I was having a discussion with a nimrod who thinks that corporatism = capitalism. During the course of the discussion, I mentioned that if an exchange is win/lose, in the ex ante sense, it is not capitalism. It’s a ripoff. Capitalism is always win/win, in the ex ante sense.
It isn’t, but I cannot articulate why. I have gotten 3 hours sleep in the last 36 hours. I think I could explain why it isn’t the No True Scotsman fallacy if I wasn’t so tired, but I am not sure. I thought I would cheat and ask someone here.
Knight of BAAWA, I am not cyber-stalking you, by the way. I had an account here long ago, I just forgot the password.
More details are necessary. If it’s win/lose is this because it’s the outcome of coercion? He must specify why it’s win/lose, otherwise his argument is worthless. If not, ex ante it is always win/win, and it is indeed true that anything else is not capitalism, i.e. free, voluntary exchange of private property.
It was me saying win/win vs. win/lose in the ex ante sense.
What I am asking about is this idiot’s claim that by me defining capitalism, or one of the qualifiers that make an exchange capitalistic, I am using the NTS Fallacy.
I’m not. I know I’m not, but I currently don’t possess the mental faculties to explain why I am correct, and he isn’t.
Maybe, after I get some sleep tonight, I will be able to.
So the Scotsman begins by saying (in his head) a Scotsman is someone residing within the geographic boundaries of Scotland. He claims that no Scotsman, so defined, would do such a thing. Then a case comes which challenges his claim - and so he now decides that a different definition of Scotsman is needed, and his new definition is one which specifically prevents this case from being a challenge.
Are you doing that? It depends on what you mean by capitalism, and I suggest that the two of you are using different definitions. You are not committing this fallacy if you never shifted your internal definition of capitalism, although I’d suggest you might be guilty of using a private language which differs very considerably from the public language. He is using capitalism to mean, roughly, the US system. This seems to be the most popular definition, and the one accepted as public language. You’re using it to refer to a state of affairs in which there is a market and there is no aggression. We don’t have a fallacy, we have a failure to communicate because you mean different things by the same word.
You’re not changing your definition on the fly - so you’re not comitting the no-true-scotsman fallacy. Probably he is. People attacking capitalism love to willfully misrepresent it as corporatism.