Which book makes the best factual arguments for capitalism? I am already sold on the ethical and philosophical arguments for the free-market such as personal liberty, the dangers of a large government, the immorality of progressive taxes etc. but now I want to venture into factual and historical proof of capitalism's efficiency. Capitalism and Freedom by Friedman and Basic Economics by Sowell don't have enough factual evidence for me.
>>1102026
Does this have charts, graphs, diagrams, numbers etc?
>>1102013
>I am already sold on the ethical and philosophical arguments for the free-market
lol
Did you even consider the capitalist arguments against the free market? Probably not.
Read about socialism instead.
>>1102013
America has printed and distributed more books than any other nation in the history of the world. So I guess any one of those books would make a pretty strong case for capitalism
>>1102013
If Friedman and Sowell don't have enough facts for you nobody can help you.
>>1102111
Such as?
>>1102013
I hope you mean a pseudo-free market. A true one would be retarded.
>>1102153
With a truly free market, monopolies eventually reign. Then, the market is only free for those at the top.
>>1102161
Well I would say that a truly free market is one that restricts monopolies. How would you restrict them in a way that's fair and effective?
>>1102181
> free markets
> legal restrictions against consensual mergers
Choose One
>>1102013
What effeiciency?
You sound like an advocate supporter of Ayn Rand. Even she admits that her philosophy is established around ego centric and selfish views. Establishing ethical values and philosophy on Capitalism is just like establishing a philosophy on rocks, the fastest that roll downs the hill is the best rock. If your main objective is to be a hedonistic manipulating person, then be just that. I don't buy into the narrative that Capitalism has a human face, it just parades itself as humanly as possible.
>>1102190
Yes I know what I said doesn't fit with the definition. I guess what I meant was that for a market to be truly free in the sense that anyone is free to prosper economically based on their own skills you would need restrictions on monopolies and I wouldn't have an issue with that, however, (and this is going off the thread's topic) I do struggle with the fact that restricting monopolies isn't very consistent with the ethical principals surrounding limiting government power.
>>1102195
That's a load of shit dude, but I'm going to need to hear your main arguments against capitalism morally in order for me to effectively debate you so please tell me.
Or is it simply that you think capitalism = greed and selfishness?
Read Marx
>inb4 commie shill
Its what OP asked for
>>1102013
>>1102013
Every market system has flaws.
Communism sucks because it assumes all people are of equivalent ability and morally flawless.
Capitalism sucks because it has a bad endgame; it starts off easy to get rich. The longer the system goes on, the harder it becomes. If you don't claw your way to the top by the endgame (establishments of 1 monopoly per-good or 1 total monopoly over everything), you're pretty much fucked worse than communism because capitalism's end game is still cruel enough to give you hope.
>>1102161
monopolies are not natural to markets, government intervention creates them
>>1102196
you don't have to worry about any of that
>>1102013
>I am already sold on the ethical and philosophical arguments for the free-market such as .... the dangers of a large government
You do realize that mega corporations basically own the government, right?
>>1102013
>but now I want to venture into factual and historical proof of capitalism's efficiency.
you want to measure and asses the efficiency of capitalism? compared to what?
i don't know man, go look up detailed information about the economic system of the ussr and compare it to us economic performance at the same time. results should be pretty clear.
Capitalism isn't a philosophy like communism or socialism
Capitalism is people engaging in free exchange and such had brought the world into greater prosperity than ever before
>>1102161
Monopolies are not inherently bad
Standard Oil is such an example, in fact when it was forcibly broken up Rockefeller became even richer
>>1102013
The richest nation to ever exist uses capitalism. All the poor ones don't.
Not sure what kind of facts you'd need beyond that. The dominance of America over the last 100 years has been heavily influenced by capitalism. First in the efficient switch over in manufacturing to war time in both WWs and more recently by accepting foreign goods over domestic and changing into a services provider.
Capitalism basically shifts to whatever is most profitable and efficient at any given time. There isn't much of a philosophy or science to the function. It's just path of least resistance economically. Which allows for every type of market from monopolies (like energy) to damn near perfect competition (like any given app on your phone).
this is my first time checking out this board and got damn you people are fucking brainwashed
I thought you'd be like self-aware egoists or something but here you fuckers are fully drinking the kool-aid
>>1102153
You want me to spoon feed you? Are you telling me you haven't even bothered to look into the counter arguments for a belief before adopting that belief?
It's not even hard to look into the arguments against completely unrestrained free markets. Even Adam Smith -who people believe supported free markets- was against it.
>>1102013
ludwig von mises book socialism proves that socialism doesn't work because you need prices. He explains better than i can though. If its not pure free market capitalism then its some type of socialism.
>>1102013
Capitalism is pretty efficient because it removes people who can't manage a given enterprise effectively from its stewardship
In other words in capitalism if you incompetently manage your resources they are automatically removed from your possession, and anyone who can effectively manage resources can easily get more resources to manage. Thus in capitalism resource management is basically decentralised and meritocratic.
Decentralised is efficient because it means the people with most familiarity with the resources decide how to use them, and meritocratic is efficient for obvious reasons.
The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein
>>1102181
In other words, the original Adam Smith ideal and not the strawman/laizzes faire stuff for a market free of unusual influence
Just do trustbusting lol
>>1102026
lol, I actually read this last year... it's made by some Austrian goldbug. It's essentially Robinson Crusoe island fanfiction. MUH DESERT ISLAND ANALOGY. Good for a laugh.
>>1103598
Mises whole argument only makes sense if you embrace embrace his praxeological method as logic sound. This debate has been going on for a long time and Mises and the Austrians never ended it or "won":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_calculation_debate
Also in Socialism Mises also defends Fascism as an occasional necessity for capitalism to continually function...
>It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history.
>>1103622
Ownership and management are separate under fully developed capitalism. You can continue accumulating wealth without having any active involvement in the production process or even making decisions. Connections usually end up overriding merit in practice sadly.
>>1104070
I am libertarian and I agree with you. Austrians pose among the worst arguments for free markets, as they are either ideological, logical analogies or ethics shit. WHat they lack is evidence, graphs and data to support it.
I finished reading this book a couple of weeks ago and in the second half of the book Greenspan discusses many different economies and adds his thoughts on their political/economic systems. He says near the start that his philosophy was heavily influenced by his time spend reading/discussing philosophy with Ayn Rand so he was a libertarian/conservative.
The book itself isn't a discussion of capitalism (since its an autobiography) but throughout the book he comments in the benefits of free markets and capitalism in the economies of places like Russia, China, Latin America etc where alternative systems have failed.
>>1102342
iknowright do they even feel the Bern? clearly not
>>1102161
Please stop with this monopoly meme.
Only the government can give that.
