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tkuiper t1_iwgxesl wrote

Reply to comment by PitifulNose in Will working for a DAO be better than a corporate job? by berlinparisexpress

>the stated goals of capitalism.

🙄 and what might those be?

Don't confuse corporatism/feudalism with capitalism.

Adam Smith made a model that says an economy of similar goods made and consumed by unburdened selfish people is most efficient when left in anarchy. Serving masters is antithetical to an anarchy and therefore capitalism. In capitalism you should never be working for anyone but yourself (management is a service). People who rig the economy to synonymize working for them and working for yourself aren't capitalist, they're feudalist's using their knowledge of how capitalism works to undermine it for themselves.

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gredr t1_iwh1jyh wrote

Capitalism just means "private ownership of the means of production," meaning, I can go out and own a company and hire workers. Socialism, on the other hand, means "public ownership of the means of production," meaning, any given company is owned by the people that are working for the company; there's not some person at the top taking all the profits for themselves.

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tkuiper t1_iwhdo9h wrote

'Companies', 'hiring, 'workers' are shorthand for common practices that come after. Like how a 1-3-5 is a common structure for music notes that it has become its own thing.

Both your definitions are correct, but you have a misunderstanding that is resulting in you making the incorrect extension to the meaning of socialism:

>any given company is owned by the people that are working for the company

Companies are an invention given a name because of common practice. The definitions of socialism and capitalism don't allude to companies, only people. So a corrected version would be:

>any given tools are owned by the government of the people working with the tools

A company is shorthand for when a person hires 'private contractors', those contractors buy or borrow tools from the person, and the person borrows tools/worker time but only with as much leverage and assets are included in their work and not things they use to survive.

I'm still simplifying a bit, but it's a complex series of interactions that has been shorthanded for convenience to 'a company'.

So why is that distinction important?

Because a person hiring private contractors and paying them a proportion of total profit is still capitalism. If the private contractors buy the tools or are even given them to own upon starting their help... still capitalism. It's just different versions of how a person can buy help.

Why does that distinction get blurred?

Because we now have people who have unified so much of a particular production they practically have the control of a government. And viola you mistakenly swapped government for company in your definition of socialism. Capitalism assumes anarchy and greed (an imperfect assumption), so having huge companies is anti-capitalist because it's too ordered and collaborative (the feudalists argument is to justify their greed because of capitalism even though they are no longer operating in a good capitalist environment).

So there are 2 options. You take the more capitalist approach: break up large companies and force a greater degree of anarchy. Or you recognize that large companies are essentially a government and take the socialist approach: no one may own the company or its assets and it is instead run like a government (democracy being our default). In other words the capitalist profit sharing method of hiring would become the mandatory method of hiring, so companies will naturally inflate into democracies instead of monarchies. Both options have a laundry list of technical struggles that mostly stem from the same issues the capitalist model struggles with: people being coercable, and people being rational (knowing economics and transparency to use that knowledge so caveat emptor is also anti-capitalist)

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gredr t1_iwihxyv wrote

Your clarification is, of course, much more precise than my summary. I appreciate your input here, it's very helpful!

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Fit_Manufacturer_444 t1_iwh2a97 wrote

Except the people you described ARE capitalists."they aren't capitalists because they rig the economy to get you working only for them and only yourself". Yea dude, that's capitalism 🤣😂. Coining something with a different name just ignores the problems of the current system and is like fucking jamming earplugs in and screaming "NAH NAH NAH CAN'T HEAR YOU".

Whatever you want to call it. "Corporatism", "oligarchy","plutocracy" it's capitalism dude

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tkuiper t1_iwhfmlk wrote

Liking clarity and distinction between words isn't jamming in earplugs. Using words haphazardly until you can no longer even name the issue is.

You just declared that 3 words are all synonyms. How do you expect to change if you can't identify where you're starting from or where you're headed?

I responded to the other commentors point with clarifications of the definition, see if it means anything to you.

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