[kbos87]

I believe that Patagonia cares about the environment and wishes there was more they could do, but I think they are absolutely driven by the forces of capitalism, whether they like it or not, and it’s visible in their current practices. They run holiday ads and promotions, they open new stores, they release a new line each year. Yes they sprinkle in campaigns and messaging to not buy new unless you really need it and they facilitate recycling/reuse of their past products, but capitalism still forces them to seek growth, relevance, and sales to survive, which they do. Not faulting them for it, just wishing it wasn’t that way.

[fuzzfactor]

>They run holiday ads and promotions, they open new stores, they release a new line each year.

These are all things a regular entrepreneur would do whether they were capitalist or not.

Or any of _other peoples' money_ was involved.

Even when the only environment to operate in is recognized as overwhelmingly capitalist, a non-capitalist entrepreneur can still have some unfair advantages.

When you're selling all you can make for a profit long enough, you're supposed to be doing well depending only on business structure after that. Yes, you might have a disadvantage being surely influenced by the forces of capitalism, but it can often be done.

Also without growth as an articulated goal, the pressure of exponential demands can be appropriately moderated and more sustainable growth with better returns can still result compared to alternative leadership approaches which focus on growth most aggressively but still end up wishing they could do as well.

>If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, _This sucks. I'm going to do my own thing._

__Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia

[kd5bjo]

I think you may be misusing the term “capitalist”. I always understood that it had more to do with the production side of a business than sales or long-term goals: the capitalist (a founder or investor) provides capital so that a business can acquire production facilities, and is entitled in return to a portion of the proceeds from the enterprise that he or she enabled. The business strategy and long-term vision can be anything the parties agree upon.

The closest thing I can think of to a private non-capitalist business would be one that relies on other companies to do the actual work and haven’t invested in their own production facilities. There are plenty of these around today, but that doesn’t appear to be what you’re referring to.

[fuzzfactor]

Good to get your message.

Just using terminology more precisely as it applies to a natural environment over a lifetime.

The one constant is the structure which enables other people's money to be used for pure financial leverage.

No requirement for free enterprise which I truly care for as well.

Heck, before they were united, some States of America were founded by royal capitalist corporations, about the furthest thing from free enterprise.

So capital as other people's money is a resource, but not every resource is capital unless it actually belongs to somebody else with their conditions attached as agreed.

Not so much means of production, or hard assets, but whenever an investor provides capital to a founder so that

>The business strategy and long-term vision can be anything the parties agree upon.

Regardless of whether you build or acquire any facilities they are

>entitled in return to a portion of the proceeds from the enterprise that he or she enabled.

So I think we can agree that type of thing is it for sure.

But I do think it's actually some of the uber-capitalist corporations which have done the most damaging outsourcing.

And I don't see how I could rightfully be a capitalist without any capital.

Well, it might just be best to be able to change at any time, if you really do know how to perform for shareholders.

A founder without any of other people's money, and without enough prosperity to enable their investment in other people's ventures, just doesn't seem to be actually handling capital, yet, even if the cash flow gets fairly large.

Even if they are very agressive entrepreneurs this does not put them in the catagory of funded ventures, and opportunity to well exploit a capitalist market might remain out of reach even while it still must be operated within.

When the economic system is structured so that capital alone can yield more than many labor approaches, terms become more critical than ever for outfits seeking leverage so they can become capitalist in difficult or uncertain conditions.

Without extraordinary terms an operation might be better off which could take place whether there was other people's money or not.

Capitalism can enable wonderful things and not-so-wonderful things but the foundation is basically the other people's money aspect of it.