One massive example is Louis Rossman.
I love Louis, he’s done so much good. He’s been trying so hard, but all of his 1000 complaining videos are 100% because of capitalism and he STILL loves it and says he’s not a “commie”. It just doesn’t make sense. You’re advocating for socialistic things, but you’re not a “commie”? You have been fighting capitalism and its evil for years, and yet you’re still a “free market man”? There are plenty that are like that and it never made sense to me.
I think there’s a distinction to be made between free market economies and capitalism. Capitalism, with limited-liability shareholder corporations and such, allows businesses to scale and concentrate wealth in a way that markets by themselves do not, and that’s where the problem lies.
Capitalism is more broad than that. The Soviet Union was state capitalism. Basically a capitalist economy with only one company, the government, and thus no free market (monopoly on everything).
At any rate, to someone who likes competition and the free market but dislikes getting screwed and exploited by megacorps, it seems like state capitalism would be the worst of both worlds.
Assuming that attitude describes a lot of people in a country like the US (excepting the psychopaths in the owner class), and I think it does, it goes a long way towards explaining why “communism” (read: state capitalism) is wildly unpopular compared to “capitalism” (read: the opposite, in the minds of black-and-white thinkers). It seems to me that driving a wedge to separate the ideas of “free market” from “capitalism” in people’s minds would be the necessary first step to effect change.
Somehow the term free market became a bad word for many people. People think that a free market leads to a monopoly as one company eventually buys out its competitors. But if you look closely enough, nearly all monopolies are possible only with government interference in the market, either through tariffs, intellectual property laws (trademarks, patents, copyrights), or even direct monopolies over radio frequencies in the spectrum auctions.
One massive example is Louis Rossman. I love Louis, he’s done so much good. He’s been trying so hard, but all of his 1000 complaining videos are 100% because of capitalism and he STILL loves it and says he’s not a “commie”. It just doesn’t make sense. You’re advocating for socialistic things, but you’re not a “commie”? You have been fighting capitalism and its evil for years, and yet you’re still a “free market man”? There are plenty that are like that and it never made sense to me.
I think there’s a distinction to be made between free market economies and capitalism. Capitalism, with limited-liability shareholder corporations and such, allows businesses to scale and concentrate wealth in a way that markets by themselves do not, and that’s where the problem lies.
Capitalism is more broad than that. The Soviet Union was state capitalism. Basically a capitalist economy with only one company, the government, and thus no free market (monopoly on everything).
At any rate, to someone who likes competition and the free market but dislikes getting screwed and exploited by megacorps, it seems like state capitalism would be the worst of both worlds.
Assuming that attitude describes a lot of people in a country like the US (excepting the psychopaths in the owner class), and I think it does, it goes a long way towards explaining why “communism” (read: state capitalism) is wildly unpopular compared to “capitalism” (read: the opposite, in the minds of black-and-white thinkers). It seems to me that driving a wedge to separate the ideas of “free market” from “capitalism” in people’s minds would be the necessary first step to effect change.
Somehow the term free market became a bad word for many people. People think that a free market leads to a monopoly as one company eventually buys out its competitors. But if you look closely enough, nearly all monopolies are possible only with government interference in the market, either through tariffs, intellectual property laws (trademarks, patents, copyrights), or even direct monopolies over radio frequencies in the spectrum auctions.
Of course he loves it. Those videos are a core part of his business. That’s how he makes money.
Ironically only properly regulated markets can be free.