An argument against capitalism

[cab21]

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.

 

 

without government licenses, there would be no restrictions on who could become educated in engineering. supply and demand will determine which engineers get work, or become chosen authority.

 

being able to get the education, or employment, will not mean that everyone will want to pursue such education, nor that those that do get the education will be guaranteed to be hired to use their engineering education.

 

the doctor has employees, who he did not compel to become his employees, just like the doctor does not compel you to become a client. any authority the doctor has as a employer is given voluntarily to the doctor by the employees and customers.

 

capitalism has private property, which allows people to choose voluntarily whose authority to embrace. if everything is public property wouldn't everyone have to embrace what the public embraces by vote, or how does that work?

[Mister Mister]

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.

 

What do you mean "monopolistic control"?  Do factory owners use force to prevent other people from building factories?  Scarcity Rent?  But scarcity is a fact of reality, right?  What am I missing?  What do you mean by "abolition of monopoly"?  Would you initiate force against a factory owner?  I still maintain, that Marxists are just exhibiting the Dunning-Kruger effect.  Owning a business is a specialized skill, just like being a doctor or engineer, and profit (in a free market) is reflective of these skills, just like a wage.  Marxists talk about this stuff as if it is as simple as "Step 1 - own capital.  Step 2 - profit", but this ignores the fact that many business ventures fail, one company is on top one year, and falls the next.  I work part-time for a small business that has a great deal of debt.  I am perfectly happy collecting a wage, and one day will walk away and move on.  The business owner on the other hand, has to live with that debt.  So ownership is a two-way street.

 

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.

 

Hey that's really annoying and insulting, given how he has continuously behaved.  When someone says something like "And the spoiled conceited enemies of our democracy want to impose Snob Rule instead.  Sex-on-demand with their employees is an example of their economic elitism", yes I will call them a troll.  It's not because I'm stupid and can't understand their rehashed Marxist arguments, it's because his communication skills are shitty and unnecessarily hostile.  I've always shown you respect and consideration despite our disagreements, and it bothers me that you wouldn't reciprocate.

[LibertarianSocialist]

You need to define your terms. You said a lot of things that could be classified as rhetoric since this is little or seemingly ambiguous or contradictory frames of reference.

 

Profit is getting more out of something than you put into it and it is underlying in our every thought, decision, and behavior. For example, you created this post because you expected to get more out of it than you put into it. Does this mean you have monopolistic control over the means of production and distribution of thought and ideas?

 

Monopolistic control over the means of production and distribution describes socialism. Here you speak ill of it, yet one can't help but notice it is a label you've self-applied (self-contradictory in its entirety aside).

 

 

First of all, what somebody "should" be paid cannot be identified. That said, you described capitalism here while sounding as if you thought you were talking about the opposite of capitalism. Perhaps you've mistaken coercion for a free market? Mistaken State privilege for capitalism?

 

 

So dumb it down for us. Explain it to us like we're 5 years old. If you can't, then perhaps the idea is clouded with narrative or you yourself don't understand it.

 

 

No rational individual would conclude that something IMPOSED is the opposite of consent. You just made this claim up. Also, the employee/employer relationship is voluntary. Such hierarchy is for efficiency's sake, and is voluntary (since voluntary is more efficient).

 

In closing, you need to stop using the word argument until you've made one. It's clear to me that you're speaking from unprocessed trauma in the past. Going just by your posts right here, all I see is emotionally-driven assertions. It sounds as if your issue is with aggression and rightly so. However, this is not in opposition of self-ownership, property rights, and therefore capitalism.

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.

[LibertarianSocialist]

without government licenses, there would be no restrictions on who could become educated in engineering. supply and demand will determine which engineers get work, or become chosen authority.

 

being able to get the education, or employment, will not mean that everyone will want to pursue such education, nor that those that do get the education will be guaranteed to be hired to use their engineering education.

 

the doctor has employees, who he did not compel to become his employees, just like the doctor does not compel you to become a client. any authority the doctor has as a employer is given voluntarily to the doctor by the employees and customers.

 

capitalism has private property, which allows people to choose voluntarily whose authority to embrace. if everything is public property wouldn't everyone have to embrace what the public embraces by vote, or how does that work?

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.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Investment Is Static, Work Is Dynamic

 

Now you're confusing the owner with the producer.  The investment has no value without the worker; all the investor really owns is an empty factory. So the investor cannot claim control over the distribution of the revenue unless he is the only employee.  All a baseball clubowner owns is a park and the profit he would make from people who wanted to watch the grass grow.

 

Capitalists take advantage of the fact that they are necessary.  Slavish minds are not allowed to develop the concept of "necessary but not valuable."  For example, an ignition key is absolutely necessary but only worth about $5 for a car worth over $25,000.

.  "Under capitalism, those who produce things are using the tools owned by other people"  Again, you're just repeating Marx's ideas with no reference to the arguments against them.

Karl Marx Was the Trophy Husband of a Patty Hearst Type Duchess

 

Marxism is nothing but monopoly Capitalism, run by an absentee political elite whose character is no different from the Born to Rule attitude of the Capitalist elite.

The "Rule of Law" Is Only the Law of the Rulers

 

What if I paid for it with the profits I produced for the owner?  You're assuming that because he claims that the profit was all his and his class has bought the laws that enforce that contract, I can't claim part ownership.  The only reason I have to submit to his will and his definition of what belongs to him is that we live under a Man Against Millionaire situation.  In other words, coercion under duress.

Investment and work are both dynamic. The investors are workers too. That false distinction is socialist propaganda. By your same standard the "worker" has no value without the investor either. The investor/ capitalist significantly increases the "workers" value. 

If all a baseball club owner has is a park then why don't you and your buddies go buy a park and you can have your own baseball league that millions will follow and pay for? Maybe it's because it's more than just owning a park and maybe you don't know what you're talking about.

 

Everyone takes advantage of the fact that they are necessary. Customer, employer and employee. That's how a profitable exchange works. Are you saying the entire society except for you has a slavish mind who just think capitalists are way more valuable than they are? That's clearly not true as capitalists are largely frowned upon and often despised usually because of of socialist propagandists. Just take your claim that capitalists contribution is analogous to a $5 dollar ignition key in a $25000 car; if that's true then why don't capitalists just outbid each other? One capitalist in a given field could just cut their prices in half and steal everyone else's business. What you're asserting is incredibly implausible. It would have to involve a generations long conspiracy among capitalists to artificially maintain their value. Under capitalism businesses have no coercive monopoly so it's just a socialist crackpot theory. What's worse is that you presume to know what the objective value of the capitalist should be but that's nonsense too as all value is subjective. 

 

Your issue with "man agianst millionaire" and paying for laws, etc is with government. Anarcho-capitalism has no government so go argue with statists on that point.

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.

If you believe all this nonsense then fine. Don't be a capitalist then Why are you on an anarcho-capitalist site debating this? Under an-cap you can just go be a socialist. As long as you're not initiating force we don't give a shit. 

[Will Torbald]

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.

Here lies the entire root of the socialist idea. That value is created through labor, also known as the labor theory of value. In order to convince anyone into socialism or Marxism or any other similar ism one must first swallow the dry apple core of the magic known as labor equals value.

 

If I took a lump of clay and shaped it and molded it for three days straight it and added labor on it the whole time it would still be a worthless lump of clay. A worker who takes two days to make a vase will earn as much as a worker who took two hours to make a vase of equal quality because the value is not in the labor, but in the demand for a product.

[bugzysegal]

Here lies the entire root of the socialist idea. That value is created through labor, also known as the labor theory of value. In order to convince anyone into socialism or Marxism or any other similar ism one must first swallow the dry apple core of the magic known as labor equals value.

 

If I took a lump of clay and shaped it and molded it for three days straight it and added labor on it the whole time it would still be a worthless lump of clay. A worker who takes two days to make a vase will earn as much as a worker who took two hours to make a vase of equal quality because the value is not in the labor, but in the demand for a product.

Accurate. Nearly all values doesn't hold up as universally preferable. Even if you granted, for the sake of argument, that labor was inherently valuable(which is way to much to grant) democracy is actually incapable of aggregating preferences. Arrow's impossibility theorem states that no vote count for more than 2 options can satisfy these criteria:

• If every voter prefers alternative X over alternative Y, then the group prefers X over Y.
• If every voter's preference between X and Y remains unchanged, then the group's preference between X and Y will also remain unchanged (even if voters' preferences between other pairs like X and Z, Y and Z, or Z and W change).
• There is no "dictator": no single voter possesses the power to always determine the group's preference.

 

If I want to preserve anything that looks like the general preference, welfare, or good through voting, I have to devise a way around this.  The short answer is that no such path exists and that this theorem has only been further solidified since its inception.

[dsayers]

6. Who told you about my unprocessed trauma?

You did. You said "wasting your time HERE" and "I have tried." These denote that there is a frame of reference one is expected to know despite you not providing it--that you are speaking from the past. I wasn't even talking about childhood trauma. Though that too is evident in the fact that you demonstrate hostility towards people. And that you're so emotionally charged, you haven't put forth a coherent thought yet. You mention some post a month ago, but I wasn't active a month ago. But you're having THAT conversation instead of this one.

 

The just exchange has always been that of individuals trading commodities WITHOUT profit.

I see you're refusing to define your terms. I've already informed you that profit means getting more out of something than you put into it. We don't have to agree on that, but unless you tell me what you mean by it, you know this is how it will be received. If two people exchange things where they are free not to, they are telling you with their actions that they get more out of it than they put into it. "Just" only enters into it if both people are free to abstain and engage anyways. You speak as if value is objective and therefore can be measured by 3rd parties which isn't the case.

 

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).

Forming a monopoly to cure a monopoly? Society is a concept and cannot benefit. It describes an aggregate of individuals, who can benefit, but do not benefit equally since value is subjective. Therefore, I reject the claim that pretending humans can exist in different, opposing moral categories benefits everybody equally. See how helpful defining terms can be?

 

For example, I pointed out that you've confused coercion for free market and that you're using your capital to make these assertions. You haven't addressed these. Which goes back to how I knew you're having a conversation from the past. In a moment, I identified that your issue isn't with capital since you make use of your capital to claim such a thing is abominable, but rather with the initiation of the use of force. Yet rather than exploring that, you're simply repeating yourself. Which is tragic because if your issue is with the initiation of the use of force, this is a reasonable conclusion and you would find yourself in good company here, or with any rational thinker.

 

Even if you granted, for the sake of argument, that labor was inherently valuable(which is way to much to grant)

Ignoring that "inherently valuable" (objectively subjective) is a contradiction in terms, if it's voluntary labor, it IS valuable. The person engaging in the labor rather than not tells you this. Even if that labor is in molding a lump of clay into something OTHERS don't find value in, the investor or the labor still profits by learning A) there's no demand for such a thing and B) market research may have been a better investment of his labor.

 

I don't know why these conversations always try to dispense with freedom to choose and the fact that if behaviors aren't binding upon others without their consent, it's none of our business what, how, or why other people choose to trade.

[cab21]

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.

 

 people offer free education currently, let alone under free market capitalism what educational resources would be there for people.

 

the people that inherit money have to be good at making money if they want to keep and grow that wealth.

 

there is far more opportunity out there of land that is not even being used right now,

 

you sell your labour for what you think it's worth. if there are not any offers, go out and start your own business with the ample amount of resources not being used today.

 

part of education is how people network, do people try and gain skills and develup relationships with others, to further enhance trade. or do they just sit around feeling entitled to money for nothing.

 

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.

 

employees think they gain a advantage by working for a employer over working for themselves.

 

there is no way to get everyone at the same bargaining power. any attempt would basically be state coercion.

 

workers gain property through working, so anyone can become a property owner, just by working. there are ample amounts of coops out there offering coop ownership of real estate, a worker can gain capital and then join one of these easy.

 

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.

 

there is plenty of real estate not owned by anyone. absentee ownership is only a small fraction of the total real estate available for people to work on. owning property absentee does not hurt anyone or cause any injury because there is a ample amount of alternatives. people can simply go out and homestead land, buy land, coop for land, rent land, and all sorts of ways to get ownership of property without making enemies out of absentee ownership.

[The Sage of Main Street]

You didn't address anything I put.

 

I acknowledge that a person with lets say, capital, years of business experience and a law/accounting degree has more options than a person who can barely read. But to say he has "power" as in, he can force the person who can read to do things, is false. The socialists like you, want to give the illiterate power over society through the state, whereas we just want people to make their own decisions, based on their own wants/needs. (With of course the non-aggression principle being followed)

 

I think you're just trolling at this point, perhaps you should go to reddit and r/Feel the Burn.

 

Nice talking to you.

The plutocrats' "choices" are "My way or the highway," which means their way is the low way.  It is unrealistic to claim that private sector power is any better than the government's coercion.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

The plutocrats' "choices" are "My way or the highway," which means their way is the low way.  It is unrealistic to claim that private sector power is any better than the government's coercion.

Capitalists in a free society aren't plutocrats. Plutocrats wield power through government. There is no "private sector" in an anarchy. There's just private. "Better" is a subjective term but by any reasonable definition I've ever heard it's obviously vastly better if people do not have coercive power over you. 

Capitalism bring way more choices than other system. It's things like socialism that create "my way or the highway" scenarios as the collective claims to own everything. 

[dsayers]

the people that inherit money have to be good at making money if they want to keep and grow that wealth.

This is a great point. If a person who inherits stored value chooses to use that value to run a business, if they do it well, where the initial value came from is irrelevant. If instead, they run the business into the ground, that value is lost, again making its origin inconsequential.

 

It is unrealistic to claim that private sector power is any better than the government's coercion.

Define private sector power. In the real world, where people do not exist in different, opposing moral categories, there is no such thing as "power over others" as you imply with your claim of it being akin to coercion.

[Romulox]

The plutocrats' "choices" are "My way or the highway," which means their way is the low way.  It is unrealistic to claim that private sector power is any better than the government's coercion.

 

Assuming you are correct and this is actually the case in the private sector, at least the highway is still a choice.  The choices given to me by the state are "My way or a bullet to the head".  Can you please elaborate on what is unrealistic about preferring unemployment to death or imprisonment?

 

Don't forget that the worker also has the option of proposing "my way or the highway" to the employer to bargain for better working conditions or increased pay.  In my experience, people seem to discount their value to their employer, and don't seem to consider the fact that it could take the employer years to replace the on the job experience, and accumulated knowledge that would be lost upon firing them.

[LibertarianSocialist]

Here lies the entire root of the socialist idea. That value is created through labor, also known as the labor theory of value. In order to convince anyone into socialism or Marxism or any other similar ism one must first swallow the dry apple core of the magic known as labor equals value.

If I took a lump of clay and shaped it and molded it for three days straight it and added labor on it the whole time it would still be a worthless lump of clay. A worker who takes two days to make a vase will earn as much as a worker who took two hours to make a vase of equal quality because the value is not in the labor, but in the demand for a product.

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.).

[LibertarianSocialist]

What do you mean "monopolistic control"?  Do factory owners use force to prevent other people from building factories?  Scarcity Rent?  But scarcity is a fact of reality, right?  What am I missing?  What do you mean by "abolition of monopoly"?  Would you initiate force against a factory owner?  I still maintain, that Marxists are just exhibiting the Dunning-Kruger effect.  Owning a business is a specialized skill, just like being a doctor or engineer, and profit (in a free market) is reflective of these skills, just like a wage.  Marxists talk about this stuff as if it is as simple as "Step 1 - own capital.  Step 2 - profit", but this ignores the fact that many business ventures fail, one company is on top one year, and falls the next.  I work part-time for a small business that has a great deal of debt.  I am perfectly happy collecting a wage, and one day will walk away and move on.  The business owner on the other hand, has to live with that debt.  So ownership is a two-way street.

 

 

 

Hey that's really annoying and insulting, given how he has continuously behaved.  When someone says something like "And the spoiled conceited enemies of our democracy want to impose Snob Rule instead.  Sex-on-demand with their employees is an example of their economic elitism", yes I will call them a troll.  It's not because I'm stupid and can't understand their rehashed Marxist arguments, it's because his communication skills are shitty and unnecessarily hostile.  I've always shown you respect and consideration despite our disagreements, and it bothers me that you wouldn't reciprocate.

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.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

That lump of clay would still have a market price reflecting the embodied labour. (unless labour was undervalued). 

The worthless lump of clay would not have a market price reflecting the embodied labor. There is no value embodied in any commodities. This is a Marxist superstition. Value is 100 percent subjective. The value of anything can change on a whim and vary from person to person. There is nothing embodied in the commodity itself. 

[dsayers]

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.

If the initiation of the use of force is used: First of all, it's not free trade (capitalism). Secondly, why would you point to those making use of State power (symptom) instead of those who actually make and backup the threats in the name of the State (problem)? I suspect it is because YOU need that State power to implement YOUR preferred method of HOW to use that violence. Based on what I've seen, this would be socialism.

 

It took some digging, but I think I've identified where you're coming from. I'm thankful. Both that you showed just enough of your hand for me to figure this out, and for the lesson that this is probably the reason behind EVERY pro-violence person pointing at the symptom (what they call capitalism even though it isn't) instead of the problem. In other words, I'm thankful that you've given me a tool to have these sort of discussions a little more efficiently in the future. You helped me to profit

[cab21]

there is no such thing as a general opportunity to earn X amount per hour.

what guarantee is there that you could be paid that much at any occupation?

other people might get X or more, but there is no guarentee that any one person will get X from doing any occupation.

[bugzysegal]

No one cares about the mathematical dissolution of democracy 

[dsayers]

No one cares about the mathematical dissolution of democracy 

Wrong thread? The topic is about free trade. Democracy is a method for distributing violence. The two are incompatible.

[bugzysegal]

Wrong thread? The topic is about free trade. Democracy is a method for distributing violence. The two are incompatible.

Oh I thought the article was about workplace "Democracy" Ill give it closer attention. BTW my response doesn't support it.  Even if you believe that aggregating preferences results in something useful, Kenneth Arrow mathematically proved that such an endeavor is unfair. My bad.

[34jake]

He takes a really long time to get to the point, but ultimately gets to it - wage labor is a form of slavery.  The "workers" are really the one's responsible for the products, and the difference between their wages and the profit from the products is somehow stolen through the arbitrary owners of capital.  This is just rehashed Marxism, and necessarily ignores all of the arguments against Marxism - specifically that the labor theory of value is invalid.  It's really an effect of the Dunning-Kroger effect, people with no understanding of business and economics don't understand the great deal of skill involved in capital investment, management, and so on...so they assume the large salaries of these people are unearned.  A free market system actually allows for a Democratically run Corporation, but you don't see this model because it is dysfunctional.  Management and effective business decisions are real, specialized skills, and if you just have factory workers and janitors vote on these decisions, it is not likely to work out well.  Also, ownership entails responsibility - ownership of debt, liability for damages, responsibility to the consumers, and so on.  Many people would prefer a paycheck to these responsibilities.  I have heard some Socialists argue that the Spanish Company Mondragon is an example, but I don't know a lot about it.

 

The last thing I would say is, any "critique of capitalism" that fails to acknowledge the massive interventions in property rights and free trade that is rampant in every modern Western democracy, is fundamentally ignorant or dishonest.  Govt spending in the US is nearly 40% of GDP, Debt exceeds GDP in this and many other countries, Taxation is nearly half of many peoples' incomes, Central Banks constantly interfere with the market, and every business has thousands of pages of regulations to overcome.  But the real slavery, they tell you, is selling your labor for a wage, when you can renegotiate or leave at any time.  Gimme a break.

This.

[Torero]

An argument against capitalism is an 'argument' against nature itself. Senseless.

 

Capitalism, the free market, is the essence of our biological nature. It is observable all around in nature; when there's a niche, a species (or more) will fill it. There's competition, there's mutually beneficial business (symbiosis of lifeforms).

 

Anti-capitalists are thus anti-nature. They think that some humans should have control over other humans and "arrange" markets.

 

That's like calling a well-maintained park "nature" and looking for 'arguments' against plants and bugs wandering freely through that park. Makes no sense at all.

[Alan C.]

...the difference between their wages and the profit from the products is somehow stolen through the arbitrary owners of capital.  This is just rehashed Marxism...

 

The idea that 'workers' are being exploited because they're being deprived of the 'full value' of their labor (with the difference being siphoned away by a parasitic capitalist) is the type of superficial observation that a child would make. It disregards context entirely, as well as the intricacies involved in vastly complex processes that form entirely undirected through free exchange and prices.

 

This search for a scapegoat is an attitude of people living under the social order which treats everybody according to his contribution to the well-being of his fellowmen and where thus everybody is the founder of his own fortune. In such a society each member whose ambitions have not been fully satisfied re­sents the fortune of all those who succeeded better. The fool re­leases these feelings in slander and defamation. The more so­phisticated do not indulge in personal calumny. They sublimate their hatred into a philosophy, the philosophy of anti-capitalism, in order to render inaudible the inner voice that tells them that their failure is entirely their own fault. Their fanaticism in de­fending their critique of capitalism is precisely due to the fact that they are fighting their own awareness of its falsity. The suffering from frustrated ambition is peculiar to people living in a society of equality under the law. It is not caused by equality under the law, but by the fact that in a society of equal­ity under the law the inequality of men with regard to intellectual abilities, will power and application becomes visible. The gulf between what a man is and achieves and what he thinks of his own abilities and achievements is pitilessly revealed. Day­dreams of a “fair” world which would treat him according to his "real worth" are the refuge of all those plagued by a lack of self-knowledge. - Ludwig von Mises, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality

[Mister Mister]

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.

I think you've contradicted yourself.  The price is not reflective of the labor, the price is a function of supply and demand.  And to your other point, buyers DO have the ability to set prices, if nothing else, by not buying something they don't think is worth what is priced.

 

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.

No that is not the function of the State.  The State is a monopoly on violence, its function is whatever who happens to wield that violence wants it to be, mainly to redistribute resources from one group to another.  Yes, the general population is robbed to give subsidies and special privileges to Goldmann Sachs, but the average upper-middle class family also has half their income stolen to subsidize a woman who foolishly had 3 kids by 3 different irresponsible men.  So describing the State as only protecting the privileged class is wrong.  Homesteading/property rights creates artificial scarcity?  Well sure, in the sense that property owners don't necessarily want to use all their resources at once.  That's like saying a woman who doesn't sleep around is creating artificial scarcity of vaginas.

 

I don't know what you mean about bargaining position.  Why would a company hire a CEO at all and pay them millions, if their performance means so little to the company?  What kind of worker self-managed companies?  If that's the case, then great.  I don't even know what you're arguing.  I won't initiate force against your "worker" managed companies, and I expect you won't initiate force against "managerial hierarchies".  So then we're not even talking moral or economic philosophy, just business decisions.

[The Sage of Main Street]

Investment and work are both dynamic. The investors are workers too. That false distinction is socialist propaganda. By your same standard the "worker" has no value without the investor either. The investor/ capitalist significantly increases the "workers" value. 

If all a baseball club owner has is a park then why don't you and your buddies go buy a park and you can have your own baseball league that millions will follow and pay for? Maybe it's because it's more than just owning a park and maybe you don't know what you're talking about.

 

Everyone takes advantage of the fact that they are necessary. Customer, employer and employee. That's how a profitable exchange works. Are you saying the entire society except for you has a slavish mind who just think capitalists are way more valuable than they are? That's clearly not true as capitalists are largely frowned upon and often despised usually because of of socialist propagandists. Just take your claim that capitalists contribution is analogous to a $5 dollar ignition key in a $25000 car; if that's true then why don't capitalists just outbid each other? One capitalist in a given field could just cut their prices in half and steal everyone else's business. What you're asserting is incredibly implausible. It would have to involve a generations long conspiracy among capitalists to artificially maintain their value. Under capitalism businesses have no coercive monopoly so it's just a socialist crackpot theory. What's worse is that you presume to know what the objective value of the capitalist should be but that's nonsense too as all value is subjective. 

 

Your issue with "man agianst millionaire" and paying for laws, etc is with government. Anarcho-capitalism has no government so go argue with statists on that point.

If you believe all this nonsense then fine. Don't be a capitalist then Why are you on an anarcho-capitalist site debating this? Under an-cap you can just go be a socialist. As long as you're not initiating force we don't give a shit. 

Prometheus Shrugged

 

 

Steve Jobs didn't create any of the products he made his billions off, yet the public acts like he did.  So your opportunistic paranoia supposing that the public is brainwashed against the plutocrats has no relation to the real world.  Out here in Lemmingland, it is just the opposite or people would generally consider Jobs to have been a parasite.

 

 That's what I feel about him and about Investor Supremacy.  But from childhood on, the meek geeks who invented Apple's products were lamed and tamed into becoming Cash Cows for Corporate Cowboys.  Corporate patents are the greatest larceny in history and will eventually demoralize inventors.  The inventor, Prometheus, is the real motor of the world; Atlas is just a mindless hulk bully who ruled over a primitive jungle where mankind would have soon gone extinct.  The Capitalist hero, worshipped even by Americans out of the loop, is a King Ape. 

An argument against capitalism is an 'argument' against nature itself. Senseless.

 

Capitalism, the free market, is the essence of our biological nature. It is observable all around in nature; when there's a niche, a species (or more) will fill it. There's competition, there's mutually beneficial business (symbiosis of lifeforms).

 

Anti-capitalists are thus anti-nature. They think that some humans should have control over other humans and "arrange" markets.

 

That's like calling a well-maintained park "nature" and looking for 'arguments' against plants and bugs wandering freely through that park. Makes no sense at all.

If Your in That Loop, Prometheans Should Make It a Noose

 

 

To people who don't echo your soliloquy, you sound as fanatically pushy as a Stalinist professor in Russia in the heyday of that Cult of Personality.  Or as a Catholic Grand Inquisitor.  So history has seen your kind before.  But here's the good news for you:  they often make it into the ruling circles.  

[Alan C.]

Steve Wozniak built the first Apple, but that's the wrong question to ask.

 

Where did the parts come from? Where did the tools come from? How was he fed, clothed, and sheltered? Did he grow his own food, make his own clothes, and build his own house? How were all of those things massed produced and delivered to various locations within his reach?

 

'Capital' is not the result of greed and avarice, nor the result of deprivation or expropriation; it's the result of production and savings. If a person builds a house and keeps others out, he isn't responsible for homelessness. Capital, known as 'capital goods' or 'higher order goods,' makes possibe the mass production of consumer goods, or lower order goods.

[Mister Mister]

Prometheus Shrugged

 

 

Steve Jobs didn't create any of the products he made his billions off, yet the public acts like he did.  So your opportunistic paranoia supposing that the public is brainwashed against the plutocrats has no relation to the real world.  Out here in Lemmingland, it is just the opposite or people would generally consider Jobs to have been a parasite.

 

 That's what I feel about him and about Investor Supremacy.  But from childhood on, the meek geeks who invented Apple's products were lamed and tamed into becoming Cash Cows for Corporate Cowboys.  Corporate patents are the greatest larceny in history and will eventually demoralize inventors.  The inventor, Prometheus, is the real motor of the world; Atlas is just a mindless hulk bully who ruled over a primitive jungle where mankind would have soon gone extinct.  The Capitalist hero, worshipped even by Americans out of the loop, is a King Ape. 

If Your in That Loop, Prometheans Should Make It a Noose

 

 

To people who don't echo your soliloquy, you sound as fanatically pushy as a Stalinist professor in Russia in the heyday of that Cult of Personality.  Or as a Catholic Grand Inquisitor.  So history has seen your kind before.  But here's the good news for you:  they often make it into the ruling circles.  

 

Again, I have to repeat, this kind of communication is not constructive to any kind of dialogue, and doesn't deserve any real consideration on a philosophy forum.  Some of it would make good rock lyrics though.

[Guest Gee]

Conductors do not play an instrument and so are plundering the rightful fruits of the orchestra musicians!

 

They do not produce a single note yet their ill gotten gain is greater any noble musician in woodwind, brass, percussion and string!

 

Comrades! We must band together and create a new system free from the exploitation of these neo-bourgeoisie-capitalist music Nazis!

 

etc... etc...

 

In all seriousness, LibertarianSocialist, are you Peter Joseph?

[Torero]

If Your in That Loop, Prometheans Should Make It a Noose

 

 

To people who don't echo your soliloquy, you sound as fanatically pushy as a Stalinist professor in Russia in the heyday of that Cult of Personality.  Or as a Catholic Grand Inquisitor.  So history has seen your kind before.  But here's the good news for you:  they often make it into the ruling circles.  

 

Whut?

 

I do not read any argument. Yet a set of personal attacks and the claim that "I sound pushy". How I sound is only up to you. I am not responsible for the sound you hear.

 

I have no interest at all to "make it to [like it's some kind of achievement] the ruling circles".

 

Can you at least try to formulate 1 argument or is that too much to ask?

[LibertarianSocialist]

If the initiation of the use of force is used: First of all, it's not free trade (capitalism). Secondly, why would you point to those making use of State power (symptom) instead of those who actually make and backup the threats in the name of the State (problem)? I suspect it is because YOU need that State power to implement YOUR preferred method of HOW to use that violence. Based on what I've seen, this would be socialism.

 

It took some digging, but I think I've identified where you're coming from. I'm thankful. Both that you showed just enough of your hand for me to figure this out, and for the lesson that this is probably the reason behind EVERY pro-violence person pointing at the symptom (what they call capitalism even though it isn't) instead of the problem. In other words, I'm thankful that you've given me a tool to have these sort of discussions a little more efficiently in the future. You helped me to profit

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.

[Torero]

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.

 

I don't know who said that, but that is exactly the point of the crony-casino-"capitalism" we are living in today.

 

Every business is run on both success (hopefully) AND failure.

 

And that's where the crony capitalists screwed the free market; it is now only gain (profit, success) and the losses/risks/negative outcomes are passed to others (via taxation, bailouts, regulations or any other kind).

 

If you're against those creepy crony crooks, then one should embrace a world where these tricks do not work (anymore). They are not pawns, yet they thrive only because someone else (you and me) have their backs if it goes wrong.

 

That honest world can only be achieved with a free market. Where a business has success but also failure. Just like that some life forms did not make it until today (and not because of mass extinctions), yet died out like an unsuccessful business.

[LibertarianSocialist]

Steve Wozniak built the first Apple, but that's the wrong question to ask.

 

Where did the parts come from? Where did the tools come from? How was he fed, clothed, and sheltered? Did he grow his own food, make his own clothes, and build his own house? How were all of those things massed produced and delivered to various locations within his reach?

 

'Capital' is not the result of greed and avarice, nor the result of deprivation or expropriation; it's the result of production and savings. If a person builds a house and keeps others out, he isn't responsible for homelessness. Capital, known as 'capital goods' or 'higher order goods,' makes possibe the mass production of consumer goods, or lower order goods.

The question is not whether capital deserves pay, it is a question of how much. That amount is the full amount of its contribution.

Again, I have to repeat, this kind of communication is not constructive to any kind of dialogue, and doesn't deserve any real consideration on a philosophy forum. Some of it would make good rock lyrics though.

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?

[dsayers]

I really didn't want to make the whole capitalism does not necessarily entail free trade argument EVERY post.

It is a claim, not an argument. I don't want to point out that your body, time, and effort is your capital every post. Maybe you could address the performative contradiction of rejecting something that the very act of rejection demonstrates that you accept? We're just talking past each other because I accept reality as the method by which to resolve conflict while you accept your bigotry as the method by which to resolve conflict. We might as well be speaking German and French when the other doesn't understand it.

 

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.

I never said unwilling pawns. I pointed out that there is a chain of causality that you are intentionally dispensing with in order to make your bigotry fit. You're pointing State-aggression backed, State-created-fiction corporations and saying that it's representative of a free market. In other words, you're starving and beating a pitbull, then pointing at it and saying "look, dogs are naturally feral!"

 

Maybe YOU could qualify your support of violence by referring to it as crony Capitalism or any of the other words that indicates that it's not capitalism, but masquerades as such. I've already identified that you're being intentionally deceptive and why.

 

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.

It "makes sense" to define your terms instead of dancing around the challenge time and time again. You won't because the moment you reference violence, you reveal that violence is the issue, not what profit actually is. This would usurp violence as a valid means of achieving goals and then you wouldn't be able to use that violence to force everybody else to provide value for you without having to earn it.

[cab21]

The question is not whether capital deserves pay, it is a question of how much. That amount is the full amount of its contribution

 

supply and demand is how to determine contribution, just as supply and demand is how to determine price.

there is no magic number of contribution for prices, capital, labor. the pay for each is determined through supply and demand.