If the Point of Capitalism Is to Escape Capitalism, Then Why Capitalism?

Stupid article

The point of capitalism is to consolidate power around capital rather than a monarch, political party, government, nation or voting group. It's why capitalism can work in a democracy (US), communism (China) or monarchy (british empire). The point of capitalism isn't to escape it. Social or corporate advancement isn't capitalism. It's just everyday life. No more than a peasant in the soviet union progressing up the state ladder is communism. Capitalism is about who really runs things and who gets to have real power. In monarchy, it's obviously the king or queen. In communism, it's the politburo. In a military dictatorship, it's the general. In capitalism, it's the capital ( or those who control it ).

There are a lot of other good points here. People bang on capitalism because it's easy -- and trendy.

One thing that most conversations miss is that capitalism isn't some optional thing you pick up and do like yoga.

Wiki defines capitalism as "an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit."

So what does "own" mean? How about "production" We can substitute in stuff that mostly works for us, but it falls apart. And it falls apart when try to remove capitalism.

Let's transfer everything to the state, all ownership. What happens? Money becomes useless and people hoard political capital. You gain a bunch of political support and you can build a new factory. You give out your political support to others so that they can "invest" it in other things.

You start collecting coins, or stamps. Suddenly you're trading your stamps with another guy for his political support for getting a new stoplight.

Capitalism isn't going anywhere. You can't kill it. The only thing you can do is acknowledge it and try to learn how to live with it. It will exist no matter what kind of social or government structure you want to implement. Always has, always will.

This is an important point because people who study capitalism are studying the way things are, ie existing systems. People who study other systems are studying the way things might be. Whatever the other system, there's always capitalism in there.

I'm not making a value judgment one way or another. Simply pointing out that there are two entirely different kinds of knowledge being discussed.

stupid people, everywhere...

in contrast to government-owns-the-means-of-production socialist systems, where nobody gets the choice to not be poor.