Reply #35: I define capitalism as private ownership of capital. Marketplace competition is just an incidental.

[Selatius]

As I said, the economy under Nazi Germany had elements of both with public works programs as well as private ownership of capital. Abolishing the right to strike was what many industrialists and businessmen pushed for and favored, both in Germany, the US, and indeed in many other countries. They absolutely abhorred unions because they argued that it drove up operating costs. Indeed, before FDR, the right to strike was not really recognized in the United States until the Wagner Act of 1935, and the right for you to, for example, quit my workplace has no bearing on my right to own the workplace. As far as slavery goes and my definition of capitalism, that's just an earlier form of capitalism that converts humans into owned capital.

Indeed, in the US, labor unions were crippled with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, favored heavily by business interests, which effectively broke labor power down and allowed for the low 10 percent unionization rate seen in the US today.

Private ownership of capital only necessitates marketplace competition if there are several firms existing within a particular market that compete against each other for market share. The prices will reflect the forces of supply and demand. Given enough time, the number of competitors in the market dwindles as existing firms naturally attempt to consolidate, throw up barriers to entry to make it difficult for new entrants, drive out other firms, etc. Ultimately, what happens is a private monopoly emerges in this market. In such cases, the pricing mechanism breaks down in terms of reflecting the forces of supply and demand. Instead, it is now being artificially distorted by the private firm in pursuit of greater profits. Upstarts who attempt to enter this market are at a disadvantage in terms of access to capital to compete against the larger firm.

In such a situation, I would say that there is little "free" in the market.

However, in the example I laid out, I would say it's still capitalism because there the right to own capital is still preserved given that the monopoly is still privately owned and that it exists to profit the shareholder(s). Whether or not you can quit or form a labor union has no bearing on whether I still own the factory.