Capitalism

[jack]

On the scale between "raw libertarianism" and "wealth and jobs completely allocated by central fiat", I think we need less capitalism than we've got now, but a lot more than zero.

I'm not sure exactly what my ideal society would look like, economically it's based on more on practical questions of "what works" than what I want ethically. But from here, much more monopoly controls, higher wages, less large-scale tax-evasion, and also more redistributive.

So, um, basically "less capitalism". But OTOH, I want to stop a long way short of no capitalism. I think we should be employed for wages, or given money to support them if we don't have wages, and should be able to spend that how we like, and that generally leads to a more useful distribution of resources than fiat-ing what we get. I think people should be able to start organisations and see if people are willing to buy from them. I want the government to shape and curate the market and nationalise and ban things when there's a clear benefit, not all the time.

I'm not sure that's all right, I don't know enough about it, but that's my general direction by default. I think that makes me "socialist", but does that make me "a capitalist?" I feel like "yes", but I also think "capitalist" has strong connotations of more free market than we've got now, which I want in some areas, but not most. Is this just another word which is useless to use now?

Comments

[pseudomonas]

If you're after labels, you might want to pick something like "social democracy" or "social liberalism".

If you're not after labels, then possibly the question needs rephrasing :P

[seekingferret]

As something of a rabid capitalist myself, I'm curious if you can characterize in an way the situations when you think government curation is more appropriate. Are these situations where 'a more useful distribution of resources' is not a good thing, for whatever reason? Situations where despite the free market, 'a more useful distribution of resources' is not happening? Something else?

My general feeling is that until we get much, much better at actually mathematically/computationally understanding the economic impact of government curation than we presently are, the free market ought to be the default except in cases where there is a clear non-economic harm being done.

[damerell]

Why don't we have to be "much, much better at actually mathematically/computationally understanding the economic impact" of the free market, OOI?

It seems to me the world is replete with cases where the wealthy squander a resource that the poor lack. Houses in the UK are one obvious example.