there are parts of the American market that are free and there are parts that are not. We'd have to get into specific details to classify said parts.
While I don't think the existing economy is so binary (bicameral?), you are free to assume either a free market or not and make your arguments accordingly to explore the principles of free markets versus planned economies. I don't think a critique of the general principles of free market versus not relief on my specific answer. We are talking about ideals espoused in a self-proclaimed manifesto, so it's appropriate to speak about the ideals.
indeed but sometimes abstractions are useful. i would argue that in this case the binary is useful because of the PP's use of the word "totalitarian" (as in "totalitarian neofeudalist").
i am arguing that the word was misapplied to the essay since the essay was promoting free markets and it's central planning that offers opportunity for totalitarian control.
i don't think anyone has a clear answer for "winning the argument" since definitions can be endlessly debated.
i think a more useful question is "what about the existing US economy is what makes it work/effective?" another useful question is "what about other economies make them less effective than the US economy?"
to answer the first question, the US economy works better when it's a freer market. magatte wade gives a convincing answer to the second question about africa when she points out it's generally very difficult to start a business in african countries.
i'm curious about what alternative you are interested in promoting and how. are you against free markets or do you have ideas on how to make markets more free?
the "control" of a "weighted control economy" is usually enforced through government (including those politicians you reference). so when we bring in more government then it's less free market. how close we are getting to a free market depends on who is in power and calling for reduced government intervention/regulations for businesses.
as far as control of media, traditional media is becoming increasingly irrelevant and when free speech is allowed on social media the economy becomes more free.
and small players seem to disrupt all the time. openai being the most obvious recent example. twitch being another notable example before that.
i usually don't respond to distracting personal questions, but your use of bicameral confused me a little. did you mean to say binary?
15 years ago a young engineer i worked with overheard me say "getting rich is a pretty easy formula if you are patient."
he came to me later and asked me to expound. i told him "the formula is: spend less than you make and invest the left over. you do that long enough and you'll become wealthy."
i also told him "from what i can tell, it will happen so gradually that you'll barely notice a difference in your lifestyle. you will just realize one day that you are part of the maligned upper-crust but noone around you will know that."
he called me 2 years ago to let me know that he took my observation to heart and he's now in the millionaire club. he also said "the books say i'm a millionaire, but i certainly don't feel like it."
his next million will be much easier to get now and he just turned 40.
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maybe not an exact match, but the "dark triad" traits are shown to be effective for individual career progress, but negatively correlated to organizational performance. Harvard Business Review did an article ("Why Bad Guys Win at Work") about a few relevant pieces of research in this vein: https://hbr.org/2015/11/why-bad-guys-win-at-work