On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 12:54:45PM +1000, Pidgorny, Slav (GEUS) wrote:
or that a free market isn't required by capitalism - capitalism works just fine without one, and in fact due to the the concentrated accumulation of wealth, tends towards monopolies.
Monopolies appear and disappear unless they are institutionalised and supported by the state.
right, and here we are back at the basis of all Libertarian "thought": bizness gud, gubment bad. doesn't matter what anything is - if it's bad, it's the government's fault. if it's good, that's to the credit of capitalism. as long as you keep on shifting definitions to match your prejudice, you'll never have to actually think about anything.
buying and selling things is orthogonal to that - i.e. it's something that a capitalist can do, but isn't required.
I'm struggling to come up with an example of capitalist that doesn't buy or sell goods or services. Please?
well, the obvious one is mafia-style protection - you could invest in a standover racket. I guess you could call that a "service", but that's stretching the definition a lot. most would call that extortion. more seriously, the capitalist *invests* in something that produces a return. that return is often, *but not always*, related to the company they invest in buying or selling goods or services. sometimes, for example, the return is solely from the investment itself appreciating in value (e.g. capital gains). that share-price increase *may* be indirectly related to improved sales or cheaper production costs, and might be a result of increased profits or profit margins....but not necessarily. it may be simply due to herd mentality increasing the demand for shares in a particular company. or because of rumours and lies and marketing. or because the current investment fads favour one kind of industry over another. or because something else is doing badly and everyone need to quickly switch their investments to something - anything - else so that they're not the one left holding the turd. hence buying and selling of goods or services is NOT required. buying and selling things is incidental to capitalism. investing is not. which is why most people who think they're good little capitalists aren't. they're merchants or labourers (perhaps skilled labourers).
i blame the americans
But of course.
yes, they're so easy to blame. it's the things they do and say. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>