• agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      14·
      1 year ago

      Do you actually not know the difference between free trade and capitalism? Capitalism is when investors own the means of production in order to extract profit from a disparity between price and cost (including labor wages). There are plenty of free trade models which don’t utilize capitalism, they are not the same thing.

      Grog (the worker) owned his own axe (means of production) and traded the wood he gathered for shiny shells (free trade). Capitalism would be if Bunga (capitalist) owned the axe and then traded the wood Grog gathered himself, giving Grog some shells while keeping the rest (profit).

    • yarr@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      People have bemoaned capitalism as long as it has existed. When do you think this “golden age” of capitalism was when everyone was universally content with the state of affairs?

        • yarr@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
          8·
          1 year ago

          To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

          Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 1851

          I guess he was ahead of his time; able to criticize capitalism before it was invented!