[simonh]

> Telling me that you make poor, short-sighted decisions isn't an argument that capitalism doesn't require justification. It means you have low standards for an economic system.

That's pejorative and uncalled for. There's nothing in that post that indicates those choices are either poor or short sighted, just that they are motivated by the exercise of free will. What alternative criteria would you impose on the poster's decisions?

>You could just as well try to argue that every word out of your mouth doesn't require justification simply because you accept it all as true without it. Well good for you.

I'm deeply concerned about your blatant disregard for the freedom of expression of others. Who should the poster be _required_ to justify their words to? You?

Capitalism is only one characteristic of our modern global economy out of many. Typically developed western countries have capitalist corporate structures, regulated markets, centrally planned social welfare systems and the occasional monopoly. Capitalism is justifiable on two premises.

The first is the exercise of freedoms. The freedom to own your own property and invest your own earnings and property as you see fit is a basic right that is widely recognized in the western world. It's hard to see how restricting or curtailing that right can be morally justified. The second premise is that capitalism is overall an efficient way to allocate resources because it engages the creativity and energy of the maximum possible number of people rather than restricting it to a politically selected few. And yes, Capitalism does engage a vast swathe of the population. The local shop owner down the road I buy my milk from is just as much a capitalist as any banker. That doesn't mean capitalism allocates resources perfectly, just that it's more efficient than the other methods that have been tried. As Winston Churchill said of Democracy - it's the worst system, except for all the others.

[dunkelheit]

I think it is more complicated than that. First, the right to invest your own earnings is in fact severely restricted in most countries. It is called taxes and one of the primary justifications for the existence of taxes is moral one. Second, there is vast difference between your milkman and your banker - your banker has so much more power to wreak havoc on your life as compared to milkman.

[simonh]

I called out exactly the sorts of complications you're talking about - those taxes go towards funding the centrally planned welfare state I mentioned (I'm generalizing across western countries here, of course there are exceptions) as well as policing, education, defence, market regulation activities, etc.

Of course there are differences between a milkman and a banker, but fundamentally capitalism is about freedom and individual rights and striking an equitable balance between those and the common good.

My father in law is Chinese. He remembers when his family were cast out on to the street and lost everything, because they owned a few plots of land that they rented out to neighbors in their rural village and were therefore capitalists. So when you start talking about capitalism, let's be clear. We're talking about the basic right to own personal property, and those arguing against capitalism are arguing for taking that away. They've done it before and given the chance will do it again. It's not theory, it's my family history, but is something that is directly relevant to every single one of us.

[dunkelheit]

This kind of argument (taking the definition of capitalism used by Chinese revolutionaries and the fact that they used it as ideological foundation for doing violent and horrible things and inferring that any capitalism critique is evil) is flawed. In fact some would go as far as calling it The Worst Argument In The World :) (this post is excellent: http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst...)

I also have to disagree with you on the premise that capitalism is about balance and protecting small property owners. In fact unchecked capitalism leads to just the opposite (think of how many small bookstores can withstand the competition with Amazon). The system becomes workable only in the presence of some essentially anti-capitalistic countermeasures.

[simonh]

There's nothing anti-capitalistic about regulating companies and markets. We regulate everything we do from medical care and certification at birth through education, marriage/civil partnership, employment and death but regulating these things doesn't mean we are against them. There's nothing special about Capitalism or the operation of markets that should make them exempt from operating under the rule of law. Capitalism isn't about regulation any more than marriage is about marriage certificates.

Have a look at the first paragraph of the Wikipedia definition of capitalism (or all of it, it's very good). That definition applies to the owner of a bookstore that buys books and sells them to the public as much it does any shareholder or director of a public company such as Amazon. That's what capitalism is. If you are using it to mean something else - some other different more narrow or specific kind of business activity that your disapprove of - please state it or come up with your own new word for it and what you offer as an alternative.

If you have no problem with the private bookstore owners owning their own businesses, for example, but want to restrict some other types of activity involving earning money from the employment of capital, then what you are advocating is extending the (existing) regulation of capitalism. Not getting rid of capitalism or substituting something else which you have yet to mention. In which case, please feel free to be more specific.