Quote from: blablahblah on June 14, 2013, 11:09:51 AM

Quote from: Rassah on June 13, 2013, 05:13:16 PM

That's not capitalism, that's crime. That'll exist regardless of whether it is a purely capitalist, purely socialist, or any other system in between.

Well then, part of the discussion earlier was about whether or not 'pure' capitalism can be separated from the state. Your version obviously can't. There would need to be some kind of official body that maintains a list of what all the 'crimes' are. Otherwise the so-called stealing is just bad yet legitimate trade.

Not at all. The "official body" can be as simple as whoever owns the land simply making up the rules, which can be specific, or as general as "don't be a dick." For example, I don't allow smoking on my property. It's not a law, but if you break it, I just kick you out of my house. Or these could be a set of rules in a community, like a privately owned gated one. Don't like the rules, don't go there. Or buy property, and negotiate to have the rules not apply to your part of the land (easier if you buy something on the edge of the community)

Quote from: blablahblah on June 14, 2013, 11:09:51 AM

Asian sweatshops.

I specifically addressed those when I mentioned China and Southeast Asia. They all start out as sweatshops, because people will do anything for money, and working in sweatshops is better than prostitution. Then as more companies move in because of the cheap labor, the labor gets used up, leading to labor shortages (too many jobs, too few employees), and companies have to compete for workers through higher wages. That's what happened in China and India, and why those two places are not necessarily the cheapest places to outsource to any more. Sweatshops isn't a problem that can just be fixed or legislated away, because the countries where they exist are just too poor to do anything about them. There's no one to tax. But having companies come in and compete for workers, on the other hand, has been very effective. Generally, if there were no barriers to trade, such as legal or distance, all labor around the world would pay about the same. Sweatshops are just examples of areas that were left behind economically that have yet to catch up.

Quote from: blablahblah

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Quote from: blablahblah

-Capitalism seems to reward society with short-to-medium term gains (e.g.: technology, gadgets) while potential problems (e.g.: depleted resources, pollution) are easy to ignore because they tend to creep up very slowly.

Don't blame human nature on capitalism.

I'm not.

You are. Putting things off till later, and not caring about things unless they affect us in a large way right now, is in our biological code. It's how we've evolved as a species, learning to be afraid of predators, but not abstract concepts that may harm us in the future. This problem will exist whether we're in an AnCap or a Dictatorship, and have to be addressed separately through whatever system is available.

Quote from: blablahblah on June 14, 2013, 11:09:51 AM

Quote from: Rassah on June 13, 2013, 05:13:16 PM

If potential problems were a problem under communist rule, once enough people became concerned, they would ask the government to pass regulations to reduce the problem. If same thing happened under pure capitalist or anarchist "rule," once enough people became concerned, they would simply ask friends, family, and everyone else to stop supporting that problem by avoiding its products.

You fail to take into account do-gooders: those people with lots of heart but not enough brain.

I think those would simply add extra, unnecessary, though minor amount of "regulation" at most. Kinda like how the Southern Baptists boycotted Disney because Disney supports gay rights, and when Disney found out, they were like, 'Wait, who?"

Quote from: blablahblah on June 14, 2013, 11:09:51 AM

Quote from: Rassah on June 13, 2013, 05:13:16 PM

If you mean things like stealing, killing, lying, etc, which are generally unethical regardless of morality........ dot com, Enron, and the recession is enough.

Simple example: "free range" eggs that cost twice as much as the cage ones. Caring about the poor little chickens costs you financially. If you stop caring, you get financially rewarded. Admittedly it's a dead-end example because I can't really think of any long-term negative side-effects of eating cage eggs instead of free range ones, but if you actually wanted to understand, I think you would by now.

I understand. It's a good example. How many regulations do we have regarding making sure chickens and cows are free range? None? Yet people are more and more aware of the issue, and places like Chipotle, and other higher scale food places, actually use "free range" as an advertisement. People will pay if they are concerned enough, and companies will figure out how to make free range a cheaper alternative if it can be used to sell more products than their competitors. For example, there's an ice cream shop in Baltimore called Pitango Gellato, that worked with their egg distributor to design a large roving chicken coup on wheels. During the day, they actually wheel out the chickens onto a large grass pasture, and let them roam around free. At night, the chickens go back into the coup, and get driven home. Chickens are happy playing in the nice green grass, and the producer actually saves money because he rents the chickens out to fields that need help clearing insects, same as sheep get rented out to trim grass. In the end, Pitango doesn't pay that much more for their eggs, but their eggs taste much better, and they can advertise by bragging where their eggs come from, and the cool farming system they use.

Quote from: blablahblah on June 14, 2013, 11:09:51 AM

Quote from: Rassah

Before we continue, ktttn and blablahblah, could you please give us your definition of what you think "capitalism" is?

It's an ism.

Should we just switch to debating "free trade" instead? Or will you find some personal definitions of that, too (like you did with "not being aggressive.")