this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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Under capitalism, a properly regulated, and competitive free market is not zero sum.
Such a thing is impossible. The current system is working exactly as intended
What is your argument to support this statement?
If the current system is intended to be capitalist, then it is not working as intended, as was described above.
You got it wrong. What's your empirical evidence to support your statement?
Not at all. This is capitalism. Actually existing capitalism. I'm de-facto correct.
I don't really understand this. You claimed that it is impossible. Saying something is impossible is different than saying that it hasn't happened. To claim that something is impossible is a final statement where certain rules can never be satisfied. As such, you certainly can provide an argument for your claim. That being said, my counterargument would be a simple example: Person 1 wants an apple, and Person 2 wants money. Person 1 and Person 2 agree that 1$ is a fair price for an apple. Person 2 gives the apple to Person 1 in exchange for Person 1 giving 1$ to Person 2. Person 1 is happy because they have an apple, which they wanted, and Person 2 is happier because they received money, which they wanted. The net satisfaction is greater than zero — both sides received something that they wanted.
I can use one simple example to counter that: If one can find an example of a monopoly then the market in which that monopoly exists is not capitalist — one example to prove that point is private utilities.
That not how science works. You don't get to posit a theory without falsification and declare it as true until someone else comes up with a falsification for it and tests it.
You have no evidence you just have wild theories based on "perfectly spherical cows in a vacuum" .
And monopolies don't prove the non existence of Capitalism. They're it's natural end result.
Did you not read my previous message? Or did you, perhaps, misinterpret it? My original thesis was "under capitalism, a properly regulated, and competitive free market is not zero sum.", which you claimed was impossible. I then provided a simple example for why it was not impossible. You seem to perhaps take issue with the example's idealistic nature, but the original thesis was idealistic, so I'm not sure why there would be an issue with that. This is purely a conceptual discussion — my statement wasn't making a claim about how effective regulation is at ensuring adequate competition. So I'm not really sure where the issue lies.
Monopolies appear to be the natural end result of a true free market — that is, a market with no regulation. Capitalism simply describes a competitive market. To that end, note that a monopolistic market — ie an anticompetitive market — is, by definition, not capitalist. In practice, to ensure fair competition, a central governing body is required.