- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Playing with definitions

In Reply to: Caracature and misinformation posted by nat-turner on December 21, 1997 at 20:52:08:

: *** I know of no Capitalist Third World countries. Capitalism includes the freedom of workers to organize and strike. As I have posted many times before, America's foriegn policy has nothing to do with Capitalism. Similar "imperialist" policies have been pursued by nations with all sorts of economic systems. ***

No, capitalism means you have a system where capitalists invest money in people's labor in order to make a profit. Such a system can certainly exist without legitimate unions, and did in fact do so in the United States, before the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act. Not that it makes a difference, today, to the majority of America's workers, 16% of which (last I heard) are unionized.

If you want to play with definitions, and argue that capitalism without unions is not "true" capitalism, go ahead, but I doubt that the capitalists themselves will pay attention to what you say in that regard.
-Sam

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