Bethesda inflated the price of Skyrim Legendary Edition prior to Steam sale [Source: PC Invasion]

[Part 1 of 2. See part 2.]

Depends on the product. Almost any product has a number of objectively quantifiable attributes. The problem lies with those products which consist of art to a significant degree, such as computer games, because the quality of art is subjective. But I think this thread of conversation is getting off-topic.

Those "objectively quantifiable attributes" are predicated on shared socially constructed notions of reality. When it comes to determining the degree of excellence of any given product, there must be some established standards by which that excellence can be ascertained. Those standards are socially constructed and, at least as far as I'm aware, have no basis in physical reality. Then again, your statement is pretty vague, so for all I know you might be referring to the durability or tensile strength of a product.

I'm not interested in discussing philosophy since it's mostly nonsense.

We are already discussing philosophy. Perhaps you consider philosophy "mostly nonsense" because you aren't familiar with what it philosophy is and you haven't bothered to study it as a discipline? And I don't necessarily mean formally study it.

There are no such limitations. If someone is willing to buy a product of a certain quality, no matter how high, and there is someone else who can make a product of such a quality, and the two can agree on a price, they will transact. And just so that you don't miss this crucial bit: the above is true for products of arbitrarily high quality. There is no upper limit.

The profit motive, which is an integral component of the capitalist mode of production as the motivator behind production for profit, does not limit the quality of products? The fact that capitalist enterprises sacrifice quality to maximize profits directly refutes that.

You're repeating yourself. I've already countered this argument.

No, you have not. Like I explained, pointing out that "competitive pressure between producers increases the quality of the products, decreases their price, or both" does not counter, contradict, or refute the claims I made. They are mutually compatible assertions.

The prefix post- means after. So, "post-capitalist system" means a system which comes after capitalism. Capitalism is the system that we presently have in place. If some other system were to replace it, that would have to happen in the future. By using the phrase "post-capitalist system", you are implying that you know the future, i.e. that there will be a system that will replace capitalism. You do not know the future.

No, I'm not. You are intentionally misrepresenting the meaning of "post-capitalist system" to make an inconsequential quibble that such a system is not currently being practiced and to point out the incontrovertible fact that we are currently living in a capitalist system. I can only assume that you intellectually competent enough to understand the obvious meaning behind my use of "post-capitalist system" and intellectually honest enough to recognize that I am not implying any clairvoyance or knowledge of the future on my part.

Now, what we're actually talking about are economic systems alternative to capitalism, such as socialism and communism. These two do not work on a large scale because they make assumptions that ignore basic human nature. And we've seen what happened in all the countries that tried to implement them--they pretty much all became impoverished dictatorships.

Completely unsubstantiated nonsense. If you are simply going to repeat tired thought-terminating clichés and ignorant talking points to dismiss ideas you appear to fundamentally misunderstand, then there is no point in continuing this otherwise unconstructive exchange. So-called "human nature" is a product of material conditions; it is not an immutable quality of humanity. To treat it as such, especially when we are still so ignorant of how humanity and society work, is profoundly arrogant and extremely naïve.

As for the countries which ostensibly attempted to implement communism, that is an entirely different discussion which requires an understanding of the historical and material conditions of those events to fully understand. Unless you want to also discuss that, even though it is highly tangential, then we can, but those historical events have no bearing whatsoever on the political and economic theory being discussed. To imply that those undesirable consequence therefore render communism false is fundamentally fallacious.

This historical record makes your original statement ("Products produced in capitalism will always, without exception, be lower quality and higher cost than they otherwise would in a post-capitalist system.") all the more ridiculous, since capitalist goods were highly sought-after in communist/socialist countries, not vice-versa.

The term "communist country" is an oxymoron because communism is, among other qualities, a stateless and borderless socioeconomic system. It is fundamentally absurd for a "communist country" to exist. Moreover, those so-called "communist/socialist countries" were themselves economically capitalist, so their interest in "capitalist goods" is nothing more than a manifestation of the fact that people from one country are interested in exotic or foreign goods from another country.

No, and I've explained above. Feudalism existed in practice in the past; a "post-capitalist system" can potentially only exist in the future, thus it does not exist now, and its future existence cannot be claimed with certainty because no one knows the future.

I have not once claimed any certainty about their existence. I merely described "post-capitalist systems" as such because, like I said, "[i]t is simply a way of describing a system which can [exist after capitalism] or which is intended to [exist after capitalism], regardless of whether it actually does".

Or were you perhaps referring to historical implementations of socialism and communism which indeed replaced capitalism in some countries, only to be succeeded by it in almost all cases?

No, I am referring to the theoretical post-capitalist systems of socialism, communism, and others.

Yes, it does imply that. This stems from the meaning of the prefix post-, which means after. If you don't mean to imply it, more appropriate descriptions would be "capitalism alternatives", or "alternative economic systems".

No, it does not and you should know that from a basic understanding of what "after" means. Is socialism and communism intended to be systems which come after capitalism? Yes, they are; therefore, they are post-capitalist systems. This is not difficult to understand and I suspect you are being intentionally obtuse.

Once again, if you mean socialism and communism, they've been tried and they have failed. Practice is what validates theory, and from the available data it's pretty safe to conclude that the theory for those two is wrong.

If you seriously believe that socialism and communism have been tried before, at least on any large scale, then you are clearly unfit to be having this discussion. Tell me, how were any of the so-called "socialist/communist countries" socialist or communist whatsoever? Do you even have enough understanding of what socialism and communism are to answer that question?

You suspect wrongly. If we're talking about socialism and communism, my reason is that they're proven failures. If, however, you have some other system in mind, please do tell. It's hard to discuss when you're being vague.

In fact, my suspicions were confirmed by your replies. You clearly don't know even the basics of socialism and communism if you sincerely believe that they were tried and that they failed.

I claim that capitalism does not limit the quality of products because products of arbitrarily high quality (meaning there is no limit) can be produced as long as there is someone willing to make them and someone willing to buy them. These two claims are in contradiction, and I've provided reasoning for mine. Can you show that my reasoning is erroneous?

While that is technically true, that doesn't generally occur because it is poor economic planning. Any capitalist enterprise which does so would be directly conflicting with the basic laws and rules of capitalism and market economics, and they would either go bankrupt shortly thereafter or would be unable to sustain enough capital to grow their enterprise and pay those employed at that enterprise. You are basically arguing the equivalent of saying that just because some companies might actually factor in the externalities produced by their economic activities when making decisions (despite being poor economic planning), capitalist enterprises in general therefore do so as well even though the overwhelming empirical evidence proves otherwise.

If that wasn't trolling, just what exactly were you trying to achieve?

I am asking you to provide a better answer than the vague nonsense you did. The answer "to make what you want, and to try to sell it at whatever price you want" is as easily applicable in feudal markets or in the markets in the agora of ancient Greece. That is not a "freedom" of capitalism. That is how unregulated markets work.

As for vague thought-terminating clichés, your regurgitation of Marxism certainly qualifies.

You clearly don't understand even the basics of Marxism (or, as a matter of fact, political economy in general), so you are not in a position to make such claims. Your petty attempts at derogating me only dissuade me from further continuing this increasingly futile exchange.

[Part 2 of 2. See part 1.]

No, you're using "exploitation" in the Marxist sense. Marxist economic principles are not a part of mainstream economics, including the concept of exploitation in the Marxist sense. If you're going to use a non-mainstream meaning for a particular word, it would be nice of you to say so beforehand. Otherwise, we're not going to understand each other.

And exploitation, used in that sense, is a strictly economic use of it and arguably the only one. All other definitions of exploitation generally imply some moral or ethical qualities to it while failing to rigorously define the material nature of the phenomenon. While my use of exploitation does originate from Marxist thought, I see no reason why that definition of exploitation shouldn't be its generally accepted economic definition.

Marxist economics are not a part of mainstream economics because it was deliberately excluded due to its critical and tacitly anticapitalist conclusions. Neoclassical economics was developed in response and contemporary economic academia generally ignores Marxist economics precisely because it is critical of the system upon which neoclassical economics is based and directly contradicts many of its premises, arguments, and conclusions.

I apologize for not clarifying beforehand, though I assumed my meaning and use of "exploitation" would be apparent due to the strictly economic nature of what was being discussed.

[Part 1 of 2. See part 2.]

You seem to be taking your definitions and descriptions of capitalism from Marx, who was an opponent of capitalism, and, more importantly, got it wrong, probably because the capitalism of his time was, as I've mentioned, brutal and horrible, which is largely not the case today.

Marx was one of the most important economists and economic theorists of human history, a claim with which even non-Marxist academics and historians have agreed, who developed arguably the single most important critique of capitalism to have ever existed. Of course I am going to probably use some Marxist terminology when critiquing and criticizing capitalism.

What did Marx "get wrong"? That is such a ridiculously vague and characteristically uncritical assertion that it's basically meaningless and I probably shouldn't even take it seriously. Like I already explained, capitalism from Marx's time to now may have changed in many ways, but not by much and not fundamentally. Marx's critique of capitalist political economy is still both as relevant, applicable, and largely accurate today as it was when it was first developed because capitalism has a system hasn't changed much since then.

Here's how capitalism in a free, non-corrupt society actually works:
[...]
The government also limits the freedom of companies to employ labor so that it doesn't result in harm to the workers.

Corruption is an inevitable consequence of class-based hierarchies like capitalism, and "freedom" in any meaningful and emancipatory sense is not possible in capitalism.

Your subsequent litany of vague nonsense doesn't explain what capitalism fundamentally is or how it fundamentally operates as a socioeconomic system and mode of production. You simply described, in an extremely basic and facile way, how capitalism is presented and propagandized as being despite how any serious and objective critical analysis demonstrates that essential assumptions and claims it makes are false.

Is there any point you disagree with? If so, why?

Firstly, people are not simply "free to own things". Property relations are usually inherited, are highly correlated with wealth, and are determined by socioeconomic class. While it is technically true that people are "free to own things" in capitalism, that has also been true for literally every other socioeconomic system in history, including proposed ones like socialism and communism. Stating that isn't particularly meaningful, doesn't clarify anything fundamental about capitalism, and it obscures the material relations which prevent certain types of ownership.

For example, workers in capitalism do not own the products of their labor; the capitalist does. Workers in capitalism moreover do not own the means of production whereby they produce goods or the capital goods with which they produce goods; the capitalist does. These relations of property and production are crucial in understanding how capitalism operates as a system. By simply saying that people are "free to own things", you are glossing over these material relations and failing to provide a meaningful description of how property works in capitalism. When you did briefly touch on these material relations, you failed to explain how the "owner" became the owner and why the worker is just a worker and what "owner" and "worker" mean, and moreover failed to explain the relation between those two roles outside of "owner hires worker to work for owner".

The same is generally true with many of your "points", and that is why I described your list as a " litany of vague nonsense": they are vague, not exclusive to capitalism (most have to do with market economics), and fail to meaningfully explain how capitalism as a specific socioeconomic system and mode of production functions or the material relations therein.

You describe the actions of the worker, and their participation in market transactions, as "voluntary", which is patently false and I already explained why above.

Your description of the role of the state is oversimplified and inaccurate because the state's role in capitalism and market economics is far more complex. For example, the state sometimes facilitates monopolization in markets, protects monopolies, and monopolizes industries itself through nationalization. Monopolization isn't the only phenomenon that the state influences, either. The state also determines how the market operates and can manipulate the market to serve whomever's interests it wants (usually, the interests of capitalists). The state also determines the regulations on the market as well as the speed of capital accumulation, consolidation, and concentration. Lastly, the state can intervene in the market, define the scope of the market, and even eliminate the market entirely, all while upholding the capitalist mode of production. Beyond that, the state can be used to abolish capitalism or even abolish itself, as well as transition to socialism or some other post-capitalist system.

As I've already stated, you're using Marx's definitions and descriptions of capitalism which are outdated and wrong.

Both characterizations of Marx's definitions and descriptions of capitalism are untrue and you have yet to substantiate them whatsoever. You are simply asserting them as true to dismiss Marxian analysis, which you obviously don't understand. Unless you are going to at least explain why they are "outdated and wrong", don't even bother asserting as much.

As for classes in particular, there is no such thing. The wealth people own is a spectrum, and any attempt to partition them into classes according to wealth will necessarily require arbitrary choices of where one class ends and another begins.

Are you joking? There is no such thing as socioeconomic class? Are you trolling now, or are you so utterly blinded by ideology that you reject something that even pro-capitalist economists treat as a given? Class is not strata; socioeconomic strata is determined by wealth, but socioeconomic class is determined by relations of property and production. Just because wealth exists as a spectrum, that does not mean classes do. What utter nonsense.

And if your classes are "people who own companies" and "people who don't own companies", it's easy for people to go from the former to the latter by making poor business decisions, just like it's easy for people from the the latter to start companies--in fact, some of today's wealthiest people did just that.

Yes, that's true. That's a defining feature of capitalism: social mobility. In capitalism, people can enter into and out of each class depending on their relations to the means of production.

Therefore, the depiction of society as being divided into fixed classes of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie locked into an eternal struggle is entirely anachronistic, wrong, and useless.

Proletariat and bourgeoisie are "fixed classes" insomuch as they have fixed definitions and criteria for qualification. The members of those respective classes are not fixed, however, and that is one aspect of capitalism which distinguishes it from previous socioeconomic systems, such as feudalism (where the members of each class generally were fixed). Nevertheless, class struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie does occur, though who struggles in which respective class depends wholly on their relations to the means of production.

Capitalism does not have a "class-based hierarchical organizational structure". Therefore, there is no implicit coercion. Therefore, labor transactions are not involuntary. Refer to my earlier description of capitalism.

Are you serious? Do you not understand what capitalism is or how capitalism works either? Usually, those who don't understand socialism and communism don't generally understand capitalism, either, but I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. Of course capitalism has a class-based hierarchical organizational structure. Even the most ardent supporters of capitalism recognize this fact. What do you think the hierarchy in a capitalist enterprise is, where the capitalist is on the top and the workers are dispersed below? Or do you deny the existence of that, too? Simply rejecting a core component of capitalist economics doesn't refute my statements; it just demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of capitalist economics.

A corrupt state will unjustly use violence against its citizens no matter what the economic system is.

Corruption is not necessary for state violence to occur, even the "unjust" kind. Law enforcement is predicated on the state's monopoly on violence, and the state will use that violence to enforce its rule and the rule of the ruling class. In capitalism, that ruling class is the bourgeoisie. Every time the police come to shut down a strike or protect the private property of business owners (capitalists), that is state violence and direct evidence of the state colluding with (and serving the class interests of) the bourgeoisie.

There is no slavery in free societies, capitalist or otherwise. You're stuck in the 19th century. Today's capitalism does not function that way. Refer to my earlier description of capitalism.

I agree, which is why capitalism cannot by definition ever produce "free societies". No, I'm not "stuck in the 19th century". You are just willfully ignoring the fact that capitalism has not fundamentally changed since then, nor has it changed much if at all since its inception.

[Part 2 of 2. See part 1.]

The fault lies in the governments of those countries, whose corruption and lack of regulation allow for this.

No, the fault lies in the system which produces those conditions and the dominant actors who perform and participate in the actions. That system is capitalism and those dominant actors are capitalists (the bourgeoisie), or their lackeys. The state is an organ for class rule which capitalists use to assert their power and control society. To blame "the government" is as silly as blaming the strings for the puppets dancing rather than the puppetmasters pulling those strings.

And an appropriate term for this would be "inflammatory Marxist propaganda".

Again, you don't even understand the most rudimentary parts of Marxist theory, so your shoddy attempts at criticism are an embarrassment and based in ignorance.

So aside from the inflammatory Marxist propaganda, you've essentially said that in capitalism, everyone has the freedom to buy products of their choosing. I agree.

Of course people do, but that is, like that list above, an extremely oversimplified and borderline meaningless statement that doesn't clarify what capitalism is or how it works as a socioeconomic system and mode of production.

I, too, strive toward improvement. However, history has shown that socialism and communism are not improvements.

When your understanding of this topic is exclusively a product of an entire life's worth of propaganda and ideology, of course you will think that.

The definition of abuse is determined by rules. If there are no rules, some people might consider one thing abuse, others might not consider that abuse. Neither party is right or wrong. That's why there are laws and rules in the first place. Anarchy is not fun...

The reason why they had bigger discounts in the past is also due to how enterprises operate. They set the price at a point where they think they'll maximize profit. Sales are not something that's done out of kindness, it's done out of capitalist greed. Currently they figure that they'll make a bigger profit by not discounting their games as heavily, previously they figured that they would maximize profit by having heavy discounts.

Also, please not that Bethesda recently permanently lowered the base price (by 30€) on some of their games. This is once again due to how enterprises work, they figure that a 1½-2 year old game won't sell as well at 50€, so they dropped it down to 20€. This was not done because they wanted to be nice to us, but because they figured that that would maximize profit.

To me your complains here, blaming capitalism for them not putting things on as high discounts here, while choosing to ignore that capitalism is also to blame for the bigger discounts that you blame capitalism for not giving you.

They can, but they won't with the updated version coming, since they promised it for free for all previous owners.