• intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    Capitalism is a free market.

    Capitalism is, for example, being able to buy a pack of cigarettes at $15 and sell them $2 a pop on the street to make $40.

    We don’t have a free market; therefore we don’t have capitalism.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      25 days ago

      Capitalism is a form of commodity production of competing Capital Owners that pay wage laborers to sell commodities on a market, seeking further and further accmulation.

      Capitalism tends to monopolize into syndicates and eliminate its own competition. This doesn’t mean it isn’t still Capitalism, just that it’s becoming Imperialism, ie moribund Capitalism, and that it is becoming ripe for central planning and public siezure. Capitalism develops towards Socialism, once the proletariat siezes control.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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      24 days ago

      Capitalism is not synonymous with markets. A market is a distribution system, ie how goods and services are allocated, not how they are produced.

    • C126@sh.itjust.works
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      25 days ago

      Actually, I think it’s a system which uses a medium of exchange to facilitate trade, e.g. capital. As opposed to a barter system. You can have a capitalist system without a free market. I think you could even have a communist system which uses capital to assign value, technically.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        25 days ago

        Not quite.

        Capitalism is a form of commodity production of competing Capital Owners that pay wage laborers to sell commodities on a market, seeking further and further accmulation.

        Capitalism tends to monopolize into syndicates and eliminate its own competition. This doesn’t mean it isn’t still Capitalism, just that it’s becoming Imperialism, ie moribund Capitalism, and that it is becoming ripe for central planning and public siezure. Capitalism develops towards Socialism, once the proletariat siezes control.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        25 days ago

        It isn’t true on its face or otherwise.

        Capitalism is a form of commodity production of competing Capital Owners that pay wage laborers to sell commodities on a market, seeking further and further accmulation.

        Capitalism tends to monopolize into syndicates and eliminate its own competition. This doesn’t mean it isn’t still Capitalism, just that it’s becoming Imperialism, ie moribund Capitalism, and that it is becoming ripe for central planning and public siezure. Capitalism develops towards Socialism, once the proletariat siezes control.

        Meanwhile, the USSR absolutely was Socialist, complete with public ownership, a dictatorship of the proletariat, central planning, and more.