[grafmax]

Markets are the expression of an unfree society because they concentrate power in the hands of the few. Those with more money benefit by exploiting those with less - exploiting workers on the one hand and consumers on the other (through rent extraction). Stalinism is one form of planned economy but in your view the choices are Stalinism vs unregulated markets as if no other options exist. Absurd.

After decades of neoliberalism (thanks to politicians like Thatcher) we can see what a failure it has been. Wealth inequality is growing, climate change is getting worse, far right movements are spreading, governments are run by oligarchs, industry has declined, the working class is squeezed, labor movements have been crushed, housing shortages.. it’s an ideology of class war by the rich against the working class.

[mytailorisrich]

> Stalinism is one form of planned economy but in your view the choices are Stalinism vs unregulated markets as if no other options exist.

You've shifted from "market" to "unregulated market". Your point is against markets in general and you haven't explained what's your understanding of "market" is (it seems at the very least unclear to you).

Trying to abolish "the market" can only lead to Stalinism, or whwtever you can to call it, because, again, since a market is the expression of people's actions, needs, and desires abolishing it has to mean abolishing individuals' freedoms. This is not absurd or "ideological propaganda", this is factual (and common sense, really) and proven again and again through the 20th century.

[grafmax]

Markets are a place where buyers and sellers come together and exchange money for goods and services.

Markets exploit. Example: the labor market; individuals are forced among unfavorable options to work for the enrichment of business owners otherwise they will end up on the street. Business owners themselves do not face this choice; they have their capital to fall back on. Another example is the housing market where the wealthy have bid up housing as a financial asset, so the working class pays a larger and larger share of income to banks and rentiers, a cash flow from workers to the wealthy. Now people are making ‘choices’ here so supposedly that means markets are expression of free desires. But when one’s choices are constrained due to the power differential between the haves and have nots, the choices are not a free choice. To have actual agency you have to have power, but the power is in the hands of the ownership class.

Maybe you think markets are a necessary evil. But they are not some bastion of freedom like you suppose. That is absurd. We should look at markets for what they are not to candy coat them.

[1718627440]

> Markets are the expression of an unfree society because they concentrate power in the hands of the few.

The idea of markets is that both sides are unable to influence the price. What you describe is a problem, but it isn't a healthy/free/working market anymore. I agree that the current economy is suboptimal, but the problem isn't capitalism and and free markets. It's rather a lack of the latter.

[grafmax]

I guess see a “free market” as a contradiction, a utopia that even if it existed for a moment would promptly undo itself. As for capitalism - capture of the state by monied interests has always been a central feature.

[1718627440]

A totally free market is of course utopia, but a lot of markets actually come close. Think your local butchers, bakeries and mechanics. All business with less than 10 employees and the boss is actually working. There are not that much markets that are actually problematic, but of course we talk about them a lot. Most local markets are actually fine, it's the big multinational corporations that are the problem.

> As for capitalism - capture of the state by monied interests has always been a central feature.

Capitalism is about the concept of private ownership and an economy primarily controlled by the decisions of private business oriented societies. Capture of the state isn't necessary, but common and normal up to a point.

[grafmax]

Capitalism is a system where workers create value through their work and are compensated with a portion of that value in the forms of wages. The business owner, the capitalist, is able to extract a portion of that for themselves because they own the business. The state maintains this exploitation of workers’ productivity through so-called property rights - the “rights” of the business owner over the worker. Without the state, this system falls apart.

[1718627440]

What separates capitalism from earlier forms, e.g. guilds in the middle ages is that every person can decide to make their own business at any time. Nobody is predestined to a specific profession or estate. That not everyone has its one business is because not everyone wants to do that managing work, some people want to do productive work and a lot of projects are larger than a single person could do.

That work can be exchanged for money predates (the current form of) capitalism and depends fundamentally only on the concept of money alone. I fail to see how that is exploitation per se. You choose to trade something you have for something you want. That's freedom. Taking that away means slavery or starving people.

> The state maintains this exploitation of workers’ productivity through so-called property rights - the “rights” of the business owner over the worker.

What are you talking about? What "rights" of a business owner? The only thing they make are voluntary contracts. You are doing the same when you buy groceries, you are trading money you have for the work of others. What you describe is (wage) slavery, which we claim to have abolished.

Yes they are property rights, but show me the person who doesn't have property. I bet even the homeless person doesn't want it to be legal that the few processions he has can be taken away by anybody, because they just want it.

In civilized countries employees also have more rights than employers e.g. for notice periods, precisely because the working market is often in a state where the employee has less negotiation power. The contract drafter is also the disfavoured party in court.

[grafmax]

No you need a state to enforce the property rights of capitalists over workers.

Nor are people all “free” under capitalism - for example the ability to start a business is predicated on assets to fund the business. Capitalist freedoms is freedom for the rich.

And the supposed freedoms of a worker to enter into a contract are a choice between lesser evils - limited choices given their precarious position relative to employers. Jeff Bezos vs an Amazon warehouse worker - it’s not a contract between equals. You seem intent on denying the real power difference between employers and employees as supposedly free arrangements.

As for worker rights they have been fought for by the labor despite the vicious resistance of the capitalist class. Since the 1980s those rights have deteriorated as wealth has continued to consolidate. It’s a trend that’s likely to continue as the richest pollute our globe, promote austerity, extract rent from the working class, undermine democracies, and instigate war.

[corimaith]

Equality =/= Freedom. It is perfectly possible to have high inequality but individual agency when operating in a positive sum game.

If you want to critique unequal distribution of power, that has always been the case with any society. You cannot coordinate thousands without some form of delegation. But problems borne of the market are always much easier to resolve than problems borne if the political. Therefore it is better to contain an unavoidable problem in a manageable domain that let it establish itself in a more concrete way.

The actual failures of the Western economies lie in naive assumptions about dealing with mercantalist countries and NIMBYism, but given this forum is against the solutions to both it is more politically acceptable to blame everything on "neoliberalism".

[grafmax]

Inequality has always existed to some degree, sure, but that’s a shallow platitude. Markets have give us levels not seen since the Pharaohs. No the existence of any inequality doesn’t justify the insane levels we see today.

And blaming NIMBYism not Thatcher’s ideology for UK’s stagnation is pretty funny. Like that has had more influence.

[1718627440]

> The actual failures of the Western economies lie in naive assumptions about dealing with mercantalist countries and NIMBYism, but given this forum is against the solutions to both it is more politically acceptable to blame everything on "neoliberalism".

And turning themself more into mercantalist countries, which is meant by 'blame everything on "neoliberalism"'.