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by TangoTrotFox 2821 days ago
The point of capitalism is freedom -- not from capitalism, but freedom - period.

In a capitalist society you are, in general, free to do whatever you want. If what you're doing is something that society deems sufficiently valuable then you tend to be able to make a living doing just that, even if it's something nobody would have ever thought to have made a living doing before. Imagine you hate capitalism. If enough people agree with you you're free to make a living writing and talking all about the evils of capitalism, selling your books, articles, Che t-shirts, and so on. Imagine you think communism is the best economic system. In a capitalist society you're free to buy up thousands of acres of land, invite some people onto your land, and then try to start your communist utopia.

By contrast in other economic systems, what you can or can't do tends to be decided by outside forces and the government in particular. No government is ever going to pay you to speak negatively of their system of governance. And the notion of buying thousands of acres of land to start a capitalist utopia would just be nonsensical in e.g. a communistic society. Your freedom is greatly restricted, and society is directed not by the people within that society but by an elite few -- you end up with the same problems as capitalism, but with none of the benefits. And this reality is almost certainly why all social economic systems seem to converge towards authoritarianism and failure to produce. People want to be the masters of their own destiny. Capitalism isn't perfect there, but it's certainly far better than any alternative.

1 comments

Please don't conflate capitalism with libertarianism. Only makes a discussion more confused.