Quote from: JorgeStolfi on January 22, 2016, 05:42:17 AM

Capitalism (as a political term) basically says that whatever you can grab by following the rules of the game, you can keep. In particular, it sees no difference between gains from speculative trading, monopolistic and abusive pricing, deceitful marketing, exploitation of cheap labor, activities that damage the envirnment or public health, etc.; and the state should not try to hamper such activities. In Capitalism, poverty and inequality are non-problems.

That's such a bag of wrong, I don't know where to start. Speculation is a legitimate market activity. Good speculators provide liquidity when it is needed and bad speculators pay the good speculators. No one needs to be coerced out of their earnings for this service, unlike government-provided services.

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Free markets by definition are free from State interference. Monopolies are only possible with state help. Cartels don't work, witness OPEC.

That is a serious distortion of the term "free market" that Libertarians and Anarchists have invented. Sorry, a free market is totally not a market that is free from regulation and control.

Basically, it is a market where consumers are free to chose among suppliers, suppliers are free to set their prices as they like, there are no artificial production quotas, and -- most important -- there is no spurious barrier to the entry of new suppliers. In a free market, theory says that prices will adjust to be the cost of production plus a profit that is about just enough to make that market as profitable as any other activity.

The opposite of a free market is an oligopoly (including monopoly), where there are few suppliers and new ones are prevented from entry (even if they have the capital and capability to do so). Then the suppliers can conspire to raise their prices to the level that maximizes their net revenue, which can be much higher than the free market price.

Left to themselves, markets often degenerate into oligopolies or monopolies, because of the same factors that led to concentration of bitcoin mining. Many countries have antitrust and competition laws to prevent that from happening and keep the markets free.

This is why I said you don't know anything about economics. Monopolies originated as companies granted specifically by the government an exclusive charter to do business in a given area or industry. These were companies like the Hudson Bay Company or the East India company. Modern monopolies are more subtle about how they rely on the State to maintain dominant market share. Microsoft externalizes the costs of patent and trademark enforcement. Others use copyright law to do the same. Still others use regulatory capture.

Yes, capital-intensive industries give advantages to businesses with more capital. That's why it's called "capitalism", but that should be the only barrier to entry and it almost never is. Why should poor women need a license to cut hair or do manicures? It's protectionism by incumbent players to limit competition, although they always claim it's about quality.

Yet in spite of its advantages Microsoft STILL lost market share to apple, android etc because contrary to your claim, the natural tendency for large corporations is to get complacent and too conservative, and therefor less competitive. Look at the formulaic crap pumped out by major motion picture studios. It's the small independents at Sundance that make all the interesting stuff.

Or take your field: Universities have a near monopoly on post secondary credentialing, but you haven't done anything exiting and new in centuries. Judging by your product (college grads) you are overcharging. Those surveys that test graduates basic knowledge of history or government should be embarrassing to you. Silicone valley doesn't even give a shit if a prospective employee has a degree. They just want to see what you've made. Your projects are your resume.