "working for someone" is a violation of your freedom is unjustified, and at the very least should not be casually assumed without basis, as is done above. MrVoluntarist 18:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Working "for yourself" versus "taking orders" 

message: I read about "capitalism" in all three major encyclopedias, Britannica, Encarta, and Wiki, and wiki is the most detailed and balanced. I loved the description of the mixed economy and controversies with definitions. This is very close in spirit to the most widely used college economics textbook: McConnell and Brue. Keep up the good job! Bublick439 20:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're welcome. :) I might be wrong, but I think RJII actually wrote quite a lot of it. -- infinity0 20:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your right. He's a good editor and writer on these subjects. --Northmeister 20:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been engaged in many disputes with him, so I wouldn't say that. -- infinity0 20:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well ok then, but I still think he is from my work with him. I haven't been engaged in this article much so I am unaware of the disputes you talk about. --Northmeister 20:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah - he's probably a good editor when he edits things he knows about, but doesn't have a strong view about. -- infinity0 20:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Thank you guys for an excellent balanced article

message: added a mention of participatory economics at the end of the section, as it clearly is a contrast with capitalism in many respects Bublick439 20:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good one :) I changed "communist" to "other economic systems" to be more generalised. -- infinity0 20:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  thanks! Bublick439 21:12, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't know, the whole section sounds pretty bland and harmless to me. Maybe we should remove the tag? Bublick439 08:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Contrasts with Capitalism: addition

message: : It should be noted that private property is always enforced/protected by government, by private defense corporations or by private police.
Presumably this sentence was added to make some kind of point, but what?  If you protect your property with locks, is that private policing or what?  —Tamfang 16:15, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what the point is. It looks like it might be something from a communist anarchist POV --that it's evil to to use force to protect private property. And, that there would be no private property without that protection. RJII 16:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It's borderline WP:OR/weasel wording and adds nothing to the article. I'm reverting back to the previous version. --rehpotsirhc █♣█ ▪ Talk 20:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I have to disagree with the consensus. Ever since Locke, at least, state power has been recognized as a way to protect private property (e.g.: it's less tempting for someone to come steal your apple if the king will behead him for it). Force or its threat is not necessary but is useful for safeguarding property: a lock does not provide or imply force, but holding a gun or shaking your fist does. So does the knowledge of effective police and courts. Moreover, Austrian scholars like Hans-Hermann Hoppe have theorized on the possibility that even the police and courts could be privatized. I don't necessarily think the theory is either interesting or realistic, nor do I think the sentence under question was well written. But I don't think it was POV.--Monocrat 18:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

text: There are many competing theories of property, some of which would support that statement and some of which would deny it. --rehpotsirhc █♣█ ▪ Talk 18:34, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Monocrat. I can't say it was well written, but as for POV, I can see none. Just adding to the definition, as far as I can tell. --Anarkial 17:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  enforced, protected, whatever 

message: RJII, do you really want to replace "acting" with "competing"?  Most of what a business does is cooperating with customers and suppliers, and we're handing the anti-capitalists a rhetorical point if we seem to say that capitalism is all about competition.  —Tamfang 04:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At the same time, claiming each "acts in its own interest" puts it kind of one-sidedly, ignoring the *consumer wants* they try to satsify in the process.  It's false, in any case.  A capitalist economy can be littered with white-man's-burden type aristrocrat investors who forgo some profits for a greater good.  I think it would be more accurate to mention the decentralized nature of the action than classifying it as aiming for a particular purpose.  Plus, my usual objection to saying that "it's not capitalism unless over 50% of the value of capital goods is chasing a business profit". MrVoluntarist 04:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you on that. It's not very clear what is meant by "acts in its own interest." RJII 20:38, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not the one that put "competition" in there. I put the footnote attached to it, though, to try to make it clear what's meant. There should probably be a section on competition in the article. Anti-capitalists apparently see something negative about it, but in actuality it's what keeps prices low and quality high. RJII 20:38, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  the latest revert war 

message: In capitalist theory section too much space is given to Karl Polanyi. I never heard of him before and Google search gives just 163 000 hits. "Milton Friedman" search gives 1 840 000 hits and he is not even mentioned in this section. Also, it seems that Polanyi gave no significant contribution to capitalist theory. -- Vision Thing -- 11:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalist theory &  Karl Polanyi