• BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    You appear to be conflating Capitalism with the concept of free markets. They are wholly different and distinct concepts, regardless of what Capitalism’s propagandists would like everyone to believe.

    Capitalism, being an economic dogma that worships private ownership and relentless pursuit and hoarding of wealth, actively incentivizes behavior that destroys free markets: trusts, monopolies, oligopolies, regulatory capture, sabotage, patents, union busting, mergers and acquisitions, financialization, and more, gradually eroding any free market until it no longer meaningfully exists.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      8 hours ago

      When most people refer to capitalism, they mean free market or laissez-faire capitalism. Many (most?) of the issues you mentioned require government to step in to occur. For example:

      • trusts - government structure to protect wealth
      • oligopoly - failure of government to prevent collusion (price fixing and whatnot are expressly anti-competitive)
      • regulatory capture - government must be complicit since regulations are typically a government thing

      I think government has a place in protecting the free market, but it needs to be restrained so it doesn’t get manipulated into destroying the free market. For example, a regulation could protect consumers, but it could also raise the barrier to entry and prevent competition from correcting the underlying problem.

      A lot of the issues stem from corporate welfare, where wealthy people are able to manipulate corporate structures to build their own wealth and protect themselves from liability. I think it’s largely those liability protections that encourage anti-competitive behavior. End the protections and courts can meaningfully punish corporations when they break the law.