Comment Re:The USAian prison industry is insane (Score 1) 89
I agree, there's a bit of a disconnect on terms there.
But even using your definition, how would government officials doing something be capitalist? There is no capital involved on the control side, it's all regulations with politicians and government bureaucrats making all the decisions. The only (minimal) capital which becomes involved are the friends of the politicians supplying a tiny bit of capital to fund a few telephones per prison and a website to collect people's money. This is hardly a capital-intensive industry, and without the politicians deciding not to just use the regular phone system (which is, admittedly, highly regulated itself), these "prison phone" companies wouldn't exist at all.