Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "Public vs Private | The Historic Definitions of Socialism & Capitalism" video.

  1. In answer to the original question in the opener, it IS capitalistic, in a sense, for the leaders of a socialist country to exercise functional ownership of all or most of the economy. It's like their own private piggybank. But if you're going to say it may as well be ownership, then you have to understand that it must therefore be a criminal enterprise, because you are taking those things by force from others. So it's not really private enterprise on a grander scale, even though you can make an argument for it being exactly that, on functional grounds. I've gone down a similar rabbit-hole in my own thought experiments, because a socialist system STILL invests capital in various enterprises in order to obtain some sort of return. So in that sense, ALL systems are capitalist, and the distinctions between different systems are in who controls the capital. That's why I kind of shy away from "capitalism" as a term, entirely, and stick to "free enterprise and property rights." You either have property rights or you don't. Maybe that's a better term. Systems WITH property rights and systems without, and all gradations in between. But all systems are capitalist. I don't think the Nazis ever nationalized Krupp Steel. Krupp just did what they wanted and they did what Krupp wanted, but last I checked, Krupp was still in operation. Some say that's the difference between fascism and socialism. You still OWN that company under fascism, but you do whatever the government tells you. Fascism, then, when viewed in economic terms, is functionally identical to socialism in that everything is how the government says, any time the government takes an interest and decides it wants something from you. That's why many in the West feel that we BECAME fascists in our war AGAINST the fascists, when you look at the regulatory web and the proliferation of government agencies regulating everything under the Sun. If you control the property, that's functionally the same as actually owning it.
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