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💬 #Capitalism means...
"markets are free, meaning everyone has the same amount of power in the market, no one can game the system"
#Quote by @freemo
Post: qoto.org/@freemo/1137689315863…
💬 My comment:
Typically "Capitalism" seems to be said in public to mean "money rules and everyone is driven by greed",
... when in reality it means something else according to #Freemo that I'm exploring / currently trying to re-learn.
Initially I think it's both things or many things since there is so much nuance of Capitalism and something evolving even from the basic definition. It seems it's not just 1 solid dictionary or Wikipedia definition - it's many pages! Again many nuances or ways doesn't seem to help although in a static moment away from today I get parts of it
💖 ➡️ FEELINGS VS. LOGIC... ⬅️ 💔
I have massive #feelings and crossed wires about "Capitalism" ⚔️ and below I list some of those feelings bullet pointed with 🔴
"Capitalism" is like my brain in a skipping CD 💿 or Vinyl Record 🔴 that stays in the same track whenever you try play it or talk about a topic... I might understand some logic but can't agree with much of it's perception or 'who-knows-who' that made it (many).
Looking at the page "Free-Market Capitalism" page makes me think to myself:
💬 "What do I actually agree with here? Anything?
Answer: Not much! Have to find something I can agree with!"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_mar…
Check how you feel compared to how I feel (disclaimer: I might still not 'get it' but this is how I feel)...
🔴 Selling / Re-selling the planet 🌏 ? ❌ Na. ❌
That's like an illegal operation or incompatible way of looking it it sometimes. What's a beautiful bird worth?
For people "trying" to convert to numbers (deliberately fucking things like money-changer or innocently trying to manage things) it's totally like difference sciences and false measurement (even without assuming #money and f-ing #banks are just to tax and skim off people behind their backs and re-loan / dilute the money behind our backs too, devaluing it at their benefit!). WTF!
More numbers / more debt?
🔴 Owning things - should anyone own things more than apportioning it to the next person / generation - ok a piece of paper for saying that - but a buying complicated pieces of paper as a program or scheme to enrich the system again (taz) / cheating people out of shelter and the future eventually? (No! Too risky even to consider)
🔴 Pricing people labour / Future children priced? Can it ever be fair? Can't we just accept people and almost hope they do for the love of things?
Despite me not have whole answer for this either - just not selling our self either falsely/arbitrarily and trying to falsely value all different arts which banks and state have no care about (dying artists constantly). Either as numbers or anything more than caring for it and allowing the education of that... ?
And the 10 chickens / children have feelings and not just the number 10 to kill and use from them throw away.
Much more than numbers please. Giving life AND love (something often not mentioned in growing life.) Selling is mainly like a empty vehicle to constantly find something to empty and fill again without care and encourages lack of quality and more physical moving things more than a meta look.
What about love as the process too - why not that?
🔴 "competitive markets", a price system?
Doesn't it end all the same bad way and never stays how it was intended to start?
🔴 "exchange of rights (cf. ownership) of services and goods" kind of ok but can't we keep things more often rather than commodifying it to commercialise it - just nice little homes and small economy with big serving them in it's own small / less chemical crap ways.
🔴 "Markets" has so much variation / too much - renders this whole definition of free-market useless on first look / too open to interpretation and change.
🔴 Economics - a terrible word perhaps from the perspective of who is taking care of the land / planet and people (government) who's job is really care of itself and use people as batteries which are disposable ? Governments that took the land but don't really share it to future generations and just want more bad and even increasingly looking to take more land !
(how it got to this point was by stealing or conquering it so why continue that? Who wants to forever re-sell it for more and more never-ending problems with it, not letting people actually inherit it)
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OK THAT'S ENOUGH
...FOR NOW!
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SO YEAH I'm fighting off the same Capitalism feeling that I get tempted back into think, like a skipping CD 💿 or Vinyl Record 🔴 that stays in the same track whenever you try play it or talk about a topic...
Not fun and slipping into the same feeling for what seems 100% an over-flexible definition for "#FreeMarket Capitalism" which of course encourages people to take any part they want from it - since it's ALL OF IT!!
If we are to use words indeed to think they mean 1-10 things that would be great, just not #meaning 100 things will any #nuances you like!!!
(I will continue learning today and seems to come up often with many people on this hashtag!) 😃 😅
> I'm possibly falling into that typical bashing of "Capitalism" maybe because I'm not getting what I want related to the other parts of life I want and responsibility of many systems which Capitalism doesn't seem to help with - at all (at least the Modern kind).Yea that makes sense, that and I think there is a large dose of misusing the term capitalism as well, which is extremely common, even among people who are experts there can be debate on that.
Usually people wrongly take an uneducated approach to what capitalism is, they usually take it to mean "money rules and everyone is driven by greed", when in reality it means "markets are free, meaning everyone has the same amount of power int he market, no one can game the system". Much of what people therefore call capitalism is anything but. Banks having a monopoly on the market of fiat is very much anti-capitalism, as are all monopolies. Same goes for rich people being able to influence elections, that is anti-capitalism.
The other thing people do is they assume governments are monolithically one ideology or another. They will often refer to the USA as some model capitalism despite the fact that most of its characteristics are anti-capitlist and it only has a slight capitalism influence. Same is true of socialism, people often wrongly refer to most of europe as socialist when in fact the vast majority is anti-socialist and just has a handful of socialist qualities (and the USA too has a handful of socialist qualities).
People just really suck at nuance.
> Ideally I'd like to think, involves or implement #Mutual #Cooperation (towards various things), Saving #Nature, Increasing #Commons / #Commoning, #Feelings / #Consent being part of it but not I don't see these words a lot or at all in Capitalism or books. So maybe I blame it or anyone that uses it overly (which I don't think can only be blamed on (people but the design too).
Capitalism in no way forces such cooperation, nor does it preclude such cooperation. This goes back to thinking of capitalism as "everything a government does" rather than just one of a 100 ideologies a government may adopt. Capitalism just guarantees people can engage in trade fairly, nothing more. That trade can be used to further cooperation or it can be used to further competition, that is up to the society and even the government. We can, for example, use government taxes to help everyone and engage in cooperation, there is nothing remotely in capitalism that would be contrary to that, capitalism isnt anti-tax nor is it anti public service.
> So the name is one thing but also I'm just a bit more concerned / defending what these words ignore / over-write / replace with numbers or mathematical tricks frankly.
As well you should, the issue I had was largely with your choice of wording. Your concerns, at least around the baking system and cooperation and compassion, are perfectly valid and a legitimate criticism. But we have to be clear that criticism is just as prevalent in a capitalism as it is in a communism. Even the idea of a central bank is contrary to capitalism, but in communism you dont just have a central bank, you have a central authority that forces everyone to give up their money, so you centralize not just the bank but the bank customer (just one customer, the government, everyone else is at their discretion). So with communism you take the problem of a centralized bank and replace it with centralized money where one entity controls all money.. thats like taking the problem of authoritarianism and saying "maybe if we crank the authoritarianism up to 11 then we wont have authoritarianism anymore"... its really absurd.
But yea, your concerns, once we agree is outside of the scope of capitalism is perfectly valid.
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
in reply to Human Change?=Work Together!🔔 • • •> That's like an illegal operation or incompatible way of looking it it sometimes. What's a beautiful bird worth?
There is nothing about capitalism that says you need to "sell the planet"
Free market capitalism only dictates that the market be free (no one can fix the market), it does not dictate that everythign and anything must be up for sale. If society decides its illegal to kill pretty birds because they are endangered that is perfectly in line with capitalism.
This comes back to the issue with the idology i touched on where I talked about it being viewed often as an absolute or all encompassing attribute. When you try to think of **Everything** about a government being dictated by capitalist ideology it wont work because it is only an idology defining that markets should be free, ti doesnt define what should be allowed to be sold or any of the thousands of other attributes of a government (like environmental protection).
If you still think capitalism means "anything for sale and no rules go" then you still arent getting what capitalism really is. I
... Show more...> That's like an illegal operation or incompatible way of looking it it sometimes. What's a beautiful bird worth?
There is nothing about capitalism that says you need to "sell the planet"
Free market capitalism only dictates that the market be free (no one can fix the market), it does not dictate that everythign and anything must be up for sale. If society decides its illegal to kill pretty birds because they are endangered that is perfectly in line with capitalism.
This comes back to the issue with the idology i touched on where I talked about it being viewed often as an absolute or all encompassing attribute. When you try to think of **Everything** about a government being dictated by capitalist ideology it wont work because it is only an idology defining that markets should be free, ti doesnt define what should be allowed to be sold or any of the thousands of other attributes of a government (like environmental protection).
If you still think capitalism means "anything for sale and no rules go" then you still arent getting what capitalism really is. It just means that if me and you make a trade no outside force is going to force my hand and set a price other than the natural market price of the good.
Human Change?=Work Together!🔔
in reply to 🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱 • • •Sensitive content
I seem to get a lot of what is said or written instantly...
but lose it the very moment it comes to the scope or reality of Capitalism's role in life *today* or say last 100 years (Industrial Revolution being early 1900's perhaps).
So...
❓ Are we in a period of Capitalism?
❓ How does it successfully work to its own definition within the today or be seen clearly in the past on larger scale?
Example:
You mention the "me and you" example of doing a trade without rules and force- PERFECT- But the reality today is the opposite - there are rules and force beyond the 1 time deal and anything more regular between us is wanting to be regulated or punished (basically)... or within more people difficult.
Which is why the public might miss how it works and perhaps in a mixed system which part is or isn't Capitalism.
So seeking clarity on that with some very obvious questions helps see what it is (or is not).
❓ So are we in Capitalism?
The sense of Free-Market in small sense seems to make sense, but confuses me after any of the larger cases beyond cold definitions - So anything trying for more than theory or more than small scope is troublesome. It's almost like
❓ How can Capitalism not involve all these other extended things, because it seems quite impractical or non-existent without them.
For example - If you look at Free Market pages or almost anywhere for description (ok I didn't look everywhere but feel free to give examples) - it seems Capitalism NEEDS to involve all these other extended things more than just the basic theory and extends into talking about a litter of things,
like:
⏺️ **owners** of wealth,
⏺️ **property** or production ability in capital and **financial** markets
⏺️ maybe some government intervention (although not planning to start out that way so much it 'can' involve it).
So if financial markets are relative those Capitalistic things seem it seems it is or touches on things like:
⏺️ Stock markets,
⏺️ Commodity markets,
⏺️ Money markets
⏺️ Derivatives markets,
⏺️ Futures markets,
⏺️ Interbank lending market (#Banks etc)
Endlessly touching on more on more things (or else rendering itself impractical almost).
This seems to mean any scope outside of me and you, or in the context for today is not really possible and always need all these satellite things! 🛰️ 🪐
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SUMMARY:
Hope that explains the confusion or loop that is happening.
I feel like I could crack why sooooo many fall back into problems with this by asking.
Any more clarifying examples of what Capitalism is and isn't more than you and I appreciated.
Link below is only reference for reminding myself where we started conversation:
qoto.org/@freeschool/113764906…
Human Change?=Work Together!🔔
2025-01-03 14:31:57
🎓 Doc Freemo :jpf: 🇳🇱
in reply to Human Change?=Work Together!🔔 • • •> You mention the "me and you" example of doing a trade without rules and force- PERFECT- But the reality today is the opposite - there are rules and force beyond the 1 time deal and anything more regular between us is wanting to be regulated or punished (basically)... or within more people difficult.
This goes back to what i was saying about seeing it not as a government type or a pure all or nothing ideology but rather just one among many ideologies that should influence the way you structure a government, but not be seen as a hard rule.
More specifically, we dont live in a country that is a pure capitalism, or even much of a capitalism at all... You are right we **dont** have free markets, thats the point. Markets are highly regulated, and there are big players that control it (including the government). Not only is it not a free market, but it is quite far away from being one. That said we also shouldnt strive for one, while capitalism (free markets) should be the default for sure, its not a rule so much as an ideological guidline, and the reality should be a mi
... Show more...> You mention the "me and you" example of doing a trade without rules and force- PERFECT- But the reality today is the opposite - there are rules and force beyond the 1 time deal and anything more regular between us is wanting to be regulated or punished (basically)... or within more people difficult.
This goes back to what i was saying about seeing it not as a government type or a pure all or nothing ideology but rather just one among many ideologies that should influence the way you structure a government, but not be seen as a hard rule.
More specifically, we dont live in a country that is a pure capitalism, or even much of a capitalism at all... You are right we **dont** have free markets, thats the point. Markets are highly regulated, and there are big players that control it (including the government). Not only is it not a free market, but it is quite far away from being one. That said we also shouldnt strive for one, while capitalism (free markets) should be the default for sure, its not a rule so much as an ideological guidline, and the reality should be a mix of many things, where capitalism is only an influence.
For example there is a strong argument that healthcare shouldnt exist in a free market system because the laws of supply and demand break down since a person would pay anything (usually) to live one more healthy day. So the supply is limited but demand is effectively infinite. So free market cant work in health care. That said the solution there isnt universal or single payer health care. The solution is to design a system that addresses this problem, and that solution would look like co-op based healthcare which would restore free market pressures since the patients are also the owners.
> So are we in Capitalism?
Again this goes back to what im saying, you arent in a capitalism or not. It isnt a binary thing that a government either is or isnt a capitalism, thats kindergarten way of thinking about it. There are many things we handle in mostly capitalist ways, like the buying and selling of gold, thats fairly capitalistic. But the buying and selling of cars is far from a free market, we fix the price of cars such that gasoline powered cars are artificially more expensive than electric ones (through taxes and other mechanisms), so the buying and selling of cars is far from capitalism in the USA in many ways. That said, like i said, it isnt a bad thing to not follow an ideology as a pure idea, in fact, its good we dont.