> If you want to argue that “real capitalism has never existed,” and repeat “That’s not capitalism, that’s corporatism!” like a broken record, fine. But you can’t turn around then and use the products of a transnational corporation like Apple as an example of capitalism. If you do, you’re either stupid or a liar. It’s that simple.

I think he's just wrong and if he wasn't a leftist he would find it uncontroversial. There's both an ideal and a historical reality, and the historical reality approximates the ideal to a greater or lesser degree depending on the time and place.

The issue for leftists is that their ideals turn more and more into a nightmare the more closely the historical reality approximates the ideal. To protect the ideal from criticism, they are obliged to insist that the two are totally separate realms and that one does not inform us about the other.

Thus I can say "Hey, look at this modern capitalist system working pretty well, see how prices keep falling for new technology" and when someone complains about all the government intervention I can agree with them. The historical (or present) reality merely approximates the ideal.

It's like using the term "horse" both for the concept of horses and to refer to a specific horse, which might be lame or lazy.