Let's see if I learned anything from this illuminating conversation.
That's crony capitalism, which is a form of socialism, not capitalism, Holmes
-Crony capitalism, despite what the name implies is not capitalist in nature it is socialist.
Fascism and Crony capitalism are essentially the same thing, Holmes. Industry is technically in private hands, but the market is controlled by government. Both of them are forms of socialism.
-Crony capitalism essentially equates to fascism and are both forms of socialism because government controls the market.
No you didn't say that because that would be correct and you don't know what capitalism is. Capitalism is when businesses, employees, consumers, suppliers all work out their own best deal. It is distributed decision making. Socialism is central decision making, which can only be done by government because only government can use force to compel market players to act against their own best interest. Fascism and crony capitalism are variations of socialism, the government picks market winners rather than the market
-Capitalism is when businesses, employees, consumers, suppliers all work out their own best deal. Wow, what a great system, everyone wins! Why should crony capitalism even exist in the land of unicorns and rainbows.
Fascism/state capitalism/crony capitalism are when industry is in private hands but controlled by government. Socialism is when government just owns them. I don't conflate them, their definitions do. If your title is on your car, but it's parked in your neighbor's driveway and he has the keys, who really owns the car?
-Wait a minute now, maybe there is a distinction between fascism/crony capitalism and socialism. Socialism is when government owns business rather than just controlling it. That would lead me to infer that we are not socialist but instead fascist.
Well, in capitalism, they don't have influence over government policy just like consumers and other market players don't. When they do, it's socialism. Bribing corrupt government to harm their competitors and tilt the field is socialism.
What capitalists do have from government are law enforcement to investigate crimes, civil and criminal courts, police, the military. They can only win however by beating their competitors in the marketplace
-Nope, now we're back to calling crony capitalism socialism again. Are we also going back to conflating it with fascism.
Those statements are completely consistent. Businesses buying corrupt government is still clearly government control. They are just selling favors to the highest bidder. If the businesses and government conflict under the arrangement, then you'll see it's government clearly in charge. Government controls business for a lot of reasons. The competitors of those buying government don't really give a shit why they are being harmed by government, they are
-Pay no attention to the revolving door or outright bribery it has no correlation to government policies, government is still in charge. I think this infers fascism or socialism or both, just for good measure.
Forgive me if I take nothing away from our exchange.
Crony capitalism is as it's name suggests, capitalists creating favorable conditions for profit generation. It has nothing in common with socialism or fascism, two distinctly different ideologies, and concepts which you have clearly shown to be ignorant of.