That's because socialists (who, after all, are the heirs to the tradition that invented the term "capitalism" to refer to the then-dominant system in the developed world of the late 19th Century that they were criticizing) are more likely to recognize that the so-called "capitalist" societies of Western Europe (and even, though less so, the United States) are quite far from the system that "capitalism" was coined to refer to, specifically as a result of reforms to the system designed to address the same problems with it that were identified by 19th Century socialists (and, often, reforms specifically championed by socialists, though often watered down somewhat.)

The now-dominant system in the developed world -- the modern mixed economy -- has a lot in common with capitalism, but it also has a lot of elements of socialism. Its at least as wrong to call it the former as it is to call it the latter (especially since socialism has been, stretching back to its origins, often seen as an evolutionary step building on the experience of capitalism, not a diametrically opposed system, even if the proponents of the two systems would end up politically opposed.)

Anyone should recognize that the dominant system of the modern developed world is a hybrid retaining largely the capitalist structures and property regime, but adopting many strategies with origins in socialism (including advocated in the communism of Marx and Engels) for mitigating some of the effects for which 19th Century socialists criticized the dominant system of the developed world at that time, for which they coined the term "capitalism".

Its probably not particularly productive to argue about whether this synthesis is "closer" to socialism or capitalism.

The modern mixed economy, which has displaced the system for which the name “capitalism” was coined during the early to middle 20th century in virtually every place that it existed at the time the term “capitalism” was coined for the dominant economic system of the industrialized portion of the West in the mid-19th century, has, empirically, not been worse than capitalism as far as people’s perceptions.

If you compare only precapitalist systems and Leninism and its derivatives, you’d be right.

> Compare this to socialist economic systems, where opting out is illegal and classifies you as a social parasite.

The modern mixed economy is the closest (though not a very close) thing to a socialist economy system that has been tried on any large scale basis (its even the closest thing – though again not a very close thing – to a Marxist system, despite Leninists trying to claim the name.)

Vanguardist elite authoritarian state capitalist command economies are not socialist, and not (despite the aspirational claims originally made for them) empirically an effective way of bypassing the need Marx identified to go through a period of private capitalist development on the way to a socialist system.

But then would it also not be fair to consider the US to also be such a mixed system. Not as equally mixed, but still mixed with behaviors that are post-capitalist?

These economies lean towards socialism more then capitalism. In fact you can even call them socialist governments.

Uh, its not “abundantly clear” that its the best system there is, which is why it was mostly thrown out in the mid-20th Century in favor of the modern mixed economy, which mitigate its harms with elements of socialism that are hostile to the basic property relationships underlying capitalism, and the major subsequent debates in the developed world have been largely about fine tuning the balance of capitalist and socialist elements of the modern mixed economy; there is a strongly pro-actual-capitalism faction in modern developed world (e.g., adherents to Austrian school ideological economics), and they are naturally popular among the disproportionately powerful, but they aren’t the consensus, any more than the faction that thinks that the problem with the mixed economy status quo is retaining capitalist elements (the anti-capitalist faction) is.

People did. And the new deal is exactly what democratic socialists in the us are trying to evoke. E.g. “the green new deal”.

I don’t think we have to deal in absolutes. You can be partially socialist, with some private corporations and some state owned. It’s not black and white, it doesn’t have to be.

And yet something less than full blown socialism seems to work fine just about everywhere.

The main alternatives to the system originally described as “capitalism” that was tried in states which already had developed capitalist economies in the 20th century were blends of elements of democratic socialism with capitalism that have since been dubbed the “modern mixed economy”; they were so successful compared to actual capitalism that they have essentially completely replaced it in the West, while there are persistent efforts (which sometimes succeed in driving some policy) from the capitalist class to drag the West back to (or at least toward) 19th Century capitalism.

(The only other alternative tried in any significt way in the developed West in the 20th Century was autocratic fascist corporatism, which, yes, is far, far worse than liberal capitalism.)

And the main alternative to that regressive pro-capitalist drive proposed in the modern West (aside from simply preserving the status quo design of the mixed economy) is simply progressively implementing more elements of democratic socialism, not adopting Leninism or any of the other attempts made in the 20th century outside of the developed West that attempt to bypass rather than advance from capitalism.

Though, I guess, it's worth noting that autocratic fascist corporatism still seems to have some adherents.

Historically, every attempt to build a socialistic society has led to tyranny. One can wonder, if this might be an inevitable consequence along the path to attempt socialism.

But we have managed to build several capitalistic societies which did not fall into tyranny (although some did).

I think yes, we often feel allergic to government ownership of things (at least that's how I see socialism, which may not be how others see it), yet I don't think that's why many of us don't like coops, as publicly traded companies are owned by many people through the stock markets.

I think what may hinder the rise of coops in the US is ironically our allergy to democracy in business. We seem to love democracy in governance yet prefer top-down authoritarianism in business (and mostly in the military, minus the civilian leaders). Most coops I know strongly emphasize democratic governance, where all shareholders are equal in voting power, and most businesses I know are very far from that.

I think the desire for and familiarity with top-down governance (which seems like authoritarianism to me) that we get in the business world is influencing many of our attitudes towards on democracy in governance, as top-down can be quicker, more adaptive, more efficient, etc

However, I wonder if the perception of being exploited by some of these large companies, especially in the consumer tech sector, will lead to a demand for more democratic/representative governance, as we see with some DAOs and more.

I personally would love to see more coop Clubhouses, Facebook, TikToks, etc. Let the users 1) have more decision making power on the platform and 2) receive more profits from the services.

What is “vested interest socialism?” Do you mean something like an uncompetitive firm propped up by the government?

This is really not generally true. I would gladly take socialism in the Czechoslovakia over capitalism in some third world country (say Pinochet's Chile). Capitalism worked very well in the West after the WWII, but that system had strong elements of socialism, too. But it's important to realize that for many third world countries, capitalism was not a success.

On the other hand, what was generally successful was democratic governance (maybe with exception of India and China). This is often conflated with (real world) capitalism (and dictatorship with socialism). But they really are pretty much orthogonal ideological axes.

Okay, understood.

> So "There are non-neoliberal economic ideologies that aren't Marxian." it's not technically true.

These two things just don't even remotely follow. Socialism isn't Marxism, therefore there have only ever existed Neoliberal and Marxian economic systems?

What do you think Neoliberalism is?

Furthermore, do you believe the United States was Neoliberal in, say, 1963?

Well, first off, the US system among the most capitalist, if not the most capitalist, of the mixed economies of modern developed countries. Any critique of capitalist relevant at all to the modern world as it exists is naturally going to be especially applicable to the US and often less applicable to most other modern “capitalist” economies which are, by and large, mixed economies with more distance from capitalism than the US.

But second, the essay itself explicitly is not about “capitalism” but about the specific manner he has seen “capitalism” evolve to work in America.

And, finally, the specific evolutions he points to are all evolutions in the American mixed economy in the direction of capitalism in the narrow sense, that is, toward he behavior of the dominant economic system of developed industrial economies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries against which the broad evolution to the modern mixed economy throughout the developed world throughout the 20th century was a reaction.

That's not what happened. When I answered you I wrote "the system". I answered skinnymuch's post about capitalism, because they themselves talked about capitalism.

But out of curiosity - what "system" exactly did you have in mind?

> I think there are many countries that temper capitalism with socialist ideals and people are not worse off than the more unfettered variety practiced in the US.

Who said anything about the US?

That's what socialism is.

Perhaps but I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Socialism (absent central planning) doesn't have a means of allocating capital, so no one has ever tried it for long. When they do, everything falls to the tragedy of the commons. Even authoritarian socialists agree to this. Socialist anarchists have various opinions but agree that socialist organization is an unsolved problem. No one is prevented from setting up a socialist organization in capitalist countries, its merely the case that when they do, they aren't able to externalize their costs and they don't achieve very much.

> That is all forms of socialism. It's the only thing socialism is consistently about.

Then all forms of what you consider to be socialism will fail because of plunder.

> No they aren't. They're fundamentally incompatible with the theory of a free market. They are all focused on the abolition of private property.

yeah, its not cool to mess with other people's stuff. that's the problem here.

> Because when they get a footing they're actively attacked by capitalists. Economically attached with sanctions, invaded, coup'd, bombed, etc.

Maybe if "getting a footing" wasn't synonymous with expropriating the capitalists this wouldn't happen.

> There are many reasons that ruling powers maintain that power.

This is true. its also the case that rulers over a mixed economy have vastly more wealth at their disposal than rulers over a command economy and a collective that has norms prohibiting the collection of rents. This is because the market generates more wealth and rulers are able to extract more wealth because there is more wealth.

All of them that moved away from capitalism toward socialism, creating the modern mixed economy, in the early 20th Century (i.e., every single country in the West) is still there, and most of them have moved farther from capitalism than they had by the opening of WWII.

Sure, some of them that moved farther along that path than the average in the group have taken a couple of steps back, and in none of the countries has the change been unidirectional, there's always been a certain degree of back and forth policy, but the long-term trend isn't back toward capitalism.