You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: To be or not to be....Controlled.
While I think the wording in these definitions is a bit biased (describing capitalism from the perspective of a person choosing how to organize an entire economy takes a socialist mindset for granted), it certainly doesn't imply any particular government structure, or even that a government structure exists. At its core, it implies only that individuals have inherent rights, rather than only being granted arbitrary privileges by society or government.
Is this some kind of libertarian doctrine?The defintion of capitalism does not include individual rights.
Wikipedia: Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
I guess you mean classical liberalism?Or libertarianism?
Anyway,the problem is that the right to own property is not a right based on moral principles,but on law,and on exploitation.Global inequality is getting worse every year.Here are some figures for the Us:
Just prior to President Obama's 2014 State of the Union Address, media[4] reported that the top wealthiest 1% possess 40% of the nation’s wealth; the bottom 80% own 7%; similarly, but later, the media reported, the "richest 1 percent in the United States now own more additional income than the bottom 90 percent".[5] The gap between the top 10% and the middle class is over 1,000%; that increases another 1000% for the top 1%.
Individual ownership is not capitalism,this existed long before,long before money,although not in a modern legal system.The problem is not with ownership,but when this is extended to accumulation of capital and resources,and unethical profit maximation. when profit maximation leads to explotation of workers or appropriation of property,it comes into conflict with self ownership.
It seems absurd to justify sweatshops in china on the basis of"individual rights"
The definitions of capitalism to which you are replying are from Merriam-Webster.
If the means of production are owned by government, rather than by individuals, then individuals can have no rights. The right to own/control a means of producing value is the most basic right, and without it no others can exist. A person's ownership of his own volition is his most basic means of producing any valuable change, so from the very beginning human rights are founded on the capitalist principle of ownership by individuals.
Using examples of oppression under socialist governments is not an effective argument against capitalism.