Capitalism

[Myrddin]

I know it is a small point but why do people use 'capitalism' when they mean 'free markets'

Free markets- little or no government involvement in business ie no price controls etc

Capitalism- separation of ownership and management of business

Free trade- few controls over international trade

So you can have free markets without capitalism, but I can think of no examples where there has been capitalism without free markets

[Buck Birdseed]

The usage depends entirely on what discourse the speaker comes from. A Marxist (and they can make a pretty strong case for having invented the word) would define it as an economic system whereby control of capital is in the hands of a bourgeois upper class, for instance.

[Hueij]

it's spelled Captialism

[Urban Ranger]

No capitalism, no free market.

[Ramo]

Actually, every example of free markets involved socialism (the worker ownership of the means of production).

[Imran Siddiqui]

If you'd consider that free markets and not merely a more advanced form of barter . Then again, free markets with capitalism aren't numerous either.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ramo
Actually, every example of free markets involved socialism (the worker ownership of the means of production).

Not the small craftsmanship sort of batering marketplace Ramo

[Ramo]

Those economies, by and large, involved worker control of the means of production. Otherwise known as socialism.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Which economies .

There has been no true free market in human existance. It's a utopian goal... like communism.

[Ramo]

The various economies that I keep bringing up in all of those anarchism threads, which I don't really feel like turning this one into.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well maybe you should.

How were they free market? Didn't they take the means from the people that owned them by force? That doesn't sound very free market to me.

[Ramo]

Hunter-gatherers didn't. But yes, most modern socialist societies took property by force (of course one could say that they had differing ideas on property claims, so collectivization could fit under a capitalists' idea of a "free market" ), but after collectivization, the economies were "free-market" by just about any standard.

[DuncanK]

Re: Capitalism

Originally posted by Myrddin
So you can have free markets without capitalism

Capitalism is the type of economy that Marx described as that which replaces feudalism. It is where the means of production are owned by one class of people and the work is done by another class of people. I guess what you are trying to say is that you can have free markets in either feudalism or communism. You should explain this because I don't think anyone here knows what you are getting at. I don't see how you could have free markets without capitalism, and If we go by Marx's definitions you don't.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Not the small craftsmanship sort of batering marketplace Ramo

True, but I don't think there was ever a classless society like this. This existed in both feudal and capitalist society. Therefore I think you would still have to consider it one or the other. There never was a free market society. However, if there ever was a society of all self-employed people I guess this would qualify as a new type of economy.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Ramo
Hunter-gatherers didn't. But yes, most modern socialist societies took property by force (of course one could say that they had differing ideas on property claims, so collectivization could fit under a capitalists' idea of a "free market" ), but after collectivization, the economies were "free-market" by just about any standard.

Who knows for sure, but anthropologists don't believe that in these societies you could save your labor and hire others to do your work for you. There weren't really markets either. Tribes traded with each other, but there was no market place where a price was negotiated like we have today.