Hey, so as an individualist anarchist, I'm also not really a fan of society being valued over individuals. Thing is, that's what capitalism does. The only individuals that matter under capitalism are the wealthiest ones. The average worker has no real say over their life and must conform to the demands of the corporate elite. If you well and truly are an individualist, surely you can see that.
I see exactly what your saying, but I have to disagree. The average worker is not forced to do anything for anyone under capitalism. The difference is that capitalism provides an incentive to work, and socialism forces you to.
No. Everyone matters, because everyone can contribute to themselves through contributing to the economy, therefore contributing to others. In a free market economy, the simple act of trade means that you are looking after others, even if you don't realize it. A free market essentially means that everyone is linked with everyone, directly, indirectly, whatever, its a very well working economic system. Socialism, communism, etc, all ignore this fact. These ideas do not believe that there is any such thing as a naturally occurring economic system. They believe that capitalism is a man made phenomenon, therefore they insist that it is possible to just overwrite this system with another man made one, one that is supposedly better.
I believe that an individuals right to thrive is taken away in socialism.
Work is forced under capitalism. See, there are these things like "food" and "shelter" that cost money. You sorta need those to live. So, you either work, or you die. There's welfare programs, but they're kept minimal, restrictive and inflexible by design, so as not to compromise capitalist coercion.
You're mistaken that capitalism and the free market are one and the same, or that capitalism is the default economic system. Neither is accurate. Capitalism is a recent invention. At the most generous, capitalism started in the 1600s with Dutch joint stock trade companies. More realistically, it evolved from mercantilism when the industrial revolution happened.
The free market was coined by a dude named Adam Smith as a critique of mercantilism, the then-dominant school of economic thought. What he meant by it was essentially free trade between nations and their colonies. Back then, it was standard practice to ban your colonies from trading with people other than you, you see.
But the modern sense of the free market, as you probably mean it, is businesses making profit oriented decisions and in some way benefiting the whole. Depending on the strain of socialism, this system might remain intact. Syndicalism, for example, still has profit focused businesses, but they're worker owned cooperatives that govern themselves through democratic means.
And I don't know about whatever socialist monolith you're referring to, but as far as I'm concerned there is a natural economic system. It's called the barter system, and there's some damn good reasons why we don't use it anymore..
Socialism allows one to work hard, and then have everything in excess of what they need be taken away from them. Socialism does not allow anyone to gain from their work, and instead puts them in a situation where they have to work. They are less happy, their well being deteriorates.
To say that either of these systems allow anyone to slack off and continue to have a happy and fulfilled life, is blatantly incorrect, not to mention utopian.
We have certainly moved on to better things, but the concept remains the same. Currency has simply become the medium between trade.Your right! Adam Smith simply defined capitalism. He gave it a name. But you have to go further back in time. Before the world was ruled and regulated by Monarchs and Government. The simple idea of capitalism is, as you mention, free trade. Free trade has been going on since the human tribes began to swap items with each other in Africa, and most likely before that as well. Free trade is the reason for the massive progression away from tribalism and commune-like living.