this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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You're exemplifying my point quite well there, in terms of debating from the perspective of your own very precise no-true-Scotsman definition.
But to answer you at face value, let's have a look in wikipedia's opening paragraph on Capitalism:
It's going to be a struggle convincing the developed world, or even the majority of left-leaning voters, that owning your own home, earning a company salary, paying people for services rendered, or market competition all need abolishing. Most people just want to see a bit more market regulation, monopoly busting, worker protections, social welfare, money removed from politics, and the rich paying their share of tax.
How is the definition I posted any different from what you quoted? I said the essence, the core required part that defines it as capitalism, there are other historic aspects but I was saying what the most basic elements of it are. And those are what I believe we should have an issue with, and if you remove that essence, it's not capitalism.
You can own your own stuff with socialism, even a home, that is one of the common misunderstandings of socialism. People want to see a lot of things but dreams cannot always become reality. The fact of the matter is that the state will be co-opted by capitalists and they will remove protections, it's a natural cause and effect of the capitalist system. It might be possible to manage this tendency but requires so many controls that it gets further from the definition of capitalism and may as well begin to be called market socialism or another term.
I'm not trying to convice the average westerner who has essentially zero history and political education. Not everyone needs to be convinced anyway, most people right now have little agency in politics and don't care to.