Capitalism Myths: Part 1

Everywhere people trash capitalism. But that’s mostly because they don’t understand it.

In this video (and the next), I’ll set the record straight, and debunk 7 myths about capitalism.

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In this part of the series, Economist Dan Mitchell helps me bust ridiculous ideas about rich entrepreneurs, income inequality, and monopolies.

[ThioJoe]

In my opinion the biggest myth is that capitalism is a "system" at all. On the contrary, it's the lack of a system. You can't force anyone to innovate through a pre-determined plan. To do so, you'd have to magically know what was going to be invented next and tell them to invent it. And if you created some requirement like "you must invent one new thing", "improve on this", even if they were rewarded they would only be incentivized to do the bare minimum to achieve it. With a free market there is unlimited reward and therefore no reason to stop improving.

Of course we should have SOME level of regulation in my opinion, such as where monopolies begin actively trying to prevent competition and innovation, therefore inhibiting the free market. But that's another topic entirely.

[tstbad]

Thomas Sowell: One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.

[NinjaMaster]

Cancel culture is a game changer for big tech. Look what they did to Parler. Can’t compete when you can’t exists.

[Reagansolum]

My big problem with these billionaires and corporations is they spend a lot of time collecting government handouts and lobbying government to create regulations that stifle their competition. While they may not be full monopolies, they definitely try and shut down their competition using the governments guns.

[arthasmenethil]

"You take 1 billion"

Sorry, I don't remember Gabe Newell stealing my money and giving me a game in exchange. It was a *voluntary transaction*

[AntisocialRedNeckNerd]

"Despite the miracles of capitalism, it doesn't do well in popularity polls. One of the reasons is that capitalism is always evaluated against the non-existent, non-realizable utopias of socialism or communism. Any earthly system, when compared to a Utopia, will pale in comparison. But for the ordinary person, capitalism, with all of its warts, is superior to any system yet devised to deal with our everyday needs and desires." ~ Walter E. Williams

[BuddysDIY]

Mark Zuckerberg - "nobody should have a billion dollars!"

Meanwhile Facebook has more ads than EVER before. Smh

[BalrogUdun]

We have not been truly capitalistic in the last 100 years. The problems we attribute to capitalism are costs of the increasing control government has been exerting over the private sector. Thank you Woodrow Wilson and FDR.

[brettc]

Sadly, the people that need to see this video will either not see it or refuse to watch it.

[neovenom]

The issue of big tech is not the money they make, but the rules of law they want to dictate.
And politicians really are hypocrites in that regard, because many don't mind asking them to shadow ban their political opponent.

[RezaQin]

If you don't like Capitalism, I hear Cuba is nice and sunny.

[nikjs]

I'm from India and I can confidently say from direct experience that the high speed internet revolution in India of the past 10-odd years has definitely enabled an extremely large number of people to earn money and prosper who were previously poorer. Whatever money the internet companies made, we all made a whole lot more, many times over.

[plumeater]

"Finite amount of money"

Quantitative Easing: Am I a joke to you?

[Dsims]

“Blaming capitalism like that's the reason things are tough while you tweet from an iPhone and sip on a Starbucks”

[sheusmann]

If "nobody deserves that much money" when they earned it, nobody deserves it when they DIDN'T earn it

[redtsun]

The problems arise when big companies promote more regulations that they themselves can afford to work around, but are insurmountable for startups who might become competition.

[Gandoff]

I know it takes a lot of nerve, but keep telling the truth Mr. Stossel! Thank you.

[tactical_trucker]

Remember back when you used to learn something from Journalists? Keep it up John your videos are like candy in this dark soylent green world.

[halvey]

Literally why communism couldn’t feed it people. Put a cap on income is putting a cap on innovation and progression.

[jakec]

Let me ask something, if Capitalism is so bad, then why all countries that abandoned Capitalism to Socialism all of a sudden turned out worse.

Like take Venezuela for an example, it used to be one of the top wealthy countries, in fact, the 3rd most wealthy country in the Western Hemisphere (only behind the United States and Canada), and then Hugo Chávez became president and turned Venezuela into a Socialist country and now between him and Nicolás Maduro turned one of the most well-developed wealthiest countries into one of the poorest countries on the planet where it's nearly impossible to get the basic needs to survive.