Free Enterprise vs. Capitalism

[AthenaAwakened]

Prohibiting capitalism won't work. What you need is a sane society that will want to regulate the market. Those countries do happen to exist.

Another option I've been thinking of for a few months, is tax capitalist corporations in the sweetest social-democratic fashion (i.e. heavily, as in 60s UK or in today's France) while taxing co-operatives lightly. Co-operatives are non-exploitative free-market enterprises, owned by the workers (not by the State, pretending to stand in for the workers).

Make the workers successful, and capitalists will be a small sorry sector of the economy. At the same time, people will love this and will be less prone to be fooled by cunning foxes into voting for the crony capitalists' interests.

where in the OP does anyone call for the prohibition of capitalism?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Here we go

At its core, the economic system we have here in the United States is based on two basic things: 1) the right of any person or group of people to run and operate a business and 2) the right of any person or group of people to buy goods or services from the business of their choice.

1) If you can get all the licenses and permits.
2) There are many goods that are legal to buy but not legal to sell.

The article is already wrong in the first paragraph. Sad.

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

If this is the case, why the trembling fear of capital and what it might or might not do if it doesn't get its way? Why not tax capital gains at the same rate as income? Capitalists, they toil not, neither do they spin, so why should they have a disproportionate to their numbers say in the running of our economy?

Because they're not indexed to inflation. You'd be taxing paper profits instead of real profits.

 

[dismal]

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

Haven't we had this "Voluntarily formed worker owned co-ops are completely acceptable in free market capitalism" discussion about 10 times before?

It's almost like no one pays attention to what people say in response to these topics.

It's almost like people would rather bitch and moan on the internet than go out and form one of these super-awesome already completely legal and entirely accepted worker owned co-ops.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Here we go

At its core, the economic system we have here in the United States is based on two basic things: 1) the right of any person or group of people to run and operate a business and 2) the right of any person or group of people to buy goods or services from the business of their choice.

1) If you can get all the licenses and permits.

and your point is? You have a right to vote, provided you are 18 and a citizen and possibly free of felonies, etc. You have the right of free speech, provided it is not incendiary, slanderous, libelous, etc.

Do you really want to play this game?

2) There are many goods that are legal to buy but not legal to sell.

did the article say otherwise? Or are you "assuming" again?

The article is already wrong in the first paragraph. Sad.

Something is sad alright.

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

this is known as an example that is actually on point. What a concept! Incase this is new to you, let it sink in.

If this is the case, why the trembling fear of capital and what it might or might not do if it doesn't get its way? Why not tax capital gains at the same rate as income? Capitalists, they toil not, neither do they spin, so why should they have a disproportionate to their numbers say in the running of our economy?

Because they're not indexed to inflation. You'd be taxing paper profits instead of real profits.

let me see.

Several questions, one answer and its one already given and with no further explanation.

Hmmmmm.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

Haven't we had this "Voluntarily formed worker owned co-ops are completely acceptable in free market capitalism" discussion about 10 times before?

It's almost like no one pays attention to what people say in response to these topics.

It's almost like people would rather bitch and moan on the internet than go out and form one of these super-awesome already completely legal and entirely accepted worker owned co-ops.

You're right, that discussion has happened many time. I would find these discussions a lot more stimulating if the person saying such a thing was new to political discourse, having only recently finished high-school political science, but the people making those points are actually long time forum participants who have participated in that discussion each time it has happened before.

Even though they've participated in that discussion before, and know better, it doesn't stop them from raising it as a point again against whatever they think of when they mistakenly use the word "capitalism".

They show the tenacity of creationists who have had explained to them many times what the second law of thermodynamics actually means, and yet still insists that evolution somehow violates it.

 

[rousseau]

Yea you're right, America (and everywhere) needs a more progressive tax system .. but then America needs a lot of things.

Better re-distribution of wealth should be the end and long term goal of any country, or dare I say planet. How to do that when the world is filled with greedy bastards .. who knows.

 

[boneyard bill]

It would be difficult, if not impossible to start such a co-operative without getting loans form banks (capitalists). Maybe you could do it, get all the workers to pay money upfront and gather together and buy the machines, etc. Would be easier in some industries than others. Loans from banks certainly may it a lot easier though.

It may very well have happened. I think there are a few worker owned companies around the country. But imagine what would happen if, say, 20 workers got together, saved their money, got a loan from a bank, formed a worker controlled corporation, and ran it successfully.

When they incorporate or form a partnership or whatever, they will have to decide the nature of the ownership, including survivorship rights. So they could make the ownership "tenets in common." That means that when one died, the others would inherit his share. The could make it "joint ownership with rights of survivorship." That means their share would belong to whomever they designated in their will or according to state law when someone dies intestate. Or they could decide that those shares go collectively to the workers in their company regardless of any role that they played in forming the enterprise. What type do you think they would choose? I think the overwhelming majority would say, "I want my wife to inherit my share and if she dies, I want it to go to my children." So they would likely choose joint ownership with rights of survivorship.

So then what do you have? You simply have a privately owned company started by a group of workers who, however, feel no sense of solidarity with the workers they hire or who will replace them as the company grows. Their personal connections to family, friends, and business associates are almost certainly going to weigh more heavily on their minds than any closeness they feel toward their employees.

i dont buy your premise, your first principles.

Convince me I should.

HINT. "It is only logical," won't sell me. I need stats and facts since I live in the 21st century, not the 17th century.

Actually, logic did not lose its validity in the 17th century. It is still as valid as it ever was. But how many more "facts" do you need? I told you what the law is. Now the question of forming a "workers collective" simply depends on the willingness of those who started it to adopt the form of ownership that would allow it. In short, they would have to give up their ownership rights to the workers collective. How many workers do you think would actually do that? Personally, I doubt that you could find any workers who would do that, and I would suggest that that explains the paucity of such arrangement in the US. The only such arrangements I have ever heard of were set up that way by wealthy businessmen who weren't workers but had somewhat socialistic ideas in mind.

The American worker is all for private property. He wants more of it, but for himself, not for his fellow workers.

Now perhaps you would like to provide even one example of where workers have set up their own workers collective. I have already suggested why you can't find any, but I can't give you any other facts because there are no worker cooperatives to cite.

 

[Perspicuo]

Prohibiting capitalism won't work. What you need is a sane society that will want to regulate the market. Those countries do happen to exist.

Another option I've been thinking of for a few months, is tax capitalist corporations in the sweetest social-democratic fashion (i.e. heavily, as in 60s UK or in today's France) while taxing co-operatives lightly. Co-operatives are non-exploitative free-market enterprises, owned by the workers (not by the State, pretending to stand in for the workers).

Make the workers successful, and capitalists will be a small sorry sector of the economy. At the same time, people will love this and will be less prone to be fooled by cunning foxes into voting for the crony capitalists' interests.

where in the OP does anyone call for the prohibition of capitalism?

Participants have been talking about free-market with capitalism and comparing it with free-market without capitalism. To have one without capitalism it would be necessary to make laws against der Kapitalismus. Without such laws venture investments would start happening on its own.

 

[boneyard bill]

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

Haven't we had this "Voluntarily formed worker owned co-ops are completely acceptable in free market capitalism" discussion about 10 times before?

It's almost like no one pays attention to what people say in response to these topics.

It's almost like people would rather bitch and moan on the internet than go out and form one of these super-awesome already completely legal and entirely accepted worker owned co-ops.

You're right, that discussion has happened many time. I would find these discussions a lot more stimulating if the person saying such a thing was new to political discourse, having only recently finished high-school political science, but the people making those points are actually long time forum participants who have participated in that discussion each time it has happened before.

Even though they've participated in that discussion before, and know better, it doesn't stop them from raising it as a point again against whatever they think of when they mistakenly use the word "capitalism".

They show the tenacity of creationists who have had explained to them many times what the second law of thermodynamics actually means, and yet still insists that evolution somehow violates it.

So why don't we forget free enterprise altogether and ONLY permit worker-owned cooperatives. Now that would be something for these critics defend since it is obvious that, given a choice, consumers prefer the profit-driven companies overwhelming over coops even though they probably don't even know which is which when they make their purchases.

So here's the challenge. Show how depriving consumers of a choice will somehow produce a better and more fair economy than just letting people make their own decisions?

 

[Jayjay]

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

Haven't we had this "Voluntarily formed worker owned co-ops are completely acceptable in free market capitalism" discussion about 10 times before?

It's almost like no one pays attention to what people say in response to these topics.

It's almost like people would rather bitch and moan on the internet than go out and form one of these super-awesome already completely legal and entirely accepted worker owned co-ops.

You're right, that discussion has happened many time. I would find these discussions a lot more stimulating if the person saying such a thing was new to political discourse, having only recently finished high-school political science, but the people making those points are actually long time forum participants who have participated in that discussion each time it has happened before.

Even though they've participated in that discussion before, and know better, it doesn't stop them from raising it as a point again against whatever they think of when they mistakenly use the word "capitalism".

They show the tenacity of creationists who have had explained to them many times what the second law of thermodynamics actually means, and yet still insists that evolution somehow violates it.

So why don't we forget free enterprise altogether and ONLY permit worker-owned cooperatives. Now that would be something for these critics defend since it is obvious that, given a choice, consumers prefer the profit-driven companies overwhelming over coops even though they probably don't even know which is which when they make their purchases.

So here's the challenge. Show how depriving consumers of a choice will somehow produce a better and more fair economy than just letting people make their own decisions?

Aren't all of you on the same side of the argument?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Prohibiting capitalism won't work. What you need is a sane society that will want to regulate the market. Those countries do happen to exist.

Another option I've been thinking of for a few months, is tax capitalist corporations in the sweetest social-democratic fashion (i.e. heavily, as in 60s UK or in today's France) while taxing co-operatives lightly. Co-operatives are non-exploitative free-market enterprises, owned by the workers (not by the State, pretending to stand in for the workers).

Make the workers successful, and capitalists will be a small sorry sector of the economy. At the same time, people will love this and will be less prone to be fooled by cunning foxes into voting for the crony capitalists' interests.

where in the OP does anyone call for the prohibition of capitalism?

Participants have been talking about free-market with capitalism and comparing it with free-market without capitalism. To have one without capitalism it would be necessary to make laws against der Kapitalismus. Without such laws venture investments would start happening on its own.

and?

How does the existence of capital disprove the thesis the free enterprise is possible without it?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

Haven't we had this "Voluntarily formed worker owned co-ops are completely acceptable in free market capitalism" discussion about 10 times before?

It's almost like no one pays attention to what people say in response to these topics.

It's almost like people would rather bitch and moan on the internet than go out and form one of these super-awesome already completely legal and entirely accepted worker owned co-ops.

1) Cooperatives are better. You must take this on faith.

2) Cooperatives fare poorly in the marketplace.

3) Therefore capitalism must be suppressing them.

Isn't it obvious???

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

Haven't we had this "Voluntarily formed worker owned co-ops are completely acceptable in free market capitalism" discussion about 10 times before?

It's almost like no one pays attention to what people say in response to these topics.

It's almost like people would rather bitch and moan on the internet than go out and form one of these super-awesome already completely legal and entirely accepted worker owned co-ops.

1) Cooperatives are better. You must take this on faith.

2) Cooperatives fare poorly in the marketplace.

3) Therefore capitalism must be suppressing them.

Isn't it obvious???

way to miss the point, but thanks for playing our game. We have some lovely parting gifts for you back stage.

 

[dismal]

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

Haven't we had this "Voluntarily formed worker owned co-ops are completely acceptable in free market capitalism" discussion about 10 times before?

It's almost like no one pays attention to what people say in response to these topics.

It's almost like people would rather bitch and moan on the internet than go out and form one of these super-awesome already completely legal and entirely accepted worker owned co-ops.

1) Cooperatives are better. You must take this on faith.

2) Cooperatives fare poorly in the marketplace.

3) Therefore capitalism must be suppressing them.

Isn't it obvious???

way to miss the point, but thanks for playing our game. We have some lovely parting gifts for you back stage.

And what exactly is your point?

What exactly do you imagine prevents you and other like minded people from voluntarily forming one of these super-awesome worker owned co-ops?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. The Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, for example, employs more than 90,000 people, includes more than 250 companies, and generates a yearly revenue of around $25 billion. There are NO capitalists involved; it's entirely owned by its workers.

Yeah? The point? Nothing in free market economics says it has to be otherwise.

Haven't we had this "Voluntarily formed worker owned co-ops are completely acceptable in free market capitalism" discussion about 10 times before?

It's almost like no one pays attention to what people say in response to these topics.

It's almost like people would rather bitch and moan on the internet than go out and form one of these super-awesome already completely legal and entirely accepted worker owned co-ops.

1) Cooperatives are better. You must take this on faith.

2) Cooperatives fare poorly in the marketplace.

3) Therefore capitalism must be suppressing them.

Isn't it obvious???

way to miss the point, but thanks for playing our game. We have some lovely parting gifts for you back stage.

I was just calling out the assumption you are making. Since you're not even trying to rebut it does that mean you're conceding #1?

 

[boneyard bill]

Prohibiting capitalism won't work. What you need is a sane society that will want to regulate the market. Those countries do happen to exist.

Another option I've been thinking of for a few months, is tax capitalist corporations in the sweetest social-democratic fashion (i.e. heavily, as in 60s UK or in today's France) while taxing co-operatives lightly. Co-operatives are non-exploitative free-market enterprises, owned by the workers (not by the State, pretending to stand in for the workers).

Make the workers successful, and capitalists will be a small sorry sector of the economy. At the same time, people will love this and will be less prone to be fooled by cunning foxes into voting for the crony capitalists' interests.

where in the OP does anyone call for the prohibition of capitalism?

Participants have been talking about free-market with capitalism and comparing it with free-market without capitalism. To have one without capitalism it would be necessary to make laws against der Kapitalismus. Without such laws venture investments would start happening on its own.

and?

How does the existence of capital disprove the thesis the free enterprise is possible without it?

Free enterprise isn't possible without capital. I don't know where you get the idea that it is. Free enterprise is simply freedom. But the "enterprise" part definitely requires capital. The only question is who "owns" the capital. Workers would have a hard time engaging in any kind of enterprise without capital to get the enterprise going. Even if the operation somehow required no cash outlays for materials or equipment, it still would require capital to pay the wages of the workers until they sold their product.

However, capital requires risk. And this is where your problem comes in. Workers just aren't willing to take that risk when other workers would reap the reward.

What capitalist didn't start out as a worker? Donald Trump comes to mind. He inherited substantial wealth and made it much bigger. But Henry Ford was worker. John D. Rockefeller was a bookkeeper. They started out as workers, but when they took a risk, they wanted to reap the reward as well rather than pass it on to other workers.

But what did they accomplish for the rest of us since they were so greedy? Well, Rockefeller sold his oil for 10 cents a barrel, way below his competition, and Henry Ford got his cheap Model-T all the way down to only $120. They brought down prices. That's how they made their money. They less per item, but they sold a whole lot more.

That is why everyone benefits from capitalism. It lowers prices and that, effectively, raises wages. That's why the "a little inflation is a good thing" view of modern economics is about as wrong as you can get.

So workers DO start companies and engage in free enterprise, but they expect a personal reward for their personal risk, and as soon as they do that, they cease to be workers and become capitalists. And since this is what workers ultimately aspire to, we don't find very many worker cooperatives springing up.

 

[fromderinside]

So barter isn't free enterprise?

 

[dismal]

So barter isn't free enterprise?

Barter has nothing whatever to do with there being capital, one way or another.

Capital exists when someone decides to forego current consumption to invest in future consumption.

When a caveman created a stone axe he was trading some time he could have spent on leisure or something else to invest it in a capital good.

If there is free enterprise, people will identify needs for capital and defer consumption to create it.

To prevent this from happening would require massive amounts of forcible intervention to thwart human wants and needs.

 

[boneyard bill]

So barter isn't free enterprise?

Barter has nothing whatever to do with there being capital, one way or another.

Capital exists when someone decides to forego current consumption to invest in future consumption.

When a caveman created a stone axe he was trading some time he could have spent on leisure or something else to invest it in a capital good.

If there is free enterprise, people will identify needs for capital and defer consumption to create it.

To prevent this from happening would require massive amounts of forcible intervention to thwart human wants and needs.

Very true, and a very simple lesson that few on these boards seem to be able to figure out. Throw in the law of supply and demand and the quantity theory of money and you've pretty much got the whole well-established of economic theory right there.