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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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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.
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?
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.