> This is all sick in it's own way, but it's not capitalism.

In the same way that the USSR wasn't communism. Does that matter if it's the result when you don't just deal with spherical humans in a vacuum?

It's the evil twin of capitalism, crony capitalism, which is what we have in this country.

(Technically, it should be called fascism, since it's the binding together (fasces) of government and business in an unholy union.)

Crony capitalism, corporatism... Call it whatever you want, but it doesn't really exist outside the framework of capitalism. I'll keep looking for the true scotsman just in case I'm wrong, though.

Eh. There's one thing where people are able to purchase, own, and maintain capital, and make money off its output. There's another thing that's about using the coercive force of the state to force people to send you resources that they wouldn't if they were free to do as they pleased. It's meaningful to refer to the former as "capitalism" and call the latter something more like "fascism". It's also quite meaningful to discuss the discuss the manner in which they interact and the impurity of extant capitalist systems.

But the big people in charge (or at least with connections) forcing the little people to send them resources? That's a pattern far older than the notion of capital investments, and dates back to our early primate days, before our most basic notions of investing in the future through things like, say, agriculture. So I say it's pretty much orthogonal to capitalism.

>"But the big people in charge (or at least with connections) forcing the little people to send them resources?"

This sounds like feudalism to me, though I know the word has negative connotations, and is now associated only with the distant past.

This kind of thing exists in any form of government. Even if there is no money, the idea of making people pay for their own punishment (through any means, including their labor) has been around forever.

The idea that communism or socialism is free from this kind of thing is ridiculous.

> The idea that communism or socialism is free from this kind of thing is ridiculous.

Oh, sorry, I was referring to the problems specifically described in the article, not to "the idea of making people pay for their own punishment" in any general sense. I should have been more clear about that, or maybe you should be more careful about setting up straw men.

"Crony" capitalism is just regular capitalism.

Where is the true capitalism to be found then?

Not tied to government mandates, maybe?

Where is that?