LibertarianSocialist

You need to make it personal. Find something they care strongly about and demonstrate why it occurs and how to fix it. Talking to a conservative? Taxes, freedom of speech, gun ownership. Reformist? Weed legalization, anti-war, immigration. People just don't care until it affects them. Find an issue that they are strongly opinionated about, something they regard as a deficiency or injustice of our current society, and talk through the root causes of the issue, the very foundations of the problem. They will begin to see the problem lies much deeper than they thought, and with any luck they will extend those learnings to the other realms of their thinking. Everyone has a few very passionate beliefs, you just have to find them.

I have often wondered about this. Some online apps such as Facebook acquire much of their desirability from the fact that they are so widely used. Even if a competitor was superior, the fact of having no users would make it inferior. As in Facebooks case, their popularity can be sustained for a very long time, and significant profits can be derived from this monopoly. We are always told that superior products will overcome inferior, but what when the value of a thing comes not from its own personal qualities, but from its popularity alone? Perfect example of individual market actors making terrible collective decisions. Is their a term for such phenomena? It does permeate our society in all aspects of life. From OS's to battery power tools.

You can't have compounding interest. Infinite exponential growth within a limited system is impossible. You can have interest, but it cannot be truly compounding. It may try to be, but there must be ways of defeating the tendency toward monopolization. An economic system based on profit, rent and interest is quite sustainable so long as the level of exploitation does not exceed the point at which the subjected will revolt. Most of the ancaps here believe such monopolizations are unsustainable, that the natural tendency within a capitalist society is for competition to drive down profits due to inefficiencies of scale. I assume most believe that most large financial institutions would be too bureaucratic so as to see their return on investments fall past a certain size. The direct result of this would be a constant shifting of profitability between sectors of society. A game of hot potato but with usury instead of the potato. Also, a system of banking need not revolve around interest loans. It could provide other services and these services could be motivated by other means than return on interest.

The only American libertarian intentional community I am aware of was in chile. Unfortunately that turned out to be a scam. It is a shame because I would like to see a functioning ancap community, but I imagine the barriers of our current society are just as insurmountable to them as to the anarchists in their attempts at succession. Maybe a better example of anarcho-capitalistic resistance was the refusal of latifundia owners to obey the mandates of the state, seizing and consolidating personal and local power. This was one of the predominant reasons which led to the collapse of the Roman Empire. It does show in a sense how dependent the state is on wilful collaboration.

"Rights" are complete nonsense. The only right is the right of might. You have as many rights as you can exert personally, or with collaboration with others. That is the only natural law. Now, what a man deems to be "right" is another thing, but they are only ever human constructs, even if heavily dictated by biology. I didn't see the original post, but the music and nude pic examples are strawmen. Opposition to IP is based on the fact that it prevents the creation of an identical product. Maybe he wasn't arguing this. If so, I shall be waiting to put foot in mouth. Say a man invents the combustion engine in isolation, later realising it has been patented. He owns the object, he rightly made it. But he is prevented from benefiting from his invention. Say the patent lasts 100 years. How many times would the IC engine have been reinvented? Same story with medications and all patents. Maybe stealing nude pics is bad, but what if he made an identical nude pic, with a different identical person in an identical but different setting? This ^. Perfect example. If ownership is a former of security it means that there will be incentive for groups of individuals to own property collectively where appropriate. In fact, given the degree of collectivisation mandated by industrial production, it stands to reason that each individual asserting his personal ownership rights would amount to joint ownership, to cooperatives and, dare I say it, producers unions. At least this would be the aspiration (as it is today, that a man wants to own that which he needs to live, for security and reasons of bargaining power). It may not play out as such, the strong may overcome the weak and implement a society where only their ownership rights and aspirations are catered for, at the expense of the now ownerless, so recreating a class society catering for an asymmetry of interest. [eople's wills. People often leave money for public purposes. This ^. Perfect example. If ownership is a former of security it means that there will be incentive for groups of individuals to own property collectively where appropriate. In fact, given the degree of collectivisation mandated by industrial production, it stands to reason that each individual asserting his personal ownership rights would amount to joint ownership, to cooperatives and, dare I say it, producers unions. At least this would be the aspiration (as it is today, that a man wants to own that which he needs to live, for security and reasons of bargaining power). It may not play out as such, the strong may overcome the weak and implement a society where only their ownership rights and aspirations are catered for, at the expense of the now ownerless, so recreating a class society catering for an asymmetry of interest.

You are arguing with a rainbow coloured turd called Waffles? There's gotta be an oxymoron or two in that. Do ancaps have primitivists too? Maybe that? Great article by the way. My thoughts on the matter are that an ancap revolution of the Rothbardian kind will almost certainly be a lower class mass movement. The traditional conservatives (the corporatists) already have everything. They only stand to lose by the removal of their state privilege, they will fight tooth and nail for it. Only if we see an economical shift of the magnitude of the industrial revolution will we see a new owning class rise to clash against the old order (ie. landed aristocracy vs capitalists). The conservative elements of society may and do embrace free market ideology when it suits them, but they will never do so to their detriment.

If there exists no such thing as surplus labour, why do factories grind to a halt during strikes? If you are so sure that the boss really performs a valuable and productive role, why not open up his position to free competition?I guess surplus labour could be entailed in all them. The laborer is the rightful owner of his surplus, the consumer may get a slice if prices are undervalued. I also object to the latter as theft. If the worker produces a workhouse in one hour, he is entitled to his entire labour's portion. The capitalist is entitled for pay for the capital to the amount of the embodied labour involved in producing that capital. Everyone to their labour share. This is not how it works today. Today the capitalist extracts surplus labour because his and his employees bargaining power are not the same. The employee must coercively surrender a portion of his product based on the degree of coercive pressure. This is why the American frontier had relatively higher incomes and opportunity for the lower classes than for the European peasantry. By subjective labour costs I mean the aggregate perception of the difficulty of the labour. One man might like digging holes, another hate it. In a theoretical perfect market, the average perception of labour difficulty, or intensity, will even out with the averages of other forms of labour. The proviso rests on a strong philosophical argument. What gives you the right to deprive me just from being first? You say you have to agree to it? In what world is it fair that because you didn't agree to not do so you can take what is just as rightfully others' as much as yours? When did the future generations agree to your beliefs? Why should they be required to respect your claims? To the living should go the right to decide what is just in their time, always and forever. The dead should never rule over the living. Really, capitalists not taking a finite pie? Have you looked outside? Every inch of land is owned by someone. Yes the state owns a lot, but they are a specific type of capitalist owner. Please learn about the enclosures act. I know you will object, that's corporatism! but please understand capitalism as a social relation is only made possible by such artificial scarcity, maybe the Ancapistan in your head isn't actually a capitalist society? I'm not explaining the LTV again. You show me a painter who keeps supplying for a market who doesn't want to buy his goods at a price point that makes his labour worthwhile? Unless you admit cost of production is a thing, you are essentially saying the painter would happily lower his paintings to $1 if that were the market clearing level. I know you would not argue such a thing. I AM SAYING COST OF PRODUCTION IS THE LIMIT OF PRICE UNDER FREE COMPETITION, not that people are FORCED to buy at this price point. Let's say for the sake of argument labour is defined in Kilojoules. I use 1000kj of energy to get 1kg fish. My efficiency is 1000:1. It is RELATIVE TO ALL OTHER EFFICIENCIES. I did not mean to imply that efficiency was such that energy use is proportionate to the energy in the end product. Everyone "profits" if you want to use the term in its colloquial sense. But "profit" from labour and profit via non labour factors, are two very different things. A tree takes its energy from the sun, exogenous input, and converts it to useful sugar. It does not rent out the space to saplings and make them give it some of their sugar. One is the efficient use of labour to convert an available resource to something of higher use value, the other is a scarcity imposed rent in which no additional wealth is created, but simply redistributed. Of course, but you will resent the situation. It should be quite clear that this situation does not represent a free market. I have an absolute monopoly over the water. The LTV does not say prices MUST fall to cost, should there be any distorting factors, violence, scarcity, monopoly etc. what the LTV says is that prices for reproducible goods UNDER PERFECT MARKET CONDITIONS WILL FALL TO COST OF PRODUCTION. This is the driving force of socialism, that some are able to get more than they contribute via market manipulation. Capitalism is the system of getting something for nothing via scarcity imposed rents.

People do not create wealth through profit as you say by "getting out more than you put in". Such a thing is impossible. Continual labour inputs are needed. What does happen is that you labour to produce a useful product then use that product to increase the efficiency of the next round of labour. Capital is simply dead labour, the utilization of capital as a productivity multiplier is simply the efficient ordering of labour, much like a set of tasks done in a sensible order increases labour efficiency. When I am talking of profit I do mean profit regarding exchange value. For instance example 1 you give is a clear profit regarding use value. I should have been more concise, sorry. All the other examples could easily be explained as resultant from labour, from the acts of production and distribution. If I also achieve these things as a result of my labour chair-making, it only means my productivity was higher than if I did not so benefit. PROFIT IS NOT NECESSARY. If I go fishing for food, I do so because the marginal utility of a fish when I am hungry is higher than the next best option. I am happy to convert my labour power into caught fish. I have put as much labour in as I have received fish. If I receive more or less fish for the same amount of exertion it simply means that factors have influenced my labour efficiency. IN NO WAY HAVE I PUT IN LESS THAN I RECEIVE. I have simply converted one thing to another. The maximization of use value is the only reward. I really shouldn't have used a vulgar time based labour theory example. The Labour theory is simply a theoretical assumption about the tendency of prices under perfect competition. It simply states that unrestricted competition will drive prices down to the aggregate cost of production (that is, embodied labour) of all market participants, with embodied labour being defined subjectively and calculated through market competition.

False? Please demonstrate. No surplus labour? No business owner has ever made a profit by paying his workers less than the revenue from the sale of their products? No capitalist class? No one who makes a profit through the ownership of capital, and conversely no non-owning class who makes their money by selling their labour? How can one deny such obvious and defining traits of our society? Why is it called capitalism then if it's defining feature is voluntary free trade? Why not some other name? Why should capital be the defining feature of such an economy? I did slip into a more vulgar labour theory interpretation there in my chair maker example. What I mean instead of one hour is one aggregated subjective labour unit. That is, the exchange price of the commodity under perfect market conditions dictated by the aggregate subjective evaluation of the labour (in all its dimensions) cost involved in its production. Please don't play the whole capitalism is without the initiation of force. Please explain potential violations of the Lockean proviso for instance. If I have not been left with an alternative of "as much and as good" have I not been forced by the act of my deprivation by another?

Just how has the Ltv been debunked? Labour doesn't have to have monetary worth. It is entirely compatible with opportunity cost, they are different factors of price formation. The opportunity cost of capital depends on its current context. It is a relative measure of value, it makes no attempt to define what that level would be under specific theoretical conditions. If it is not at all profitable, why do we have imperfect economic mobility? Unless poor people are all dullards, the rich Randian Ubermensche, how do you account for the fact that there exists a correlation between ownership of preexisting wealth and future gain? That is an empirical proof, please explain that. I would use force on all IMPOSED hierarchy. In short any hierarchy that uses coercive differences in power between people to insert and maintain itself.

When I speak of capital I refer to a specific mode of production and social relation. It is not simply the act of using capital to create more capital through labour. That feature is common to all modes of production.Capitalism is defined as a system wherein a capitalistic class uses its ownership of capital to generate profits via the extraction of surplus labour from the producers. As a social relation it requires economic stratification. Other economic systems may have the preconditions of capitalism, (absentee property rights etc.) but unless access to the means of production are restricted, the specific system of capitalism can not be expressed, these may be pre-capitalist systems. This is the traditional and generally held definition of the term. Only in the Libertarian movement is it attempted to be defined as "voluntary free trade" an ahistorical and useless term. -Use the free market qualifier and I have no qualms, it is more explicit. Profit as I have explained is distinct from wealth creation through production. I make a chair in one hour, I sell it for one hours wages. I buy an equal product for the same amount. I have made zero profit, I have created wealth. I make a chair in one hour, I sell it for two hours wages. I buy an equal product for the same amount, and pocket the remaining hours wage. I have made 100% profit. I buy a second chair. The value of the chair must come from his labour, he has created twice the wealth yet I receive his second share. The second scenario can only come about through coercive control. In at least one regard the requirement of PERFECT COMPETITION has been violated. Ask yourself if capitalism meets the assumptions of perfect competition? Can any system? Please tell me why my conductor analogy does not apply to anarcho-capitalism? Is it because competition would not allow for monopoly? Have you any logical or empirical basis for this argument? Absentee property rights and capitalistic profitmaking incentivize consolidation. If individuals can accumulate wealth, they will. Does then capitalism allow free competition? Does it satisfy the requirements of perfect competition, at least to a sufficient degree? If not, what is to stop individuals using inherited consolidations of wealth to drive deeper wedges into these market imperfections?

Peter Joseph, the zeitgeist guy? Is it because I used the term competitive advantage like he does in the Molyneux video? I like that video, if you look close, you can see the secondary explosions at the base of Molyneux's brain. I would say that the best thing to do would allow the musicians free competition to choose their conductor, if any. But if the conductor should possess a monopoly over the musical instruments, granted to him through inheritance, chance and incremental coercion and theft, a monopoly which he uses to extract surplus music from the real producers of music, the musicians, then it is rightful that those musicians rally together in the defence of what is rightfully theirs.. Now, if the conductor performs a valuable role in the creation of music, he deserves as much as his contribution. But what that contribution truly is can only be ascertained through free competition. Monopoly is antithetical to competition, he therefore can hold no monopoly, not of musical instruments, nor of currency for them, nor of the land on which to build concert halls.

The question is not whether capital deserves pay, it is a question of how much. That amount is the full amount of its contribution. I like it "lamed and tamed into becoming Cash Cows for Corporate Cowboys." Both insightful and lyrical. As long as he doesn't sacrifice clarity and concision, why not?

I really didn't want to make the whole capitalism does not necessarily entail free trade argument EVERY post. Maybe qualify your support of capitalism with the prefix free market? Maybe I straw-manned you, sorry. Saying that the corporatist benefactors are simply unwilling pawns in the states evil game is overly simplistic and incongruous with historical fact. It has always been the tendency for any consolidation of power to add to itself at the expense of others via force and coercion, whether that organization be called a state or a corporation or a commune. Hmm. Love how you used the term profit. I have no problem with its use in the colloquial sense, but it makes sense to use it correctly in a discussion about economics.

Do factory owners use force? Well I think you will agree that the primary function of the state is to use violence to defend a particular classes privilege, specifically those corporatist state benefactors. These are the factory owners you are talking of? It is obvious they utilize state violence for competitive advantage. Everyone wants competition for others, none for themselves, only those of exceptional power can realize this desire. Scarcity rent is profit based or real of artificial scarcity. Of the two, only the latter has really been necessary for the formation of capitalism. See the English enclosure acts, the Australian squattocracy, American homesteading acts etc. I am again defining capitalism in its original sense, not voluntary exchange. The abolition of monopoly is the removal of the conditions necessary for the formation of monopoly, it is the maintaining of a socialist mode of production (not using this term in the Marxist sense). The factory owner will only be harmed should he attempt to steal what is others through the use of violence, coercion or legal privilege. Ownership of capital is heavily correlated with social and economic standing. It really is as easy as own capital: profit. Empirical evidence proves it. I say correlated, skill is another correlated factor too. You are cherry picking, the general trend is that capital begets capital, and is not 100% correlated with ability. We do live in a CAPITALIST system after all. As to your Dunning-Kruger effect. Are you aware that CEO pay has little relation to performance, but rather bargaining position? Or that worker self-managed firms are on the whole as efficient as ones with managerial hierarchies? Perhaps the reverse effect is true. Those at the top of the hierarchy must invent rationalizations as to why they deserve the privilege they have acquired through coercion, theft and violence.

That lump of clay would still have a market price reflecting the embodied labour. (unless labour was undervalued). If I had a general opportunity to earn 20 dollars an hour, and I decided to make lumps of clay for a living, I would charge 20 dollars an hour. If no one wanted to buy the product at that value, I would not lower prices to what people wanted to pay and keep working but rather would take up another occupation. The only time that I would do otherwise is if I derived non-monetary worth or if opportunity elsewhere was restricted. Also, I may sell the products cheaply or throw them away, but this is a loss and I will not continue to produce more. Exchange value as set by the seller almost always rests above or below the subjective evaluation of the particular consumer. Particular buyers have no ability to directly set exchange price, they do have influence however on the number of sales. Price is therefore adjusted by the seller based on the expected quantity of sales at each price point. Rather than have me explain the ltv, perhaps you want to read studies is mutualist political economy? It gives a good subjective recasting of the ltv and defends it against several major assaults (time preference etc.).

Except when it costs money to buy that education, and you can't get that money because whoever inherited a fortune through some cosmic roll of the dice uses his monopoly ownership of the means of production to force you to sell your labour for a fraction of what it's worth, barely giving you a subsistence income, let alone enough for an education. Why are they employees if it is voluntary? Why does he forward them a wage and take their product? Why not remain an associate and keep the entire product of their own labour, or at least sell it (and not labour) to him if he is clearly a reseller? It is because of a difference in bargaining power. This is why our whole system is divided into owners and property-less workers, with nothing but their labour to sell. If you want to deny the existence of such a power dynamic, and it's resultant effect on "voluntarism", I am unsure how to respond. Private (absentee) property (of sufficient consolidation) means people either "voluntarily" embrace the conditions the owner has set, or suffer the withholding of what they need. I have done this to death in other posts. Under an anarchic society, people would only be accountable to those they affect. If I am sexually desirous of my Spiderman backpack, and my local community is outraged at such, they cannot tell me or vote for me to desist, so long as I do not cause them any injury.

1. You conflate profit with value creation. I labour to create value. I have converted my potential labour power into some thing of value. Profit is as you define it, the reception of value above the initial sum. It requires exogenous labour inputs. The just exchange has always been that of individuals trading commodities WITHOUT profit. The goal is the maximization of use value. To see a shoemaker trade with another shoemaker is an absurdity, it would never come about unless one thought he might PROFIT off the other, nor need it. 2. Socialism has always been the antithesis of capitalism, the system of class monopoly. It's driving goal is the abolition of the monopolistic privilege granted to the owners of capital. For the state socialists, the answer to the class monopoly was the formation of a state with total monopoly power, who would in theory utilize its monopoly for the benefit of all society (social-ism). The anarchist communists sought to make societies wealth owned by all society, again a total monopoly, but this time not a monopoly controlled by a minority, but by all society. (monopoly is only bad if there exists an excluded group, a group or individual that doesn't benefit from said monopoly). The individualists and mutualists sought to uproot monopoly entirely by making competition universal. 3. Please learn more about the historical definitions of the terms socialism and capitalism. Obama is not a socialist, and capitalism is not "free and voluntary exchange". What someone should be paid is obvious. They should be paid the full fruits of their contribution to production. Can this be accurately ascertained? Not perfectly, but perhaps sufficiently though various means I will not discuss now. 4. I will let him do so if he wants. I cbf simplifying his points. 5. Imposition precludes consent. If it is consented to it has been embraced, not imposed. Capitalistic hierarchy is not voluntary. I will not argue this point again, see my most recent posts (maybe a month back). 6. Who told you about my unprocessed trauma? I tried to defoo but my mother came in with whiskey on her breath and beat the shit out of me. That is why I try to impose an analogue of my suffering on society through the support of a socialist state and state violence. The above mentioned posts discuss the role of aggression in the creation of capitalism. Wiki the Enclosure Acts.

Being AN authority is not the same as being IN authority. I go to my doctor because he is a respected authority regarding Healthcare. He is not IN authority like the statesman, and has no means to compel me to embrace his authority. Make the preconditions necessary to becoming a qualified engineer available to all, and you remove the grounds on which the "engineering class" secures it's power, the monopoly of service and the threat of its withholding.

The Sage of Main Street, don't listen to them. It may look like trolling to them when your arguments have so clearly gone over their heads. You may well be wasting your time here. Most will remain impervious to all your arguments. I have tried in vain to get them to understand basic concepts like classes and the idea that ALL imposed hierarchies (including their beloved bosses) are antagonistic to freedom. I couldn't even get them to accept the idea that capitalism IS NOT SIMPLY BLOODY VOLUNTARY EXCHANGE, but rather a specific mode of production and social relation featuring private property rights in which the owners of capital generate (take) profits from renting it out to those without. If I couldn't get them to even understand this, what hopes do we have? They are so deeply rooted in American propaganda, any change is unlikely. Still, there may be lurkers who are still on the fence. And if we can sow the seeds of doubt, at least have them look into the philosophy behind our arguments, there may be a chance for them yet.

Great example, will quote in future. This is one of the major points I have been trying to get across. PROFIT IS A SCARCITY RENT. The maker of profit can only do so because of monopolistic control over the means of production and distribution. Following the abolition of monopoly, competition would drive prices down to near labour cost. The keys are an analogy to a monopolistic bottleneck, without which the car in its entirety is rendered useless. The capitalist charges what the market will bear, regardless of the legal distortions, that is, monopoly, ensured by a system of private property ensured artificial scarcity, which serves to ensure a healthy margin of profit well above that of the cost of production. It seems evident that the price of the keys (capitalist monopoly) should be that of the cost of production, and not based on any artificial conditions of scarcity. (Natural scarcity, not a concern of reproducible goods, an aside.) The argument could be made that a lowly nut (representing a doorman say), holding the entire car apart performs a likewise crucial role. Of course you would object to this, he should be paid what he would in free competition with others you would maintain. But if he should be the benefactor of legal privilege, as is capital today, which restricts the number of suppliers to a select class of men, he would be able to command a wage much higher than his real contribution.

COULD A MOD MOVE OUR DISCUSSION TO A NEW THREAD? Thanks. If we go by the fact that the world was made by none, as so belongs to all, we must grant free access to all natural resources. Any deprivation of a particular natural resource or an equivalent alternative should be seen as a violation of the rights of the individual to what is his as much as anyone's. As each asserts his usage rights over a particular resource, land worth will equalize, finding it's equilibrium with equal opportunity elsewhere. 7 million don't necessarily need a tree, but 7 million do need the opportunity to access trees, whether such opportunity is embraced or not.If natural resources become free they cannot contribute to price formation any more than the air. Restricting incomes to labour in no way restricts these. You can still accumulate wealth to use at a later date. Alternately you could get interest free loans until you resume working. This is the function of those plans you mentioned, to detach immediate productivity from income, to spread it over the unproductive periods too. But what of the people who don't inherit wealth? In a market situation, accumulations of wealth actually harm them, as rich buyers drive up auction prices for competitors. I have already discussed the distinction of a market based ltv from a more vulgar time based one. People pander to capitalists because of coercive conditions in which the capitalists have a monopoly on what they need. Equal standing would lead to equal exchange, not of the usurious and feudalistic conditions which capital institutes today. People don't go to the highwayman? Last time I checked we had both mobsters and states. Saying free market capitalism cannot entail violence is about as useful as vulgar leftists making 'democratic accountability' a precondition of representative democracy. Capitalism is a specific social relation and mode of production. It's existence requires coercive deprivation. Unless you think economic coercion is not a type of violence. Sure people have children for a variety of reasons, but it is a fact that birthrate is heavily correlated with poverty. Market competition is darwinian. It is a specific set of competitive parameters, by which individuals and groups of individuals compete. Capitalism itself is simply one gigantic darwinian 'meme'. You know for most intelligent people, going into a career in science is an economic death sentence? Yet we have a whole bunch of scientists who don't do it for the money, they do it for prestige, for the betterment of making, and above all, for their own natural curiosity and enjoyment. Have you seen the study where monetary rewards harmed performance for all tasks requiring creativity, the exception being simplistic 'mechanical' tasks. It seems creativity is its own reward. Evidence please that markets are only distorted by what we define as 'states'. Please explain the countless machinations made by private bodies of power for their own personal gain, including the countless price fixings, market manipulations, collusion, coercion and violent coups. The organizational structures may differ, they might have different facades, but the social and economic relations are the same.

Exclusive ownership is possible under a system of occupancy and use, of personal property. The problem of rightful ownership comes about when one person mixes his labour with a natural resource, thus converting that resource to his ownership, while depleting the total reserve. Since the natural world was made by none, it ought to be owned by all in equal measure, present and future. I see no reason why one should have to accept the prior conversion of his inheritance into someone else's property. I am again arguing the Lockean proviso, in that exclusive ownership is only just if provision is made for others to secure their own rightful portion, equal in amount and quality to all current claimants. You give those of lessor means the ability to gain resources by making labour the only source of income, achieved through the abolition of all coercive conditions which cause the market to deviate from this. Achieved in a multitude of ways, the abolition of absentee property rights, of inheritance, of the various institutionalised monopolies. People like Trump take loans to invest further down the line. It is ultimately the end borrower who foots the bill for both their profits. Yes moneylenders should have their loans adjusted for inflation, but so should everyone technically. And yes, labour should be remunerated, though the time spent doing actual labour would be very small I would think. You would certainly see no Donald Trumps. Well, the labour must be desired. The highwayman labours too. In a system where capitalist monopoly has been abolished, it would be impossible to derive profit from capital. Labour is a component, but hardly the underlying mechanism by which profits are made under lending, stocks etc. Well, growth rates in all developed countries have levelled off, it is only in impoverished nations where growth rates are high. This is because an extended family is the poor man's insurance policy. Remove the conditions of scarcity and precarity, and populations will level off. Capitalism is the mentality of empire. The accumulation of wealth as a symbol of status, becomes the driving force of our economic system. Have you ever wondered why billionaires want to make more money? Why kings feel the need to conquer the world? It is simply unbridled egoism gone mad. So we have a system whose dominant economic driving force is the consolidation of wealth for invidious means. All the conspicuous consumption, the wastefulness and flamboyance are simply means of asserting social standing. Remove the system where the bigger your sandcastle is, the 'better' you are, and you remove the driving force behind the creation of giant piles of pyramid shaped rocks in the desert, or whale penis-skin luxury car seats, along with all the entailed misery and toil by the many for the vanity of a few. Not all systems of anarchistic socialism remove this driving force, but they do put fearsome barriers in its way. Of course organisation's should grow as appropriate. The problem is growth for the sake of Darwinian survival. Voluntary associations can be made as appropriate, without the need for a system of hierarchical organizations in which those at the bottom are motivated to join by coercive pressure rather than self interest. Well communism say would do away with competition, but must be voluntarily agreed too by all participants. Many of the other forms of socialism, such as individualism/mutualism which seek to make competition universal, have reduced forms of competition, but still have the undesirable elements of competition, which is seen by many communists as unfortunate, but still something which must be tolerated in the name of freedom. The true worth of objects is currently unknowable. The price currently is known, but is this the true worth? Too many market distortions are present to ever know. Economic mobility is not perfect. See stats on social mobility to see ownership of capital is a huge indicator of financial success, our system is called capitalism for a reason, not meritocratism. I agree that monopoly is granted by government. I just disagree on what government is. All forms of hierarchical systems are able to change character. Latifundia became feudal holdings, then fortified villages then small nations. Businesses became company towns with all the traits of the state. Soviet and Maoist bureaucracy reverted to capitalistic branches to fill the vacuum. If people have the ability to violate the rights of others for their own gain, they usually will. Capitalist companies are always the same, they always have an owner or group of owners who derive profit off the leverage of capital. If I go into the nearest town and look for jobs, it will always be the same, a position where I must work for the boss. His position is secured. Because he owns the capital, he sets the price for himself and of his workers. I can reject a particularly insulting offer, but the class monopoly is sufficient established that the large majority must work FOR a boss. Examples of worker self management being as or more efficient are the Spanish Revolution, in which productivity increased in many regions after collectivization despite the war. General Electrics "pilot program" of 1968-72, in which workers were left to operate the floor as a method of job enrichment after the unpopular integration of numerical control machinery. Resulting in increased job satisfaction, increased productivity, more efficient machine utilization and lower manufacturing losses. It was eventually scrapped by management because the union was trying to get it adopted in other branches. Plenty other examples I could dig up.

Essentially, what I am saying counts as just income is income derived from labour, in all its forms, and not from monopoly and coercion. I agree with many of your points except: 5. Too vague. I think people ought to own that which they make, with the exception of that they make with base materials destined for others. For example, mixing your labour with all the land, using up the land to make products which you claim as your, while in so doing depriving others of the potential to own that land. (Lockean proviso) 7. As long as it doesn't violate any other rights. 11. I think you mean a right to derive interest? I disagree with this. The classic exchange is one in which equal value objects are swapped to maximize subjective/use values, interest bearing exchanges can only come about through coercion. It requires finding of someone of lesser means in order to exploit their situation. I think this is illegitimate on moral grounds. 12. Does not require profit above labour cost, but rather additional labour inputs. Capitalist accumulation rests on usury and it's end goal is further usury. Usury is based on coercion and not labour. I regard this as morally illegitimate. 13. Capitalist competition creates the conditions where businesses must grow or die. Disagree that companies should have the right to make profits, or to expand on labour (without labours coercionless consent). I don't have a problem with remuneration for managerial roles, they should be paid for their labour just like any other. What I take issue with is payment derived from coercive monopoly, and not of real market value. The problem is that management has been made inseparable from capitalist monopoly. The justification given is that capitalists provide a needed service, one which benefits society, and as such they should be paid in full for this gain. But prices for capitalists cannot be bought and sold among workers, so as to have them fall to the true market worth of the labour, to cost. The capitalist class has gained such a favourable bargaining position by virtue of the monopoly of capital that competition among workers and capital is severely reduced. Capitalists may compete with capitalists, workers with workers, but with few exceptions, economic mobility is sufficiently stagnant as to remove competition between classes. So we see a class of privileged usurers who derive most of their income from monopoly privilege, and another class who by their precarity surrender the overwhelming percentage of the product of their labour. As a side note, worker run enterprises have been as efficient, if not more so than those with extended managerial hierarchies. Which begs the question, would workers even want managers if they weren't forced on them by the necessity of capitalistic hierarchical control?

I agree with you. Free markets are impossible. Freer markets are possible though. Look at it like a spectrum, less free, more distortions. This is why we must reject those claims made by free marketers which rest on the assumptions of perfect markets. We must acknowledge that all market equilibriums must be somewhat distorted, that unjust profit can be derived from this, and that proactive steps must be taken to remedy these injustices. I am not a market advocate, I am above all an anarcho-communist. I simply believe under certain contexts and situations, markets may be the best choice.