[chii]

> Capitalism can be enacted with markets or it can be enacted with central planners.

how can there be capitalism when central planners tell the owners of the capital what to do with their capital? that sounds like authoritarianism to me (which is basically why all communist countries must be authoritarian, since without it, the natural tendency of humans is to be capitalistic).

[LambdaComplex]

> the natural tendency of humans is to be capitalistic

"Commerce" and "capitalism" are not synonyms. The former has existed for ages. The latter is comparatively recent.

[rjbwork]

Which is almost entirely my point. There's at least three concepts that are quite distinct components of an economic system that people commingle when they talk about these broad categories like capitalism and socialism in popular discourse.

This naive conflation of commerce with capitalism is certainly one manifestation of this conceptual confusion.