Comments on: Cutthroat Capitalism

By: DRJ

DRJ — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:14:56 +0000

Ahh, these types of debates always get my blood running. As long as they don’t devolve into flame wars, they can be the most refreshing form of internet communication.

The gap in understand is based entirely in scope. The same resource may be “owned” by multiple parties depending on the point of reference. One society may agree that PartyA owns a resource, while a different society may agree that PartyB owns a resource.

Each society may fight with each other, but that doesn’t mean that each cannot be capitalistic.

Look at piracy, not from a global perspective, but from a Somali pirate perspective. Let’s say that your view of the law is that anything that enters “your” waters is yours if you claim it. Under that structure you can believe in both piracy and ownership (seizure of property occurs in every society).

Under that model, you now have multiple organizations fighting over scare resources (ships). They attempt to maximize their return by organizing, optimizing and providing the proper incentives for their employees.

I agree that from a global point of view piracy is wrong, horrible and bad. But to claim that it’s completely remote from capitalism is to ignore the US’s capitalistic past in which we’ve trampled over the ownership rights of many societies because we simply refused to recognize their ownership.

By: ack

ack — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:46:48 +0000

Alternate definition of capitalism:

An ideology where the acquisition of the maximum amount private wealth by any means allowed by the holder of monopoly on violence is not only a goal but considered beneficial to societal development.

Not personal feelings, just calm, cool observation.

By: Mad Doc MacRae

Mad Doc MacRae — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:19:19 +0000

Anyone interested in the capitalism aspects of piracy should take a look at The Invisible Hook. It’s an analysis of 17th century pirate practices and how they relate to natural and non-coercive cooperation (which is the essence of free-market capitalism). As the author points out, piracy isn’t actually capitalism (as the pirates are stealing things with coercion, not making and trading goods and services) but they operate under some of the same principles that make cooperation more successful in lawful activities as well.

By: Pace

Pace — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:38:35 +0000

Soul crushing cynicism? Sadness? Self-hate? Cripes, all I was trying to point out is that this is rather pointless. (I’d try to defend that but if you think otherwise, I’m clearly not going to convince you otherwise.) There’s nothing wrong with that, but taking it too seriously is just a little silly. We’re just arguing about the semantics of the title of this game not the meaning of life.
That being said; why the free market definition? If you don’t like that, how about entrepreneurial? If you don’t admit that there’s something ‘capitalistic’ about this then you’re just being stubborn. Since you like definitions, wikipedia gives this one for capitalism:
“Capitalism typically refers to an economic and social system in which trade, industry and the means of production (also known as capital) are privately controlled and operated for a profit.”
Sure piracy isn’t a whole economic and social system but it’s an industry (please don’t give me a definition for that, it’s only a small stretch) that is privately controlled and operated for a profit. No it’s not going to fit any definition exactly but it’s in the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s close. It’s in the ‘I see what you mean there’ category, why argue this so much?

By: A-Scale

A-Scale — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:26:51 +0000

Ah, now here’s the sort of completely pointless pedantic argument about semantics that I can get behind.

When I want complete, soul crushing cynicism about literally ANY pursuit, I come to RPS. Whether it’s degrading games to the level of a pointless distraction from the real world or making fun of people for taking part in philosophical disputes, we’re your one stop shop for sadness and self hate.

Somali piracy has a lot of traits which we normally associate with capitalistic economies. Most importantly, it’s a free enterprise.

Must we continue to muddy well defined terms simply to fit our personal feelings about the issue?

Free enterprise: : freedom of private business to organize and operate for profit in a competitive system without interference by government beyond regulation necessary to protect public interest and keep the national economy in balance.

By: Pace

Pace — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:36:49 +0000

Ah, now here’s the sort of completely pointless pedantic argument about semantics that I can get behind. Ahem; Somali piracy has a lot of traits which we normally associate with capitalistic economies. Most importantly, it’s a free enterprise. There was a, what we can call, ‘market niche’ to be filled, and some enterprising individuals started up an organization to acquire capital. They also negotiate prices, determining, what I’m going to call, ‘fair market value’ for various types of ships and crews. This is all very capitalistic, right? At least in spirit. The idea of capitalism was really defined as a contrast to the command/centrally controlled economy. That is certainly not what we have.
However; of course this is still a criminal operation that, significantly, produces nothing. It’s purely parasitic. The drug trade for instance I think we could call capitalistic, but this? Well, perhaps not precisely. (I think capitalistic is better here than ‘capitalism’, since the latter refers to a whole economy, and we’re only looking at one small part.) Depending on what definition of capitalism you use piracy is pretty unlikely to fit it exactly, sure, but it certainly has a lot of the traits we think of as capitalism. Woohoo, this is fun!

By: Bullwinkle

Bullwinkle — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:30:20 +0000

An essential ingredient of capitalism is the protection of private property rights. Legal and illegal has nothing to do with it. For example, a drug dealer or arms dealer who purchases his goods (or manufactures them) and then sells them to his customers is operating within a basic capitalist framework, despite the illegality of those goods. If he steals those goods, or kills his competitors to be able to sell those goods, then he is not respecting private property rights, and so would no longer be within a capitalist framework.

Thievery of any kind is not capitalism. It doesn’t matter whether pirates consider themselves to be businessmen or not. Business =/= capitalist. State ownership of business under communism is still business, but clearly not capitalism.

By: A-Scale

A-Scale — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:18:06 +0000

“The most commonly held notion about capitalism is that it is a free-market economy, however this interprets capitalism so narrowly as to make it almost non-existent.” – Frank Stilwell, Political Economy: the Contest of Economic Ideas.

I’m waiting on an alternate definition.

By: Lucky Main Street

Lucky Main Street — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:16:08 +0000

“The most commonly held notion about capitalism is that it is a free-market economy, however this interprets capitalism so narrowly as to make it almost non-existent.” – Frank Stilwell, Political Economy: the Contest of Economic Ideas.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:04:44 +0000

I did read the article, I actually subscribe and read the print magazine at home (how quaint!)

I understand the dynamic – you could say that this piracy action game has RPG elements: with the gathering of resources and investing them into upgrades. But the term “capitalism” doesn’t just refer to any investment of resources into ventures which could yield more resources one day – that’s practiced by communists, mercantilists, totalitarians, you name it. When the resources involved are being seized by force, you’re not talking about Capitalism anymore.

By: A-Scale

A-Scale — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:32:56 +0000

Again, capitalism deals with products and services being sold and determined by the free market. Investment and businesses alone do not make capitalism. Fascist dicatorships often invest in businesses and work closely with businessmen to achieve their goals (see: Hitler), but that does not make their operations capitalistic. You are simply taking too narrow a view of capitalism, as seen in the definition.

By: Jim Rossignol

Jim Rossignol — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:31:06 +0000

Go read the article this is based on. The point of which is that these pirates are also businessmen. The piracy outfits are pirvately owned businesses. They get investment, they reinvest in their infrastructure, and they have business models for how hostage taking goes down.

Sure, it’s illegal as far as we’re concerned, but that doesn’t mean it’s not capitalistic.