That’s just it. Your definition of capitalism is different from mine. If one looks at a basic definition, then those small business owners are capitalists - they own the means of production and use it to make a profit. For example:
Right but here’s what I notice. I am talking about the whole thing, and you are talking about one nice little piece from a Norman Rockwell painting. That’s propaganda. There are people running auto shops in communist china, that doesn’t make communism OK. People owned shops in Feudalism, that didn’t make it OK or Christian. Further you do not need to have capitalism to have auto shops, even where people own their own business. I am not saying that the auto shop is not a part of capitalist society, it is. So are parks and libraries and hospitals and car accidents and lots of other things. I am saying that that little nice and carefully chosen example can be found in other economic systems and it not the problem for Christians. We could look at some facet of an unjust war and find some example of something neutral or good that was a facet of it, but this does not offset the larger picture. Yeah, I lost weight when I got cancer and I had been overweight, still I think the disease was not a good one. Etc.
That’s a partial definition of capitalism focused only on some facets and ignoring the ones I mentioned, and it’s not a very accurate one in the areas it mentions.
No response to the Sermon on the Mount. No response to any of the facets of Capitalism I mentioned in my post. Voluntary exchange - in what reality does capitalism ONLY have that? Pick one piece of my post. Focus on that. Ignore anything that might take some work to respond to. Cherry pick one zoomed in image from somewhere in the capitalist West, which in fact could be found also in parts of the communist or fascist type regulated economy East. That limited definition of capitalism also allows for the power of the capitalists to withhold labor from work and thus livlihood - since it is what they call a free market - and to let the market determine things like the price of an apartment. IOW since there is no morals here, but market regulating, people can charge rents and do that are beyond the means of some of the working class. That does not fit with the SErmon on the Mount. These are not bad apple problems, but inherent in capitalism.
Amd even within Wiki’s distorted image of capitalism, you still have problems with the Sermon the Mount. In capitalism if you do not have what is considered the correct production ability you are on your own, outside, worth nothing and according to wikipedia, outside decision-making.
Fellas…
Capitalism is the total lack of regulation because no capitalist would consider it beneficial to himself, an individual, to argue for regulations that benefit society.
Once even one regulation has been conceded, it is no longer capitalism, but socialism since every regulation is only for the good of society; therefore, everyone is arguing the degree of socialism and how many regulations we ought to have. 99.99% of people are socialists.
Capitalism = zero regulation
Socialism = greater than zero, but less than 100% regulation
fascism/communism = 100% regulated.
Since both you guys have decided to ignore me, I’m curious which one of you will be first to ignore the other 
My money is on Phyllo since he’s next to bandy the ball and he’s been around longer (annoyed longer/less patience).
Phyllo, who will you talk to after you inevitably ignore everyone here? I mean, the only reason to talk is in disagreement as I can’t imagine what two people would discuss if they were in agreement with each other, but if you disagree, you invariably get pissed and not want to talk anymore. That seems a futile philosophy to hold… unless you’re depending on an eternal supply of new blood.
I’d like to see a debate where a resolution is reached. If that ever happens, I might print it out and frame it lol
I’m not ignoring you, I’m ignoring most of the ILP site. I read a few of the threads and I rarely post.
I saw that you posted in one of the threads about morality. Morality and ethics still interest me, but I have discussed it many times over the years and I don’t feel any desire to rehash old points. Therefore, I didn’t post in the thread.
A lot of the same topics come up all the time and a lot of the same arguments. I don’t see any reason to go there again and again.
I don’t know if I will respond to Karpel Tunnel. I read his posts (several times). I’m thinking about what he wrote.
I’m still not sure what to say about it. Honestly, it don’t seem reasonable to say that small business owners are not capitalists.
I also don’t appreciate his criticism of my posts. Maybe I want to figure out ‘capitalism’ before going on to discussing Christianity in general and the Sermon on the Mount in particular. Maybe I’m doing that outside of this thread, outside of posting responses to him.
But no, I’m supposed to being doing things in some special way which satisfies him.
I have a life outside of ILP. I talk to people IRL. I have other interests. There are many places to go on the internet.
I pretty tired of the arrogance and negativity. I remember an anti-natalism discussion where I was called “delusional” when I said that “life is good”. LOL.
The place is full of angry and depressed people. After a while, that drags you down. You gotta get away from it.
I’m more interested in ILP as a source of ideas rather than as a place for arguments and debates. For example, I had never heard of anti-natalism. I had never heard of some of the books which have come up in the discussions.
I don’t want to go through the effort of digging up the proof, but surely you remember specifically telling me that you’re not going to talk to me anymore, or something to that effect.
I can understand that.
Would both you guys agree that employers are probably more capitalistic (less economically social) than employees? Employees probably want laws and regulations that force the employer to be more economically social while the employer probably wants less laws and regulations that force him to do anything.
But then, by the same reasoning, the employer is a customer of his suppliers and therefore probably wants laws that protect his rights as well, but at the same time, he probably doesn’t want laws affecting his ability to take advantage of his customers.
That seems sensible to me. What do you think?
I don’t know what to say, but I do think the honesty is helpful.
Well, yes, but your same philosophy applies in those places as well. Taken to the extreme eventuality, you’ll have ignored everyone on earth if you could keep up with the birthrate.
I understand perfectly. I’m beatup every day I spend on message boards. No one ever quotes a post to say “Hey that’s great!”, nope, they say “Wow your stupid!” or they don’t say anything at all.
Yup. If I were really happy, I wouldn’t be here. I’m not looking for things when I’m content.
I suppose there is a time to listen and a time to talk. Talking about what I’ve heard is like digesting the ideas. After digestion, I get hungry again and go search for more ideas.
Christianity talks about equality and global brotherhood under God, funny how with Christians they do the exact opposite of everything they supposedly believe in.
“equality”?
“global brotherhood”?
“exact opposite”?
Whatever all that means. 
Anti-capitalist. There’s also the whole treasures section of the sermon that goes against capital accumulation. IOW you should not have a system structure to create shored up treasures, since this is anti-Christian.
I’m not hanging on to my petty reactions and irritations.
But thanks for bringing it up.
Employers (or rather owners) have access to capital and are willing to use it to make a profit.
Sure, people want to take advantage of laws and want laws and regulations which favor them in general. Owners, employers and employees all want that. In a fair system, there is balance.
I understand that the criticism of capitalism is that it is unfair and that it allows those with money, the capitalists, to exploit those without money, the workers. But if you look at the history, there have been genuine and effective actions to reduce the unfairness. And the standard of living of the worker classes has risen substantially.
Not really. There may come a day when I don’t want write anything on ILP, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t be involved in another forum or IRL conversations. And as I said, that’s not necessarily something I will hang on to forever … I reevaluate all the time.
Reminds me of : “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” - Epictetus
In the most fair capitalist system capital can make money without labor, and does. A capitalist system would allow the taking away of livlihood of someone who does not do their physical labor well, enough hours, or at all. The capitalist need not labor, while the laborer must. This does not fit with do unto others. Of course many capitalists do also labor, but fundmentally, they accrue wealth, power, safety, better health care for their children and more AND can do this without labor. I expect you to exert effort and energy to get benefits and fundamentals for your life, but I do not expect this of myself. And I will pressure the system to enforce this difference in treatment. Though of course the laws within a capitalist nation mean this must be the case.
Ah, another Christian that hasn’t read the bible. I rest my case. 
One sentence, containing a few nebulous words, sums up your thinking.
Yeah, you can rest now.
And that explains the prosperity since FDR.
Yes but the mouth is so much bigger
Plus I have 2 hands and 10 fingers so typing must be REALLY important 
Prove otherwise, you won’t or can’t.
Prove what? Your words have such huge ranges of meaning, I don’t even know what you are saying.
What does “equality” mean when a group of people uses it as a basis for a society? Obviously, all individuals are different and there will always be inequality in some sense.
No.
The correct term for regulation in an otherwise capitalistic economy is Social Democracy, not Socialism. Socialism is a means towards Communism with “employees” forcibly taking over the State (which arguably only needs to exist to moderate otherwise unfettered Capitalism) to cease the practice of private ownership of the means of production (Capitalism). It’s not simply a regulated Capitalism. Furthermore, the difference between Anarchists and Communists is that Anarchists simply wish to abolish the State altogether, where Communists, upon overtaking the State, seek only to allow their own State to “wither away” and give way to communes (hence Communism) - basically businesses with no owner, everything is “owned” collectively by whomever uses and is control of anything in the workplace at any given time, fluidly.
As you can see, Communism isn’t even that different to Capitalism, it was merely appropriated simultaneously by both the US and the USSR but for different reasons. The USSR wanted to take advantage of the good names of Socialism and Communism despite more or less being its opposite: an authoritarian dictatorship. What about that is the same as working-class owned self-running communes? And the US wanted to denigrate the good names of Socialism and Communism by agreeing that the bad state of things in USSR is what it looks like in practice - forevermore lumping together the words Socialism and Communism with Totalitarianism and words such Fascism like you used. Ever noticed how people always feel the need to combine one of these terms with another, as if one isn’t enough by itself, needing to be somehow clarified with another? It’s almost as if they aren’t quite sure which they mean or at least they aren’t convinced other people will know exactly what they mean if they use only one - and the reason why is what I’ve just explained.
This very conveniently fits Socialism and Communism in with the more left-leaning party of the two you always seem to see in western democracies, such that you’re either supporting the left or the right or just variations of the same thing, and they just take turns to run things in slightly different ways like two sports teams pitted against one another - essentially resulting in a single party state. The reality is that there are variations, and it’s not just a sliding scale between two extremes of pure Capitalism and complete State-regulation.
Pretty evil stuff.
Government workers should be voluntary and not be paid. Or they will continue to vote themselves more money and higher salaries.
Socialism revolves around corrupt government (a huge bloc of the population, govt workers, voting themselves most of the money and consuming taxes themselves).
Why include the word “democracy”? That implies regulations are the result of democratic consensus.
Regulations are for the good of society, but they aren’t voted into effect by society.
The problem with that definition is that not all socialists want communism (state controlled means of production). Myself, for instance, I believe capitalism is the best way, but it needs to be tempered for the good of society. For example, I don’t believe the gov could dictate a novel and interesting product into existence like free-market competition can, but for the good of society, they shouldn’t be allowed to use lead or radioactive paint while otherwise freely competing. Companies can’t dump waste into rivers in order to compete more effectively; they can’t offer dog meat labeled as chicken; and they shouldn’t be allowed to grind up euthanized pets into pet food, but they do because “that’s capitalism”. Without regulation, the capitalist will resort to every underhanded trick he can devise because, if he doesn’t, someone else will.
Ism is defined as a distinctive doctrine, theory, system, or practice. “Social” is defined as living in companionship with others or in a community, rather than in isolation. So “social+ism” = is the practice of living in companionship with others in a community, but not communal.
Anarchists and Communists are two polar extremes. The capitalist doesn’t advocate elimination of the gov, but only all regulations affecting the practice of his amassing of capital, so it could be described as “economically anarchistic”.
Communism is essentially one big corporation in competition with 1000s of smaller ones in a capitalistic market. Alan Watts said at the height of the Vietnam War, “I wouldn’t think you’d need to fight it; it should just fall apart because it’s terribly inefficient.” And he was right; it did fall apart and it was terribly inefficient. The free market is akin to natural selection and the tempering of capitalism with regulation is akin to humanity regulating nature with artificial selection.
Everyone has personalized definitions with no standardization somewhat like “awareness, perception, consciousness” are conflated and interchangeable instead of being mutually exclusive in meaning.
That is why I say let’s scrap all our preconceived notions and proclivities for what we want words to mean and lets instead devise proper definitions, such as what I proposed:
Communism - gov controls 100% of means of production and keeps 100% of profits
Fascism - gov controls 100% of means of production and keeps <100% of profits
Socialism - gov controls <100% of means of production and keeps <100% of profits
Capitalism - gov controls 0% of means of production and keeps 0% of profits.
Pretty simple; no definitions overlap; every one is distinct, and nothing is left out.
I’ve posted this 3 or 4 times on here and each time someone comes along objecting on the basis that they are evidently socialist, but can’t tolerate the label of “socialist” and prefer to be called a capitalist even though they’re in favor of a whole laundry list of regulations, such as food inspection, toxic waste dumping, etc.
Apparently some people want to define capitalism as, oh I don’t know, say, 10% regulation or some arbitrary number greater than zero, but that makes the definition completely arbitrary and subjective and that defeats the purpose of having a definition. Folks will just have to let go of their connotations concerning the word “socialism” and, in other words, just get over it already.
Yup, extremes are bad. The middle way is the best way.
Capitalism is the base-reality because as soon as trade developed, someone brought a product to a market that had no gov regulation, then someone objected to advantages taken and propositioned for an authority to regulate the market. So if we take a hands-off approach, capitalism will prevail and therefore that is the base-reality from where we start. From there we add regulations until perfection is found or until the gov totally takes over.
There are two states: hands-off and hands-on. Once you decide to put a hand on, it’s socialism, because the only reason you’re seeking to put a hand on for control is for the good of society and not profits, which take care of themselves.
The problem is we need gov jobs so that people have jobs because “people must suffer for money”. Because we can’t just hand people money for nothing, we must make them dig a hole and fill it back in again (ie the IRS). We could have a streamlined tax code, but it would put the IRS, the tax industry, and many lawyers out of a job. We’ve created a lot of jobs simply by complicating to the code for absolutely no reason other than because “people must suffer for money”, so we need to find ways to make them suffer.
We’re going to need more of these meaningless jobs in the future as automation progresses.