I'm enjoying all of this.
I know. You're trolling and it's fun for you.
That 12 paragraph diatribe was your proof? Okay. I'll go back and address it point by point if I must in my next post.
Me critiquing your explanation is not the same thing as me not liking your explanation. When I critique at least I'm specific on where I find fault with your logic and why.
You were not specific in answering my 12 paragraph diatribe. You don't "must," address my points. You will address them if you want a legit debate.
Then refrain from the ad hominems yourself. I have yet to describe you as childish, all I've done so far is find fault with your logic.
When you're being childish instead of presenting rational arguments, I will point that out. Let's see if you can.
I don't believe you're using pejorative correctly there but nevertheless the "free market" is not some natural phenomenon we discovered, it is an implemented system.
Who implemented the free market?
If you don't think so then point to the capitalists systems that exist outside of government.
It depends on what you mean by "outside of government." If you mean "in a place in which no government exists," then of course I can provide no examples. Government exists everywhere people exist, as far as I know. By that logic, everything that ever happens anywhere is then "implemented" by government. That's the kind of fake logic I was talking about.
The free market exists in areas where the government exercises less control. Before you make another non-argument, I don't mean "totally and absolutely free market where anyone can do anything that they want at all times, and government never notices." I mean an economy in which the government doesn't try to manage producers and production, and therefore market forces - which are a function of psychology - determine what is produced and how.
You can barter outside of a government system. One nomad can exhange goods with another nomad. However for capitalism to exist there needs to a regulated currency to trade instead of goods because a farmer can't go trading eggs or meat cuts for Healthcare and roof repair and car insurance and because capitalism relies on private ownership of property that too requires regulation.
Regulated currency is helpful to people operating within a free market, but it is not a requirement. Regulated currency and government coins are not the only kind of money. People have traded in many different kinds of money, including copper, silver, gold, arrowheads, whiskey, horses and cows. Those can be usesd for money because they are each widely agreed on as valuable, and they are portable due to their small size in relation to their value, or their ability to walk.
georgephillip made an interesting case that the first money may have actually been IOU's. I don't know that IOU's were the first money, but they were the basis of banknotes printed by private banks in exchange for their depositors raw gold or government minted coins. Those banknotes were used for free trade, without the need for government to wave any magic wand to make them be money.
You are talking about fiat money, which helps government to be powerful, not the market to be free. By implementing fiat money instead of money backed by precious metals, governments gain power over the economy. Often enough power to do severe damage to the economy as was done to ancient rome by debasing the coins, and in the Weimar Republic by printing money to pay miners.
Capitalists trade in government money because the government requires them to accept it. It would be foolish to contract for payment in gold when government can force you to accept paper dollars instead, so capitalists use fiat money. For proponents of government control to give government credit for the implementation of capitalism based on capitalists being forced to use government money is not logical.
As to this:
a farmer can't go trading eggs or meat cuts for Healthcare
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You might also be interested in story of The Chicken Ranch in LaGrange, Texas.
Otherwise how do we settle disputes over ownership or contracts? I'm not sure how you envision capitalism working with out a manufactured infrastructure, rules or currency.
Capitalism thrives when government prevents people from simply stealing the products that the capitalists produce. If I were arguing for anarchy, rather than a free market, you would have a point.
Capitalism has a definitive answer in the same way that your rationalization for natural rights do not. Again, I know where John Locke thought natural rights came from, he thought they came from, God. Now I don't find God to be a rational response to anything so I wouldn't want to assume that is your rationale as well.
I explained my rationale in the twelve paragraphs that you will soon be picking apart. Spoiler: My rationale had nothing to do with any gods, karma, or unicorns.
As you can see above I have no problem discussing capitalism, how it's structured or what is required for it to operate. I do wonder how you imagine it operates with manufacturing though.
I'm not sure that is really the question that you mean to ask, unless you're trying to be Socrates again, so I'm going to give a short answer.
"Capitalism" (which I find an inaccurate term) is the hiring of labor by the owner of "capital" which is a means of production such as a factory, a farm, or a fishing boat, and the profiting from that labor. Marx said that "capital is a social relationship" in other words, not just the ownership of means of production as private property, but the employer-laborer relationship. Thus, a cobbler who owns his own bench and tools, but works alone to make and sell shoes is not a capitalist.
If he hires an apprentice and teaches his craft and provides room, board and maybe a stipend in exchange for the apprentice's work in the shop, he is taking a step toward capitalism. If he hires several workers for pay with the trade learning not as the key compensation, and works them in shifts on his one-person bench or owns multiple benches and tools, he is then operating as a capitalist.
He and his workers manufacture, package, market, transport and collect payment for his goods. He keeps part of the revenue from sales for himself, whether he works side-by-side with his men and stays up nights keeping the books, or hires a management team and lives a life of leisure supported by the difference between what it costs to produce the goods and what they are sold for.
As I said, I think you know that, so what is the next question?
And your continued deflections fall flat with me.
I assure you you did not but I'll go through your 12 paragraph explanation and detail exactly where your logic fails.
Please do. Better late than never.
It brought you those things. It brought African slaves misery, seperation from their families, their children and eventually death.
The free market did not bring slavery to Africa. Kidnapping, beatings, imprisonment for no crime and forced labor are no part of the free market. Slavery can only exist when government supports it, or in areas in which their is no government. When government protects manifest natural rights, instead of claiming that it is the creator of rights, slavery does not exist.
You never answered: Did the slave traffickers have a right to traffic slaves, so were therefore right to do it? Yes or no, then explain all you like.
You mean other than Newtons calculations getting us there....
NASA incoporated General Relativity in its calculation for rocket trajectories well before the Apollo Program.
What exactly are the benefits we have now from that expensive government boondoggle? Other than beating them Ruskies to it?
