this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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Socialism
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From wikipedia:
As much as it’s tempting to call everything you hate “capitalism”, slave labor is not capitalism. Capitalism is based on free markets, and keeping people in a cage and forcing them to work for you is not in any way a free market.
And a stateless, classless society is a central characteristic of Marxist-Leninism...
Capitalism intrinsically leads to market capture and monopolization, and the destruction of any free markets. Regulation to prevent that is inherently a control to prevent Capitalism's actual intrinsic characteristics from manifesting. Furthermore, slavery literally was the foundation of our Capitalist economy in the US, so no, they're not in any way inimical to each other.
Free Market refers to the ability of the private entities who own the means of production (i.e. companies) to compete with each other. Even if those means of production are in fact people. Free market has never been suggested to refer to individual workers having to be competitive in the market.
"Now it is time to state the conditions under which private property and free contract will lead to an optimal allocation of resources.... The institution of private property and free contract as we know it is modified to permit individuals to sell or mortgage their persons in return for present and/or future benefits" -- Economist Carl Christ in US congressional testimony
"whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would" -- Robert Nozick
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