
The experiment that keeps Appalachia poor, sick, and stuck on coal - aaronbrethorst
https://qz.com/1167671/the-100-year-capitalist-experiment-that-keeps-appalachia-poor-sick-and-stuck-on-coal/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=&stream=top-stories
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xupybd
"For much of the hundred-plus years of its existence, the industry has been on
a kind of artificial life support, as state and federal governments have,
directly and indirectly, subsidized coal companies to keep the industry
afloat."

That is not capitalistic as the article claims.

"A deeply cynical capitalist experiment has taken place, in which coal
companies are kept profitable by passing on the costs they incur to the
public."

This is corporate welfare. I hate how this sort of thing is being labelled
capitalistic, most who support capitalism hate this sort of thing.

~~~
dragonwriter
The deep mutual dependency between firms and governments in capitalism and the
distorting effect that had on policy is a feature observed by Marx and other
contemporary critics who coined the term “capitalism” for the then-dominant
system in the developed West.

Whatever the fantasy system you have in mind that lacks this feature is, it's
not capitalism, that name's already been taken for the system in which this is
a central problem.

~~~
Rescis
> Whatever the fantasy system you have in mind that lacks this feature is,
> it's not capitalism, that name's already been taken for the system in which
> this is a central problem.

Anymore, the vast majority of times people say "capitalist system", I believe
they mean "market economy". Because of this, although I would agree that the
letter of what OP was false (capitalism [a term coined by Marx] does not
include corporate/government corruption), his intent is true as soon as you
replace "capitalism" with "market economy", and because of this, discrediting
his point that people bash market economies based on the corruption that ought
to be excluded from them seems intellectually disingenuous.

