When they do that they become BIG BUSINESSES THAT CRUSH SMALL BUSINESSES!
Sure, those small businesses built shitty mousetraps that nobody wanted, especially not at the price they sold it, but it is the path to destruction anyway.
Or something like that.
[/quote]
Well, you’re the one that posted a video crying about some girl and her lemonade stand, jackass. Schizophrenic much?
[/quote]
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
regulation does not equal fascism.
[/quote]
It does when those regulations purposefully benefit one group at the expense of an other.
You just don’t know how to properly analyze these policies.
Just for argument’s sake: regulation might be necessary to punish those that commit fraud, theft, vandalism, etc. Regulation cannot prevent this. Usually states handle these crimes and no other regulation is necessary because these actions are already understood to be crimes.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:So you see what they have done but you do not consider if what they have done is necessary or if it being necessary that it is a necessary service requiring a monopoly of compulsion to enforce. After all, market participants do not need to use firearms to require contracts to be enforced.
Why can markets handle the delivery of telephones and computers, for example, but not electricity, sewage and water? What are the criteria that make these goods unique to the other goods that you can walk into any story and freely purchase?
Isn’t it telling that the majority of these services are operated and managed by private coops in the first place even though they may be administered by bureaucracy?[/quote]
That’s a great idea! Let’s have privately built and managed water lines, sewer systems, power grids, roads, and the whole nine yards[quote]
Yes, it is an awesome idea.
Why could not one company own the facility and rent the service to operating companies? Of course this is but one of many possible market solutions. Besides you cannot convince me that government bureaucracy can deliver these services better than the market. I have driven on toll roads – quite often, in fact – and I love the fact that they never have bad traffic on them.
This is good because then the price of these services would accurately represent rents and it would be cheaper in the long run. Paying taxes to subsidize it actually makes these services more expensive because there is no competition to keep them efficient.
Heck, land owners could get free electricity just by merely renting out the use of their property to the utility company? You see this as a bad thing?
Why should people have their land stolen from them for “public use”.
Ironically, capitalism destroys many small-scale operations like this.
[/quote]
How?
Legit curious as to how this happens, according to you.
Maybe small businesses go under because there is no market for the goods the business is attempting to sell. Maybe the business owner made bad business decisions. I just fail to see how capitalism destroys small businesses.[/quote]
Well, according to the admittedly obscure source of every single economics 101 textbook in the world, what makes capitalism so great is competition. Do you suppose that there are “weight classes” for this competition? Isn’t that a frequent complaint against Wal-Mart? That they come in and decimate local businesses?
In addition, some government regulations disproportionately burden small businesses, to the advantage of larger firms, of course.[/quote]
And yet, most businesses are small businesses.
Your idea that big businesses always have an advantage complete nonsense. In some areas they do, in others they dont.
Ha, no confusion on my end, although you still are. I was not making a judgement one way or the other about it. I simply said it occurred. It was complained about earlier, and I put it into the proper context. Strange it provokes you so much.
A point about processes as they occur in the real world is not an invalid point. Failing to conform to your armchair theories of what should occur is not invalid. You are utterly incapable of breaking away from the mythical version of capitalism in your head to see what really goes on when your policies are instituted. This is not a failing of mine.
You refuse to accept that coercion is an inevitable part of capitalism. Where it appears, you simply assume the fetal position and chant “That’s not capitalism, that’s not capitalism,” over and over to reassure yourself. Well, that’s fine if you don’t want to call it capitalism, but then what? It’s what happens when people of your persuasion get your way. And they pretend that because the results of their infantile attempts to make the world conform to their philosophy didn’t work out the way their theories said it should, something else is to blame. They invert the relationship between subject and object, and like Marx said, they stand reality on its head, blaming it for failing to live up to the potential of the Idea.
Ironically, capitalism destroys many small-scale operations like this.
[/quote]
How?
Legit curious as to how this happens, according to you.
Maybe small businesses go under because there is no market for the goods the business is attempting to sell. Maybe the business owner made bad business decisions. I just fail to see how capitalism destroys small businesses.[/quote]
Well, according to the admittedly obscure source of every single economics 101 textbook in the world, what makes capitalism so great is competition. Do you suppose that there are “weight classes” for this competition? Isn’t that a frequent complaint against Wal-Mart? That they come in and decimate local businesses?
In addition, some government regulations disproportionately burden small businesses, to the advantage of larger firms, of course.[/quote]
And yet, most businesses are small businesses.
Your idea that big businesses always have an advantage complete nonsense. In some areas they do, in others they dont.
[/quote]
Most businesses in the aerospace industry are not small businesses. Most businesses in the automotive industry are not small businesses. Most businesses in the pharamaceutical industry are not small businesses.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
regulation does not equal fascism.
[/quote]
It does when those regulations purposefully benefit one group at the expense of an other.
You just don’t know how to properly analyze these policies.[/quote]
No, it doesn’t. Especially when you consider that the whole thing is a product of capitalism. You don’t like the modern capitalist state? Give up on capitalism. They came in together, and they will only go out together. The state’s job is to keep capitalism stable, which doesn’t always agree with what free-market fundamentalists think should happen.
Furthermore, you completely ignore the fact that regulations are often needed to protect the public, and especially in the financial industry, to guard against systemic risk. In this case, the LACK of regulation benefits some at the expense of others. Reality is much less black and white than you try to make it.
You made the statement that capitalism kills small business and favors big business/corporations. You then disproved your own argument by pointing out Wal-Mart, which was a once a small, local business. Capitalism doesn’t kill anything. It’s a system, that’s it. Wal-Mart provides goods at prices people want and can afford. If small businesses can’t do this. Too bad.
[quote]And this isn’t capitalism. This is economic Fascism, which Lifticus has already pointed out.
How can we discuss capitalism if you don’t even know what it is?
And just why isn’t it capitalism? [/quote]
The plethora of regulations and taxes?
I’m not altering the definition of capitalism, I just know what it means.
It would be difficult to criticize a system that gives individuals the utmost freedom to succeed in the market place. There are no restrictions in a free market so what is there to criticize?
Maybe you should attempt to grasp basic economic concepts before you get all high and mighty.
[quote]ZEB wrote:And small companies can be quite damaging to large ones if they are able to build a better mouse trap. That is the beauty of capitalism. The best product or service, marketed correctly and sold at the proper price wins the consumer.
[/quote]
There are lots of smart software engineers out there, but nobody has taken down Microsoft.
[/quote]
So there are no other small companies that can steal market share from larger ones? That’s not even logical is it?
[quote]Besides, this still has precious little to do with capitalism.
[/quote]
Business big and small has everything to do with capitalism.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Ignoring the important role that government has played in facilitating and, in many instances, actively contributing toward the wealth of private companies (read, you’re wrong), it doesn’t matter, because they wouldn’t have had the funding if left to the market anyway.[/quote]
My brother in law saved his money for several years, quit his job and opened a furniture store, that was 7 years ago. He does pretty well with that store, he has 8 employees, and pays his taxes on time.
Now tell me how did government help him? I can tell you how they hurt him, but how exactly did they help him?[/quote]
It printed currency that everyone used and recognized to purchase his goods. It made sure that nay banks that stored or loan him money, didn’t just walk away with it, raise interest rates through the roof and FORCE him to pay-up. It provided a police force which protected the business from thieves and vandals, and on the occasion it failed, it had a justice and compensation system in place to deal with it. It also insured that any privately purchased insurance contract he might have partaken in was upheld by both parties. It built public roads so that customers could get the the business relatively quickly and safely. It provided water and electricity, so he didn’t need his own well, water-treatment, sewage system, and power-plant. I think the list goes on.
[/quote]
But what did they do with the rest of the tax money, other than create more bureaucracy?
Who’s willfully blind, when you compare this to a run-of-the-mill downturn? Unemployment hasn’t been this high in several decades. This is not a typical recession.
No, they diagnosed the real causes of this recession. You try again.
[quote]orion wrote:Was she stopped by evil capitalism?
No, it was benevolent government!
[/quote]
Which was created by capitalism.
In this particular instance, though, if you want to give government the credit for looking out for her safety, then fine.
[/quote]
Capitalism created government?
Do tell![/quote]
Not government, the modern state. There was no need for it before the large-scale institution of private property, the protection of which is its primary function.
Capitalism is a system under which large businesses tend to stifle smaller competition, though this is not its defining characteristic. While you’re admonishing me for not understanding basic concepts, look up “barriers to entry.” Then you go on to pick one example of a small company flourishing (which was never in question, because since large corporations weren’t always here, they had to start small at some point, so you’ve refuted an argument that no one was making due to your attempt to dodge the issue–nice) to attempt to disprove an obvious trend. That’s another error you made, confusing a single instance with a general trend. What you said was the equivalent of rebuking me for stating that “heads is equally as likely as tails” based on the fact that you got tails this one time.
Furthermore, your whole argument only makes sense if you assume that the economy is static and unchanging, which it is obviously not.
Again, your point? You’re obviously very confused.
Evidently not.
How about: ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, the Atlantic slave trade, massive expropriation of peasents, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII…need I go on?
Besides, you’re still basing everything on the imaginary conception of capitalism in your head, wihle refusing to examine it as it actually exists. You will continue to be wrong as long as you continue to think this way (that is, as long as you continue to be a total pussy).
Why? Support of capitalism requires that one does not understand basic economic concepts.
[quote]orion wrote:Was she stopped by evil capitalism?
No, it was benevolent government!
[/quote]
Which was created by capitalism.
In this particular instance, though, if you want to give government the credit for looking out for her safety, then fine.
[/quote]
Capitalism created government?
Do tell![/quote]
Not government, the modern state. There was no need for it before the large-scale institution of private property, the protection of which is its primary function.
[/quote]
[quote]
Capitalism is a system under which large businesses tend to stifle smaller competition, though this is not its defining characteristic. While you’re admonishing me for not understanding basic concepts, look up “barriers to entry.” Then you go on to pick one example of a small company flourishing (which was never in question, because since large corporations weren’t always here, they had to start small at some point, so you’ve refuted an argument that no one was making due to your attempt to dodge the issue–nice) to attempt to disprove an obvious trend. That’s another error you made, confusing a single instance with a general trend. What you said was the equivalent of rebuking me for stating that “heads is equally as likely as tails” based on the fact that you got tails this one time. [/quote]
Negative. “Capitalism” kills small business" was your claim. Yet I can provide numerous examples of small businesses flourishing, despite corporations existing. I wasn’t dodging the issue, I was refuting the statement you made.
And to this trend I was supposedly dodging…certain corporations are in bed with the government(see fascism), which you always like to point out and label as free market capitalism. This of course is false.
[quote]And just why isn’t it capitalism?
The plethora of regulations and taxes?
Again, your point? You’re obviously very confused. [/quote]
Do I need to break out a dictionary for you? You have demonstrated numerous times that you don’t know what free market capitalism consists of. How many of us here have to correct you?
[quote]It would be difficult to criticize a system that gives individuals the utmost freedom to succeed in the market place. There are no restrictions in a free market so what is there to criticize?
How about: ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, the Atlantic slave trade, massive expropriation of peasents, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII…need I go on? [/quote]
And the common denominator in each example is the state, which you cherish so much. Not the economic system.
Now I’m a pussy because I don’t agree with your delusional beliefs of the free market? You deserve all the ridicule you get from other forum members.
what ryan is trying to tell you all is that it is a difference beetwen the markedliberalist ideology and the capitalist system that exist in the real world. its the same difference beetwen my socialist ideology and the reality of the sovjet union ( who was not socialist if judged after the ideolog ).
when marx talked about captalismen he ment the society of the capitalistclass, with the state, economy, culture etc. The difference beetwen a capitalist state and a socialist is this: the main purpose of the capitalist state is to protect the power and privat property of the capitalist class. the socialist states main purpose is to protect the power of the proletariat and to protect the collective property.
I am glad if you guys dont like the system of today, maybe you join the radical left when you want real change.