# On the Need for Laissez-Faire Capitalist Reforms **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 9, 2007, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-need-for-laissez-faire-capitalist-reforms/403356 "2007-05-09T04:06:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-need-for-laissez-faire-capitalist-reforms/403356/61 "2007-05-15T00:04:19Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot] Also, what undermimed Marx was a fundamental misunderstanding of wealth. To his credit, no one else knew anybetter. If his assumption that wealth were zero-sum were correct, then socialism would be a perfectly good system (economically, but I would object on moral grounds). Wealth can, however, be created, and free markets are demonstrably the most efficient form there is at creating wealth. [/QUOTE] Everyone in the 19th century thought that wealth was a zero sum game? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-need-for-laissez-faire-capitalist-reforms/403356/62 "2007-05-15T14:06:23Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] With all due respect, I don’t think you know what the definition of socialism is. Marx viewed socialism as the inevitable result of the collapse of the capitalist system. He viewed socialism, as leading eventually to communism. [/quote] Socialism /= Marxism Marx was not the first socialist, nor the last, and it is a serious mistake to rely only on his definitions and descriptions. The same as to rely only on Smith for the description of capitalism. > [@](#): > > Europeans misuse the word socialism as much as Americans misuse the word liberal. Socialism isn’t about keeping the free market alive with some regulation (which is the practice in Sweden, and every other purportedly socialist European country.) It’s about replacing the market system _completely_. Do you have a cite for this assertation? I just reviewed the main [principles](http://www.socialistinternational.org/4Principles/dofpeng2.html#global) of modern socialists - Part V is where they define their current economic platform. “Paragraph 62. In societies structured in this fashion, and committed to genuine economic and social equality, \*\*markets can and must function \*\* as a dynamic way of promoting innovation and signalling the desires of consumers through the economy as a whole. Markets should not be dominated by big business power, and manipulated by misinformation.” Bolding mine. Capitalism /= market-based economics. Socialism /= nationalization and government control. Capitalism and socialism are primarily concerned with the means and ownership of production - how enterprises are financed, who controls the enterprise, and who has first claim to the profits from that enterprise. Capitalism favors private financiers who retain control over operations and profits. Socialism favors democratic control by all members of the enterprise, not just one class. While capitalism likes to claim that free markets are inherently part of their scheme, markets existed long before they did, and will likely exist long after they are gone. But theories of production have only an incidental relationship to theories of exchange. Marxists and communists advocated government (or whatever organization the proletariat eventually came together under) control of exchange as well. I have seen very few modern socialists that advocate the same. Market socialism is not a contradiction. And capitalism, defined as private ownership, flourished in the US despite periods of price and wage controls where the market was usurped by the government. > [@](#): > > I think you innately misunderstand economics if you honestly believe over two hundred years of economic thought and the ideas of the world’s brightest economists is wrong. The market system works, period. And many of the world’s brightest minds have been mistaken in the past in the light of discoveries made after their passing. I think that Smith, Ricardo, Marshall, and Friedman stated many things that were absolutely one hundred percent correct. That does not mean everything they stated had that same certainty. The study of physics did not stop with Newton or Einstein, nor has the study of economics stopped because of the above minds. And where have I claimed that the market system did not work? I have claimed that it has been often broken and corrupted, and I disagree with the traditional interpretation of the how and why the market works. But I do not recall stating that it did not work. Please debate the points that I make, not the points that you think I have made. AP [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-need-for-laissez-faire-capitalist-reforms/403356.md?page=3)