25 sats \ 8 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 30 Oct \ parent \ on: What "Capitalism" Really Means econ
“Capitalism” is the Marxist name for the free enterprise, free markets endeavors of free men.
Why use the enemy’s definition for your preferred system?
If you let your enemies define what you think or do, you are in a trap of their making!!
The term was meant to be ugly, but the definition "private ownership of the means of production" is perfectly acceptable.
A particularly powerful method of argumentation is to grant your opponent their premises and still show that they're wrong.
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Wouldn’t that be a proof by contradiction?
I do not like giving the enemy the basic premises if they have been twisting the words.
If you accept their premises, you are accepting their twisted definitions.
If you accept their definitions you are accepting their trap.
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It's a variety of proof by contradiction. It's called accepting a premise "ad arguendo" (for the sake of argument). If you can show that even on their own terms their arguments fail, then there's no leg left for them to stand on.
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I understood that. My objection is to even consider using their definition for words.
That is one of their main weapons: changing definitions.
They have been changing the meaning of words to the opposite of what they mean, ala Eric Blair.
I am never ready to concede left is right, right is wrong (and vise versa) or down is up.
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Sure, but like you said, they invented this term.
They may try to change the original definition, now that the original meaning yielded the wrong results. However, I'm perfectly comfortable embracing "private ownership of the means of production" as the proper basis for civilization.
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As everyone should be!! However the communists do not embrace any kind of definition like this.
My wife once told me about sisters: What’s hers is mine, what’s mine is mine.
To me this sounded just like a good communist, but only intrafamilial.
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People do say (wrongly) that families are communistic.
Commies don't embrace these definitions anymore, but they did make them and I think they're perfectly fine distinctions to make. They just don't like having been on the wrong side of history (another one of their lines).
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Families are not communistic. I think of them as a unit (as most economists do). The family unit is the basic grouping of societies and operate along much the same lines as tribes and other small groups.