Talk:Capitalism

Definitions

Just wondering the division of definitions by people to "Notable Individuals" and then some other groups. This suggests that the other groups are not "notable" individuals. Unless all the persons under "notable individuals" can be put under a different label, maybe move them lower and under "Other Notable Individuals"? 130.232.196.223 11:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Too many definitions

The quotes in "definitions" read like an essay, not like a quote collection. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 16:58, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Blah, instead of cleanup, we now also got dictionary definitions dumped in here, way to go, RJII... Do these dictionary definitions belong to wikiquote, or wiktionary? One would assume wiktionary, but I'm not familiar with it, and when I browsed it a little now, they don't seem to include sources for the origin of each definition, unlike the ones that were added here... Opinions? Sams 00:21, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, if I recall correctly, Wiktionary provides us with a definition, as a dictionary, not collection of (other) dictionary definitions... personally I found the dictionary definition section redundant and wonder if we need it, but anyway it is a sort of "collection of quotations". And some of definitions on dictionary or encyclopedia would be worthy to keep, specially historically notable ones (e.g. L'encyclopedie, though it lacks the capitalism article presumably). I admit the former "definition" section is too huge and need to cleanup, but not sure if it should be completely deleted. Any opinions? --Aphaia 03:20, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

My opinion is that all the definitions should be deleted. The excessive number of definitions seem to me to be a subtle way to sabotage the page. The wiktionary link should be enough if anyone wants a definition. --Teabeard 13:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Minarchists??

What the hell does that even mean? Surely there is a better word to use. --Kennyisinvisible 02:46, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Minarchism means a minimalist government. But perhaps a better word would be "Libertarian"? --Teabeard 01:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Adam Smith quote

"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." ~ Adam Smith

I fail to see what this quote has to do with capitalism. It rather seems to me to be extending from whoever added its' views of capitalism and the results of capitalism, not capitalism itself. I'm removing it for that reason. If someone wants to put it back please give a valid reason for doing so.

I removed this quote AGAIN for the same reason. Again I will ask anyone who wants to put it back to give a valid reason for it being on this page. -JRocket

Bias

Maybe it's just me, but is this page horribly biased in favor of left-wing economics? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.163.146.6 (talk • contribs) 04:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

In favor of?! This is horribly, horribly biased against it! 66.235.51.50 06:11, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Bias

These quotes are horribly, horribly biased. I propose closer restrictions on the posting of left wing quotes (while not removing those already there), at least until the discrepancy is resolved. Either that or (as I shall attempt now) divide the article into two halves: pro-capitalist or anti-capitalist. —This unsigned comment is by 165.228.96.94 (talk • contribs) .

I find any current complaints about the supposed bias of this article rather amusing... whoever did the postings might have been biased in various ways, but even after moving a couple quotes that weren't previously categorized into the anti-capitalist section during my recent cleanup the result is 16 anti-capitalist quotes and 29 pro-capitalist... hardly a ratio that supports the contention that it is "horribly, horribly biased" against capitalism or that there is need for a pruning of "left wing" quotes. To quote the great libertarian capitalist Milton Friedman: "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." ~ Kalki 10:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Some of these quotes are not directly about Capitalism

I will cite this one by John Stuart Mill as an example: "Since the state must necessarily provide subsistance for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime."

This quote clearly advocates government entitlements to the poor; but this article is not on the topic of entitlements, but rather on the economic system known as capitalism. By almost all accounts the United States would be considered a capitalist system, and yet the USA provides entitlements to the poor. So the fact is, the two are not mutually exclusive and this quote would perhaps better be placed in an article on entitlements rather than here?

Capitalism -- by the definition in the first paragraph of the article -- is an economic system where the means of production are privately owned and is largely unregulated. It says nothing in it about entitlements one way or the other, so I don't see how that particular quote has anything to do with capitalism.

I agree this quote is not directly enough about capitalism and have removed it. ~ Kalki 21:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Capitalism (Sechrest: "You know, a free economy!") is the natural default state of voluntary human action. Every alternative to capitalism proposed — most emphatically socialism —involves coercive violent force imposed upon participants in exchanges of goods and/or services by nonparticipants who intervene to compel conduct that none of the parties directly involved require to undertake their transactions. The "largely unregulated" qualification stipulated just above is vague to the point of nonsense, inasmuch as voluntary transactions are exquisitely "regulated" by the willing participants in such exchanges, else those exchanges don't happen at all.
It is for this reason that "compare and contrast" quotations matching capitalism against its predominant modern enemy — socialism — are (contrary to Ningauble's extirpative arrogance) necessary in the consideration of capitalism, its nature, and its superiority to the violent coercion and "calculational chaos" of socialism. Thus the following quote should be restored to the section on capitalism:

• As we know, socialism is calculational chaos. Rational appraisement and allocation are eternally elusive. It is a gigantic negative-sum game in which each player quickly grabs a piece of the pie, and all the while the pie shrinks before the players' eyes. The welfare/warfare state, the interventionist state, is no improvement. Each intervention begets yet another. Bureaucracy is the only 'industry' guaranteed to experience growth. Each new regulation taxes the private sector, relentlessly shifting resources out of the hands of the productive, and into the hands of the unproductive. Capitalism is the only positive-sum game in town.
  • Larry J. Sechrest, "The Anti-Capitalists: Barbarians at the Gate," Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture at the Austrian Scholars Conference in Auburn, Alabama (15 March 2008)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.125.142.8 (talk) 17:12, 23 March 2009