23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism

[impalero]

A corporation doesn't need the govt to produce a good or service. Govt needs the corporation for taxes to fund dept, agencies, entitlements, ss, welfare, military.

Bailouts, tax loopholes, overregulation, underregulation, subsidies, lobbyists, etc, etc....

Only if 'crony capitalism' was so simple, that would hold true.

A corporation, scorp, llc, inc needs none of that to survive. But, government has to have taxes to survive.

Where would the corporations be if not for our 761 military bases around the world that provide economic and financial stability in markets around the world?

Minus the corporations, we could just beef up the national guard for border protection and let the corporations pay for their own military with their own money and sons and daughers.

 

[impalero]

How would the government stay in business if it weren't meddling in the affairs of the corporate world?

How would the corporations spread if it werent for the US Gov meddling in the affairs of other countries?

 

[georgephillip]

What they don’t tell you

The free market doesn’t exist. Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them. How "free" a market is cannot be objectively defined. It is a political definition. The usual claim by free-market economists that they are trying to defend the market from politically motivated interference by the government is false. Government is always involved and those free-marketeers are as politically motivated as anyone. Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined "free market" is the first step towards understanding capitalism.

what they tell you is garbage...

what the hell "myth" are you talking about....? anyone with a gnat's capacity of historical knowledge knows that government has always been involved with business since the colonial days....and many times government has favored social reform over business interests....there has always been a push-pull of government regulation vs business interests...as business people know full well....there have always been rules...and more rules....(BO is piling on the stifling regulations at warp speed these days...).....but a business person in the real world who supports a free market does not claim that a free market must be free of all rules.....

Things are not always black and white....one can say a free market is relative....yet it must be based upon a democratic system as opposed to a socialist one....and you must agree that when there is relatively less government control....there is more individual freedom...

The OP's argument is a canard. "The free market isn't free." The term "free market" isn't meant to convey anarchy. The term "free market" is meant to convey the general state of transactions between economic agents, namely generally free of government involvement. But it is not meant to convey the sense that there isn't any government involvement. Even the most ardent free markets expect the government to be involved to some extent, even if that is merely as an adjudicator of contracts through the courts. Equating "free market" with the total absence of government involvement is tantamount to arguing that all socialism is communism.

There's also the classical economists' version of a market free from rent and interest accruing to today's FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) sector.

The "unearned income" based largely on land rent and land-price ("capital") gains that John Stuart Mill described as income landlords made "in their sleep."

Luckily Milton Freedman knew better:

"Milton Friedman, by contrast, insisted that 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' – as if the economy were not all about a free lunch and how to get it.

"And the main way to get it is to dismantle the role of government and sell off the public domain – on credit."

Then privatize Social Security and Medicare.

 

[Wry Catcher]

The OP is a great example. Consider another, importing labor from Mexico, Central and South America. Should the government interfer with how a business or entire industries obtains the labor it needs to operate?

 

[georgephillip]

There seems to be a valid argument that labor should be at least as free as capital to cross borders.

I'm less sure of how well that plays out with 9% to 10% US unemployment levels...

 

[Wry Catcher]

There seems to be a valid argument that labor should be at least as free as capital to cross borders.

I'm less sure of how well that plays out with 9% to 10% US unemployment levels...

My post was actually meant as a jab at those who argue government regulation is bad yet want the government to close our borders to illegal labor, while arguing for free markets.
To me the New Right is awash in an ideology full of hypocrisy.

 

[editec]

Without an overarching system of governance capitalist markets cannot exist.

This is one of those apodictic truths that some of you cannot seem to believe.

Why is it true?

Because money (which is the bedrock necessity to even have capitalism or even more advanced markets) cannot be a tool unless people agree that capital has value.

Even gold, which some of you see as having intensic value) is an agreed upon delusion of value, folks.

 

[georgephillip]

There seems to be a valid argument that labor should be at least as free as capital to cross borders.

I'm less sure of how well that plays out with 9% to 10% US unemployment levels...

My post was actually meant as a jab at those who argue government regulation is bad yet want the government to close our borders to illegal labor, while arguing for free markets.
To me the New Right is awash in an ideology full of hypocrisy.

There seems little chance the left or right will run out of hypocrites. But if the dominant economic system on their planet is unsustainable, hypocrisy won't even be the big problem:

"But capitalism is not only inhuman and anti-democratic; it’s also unsustainable, and if we don’t come to terms with that one, not much else matters.

"Capitalism is an economic system based on the concept of unlimited growth, yet we live on a finite planet.

"Capitalism is, quite literally, crazy."

 

[georgephillip]

Without an overarching system of governance capitalist markets cannot exist.

This is one of those apodictic truths that some of you cannot seem to believe.

Why is it true?

Because money (which is the bedrock necessity to even have capitalism or even more advanced markets) cannot be a tool unless people agree that capital has value.

Even gold, which some of you see as having intensic value) is an agreed upon delusion of value, folks.

Robert Jensen in his article "Is Obama a Socialist?" recounts a conversation he had with an Indonesian journalist who couldn't quite wrap her mind around US politics.

"How can people take seriously the claim that he’s socialist, and why does applying that label to a policy brand it irrelevant?

"I shrugged. 'Welcome to the United States,' I said, 'a country that doesn’t know much about the world or its own history.'”

 

[8537]

They would do much better. However, a corporation should not have free reign to pollute ie air, water, soil, and so.

They would do better without government? They would produce next to nothing without government protection. Economic production and innovation would grind to a near halt.

If we break this down to a bare minimum, why do corporations need any government protection? Why would production and innovation grind to a halt without government protection?

Corporations enforce excludability of both real and intellectual property through the government's court system and the government's use of force. Without government protections (both legal and physical) no one would have an incentive to produce or innovate.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Ask Benito Mussolini.

Or Barack Obama....