[andybak]

Tangent time. I genuinely don't understand what people generally mean when they use the phrase "anti-capitalist". I doubt most are Tankies or full-on Utopian Anarchists. I suspect a fair few mean "I want a mixed economy that's (a lot) fairer than the one we've got now" (which is probably my position).

But outside of these three positions - what do people mean?

[kbolino]

In this case, it seems to refer to the concentration of capital in the hands of a few. Proprietary software is much less accessible outside of its allowed uses and especially outside of the hands of the people who have its source code. This allows its owners to keep most of the benefits for themselves.

There's definitely a Marxist flavor to this meaning, though I don't think you have to be a tankie to use it that way.

[orwin]

And most post-Marxist arguments or visions have a Marxist flavor. Which is quite expected, he was very hindsightful, and correct criticism of Marx require reading and understanding his point of view.

[AstralStorm]

Not quite Marxist but sort of neo-Proudhon.

What makes anything intellectual property really?

(Unless it's literally personal property, such as a diary contents.) Renumeration is one thing, property another.

[andybak]

I also think it's possible to be a Marxist without being a Tankie - I'm just not clear on the specific forms that would take.

[TulliusCicero]

They're opposed to capitalism on some level. Though it's probably true that some are just social democrats that want heavy regulation of capitalism.

Another possible alternative is being a market socialist (wanting an economy that's basically all worker owned co-ops).

[andybak]

> Another possible alternative is being a market socialist

OK. I hadn't considered that option. I guess I'm interested to understand the middle ground between "centralized state ownership" and "no state but somehow it doesn't turn into hellscape of warlords and bandits".

Does this model generally allow private property but exclude "the means of production" etc?

[TulliusCicero]

Socialists usually try to distinguish between "personal property" (things for your own household/lifestyle) and "private property" (the means of production, or sometimes extravagant wealth in general).

[CuriousCosmic]

In the strict definition, capitalism refers to a system that is predominantly driven by ownership of private property. Wikipedia and basically every dictionary should echo this definition.

Now the other types of property are:

- Personal property: The definitions differ somewhat. In capitalist legal systems it refers to moveable or non-real property as it is more or less subsumed by private property but in general political/economic theory it refers to your personal things not used for industry. Things like your toiletries and the things the average person keeps in their house. i.e. consumer products and the like. To a lesser extent things like cars or houses. But notably not things like equipment for machining, farming, metalworking, etc.

- Public property: Things owned communally or by the government with explicit dedication to use by the public.

- Common property or collective property: Things owned by the collective that uses them. i.e. The factory and the machines being collectively owned by the workers who work the factory.

And out of the different types of properties the question is who holds which rights. The three types of rights are usus (use), fructus (derive profit/production), and abusus (to abuse, take away, damage, or destroy). In personal and private property the owner holds all three rights and the ability to provide those rights to others (however for personal property the fructus rights are pretty limited given the nature of the items). In the other types of property generally abusus rights are held either by the state or only granted by collective decision making. And some may also limit fructus rights as well.

Types of property that permit usus and fructus are called usufructs. These are things that exist publicly or collectively that you may freely use and derive profit from as long as you don't abuse them and if you damage them you repair/replace them.

So anti-capitalists dislike private property as the dominant form of ownership and instead want to place limits on how much private property any one source of capital (i.e. a capitalist) can hold.

On the less extreme end this means strong anti-trust protections and enforcing worker ownership (often via a union and voting stocks) for orgs larger than a certain size.

On the more extreme end is eliminating private property all together and requiring that any equipment that is solely intended for it's fructus rights to be considered public, common, or collective property.

And you'll note here that the market isn't mentioned at all. Many types of anti-capitalist systems are pro-regulated market or even in many cases pro-free-market.

--

Also just a side note but at least when discussing leftist ideas, utopian actually refers to a specific type of pre-marx socialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism

[andybak]

Thank you. That's a stellar reply.