I thnk definitions/words matter a lot. The original meaning of capitalism was to own capital - any one. Owning a home or a small business is owning capital. I suppose owning stocks, bonds, or crypto may also fall under that category. The modern definition of the word seems to be BigBiz and/or conglomerate. I despise those and do not consider those capitalist. If we cannot agree on defintions, that confuses things.

I am also using “capitalism” to refer to capital ownership, but it is more than that. Capitalism is the rulership of capital owners over those who do not own capital. Owning your own house or tools is not capitalism, unless you want to argue that communism or worker coops are just another form of capitalism.

As I and most leftists use the term, yeoman farmer is not a capitalist. A plantation owner who rents out their land to sharecroppers is a capitalist.

I call that fascism because anti-monopoly laws, anti-trust laws have not been enforced by government and BigBiz is now in a loose parnerships of sorts with government.

This isn’t new. This is how things have always been. Capitalism has always fundamentally been a creature of the State. The whole point of the State is to enforce property rights and uphold capital. Literally the first corporations to historically exist, like the East India Trade Company were just extensions legal monopolies granted by the State.

Yeah sure, I want free markets. Markets free of monopoly and economic rent seeking. But capitalism isn’t markets.

I just watched the video and was relieved that he agreed that not agreeing on definitions confuses conversation. But, he made it seem too clear cut - as though only social or capitalism existed.

I think Dr. Wolff would be the first to admit that there isn’t a simple binary here. But there is also a distinction.

the IMF, central banks, and WEF bait the common citizen with concepts about Utopia and equality (which are good to an extent), but are about their own gain and nothing more. They are FASCISTs who pander to the patriotism of the Right and the egalitarianism of the Left.

I don’t think you’ll find any self identified lefitsts who like the IMF. The IMF is a notorious tool of capitalism through it’s use of predatory loans to developing nations that it then forces to privatize their industry (IE: Capitalism) The IMF is capitalist. They are literally the world leader in taking socially owned resources and converting them into privately owned capital.

And yes, you are right… this is fascism. Or at least the precursor to it. Fascism arises out of capitalism historically.

I oost my home, but when I owned it, I was a capitalist.

You were not a capitalist as I, most leftists, or most economists would use the term. If you want to use the term that way that’s your deal but it’s nonstandard and doesn’t’ conform to historical use.

Yes, they want money, but they also want 95% of the population to be EQUAL (equal outcomes, not equal opportunity

I often see people on the internet who conceive of themselves as “centrist” or “neither right or left” or perhaps “alt right” or some other variation, tout this line about “equality of outcomes versus equality of opportunity”.

It is a meaningless piece of rhetoric. No one on the Left cares about “equality of outcomes” over “equality of opportunity”. In fact, most leftists don’t even really think the concept of “equality” of any kind of very useful.

This misunderstanding you are operating under is so common there’s a wikipedia article covering it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_of_outcome#Conflation_with_Marxism,_socialism_and_communism

I’ll quote it here:

"The German economist and philosopher Karl Marx and his collaborator Frederick Engels are sometimes mistakenly characterized as egalitarians, and the economic systems of socialism and communism are sometimes misconstrued as being based on equality of outcome. In reality both Marx and Engels eschewed the entire concept of equality as an abstract and idealistic bourgeois aspiration[citation needed], focusing their analysis on more concrete issues such as the laws of motion of capitalism and exploitation based on economic and materialist logic. Marx renounced theorizing on moral concepts and refrained from advocating principles of justice. Marx’s views on equality were informed by his analysis of the development of the productive forces in society.[16][17]

Socialism is based on a principle of distribution whereby individuals receive compensation proportional to the amount of energy and labor they contribute to production (“To each according to his contribution”), which by definition precludes equal outcomes in income distribution.[18] In Marxist theory, communism is based on a principle whereby access to goods and services is based on free and open access (often referred to as distribution based on one’s needs); Marx stressed free access to the articles of consumption.[19] Hence the “equality” in a communist society is not about total equality or equality of outcome, but about equal and free access to the articles of consumption.[20]

Ultimately the concept of “equality of outcome” versus “equality of opportunity” is a pretty useless concept. What exactly is the difference between the two? People can slice any particular set of arrangements anyway they like. Is providing universal free childhood education “equality of opportunity” or of “outcome”. People will argue either way depending on what position they hold beforehand and there’s no meaningful way to actually define it one way or the other.

No where does it say government showing favoritism to FB or Google in exchange for forking over our private data. Nowhere does it say forgiveness of taxes to Amazon or government contracts to this or that company in exchange for major campaign donations and for hiring your brother as vice-CEO. Perhaps CRONY-captialism is closer to what you mean? Crony-capitalism is unethical.

Government doesn’t show favoritism to FB or google because those companies give the government our private data. They show favoritism to them because they are “job creators”. This of course is bullshit. Henry Ford wasn’t a job creator, the customers who bought his cars were. And Henry Ford wasn’t a car creator, the workers who worked in his factory were. Capitalists are parasites who neither work, nor consume. They merely hold Capital.

Government favors Capital because Government’s job is to protect Capital. It enforces private property rights through a monopoly of violence.