{"id":2383,"date":"2016-04-01T09:38:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T16:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/?p=2383"},"modified":"2016-04-02T15:50:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T22:50:00","slug":"what-is-capitalism-really-and-why-do-people-hate-it-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2016\/04\/01\/what-is-capitalism-really-and-why-do-people-hate-it-so-much\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Capitalism Really, and Why Do People Hate it So Much?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thank<\/a><\/p>\n

Why do people hate capitalism<\/strong> so much? What’s wrong with the freedom to exchange private goods and services without major intervention by the government? What are people really<\/em> saying when they denounce capitalism?<\/p>\n

First, a definition:<\/p>\n

Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Synonyms include free enterprise and the free market.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I take two issues with the “fuck capitalism” attitude.<\/p>\n

1. People don’t seem to know what socialism is\u00a0(but love <\/a>it anyway).<\/p>\n

2. They’re confusing capitalism\u00a0for income inequality and\/or commercialism.<\/p>\n

Capitalism is essentially a system where the means of production are owned by the people, rather than the government.\u00a0There is\u00a0neither a truly socialist economy in the world\u00a0nor a truly capitalist economy.\u00a0In America, you have the freedom to produce and exchange goods and services – but we also have public goods like fire departments, schools and social security\/welfare benefits. In Sweden, many goods are provided by the government, but there’s still a free market. These are considered\u00a0a “mixed economy”<\/strong>.\u00a0The four countries that consider themselves to be truly\u00a0socialis<\/a>t\u00a0<\/strong>(China, Laos, Vietnam and Cuba) are Marxist-Leninist<\/strong> states. Marxist-Leninism<\/a> is a political philosophy in direct<\/em> opposition to capitalism, adopted by\u00a0the Soviet Union and\u00a0communist leaders like Stalin and Mao Zedong. This is considered a stepping stone to\u00a0communism.<\/p>\n

So what is communism? There are generally two types of communism,<\/strong> defined by mode of ownership: public and cooperative – with the only difference being how the resources are allocated. In public ownership<\/em> communism, surplus product is distributed equally to all, and in cooperative ownership<\/em> communism surplus product of a given\u00a0enterprise\u00a0<\/em>is distributed equally to the workers in the given\u00a0enterprise<\/em>. All means of production and surplus product is owned and distributed by the state. On the contrary,\u00a0Socialism<\/strong> (when it’s been applied) democratically<\/em> allocates resources, with the means of production and industry still owned by the government.<\/p>\n

\"4449276161_8f63c3d6f5_b\"<\/a>
Nothing says “Fuck Capitalism” like utilizing your freedom of enterprise to sell sassy tote bags.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Nothing separates a “capitalist” from an “entrepreneur” but interpretation. Sometimes capitalism is confused (or blamed for) excessive advertising\u00a0and materialism. There is<\/em> a difference between capitalism and commercialism<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Commercialism: the attitude or actions of people who are influenced too strongly by the desire to earn money or buy goods, rather than other values.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Commercialism\u00a0is born from aggressive capitalism, an\u00a0obsession with profit and expansion. However, a capitalist economy is (arguably) not disposed\u00a0to commercialism by design. Income inequality is also a common side effect, as those who mastered commercialism make massive expansions and attempt\u00a0to the maximize the profit they take home.<\/p>\n

I’ll keep my semi-free\u00a0market, if you don’t mind. These economic systems are so fundamentally different that I’m not sure a person can even accurately side with one. I agree that the United States could use a little more socialism in their mixed economy, but it’ll never ever<\/em> become a socialist state – just as it\u00a0won’t become a capitalist state. If it does I’ll eat my economics degree.<\/p>\n

Thank you to Bruce Tanner<\/strong> for letting me use his “Capitalism Can Fuck Off” photo! Check out his other work at https:\/\/brucetannerphotographer.wordpress.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Why do people hate capitalism so much? What’s wrong with the freedom to exchange private goods and services without major intervention by the government? What are people really saying when they denounce capitalism? First, a definition: Capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Synonyms include free enterprise and the free market.\u00a0 I take two issues with the “fuck capitalism” attitude. 1. People don’t seem to know what socialism is\u00a0(but love it anyway). 2. They’re confusing capitalism\u00a0for income inequality and\/or commercialism. Capitalism is Continue reading What is Capitalism Really, and Why Do People Hate it So Much?<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":451,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[429,432,431,131,433,430],"class_list":["post-2383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-capitalism","tag-commercialism","tag-communism","tag-income-inequality","tag-marxist","tag-socialism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/451"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2383"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6001,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2383\/revisions\/6001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}