Microblog Memes

I’m definitely capitalist in that I think private wownership of the means of production usually works out best but there are many variations and we seem to pick the worst.

One of the fundamental purposes of government is to establish a market. Establish a foundation of legal and contractual processes, a currency, some level of transparency and fairness. We mostly have those, although the transparency and fairness has been heavily eroded.

But government is established “by the people, for the people”. Its governments role to configure that marketplace to serve the people, the society. Capitalism will always exploit negative externalities, imbalances of power, lack of transparency, but its governments role to structure those to not harm people or society, and we’re failing at that. Modern capitalism is structured for very short term profit-seeking even at the expense of the long term, but its governments role to consider that and structure the market to serve longer term goals. Some services for society are NOT handled well bely capitalism: that’s where government needs to step in more. It’s government that is failing , government captured by the oligarchs, government corrupted for profit and power seeking, government that’s lost its way. And by government I obviously mean those in charge, those who make the decisions, not those who get things done.

I found this article classifying types of capitalism and apparently its “ State-guided Capitalism”, but my preference gets fascinating from there - it classifies China as an extreme example whereas we tend to call it communism or socialism or something

• https://helpfulprofessor.com/types-of-capitalism/

2. State-guided Capitalism …

In many countries, critical infrastructure, such as airlines or railways, are operated by companies in which the state owns all or most of the stock. These may also simply be directly controlled government entities in which case they function more like the police or fire service. …

State-guided capitalism is different to socialism…. …

Examples of countries which have state-guided capitalism are everywhere. In fact, it could be argued that all countries are to some extent examples of it, as the modern economy always requires some form of regulation. Without such rules as health or safety regulations, societies end up with far more problems than without. …

China – A great example of a heavily interventionist state is China. The Chinese government owns firms that together account for 40% of the economy,