I've been trying to consider, given the broad debates over capitalism vs. anything else, if we actually live under capitalism.
So capitalism at its core is free enterprise, being free to engage in trade with others and others being able to trade with you, and private ownership and control of capital.
Well, we live in a society with some free enterprise. There are businesses started by nobodies that grow and others that fail and nobody from the state has anything to do with it, so that's a tick in the "for" column.
On the other hand, there's a lot of limitations on who you're allowed to do business with. Cops instead of spending time tracking down violent criminals or finding thieves are searching for unlicensed businesses, or unlicensed contractors, or all kinds of other people who are being prevented from working in a certain way solely because they haven't gotten approval by the state.
The stock market means that individuals can purchase shares of different companies and if those companies grow then those individuals can get rich without asking permission from anyone (besides their stock broker) for the privilege.
On the other hand there, many of the largest companies on the planet heavily rely on government. Obviously aerospace and weapons companies rely on the military directly paying their bills, but there's a lot of companies that accept large government contracts that fundamentally sustain their businesses, or that rely on favorable regulatory conditions that let them exist and succeed but also make it harder for competition to exist.
Then there's a painful reality that a working man pays more than half his pay to the government through various taxes. When the government gets more of what you make than you do, I don't think you can consider that system capitalism, even if there are free markets and some level of private ownership of capital.
Private control of capital is another thing altogether. We're living in the most regulated society in the history of the world. You can't take a shit without it ticking a bunch of boxes from 14 different government departments. If you own a thing you don't really control it because there's so little you can do with it.
So I guess in reality we can say we have little bits of capitalism here and there that work well, but we also have massive amounts of not capitalism. We have an oppressive superstate that takes everything from everyone and micromanages everyone, but while it does almost nothing for us in return we do need to figure out how to feed ourselves on our own...
So capitalism at its core is free enterprise, being free to engage in trade with others and others being able to trade with you, and private ownership and control of capital.
Well, we live in a society with some free enterprise. There are businesses started by nobodies that grow and others that fail and nobody from the state has anything to do with it, so that's a tick in the "for" column.
On the other hand, there's a lot of limitations on who you're allowed to do business with. Cops instead of spending time tracking down violent criminals or finding thieves are searching for unlicensed businesses, or unlicensed contractors, or all kinds of other people who are being prevented from working in a certain way solely because they haven't gotten approval by the state.
The stock market means that individuals can purchase shares of different companies and if those companies grow then those individuals can get rich without asking permission from anyone (besides their stock broker) for the privilege.
On the other hand there, many of the largest companies on the planet heavily rely on government. Obviously aerospace and weapons companies rely on the military directly paying their bills, but there's a lot of companies that accept large government contracts that fundamentally sustain their businesses, or that rely on favorable regulatory conditions that let them exist and succeed but also make it harder for competition to exist.
Then there's a painful reality that a working man pays more than half his pay to the government through various taxes. When the government gets more of what you make than you do, I don't think you can consider that system capitalism, even if there are free markets and some level of private ownership of capital.
Private control of capital is another thing altogether. We're living in the most regulated society in the history of the world. You can't take a shit without it ticking a bunch of boxes from 14 different government departments. If you own a thing you don't really control it because there's so little you can do with it.
So I guess in reality we can say we have little bits of capitalism here and there that work well, but we also have massive amounts of not capitalism. We have an oppressive superstate that takes everything from everyone and micromanages everyone, but while it does almost nothing for us in return we do need to figure out how to feed ourselves on our own...
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