Thanks for the response! I'm honored that it inspired you to write an entire separate post about it. And I find it encouraging that you grant me the benefit of the doubt, so to speak, where it comes to my intelligence ;-)

Now for the actual response to your response. You make the same mistakes I see so often coming from voluntaryists, libertarians and anarcho-capitalists. First and foremost your definition of capitalism, where you equate capitalism with free markets; that's wrong. I really struggle to understand why anyone would make that equation, if only because of the fact that markets have literally been with us since the dawn of civilization, and under every economic configuration known to mankind. Feudalism had markets, mercantilism had markets, slavery had markets, yes, even communism and socialism have markets, heck I bet hunter-gatherers from the stone age sometimes made trades. And none of those markets have ever been "free", nor will they ever be, except maybe in the stone age. But that's besides the point here: capitalism isn't the same as markets, voluntary trades or even involuntary trades. Capitalism is defined by the private ownership of the means of production. Socialism can have markets to, the only difference would be the ownership of the means of production, and that's exactly where the difference is made.

It's also where all the problems start, just as Marx correctly analyzed. As an aside, you state that "attacking capitalism has been an easy target since Marx coined the term," but you might want to rethink that statement. Communism and socialism historically only gain popularity when capitalism't problems can no longer be covered up by its incessant propaganda machine. You say the problem isn't capitalism because that's not what we have now. Instead, so you claim, as do so many who hold the same ideology as you, we have cronyism and fascism, which are essentially the same. I agree entirely. But you fail to mention the other thing this is called: late stage capitalism. That's indeed our current reality, and it's the logical end-station for any capitalist experiment. It's not that hard to understand; when you allow the means of production to be in private hands, you have already created the unjust power imbalance from which all other injustices and imbalances grow. Both Smith and Marx knew this, by the way.

Okay, I have to stay nuanced and honest here, as you literally wrote: "So what you say MAY be true depending upon how you view capitalism." Now you know how I see capitalism, but I would add that, so far as I know, it's the only correct understanding of what capitalism is. Yes, markets are an important component, but markets are not what defines the system. The private ownership of the means of production does. And it doesn't surprise me that so many voluntaryists, libertarians and anarcho-capitalists conveniently "forget" that part of the equation, because it messes up the entire idea of "FREE MARKETS." Markets aren't free and capitalism is a distinctly political economic system, as is any economic system. I know libertarians will go on lengthy diatribes about how some private entity could assume the role of protecting ownership-rights, but I've yet to meet the first one to clearly explain what difference that would make. In the end it'll always be some organization with a monopoly on the use of violence. Or barbarism, that's the other choice.

Now, the fusion of the powers of capital and government, the cronyism of today, is inevitable in capitalism's later stages. In fact, there's no greater power than that of capital. That's because we're not some ethereal free floating entities, but solid material beings who depend for their survival on solid material stuff. To own something is a purely human and purely legal construction. If I own something it means that I have the sole right to use that something in the way I see fit. And if someone else uses it without my expressed permission, I have behind me some organization that can use force to take it back from you. It's important to understand this, and to understand that without this construction we would fall back to barbarism where everything and everyone's ruled by the right of might, a literal and, this is important, purely individual survival of the fittest. That's what it comes down to when we follow the libertarian, anarcho-capitalist, voluntaryist, objectivist trail to its end. We'd be right back where we are now.

What is freedom? What are rights? Where is wealth created? Who owns the planet? Just a couple of questions, the answers to which reveal a lot about the reality of human existence, "the human condition," so to speak. How free can we be? Well, on our own and on an uninhabited island we have 100% freedom. But how free are we really, if we have to spend all day gathering and hunting food? We're not built to survive on our own. You speak of "human nature," well, human nature is communism. In the tribes of yesteryear we lived in small communities, 50 to 150 individuals large, and we had no money, shared everything and produced enough food for everyone, including the unproductive members of society, like the kids, disabled and elderly. That's communism and that's where we come from. We are more free in that tribe than on our own, are we not? We organize the hunt and we have enough food for everyone with time, agreed, our most valuable commodity, to spare. That same tribe in capitalism has one family that owns a plot of land, owns the technology to farm that land, and offers the rest to sell their time to work the land. See how this disproportionately increases the freedom of one family at the expense of all other families' freedom? If one person or one family owns the stuff everyone needs to survive and/or thrive, THAT is capitalism, and the trade of time for food is anything but voluntary because of the inherent power-imbalance based on need and ownership.

There's so much more to say about all this, but it's too long a response already, and I'd already finished today's post, so I'll just respond right here ;-) I'm sorry for its length, for my simplifying a lot of the terms and for making huge jumps here and there. I know voluntaryanism isn't exactly the same as libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism or objectivism, and maybe I shouldn't use them all in the same sentence or the same response even, it's just that your response is the same I get from people who identify as all of them. I really respect your point of view and I'm grateful that you took so much time and effort to produce this well thought out response. Maybe I'm still missing something, but I've had this same discussion many times already... So, it's nothing personal, please don't take it that way, but I'm not convinced that the problem is not capitalism. It is, and it always has been. It's not human nature to be as individualistically minded as we are now. We're social beings and, as I see it, we're destroying the world and ourselves by going against human nature.

Oh, and of course you've got my 100% upvote as well :-)