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@wajoma saidCapitalism is only a few hundred years old. Both you and Earl have very unusual ideas of what capitalism is.
People were breathing before there was a name for it.
The 'labor' in your not so reputable definition (haha, how many did you go through before you found this one) own themselves, they own their time, both of which can be considered the means of production, the 'labor' in your definition are capitalists.
https://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/01.html
Since the 1700s, increases in average living standards became a permanent feature of economic life in many countries.
This was associated with the emergence of a new economic system called capitalism, in which private property, markets and firms play a major role.
Under this new way of organizing the economy, advances in technology and specialization in products and tasks raised the amount that could be produced in a day’s work.
This process, which we call the capitalist revolution, has been accompanied by growing threats to our natural environment, and by unprecedented global economic inequalities.
I’d love to see your “reputable” definition of capitalism. Apparently Investopedia is not “reputable” enough for you.
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Here’s what Stanford says:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/markets
The concept of “capitalism” includes a reference to markets, but as a socio-economic system, it is broader; its defining feature is the private ownership of capital (see e.g., Scott 2011). This typically leads to pressures to find profitable investment opportunities and to asymmetries between owners and non-owners of capital.
The asymmetry between capitalists and workers is essential to any standard definition of capitalism.
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https://aynrand.org/novels/capitalism-the-unknown-ideal/
Capitalism, Rand argues, is not today’s system, with its mixture of freedom and government controls, but a social system in which the government is exclusively devoted to the protection of individual rights, including property rights — one in which there exists absolutely no government intervention in the economy.
Is that definition “reputable”? Because it requires a government which has very specific role and limitations which have never existed anywhere at any time.
You wrote:
Wajoma:
People who want to sell and people that want to buy what's for sale, the voluntary exchange of value for value the recognition of property rights usually occurring without any state bureaurat control freak meddling. The black market, plumbers, tradesmen doing work under the table free from interference.
I don’t see anything about the government being exclusively devoted to the protection of property rights in your examples as per the definition from aynrand.org referenced above.
In fact there are black markets in Communist countries. There were voluntary exchanges before governments existed. Plumbing has existed since the Roman Empire.
https://www.libertarianism.org/topics/capitalism
Capitalism as an economic system is a specific kind of market economy, with certain distinctive features, that came into being during the 19th century and was, arguably, not fully realized until the 1920s.
Is libertarianism.org “reputable” enough for you?
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@wajoma saidIt's admittedly hard to argue with a dunce sitting on a toadstool in the middle of a maze of straw men, basking in perfect ignorance of history.
ass kicked
Edit: SB said: "I assume building codes would go out the window in your cowboy libertarian utopia."
For millions of people they are already out the window and they wouldn't have a home to live in if they were forced to follow the, at times: over the top, at other times insufficient meddling of goobermint busybodies. Black market tradesmen are usually re ...[text shortened]... , eg, this guy's good but expensive, this guys cheap but rough.
Soothfast goes bye, byyyyeeeeeee.
There are a lot of regions in the world where anarchy largely reigns, and all the ingredients for your libertarian claptrap are in plentiful supply. They are, every one, squalid hell holes.
Sorry to disturb your delicate delusion that government is the source of all evil, but there is a reason why governments came into being in the first place. As often as not, the unregulated shantytowns you get misty-eyed over are bulldozed at the behest not of governments but rather of businesses and private citizens who want to boost their property values and/or get rid of "undesirables" in their midst.
And not just shantytowns: what's called "gentrification" displaces myriads of the working poor living in neighborhoods that are reasonably livable or even quite charming; but they are no match for the massive resources of real estate moguls who want to "transform" a region into an upscale enclave. Market forces evict the little people already living in the region, with force if necessary. But sometimes local governments may intervene on behalf of the little people if those little people get organized and scream loudly enough.
Go back to the US of 150 or 200 years ago. Much fewer building codes or regulations, to be sure. Now here is where the rubber hits the road and shows up your libertarian fantasies for being just what they are: fleeting fantasies. There is a dynamic in history, a push-and-pull, that inevitably gives rise to regulation. When substandard housing goes suddenly up in flames and kills scores or hundreds of people, there is inevitably a hue and cry, a considerable societal pressure if you will, that compels government to act in order to prevent a repetition of such a tragedy. An object lesson in dialectical materialism, this: nothing hovers in isolation in a society, an economy, or a political organization such as a nation-state. In particular governments are beholden to public opinion. Always have been and always will be. As the years wore on, regulations (such as building codes) increased in number and specificity in the US, so as to prevent one deadly tragedy or another, and whoops—there goes Wajoma's Libertarian Wonderland. And this happened over and over again in countries around the world going into the 20th century
You can argue the theory until your face is as blue as your balls, but in practice your idea of how a society should conduct its affairs could never last. The historical evidence points to this overwhelmingly: various approximations of your harebrained dog-eat-dog dystopia have all succumbed to a more hands-on approach to governing.
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@averagejoe1 saidI’m happy to refresh your memory.
Reaad it 40 yrs ago, don't remember, but not likely that she would approve of fraud.
https://archive.org/stream/AtlasShrugged/atlas%20shrugged_djvu.txt
"Mr. Rearden, do you know where most of those new aristocrats keep their
hidden money? Do you know where most of the fair share vultures have invested
their profits from Rearden Metal?"
"No, but-"
"In d'Anconia Copper stock. Safely out of the way and out of the country.
D'Anconia Copper— an old, invulnerable company, so rich that it would last for
three more generations of looting. A company managed by a decadent playboy
who doesn't give a damn, who'll let them use his property in any way they
please and just continue to make money for them— automatically, as did his
ancestors. Wasn't that a perfect setup for the looters, Mr. Rearden? Only—
what one single point did they miss?"
Rearden was staring at him. "What are you driving at?"
Francisco laughed suddenly. "It's too bad about those profiteers on
Rearden Metal. You wouldn't want them to lose the money you made for them,
would you, Mr. Rearden? But accidents do happen in the world— you know what
they say, man is only a helpless plaything at the mercy of nature's
disasters. For instance, there was a fire at the d'Anconia ore docks in
Valparaiso tomorrow morning, a fire that razed them to the ground along with
half of the port structures. What time is it, Mr. Rearden? Oh, did I mix my
tenses? Tomorrow afternoon, there will be a rock slide in the d'Anconia mines
at Orano— no lives lost, no casualties, except the mines themselves. It will
be found that the mines are done for, because they had been worked in the
wrong places for months— what can you expect from a playboy's management? The
great deposits of copper will be buried under tons of mountain where a
Sebastian d'Anconia would not be able to reclaim them in less than three
years, and a People's State will never reclaim them at all. When the
stockholders begin to look into things, they will find that the mines at
Campos, at San Felix, at Las Heras have been worked in exactly the same
manner and have been running at a loss for over a year, only the playboy
juggled the books and kept it out of the newspapers.
Shall I tell you what they will discover about the management of the
d'Anconia foundries? Or of the d'Anconia ore fleet? But all these discoveries
won't do the stockholders any good anyway, because the stock of d'Anconia
Copper will have crashed tomorrow morning, crashed like an electric bulb
against concrete, crashed like an express elevator, spattering pieces of
hitchhikers all over the gutters!"
The triumphant rise of Francisco's voice merged with a matching sound:
Rearden burst out laughing.