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Its getting old.
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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I'd love for people to stop using capitalism as a catch-all term for every wrong in the world. This post illustrates a great reason why.
Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. This means every private citizen has control over that which they own, and is free to sell it. In short, it's characterized by a free market, because everybody is free to sell whatever they want.
The reason people view this favorably is because if, for example, someone is selling some really useful farming tool, they're free to sell it at whatever price they want. But, someone else - who is also free to sell whatever they please - might figure out an alternative or their own way to assemble this tool. They can now sell it for a lower price to get more customers, thus forcing the original inventor to bring down the price as well. As a result, the farming world becomes more efficient thanks to innovation and market forces.
I feel like most people understand market forces, so I'm sorry if I'm not saying anything new yet, but it's crucial for seeing the flaw in the next part...
Modern medicine is not controlled by private entities, and they are not operating in a free market. The conditions that allow for market forces simply does not exist in Canada or America (probably Europe too but I know less about their system to get into details).
Take Johnson and Johnson for example. For one thing, they are not a private entity, they are incorporated and act in the collective interest of its shareholders. If capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production (which it is!) then immoral acts they take cannot be attributed to capitalism.
Now consider their business, aside from who owns and controls them. They have a medicine called Stelara, which has no generic alternative. They have an effective Monopoly on this Crohn's medicine, becauae no one else is allowed to sell medicine of the same chemical composition until the patent wears out and it's genericized. This patent is enforced by the state. So, the state enforces a ruling that prevents private business from selling medicine, which gives the corporation an effective Monopoly.
So we have a public entity, using state-enforced rules to prevent a private business from controlling the means of producing that medicine. That's completely anti-capitalistic from every angle I can think of
When a new medicine is invented, and a company marks up the price to high heaven, it's not because they're a capitalist and thus greedy, that simply shows anti-capitalist bias. It's because the state and the laws they enforce give them the opportunity to.
People can be greedy whether they're capitalist or not, so don't use it as an indicator for the flaw in capitalism because you'll just be wrong a lot of the time, because they're independent things
Jesus fucking Christ, you think "private" means "individual."
You know less than nothing about this subject. Don't give lectures.
Yep, communism isn't state-owned means of production as this post implied, it's democratic - that's one of the reasons the USSR model failed.
That is far from the wrongest idea in that comment!
True, but it is one of them
All this ignores that the free market naturally converges on monopolies and that these monopolies will pay off the government to continue being a monopoly in their respective industry or industries. If the government had less control then even better since they wouldn't have to pay off as many people.
Why do they have to pay off the government? You're still assuming some government control, but in a truly free market capitalist system, the government would not have any influence in the market anyway, so paying them off would yield 0 results. You directly say the less government control the better, that's a deeply capitalistic sentiment.
I feel as though you're also assuming I'm 100% advocating for what I'm describing. This is incorrect, because I believe some statehood is necessary to ward off the inherent chaos of a completely free society. The one and only point my post makes, is that the systemic flaw pointed out by the post is absolutely not a capitalist one, regardless of political alignment the post is incorrect.
Whether you're more capitalistic or socialistic, the first step to solving a problem is proper diagnosis.
You're saying it's not capitalist because of government involvement, but the government has to be involved in order to enforce capitalism. A private entity can claim ownership over something, but what enforces that claim? I said "the less government control the better" as in better for the monopolistic companies who wouldn't have regulators threatening to break up their monopoly or having to pay them off.
I didn't say anything regarding what you advocate, I'm just pointing out that capitalism requires statement enforcement, so pretending that government involvement is not capitalist is wrong. I'm also pointing out that the situation would be worse without certain regulations such as anti-trust laws because capitalism naturally converges on monopolies.
I agree government needs to be involved to an extent. My comment was still correct, the issues of medicine do not stem from capitalism. This does not mean capitalism is without flaw
The example you gave doesn't make sense. First off you confused public trading (company shares are available to the general public) with public ownership (owned by the government i.e. "the public" at large). Johnson and Johnson is publicly traded but the shares are held by private entities. If I buy a share of Johnson and Johnson's stock, I privately own a piece of Johnson and Johnson.
As for drug patents (and patents in general), the idea is to secure timed exclusivity to sell in the market in exchange for public disclosure of method of invention. If we didn't have patents, companies would instead treat drug formulations as trade secrets and so they'd hold onto that exclusivity as long as they can keep the formulation a secret or until another entity reinvents the same thing. There are issues with the patent process and especially with private companies benefiting from publicly-funded research while locking up exclusivity and jacking up prices, but those are still problems with capitalism, and they're still better than just letting the free market completely monopolize the process.
If a corporation is publicly traded, then its ownership is held by the public collective that chooses to invest. The ownership in question is not your specific ownership of a share individually, the ownership in question is the ownership of the means of production, which a public collective invested in. It is not true that you buying one share privately implies the whole thing is private. That's like saying the fact that you voted in private means the government is privately controlled. Yes, private individuals can vote and buy stock, that does not make either private. It makes them public.
The definitions also agree with me btw
Private Ownership:
Public Ownership:
So, if it's owned by the government, or has shares available for purchase by any public body, then it is public. If it's not owned by the state or public body, it's private.
Johnson & Johnson, just like all public corporations, has its shares available for purchase for the public. Therefor, it is public, not private. Honestly, the more you go into it, the harder it is to get away from the simple fact that private means private, and public means public.
Do you not understand what the point of a public offering is? It's to offer up shares of your company to others in order to raise funds so you can expand more rapidly. You throwing in the word "collective" is a poor game of word association. Are you trying to argue that publicly-traded companies are communist? You should really hit the books and straighten out your terminology because you're using it all wrong and you're only misleading others who don't know any better.
You're really reading way too much into things. Just take out the word collective from my comment if it upsets you so much, it makes sense without it.
The conclusion I got to was that public corporations are not private companies. Looks like you're longer disputing that I guess, so you agree with that now?
I never said public corporations are private companies. You're confused and don't seem to have a point to make. Do you think publicly-traded companies are not capitalist?
Okay so public corporations are not private companies. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Public corporations are not private, so they're not capitalist either. I dunno why you had to ask, that was my original point to begin with, it's silly to see a non-capitalist entity like Johnson & Johnson do something bad and blame capitalism for it.
You're either trolling or incredibly ignorant. Get educated, that's all I'm going to say to you now.
I'm well aware it's popular to believe public corporations are capitalistic, in fact I used to believe it myself as well. Getting educated is why I no longer believe it. Actually, not getting educated is a great way to believe that public corporations, precisely because it's a popular belief now.
I also happen to know this belief was popularized by early 1900s socialist propaganda, which characterized capitalists as greedy. They created the association between greed, wealth, markets, and capitalism right out the gate. Because this association was so heavily propagandized, people now use it to define capitalism. This is absolutely incorrect, because greed is a human flaw independent of capitalism, and markets can exist without private control of the means of production. In fact, markets and greed existed in every noteworthy socialist state that ever existed. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to hold the opinion that capitalists are greedy, but to use greed as an indicator for whether someone is a capitalist is absolutely wrong.
So, back to Johnson & Johnson. They are publicly owned, they appeal to their shareholders, the shareholders vote democratically on certain decisions, CEOs are appointed by shareholders, and the CEOs - the people with most control over the system - can be ousted by the shareholders. This is not private control, and you admitted public corporations are not public business. I would prefer not to appeal to popular belief to base my decisions, especially when I'm familiar with how that popular opinion was swayed.
You repeatedly take issue with my terminology, but that's what we're debating. Please tell me why my terminology is wrong.
If I need to get educated, please do me a favor. By what metric do you define Johnson & Johnson capitalist? That's all I need. Just that one thing, that's all you have to do.
Shareholders own the company. Their private ownership is only "public" in that they can sell off their share, to anyone.
It's a joint-stock company. Of course that's capitalism. Jesus fucking Christ.
Do you understand how something being owned by a democratic government is different than something being owned by individuals, whether it is publicly traded or not?
Like, from a power perspective, do you understand the difference for the average prole between the means of production being owned by individuals based on heredity vs being collectively owned by a democratic body?
"Public companies" are owned by private individuals, you absolute dingus. Being for sale means private. They belong to specific persons and organizations.
i think you're missing it. Government for as glacial and corrupt and corruptible as it is, is the only buffer from the excess of a free market.
businesses without a guardrail HAVE proven they will sacrifice everything, literally everything in the name of profit.
Oil companies have know for about a century that they are destroying the planet and they are *still * doing it. They fight every regulation that stops them tooth and nail. They buy and shelve technologies that would cut into their profit. Imagine a world where there was no one trying to stop them at all?
That is the proper diagnosis of our system. We have allowed unaccountable immoral groups to control the means of production and they are literally using it to with kill us all.
I'm not missing it, that's just a different point. I don't disagree with everything you say here, it just doesn't really address or refute anything I said. I stuck with the topical example of helpful medicine, which is demonstrably controlled by corporations and the state. Thus, it is not at all capitalist.
Reminder: profit does not mean capitalist, market does not mean capitalist. Public bodies can act in and/or control markets, and they can make profit. That's not a private thing
Okay, let's do it explain how in a "pure" capitalist society a public body, without the ability to at least nominally use a legal system to guard against collusion and monopoly using the threat of breaking up or shutting down corporations, provide any protection?
Giving them the power to do that makes them just a government by another name.
You literally directly quoted me saying that it seemed like you thought I was advocating for pure capitalism, and now you are directly asking me to defend pure capitalism. You are trying incredibly hard to straw man me into something I'm not, and I would like you to stop that.
This conversion will go no where unless you actually want to respond to things I'm saying, so please let me ask you directly about what I was actually saying: is it appropriate to blame capitalism when a public corporation in collusion with the government is at fault for an issue? If not, why?
I guess i'm getting that from when you first said,
I just assumed you were defending a "truly free market" capitalism.
to address what you just posted,
yes, capitalism creates the conditions for that collusion. It allows entities with the only goal of profit at any cost.
removing the government doesn't reduce that corruption it just allows it to go unchecked without even an illusion of protection to the public.
Focus on what capitalism means when you say this, and focus on the context you're saying this in. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, and we are discussing medicine. So, what you're saying, is that the private control of medicine created the conditions for government collusion with a public corporation, This does not make sense, because public corporations are not private. This is corporatism, not capitalism.
Then it's the governments job to allow private entities some avenue to produce medicine. They can do so by not enforcing patents on helpful medicine that empowers corporations.
We live in a world with limited resources. Late stage capitalism is characterized partly by a concentration of wealth. Anyone that has played the board game Monopoly understands the issues with the concentration of wealth, and access to concentrated wealth in a world of limited resources accords a few individuals almost unlimited power over the majority.
Limiting government regulations over fiscal entities just trades governmental tyranny for corporate tyranny over the working-class.
That's a popular belief, sure. But, limited resources aren't the only thing that exist in markets (art, ideas, services, consultation, etc...). In fact, much of the necessary resource market is entirely renewable (most food certainly is).
It's just kinda funny that this is your response when I demonstrated state-corporate cooperation inflicting that tyranny. Corporations are chartered by the state, and the are currently also empowered by the state. Lowering regulations for private entities would empower them against corporations. It would also just make sense considering they are more regulated than corporations are currently, and the market is already completely captured by corporations.
You danced around the fact that late stage capitalism is a shitshow of monopolies.
Secondly, "renewable" does not equal "unlimited".
Food, despite being renewable, is not unlimited, regardless of scientific advancements. It is a limited resource, and access to it is extremely limited in a monopolistic late-stage capitalistic system. Land, housing, minerals, and the physical components of all consumer goods are composed of limited resources.
Time is a limited resource.
Are you suggesting we have a more powerful government to limit incorporation? Otherwise, private entities stand no chance.
If you are suggesting the government abolish the right to incorporate, I'd entertain that notion with you. As well as an amendment to the 14th amendment while we're at it.
And just for clarity, when we're talking about regulations, are you also suggesting we dismantle things like the FDA?
I don't know what to tell you when it comes to farms. Where I'm from, farmers have been able to buy land pretty damn freely. In my small town, there are hundreds of private farms, and it's thanks to the fact that government isn't stopping us, and it's only slowed recently since corporations and government have taken an interest in buying land themselves. Private is the farmers, public is the corporations and government. Farming should stay private, to prevent the misuse of land that comes with government and corporate ownership. The fact the it remains arable and plentiful is thanks to private ownership in fact, because the owners have a vested interest in not depleting the value and use of their land. Farming is their way of life, they don't want to lose it.
You tend to see land misuse and resource depletion in corporate and government farms, not private ones.
The government currently regulates private entities really heavily while also doing things that benefit themselves and corporations. I would suggest that they both stop working with corporations like that (enforcing patents on helpful medicine for example) which would make the government and corporations both less powerful.
Empowering the government in a way that hurt corporations is tempting, but I'm not sure if it's possible since corporations are charted by the state itself. It would be really hard to have the state create them in a way that doesn't in some way help them, and thus it would be hard to stop them from empowering the corporations because they'll always benefit from it. They set it up, house always wins.
That might be the answer, just get rid of them. It'll be hard to get done, for the reasons I described, but yeah, I think it might have to be done. Let's enthusiastically agree on this one :)
Hmm, great question honestly. Really hits the heart of the medicine issue. I think it serves a public good, because big corporations had the freedom to sell some awful stuff, but with corporations gone... maybe not necessary right? My position is that it's currently regulating far too much. A lot of potential medical innovation has been stifled for dubious "safety reasons", while there's also been a lot of dangerous things stopped, so the balance is hard. Reduced regulation is where I stand for now
Ah yes, that unlimited resource: food.
Learn what words mean, god dammit. You can't discuss economics based on what you imagine these terms sound like!
Please feel free to point out any fact you think I got wrong.
The whole thing my guy, You clearly have no idea what Capitalism is. . . Fucking hell that bit you wrote about Corporations not being a part of the Capitalist system because they are incorporated and not privately owned. Comedy gold, if you weren't being sincere. Economists that support Capitalism would laugh at that word salad you wrote, its just so fucking dumb it hurts.
Public corporations are absolutely not private :)
I don't really need to point out that you're actually just being really rude and lashing out at someone who's challenged your beliefs, I don't think anyone could read your comment and see anything different whether they agree with you or not. But, I'm still happy to reason out why exactly a public corporation is not private. I don't mind taking the time to go over the facts and leave a few references, even if I don't really expect you to read any of it in good faith. You just should know that everything I said actually can be directly reasoned from respected sources.
For starters, would you dispute my definition of capitalism? "The private ownership and/or control of the means of production". Not only is this from Marx himself, but you'd be hard pressed to find any capitalists who would describe it any other way. It's widely accepted all across the isle.
I think that's a pretty strong start in knowing what capitalism is. I guess what might be left for debate is what can rightfully be called "private".
Private Ownership:
Public Ownership:
So, if it's owned by the government, or has shares available for purchase by any public body, then it is public. If it's not owned by the state or public body, it's private.
Johnson & Johnson, just like all public corporations, has its shares available for purchase for the public. Therefor, it is public, not private. Honestly, the more you go into it, the harder it is to get away from the simple fact that private means private, and public means public.
Corporation, specific legal form of organization of persons and material resources, chartered by the state, for the purpose of conducting business.
As contrasted with the other two major forms of business ownership, the sole proprietorship and the partnership, the corporation is distinguished by a number of characteristics that make it a more-flexible instrument for large-scale economic activity, particularly for the purpose of raising large sums of capital for investment. Chief among these features are: (1) limited liability, meaning that capital suppliers are not subject to losses greater than the amount of their investment; (2) transferability of shares, whereby voting and other rights in the enterprise may be transferred readily from one investor to another without reconstituting the organization under law; (3) juridical personality, meaning that the corporation itself as a fictive “person” has legal standing and may thus sue and be sued, may make contracts, and may hold property in a common name; and (4) indefinite duration, whereby the life of the corporation may extend beyond the participation of any of its incorporators. The owners of the corporation in a legal sense are the shareholders, who purchase with their investment of capital a share in the proceeds of the enterprise and who are nominally entitled to a measure of control over the financial management of the corporation. Corporation
Unfortunately, the definitions change based on context.
When we're talking about political and broad economic systems, private means non-government organizations. Public means government.
When we're talking about a company's status, public means its equity is traded on a public stock exchange. Private is everything else. So a ma and pop shop is a private company and a private organization. Microsoft is a public company but a private organization.
The rest of you commenters are assholes for talking to HardNut like this. They clearly don't know these definitions, and rather than educate, you criticize to inflate your own egos and display some bogus superiority. Instead, explain the terms so constructive conversation can happen. Cue the "well it's not my responsibility" crowd. If you want to promote your own ideas, education is a better method than mockery when it comes to those who aren't clearly and steadfastly directly opposed to you. And even for those directly opposed to you, the display of educating wins third parties to your cause.
Good on you, HardNut for trying to Google things and figure them out on your own. The context between these two areas is tricky, and your understanding makes sense without the additional context. Sadly, we're terrible at naming things.
I appreciate your comment and defense a lot. You seem like a very kind person and you're very straightforward with your words, I like that. I'm telling you that not just because I believe it's true and you deserve to hear it, but also so you don't take it the wrong way when I tell you that, well, I'm sorry but I found your comment a bit condescending too. And I don't blame you for it! Truly, I get it. You are referencing the fact that I'm on the hunt for the truth on Google, and it's fair enough that it paints the picture in your head of a young, maybe naive, person on the hunt for the truth of this nebulous area of private and public ownership. I guess it's not really far from the truth either lol. But, the context I haven't shared is that I actually am very educated on this. I studied economics, history, philosophy and political science in post-secondary for two years before graduating (with a different major) and a minor in philosophy. Outside of school I've actually read heaps of books pertaining to the general theories the revolve around the distinction between public and private, from anarcho-capitalists to totalitarian-communists and everything in between.
The reason I don't share this context and why I choose to reference google, is because after all this studying I've come to see that most conclusions drawn by these intellectuals can be demonstrated very easily by using commonly accepted definitions. Most misunderstandings can be contradicted by people's own language or easily accessible sources, so that's what I try to do. It seems a lot more favorable to do a simple "premise -> premise -> conclusion". Besides, it just seems like a waste of time to open up a physical copy of some philosopher and manually re type something to quote them, just to come off as as grand standy, or just get told they don't like who I quoted, or have the comment not even post to begin with because Lemmy has issues with long comments.
I'm sorry, that's enough about my frustrations for one comment lol. I just wanted you to know I don't come from a place of naivety or ignorance on the topic before I respond to your insights, because I think the assumption of ignorance has prevented some people in this thread from reading what I'm saying in good faith. I also do think you're mostly spot on in what you say. The only exception might be that while I am familiar the distinction between public traded and private organization before, I don't think that distinction applies here. After all, you're totally right, things do change based on context :) I'll try and show you what I mean.
My original comment's purpose was to show the flaw in using capitalism as a catch all term, especially when it comes to medicine. The most commonly used definition of capitalism refers to private ownership. You're absolutely right that private can refer to not being publicly traded, but private ownership refers to "being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body".
Regarding the term public, when things are open to the public, they are open to us because we are members of the public. Public places are open to members of the public. We are members of the public, public refers to the state, and we live in a democracy and are thus members of the state. People who are exiled are not free to trade in stocks because they no longer are a member of the state that holds them. Exiled folk are not free in public places because they are no longer a member of their public, and are banned from visitation so they're sent elsewhere.
Recall the definition of Corporation I provided before, specifically that it's "chartered by the state". This means the government and the government alone establishes corporations as legal entities, and sets the parameters by which they can do so. They exist as part of the state, but operate separately from the government, under parameters set by the government. That's the distinction that's made when you call Microsoft a private organization, the business isn't controlled by the state directly, but government and corporations are both part of the state, and they certainly influence each other a lot right now.
This can also be seen in the etymology of the word itself, along with the history of how modern corporations came to be. "Corporation" comes from latin corpus, meaning corpse, or "body". A body that's chartered by the state, a body of the state. The reason the etymology took this path can be seen in how corporations evolved with time. The publicani of Rome is sometimes considered the first corporation to exist, which were independent contractors that performed government services. The Dutch East India Company found the first stock exchange, and was a corporation owned and controlled by the Dutch senate as well as others.
Now, considering where corporations evolved from, and the amount of easily identifiable government-corporate collusion today, I think corporations land far closer to being an independent arm of the state, and publicly owned than representing the private ownership represented by capitalism.
Now, just to nip it in the bud, you might infer that this means that corporations are socialist. Well, kinda, but also no. Characteristics of corporations can be seen all over early modern socialist philosophy, including syndicalism and trade unionism. But, if socialism is the public control of the means of production, and corporations are controlled independently, it doesn't quite fit, right?
You and I couldn't agree more. I guess it would really help if people incorporated (heh) the word corporatism into their vocabulary. We could freely disagree on the nature of corporations and their relationship with public and private ownership and control, while still distinguishing companies like Microsoft from ma and pop shops with clearer language.
At the very least, I wonder if you can agree that there's enough reason to take issue with blaming all issues on capitalism alone, when there's so much more to it. Feel free to let me know what you think :) I know it was still a really big comment but, yeah, like I said, there's a lot to it lol I really appreciate it if you've even read this far
Lmfao why didn't just just google the word capitalism my guy, It quite literally is our current economic system, no if ands or buts.. regardless of your attempted semantics.
Who owns the Post Office? Nobody, because it's a public utility.
Who owns Johnson & Johnson? The shareholders. That's what they're holding. That's what they bought. That's what the money was for. Because being "a public corporation" only means any rando can participate in that textbook fucking definition of capitalism.
It's a joint-stock company! That is what defines the advent of capitalism!
This has given me alot to think about.
I'm glad :)