Via Oglaf (NSFW)
That is called “commerce”, which is totally different from “capitalism”.
“Commerce” is only possible if both parties are willing to respect each other’s natural right to have private property and each other’s right to express consent (voluntary exchange). By trading these goods, there is a mutual benefit (social cooperation) that emerges from wanting to satisfy their own self interest.
I think this is pretty capitalist for my taste. (And please, it’s not the same as corporatocracy).
Commerce only requires personal property, not private property. The distinction is important.
Your (socialist) distinction between “personal property” (consumer goods) and private property (producer goods) is purely arbitrary. The difference between consumer and producer goods is totally subjective, as it depends of the individual using that good.
Each people as its own goals, they can use various means to achieve them and their knowledge, preferences and skills are not the same.
Your understanding of the distinction between personal and private property is simply flawed. Personal property is something that is owned by a single individual for their personal use, i.e. buying a house for you and your family to live in, while private property is something owned by either an individual or a corporation of people for the sole purpose of making money, i.e. buying a house that you never plan to live in for the sole purpose of renting it out to make more money.
A corporation can own consumer goods and it be private property, like Walmarts warehouses of consumer goods, and an individual can own producer goods as their own personal property, like tools and raw materials in their workshop.
The distinction is important because it boils down to intent and the inevitable consequences of that intent. Private property solely exists to make money, and therefore will put that goal above everything, leading to things like market manipulation, exploitation, and enforced scarcity. Trade is not capitalism, and capitalism isn’t “when people trade”.
Commerce as you described it just sounds like ideal capitalism.
By “ideal capitalism” I think you meant praxeology (Mises’s Human Action) and Austrian Economics.
People are not perfect, and if they make mistakes, they should be the ones responsable for their own actions. This does not happen by the existence of FIAT money, subsidies, taxation, positive rights and every regulation the Monopoly of Violence does in our private lifes and commerce.
It’s a well-known fact that there was no commerce in feudal societies.
Regardless of the socio-economic system imposed, commerce always persists because natural rights are inherent to human beings. Even in socialist systems, grey and black markets are going to be there.
Yeah, that was my point, but maybe it got lost in the snark.
You made capitalism sound quite nice