But we are talking about the meaning of “capitalism”. And, its meaning varies significantly between those who use it. Capitalism has been associated with mercantilism, laissez faire, corporatism, and even free trade, free market, and free enterprise. Obama, for example, adopted crony capitalism under the guise of “green energy”, and 85 % of green energy money supplied by the federal government went to Obama’s donors.
Under Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s and Bernie Sanders’ socialist agenda, the same crony capitalism would be on display with a newly created privileged class and preferential treatment would remain the order of the day. But under a free enterprise/free market system, as our founders intended, no preferential treatment is to be expected while the inalienable right of people being free to mutually agree in their contracts and associations would be a primary priority of government.
Exactly… which is why you are making a distinction without a difference in the OP.
Just because AOC and Sanders are critics of Capitalism doesn’t mean that the system of free exchange that you say that the founders set up cannot also be called Capitalism.
Connotation and Denotation are how language works.
I see your reading comprehension problem is clouding you thinking once again. The OP is not attempting, as its main objective, to make a distinction between the terms free enterprise, free market, free trade and capitalism. Aside from that there are a number of distinctions between a free market system or free enterprise and capitalism. LINK
that the bills or notes of the said corporation, originally made payable, or which shall have become payable on demand, in gold and silver coin, shall be receivable in all payments to the United States.”
By the Act, the U.S. government was required to accept those notes, e.g., in the payment of taxes. They were not made a “legal tender for all debts, public and private” by said Act.
The Judge Explains the Difference between Capitalism and free Markets
Free Market vs. Capitalism - Not The Same Thing
JWK
The Federal Reserve System of 1913 and the Sixteenth Amendment, also of 1913, have spread the evil tentacles of capitalism into almost every corner of our once free market system.
Under Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s and Bernie Sanders’ socialist agenda, today’s same crony capitalism would be on display, but with newly created privileged classes and preferential treatment would remain the order of the day. But under a free enterprise/free market system, as our founders intended, no preferential treatment is to be expected while the inalienable right of people being free to mutually agree in their contracts and associations would be a primary priority of government.
JWK
The Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s socialism, AKA Crony Capitalism, will promise food on the table, free public housing, health care for all, guaranteed income, free college tuition, and other niceties by taxing the so called rich; and if by chance their socialist leadership gains control because of such promises made, the end result, as John Adams stated, “will be revengeful, bloody, and cruel” especially for the most productive, hardworking members of the community.
In defense of Mike Gallagher, I do not consider him an enemy to our constitutionally limited system of government. But he does make errors from time to time, and not making the distinction between our “free” market, “free” enterprise system from today’s “Crony Capitalism” is one of those errors. Unfortunately, a number of Fox News Channel’s personalities also make the same error.
I just though addressing this error may open the eyes of some who have unsuspectingly allowed the “left” to control language in order to obscure their true intentions.
JWK
It was February of 2019 when an ongoing invasion of America’s borders swelled to tens of thousands a month, not a shot was fired to defend the borders of the United States, and America’s domestic enemies, socialists, communists and anarchists in Congress, pushed forward with their attempt to embrace the invasion in hopes of conquering a prosperous and freedom loving people.
Hey, adroit, is your silence confirmation that YOUR FACTS were not “facts” after all?
JWK
The Federal Reserve System of 1913 and the Sixteenth Amendment, also of 1913, have spread the evil tentacles of crony capitalism into almost every corner of our once free market system.
Doesn’t it make you feel awkward that you sound a whole lot like communists who say the Soviet Union was not socialists but “state capitalist”?
“Crony capitalism” is the only kind of capitalism that has ever existed. In common parlance, “capitalism” and “free markets” are synonyms. “Capitalism” is even used positively by defenders of free markets like Objectivists.
You call Cortez’s policies “crony capitalism”, but she and socialists would call your preferred policies “cronyism” and you’d have no argument against them doing that. You can’t explain why weakening environmental protection, weakening labor rights, nullifying/banning arbitration clauses, or privatizing public lands is not cronyism.
Also false. Marx made use of the term “free trade”, albeit mockingly.
There is no neutrality. Your preferred set of rules, for instance, gives special treatment to “owners” of capital that lets them control who may and may not use said capital.
Well, to be 100% accurate, he popularized the word capitalist and capitalist mode of production , which appear more than 2600 times in the trilogy Das Kapital . LINK
Like Klaus, I am not fond of giving up on battles and although I seldom use the word, I still like the concept of “capitalism” to describe some aspects of the economic system. I sometimes even wear a tie that Steve Forbes gave me with the inscription “capitalist tool.”
Should we care if we lose the term capitalism? Assessing its popularity, or lack thereof, I recently reviewed the mission of 25 leading market oriented think tanks around the globe. I could not find a single one using the term. “Free enterprise,” “free-markets” “free-economy” and better yet “free society” will continue to crowd out “capitalism,” if not as a system, at least as a word.
Today we have capitalism being practiced in the United States instead of a free enterprise free market system. Obama engaged in capitalism under the guise of “green energy”, and 85% of green energy capital supplied by the federal government went to Obama’s donors.
President Bush and the Republicans practiced capitalism when they passed the farm subsidy bill in 2008.
Under a free enterprise/free market system, as our founders intended, no preferential treatment is to be expected while the inalienable right of people being free to mutually agree in their contracts and associations would be a primary priority of government.
Under Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s and Bernie Sanders’ form of capitalism, the distribution of capital from our federal treasury would continue and simply create different privileged classes, and preferential treatment would remain the order of the day.
But under a free enterprise/free market system, as our founders intended, no preferential treatment is to be expected while the inalienable right of people being free to mutually agree in their contracts and associations would be a primary priority of government.
Fox News Channel personalities need to stop referring to our system as capitalism.
JWK
The Federal Reserve System of 1913 and the Sixteenth Amendment, also of 1913, have spread the evil tentacles of crony capitalism into almost every corner of our once free market, free enterprise system.
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
Under Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s and Bernie Sanders’ form of capitalism, the distribution of capital from our federal treasury would continue and simply create different privileged classes, and preferential treatment would remain the order of the day.
JWK
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims to be an advocate of hard working people living in the Bronx. If that is so, why is she not advocating an end to the unconstitutional “Temporary Victory Tax” of 1943, which began federal confiscation of the bread which working people have earned by the sweat of their labor?