• Mulligrubs
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    6 days ago

    If China is not communist, then America is not capitalist

    (neither passes the purity test per definition)

    • A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 days ago

      Communism is per definition a stateless classless society. Capitalism is when the means of production is in private ownership which is the norm everywhere

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        Your definition of capitalism is wrong. Private enterprise/owning of production predates capitalism.

        You can look to Smith or Marx for much more generous depictions.

          • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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            6 days ago

            Smith in coming up with it viewed it as a system that would pay people based on hours worked so that the rich who sat around getting money off the backs of workers would be punished and the workers would be rewarded.

            Marx saw it as a system that dispersed power from the nobles to the merchant class. (With socialism as the next step of expansion)

            As a contrast to mercantilism we can say it’s a non-protectionist system based on globalization/mass imports and exports.

            Really the system never changed, the idea of capitalism was just a rebranding for the wealthy.