[dovereconomics]

No.

TPP, huge inequality, centralization, unemployment ARE NOT a consequence of free market capitalism.

In such case, automation just doesn't outpace the labor market.

Now, when tech companies are partying with an artificial economy controlled by the government, they have more than enough money to that.

[TeMPOraL]

People seem to be assuming that free market capitalism means companies are perfectly happy about competition, because competition is what we expect to see under perfect free market conditions. No, companies do not like competition; any sane (not to mention rational) actor in such a system will do anything it can to ensure its own monopoly. Pitting various actors with such tendencies against each other is kind of the core idea of market economy. It's pretty obvious that some actors will temporarily get ahead, and then capitalize on that to get further ahead. Hence inequality, centralization and TPP, which is another stepping stone towards companies being in charge of governments, and not the other way around.

As for unemployment, there are many things that give rise to it, but part of it is definitely market optimizing things so much that people are being pushed under minimum survivable wage and have to rely on (the bad, communist) welfare to survive. Automation is playing a serious role here, even companies know that (hence the "don't vote for increased minimum wage, or we'll have no choice but to replace our workers with robots" ads that started to appear).

[dovereconomics]

Obviously, companies want less competition, but if they use a political system to do that, it's not free market capitalism.

[TeMPOraL]

The line dividing "market" and "political system" is blurry and pretty arbitrary, like most lines in models we make. There's nothing in reality that makes meddling with politics unkosher; if it increases profit, then the incentives created by the economy will make companies choose to do so. The problem isn't that they're crossing some arbitrary lines - the problem is with the incentives that lead them to it.

[lprubin]

I think it's an important question of whether or not lasting monopolies are possible without political intervention.

[TeMPOraL]

A big enough monopoly looks surprisingly like a nation state. I don't think you can really disconnect those two worlds.

[timtas]

Seems clear to me. The market consists of voluntary associations. An association is voluntary if it is entered into without coercion. The "political system" more properly called the state, depends on coercion. There is no purpose to a law other than to involuntarily compel, by violence if necessary.

[TeMPOraL]

Voluntary trade at the level of basic needs is bullshit. Fear of hunger or death from sickness is coercion. I have to have a job, and I have to buy food. Companies are very happy to exploit that. A lot of blood was shed a century ago to establish some minimum safety net for this "voluntary trade".

[timtas]

> Read up on e.g. lives of miners in the United States

We all know the about the suffering of industrial workers. What's less well known is the far greater suffering of the pre industrial revolution peasant. What's also less well knows is that the advances in conditions and prosperity that bring us to today were will under way before, and had very little to do with, progressive state interventions.

[timtas]

You must obtain food but not from any one specific provider. No company will long "exploit" you (Hmm, where have we heard that term before?) unless they are protected from competition by a coercive state.

[Sammi]

What you present is a naive fantasy. There do not exist any corporations that do not engage in coercion. Coercion is human nature. Corporations are run by humans. In the real world things are messy. Politics and capitalism go hand in hand.

[timtas]

> Politics and capitalism go hand in hand.

Indeed, that's the problem. The state gains support of corporations by "partnering" with them. I will certainly not dispute that a free market system is often perverted by state cronyism.

[timtas]

A corporation cannot kill me or put in a cage and call it legal.

[reagency]

Government regulation is one specific form of power. Human hunger is another, hence the trouble that started the labor movement / unions.

[Demiurge]

And if they use private guns for hire to do it?

[pm90]

Of course established companies do not like competition, it is the startups that do. If we didn't have free markets, then MS would not have risen up to replace IBM (for example; maybe not the best example). What we hope is that MS is better at doing what IBM used to do.

[TeMPOraL]

Yes, but as the (hypothetical) MS is fighting against IBM, the IBM is free to employ every trick in their book, including shoving things like TPP down our throats, to get rid of the rising competitor. No rule of the market says that they should just give up and die, or that they should just compete on merits, ignoring the influence that comes with money and established position.

[vezzy-fnord]

If we didn't have free markets, then MS would not have risen up to replace IBM

Considering the United States was (and remains) a mixed market economy at the time, your statement is incorrect.

[lkjhgfd]

A mixed market means some markets are free, some unfree - right?

[reagency]

MS success started with a very generous legal contract, backed by copyright fee regulation protections, then became the anti-competiitve progress-blockimg behemoth they replaced.

[PythonicAlpha]

Of course, they are consequences of today's corporate capitalism!

To have a shiny vision of capitalism, that just is not compatible with reality, does not help. Communism's failure was not, that it was not a nice idea, it's failure was, that it's thoughts where not compatible with reality!

Reality is, that international corporations have huge stacks of money and plenty of lawyers and lobbyists. And they use it for the only ethics they got: profits.

And TTP, inequality, centralization, unemployment ... are results of the thrive to more and more profits for the owning people at the expense of the working people.

Today's capitalism is shaped by the profit motive -- and the profit motive has no morals and no ethics.

And when you talk about "free market" -- there is no such thing. A real free market would give everybody the same chance. But the situation today is, that the big corporations are shaping the laws and the small players can not. So there is no such thing as a free market with free and equal competition in reality.

[TeMPOraL]

I guess we should try and move away from labels a little bit - because a lot of time is spent discussing whether communism is true communism, or if what we have is capitalism, corporationism, corporate state capitalism or whatever.

Name it however you like, it doesn't change that there are processes you mentioned that bring about the results we don't like. We need to focus on those.

> Today's capitalism is shaped by the profit motive -- and the profit motive has no morals and no ethics.

In a way, our economy is a paperclip maximizer. It doesn't love or hate you, but you're an expendable resource that can be used to make something else (profit within the system).

[PythonicAlpha]

I would agree. Labels and names are not helpful, because everybody has his own view of it. For some, capitalism is hell, for some it means the only rescue against the hell of communism and vice versa.

Your last sentence describes it very well. It is the mechanics, which are the driving force -- and the direction is predefined by the mechanics. The driving force we have today is profits ... and the result is a de-humanized and un-ethical society, because profits are not ethical at all.

[Demiurge]

This is very important to establish every time there is a discussion, in that there are politically convenient labels, and there are what we can consider terms that are useful to further the argument. The terms capital-ism and commun-ism refer to compatible aspects of reality. Like self interest and sharing for common good co-exist in reality. Trying to eliminate either would make us unhappy. USA economy has been favoring a less people consolidating more capital.

[timtas]

> the situation today is, that the big corporations are shaping the laws and the small players can not

Indeed! How about we fix that and don't let big corporations shape the laws? Crony capitalism is not an inherent feature of capitalism, it's a perversion of it which really ought not be taken as a given.

[TeMPOraL]

The only way to do that would be to have a government completely disconnected from the economy. As long as the officials need to eat, need to send their kids to school and need the money to increase their chances for reelection, politics is a part of market economy. Pretending those two are not connected is fooling oneself.

[timtas]

Wait...politics is part of the economy so we can pay politicians to be part of the economy? Seems tautological.

[TeMPOraL]

Because politics currently is a part of economy, period. You can't disconnect the two as long as officials participate in the economy themselves, because any such participation is a bridge between the two "worlds".

[loup-vaillant]

> TPP, huge inequality, centralization, unemployment ARE NOT a consequence of free market capitalism.

Then what's the cause? Surely you have a guess?

[lumberjack]

Why is it always "free markets" but never "competitive markets"?

Also last I checked Facebook and Google were operating in very free markets and yet they don't really have any competition.

[lprubin]

Search Engine Market Share:

Google 67% Yahoo 10% Bing: 10% Baidu: 8% AOL: 1% Other: 2%

Just because 67% of consumers are choosing Google search despite a myriad of other options, doesn't make it a monopoly nor does it mean they don't have competition. Google is constantly being pushed by its competitors to improve and maintain its marketshare.

Google is also competing with every type of advertising on the planet.

[loup-vaillant]

> Why is it always "free markets" but never "competitive markets"?

I would put my money on newspeak. "Free" sounds more positive than "competitive". Freedom is like always good, while competition makes it clear that there will be losers as well as winners.

It's also much harder to be against freedom than competition. Often, we want cooperation instead of competition. But what could possibly replace freedom?

[aagha]

> TPP, huge inequality, centralization, unemployment ARE NOT a consequence of free market capitalism.

They're not?! How can you say that? Did you forget to put a /s (sarcasm) tag?