Capitalism isn't based in competition, but instead is based in
cooperation. Two parties trade freely to their mutual benefit. The
only competition is in the choice of with whom to trade freely.
That may not be an exact quote, but captures the idea.
When I want a cheap microwave, I pay a low price. When I want something more, I pay a different price.
That "something more" doesn't have to be a level of quality, it can be something else entirely. The point is that capitalism represents free choice on the basis of what the traders find to be mutually beneficial, without the need for government regulation.
rootie
3 comments:
Cooperation means working together with someone. Slaves cooperate, but not voluntarily.
Another point I have been thinking about is this: the concept "capitalism" (in Objectivism) refers to a certain kind of society:
- one in which the government does only one job, protecting individual rights.
- all property is privately owned.
Nothing in that concept requires that anyone outside of government economically cooperate with anyone else. Every individual living under capitalism might decide (wrongly) to be totally "self-sufficient" in the medieval meaning (grow your own food, spin your own cloth, and so forth).
Of course, in capitalism almost everyone most likely will cooperate voluntarily through trade. The advantages are enormous!
In summary, "capitalism," properly conceived, does not specify any particular economic arrangement. "Capitalism" is primarily a political concept.
Capitalism definitely does not mean "big business," which is the strawman leftists create.
Interesting definition of cooperation. I wouldn't have considered coerced behavior to be cooperation. My history with cooperation has been as a voluntary behavior.
Coerced "cooperation" (the quotes here mean that it will take some time for me to rectify my thinking on this point) is called out in other places online, so I won't reject it as a valid definition.
Concept formation at work...
Thanks!
I should note that I advanced that as a description of capitalism, not as a definition. Cooperation is clearly not the essential characteristic of capitalism, for the reasons Burgess cites.
Nevertheless, I think the identification of the act of trade as voluntary cooperation to mutual benefit is useful as a way of getting past people's automatized thinking of capitalism as the system of dog-eat-dog competition. (An entertaining side effect of this way of looking at capitalism is that it allows us to describe government intervention, which prevents people who want to trade with each other to mutual benefit, as "anti-cooperative".)
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