[deprecative]

Capitalism leads to monopolies and related economic structures. It's best for every large player to carve out territory whether it's geography or specialization niche. The fallacy is that this will be a meritocracy. It's not. It's wealth concentration. The haves will buy innovation and deprive the market of competition to themselves. This happens again and again and again.

[Fervicus]

We see less of these kinds of problems the closer we are to a free market. A pure free market is not realistic, but sadly our current flavor of capitalism has headed far away in the opposite direction.

[Ekaros]

To me it is increasingly critical to separate capitalism from free market. They have gone together for some time, but in the end capitalism aims to crush free market when it benefits the capital.

State is needed to stop too much consolidation from occurring and prevent monopolies where alternatives are sensible.

[Fervicus]

I don't agree. It is state intervention that causes consolidation and monopolies. A free market keeps monopolies in check.

[gitrog]

This claim is baffling to me. Are you saying without state intervention Amazon wouldn't just buy out every potential competitor or drive them out of business using currently regulated tactics?

[Fervicus]

Amazon has already been doing just that [0]. It wasn't born in a world where we have a free market.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...