Its not the stock market per se. The biggest problem is a lack of good regulation to ensure competition and the resulting drift of oligopolies.

The stockmarket enables that by making takeovers easier as you have a higher proportion of short termist shareholders who 1) fail to block value destroying acquisitions on one side and 2) jump at the chance to make a quick profit on the other.

that's not the idea of capitalism; the idea of capitalism is that you should be able to make money by virtue of owning stuff. it's an inherently rich-get-richer scheme, competition has little to do with it.

I think its obvious the GP means free market capitalism, which is what almost everyone who favours capitalism thinks is the form it should take.

The free market abhors competition. It's much more profitable to be a monopoly - and profitable enough by far to squash any competitors in infancy.

Capitalists abhor competition. Adam Smith (as in "invisible hand") pointed this out. That is a subversion of a free market.

I don't see how free market capitalism fixes that. I looked up a definition to make sure I wasn't missing something and as per investopedia:

"The term “free market capitalism” refers to an economy that puts no or minimal barriers in the way of privately owned businesses. Matters such as worker rights, environmental protection, and product safety will be addressed by businesses as the marketplace demands."

it's basically worship of owning the means of production and not being regulated in its use, e.g. if you own a company you get to dictate all sorts of unreasonable things to your employees, and any benefits gained from automation accrue to whoever can afford the up front money to own the machines.

That is a bad definition and I cannot find it on investopedia. it is essentially an extreme libertarian spin on the definition.

There are better definitions on both wikipedia and Britannica:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market_capitalism

https://www.britannica.com/money/free-market

Especially this hit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market_capitalism#Concept...

And these people has audacity to proclaim that socialism is based on fantasy.

Talk about utopia huh?

Free markets never existed, don't exist and never will. Markets are defined by laws and regulations in which they exist in. They can't ever be "free".

Relevant U.S. Constitution: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#ar...

> “The Congress shall have Power… To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”

I agree. A free market requires regulation to ensure competition otherwise it ceases to be a free market.

I assume the downvotes are because people do not know the difference between "free market" and "entirely unregualted market"?

Please get your definitions from someone reasonable (Adam Smith might be a good start) rather than Ayn Rand.

Applies globally.

Competition creating better products isn't an idea that defines capitalism though: the same would apply to cottage industry.

Capitalism is defined by having the capitalist, who provides capital, and without the ability to sell their share of stock it's difficult to see what the value would be. So you kind of require stock markets.

Edit: which is why it's odd to call China communist. They have 3 stock exchanges. They're really a capitalist single-party state.

China uses Capitalism as a tool where the Party feels it would be beneficial (for the Party), and crushes it mercilessly when it gets in the way (other than this real estate problem they have right now).

In the U.S. we have mistaken Capitalism for a religion, and so it wags the dog, so to speak. Since our founding we have made some attempts at finding a balance between our use of the tools of Capitalism and socialism (in more the Democratic Socialism style, rather than the Communism style), and we had a good run in the decades after WWII. But starting with McCarthyism, and really picking up under Regan we have prided ourselves on adopting Capitalism as a religion, and it really shows up in both the income inequality as well as the increasing role of (and corrupting influence of) money in our politics/government.