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Its getting old.
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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I'd love for people to stop using capitalism as a catch-all term for every wrong in the world. This post illustrates a great reason why.
Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. This means every private citizen has control over that which they own, and is free to sell it. In short, it's characterized by a free market, because everybody is free to sell whatever they want.
The reason people view this favorably is because if, for example, someone is selling some really useful farming tool, they're free to sell it at whatever price they want. But, someone else - who is also free to sell whatever they please - might figure out an alternative or their own way to assemble this tool. They can now sell it for a lower price to get more customers, thus forcing the original inventor to bring down the price as well. As a result, the farming world becomes more efficient thanks to innovation and market forces.
I feel like most people understand market forces, so I'm sorry if I'm not saying anything new yet, but it's crucial for seeing the flaw in the next part...
Modern medicine is not controlled by private entities, and they are not operating in a free market. The conditions that allow for market forces simply does not exist in Canada or America (probably Europe too but I know less about their system to get into details).
Take Johnson and Johnson for example. For one thing, they are not a private entity, they are incorporated and act in the collective interest of its shareholders. If capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production (which it is!) then immoral acts they take cannot be attributed to capitalism.
Now consider their business, aside from who owns and controls them. They have a medicine called Stelara, which has no generic alternative. They have an effective Monopoly on this Crohn's medicine, becauae no one else is allowed to sell medicine of the same chemical composition until the patent wears out and it's genericized. This patent is enforced by the state. So, the state enforces a ruling that prevents private business from selling medicine, which gives the corporation an effective Monopoly.
So we have a public entity, using state-enforced rules to prevent a private business from controlling the means of producing that medicine. That's completely anti-capitalistic from every angle I can think of
When a new medicine is invented, and a company marks up the price to high heaven, it's not because they're a capitalist and thus greedy, that simply shows anti-capitalist bias. It's because the state and the laws they enforce give them the opportunity to.
People can be greedy whether they're capitalist or not, so don't use it as an indicator for the flaw in capitalism because you'll just be wrong a lot of the time, because they're independent things
Jesus fucking Christ, you think "private" means "individual."
You know less than nothing about this subject. Don't give lectures.
Yep, communism isn't state-owned means of production as this post implied, it's democratic - that's one of the reasons the USSR model failed.
That is far from the wrongest idea in that comment!
True, but it is one of them
All this ignores that the free market naturally converges on monopolies and that these monopolies will pay off the government to continue being a monopoly in their respective industry or industries. If the government had less control then even better since they wouldn't have to pay off as many people.
Why do they have to pay off the government? You're still assuming some government control, but in a truly free market capitalist system, the government would not have any influence in the market anyway, so paying them off would yield 0 results. You directly say the less government control the better, that's a deeply capitalistic sentiment.
I feel as though you're also assuming I'm 100% advocating for what I'm describing. This is incorrect, because I believe some statehood is necessary to ward off the inherent chaos of a completely free society. The one and only point my post makes, is that the systemic flaw pointed out by the post is absolutely not a capitalist one, regardless of political alignment the post is incorrect.
Whether you're more capitalistic or socialistic, the first step to solving a problem is proper diagnosis.
i think you're missing it. Government for as glacial and corrupt and corruptible as it is, is the only buffer from the excess of a free market.
businesses without a guardrail HAVE proven they will sacrifice everything, literally everything in the name of profit.
Oil companies have know for about a century that they are destroying the planet and they are *still * doing it. They fight every regulation that stops them tooth and nail. They buy and shelve technologies that would cut into their profit. Imagine a world where there was no one trying to stop them at all?
That is the proper diagnosis of our system. We have allowed unaccountable immoral groups to control the means of production and they are literally using it to with kill us all.
You're saying it's not capitalist because of government involvement, but the government has to be involved in order to enforce capitalism. A private entity can claim ownership over something, but what enforces that claim? I said "the less government control the better" as in better for the monopolistic companies who wouldn't have regulators threatening to break up their monopoly or having to pay them off.
I didn't say anything regarding what you advocate, I'm just pointing out that capitalism requires statement enforcement, so pretending that government involvement is not capitalist is wrong. I'm also pointing out that the situation would be worse without certain regulations such as anti-trust laws because capitalism naturally converges on monopolies.
I agree government needs to be involved to an extent. My comment was still correct, the issues of medicine do not stem from capitalism. This does not mean capitalism is without flaw
The example you gave doesn't make sense. First off you confused public trading (company shares are available to the general public) with public ownership (owned by the government i.e. "the public" at large). Johnson and Johnson is publicly traded but the shares are held by private entities. If I buy a share of Johnson and Johnson's stock, I privately own a piece of Johnson and Johnson.
As for drug patents (and patents in general), the idea is to secure timed exclusivity to sell in the market in exchange for public disclosure of method of invention. If we didn't have patents, companies would instead treat drug formulations as trade secrets and so they'd hold onto that exclusivity as long as they can keep the formulation a secret or until another entity reinvents the same thing. There are issues with the patent process and especially with private companies benefiting from publicly-funded research while locking up exclusivity and jacking up prices, but those are still problems with capitalism, and they're still better than just letting the free market completely monopolize the process.
If a corporation is publicly traded, then its ownership is held by the public collective that chooses to invest. The ownership in question is not your specific ownership of a share individually, the ownership in question is the ownership of the means of production, which a public collective invested in. It is not true that you buying one share privately implies the whole thing is private. That's like saying the fact that you voted in private means the government is privately controlled. Yes, private individuals can vote and buy stock, that does not make either private. It makes them public.
The definitions also agree with me btw
Private Ownership:
Public Ownership:
So, if it's owned by the government, or has shares available for purchase by any public body, then it is public. If it's not owned by the state or public body, it's private.
Johnson & Johnson, just like all public corporations, has its shares available for purchase for the public. Therefor, it is public, not private. Honestly, the more you go into it, the harder it is to get away from the simple fact that private means private, and public means public.
Do you not understand what the point of a public offering is? It's to offer up shares of your company to others in order to raise funds so you can expand more rapidly. You throwing in the word "collective" is a poor game of word association. Are you trying to argue that publicly-traded companies are communist? You should really hit the books and straighten out your terminology because you're using it all wrong and you're only misleading others who don't know any better.
You're really reading way too much into things. Just take out the word collective from my comment if it upsets you so much, it makes sense without it.
The conclusion I got to was that public corporations are not private companies. Looks like you're longer disputing that I guess, so you agree with that now?
I never said public corporations are private companies. You're confused and don't seem to have a point to make. Do you think publicly-traded companies are not capitalist?
Okay so public corporations are not private companies. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Public corporations are not private, so they're not capitalist either. I dunno why you had to ask, that was my original point to begin with, it's silly to see a non-capitalist entity like Johnson & Johnson do something bad and blame capitalism for it.
You're either trolling or incredibly ignorant. Get educated, that's all I'm going to say to you now.
I'm well aware it's popular to believe public corporations are capitalistic, in fact I used to believe it myself as well. Getting educated is why I no longer believe it. Actually, not getting educated is a great way to believe that public corporations, precisely because it's a popular belief now.
I also happen to know this belief was popularized by early 1900s socialist propaganda, which characterized capitalists as greedy. They created the association between greed, wealth, markets, and capitalism right out the gate. Because this association was so heavily propagandized, people now use it to define capitalism. This is absolutely incorrect, because greed is a human flaw independent of capitalism, and markets can exist without private control of the means of production. In fact, markets and greed existed in every noteworthy socialist state that ever existed. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to hold the opinion that capitalists are greedy, but to use greed as an indicator for whether someone is a capitalist is absolutely wrong.
So, back to Johnson & Johnson. They are publicly owned, they appeal to their shareholders, the shareholders vote democratically on certain decisions, CEOs are appointed by shareholders, and the CEOs - the people with most control over the system - can be ousted by the shareholders. This is not private control, and you admitted public corporations are not public business. I would prefer not to appeal to popular belief to base my decisions, especially when I'm familiar with how that popular opinion was swayed.
You repeatedly take issue with my terminology, but that's what we're debating. Please tell me why my terminology is wrong.
If I need to get educated, please do me a favor. By what metric do you define Johnson & Johnson capitalist? That's all I need. Just that one thing, that's all you have to do.
Shareholders own the company. Their private ownership is only "public" in that they can sell off their share, to anyone.
It's a joint-stock company. Of course that's capitalism. Jesus fucking Christ.
"Public companies" are owned by private individuals, you absolute dingus. Being for sale means private. They belong to specific persons and organizations.
Do you understand how something being owned by a democratic government is different than something being owned by individuals, whether it is publicly traded or not?
Like, from a power perspective, do you understand the difference for the average prole between the means of production being owned by individuals based on heredity vs being collectively owned by a democratic body?
We live in a world with limited resources. Late stage capitalism is characterized partly by a concentration of wealth. Anyone that has played the board game Monopoly understands the issues with the concentration of wealth, and access to concentrated wealth in a world of limited resources accords a few individuals almost unlimited power over the majority.
Limiting government regulations over fiscal entities just trades governmental tyranny for corporate tyranny over the working-class.
That's a popular belief, sure. But, limited resources aren't the only thing that exist in markets (art, ideas, services, consultation, etc...). In fact, much of the necessary resource market is entirely renewable (most food certainly is).
It's just kinda funny that this is your response when I demonstrated state-corporate cooperation inflicting that tyranny. Corporations are chartered by the state, and the are currently also empowered by the state. Lowering regulations for private entities would empower them against corporations. It would also just make sense considering they are more regulated than corporations are currently, and the market is already completely captured by corporations.
You danced around the fact that late stage capitalism is a shitshow of monopolies.
Secondly, "renewable" does not equal "unlimited".
Food, despite being renewable, is not unlimited, regardless of scientific advancements. It is a limited resource, and access to it is extremely limited in a monopolistic late-stage capitalistic system. Land, housing, minerals, and the physical components of all consumer goods are composed of limited resources.
Time is a limited resource.
Are you suggesting we have a more powerful government to limit incorporation? Otherwise, private entities stand no chance.
If you are suggesting the government abolish the right to incorporate, I'd entertain that notion with you. As well as an amendment to the 14th amendment while we're at it.
And just for clarity, when we're talking about regulations, are you also suggesting we dismantle things like the FDA?
I don't know what to tell you when it comes to farms. Where I'm from, farmers have been able to buy land pretty damn freely. In my small town, there are hundreds of private farms, and it's thanks to the fact that government isn't stopping us, and it's only slowed recently since corporations and government have taken an interest in buying land themselves. Private is the farmers, public is the corporations and government. Farming should stay private, to prevent the misuse of land that comes with government and corporate ownership. The fact the it remains arable and plentiful is thanks to private ownership in fact, because the owners have a vested interest in not depleting the value and use of their land. Farming is their way of life, they don't want to lose it.
You tend to see land misuse and resource depletion in corporate and government farms, not private ones.
The government currently regulates private entities really heavily while also doing things that benefit themselves and corporations. I would suggest that they both stop working with corporations like that (enforcing patents on helpful medicine for example) which would make the government and corporations both less powerful.
Empowering the government in a way that hurt corporations is tempting, but I'm not sure if it's possible since corporations are charted by the state itself. It would be really hard to have the state create them in a way that doesn't in some way help them, and thus it would be hard to stop them from empowering the corporations because they'll always benefit from it. They set it up, house always wins.
That might be the answer, just get rid of them. It'll be hard to get done, for the reasons I described, but yeah, I think it might have to be done. Let's enthusiastically agree on this one :)
Hmm, great question honestly. Really hits the heart of the medicine issue. I think it serves a public good, because big corporations had the freedom to sell some awful stuff, but with corporations gone... maybe not necessary right? My position is that it's currently regulating far too much. A lot of potential medical innovation has been stifled for dubious "safety reasons", while there's also been a lot of dangerous things stopped, so the balance is hard. Reduced regulation is where I stand for now
Ah yes, that unlimited resource: food.
Learn what words mean, god dammit. You can't discuss economics based on what you imagine these terms sound like!
Please feel free to point out any fact you think I got wrong.
The whole thing my guy, You clearly have no idea what Capitalism is. . . Fucking hell that bit you wrote about Corporations not being a part of the Capitalist system because they are incorporated and not privately owned. Comedy gold, if you weren't being sincere. Economists that support Capitalism would laugh at that word salad you wrote, its just so fucking dumb it hurts.
This has given me alot to think about.
I'm glad :)