Capitalism is not small businesses.

[rug]

It is amassing capital and leveraging that capital, not selling your car to open a storefront.

Sorry, Hillary, point to Bernie.

[NightWatcher]

1. Capitalism is making money off of money (not labor)

[rug]

2. Tell that to Walmart.

Its fortune is based on cheap labor, from Chinese factories to your neighbors working at Walmart.

[BainsBane]

23. No. That is usury

Capitalism, according to Marx, is an economic system in which workers are separated from the means of production. We have lived under that system in this country for well over 100 years.

You are talking about finance, usury. That is particular sector of the capitalist economy but certainly not the only one. Many Marxist historians study labor systems, transitions from pre-capitalists to capitalist labor, for example from indigenous collective landholdings in places like Mexico to wage labor working for a large landholder. That transition in labor system shows the effects of the development of capitalism on workers lives. It is very much about the exploitation of labor.

[NYCButterfinger]

3. Capitalism is success and not whining about being poor. Move up in life.

That's what I want. I don't want to be stuck in a social status all my life.

[rug]

9. Theres a difference between whining about being poor and fighting a landlord who's raising your rent

because he doesn't want to be stuck in a social class his whole life.

[socialist_n_TN]

11. Yeah good luck with that.............

The rates of social mobility between economic classes is around 4%. Basically, whatever class you were born in is where you stay. 4% mobility could be explained by luck.

[NYCButterfinger]

13. If I grew up poor, I want to be successful. I will not be a victim. I work hard, play by the rules

and pay the taxes that will be given after I earn my success. That is what made America what it is. However, we have greedy plutocrats who want otherwise. Being poor all your life is not something someone should strive for.

[socialist_n_TN]

15. When the "plutocrats" aka capitalists rely on your poverty for their profits........

you don't have very much say over whether or not you stay impoverished or not. ESPECIALLY when they control the politics under the dictatorship of capital.

[NYCButterfinger]

16. Then, what's the point of living? You're not here on Earth to be poor, you're here to move up

and have a piece of the pie.

[PowerToThePeople]

17. enjoy your stay

[socialist_n_TN]

18. Well I consider my time on earth to be working towards the overthrow.........

of the dictatorship of capital and institution a workers' democracy. And George Jefferson was a fictional character, a token that made everybody think that "movin' on up" was the way the system works. The system doesn't work that way, except on TV or in the movies. I don't analyze reality based on movies and TV.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

31. +1 amen

Except on TV and the movies; the opiate of people for the last 50+ years.

Damn right.

[WMDemocract]

19. Nonsense

Quips like "Capitalism is success" are wrong and useless. Capitalism has its winners and losers meaning capitalism includes failures. And unless carefully regulated, capitalism becomes a zero sum game.

[NYCButterfinger]

20. You may be right. But I do not want to be poor. I do not hate the rich. They just need to pay more.

[PowerToThePeople]

4. Truth

[JRLeft]

5. She sounded like Mitt fucking Romney.

[reformist2]

6. When you want to deflect from the ugliness of real capitalism, you talk about mom & pop stores....

...stores that don't even exist anymore! They've been killed off my big box stores and predatory lenders.

[redstateblues]

8. There are still plenty here in TN

small businesses become big businesses

[rug]

10. Small bsuinesses fail, with exceedingly few exceptions.

[reformist2]

12. Yes, but it doesn't deal with most people's economic experiences anymore. It's a diversion.

[socialist_n_TN]

7. Yep. I'm glad someone else caught that.........

That's one of the big propaganda triumphs of the bourgeoisie, making everybody a "capitalist". My wife, whose current "job" involves crocheting and selling scarves and blankets is a supposed "capitalist" because she sells those items for more than the yarn it takes to make it. So that's "profit" to the people in this country. Of course that's not the case, but it IS the way it's presented.

[reformist2]

14. We need to call people out on this fairy tale. We certainly shouldn't let Democrats perpetuate it!

[BainsBane]

22. She is what Marx referred to as the petit bourgeoisie

Capitalism is not what some people are vs. others. It is an economic system that depends on the exploitation of free-wage labor, in which workers are separated from the means of production. Your wife is not separated from the means of production, but nor does she live in her own world of feudalism or some other pre-capitalist system. She makes her way as a small business over in an era of global finance capitalism.

Marx wrote in the mid-1800s, long before the economy was characterized by global finance. As soon as an economy transitions to a predominance of free-wage labor, it is characterized as capitalist. We passed that threshold some 120-150 years ago. Capitalism is not some people vs. others but an economic/labor system.

[socialist_n_TN]

35. Actually she is an artisan.........

not even petit bourgeois. The money over and above the goods she uses to make her items is what her labor is worth to her and to the market, NOT profit. The petit bourgeoisie uses profit (surplus labor value), but doesn't usually use finance capital to finance their production.

[BainsBane]

21. You have a picture of Marx on your avatar

Yet your point doesn't show familiarity with his writing. Capitalism is an economic system defined by the exploitation of free wage labor. It certainly does include small business people, a group Marx referred to as the petit bourgeoisie. It is not simply amassing huge amounts of capital: it is an economic system in which workers are separated from the means of production. We are all part of that system, though clearly a tiny few benefit most from it.

[rug]

25. It is defined by control of the means of prodction.

That in turn is fueled by the exploitation of labor, which is dependent on the means of production, and consequently those who control the means of production, the capitalist class.

That is not the small business mentioned in the debate.

Classically, the petit-bourgeoisie were identified by ther relation to the means of production and those who controlled them. To wit, the judges, lawyers, high level administrators and the like.

They are not found running the pizza shop on the corner or the garage down the road.

Domino's and Midas are not them.

[BainsBane]

27. but capitalism is the entire system

None of us are free of it. We operate in that system to some extent, whether as laborers, business owners, or CEOs of multinational firms.

They didn't talk about a "capitalist class." They talked about capitalism itself. Hillary was right that in this nation's history, government has intervened to save capitalism from itself. That is what FDR did.

A lot of Americans run small businesses. I can guarantee you that her answer played better with the majority of the public.

Also, Denmark is capitalist. All those nations Bernie admires are capitalist. They have some massive corporations there. What they have is a robust safety net, but they are not socialist economies.

[rug]

32. I can garantee you small businesses are not capitalists.

The person who mops the floor of the morgue is part of the hospital system but lives much differently than the surgeon.

[BainsBane]

30. Petit bourgeoisie

The term is politico-economic, and references historical materialism. It originally denoted a sub-stratum of the middle classes in the 18th and early-19th centuries. In the mid-19th century, the pre-eminient theorist of socio-politico-economy, Karl Marx, and other Marxist theorists used the term petite bourgeoisie to identify the socio-economic stratum of the bourgeoisie that comprised small-scale capitalists such as shop-keepers and workers who manage the production, distribution, and/or exchange of commodities and/or services owned by their bourgeois employers.[2][3]

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

[rug]

33. Wiki has the Communist Manifesto as the footnote for that.

You should read it. The quote suggests, but does not explain, the petite-bourgeoisie's relation to the grande-borgeoise and hence, the means of production.

[NYCButterfinger]

24. I don't hate the rich. Fair capitalism is what we need.

Democrats are going to have a big problem because these nut head Republicans are going to bash this "anti-capitalism" crap next year. The wealthy needs to be taxed in this country. That is a true fact. However, don't attack the wealthy for being successful. If you work hard in this country you can make it. You don't have to be poor all your life. You work hard. Fire all the bad teachers. Make school a priority. Work hard. Build yourself up. Level the playing field, for all Americans.

[rug]

26. Capitalism is inherently unfair.

The best you can hope for in a capitalist system is melioration.

[BainsBane]

28. Agreed. nt

[NYCButterfinger]

29. You don't give people who don't want to do things success.

Success is earned-the right way-with a community. Not with giving mediocre people success when they haven't earned nothing.

[AOR]

34. Sounds like an advertisement for the Suze Orman show...

you should try for a guest spot. Surely a capitalist motivational speaker of such caliber would be a fine addition.

[AgingAmerican]

36. Capitalism involves 'capital'

Banks, Stock markets. Capital.