You find me a criticism of capitalism that does not devolve into a criticism of something that is NOT capitalism, or simply not true. My penalty for such a discovery? I’ll continue my series on “being nice to government” as much as it pains me to do so. I am confident I won’t be having to play nice very much.
Why the game? I decided in class this week to address head on some of the major concerns people bring up about market systems being unfair to the poor. And every single appeal against the ideas I was presented had nothing at all to do with the workings of the market system. For example, “capitalism is unfair because illegal immigrants can get exploited to work for less than the minimum wage,” “capitalism promotes social darwinism,” “capitalism promotes monopoly power,” and so on. So bring it on folks. The best I think you will do is come up with what David Colander calls, “failures of market outcomes.” But even when you point them out, please consider how an alternative system would be better.
