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Comment by 1812Overture | Hacker News Reader

In a purely "socialist" society the people who produce the capital (the workers) would own it, in a purely "free market" the capital is owned by a "capitalist class" who own the products of their laborers efforts.

I'm generally a free market guy, but words mean stuff. No purely free market or purely socialist system has ever or will ever exist.

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And rightly so. Either taken to the extreme leads to terrible situations. But balance the best parts of both socialism and capitalism, and you get something really nice. That's pretty much what the Nordic countries are doing, and it seems to be working very well.

socialism doesnt allow for private ownership anything, everything is "public" or controlled by the governing class. a person owning what they produce ie private ownership of capital is a key part of of the free market. also that "capitalist class" you describe literally is what the government does in socialist or communist societies, and other governments do to a lesser degree in many western societies through taxes. in that the capital that was produced by an individual is taken by force for what the government deems most useful. I mean a free market is literally people voluntarily trading goods and services. so a "worker" would be defined as someone voluntarily trading a service for the means o aquire a good or service. now I dont argue for some anarcho capitalist society, but when you look at societies where the government had few responsibilities, those being defined as protecting citizens and resolving disputes because not everyone is going to play nice so taking taxes for those few things I can see as being justified. those societies that have a small government gain higher standards of living within a few generations. if an individual takes the services of another without voluntary cooperation which you defined as a "capitalist class", can only arise if that individual uses governments power to stamp out competition through taxes and laws, being for a free market does not mean being pro corporatism. ive heard people use the term crony capitalism or crapitalism for that. it seems you are caught up in labels and intents and not looking at the actual system or efficacy.

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