Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by FranzFerdiNaN 358 days ago
Free markets have absolutely nothing to do with capitalism. You can have markets without capitalism. You can have free trade without capitalism, and you can have unfree trade with capitalism too.

It’s one of the great achievements of capitalism that it managed to convince people that trade == capitalism and that without capitalism you are reduced to the Soviet Union, because no other options are possible.
1 comments
robertlagrant 358 days ago
> It’s one of the great achievements of capitalism that it managed to convince people that trade == capitalism and that without capitalism you are reduced to the Soviet Union, because no other options are possible.

Never heard anyone say this before, although it may be pretty much the case[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_trade_of_the_Soviet_Un...

link
FranzFerdiNaN 358 days ago
If you criticise capitalism one of the most likely responses you're going to get is ''so you want to become communist like the SU"?

And that wkkipedia article is of course not proving that trade equals capitalism (or are you saying that America stops being capitalistic if Trumps dream of a self-sufficient nation somehow succeeds?). Trade is trade. There was trade in the past when capitalism did not yet exist and there will be trade in the future when capitalism no longer exists.

link
robertlagrant 358 days ago
> Trade is trade. There was trade in the past when capitalism did not yet exist and there will be trade in the future when capitalism no longer exists.

Indeed. I don't think anyone thinks otherwise. Fuedal lords traded. Totalitarian states traded. We know there was and is trade.

link