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Comment by ElViajero | Hacker News Reader

> "exorbitant profit" in critical areas may not be that different from corruption, nevertheless.

I agree. In a capitalist country an "exorbitant profit" for a long time is a failure of the system. Why nobody else is producing the same service if there is so much profit to be gain? And, if there is competition, why is not shrinking that margins to compete?

Capitalism is great when there are many small competitors that need to push quality up or prices down. If you only have 1 big corporation dominating each market, that's just communism with extra steps. The economy is just a planned economy and no competition nor capitalism is happening.

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Monopoly is what happens when capitalism is not working right. Of course, that is not the single source of monopoly, but it should not exist when capitalism works correctly.

There are probably many people who dream of capitalism as a chance to become a billionaire, not only such a possibility is very small, it actually frequently unfair: you need much more than honest merit to become one. The best part of capitalism is how it is a good system for the buyer and the costumer not for the seller or producer.

I think whether your statement is correct or not depends on how you define “capitalism working right”

In a purely free market with no outside checks, monopolies are very common and almost inevitable. As Adam Smith says in Wealth of Nations:

> People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

Effective regulation is needed to prevent monopolies and cartels.

> I think whether your statement is correct or not depends on how you define “capitalism working right”

I agree, even I will say that it depends on how do you define "capitalism".

> Effective regulation is needed to prevent monopolies and cartels.

That's why regulations are and always have been part of capitalism.

A " purely free market with no outside checks" is Neo-liberalism or anarchy, even if there has been a push to label anything to the left of Neo-liberalism as "communism". Such a push have gained a lot of traction, and I see that many people in the general public thinks that Neo-liberalism = Capitalism, that it is not the case.

So, maybe the definition of capitalism is changing. And maybe the push have succeed and now "capitalism working right” just means the rich getting richer and has nothing to do with the original work of Adam Smith. That would be sad, thou. Capitalism is a good system as defined by Adam Smith, Neo-liberalism is just a pantomime that promotes authoritarianism dressed as free-trade.

Ok, then I agree with you. I was worried that what most people hear when they see “capitalism” is unregulated markets.

Maybe we could entertain the idea that even with all the wisdom contained within Adam Smith’s work, it might at least somewhat wrong.

Monopoly also happens when socialism works right. “State monopoly” is a real thing.

The difference being that state monopolies pay 100% of their profits to the treasury and have a much, much better track record.

State monopolies don’t necessarily pay their profits back to the treasury. I can’t think of any that do. Which state monopoly are you thinking of that does that?

Huh? EDF, Hydro Québec, almost all Chinese SoEs, etc..., aactually I can't think of any that don't.

You were right; I was wrong.

I was thinking of local utilities - which are often run as non-profits (or at a loss). Not a fair comparison.

And even in regard to utilities, I’d need to look into it more.

A socialist worker model of co-ops can provide competitive marketplaces as well.

> A socialist worker model of co-ops can provide competitive marketplaces as well.

Yes, co-ops are also a recognized type of organization in capitalist countries. They exist all over the world in and compete in the markets where they participate.

Indeed - nothing non-capitalist about co-ops. If a company wants to decide to structure its ownership that way then why not?

In this case it is both capitalist and communist at the same time. I wouldn't be so sure that something that involves no capitalists and no private ownership of capital is capitalist though (communal ownership being different from private ownership).

> (communal ownership being different from private ownership)

This seems like subjective definitions; cooperatives certainly work by issuing a segment of their ownership to each private individual who works for them.

This is up to them because they're operating in a capitalist model where organisations decide for themselves their ownership model and the allocation of their resources; contrasted with a central planning model.

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