this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Subsidies - Unrestricted Capitalism
Choose one.
Subsidies are by definition not a restriction on bad behavior but an incentive. There is no reason a company can’t ignore a subsidy if it doesn’t want to.
Subsidies skew the market toward specific sectors, technologies, or actors. A company that do not benefit from subsidies is at a competitive disadvantage vs a company that do get subsidies.
A totally free market wouldn't have any subsidies. But markets aren't totally free in practice.
Subsidies are typically a good thing when it benefits cleaner tech or improving energy efficiency. It's the fossil fuel subsidies that do the most harm.
Reminder that capitalism doesn't mean free market.
That's part of it, even if that's not the only part.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
Sure, in the same way that a central characteristic of Communism is being a Stateless society, even though that part never seems to happen either (thanks, Lenin). "True Capitalism has never been tried before!"