On Jul 14, 2017 11:53, "jim bell" wrote: I've long believed that people should stop using the term "capitalism" when they probably mean, "free market". "capitalism" might be the 1800 equivalent of "crowdfunding". I agree people should use the word "capitalism" more sparingly. However it's not because most people mean "free market" when they use the term. Rather it's because *some* people mean "free market", whatever *that* means. Some mean "the dominance of economy and society by mechanistic usury". Some mean "democracy", whatever *that* means. Some mean "American style police state tyranny". And some mean "the actually-existing socioeconomic system in America today". The profusion of definitions in use, and the sometimes fuzzy boundaries between them, make the word "capitalism" not very useful for communication without a lot of context.

On Fri, 14 Jul 2017 05:34:14 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

I agree with all of that.  This amounts to a vague mish-mash of meanings, where the meanings themselves can be gravely in error.  Yes, some people refer to the American system as "free market", which I think is laughably inaccurate!  

Why? Is it because poor american corporations are being oppressed by the government? Like the supreme 'libertarian' 'thinker' ayn randroid taught?

If anything, I think the reason that governments support Riseup (sorta behind the scenes) is actually to keep true "free markets" at bay.  

Isn't that the job of google, intel, and all the rest of american 'free enterrise'? In the grand scheme of things riseup is a nonentity - so how are they keeping 'free markets' at bay?

I have long believed that we would be much better off with a true, anarchistic free market (which some call "anarcho-capitalism")  with what we currently call "government" dissolved. Jim Bell