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"Because capitalism" is always a terrible argument, whatever your position.

It's a very nebulous term. Does it mean free markets? Does it mean private ownership of the factors of production? Does it mean laissez-faire? Does it mean economic organization of a professional manager class, with management separated from ownership, and ownership characterized by tradeable claims on assets?




It has a specific definition that you can find by googling: "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."

Don't assume that others are naive, imprecise, or uninformed about what capitalism is and how it affects the world, just because your own understanding of it is limited.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect


Googling. Got it.

Wow, what a time saver I wish I had known about that earlier.


My point is not that googling it will reveal everything about it, but nice bad faith. My point is it has a dictionary definition and there are plenty of people who understand what it is. It is not a nebulous concept just because you aren't informed about it.

If you want to get started learning about it, I recommend looking up Richard Wolff


I must not have been clear, because you seem to have missed my point.

I don't believe that capitalism is a nebulous concept because I am not informed about it. I believe it is a nebulous concept because I have actually witnessed people in arguments using it to mean different things. Some people consider capitalism as simply a rhetorical foil to Marxism. Some people consider capitalism an economy that while capital is private, the economy may be mercantilist. Others insist that free trade is part and parcel of capitalism. Etc., etc. That's all I meant.

And there's a (not small) difference between bad faith and sarcasm. And tossing around Dunning-Krueger after one extremely shallow interaction is the height of irony.


when you say '"because capitalism" is always a terrible argument', you're doing more than observing that it's used nebulously sometimes, you're saying that by definition it cannot be used unnebulously, which is just false and is what I was responding to.

Your original comment was aggressive but I admit quoting Dunning Kruger, while not misplaced, was also aggressive and escalatory.




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