What's with this current obsession with the Federal Reserve?

[GPDP]

I hear a lot about it from "libertarians" (mostly Austrian types) and even some leftists (mainly from the Zeitgeist movement). It's like the biggest subject of their ire. Where we rail against the ruling class and imperialism, they rail against... one country's banking institution.

What is it about the FR that makes them paint it as the single biggest instigator of all that is currently wrong with the world? I mean, it just sounds so... detached. It's like, we have wars going on where millions die, and billions go without food every day, but no, who gives a shit about that? We have a fractional reserve banking system, and that's just downright terrible.

Am I just missing something here? Or have I just stumbled upon the ramblings of Americo-centric schmucks that care more about how the evil socialist guvment is stealing their moneys?

[GracchusBabeuf]

Oh noes!:scared: The evil socialist gubmint is stealing the capitalist's money which they got off the labor of others!:lol:

[Kassad]

Conspiracy movies like Zeitgeist made it a big issue, as well as the growing laissez-faire conservative movement rallied by people like Ron Paul, Bob Barr and other libertarians. Basically, the people who are going apeshit over the Federal Reserve (though they have many legitimate grievances, they are all for the wrong reasons) are a part of what I like to call 'the conspiracy culture.' Basically, these are the types that see a documentary and feel a sense of awakening and revolutionary fervor. They devote themselves to 'spreading the truth.' Then another documentary comes out and they change sides to that.

It was very apparent with Zeitgeist. The first Zeitgeist was promoting the destruction of the income tax, the Federal Reserve and claiming there was an international banking conspiracy in the United States. Again, a few legitimate grievances, but they totally miss the point. Anyway, the Zeitgeist types came out in support of Ron Paul and I distinctly recall the Zeitgeist website endorsing Paul at one point. Anyway, out comes Zeitgeist: Addendum. This film totally attacks the concept of money and leaps from the far-right to the utopian socialist left. The conspiracy culture followed suit.

It's just another issue that will likely fade out soon enough. Here's the kicker with the libertarians: they want to deregulate the market, right? Well, deregulation made it so the government lost control of the monetary system and the private Federal Reserve took control over it. Therefore, deregulation caused the Federal Reserve in the first place. Libertarians literally shit their pants trying to come up with a response to that.

[Havet]

I hear a lot about it from "libertarians" (mostly Austrian types) and even some leftists (mainly from the Zeitgeist movement). It's like the biggest subject of their ire. Where we rail against the ruling class and imperialism, they rail against... one country's banking institution.

What is it about the FR that makes them paint it as the single biggest instigator of all that is currently wrong with the world? I mean, it just sounds so... detached. It's like, we have wars going on where millions die, and billions go without food every day, but no, who gives a shit about that? We have a fractional reserve banking system, and that's just downright terrible.

Am I just missing something here? Or have I just stumbled upon the ramblings of Americo-centric schmucks that care more about how the evil socialist guvment is stealing their moneys?

Libertarians mention the Federal Reserve a lot because they think its whats made the foundations of the current economic crisis. The point out the fact that it is a quasi-private institution which holds the monopoly on printing money and is backed up by government force (which means, government makes all businesses pay in dollars and don't accept other alternative currencies made by other people like, for example, liberty dollars).

I can sum up all the info they rely on so you can take the conclusions for yourselves.

FACTS
-2000+: housing prices rose enormously
-Second quarter 2006: steep decline in prices
-Third quarter 2006: mortgage defaults shoot up
-mid 2007: financial system, which had heavily invested in securitized mortgages, began to collapse.
-Foreign economic systems, which had also bought many of these products began to experience unprecedented losses
-government bailouts, nationalizations, etc

can't post links yet, so look up graphs on the price evolution since 1980s to current days to see how it progressed

Mortgage Failures: Occurred in a strong economy and before housing prices have fallen signifficantly

foreclosures occured at same time and at the same pace in both prime and subprime markets.

Anyway, to what really matters:

Market Failure?

4 central causes of financial crisis (which have nothing to do with free market):
-Fiat money
-Low interest rates
-forced loans to high risk borrowers
-government loan guarantees

Fiat money: in 1971 us dollar was taken off the gold standard, which means the dollars isn't backed up by nothing except government saying so. you cannot redeem it by gold or silver like it was once, and is essentially a piece of paper.

Low interest rates:
high housing prices+ artificially low interest rates (by the Fed) = rampant speculation (25% of house purchases were for "flipping")

Forced loans: if you're a banker you are conservative to whom you lend money, because if that person doesn't pay back, your business WILL collapse. So why have these high risk lendings occured?

In 1934, after the great depression, government created the Federal Housing Administration, which guaranteed mortgages and thus eliminated the bank's risk for high risk lendings.

in 1938 Fannie Mae was created to purchase these mortgages

the in the 70s, you have the Community reinvestment act, which "is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining." This means they had to do business without taking into consideration of the geography, whether it was downtown, suburbs, etc

then you have the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, where they had to reveal private information to whom they were lending this, and then the government would score that information on CRA compliance.

and in 1991 you have government requiring banks to submit racial statistics and then accusing banks of prejudice in case (and im in no way trying to collectivize people here) they were discriminating against blacks whom they thought might not be able to pay back the lending.

Anyway, how did the government force the banks to go by these new regulations?
"Liability for punitive damages can be as much as $10 000 in individual actions and the lesser of $500 000 or 1% of the creditors network in class actions"

So banks are no longer allowed to use credit history, ratios of income to mortgage payments, and have to accept "credit counseling" as proof of financial ability, as well as unverified income statements. They also have to accept gifts, welfare and unemployment benefits, and other one-time for short term "incomes" as collateral.

Speculation

As prices kept low, defaults stay low, because no one defaults when he can sell the house at a profit.
But as i've already explained, as soon as prices decline, defaults rise, and interest rates begin to increase, as well as variable mortgage payments.

When demand is artificially stimulated, resource allocators get the wrong price signals, and then labor and capital are invested in those sectors of housing and building.

I think this is a more detailed way of explaining how this happened instead of just saying: GREED CAUSED THIS, because if that were the case, wouldn't we be in perpetual crisis?

[Havet]

Well let me first point out that you have a point on how easy people get into those Internet documentaries that show no concrete proof and are ingeniously made so as to convince many people that what they say its true. I personally only watched the first Zeitgeist, and i only mildly actually believed for a second 9/11 could have been an inside job. But after researching more about it, and watching other, more credible documentaries, i stopped believed it was an inside job.


It's just another issue that will likely fade out soon enough. Here's the kicker with the libertarians: they want to deregulate the market, right? Well, deregulation made it so the government lost control of the monetary system and the private Federal Reserve took control over it. Therefore, deregulation caused the Federal Reserve in the first place. Libertarians literally shit their pants trying to come up with a response to that.

I don't agree with that because:
-the government, initially, was never meant to have control over the monetary system
-when it indeed tried to take control, it was the government itself that created the Federal Reserve and made it so that it was the only institution that could work and exist under the conditions imposed: essentially, it was granted a state monopoly.

Actually, if you look at it, the Federal reserve isn't completely private lke the Zeitgeisters claim it is (as in fact it couldn't be). What it is is a corporativist organization.

"it is a quasi-public and quasi-private (government entity with private components) banking system that comprises (1) the presidentially appointed Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.; (2) the Federal Open Market Committee; (3) twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation acting as fiscal agents for the U.S. Treasury, each with its own nine-member board of directors; (4) numerous other private U.S. member banks, which subscribe to required amounts of non-transferable stock in their regional Federal Reserve Banks; and (5) various advisory councils"

[Kassad]

That's simply not true. The Federal Reserve is practically without any government oversight. When Congress tries to audit or monitor it, usually corporate politicians reject the idea in a second and it goes totally unchecked. Your assertion that the government was never meant to have control over the monetary system is fallacious because, first of all, who says? Who decided that? You can't say the Founders, since there were huge debates over the issue and it was one of the central reasons for the debate between Jefferson and Hamilton. It is basically a private entity, making it a corporate entity as well. Since corporations practically run the government in this country, that would mean that any government oversight is practically irrelevant anyway. Anyway, we're still putting our money in the hands of a private entity and as we can see, they don't care the slighest about inflation or monetary growth, so long as the economy stays afloat and the corporate oligarchy maintains control.

[Havet]

That's simply not true. The Federal Reserve is practically without any government oversight. When Congress tries to audit or monitor it, usually corporate politicians reject the idea in a second and it goes totally unchecked.

heh, I apologize. I seem to have taken too lightly the information found on wikipedia. true enough, the federal reserve is no more federal than the federal express

"Section 5 of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 states that the Federal Reserve Banks are owned, through stock issuance, by private member banks.The issue of private ownership has been one of controversy for numerous reasons."


Your assertion that the government was never meant to have control over the monetary system is fallacious because, first of all, who says? Who decided that? You can't say the Founders, since there were huge debates over the issue and it was one of the central reasons for the debate between Jefferson and Hamilton.

That it was only created in 1913 pretty much proves my point. I mean just do the math: 1913-1774 = 139 years. Sure times changed, commerce grew, more people came to the country. I do not see how those are linked with the need to have a single private entity to control the amount of money that is issued.


It is basically a private entity, making it a corporate entity as well. Since corporations practically run the government in this country, that would mean that any government oversight is practically irrelevant anyway.

I would even argue any government oversight is just another way of trying to give more power to that single entity, because that existence of oversight usually results in favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth.


Anyway, we're still putting our money in the hands of a private entity and as we can see, they don't care the slighest about inflation or monetary growth, so long as the economy stays afloat and the corporate oligarchy maintains control.

true enough. they only care about inflation if it benefits them someway. and they only do this by government power. I think the only place where you and I might actually disagree a lot is that you may think all private entities that would sprung up naturally to issue money should be abolished, whereas i just prefer that there wasn't one forcing me to choose how i wanted to pay whatever i wanted to buy.

[trivas7]

I found Brendan M. Cooney's videos on the background and context of the Fed (http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/the-federal-reserve-is-going-to-eat-you-or-is-it/)from a Marxist POV very helpful.

[JimmyJazz]

The Case Against the Fed (http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf) by Murray Rothbard (huge pdf, 162 pgs.)

I haven't read it yet, but I've been wanting to. While I agree that these peoples' priorities are laughable, it's still good to be able to counter their crap directly, it makes them respect you enough to hear you out as you make your case for what you believe.

[bellyscratch]

I have a Libertarian friend who goes on about this crap, but I don't know what the hell he's on about sometimes to be honest. Thanks for the post Trivas, I'll take a look at it

[KC]

Anyway, we're still putting our money in the hands of a private entity and as we can see, they don't care the slighest about inflation or monetary growth, so long as the economy stays afloat and the corporate oligarchy maintains control.

To be honest I don't really think they have a choice in the matter; they're basically backed into a corner and are being forced to print money for the purposes of keeping the economy from collapsing.

[MMIKEYJ]

I hear a lot about it from "libertarians" (mostly Austrian types) and even some leftists (mainly from the Zeitgeist movement). It's like the biggest subject of their ire. Where we rail against the ruling class and imperialism, they rail against... one country's banking institution.

What is it about the FR that makes them paint it as the single biggest instigator of all that is currently wrong with the world? I mean, it just sounds so... detached. It's like, we have wars going on where millions die, and billions go without food every day, but no, who gives a shit about that? We have a fractional reserve banking system, and that's just downright terrible.

Am I just missing something here? Or have I just stumbled upon the ramblings of Americo-centric schmucks that care more about how the evil socialist guvment is stealing their moneys?
If you give me your email Ill send you about 10 pages that will explain it really well.

[RGacky3]

If you give me your email Ill send you about 10 pages that will explain it really well.

As with anything in socio-economic politics if it takes 10 pages to explain, its probably bullshit.

[bellyscratch]

Ive looked at that stuff and its given me a good incite

[Havet]

As with anything in socio-economic politics if it takes 10 pages to explain, its probably bullshit.

if you want to explain things properly then you are generalizing A LOT if you can sum it up and say what it is in only a sentence or so.

Take the evolution theory, gravity theory, any scientific theory and you will find 10 pages isn't enough. and while you may argue that economics is not a science, it still takes space to explain ANYTHING properly in order for people to not be confused.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Criticisms of the Fed wouldn't be too big of an issue if most abolitionists didn't uphold backwards views like "one hundred percent gold standard." Other being impractical, such a staggering stipulation would choke our economy and make us even more susceptible to the whims of periodic decay. Did nobody inform these individuals that precious metals are like any other commodity? The Fed is a screwy scam - yeah, so is all power structures.

I think this is a last ditch effort to resurrect the idea that capitalism is wonderful. It's just not pure enough! We need more landlord statism!

As far as leftist critics who obsess over the Federal Reserve are concerned, I think they're limiting themselves by seeing the banking industry as the main enemy of the proletariat.


I think this is a more detailed way of explaining how this happened instead of just saying: GREED CAUSED THIS, because if that were the case, wouldn't we be in perpetual crisis?We are.

[RGacky3]

Take the evolution theory, gravity theory, any scientific theory and you will find 10 pages isn't enough. and while you may argue that economics is not a science, it still takes space to explain ANYTHING properly in order for people to not be confused.

The difference is economics, unlike science, is all based on pretty basic power structures and authority, all economic explination is just about how those power structures operate.

you can write pages and pages about the workings of a royal court in a kingdom, but the jist of it is, there is a king and a group of lords with innate authority and power over the resources and the people.

[trivas7]

I showed my mate the stuff trivas7 posted and he said
Clearly your mate's 'bigger picture' isn't historical materialism. The point of the videos is that the Fed (and its counterpart in other countries) is an embedded feature in contemporary capitalism.

[Havet]

We are

we are IN a crisis, but not in PERPERTUAL crisis. Anyway, it all depends how, when and where you define crisis.


The difference is economics, unlike science, is all based on pretty basic power structures and authority, all economic explination is just about how those power structures operate.

you can write pages and pages about the workings of a royal court in a kingdom, but the jist of it is, there is a king and a group of lords with innate authority and power over the resources and the people.

let's analyse the word economy

eco + nomy

oikos + nomy

oikos means house

nomy means management

economy is studying the best way to "run the house", which is, to run earth's scarce resources.

what's happening here now is that some are blaming people for owning the resources individually and "spreadlike", not on facts in my opinion. others are blaming the power one single entity has over money as a way of explaining how they caused the mess.

and most economists that dare write against the fed (like murray) are the ones that usualyl believe the best way for those resources to be held is in a decentralized and un-authority fashion

[ckaihatsu]

Yup -- on-point analysis of that quasi-political crowd.... Their approach to politics resembles the flocking of fans around a music scene. If *I* could ever get that much excitement and enjoyment out of politics I'd have died twitching with a goofy grin on my face a loooooong time ago -- but that's not *quite* what *revolutionary* politics is about....





It's just another issue that will likely fade out soon enough. Here's the kicker with the libertarians: they want to deregulate the market, right? Well, deregulation made it so the government lost control of the monetary system and the private Federal Reserve took control over it. Therefore, deregulation caused the Federal Reserve in the first place. Libertarians literally shit their pants trying to come up with a response to that.


Yeah, and I smell it from over here...! *Very* good point -- I'll remember that one for the future, definitely....


Chris






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[ckaihatsu]

Anyway, we're still putting our money in the hands of a private entity and as we can see, they don't care the slighest about inflation or monetary growth, so long as the economy stays afloat and the corporate oligarchy maintains control.


To be honest I don't really think they have a choice in the matter; they're basically backed into a corner and are being forced to print money for the purposes of keeping the economy from collapsing.


---





[W]e can fall into the trap of talking about the money supply *itself*, as the nationalists would have us do, or we can talk about economics from the standpoint of the working class. *How many* of those dollars or [Detroit] scrip notes will be heading our way, exactly?

Considering that -- contrary to the complexities of manufacturing -- there are usually no elaborate supply chains in the *service* sector (just several layers of parasitic management), then the issue becomes *who* gets to be waited upon, and how much is going to actually be *paid out* for that service?

When we look at it from the perspective of *wages*, the money supply isn't as much of a concern any more. If *more of* the money supply ends up in the pockets of the workers, independently from the concerns and politics of the propertied class, then that's a *proportional shift* of economic control from ownership to labor -- (and all that *exists* is labor and capital...).

You simply *won't* hear the supply-side arguments flipped over into labor's hemisphere, as in "Oh, no, we're seeing a slowdown in consumer spending due to a lack of paying work positions and sufficient incentives for people to gain employment -- quick, let's monetize the labor sector with subsidized wages in order to get production going again...!"

That's, of course, because in class war terms this is giving in to the working class -- it would *not* be in the bourgeoisie's best interests to empower labor because a shift in economic power (as we saw during WWII) would embolden the working class *politically*, towards labor strikes, factory occupations, revolutionary movements, and so on.

Please see:

Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://tinyurl.com/6bs6va





[I]t's crucial that we don't fall into the economic nationalism line that is prevalent in the mainstream -- put forth ad nauseum thanks to libertarians and other nationalist types.

The "sky is falling" mantra that we hear from them is based on a strict money-supply orientation to economics that is chanted so repetitively that it comes across as being the din from either religious pilgrims or mindwashed marketing minions.

Yes, there are plenty of historical examples of inflation rampant to the point where the physical currency itself has a higher value than its own face-value, but the present economic situation does not resemble that kind of scenario. Probably the most recent and memorable historical example was the '70s -- I think of it as being a very *specific* case of inflation, or stagflation, which was particular to the U.S. taking a tumble down from its vaulted perch.

In that case the U.S.'s imperialism and adventurism -- expansionist warmongering -- reached its widest extent -- driven by the mythology of American capitalism being superior to Eastern communism. The cost of waging its decades-long offensive in Southeast Asia finally caught up to it, and the bills came due.

In that case that meant that over-extended caches of U.S. dollars -- foreign reserves -- stopped being so popular, and so the U.S. had to officially re-define its currency, down a solid peg from the Bretton Woods gold-standard of gold convertibility, and forced to float as a typical, everyday currency among all others in the world's markets. The U.S.'s manufacturing competition caught up with it as well, throwing the U.S. economy into the malaise of stagflation -- this is the archetypical example of inflation that is usually evoked when it's used as an political scare tactic against the working class.

[...]

[KC]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you were trying to say in response to what I said. Could you please clarify?

[ckaihatsu]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you were trying to say in response to what I said. Could you please clarify?


Yeah, no prob -- the point is that libertarians and anyone else who are economic nationalists will only look at economics from the *ruling class* point of view.

Concerns about the money supply (via The Fed) are like concerns about trade -- being on the side of the working class, we have *no* interest in what this-or-that strategy the bourgeoisie happens to think up, whether it's printing money or implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Our interest as wage-earners is in the *demand-side*, *not* the "supply-side", since that's currently ruled over by finance capital. From the demand side we want (need) an increased proportional share of control of the economy, and that only comes from increased wages and other forms of compensation (benefits). *Ultimately* our best interests are in displacing the rule of finance capital altogether so that we can run the means of mass production (factories, etc.) for ourselves without interference from the bourgeoisie at all.

[MMIKEYJ]

As with anything in socio-economic politics if it takes 10 pages to explain, its probably bullshit.
If thats the case then this entire theory of communism should be bullshit with the length of all the posts on here to explain simple shit.

10 pages (approx half is pictures) is the shortest I could make it.

Give me your email addy and Ill send it to you too, unless you're afraid of being educated ;)

[RGacky3]

If thats the case then this entire theory of communism should be bullshit with the length of all the posts on here to explain simple shit.

Communism could be explained in a paragraph, easily.

Pm it too me.

[Havet]

Our interest as wage-earners is in the *demand-side*, *not* the "supply-side", since that's currently ruled over by finance capital. From the demand side we want (need) an increased proportional share of control of the economy, and that only comes from increased wages and other forms of compensation (benefits). *Ultimately* our best interests are in displacing the rule of finance capital altogether so that we can run the means of mass production (factories, etc.) for ourselves without interference from the bourgeoisie at all.

And how to you propose to increase wages? and WE already run the means of mass production. If every time someone turns into an entrepeneur or a business owner he is automatically a "bourgeois" who must be stopped, even though he might treat his workers in a way you find more "fair", then the sentence "so we can run the means of mass production" is truly utopic.

Now i don't want to confuse business owners from bureocrats, or the need for anyone who wishes to produce to ask permission from those who produce nothing.

You want control of the economy; I want no one to control the economy, in the sense that i don't want a giant group (government or artificial monopoly) choosing who gets to do what, when and how. Just let people be free.


Concerns about the money supply (via The Fed) are like concerns about trade -- being on the side of the working class, we have *no* interest in what this-or-that strategy the bourgeoisie happens to think up, whether it's printing money or implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The strategy the bourgeois think of is PRECISELY to control even more who gets to do what, when and how, by the means of REGULATION. The explanation i provided in page 1 is to show how that control (minor at the time) brought the consequences we are seeing today. If you have difficulty in seeing the difference, consider this:

bourgeois/capitalists/people-who-want-to-disrespect-other-people's-life-liberty-or-property-by-means-of-force want MORE control. They are the kind of people you hear talking of Kenneysian economics, "down with laissez-faire" or "freedom has been given a chance and has failed". They are represented by an increasing number of economists and ESPECIALLY government polititians.

"libertarians/miseans/the-rest-who-shout-against-the-fed" are trying to explain how this happened instead of just saying "GREED CAUSED THIS". Now i may not agree with everything they say or how they say it, but concerning this matter and this explanation, i happen to agree with them.

[KC]

Yeah, no prob -- the point is that libertarians and anyone else who are economic nationalists will only look at economics from the *ruling class* point of view.

Concerns about the money supply (via The Fed) are like concerns about trade -- being on the side of the working class, we have *no* interest in what this-or-that strategy the bourgeoisie happens to think up, whether it's printing money or implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Well, I think it is of utmost importance to understand the decisions made by the Fed, for example, and to do that you must think how they are thinking. Personally, I am incredibly interested in the "strateg[ies] the bourgeoisie happens to think up" because it helps us understand what we are fighting against.

[MMIKEYJ]

Communism could be explained in a paragraph, easily.

Pm it too me.
I could pm it to you, or post it in a thread.. but its a real pain in the ass because its formatted for email..; Most message board software wont allow more than a certain number of images, wont support background highlighting, etc.

[ckaihatsu]

Well, I think it is of utmost importance to understand the decisions made by the Fed, for example, and to do that you must think how they are thinking.


Yes, that's why I am participating in this topic.





Personally, I am incredibly interested in the "strateg[ies] the bourgeoisie happens to think up" because it helps us understand what we are fighting against.


I hear ya -- there may be a semantic misunderstanding here -- yes, we may be *interested* in the information about developments in the bourgeois structure, but we have an *objective* *interest*, or *purpose*, to fight from the standpoint of wage-earners because that is our *objective* position in relation to the means of mass production.





Our interest as wage-earners is in the *demand-side*, *not* the "supply-side", since that's currently ruled over by finance capital. From the demand side we want (need) an increased proportional share of control of the economy, and that only comes from increased wages and other forms of compensation (benefits). *Ultimately* our best interests are in displacing the rule of finance capital altogether so that we can run the means of mass production (factories, etc.) for ourselves without interference from the bourgeoisie at all.





And how to you propose to increase wages? and WE already run the means of mass production.


No, actually, we *do not* _run_ the means of mass production, in the sense of *owning*, *managing*, or otherwise *controlling* it. Increases in wages have come from strong labor solidarity movements that force the capitalists' hand.





If every time someone turns into an entrepeneur or a business owner he is automatically a "bourgeois" who must be stopped, even though he might treat his workers in a way you find more "fair", then the sentence "so we can run the means of mass production" is truly utopic.


It is disheartening to hear this -- really, there's no choice because the ruling class will just become more oppressive and brutal if we let them. It's better to wrest *full control* of the means of mass production, collectively, as a class, so as to end the fundamental exploitation once and for all.

I hope you realize that ownership is *relative* according to scale, and that large corporate ownership is *very* different from small-scale business, or petit-bourgeoisie, ownership.





Now i don't want to confuse business owners from bureocrats, or the need for anyone who wishes to produce to ask permission from those who produce nothing.


This is too facile an argument -- both large business owners and bureaucrats alike reinforce each others' positions -- that is why we refer to them together as the 'bourgeoisie'. They are inseparable because -- in basic terms -- one controls the wealth while the other controls the rules of the game for expropriating and managing that wealth. Please keep in mind that this is a *system* we're talking about here -- it's *not* individualistic or specific to particular business owners or bureaucrats.





You want control of the economy; I want no one to control the economy, in the sense that i don't want a giant group (government or artificial monopoly) choosing who gets to do what, when and how. Just let people be free.


I hope you're not speaking to *me* about *my* *personal* motivations -- again, we're discussing a *system* here.... You're sounding very much like a libertarian or an anarchist with this statement, and the problem is that either is too local a perspective. You would be at a loss if either civic professionals, business conglomerations, or industrial trade unions re-synthesized in the midst of your idealized "people be free" scenario.





Concerns about the money supply (via The Fed) are like concerns about trade -- being on the side of the working class, we have *no* interest in what this-or-that strategy the bourgeoisie happens to think up, whether it's printing money or implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement.





The strategy the bourgeois think of is PRECISELY to control even more who gets to do what, when and how, by the means of REGULATION. The explanation i provided in page 1 is to show how that control (minor at the time) brought the consequences we are seeing today. If you have difficulty in seeing the difference, consider this:

bourgeois/capitalists/people-who-want-to-disrespect-other-people's-life-liberty-or-property-by-means-of-force want MORE control. They are the kind of people you hear talking of Kenneysian economics, "down with laissez-faire" or "freedom has been given a chance and has failed". They are represented by an increasing number of economists and ESPECIALLY government polititians.


The bourgeoisie currently has *no choice* but to respond -- only if they have to -- to the crisis of their system. Like any rulership they *have* to provide some sense of legitimacy to the public in order to justify their rule. Whether they regulate or deregulate portions of the economy (and political system), they are still acting in the interests / purpose of the capitalist system as a whole.





"libertarians/miseans/the-rest-who-shout-against-the-fed" are trying to explain how this happened instead of just saying "GREED CAUSED THIS". Now i may not agree with everything they say or how they say it, but concerning this matter and this explanation, i happen to agree with them.


There's no "trying-to-explain-how-this-happened", because there's * no mystery * -- *I* just explained it, above. Marxism as a discipline provides the most accurate descriptions and explanations of the workings of the capitalist system, along with the program for working class revolution against it.

[Havet]

No, actually, we *do not* _run_ the means of mass production, in the sense of *owning*, *managing*, or otherwise *controlling* it. Increases in wages have come from strong labor solidarity movements that force the capitalists' hand.

workers in current companies do not *own* the means of production because they contracted to be in a organization that would buy their time and not what their time produced. What is stopping everyone on this forum from starting a company that is indeed managed by workers with no bosses, and that differs radically from different companies today? Other than government regulation, i don't see what is.

How do you propose to force capitalists? what makes you think it is morally legitimate? Or even productive to engage in such violence?I personally think what you call "parasite owners of companies" aren't initiating force against no one, so it is not legitimate to initiate force against them. How else do you *force* them then? Simple, by indirectly forcing them. Creating a competing business and prove to them how your model is not only more "fair/unexploiting/whatever" than theirs, but also more efficient, so that it brings more revenue and can then give workers better conditions. Convince enough people to make companies like that and soon the "evil capitalists" will have no one that wants to work under their conditions.


It is disheartening to hear this -- really, there's no choice because the ruling class will just become more oppressive and brutal if we let them. It's better to wrest *full control* of the means of mass production, collectively, as a class, so as to end the fundamental exploitation once and for all.
I hope you realize that ownership is *relative* according to scale, and that large corporate ownership is *very* different from small-scale business, or petit-bourgeoisie, ownership.

I thought this was obvious, but let me state it for the record: The capitalist part of the bourgeois is defenseless without the bureocrat part of the burgeois. This means that without government not only will most of the monopolies dissapear, but they won't be able to fulfill their "corporate interests" of reducing competition through government force, getting bailed out by taxes of other people collected by government force, etc.

What i think is ideal "full control" of the means of production is for everyone to be free to trade what they want, as long as there is no force behind any party. Like you i don't like the idea of hierarchical organizations very much, but that doesn't give me any right to force anyone to not enter it, or destroy the organization. However, i also do not find the idea of communal ownership very attractive due to the existence of different interests in a class/group/whatever. LIke i said before, the institution i think is best is the one that buys not people's time, but what their time produces.Those institutions are called, i think, agoric.


This is too facile an argument -- both large business owners and bureaucrats alike reinforce each others' positions -- that is why we refer to them together as the 'bourgeoisie'. They are inseparable because -- in basic terms -- one controls the wealth while the other controls the rules of the game for expropriating and managing that wealth. Please keep in mind that this is a *system* we're talking about here -- it's *not* individualistic or specific to particular business owners or bureaucrats.

ah, now i understand what you mean. and agree with it, like i stated above. However, they are not inseparable, because business owners can exist without an entity like the government (which controls the rules of the game for expropriating and managing the wealth). Of course, in today's actuality, once a business becomes very big, it will undoubtely attract government attention and they will try and join up, because the benefits they can get from each other, since they are such large entities, are bigger. however this does not mean they are inseparable, it just means the existente of a entity like the government, which holds the monopoly on a lot of things, is preferable to a business owner than to actually ahve to compete with other businesses and have the chance of failing.

This trend can be seen increasing due to government forcing people creating their businesses only if they fill form X, or get license Y, or pay fee Z. However, every business that did not need to engage with governments is essentially a living proof of how business and government are inseparable, and how people are usually best of when these two don't get toguether.


I hope you're not speaking to *me* about *my* *personal* motivations -- again, we're discussing a *system* here.... You're sounding very much like a libertarian or an anarchist with this statement, and the problem is that either is too local a perspective. You would be at a loss if either civic professionals, business conglomerations, or industrial trade unions re-synthesized in the midst of your idealized "people be free" scenario.

Prove how it is too local a perspective. I would only be at a loss if I were a bourgeois: large corporation owner or politician/bureocrat. If you think otherwise, explain because i might be looking at this from a different angle than yours, or could just be a matter of semantics.


The bourgeoisie currently has *no choice* but to respond -- only if they have to -- to the crisis of their system. Like any rulership they *have* to provide some sense of legitimacy to the public in order to justify their rule. Whether they regulate or deregulate portions of the economy (and political system), they are still acting in the interests / purpose of the capitalist system as a whole.

Completely agree, except i believe that by deregulating they would actually be acting in the interest of people long-term. This is why a government will usually not go for that idea, because:
a) it removes power from government
b)it removes power from big businesses that rely on government to achieve such power in the first place.


There's no "trying-to-explain-how-this-happened", because there's * no mystery * -- *I* just explained it, above. Marxism as a discipline provides the most accurate descriptions and explanations of the workings of the capitalist system, along with the program for working class revolution against it.

You did not explained it from an empirical point of view; merely from an ideologic point of view. I suggest look at it considering data, facts and trends. Then, i'll be gladly to hear you refute anything which i have mentioned above. I can link you to the laws that were passed, to the graphics that showed how the markets behaved, etc

[RGacky3]

I personally think what you call "parasite owners of companies" aren't initiating force against no one, so it is not legitimate to initiate force against them. How else do you *force* them then? Simple, by indirectly forcing them. Creating a competing business and prove to them how your model is not only more "fair/unexploiting/whatever" than theirs, but also more efficient, so that it brings more revenue and can then give workers better conditions. Convince enough people to make companies like that and soon the "evil capitalists" will have no one that wants to work under their conditions.

They are initiating force, its called property rights, and its backed by the federal government.

Creating a competing model would first require redistribution of capital and resources to make sense (other wise your fighting sticks against bombs), and in that scenario, assuming people would prefer Capitalism would assume people would prefer tyranny to freedom and would prefer extortion to enjoying the fruits of their labor, which is preposterous.


Of course, in today's actuality, once a business becomes very big, it will undoubtely attract government attention and they will try and join up, because the benefits they can get from each other, since they are such large entities, are bigger. however this does not mean they are inseparable, it just means the existente of a entity like the government, which holds the monopoly on a lot of things, is preferable to a business owner than to actually ahve to compete with other businesses and have the chance of failing.


Many times its the other way around, the governme tdoes something and private intrests want a piece, and generally, the government gives it to them with very favorable conditions.

[Havet]

They are initiating force, its called property rights, and its backed by the federal government.

They are not initiating force. They are defending their property. Whether the property they are defending is legitimate or not is another question that should not be overlooked nor mistaken with the issue you first mentioned, which is initiation of force. Also, property rights can be backed without a federal government.


Creating a competing model would first require redistribution of capital and resources to make sense (other wise your fighting sticks against bombs), and in that scenario, assuming people would prefer Capitalism would assume people would prefer tyranny to freedom and would prefer extortion to enjoying the fruits of their labor, which is preposterous.then go ahead. get the capital and then redistribute it as you please.Start like every businessman or entrepreneur started. How do you get the capital? hard-work and honest labor. intelligence. innovation.

In that scenario if your model is so "obviously better" then i'm pretty sure people would see it was better than tyranny. Unless you are assuming people to be a bunch of brainless robots who can only "see the light" if it's you that forces them to see it at a point of a gun

[Dejavu]

They are initiating force, its called property rights, and its backed by the federal government.

Who's property rights? I mean if the people truly had respected property rights, then you would not need some violent third agent to confirm it through the initiation of force.

I don't think property rights are the problem here. I think the way people currently enforce property rights ( i.e. via the state) is wrong. Its wrong because it forcefully externalizes the costs of that unto others without their consent. I can't honestly see the property ( yes , even the possession definition) as the problem when its clearly externalized costs of enforcement and violence that we should be pointing the finger at. If you terminated property the violence will not subside. Its like saying if a man is desires to inflict violence upon other then taking away something of his will stop his violent tendencies.


Many times its the other way around, the governme tdoes something and private intrests want a piece, and generally, the government gives it to them with very favorable conditions.

Its an unholy marriage. The key here is some private interests. You have the private interests of the government officials themselves and then you have the private interests of those with enough persuasive power to rally the government to do what it wants. Thing is, when the government does something that favors some private interest other private interests inevitably get the short end of the stick.

For instance if the government lays down tariffs to favor certain domestic producers ( tariffs on foreign steel for example) then other people in business do get shafted. All those businesses requiring steel for production now have to pay a higher cost. Some private interest certainly does benefit but I would argue that most do not as a consequence. And just as important you have the workers of various companies that have now burdened increased costs having their jobs and earnings in jeopardy.

[Bud Struggle]

Who's property rights? I mean if the people truly had respected property rights, then you would not need some violent third agent to confirm it through the initiation of force.


I don't think in the "real world" there is any enforcement or property rights issues in 99% of the cases. Property rights flows naturally from the huiman individual. All you need to do is go and drive through any suburban sub development and watch yards being mowed. Each person mowing to their property line and not an inch over. No inforcement here--the definition of "mine" and "thine" is quite evident in human nature.

[trivas7]

Property rights flows naturally from the huiman individual. All you need to do is go and drive through any suburban sub development and watch yards being mowed. Each person mowing to their property line and not an inch over. No inforcement here--the definition of "mine" and "thine" is quite evident in human nature.
Spoken w/ bourgeois aplomb. How natural.

[Bud Struggle]

Spoken w/ bourgeois aplomb. How natural.

Seen it, done it, lived it.

And how's your neighbourhood Soviet doing? All working together to mow each other's front lawns? Doing any "communial" home or barn building. Actually, the Amish do Communism better and easier than any state run Communistic society could ever hope.

But there's that damn Jesus again--spoiling everything.

[ckaihatsu]

workers in current companies do not *own* the means of production because they contracted to be in a organization that would buy their time and not what their time produced. What is stopping everyone on this forum from starting a company that is indeed managed by workers with no bosses, and that differs radically from different companies today? Other than government regulation, i don't see what is.


A worker-owned company -- a feel-good "solution" touted through Hollywood movies' moral universe -- see 'New in Town' -- would simply be an *island* of some egalitarianism of labor, in an *ocean* of capitalist mega-monopolies and governmental favoritism.





How do you propose to force capitalists?


Just look to history -- the way it's been done is with mass militant labor solidarity movements. *No* business can produce a single widget with the acquiescence of labor.





what makes you think it is morally legitimate?


How is robbing labor of its labor value any more legitimate? Every *minute* spent at wage-labor is a *jack* because wages *never* reflect the full value that the labor is worth to the company. And it was *always* labor from the past that created capital *at all* (animals don't build up surpluses themselves -- it's always *people*).


Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://tinyurl.com/6bs6va





Or even productive to engage in such violence?


You have a lot of *nerve* and *gall* to even *suggest* that *any* significant violence comes from workers. Every day we see reports in the news about capitalist violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, and so on. I don't see capitalists spilling over each other to denounce and stop this violence. Given the reality of the situation I fully *support* any and all efforts that the oppressed take to rectify this situation.





I personally think what you call "parasite owners of companies" aren't initiating force against no one, so it is not legitimate to initiate force against them.


Workers die on the job every day, through the course of their normal working routines -- the mainstream media doesn't even show it....





How else do you *force* them then? Simple, by indirectly forcing them. Creating a competing business and prove to them how your model is not only more "fair/unexploiting/whatever" than theirs, but also more efficient, so that it brings more revenue and can then give workers better conditions. Convince enough people to make companies like that and soon the "evil capitalists" will have no one that wants to work under their conditions.


This is like saying to a slave that they should save up their money so they can buy slaves of their own and one day they can own their own plantation to compete "equally" with the other ones. It's absurd and your propaganda is nauseating.





I thought this was obvious, but let me state it for the record: The capitalist part of the bourgeois is defenseless without the bureocrat part of the burgeois. This means that without government not only will most of the monopolies dissapear, but they won't be able to fulfill their "corporate interests" of reducing competition through government force, getting bailed out by taxes of other people collected by government force, etc.


No, you're incorrect -- without *some* kind of government regulation the competition among businesses would get even *fiercer* and barbaric. What's to stop mid- to large-sized business owners from buying up weapons and *physically demolishing* their competition -- it's the laws and regulations of the state, that's what. Areas like the U.S.'s historic Wild West or today's Sudan feature economic conditions that aren't strong enough to collectivize business ownerships into a regulatory state structure. As a result plenty of human life was / is lost due to the dynamics of feudal-like competition.

I, as a Marxist, support the bourgeois state to the degree that it prevents conditions from getting *even worse* for human life and livelihood -- I acknowledge that this *isn't* saying much, especially in today's economic conditions.





What i think is ideal "full control" of the means of production is for everyone to be free to trade what they want, as long as there is no force behind any party. Like you i don't like the idea of hierarchical organizations very much, but that doesn't give me any right to force anyone to not enter it, or destroy the organization. However, i also do not find the idea of communal ownership very attractive due to the existence of different interests in a class/group/whatever. LIke i said before, the institution i think is best is the one that buys not people's time, but what their time produces.Those institutions are called, i think, agoric.


You're forgetting that people cannot own *just one lever* or *only one roller* on a piece of machinery in a factory -- at some point there's going to have to be some kind of *social organization* to deal with the *fact* of production on a *collective* basis. We're *not* going to ignore factory production, as a planet, and we're *not* going to all go to individual *handicrafts*, as a planet.

Then it follows, *how* should this ownership / management / control of the factories (means of mass production) look, exactly? And *who* should control *what*, exactly? This is what Marxism addresses.





ah, now i understand what you mean. and agree with it, like i stated above. However, they are not inseparable, because business owners can exist without an entity like the government (which controls the rules of the game for expropriating and managing the wealth).


No, they can't -- not without significant loss of human life in the course of business competition. The logic of business is to expand territory and control, as major, imperialist *countries* (aggregates of business interests) have done in recent centuries, up through today.

What we need is the *global regulation* of capitalism by the working class, as a way to cap and neutralize imperialism. This could roughly be thought of as syndicalism, but a true working class revolution would push all the way through to displacing private ownership of the means of mass production once and for all, so as to eliminate capitalism's apparent barbarity.





Of course, in today's actuality, once a business becomes very big, it will undoubtely attract government attention and they will try and join up, because the benefits they can get from each other, since they are such large entities, are bigger. however this does not mean they are inseparable, it just means the existente of a entity like the government, which holds the monopoly on a lot of things, is preferable to a business owner than to actually ahve to compete with other businesses and have the chance of failing.


Business and government *are* inseparable because *no business* and *no one* is outside of the area of governmental law and regulation. Government exercises a *monopoly* over law and legality, thus precluding much potentially more violent business competition. Likewise, *business monopolies* effect economies of scale that streamlines operations and makes production and distribution much more efficient -- far better than what it would take for a stochastic arrangement of small-scale businesses to do the same.

The *problem*, from a working class point of view, is that all of this large-scale "progress" happens *at the expense of*, and *outside the control of* the workers / producers of the operations themselves.





This trend can be seen increasing due to government forcing people creating their businesses only if they fill form X, or get license Y, or pay fee Z. However, every business that did not need to engage with governments is essentially a living proof of how business and government are inseparable, and how people are usually best of when these two don't get toguether.


Again, *all* businesses and individuals will *have* to abide by various laws that pertain to what they're doing, no matter how small they are -- if you're ignoring this part you're deluding yourself.





Prove how it is too local a perspective. I would only be at a loss if I were a bourgeois: large corporation owner or politician/bureocrat. If you think otherwise, explain because i might be looking at this from a different angle than yours, or could just be a matter of semantics.


What I was saying is that you have an *idealized* idea of how to run things on a very *local* level -- the whole world has *far surpassed* this level of production, and today we have *huge organizations* that both produce and distribute, and regulate the same. As I noted above, the world is *not* going to *revert back* to simpler forms of production on a widespread scale -- you are the political equivalent of a 'Flat Earther'.





Completely agree, except i believe that by deregulating they would actually be acting in the interest of people long-term. This is why a government will usually not go for that idea, because:
a) it removes power from government
b)it removes power from big businesses that rely on government to achieve such power in the first place.


You did not explained it from an empirical point of view; merely from an ideologic point of view. I suggest look at it considering data, facts and trends. Then, i'll be gladly to hear you refute anything which i have mentioned above. I can link you to the laws that were passed, to the graphics that showed how the markets behaved, etc


OF COURSE I'm looking at it from an ideological point of view -- it's because I'm *partisan* to the working class. This discussion is already pointless because you're only addressing the side of ownership, as it presently exists, which I have no objective or subjective interest in.

[Havet]

A worker-owned company -- a feel-good "solution" touted through Hollywood movies' moral universe -- see 'New in Town' -- would simply be an *island* of some egalitarianism of labor, in an *ocean* of capitalist mega-monopolies and governmental favoritism.

It would start as an island, then 2 islands and so on. They don't even need to islands, you can set up a whole community that would only engage in that sort of action. And in case you haven't figured it out yet, i am not in favor of state-monopolies to capitalists and governmental favoritism.


Just look to history -- the way it's been done is with mass militant labor solidarity movements. *No* business can produce a single widget with the acquiescence of labor.if by solidarity movements you only convince workers to demand better conditions or for them to go on strike, then great. But the second anyone from either side starts destroying property or harming others it ceases to be a legitimate solution.


How is robbing labor of its labor value any more legitimate? Every *minute* spent at wage-labor is a *jack* because wages *never* reflect the full value that the labor is worth to the company. And it was *always* labor from the past that created capital *at all* (animals don't build up surpluses themselves -- it's always *people*).


Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://tinyurl.com/6bs6vaget this: every single worker has AGREED that they wish to be paid less for what they produce. That is another way companies make money, and it's not illegitimate because the workers AGREED TO IT. If workers don't like it, either the get enough money to learn and self-employ themselves so they are no longer dependant of that kind of company or they move to companies that pay the full value of labor. If they don't exist, you make one.


You have a lot of *nerve* and *gall* to even *suggest* that *any* significant violence comes from workers. Every day we see reports in the news about capitalist violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, and so on. I don't see capitalists spilling over each other to denounce and stop this violence. Given the reality of the situation I fully *support* any and all efforts that the oppressed take to rectify this situation.Then you are an hypocrit, because you are clearly and unrationally taking sides on violence. Violence is always unjustified except in self-defense. And workers aren't being attacked because they have agreed to being there in the first place. Of course violence in afghanistan, pakistan, etc is wrong. It does not, however, make it legitimate for you to start violence as well.


Workers die on the job every day, through the course of their normal working routines -- the mainstream media doesn't even show it....So? Capitalists haven't killed them directly, but indirectly. It is still unfair that they get such poor conditions on their jobs. And the mainstream media does show it. It's important that you get this: they did not initiate force. They, however, have fault in letting their "ownership" get to such a condition where there is a mortal peril to be there. Solution? Don't work there. If the chances of you being killed are a lot greater than any possible benefit you may get from being there then it is surely preferable to leave. Of what good would a wage be if you could die by accident? You think it was government that has been increasing safety on work? from the mid-20th century forward it was, but before that it was competition for workers that increased the safety conditions.


This is like saying to a slave that they should save up their money so they can buy slaves of their own and one day they can own their own plantation to compete "equally" with the other ones. It's absurd and your propaganda is nauseating.what i said was: "Creating a competing business and prove to them how your model is not only more "fair/unexploiting/whatever" than theirs, but also more efficient"

If you bring up the slave example then you are assuming your model also treats workers as slaves, which is a laughable position to be at. Guess whose propaganda is more nauseating now.

The point is you, as a slave, which you ARE NOT, would save up your money so you could start your own company and treat the "slaves" as NON-SLAVES (which is whatever and however you want to treat your fellow workers, which would not be workers anymore, but self-employed, since they would be getting their full value of their labor, according to your theory)


No, you're incorrect -- without *some* kind of government regulation the competition among businesses would get even *fiercer* and barbaric. What's to stop mid- to large-sized business owners from buying up weapons and *physically demolishing* their competition -- it's the laws and regulations of the state, that's what. Areas like the U.S.'s historic Wild West or today's Sudan feature economic conditions that aren't strong enough to collectivize business ownerships into a regulatory state structure. As a result plenty of human life was / is lost due to the dynamics of feudal-like competition.What's to stop any organization from doing that? Including a commune?
a)It's expensive
b) nobody will want to buy from you if you kill your competitors
c)you are likely to enter a war with someone who is able to fight back which happens to be, wow, EXPENSIVE (both in money and in human lives)


You're forgetting that people cannot own *just one lever* or *only one roller* on a piece of machinery in a factory -- at some point there's going to have to be some kind of *social organization* to deal with the *fact* of production on a *collective* basis. We're *not* going to ignore factory production, as a planet, and we're *not* going to all go to individual *handicrafts*, as a planet. good point


Then it follows, *how* should this ownership / management / control of the factories (means of mass production) look, exactly? And *who* should control *what*, exactly? This is what Marxism addresses.whoever started the factory (bought the land, bought the machinery from accumulated capital from labor they did, and/or with help of others) would get the ownership of it. If he was hiring and people were looking for a job they would trade naturally. This is how normal businesses operate. Other ways: Communal entities, where you vote/decide collectively/whatever who works what, when and how.


No, they can't -- not without significant loss of human life in the course of business competition. The logic of business is to expand territory and control, as major, imperialist *countries* (aggregates of business interests) have done in recent centuries, up through today.that is the logic of governments, which hold the monopoly on force and have enough power. if you think businesses can't operate like that, then clearly businesses such as google, fedex, and every single businesses that exists today which never used government power to get where its at (which are MILLIONS) could not exist. I suggest you re-look at the facts.


What we need is the *global regulation* of capitalism by the working class, as a way to cap and neutralize imperialism. This could roughly be thought of as syndicalism, but a true working class revolution would push all the way through to displacing private ownership of the means of mass production once and for all, so as to eliminate capitalism's apparent barbarity.like i said, you need to stop the government side of capitalism, because that is how businesses grow to the current out-of-proportions they currently are in. you mistakingly confuse people owning factories with people waging wars. People who own factories can have interests in the war, but if they do not have the power to wage war then they can still be a LEGITIMATE BUSINESS, even though you might not agree with how they pay their workers.


Business and government *are* inseparable because *no business* and *no one* is outside of the area of governmental law and regulation. Government exercises a *monopoly* over law and legality, thus precluding much potentially more violent business competition. Likewise, *business monopolies* effect economies of scale that streamlines operations and makes production and distribution much more efficient -- far better than what it would take for a stochastic arrangement of small-scale businesses to do the same.there we go, you finally got there! "governemnt exercises a monopoly over law and legality". businesses always engage in activities much more efficiently, but if they use REAL violence to achieve such efficiency, then it is no longer legitimate, no matter what benefits derive from such efficiency.

Solution to government monopoly over law? simple: radical decentralization of law so that it is no longer a government that provides it, but many people provide it. we are now entering free-market anarchism ideas, which i will explain:

"There are some common objections to the idea of a private security force

1. There will be no law.

Who says? Polycentric law and common law are well covered else where. We are talking about voluntary groups. They exist everywhere and they have their own sets of rules. We have seen in history lots of groups co-exist peacefully with little or no laws regarding how they treat each other. In an AnCap society we already have two rules. The Non-Aggression Principle and Self-Ownership that includes your body and your property. Why would we not develop a system of dealing with people that don’t subscribe to those two things (at least those two things)?

2. There will be no authority to enforce law.

Of course there will be a system for dealing with infractions. The extent and results of dealing with those things probably can and will be a selling point in different private security forces. Private arbitration is the most popular method among AnCap’s, but it is in no way the ONLY way violators could be dealt with.

3. The private security forces will do battle.
Why? How can any rational person believe that there is enough “money” in it to wage a war against your consumer base or against potential business partners? A private security force that “kills” the offender isn’t going to attract much business. For one, you are putting your fate in their hands. They will more than likely be the arbitrators that you are taken before if you should violate someone else’s body or property. If their idea of solving the problem is to go to war with another agency, how long till that agency gets rid of you because it isn’t worth keeping you around? Do you really want to put your life in the hands of someone that may kill you off?
Another biggie for me on the question is restitution. If someone causes me to suffer a loss, I want to recover that loss. That isn’t possible against a corpse. I am going to go with the security that has the best record of recovering for their clients and getting fair treatment for their clients in cases.


4. No rules will ever be enforced.
This is lunacy to me. Even a cursory study of property law and how it evolved and developed under the market during the American Revolution and after should tell you that. The market not only comes up with the rules for dealing with each other, it develops the ways in which to enforce it with each other.


5. He with the most gold will rule.
I love this argument. On the face it seems to make a lot of sense, but when looked at realistically it just doesn’t cut the mustard. We have lots and lots and lots of rich people in the US. None of them are using their money to wage war on their neighbors, at least not with private armies. They make money, they run businesses. It is important to them to have a group of people to do business with. We already know that oppressive groups don’t get much production out of those it oppresses. Not having a state around isn’t going to make these guys want to become dictators over a voluntary society (http://nonamegroup.wikidot.com/voluntary-society). Even if they did try it, what would they get out of it? Who would they rule? Why wouldn’t other groups rise up in defense against this outright violation of the NAP?


6. If you have rules, a group to enforce them and cooperation between the agencies, you have a government.
This is a decent argument to some extent. You do indeed end up with a group that acts very similar to everyone else in the group and works together for THEIR mutual benefit. The reason the argument fails is because they will still have to depend on their clientèle for funding. They aren’t going to be made of money. They won’t have the power to lay and collect taxes. The likelihood that they form a quasi-government is not very good, since they will depend on their clients for funding. They will, no doubt, form very good working relationships with each other, but the chances of becoming a government don’t look good to me. I wouldn’t participate in it."


there are tons of other resources which can explain the notion of private law and private conflict-resolution. In a way, we already ahve that now: private arbitrators, security companies, security devices (alarms, etc).




The *problem*, from a working class point of view, is that all of this large-scale "progress" happens *at the expense of*, and *outside the control of* the workers / producers of the operations themselves.expense of? it would be at the expense of the workers if they did not receive any material compensation, or were forbidden of leaving (which is true slavery)

"Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others. Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation (such as wages)."




Again, *all* businesses and individuals will *have* to abide by various laws that pertain to what they're doing, no matter how small they are -- if you're ignoring this part you're deluding yourself.yes, but those laws generally lead to results that were the opposite intention. businesses do not appear if there are many laws, they will appear more if there are lesser laws. why? because a law increases the barrier to entry


What I was saying is that you have an *idealized* idea of how to run things on a very *local* level -- the whole world has *far surpassed* this level of production, and today we have *huge organizations* that both produce and distribute, and regulate the same. As I noted above, the world is *not* going to *revert back* to simpler forms of production on a widespread scale -- you are the political equivalent of a 'Flat Earther'.the world may not revert back, but it can continue as it is and improve if the organizations that produce and distribute DON'T regulate at the same time. I am the political equivalent of a free-market anarchist.



OF COURSE I'm looking at it from an ideological point of view -- it's because I'm *partisan* to the working class. This discussion is already pointless because you're only addressing the side of ownership, as it presently exists, which I have no objective or subjective interest in.Cool, i'm a partisan of HUMAN BEINGS, and unlike you i don't favor violence in any way unless in self defense. I began adressing the side of Who created the current economic crisis when it was other people, like you, who started adressing the side of ownership.

[IcarusAngel]

So if a person finds a piece of land they get to claim it theirs if they establish a factory on it and exlcude everybody else from using it? And this isn't force? Welcome to the totalitarian and fascist thinking of the Miseans.

[ckaihatsu]

if by solidarity movements you only convince workers to demand better conditions or for them to go on strike, then great. But the second anyone from either side starts destroying property or harming others it ceases to be a legitimate solution.


Well, then, by this statement alone you should seek out some labor advocacy organizations and start being a part of labor solidarity organizing.





get this: every single worker has AGREED that they wish to be paid less for what they produce. That is another way companies make money, and it's not illegitimate because the workers AGREED TO IT. If workers don't like it, either the get enough money to learn and self-employ themselves so they are no longer dependant of that kind of company or they move to companies that pay the full value of labor. If they don't exist, you make one.


This is called letting the big fish off the hook -- why should we sink to the level of groveling around at the ground level, trying to reproduce that which already exists in the world -- that which was already made by labor's efforts, regardless.... With the power of numbers and organization on the basis of labor solidarity much more can be accomplished than without.





Then you are an hypocrit, because you are clearly and unrationally taking sides on violence. Violence is always unjustified except in self-defense. And workers aren't being attacked because they have agreed to being there in the first place. Of course violence in afghanistan, pakistan, etc is wrong. It does not, however, make it legitimate for you to start violence as well.


First of all, please do *not* talk to *me* -- you do not know me, and your statements are on the borderline of being accusatory. We can discuss these issues, as issues, if the discussion is worth having.

I'm glad to see that you're anti-imperialist -- that goes a long way. You may want to focus your attention and efforts in that direction, in particular.





So? Capitalists haven't killed them directly, but indirectly. It is still unfair that they get such poor conditions on their jobs. And the mainstream media does show it. It's important that you get this: they did not initiate force. They, however, have fault in letting their "ownership" get to such a condition where there is a mortal peril to be there. Solution? Don't work there. If the chances of you being killed are a lot greater than any possible benefit you may get from being there then it is surely preferable to leave. Of what good would a wage be if you could die by accident? You think it was government that has been increasing safety on work? from the mid-20th century forward it was, but before that it was competition for workers that increased the safety conditions.


Many workers don't have such a latitude of choice as to where to work -- they may be in rural or crowded urban conditions, with a lack of personal resources, and may need to simply work at the first thing they can find....





what i said was: "Creating a competing business and prove to them how your model is not only more "fair/unexploiting/whatever" than theirs, but also more efficient"


There's no "being more efficient" or "out-competing" the likes of Wal-Mart and Target (etc.).

Also please note that your statement contains an internal contradiction -- the more fair and non-exploiting you are to your workers the less you'll be able to compete among other businesses in the marketplace. This is because you can use your resources on the business side of things, or to pay higher wages -- they are mutually exclusive and divergent purposes.





If you bring up the slave example then you are assuming your model also treats workers as slaves, which is a laughable position to be at. Guess whose propaganda is more nauseating now.


Hey, we *are* slaves in the sense that we *must* work for an * exploitative * wage if we do not have property of our own -- why do people work if not to cover the basic necessities of life like food, shelter, and so on?





The point is you, as a slave, which you ARE NOT, would save up your money so you could start your own company and treat the "slaves" as NON-SLAVES (which is whatever and however you want to treat your fellow workers, which would not be workers anymore, but self-employed, since they would be getting their full value of their labor, according to your theory)


This is *not* a tenable scenario for many working-class people, and, besides, the strength of labor is in its *organizing* capacity, not in its ladder-climbing efforts (because it stratifies and breaks up labor solidarity).





What's to stop any organization from doing that? Including a commune?
a)It's expensive
b) nobody will want to buy from you if you kill your competitors
c)you are likely to enter a war with someone who is able to fight back which happens to be, wow, EXPENSIVE (both in money and in human lives)


Hey, the imperialists do this on an international scale -- look at the U.S. military budget.... This is what happens in *any* frontier zone, without sufficient collectivization / society / civilization around to regulate and control it....





whoever started the factory (bought the land, bought the machinery from accumulated capital from labor they did, and/or with help of others) would get the ownership of it. If he was hiring and people were looking for a job they would trade naturally. This is how normal businesses operate. Other ways: Communal entities, where you vote/decide collectively/whatever who works what, when and how.


Let's say that I *roughly* or *generally* agree with this approach. Now how do we convince that original ownership to allow the workers of that factory to communalize it, and to have full administration over its inputs and outputs?





that is the logic of governments, which hold the monopoly on force and have enough power. if you think businesses can't operate like that, then clearly businesses such as google, fedex, and every single businesses that exists today which never used government power to get where its at (which are MILLIONS) could not exist. I suggest you re-look at the facts.


Businesses are regulated by government, so disputes are handled *internally* -- disputes among imperialist countries in competition for more territory and resources are *not* regulated, and so we have had centuries of inter-imperialist warfare, destroying millions of working class lives.





like i said, you need to stop the government side of capitalism, because that is how businesses grow to the current out-of-proportions they currently are in.


No, it wouldn't matter whether businesses are regulated or not -- the logic of business, at any size, is to grow or die.





you mistakingly confuse people owning factories with people waging wars. People who own factories can have interests in the war,


Those businesses that produce a profit will enter into the world of finance -- finance capital grows by exploiting new territory for resources, and that means waging war to *get* that territory. Capitalists of all sizes wind up speaking with the same voice because of this dynamic of capitalist economics.





but if they do not have the power to wage war then they can still be a LEGITIMATE BUSINESS, even though you might not agree with how they pay their workers.


The way that *all* businesses pay their workers is by *shafting* them -- *all* wages are exploitative, by definition.





there we go, you finally got there! "governemnt exercises a monopoly over law and legality". businesses always engage in activities much more efficiently, but if they use REAL violence to achieve such efficiency, then it is no longer legitimate, no matter what benefits derive from such efficiency.


No, you're correct -- many businesses *are not* "legal" or "legitimate" -- they resemble the inter-imperialist war-mongering of the world's major countries -- these businesses are in the drug trade, weapons, waste disposal, and so on.





Solution to government monopoly over law? simple: radical decentralization of law so that it is no longer a government that provides it, but many people provide it. we are now entering free-market anarchism ideas, which i will explain:

"There are some common objections to the idea of a private security force

1. There will be no law.

Who says? Polycentric law and common law are well covered else where. We are talking about voluntary groups. They exist everywhere and they have their own sets of rules. We have seen in history lots of groups co-exist peacefully with little or no laws regarding how they treat each other. In an AnCap society we already have two rules. The Non-Aggression Principle and Self-Ownership that includes your body and your property. Why would we not develop a system of dealing with people that don’t subscribe to those two things (at least those two things)?


A "system of dealing with people that don't subscribe to those two things" brings us back to a system of regulatory government. (And I *don't* condone the principle of property rights.)





2. There will be no authority to enforce law.

Of course there will be a system for dealing with infractions. The extent and results of dealing with those things probably can and will be a selling point in different private security forces. Private arbitration is the most popular method among AnCap’s, but it is in no way the ONLY way violators could be dealt with.


The political differences among private security forces could bring the dynamic of inter-imperialist warfare down to the neighborhood level, on an everyday basis. I'd rather have centralized bourgeois government than none at all.





3. The private security forces will do battle.
Why? How can any rational person believe that there is enough “money” in it to wage a war against your consumer base or against potential business partners?


Not against your consumer base, obviously -- but eliminating your rivals means you get to take their stuff!





A private security force that “kills” the offender isn’t going to attract much business.


So keep it under wraps and pay off the media to *not* report it...! Haven't you ever watched a gangster movie??? ( 8^ I





For one, you are putting your fate in their hands. They will more than likely be the arbitrators that you are taken before if you should violate someone else’s body or property. If their idea of solving the problem is to go to war with another agency, how long till that agency gets rid of you because it isn’t worth keeping you around? Do you really want to put your life in the hands of someone that may kill you off?
Another biggie for me on the question is restitution. If someone causes me to suffer a loss, I want to recover that loss. That isn’t possible against a corpse. I am going to go with the security that has the best record of recovering for their clients and getting fair treatment for their clients in cases.


Right -- now you've got it -- you're describing the nature of bourgeois property ownership in a nutshell. Reformulating this basic property-oriented setup doesn't change the *fundamentals* of how it operates.

African Americans are *still* pressing their case for restitution because of the violence done to them during the early years of the U.S. Same thing for Native Americans -- your description would apply to them as well....





4. No rules will ever be enforced.
This is lunacy to me. Even a cursory study of property law and how it evolved and developed under the market during the American Revolution and after should tell you that. The market not only comes up with the rules for dealing with each other, it develops the ways in which to enforce it with each other.


Property law isn't *worth* defending -- it's too messy and isn't in the interests of the working class anyway.





5. He with the most gold will rule.
I love this argument. On the face it seems to make a lot of sense, but when looked at realistically it just doesn’t cut the mustard. We have lots and lots and lots of rich people in the US. None of them are using their money to wage war on their neighbors, at least not with private armies.


Yeah, rich people wage war through their investments in various stock portfolios -- collectively they team up and call themselves a *nation* and wage war against *other nations*.





They make money, they run businesses. It is important to them to have a group of people to do business with. We already know that oppressive groups don’t get much production out of those it oppresses.


Then why do they bother to employ oppressed people and pay them so little? Makes business sense to me...!





Not having a state around isn’t going to make these guys want to become dictators over a voluntary society (http://nonamegroup.wikidot.com/voluntary-society). Even if they did try it, what would they get out of it? Who would they rule? Why wouldn’t other groups rise up in defense against this outright violation of the NAP?


Again, you're just re-hashing bourgeois property-based society -- look to history for answers to your questions.





6. If you have rules, a group to enforce them and cooperation between the agencies, you have a government.
This is a decent argument to some extent. You do indeed end up with a group that acts very similar to everyone else in the group and works together for THEIR mutual benefit. The reason the argument fails is because they will still have to depend on their clientèle for funding. They aren’t going to be made of money. They won’t have the power to lay and collect taxes. The likelihood that they form a quasi-government is not very good, since they will depend on their clients for funding. They will, no doubt, form very good working relationships with each other, but the chances of becoming a government don’t look good to me. I wouldn’t participate in it."


If you don't have a system of common laws then you *don't* have a *consistent* system of law and enforcement. Those who do better business and chip in more funding will demand that the laws get written the way *they* want the laws written -- again, this is *still* a description of the current, bourgeois system we live under.





there are tons of other resources which can explain the notion of private law and private conflict-resolution. In a way, we already ahve that now: private arbitrators, security companies, security devices (alarms, etc).


Yes, but they still depend on the *federal* system of law for backing....





expense of? it would be at the expense of the workers if they did not receive any material compensation, or were forbidden of leaving (which is true slavery)

"Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others. Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation (such as wages)."


Again, *all* business gives back to the worker *less* than what that labor is worth to the business. On this basis we can call it *quasi-slavery*, or *wage-slavery*, because of the inherent exploitation.





yes, but those laws generally lead to results that were the opposite intention. businesses do not appear if there are many laws, they will appear more if there are lesser laws. why? because a law increases the barrier to entry


And again you're describing the current reality -- larger business concerns have far greater access to funding and credit than smaller businesses do.





the world may not revert back, but it can continue as it is and improve if the organizations that produce and distribute DON'T regulate at the same time. I am the political equivalent of a free-market anarchist.


Again, it *doesn't matter* whether the economics are governed under heavy regulation, light regulation, or no regulation -- the logic of business is to *expand*, so it will if unchecked by labor.

You really should pick a side -- you're talking out of both sides of your mouth, and you cannot *both* support business *and* support organized labor.





Cool, i'm a partisan of HUMAN BEINGS, and unlike you i don't favor violence in any way unless in self defense. I began adressing the side of Who created the current economic crisis when it was other people, like you, who started adressing the side of ownership.


The economic crisis, like all others, is endemic to the structure and dynamics of capitalism itself -- *no one*, not even the largest bourgeoisie, can control the economy, as much as they'd like to. If you want to stop violence, begin by bringing attention and action to the inter-imperialist warfare that's been going on since nation-states were created.

[freakazoid]

As far as leftist critics who obsess over the Federal Reserve are concerned, I think they're limiting themselves by seeing the banking industry as the main enemy of the proletariat.

We need to be attacking on all fronts. We need different people to focus on different things.

[Havet]

Well, then, by this statement alone you should seek out some labor advocacy organizations and start being a part of labor solidarity organizing.

err..i thought it was you who had such intentions.


This is called letting the big fish off the hook -- why should we sink to the level of groveling around at the ground level, trying to reproduce that which already exists in the world -- that which was already made by labor's efforts, regardless.... With the power of numbers and organization on the basis of labor solidarity much more can be accomplished than without.

except you wouldn't be reproducing it, would you? you would be improving.


First of all, please do *not* talk to *me* -- you do not know me, and your statements are on the borderline of being accusatory. We can discuss these issues, as issues, if the discussion is worth having.

I'm glad to see that you're anti-imperialist -- that goes a long way. You may want to focus your attention and efforts in that direction, in particular.

i judged you on the basis of what you wrote. It was hypocritical for someone to hold sides on violence, when it is clearly unjust in anyway, both against workers and capitalists.


Many workers don't have such a latitude of choice as to where to work -- they may be in rural or crowded urban conditions, with a lack of personal resources, and may need to simply work at the first thing they can find....

but they can still choose if its worth taking the risk of going to the first they can find, knowing that the job conditions are miserable and that it could be preferable to go to a charity rather than work there.


There's no "being more efficient" or "out-competing" the likes of Wal-Mart and Target (etc.).

Also please note that your statement contains an internal contradiction -- the more fair and non-exploiting you are to your workers the less you'll be able to compete among other businesses in the marketplace. This is because you can use your resources on the business side of things, or to pay higher wages -- they are mutually exclusive and divergent purposes.

You may not be able to produce more or cheaper products, but if your workers are well treated they will perform better. Take many software companies like microsoft or google, where their employees are treated a lot better than workers in a factory. This is why better treated workers will NOT hate the employers, will have more interest in showing up to work and will be more productive.


Hey, we *are* slaves in the sense that we *must* work for an * exploitative * wage if we do not have property of our own -- why do people work if not to cover the basic necessities of life like food, shelter, and so on?

You are not obligated to work, it's just the best option for those who have nothing. Many smart people started in low-paying/low-conditions jobs and saved enough money so that they would no longer need to work in those companies to survive or live. Those first companies, which you denounce as being the worst kind of institutions, are what have enabled many workers throughout time to better their lives.


This is *not* a tenable scenario for many working-class people, and, besides, the strength of labor is in its *organizing* capacity, not in its ladder-climbing efforts (because it stratifies and breaks up labor solidarity).

why cannot a bunch of workers of a company save enough money for enough time so they can buy +50% share of the company that owns where they work? after that, the company would be theirs to do as they please. They could make a cooperative, a commune, whatever, and stop being bossed around by "capitalists".

How much would it cost workers to purchase their firms? the total value of the shares of all stocks listen on the new york stock exhange in 1965 was 537 billion dollars. the total wages and salaries of all private employees that year was 288.5 billion. state and federal income taxes totalled 75.2 billion. if the workers had chosen to live at the consumption standard of hippies, they could have gotten a majority share in every firm in 2 and a half years and bought the capitalists out, lock, stock, and barrel, in five. That is a substantial cost, but surely cheaper than organizing a revolution, where people can be killed.

Also less of a gamble, and unlike a revolution, it dosn't have to be all at once. the employees of one firm can buy it this decade, then use their profits to help fellow workers buy theirs later. when you buy stock, you pay not only for the capital assets-buildings, machines, inventory, and the like- but also for its experience,reputation, and organization. If workers can really run firms better, these are unnecessary; all they need are physical assets. Those assets-the net working capital of all corportations in the United States-in 1965-totalled 171.7billion dollars. The workers could buy that much and go into business for themselves with fourteen months worth of savings.


Hey, the imperialists do this on an international scale -- look at the U.S. military budget.... This is what happens in *any* frontier zone, without sufficient collectivization / society / civilization around to regulate and control it....

...

the money they get to pay for such expensive procedures gets from the SAME REGULATION they did in the first place! taxes, fees, forms, regulation, etc all give huge amounts of money to the state.


Let's say that I *roughly* or *generally* agree with this approach. Now how do we convince that original ownership to allow the workers of that factory to communalize it, and to have full administration over its inputs and outputs?

likely, you won't. i never said to convince the owners, i said convince the workers to leave, or convince them to buy the company itself, or convince them start up their own.


Businesses are regulated by government, so disputes are handled *internally* -- disputes among imperialist countries in competition for more territory and resources are *not* regulated, and so we have had centuries of inter-imperialist warfare, destroying millions of working class lives.

businesses are not countries. businesses have customers to supply, a reputation to maintain, etc. governments don't care of their citizens, never did, never will. they force citizens to pay taxes giving contradictory excuses so they can then use the money as they want.


No, it wouldn't matter whether businesses are regulated or not -- the logic of business, at any size, is to grow or die.

it matters whether they are regulated or not. regulation makes businesses grow LARGER, because then they ahve a more controlled environment where to grow to. otherwise, competition doesn't make them grow a lot.


Those businesses that produce a profit will enter into the world of finance -- finance capital grows by exploiting new territory for resources, and that means waging war to *get* that territory. Capitalists of all sizes wind up speaking with the same voice because of this dynamic of capitalist economics.

finance capital dosnt grow by exploiting new territory for resources ALL THE TIME.


No, you're correct -- many businesses *are not* "legal" or "legitimate" -- they resemble the inter-imperialist war-mongering of the world's major countries -- these businesses are in the drug trade, weapons, waste disposal, and so on.

whats wrong with drug trade, weapons, waste disposal as a business?


The political differences among private security forces could bring the dynamic of inter-imperialist warfare down to the neighborhood level, on an everyday basis. I'd rather have centralized bourgeois government than none at all.

they won't bring warfare. have you been paying any attention?

"What's to stop any organization from doing that? Including a commune?
a)It's expensive
b) nobody will want to buy from you if you kill your competitors
c)you are likely to enter a war with someone who is able to fight back which happens to be, wow, EXPENSIVE (both in money and in human lives)"


Not against your consumer base, obviously -- but eliminating your rivals means you get to take their stuff!

and who's to buy anything from you if they know youve stole it and harmed others? other companies that didnt do that would get better business.


So keep it under wraps and pay off the media to *not* report it...! Haven't you ever watched a gangster movie???

sure. but information isn't perfect and there are leaks which seriously harm a company's reputation. likely other stations that were interested in eliminating competition would find those leaks and show how the other network was helping the evil company.



African Americans are *still* pressing their case for restitution because of the violence done to them during the early years of the U.S. Same thing for Native Americans -- your description would apply to them as well....

no, because in that case there is, wow, A CENTRALIZED LAW which EVERYONE MUST OBEY. big difference.


QUOTE]Yeah, rich people wage war through their investments in various stock portfolios -- collectively they team up and call themselves a *nation* and wage war against *other nations*.[/QUOTE]

that's government, not business. again you're confusing the two and then blaming it on business alone.



Then why do they bother to employ oppressed people and pay them so little? Makes business sense to me...!

because unlike you, most people think they aren't being oppresed with having a job, and recognize they aren't slaves because they are being paid something back, and have the choice to leave.


If you don't have a system of common laws then you *don't* have a *consistent* system of law and enforcement. Those who do better business and chip in more funding will demand that the laws get written the way *they* want the laws written -- again, this is *still* a description of the current, bourgeois system we live under.

you can have a system of common laws, but it wouldn't be forced upon others the way it currently is with governemnts

"The reason the argument fails is because they will still have to depend on their clientèle for funding. They aren’t going to be made of money. They won’t have the power to lay and collect taxes. The likelihood that they form a quasi-government is not very good, since they will depend on their clients for funding."

QUOTE]Yes, but they still depend on the *federal* system of law for backing....[/QUOTE]

not really. private arbitrators have sprung up as an alternative to federal law. if you read about them, you will see they almost never engage with federal law.


Again, it *doesn't matter* whether the economics are governed under heavy regulation, light regulation, or no regulation -- the logic of business is to *expand*, so it will if unchecked by labor. [

You really should pick a side -- you're talking out of both sides of your mouth, and you cannot *both* support business *and* support organized labor.

it matters greeatly. if businesses have less ability to get connection with veyr pwoerufl people like governments, then they can do less damage and just concentrate on the business. I can both support business and support organized labor, especially because there is business in organized labor.


The economic crisis, like all others, is endemic to the structure and dynamics of capitalism itself -- *no one*, not even the largest bourgeoisie, can control the economy, as much as they'd like to. If you want to stop violence, begin by bringing attention and action to the inter-imperialist warfare that's been going on since nation-states were created.

it is endemic to the structure of regulated markets, mixed economies, etc. And i show , in first page, how the current crisis was caused because of regulation, not lack of regulation.

[RGacky3]

but they can still choose if its worth taking the risk of going to the first they can find, knowing that the job conditions are miserable and that it could be preferable to go to a charity rather than work there.


For many workers, its actually logically more reasonable to turn to crime. Does that justify crime? The "its possible to get out of poverty" argument is compleatly irrelivant. Its also possible to become a dictator of a country.


This is why better treated workers will NOT hate the employers, will have more interest in showing up to work and will be more productive.


The benevolant dictator, again, it all depends on the market and the situation what is more productive. But again, thats irrelivant, it does'nt justify the power structure.


You are not obligated to work, it's just the best option for those who have nothing. Many smart people started in low-paying/low-conditions jobs and saved enough money so that they would no longer need to work in those companies to survive or live. Those first companies, which you denounce as being the worst kind of institutions, are what have enabled many workers throughout time to better their lives.

Well, a peasant could slave his whole life for a king on the kings land (which is only his land because he says its his), and when he turns 60 he could get a small piece of it for himself and be greatful. What us communists say, was that land he worked on the whole time did not belong to the King, so whatever the king gave him is irrelivant. So no they did'nt better their lives, any more than a man in prison getting and extra meal had his life bettered by the prison system.


why cannot a bunch of workers of a company save enough money for enough time so they can buy +50% share of the company that owns where they work? after that, the company would be theirs to do as they please. They could make a cooperative, a commune, whatever, and stop being bossed around by "capitalists".

Look at statistics on poverty, and living standards in the world. It does'nt work like that. Also notice how much employers stop workers from organizing. Also, why buy it, its not the Capitalists' to begin with, we are advocating TAKING, not buying. Also its not just money Capitalists (or anyone) is interested in, its control. Most workers, can barely live, much less live comfortably.

The fact that your even suggesting this shows you live with your head in the sand, and cannot apply knowledge to the real world.


That is a substantial cost, but surely cheaper than organizing a revolution, where people can be killed.

Its rediculous, you also forget, the world is'nt made up of little company islands, its a global market place, and the ones with the money, resources and capital, ALWAYS have the power and control.


likely, you won't. i never said to convince the owners, i said convince the workers to leave, or convince them to buy the company itself, or convince them start up their own.

Yeah, why did'nt the peasants in feudal times just leave and build their own farms? I suppose they enjoyed being semi-slaves.

You have no idea hwo power works do you?



businesses are not countries. businesses have customers to supply, a reputation to maintain, etc. governments don't care of their citizens, never did, never will. they force citizens to pay taxes giving contradictory excuses so they can then use the money as they want.


Businesses have PROFITS to make, everything else comes secondary. Governments have power to keep, and profits to maintain. Governmetns don't care of their citizens naturally, but they are much much much more succeptable to public pressure than companies are, especially "democracic" countries.


regulation makes businesses grow LARGER, because then they ahve a more controlled environment where to grow to. otherwise, competition doesn't make them grow a lot.

I wonder what the early 1900s, 20s and 30s would say about that.


"What's to stop any organization from doing that? Including a commune?
a)It's expensive
b) nobody will want to buy from you if you kill your competitors
c)you are likely to enter a war with someone who is able to fight back which happens to be, wow, EXPENSIVE (both in money and in human lives)"

a, thats only relative to the benefits
b, most socio-ecomonic violence is not about competition, its about class warfare.

Capitalists are much more concerned with keeping their status as the ruling class rather than competing amungst each other, history shows us that. Competition is secondary to class warfare.


that's government, not business. again you're confusing the two and then blaming it on business alone.


government is'nt in of itself, it acts based on influence, and business, has alot more influence, than the public. Because business, controls the resources and capital (and ultimately the labor).


because unlike you, most people think they aren't being oppresed with having a job, and recognize they aren't slaves because they are being paid something back, and have the choice to leave.

Ask poor people about their jobs and their boss, I mean really poor people.


it matters greeatly. if businesses have less ability to get connection with veyr pwoerufl people like governments, then they can do less damage and just concentrate on the business. I can both support business and support organized labor, especially because there is business in organized labor.

the talk about government and business is like the chicken and the egg. Big business is the chicken. Don't think that by taking away the government, Capitalists will just forget about class war.

[Havet]

For many workers, its actually logically more reasonable to turn to crime. Does that justify crime? The "its possible to get out of poverty" argument is compleatly irrelivant. Its also possible to become a dictator of a country.

its neither logical nor reasonable to resort to crime. period. being able to get out of poverty is the most important argument here. Its the only non-violent way of stop being poor. And the possibility of being a dictator of a country is useless in this context.



The benevolant dictator, again, it all depends on the market and the situation what is more productive. But again, thats irrelivant, it does'nt justify the power structure.If people are free and wish to organize themselves into hierarchical companies like we have today, what is wrong with that, so long as they both voluntarily consent to the contract?



Well, a peasant could slave his whole life for a king on the kings land (which is only his land because he says its his), and when he turns 60 he could get a small piece of it for himself and be greatful. What us communists say, was that land he worked on the whole time did not belong to the King, so whatever the king gave him is irrelivant. So no they did'nt better their lives, any more than a man in prison getting and extra meal had his life bettered by the prison system. there is a difference. A peasent would be hunt down, tortured and killed the moment he stoped working his land, or paying the king, or escaped.
This is simply not the case today. You are neither hunt down nor tortured or killed. Also, you get a compensation from your work today, and back then the only compensation was the end of the threat of killing you for that day.


Look at statistics on poverty, and living standards in the world. It does'nt work like that. Also notice how much employers stop workers from organizing. Also, why buy it, its not the Capitalists' to begin with, we are advocating TAKING, not buying. Also its not just money Capitalists (or anyone) is interested in, its control. Most workers, can barely live, much less live comfortably.hmm...

Life expectancy at birth vs Income per person (http://www.anonym.to/?http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/index.php#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;i l=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts ;sp=6;ti=1838$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwc NAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=p hAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnNPA;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21; iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue= 255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=194; dataMax=96846$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=23;dataMax=8 6$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=i239_t001838, ,,,)

poverty has been steadily increasing over the world, the difference is most noted in Asia.
employers can legitimately forbid workers from organizing inside their facilities. But not outside.
Taking something from someone by force is not justifiable, because they are not agressing against the workers, only mistreating and giving them more reasons to hate the employers.

You still havent provided any concrete proof of how my proposal isn't doable and preferable than a revolution.


Its rediculous, you also forget, the world is'nt made up of little company islands, its a global market place, and the ones with the money, resources and capital, ALWAYS have the power and control. If you think it is ridiculous to win the capitalists by non-violence rather than violence, then you clearly do not value the very lives of the workers you are defending. and like I've consistently tried to explain, those who have power and control, today, can only achieve it through government bribery.


Yeah, why did'nt the peasants in feudal times just leave and build their own farms? I suppose they enjoyed being semi-slaves.like i've explained earlier, they were hunt down, tortured and killed if they attempted such a thing. And that does not happen today.


Businesses have PROFITS to make, everything else comes secondary. Governments have power to keep, and profits to maintain. Governmetns don't care of their citizens naturally, but they are much much much more succeptable to public pressure than companies are, especially "democracic" countries. what you call public pressure on governments is called consumer demand in businesses, and the later is a much more effective way of dealing with problems and different interests of people.

in order to judge a politician who has held officce, you must consider how his administration turned out, and other factors which he had no part in, like the makeup of congress, and the weather at harvest time. judging politicians who have not yet held office is even more hopeless

Not only does a consumer have better information than a voter, it is of more use to him. if i investigate alternative brands of cars or protection, decide which is best for me, and buy it, i get it . If i investigate alternative politicians and vote, i get what the majority votes for.

imagine buying cars the way we buy governments. under such institutions, the quality of cars would quickly decline.


I wonder what the early 1900s, 20s and 30s would say about that.that time was a time of big economic growth (until the crisis) and overall improvement of the quality of people's lives, and the amount of purchasing power they got. it was also a time of great scientific innovation, because those who designed the best inventions had more chances of getting more profits from the idea.


a, thats only relative to the benefits
b, most socio-ecomonic violence is not about competition, its about class warfare.benefits? i kill competition, consumers know (either from leak or from increasing rumors), i lose customers, i go bankrupt. That is not in an owners best interest.


Capitalists are much more concerned with keeping their status as the ruling class rather than competing amungst each other, history shows us that. Competition is secondary to class warfare.With government, it is easier for businesses to avoid competition by bribing them and getting favors to restrict trade. Without government, competition is now a primary goal of every business.


government is'nt in of itself, it acts based on influence, and business, has alot more influence, than the public. Because business, controls the resources and capital (and ultimately the labor).agree, although business doesnt control labor directly, because people aren't slaves like they were in feudal times. you could argue it is government that controls labor, because by the regulations they pass they decide who can be employed and who can't.



Ask poor people about their jobs and their boss, I mean really poor people.ask them if they prefered to be employed without the choice to leave and receiving no wage, only a constant threat that if they do not work they, and their family, will be killed. Do not try and compare the unhumanity of past times with the increased conditions we have today.


the talk about government and business is like the chicken and the egg. Big business is the chicken. Don't think that by taking away the government, Capitalists will just forget about class war.so what is class war? ive already told you its through government that most businesses do the things that you hate about business.

[ckaihatsu]

err..i thought it was you who had such intentions.


You're dodging the point -- if you are truly concerned about the preservation of human life you should figure out where the most preventable deaths are -- they are due to inhumane, sub-par conditions because of poverty and lack of modern development. Secondly is inter-imperialist warfare. Both of these leading causes of *preventable* death is due to the capitalist system. It's enough that in its drive for profits it leaves behind entire populations and areas that it simply cannot make money from -- this neglect is all that's needed for poverty, crime, and death to become rampant. If you're ignoring this then you're really not concerned with the prevention of needless deaths.





except you wouldn't be reproducing it, would you? you would be improving.


No, again you're missing the point, either deliberately or unintentionally. My point is that we should *not allow* the fruits of past labor to stay in the hands of the capitalists. Their method of labor value extraction is a *rip off* of work effort, and so it is *systematic stealing* of labor value, as a matter of course. You're not acknowledging this.





i judged you on the basis of what you wrote. It was hypocritical for someone to hold sides on violence, when it is clearly unjust in anyway, both against workers and capitalists.


Again, if you're concerned with violence, go to the source and find out what you can do to stop the rampant inter-imperialist violence that rages on, killing millions.





but they can still choose if its worth taking the risk of going to the first they can find, knowing that the job conditions are miserable and that it could be preferable to go to a charity rather than work there.


Well, then, that's not progress for *anyone*, is it? Shouldn't we have an economic system, run by the people who are most interested in working and administrating it *in their own best interests*??? The fact that capitalism has to implement *any* kind of "charity" shows that it is a colossal failure as an economic system.





You may not be able to produce more or cheaper products, but if your workers are well treated they will perform better. Take many software companies like microsoft or google, where their employees are treated a lot better than workers in a factory. This is why better treated workers will NOT hate the employers, will have more interest in showing up to work and will be more productive.


Now you're both ignoring my points *and* just repeating yourself. The system is one of wage-slavery -- most people have to work at *something* and get ripped off doing so.





You are not obligated to work, it's just the best option for those who have nothing.


Then it's *not* a choice -- it's *coercion* -- work or else forfeit the means of living, right?





Many smart people started in low-paying/low-conditions jobs and saved enough money so that they would no longer need to work in those companies to survive or live. Those first companies, which you denounce as being the worst kind of institutions, are what have enabled many workers throughout time to better their lives.


This is the equivalent of looking only at the *winners* of a lottery -- you're just belching capitalist mythology here -- what about everyone else?





why cannot a bunch of workers of a company save enough money for enough time so they can buy +50% share of the company that owns where they work? after that, the company would be theirs to do as they please. They could make a cooperative, a commune, whatever, and stop being bossed around by "capitalists".

How much would it cost workers to purchase their firms? the total value of the shares of all stocks listen on the new york stock exhange in 1965 was 537 billion dollars. the total wages and salaries of all private employees that year was 288.5 billion. state and federal income taxes totalled 75.2 billion. if the workers had chosen to live at the consumption standard of hippies, they could have gotten a majority share in every firm in 2 and a half years and bought the capitalists out, lock, stock, and barrel, in five. That is a substantial cost, but surely cheaper than organizing a revolution, where people can be killed.

Also less of a gamble, and unlike a revolution, it dosn't have to be all at once. the employees of one firm can buy it this decade, then use their profits to help fellow workers buy theirs later. when you buy stock, you pay not only for the capital assets-buildings, machines, inventory, and the like- but also for its experience,reputation, and organization. If workers can really run firms better, these are unnecessary; all they need are physical assets. Those assets-the net working capital of all corportations in the United States-in 1965-totalled 171.7billion dollars. The workers could buy that much and go into business for themselves with fourteen months worth of savings.


Again, you're unconvincing because the fact remains that the game is stacked in favor of those who * already have wealth * -- it's better to jettison the oppressive system altogether than to try to win with loaded dice....





the money they get to pay for such expensive procedures gets from the SAME REGULATION they did in the first place! taxes, fees, forms, regulation, etc all give huge amounts of money to the state.


Again you're not addressing my point.





likely, you won't. i never said to convince the owners, i said convince the workers to leave, or convince them to buy the company itself, or convince them start up their own.


Nope -- revolution means that workers *get the goods* *and* *the factory that makes them*.





businesses are not countries. businesses have customers to supply, a reputation to maintain, etc. governments don't care of their citizens, never did, never will. they force citizens to pay taxes giving contradictory excuses so they can then use the money as they want.


Countries are just *aggregates*, or *accumulations* of businesses. In both cases the point is to *expand territory*, whether that's land for the country or markets for the business.

Governments don't care about their citizens because they are created by the businesses they represent. Likewise, companies don't care about people -- they just need *markets*, meaning *some people* as customers -- just so they buy the company's products and services....





it matters whether they are regulated or not. regulation makes businesses grow LARGER, because then they ahve a more controlled environment where to grow to. otherwise, competition doesn't make them grow a lot.


No, you're incorrect. Businesses *prefer* an *unregulated* environment because that means *less overhead* for the business. The destructiveness of inter-company competition is limited through financialization, mergers and acquisitions, hostile takeovers, and so on.





finance capital dosnt grow by exploiting new territory for resources ALL THE TIME.


Yes, *all the time*.





whats wrong with drug trade, weapons, waste disposal as a business?


I'm saying that many businesses are in the "black market", meaning that they operate outside of the limitations of the law.





they won't bring warfare. have you been paying any attention?


Yes, at some point it will -- the evidence is, again, inter-imperialist warfare, because we're all on one planet and there's nowhere else to expand to. That began with World War I and the inter-imperialist tension and warfare continues through today.





and who's to buy anything from you if they know youve stole it and harmed others? other companies that didnt do that would get better business.


Hey, people go to the black market *all the time* and they don't ask questions about where stuff came from.





sure. but information isn't perfect and there are leaks which seriously harm a company's reputation. likely other stations that were interested in eliminating competition would find those leaks and show how the other network was helping the evil company.


Okay, I'll agree to a point, but -- again -- what about all of the daily atrocities that take human life, that could be prevented? The mainstream, bourgeois media has an overall agenda that's dictated by the major governmental powers, like the CIA, and also by major corporate sponsors.





no, because in that case there is, wow, A CENTRALIZED LAW which EVERYONE MUST OBEY. big difference.


Well, the Native Americans were told to sign treaties from *a centralized law* and look what happened there.... Same thing for forty acres and a mule for blacks....





that's government, not business. again you're confusing the two and then blaming it on business alone.


No, you're ignoring that government and business work together because they, together, make up the ruling class in its entirety. The proof is that business *never* speaks out against the government's foreign policy.





because unlike you, most people think they aren't being oppresed with having a job, and recognize they aren't slaves because they are being paid something back, and have the choice to leave.


To work at *any* job is to be *exploited* -- that's equivalent to economic oppression.





you can have a system of common laws, but it wouldn't be forced upon others the way it currently is with governemnts


This statement contains a contradiction -- if the system is one of *common* laws, then, by definition, they would *have* to apply to *everyone* regardless of participation. This means they *would* be forced upon others, whether those laws were wanted or not -- otherwise it wouldn't be a system *in common*.





not really. private arbitrators have sprung up as an alternative to federal law. if you read about them, you will see they almost never engage with federal law.


The fact that these private arbitrators are allowed to function *at all* shows you that they have the tacit (and explicit) backing of the U.S. government.





it matters greeatly. if businesses have less ability to get connection with veyr pwoerufl people like governments, then they can do less damage and just concentrate on the business. I can both support business and support organized labor, especially because there is business in organized labor.


This is a *ludicrous* statement -- businesses *always* commit funding to lobbying efforts, if they have it, because favorable legislation for their business translates into better markets and increased sales and profits.

I wouldn't consider you as someone who is concerned with organized labor. All of your statements are coming down on the side of ownership.





it is endemic to the structure of regulated markets, mixed economies, etc. And i show , in first page, how the current crisis was caused because of regulation, not lack of regulation.


No, again, business is business, whether it has to put up with *more* rules, or *fewer* rules, from government. The objective always remains the same, and that's to produce a profit, by whatever means. This profit motive contains a built-in "braking mechanism", and we're seeing that today, in the current economic crisis.


A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit

http://tinyurl.com/2bvq3a

[Havet]

Let's start this over

You argue that we are subject to a slavery of necessity. Basically you argue that since i need food to survive, and i need to work to get food, then i am *forced* to get food, where in reality i could just lie down and die.

You're turning the physical nature of reality into an oppressor, so then you can blame it for your own failings. "don't like working? not good at making money? don't have any talents? its not your fault"

life would be fine if you werent forced to work. if you enter the world of work, and you're a failure, you're going to be disatisfied, because you're going to have a shit job and you don't have the ability to get a better one.

but its easier to blame "the system" than to blame yourself

then again, you don't actively blame the universe, instead you project that onto capitalists. since rich capitalists are the ones who have alll the jobs to give, then "its their fault for making you work for food".

This is why for you nature itself is coercion, because you are the victim of the universe, because you have to supply for yourself, follow a specific path, to get food to survive.



This is the equivalent of looking only at the *winners* of a lottery -- you're just belching capitalist
mythology here -- what about everyone else?those people did not get lucky. they were smart. thankfully people with your attitude always fail at business, so your crappy attitude is rewarded by an existence of mediocrity. its not how much you have, its how much youve made, how far youve come.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/homemade-helicopter/nigerian-man-builds-working-helicopters-from-junk-313408.php

was that luck?

there are more examples:

"Hong Kong self-made billionaire Li Ka-Shing, worth $18.8 billion or so, is Asia’s richest man. He is also the
richest Chinese in the world, and according to Forbes, the 10th richest man in the world. When he was just 12
years old, Li and his family fled to Hong Kong when Japan invaded China. When he was 15, Li’s father died and he
was forced to drop out of high school to support his family. Li got his start as a salesman selling watches at
his uncle’s store, and soon proved to be a diligent worker: he worked 16 hour days, visited customers during the
day and worked at the factory at night. Determined to better himself, Li even found a tutor to teach him English
every night!

When he was 21, Li opened a plastic manufacturing company and grew his business by selling high quality plastic
flowers at bargain prices. When Li was 30, he accidentally got into real estate because he couldn’t renew the
lease for his factory and was forced to purchase and develop a site himself. From there, Li diversified into
electronics, telecommunications, retails, ports, and even power and electricity. Li is also noted for his
philantrophy: he gave millions to various universities and disaster-relief."

by everything you say, the oppresive capitalist system must be putting him down. "what chance has he got against all the people ho already own factories and power plants?" apparently: ALOT

most people are not that smart. communism certainly won't help them. north korea, ussr, cuba

"oh but theyre not being run properly"

if you think having some people with lots of ability is oppresive, and that by leveling everyone down it will improve the lives of everyone, apart from the chairman and the comitees, then you are kidding yourself.

and by claiming that most poor people don't have land as an alternative to working is overlooking FACTS.

the poorest places have the most land. nearly everyone in africa owns large amounts of land. same with china. In fact, in china people sell large farm land to go move to a small city apartment because theres more money involved.

freedom is what you're allowed to do. ability is what you can do. this is why power/ability != freedom. So in order to give people more freedom you DON'T have to take away freedom from business owners.


Well, then, that's not progress for *anyone*, is it? Shouldn't we have an economic system, run by the people
who are most interested in working and administrating it *in their own best interests*??? The fact that
capitalism has to implement *any* kind of "charity" shows that it is a colossal failure as an economic system.free market capitalism is not a system that has to implement things. free market capitalism means you don't point guns at other people and put you're hand in their pockets. Free market Capitalism isn't a system at all. You are simply afraid of the terrible oppressive freedom of no one stealing from anyone else.

let me ask you this:

what would normal people do without capitalists?

if someone decides to start their own business, and doesnt hire any other workers, how is it right to steal from them because they are exploiting?

and if you answer: "well its not fair for him to have wealth when others are starving"

then what do you do if he doesn't give you his wealth?

[ckaihatsu]

Let's start this over

You argue that we are subject to a slavery of necessity. Basically you argue that since i need food to survive, and i need to work to get food, then i am *forced* to get food, where in reality i could just lie down and die.


Yes, we *all* have biological and social requirements, and *we all* live in the company of others -- this is the definition of human beings.

Since we live in societies we *do not* have to procure the basics of life through *strictly individualistic* efforts -- instead we have found ways of *pooling* our efforts together in order to be more efficient and reap far more productivity than if we were to gather and hunt individually.

So it follows: What *is* the best way(s) for us to work together in order to make the best use of the resources of the earth? Obviously *some type* of collective effort, or collectivization, is the way to go.

The merchant system, or mercantilism, allowed the creation of private stores of wealth and led to the joint-stock company *system* of organization. This, in turn, allowed for *many people* to pool their private stores of wealth together in order to build larger tools -- factories, railroads, and so on.

But this system of *private wealth* has far outlived its usefulness. While it was *progressive* in that it brought great numbers of workers together for industrial production, the problem is that competition is inevitable. At more-local levels competition can be mitigated through the construction of governments and regulations, and financial conglomerations, but ultimately there are gargantuan clashes at the global level among nation-states that represent their respective groupings of business concerns in various major industries. It started with World War I -- the friction between the economic system of the markets, against the patchwork of nation-states, continues through today.





You're turning the physical nature of reality into an oppressor, so then you can blame it for your own failings.


As I outlined above, *we all* face the same physical reality in terms of our basic biological and social needs. The question in front of us, as a society, is *how best* to overcome these needs. In many places in the world water is not a concern, nor is heat, or air conditioning, or shelter, and so on.

Considering the vast areas and populations of the world that *do not* have everyday access to these necessities, we *have* to ask, *why not*???

Obviously the *technology* exists, and the *transportation* exists, so what's the hold-up? We can only conclude that the problem is *not* with the know-how, or the *physical capacity* for providing these material things, the problem is with the *social organization* of the world's people.

So I hope you see the difference between the *physical nature of reality* and the *social organization of reality*. This is a crucial distinction to understand.





"don't like working? not good at making money? don't have any talents? its not your fault"


What you are doing here is *individualizing* something that is actually a *widespread* *social* problem.

If a few people in a remote town somewhere are unemployed and poor we might be able to justifiably look at them as individuals and conclude that they, themselves, *individually*, are not making the effort needed to be employed and better-off.

But the reality is that this is *not* an *isolated* phenomenon. Actually there are *millions* unemployed today in the world's largest economy -- the U.S. This shows us that pointing fingers and putting blame on *individuals* is pointless and only aggravates the situation. It overlooks that there is an overall *pattern* to the phenomenon of unemployment and poverty. Again this means that we *must* look back to our *social* reality, or *social* organization that is *preventing* millions (and billions worldwide) from carrying out their life plans.





life would be fine if you werent forced to work. if you enter the world of work, and you're a failure, you're going to be disatisfied, because you're going to have a shit job and you don't have the ability to get a better one.


Right -- so again this begs the question -- *why not?* Might there be ways so that not everyone has to work while they can enjoy full lives at the same time? Maybe the *physical capacity* for that kind of world is available.... Maybe we could use automation and mechanization so that *no one* has to do any shit jobs.





but its easier to blame "the system" than to blame yourself


No, it's * more accurate * to blame the system than to blame oneself. Again, this is about an *overall pattern* -- it's *not* an *individualistic* thing like your favorite food or what music you like.





then again, you don't actively blame the universe, instead you project that onto capitalists. since rich capitalists are the ones who have alll the jobs to give, then "its their fault for making you work for food".


Just as it would be inaccurate to blame individuals for unemployment, it would also be incorrect to blame individual capitalists for the same -- this is a *systemic* thing, beyond the control of *individual* workers or capitalists.





This is why for you nature itself is coercion, because you are the victim of the universe, because you have to supply for yourself, follow a specific path, to get food to survive.


Well, like everyone else, I'm hardly an individual frontier person stuck in the wilderness with an axe and an appetite. Our level of society's productivity has developed far past *that* point.

[RGacky3]

its neither logical nor reasonable to resort to crime. period. being able to get out of poverty is the most important argument here. Its the only non-violent way of stop being poor. And the possibility of being a dictator of a country is useless in this context.

Yeah it is, selling drugs sometimes is a lot more of a logical choice than trying to slave your way out.

The possibility of being a dictator is definately relevant, to show that just because its "possible" for most poeple to attain it, does'nt justify it.


If people are free and wish to organize themselves into hierarchical companies like we have today, what is wrong with that, so long as they both voluntarily consent to the contract?

People ARN'T free, giant disparities in wealth (which means power) means that the majority are not free. Its not an equal contract.


there is a difference. A peasent would be hunt down, tortured and killed the moment he stoped working his land, or paying the king, or escaped.
This is simply not the case today. You are neither hunt down nor tortured or killed. Also, you get a compensation from your work today, and back then the only compensation was the end of the threat of killing you for that day.

Thats not the way feaudalism worked, at least not universally. But the concept is th esame, the peasent "consented" to work the land.


Taking something from someone by force is not justifiable, because they are not agressing against the workers, only mistreating and giving them more reasons to hate the employers.

You still havent provided any concrete proof of how my proposal isn't doable and preferable than a revolution.

No, they are agressing against the workers, through property laws, in other words the workers have to give up the fruits of their labor because according to property laws, they don't own it.

Your proposal is'nt doable BECAUSe first of all the Capitalist class would'nt allow it, second because the raising that type of money to compete with established tyrannical businesses is next to impossible for paycheck to paycheck workers to save enough disposible income to risk, plus why would they risk their disposible income on a next to impossible venture? Also your proposal would'nt actaully change the balance of power. Control is'nt just owning a business, its controling Capital and resources, which includes money

Also its not preferable, because the Capitalists control the means of production unjustifiable. Plus revolution does'nt have to be violent, as long as the Capitalist class does'nt start it (which historically, its almost always the Capitalist class, as a classic example take recently in Oaxaca).


If you think it is ridiculous to win the capitalists by non-violence rather than violence, then you clearly do not value the very lives of the workers you are defending. and like I've consistently tried to explain, those who have power and control, today, can only achieve it through government bribery.


You seam to think that getting rid of the government the Capitalist will suddenly loose power, you forget that the Capitalist is more powerful to the governmetn, the government is subservient. Also without a government, why would the workers want to "buy" whats already pretty much rightfully theirs?


what you call public pressure on governments is called consumer demand in businesses, and the later is a much more effective way of dealing with problems and different interests of people.


When 5% control 95% of the wealth, no its not.


Not only does a consumer have better information than a voter, it is of more use to him. if i investigate alternative brands of cars or protection, decide which is best for me, and buy it, i get it . If i investigate alternative politicians and vote, i get what the majority votes for.

imagine buying cars the way we buy governments. under such institutions, the quality of cars would quickly decline.


Imagen democracy without Capitalism, it would look a lot different, and direct democracy at that. look at examples where that was around, rather than try and apply it to to Capitalist democracy, which is of a very different nature.


that time was a time of big economic growth (until the crisis) and overall improvement of the quality of people's lives, and the amount of purchasing power they got. it was also a time of great scientific innovation, because those who designed the best inventions had more chances of getting more profits from the idea.

That was also the time of the big giant monopolies.


benefits? i kill competition, consumers know (either from leak or from increasing rumors), i lose customers, i go bankrupt. That is not in an owners best interest.


Do you know anything about the drug trade? (Unregulated free market). Also, its about oppressing workers mostly, and keeping class power.


With government, it is easier for businesses to avoid competition by bribing them and getting favors to restrict trade. Without government, competition is now a primary goal of every business.

No, first comes class power. Competition comes secondary, also Capitalists are superior in power to the government, so what makes you think they won't make their own governments, or cartels or whatever.

Your free market fantasy ignores real life examples.


ask them if they prefered to be employed without the choice to leave and receiving no wage, only a constant threat that if they do not work they, and their family, will be killed. Do not try and compare the unhumanity of past times with the increased conditions we have today.

No ask them if they would rather have a say in how their company is run, thast our goal.


agree, although business doesnt control labor directly, because people aren't slaves like they were in feudal times. you could argue it is government that controls labor, because by the regulations they pass they decide who can be employed and who can't.

Because when there was less regulation Capitalists had less power? Are you high?

The governments is a TOOL of the Capitalists.

[Havet]

Yeah it is, selling drugs sometimes is a lot more of a logical choice than trying to slave your way out.

selling drugs is just as logical as selling food. that's why i oppose regulation on selling drugs. people can do what they want with their bodies, so long as they don't hurt me.


People ARN'T free, giant disparities in wealth (which means power) means that the majority are not free. Its not an equal contract.

freedom is what you're allowed to do. ability is what you can do. this is why power/ability != freedom. JUst because people aren't already rich doesn't mean they can't be. if that were not the case, then there could be no billionaires that started with nothing, which they exist.


Thats not the way feaudalism worked, at least not universally. But the concept is th esame, the peasent "consented" to work the land.

the peasent was forced at the point of a spear, gun, fist. now you aren't forced at the point of a gun. the best you could argue is that you are forced by nature, but even that you aren't, because you can choose to just lie down and die from hunger.


No, they are agressing against the workers, through property laws, in other words the workers have to give up the fruits of their labor because according to property laws, they don't own it.

the fruits of their labor are rewarded with money, which they can trade for something else. and workers consented to the job in the first place, so they consented to "give up the fruits of their labor", whatever that means.


Your proposal is'nt doable BECAUSe first of all the Capitalist class would'nt allow it, second because the raising that type of money to compete with established tyrannical businesses is next to impossible for paycheck to paycheck workers to save enough disposible income to risk, plus why would they risk their disposible income on a next to impossible venture? Also your proposal would'nt actaully change the balance of power. Control is'nt just owning a business, its controling Capital and resources, which includes money

"why cannot a bunch of workers of a company save enough money for enough time so they can buy +50% share of the company that owns where they work? after that, the company would be theirs to do as they please. They could make a cooperative, a commune, whatever, and stop being bossed around by "capitalists".

How much would it cost workers to purchase their firms? the total value of the shares of all stocks listen on the new york stock exhange in 1965 was 537 billion dollars. the total wages and salaries of all private employees that year was 288.5 billion. state and federal income taxes totalled 75.2 billion. if the workers had chosen to live at the consumption standard of hippies, they could have gotten a majority share in every firm in 2 and a half years and bought the capitalists out, lock, stock, and barrel, in five. That is a substantial cost, but surely cheaper than organizing a revolution, where people can be killed.

Also less of a gamble, and unlike a revolution, it dosn't have to be all at once. the employees of one firm can buy it this decade, then use their profits to help fellow workers buy theirs later. when you buy stock, you pay not only for the capital assets-buildings, machines, inventory, and the like- but also for its experience,reputation, and organization. If workers can really run firms better, these are unnecessary; all they need are physical assets. Those assets-the net working capital of all corportations in the United States-in 1965-totalled 171.7billion dollars. The workers could buy that much and go into business for themselves with fourteen months worth of savings. "


Also its not preferable, because the Capitalists control the means of production unjustifiable. Plus revolution does'nt have to be violent, as long as the Capitalist class does'nt start it (which historically, its almost always the Capitalist class, as a classic example take recently in Oaxaca).

"many rich people don't get rich by luck. they were smart. thankfully people with your attitude always fail at business, so your crappy attitude is rewarded by an existence of mediocrity. its not how much you have, its how much youve made, how far youve come.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/homemade-...unk-313408.php (http://www.anonym.to/?http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/homemade-helicopter/nigerian-man-builds-working-helicopters-from-junk-313408.php)

was that luck?

there are more examples:

"Hong Kong self-made billionaire Li Ka-Shing, worth $18.8 billion or so, is Asia’s richest man. He is also the
richest Chinese in the world, and according to Forbes, the 10th richest man in the world. When he was just 12
years old, Li and his family fled to Hong Kong when Japan invaded China. When he was 15, Li’s father died and he
was forced to drop out of high school to support his family. Li got his start as a salesman selling watches at
his uncle’s store, and soon proved to be a diligent worker: he worked 16 hour days, visited customers during the
day and worked at the factory at night. Determined to better himself, Li even found a tutor to teach him English
every night!

When he was 21, Li opened a plastic manufacturing company and grew his business by selling high quality plastic
flowers at bargain prices. When Li was 30, he accidentally got into real estate because he couldn’t renew the
lease for his factory and was forced to purchase and develop a site himself. From there, Li diversified into
electronics, telecommunications, retails, ports, and even power and electricity. Li is also noted for his
philantrophy: he gave millions to various universities and disaster-relief."

by everything you say, the oppresive capitalist system must be putting him down. "what chance has he got against all the people ho already own factories and power plants?" apparently: ALOT"


Also without a government, why would the workers want to "buy" whats already pretty much rightfully theirs?

people don't need to buy what's already "theirs". they can make it themselves. start your own communist businesses so that the workers get exactly what they produce.


When 5% control 95% of the wealth, no its not.

did you invent those statistics? if not, where did you get them from? show me the data.


That was also the time of the big giant monopolies.

and if you research it further you'll find that most of those monopolies were only there because of direct government action.


Do you know anything about the drug trade? (Unregulated free market). Also, its about oppressing workers mostly, and keeping class power.

i know enough about the drugs to know that everyone would be better off if their trade wasn't forbiden, as there isn't any logical explanation for it to to continue to be forbiden now.


No ask them if they would rather have a say in how their company is run, thast our goal.

even at the dawn of the industrial revolution workers already had says in how the company is run

"The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories and mines, thus facilitating the organisation of combinations or trade unions to help advance the interests of working people. The power of a union could demand better terms by withdrawing all labour and causing a consequent cessation of production. Employers had to decide between giving in to the union demands at a cost to themselves or suffer the cost of the lost production. Skilled workers were hard to replace, and these were the first groups to successfully advance their conditions through this kind of bargaining
Working people also formed friendly societies and co-operative societies as mutual support groups against times of economic hardship. Enlightened industrialists, such as Robert Owen also supported these organisations to improve the conditions of the working class.
Unions slowly overcame the legal restrictions on the right to strike. In 1842, a General Strike involving cotton workers and colliers was organised through the Chartist movement which stopped production across Great Britain.[42]"


The governments is a TOOL of the Capitalists.

i'll agree with you on that, the government is a tool for big business, and big business uses it so they can eliminate competition and get more profits.

[RGacky3]

freedom is what you're allowed to do. ability is what you can do. this is why power/ability != freedom. JUst because people aren't already rich doesn't mean they can't be. if that were not the case, then there could be no billionaires that started with nothing, which they exist.


But what your allowed to do is useless without access to anyway to do it. ANYONE can be president, everyone is free to be president, your allowed to do it, but that does'nt justify his power, or mean that the people that arn't president are just as free as the one that is.


the peasent was forced at the point of a spear, gun, fist. now you aren't forced at the point of a gun. the best you could argue is that you are forced by nature, but even that you aren't, because you can choose to just lie down and die from hunger.

I don't know what feaudalism your talking about. But when the Capitalists control virtually everything, you don't need a gun. If your in a desert, there is a lake in the middle, but no ones allowed to drink from it because you say its yours, and they die, who's responsible for their death?


the fruits of their labor are rewarded with money, which they can trade for something else. and workers consented to the job in the first place, so they consented to "give up the fruits of their labor", whatever that means.

The "fruits of their labor" is the full value of what they produce, and workers are paid just a fraction of that (if they wern't profits could'nt exist). They consented to the job because the Capitalist controls the means of production.

Back to the lake illustration, if you "owning" the lake, say "you can only drink from 'my' lake if you lick my toes" People are going to lick your toes rather than die. But that does'nt justify anything, that lake is'nt yours to begin with, so the so-called 'consent' is really just extortion.


"why cannot a bunch of workers of a company save enough money for enough time so they can buy +50% share of the company that owns where they work? after that, the company would be theirs to do as they please. They could make a cooperative, a commune, whatever, and stop being bossed around by "capitalists".

How much would it cost workers to purchase their firms? the total value of the shares of all stocks listen on the new york stock exhange in 1965 was 537 billion dollars. the total wages and salaries of all private employees that year was 288.5 billion. state and federal income taxes totalled 75.2 billion. if the workers had chosen to live at the consumption standard of hippies, they could have gotten a majority share in every firm in 2 and a half years and bought the capitalists out, lock, stock, and barrel, in five. That is a substantial cost, but surely cheaper than organizing a revolution, where people can be killed.

Also less of a gamble, and unlike a revolution, it dosn't have to be all at once. the employees of one firm can buy it this decade, then use their profits to help fellow workers buy theirs later. when you buy stock, you pay not only for the capital assets-buildings, machines, inventory, and the like- but also for its experience,reputation, and organization. If workers can really run firms better, these are unnecessary; all they need are physical assets. Those assets-the net working capital of all corportations in the United States-in 1965-totalled 171.7billion dollars. The workers could buy that much and go into business for themselves with fourteen months worth of savings. "

You ignored my post, and just restated what I had allready refuted.


"many rich people don't get rich by luck. they were smart. thankfully people with your attitude always fail at business, so your crappy attitude is rewarded by an existence of mediocrity. its not how much you have, its how much youve made, how far youve come.

Sometimes yaeh, sometimes no, so what, Stalin did'nt become dictator by luck either, he worked hard and he was very smart, but so what, how does that justify anything?


by everything you say, the oppresive capitalist system must be putting him down. "what chance has he got against all the people ho already own factories and power plants?" apparently: ALOT"

So the solution is everyone being an euntrepeneir, poor people just hav'nt tried hard enough. Do you realize how proposterous your thinking is? Essencially your argument is, well every one can roll the dice and hope to become one of the ruling class, and thus, that justifies the ruling class.


people don't need to buy what's already "theirs". they can make it themselves. start your own communist businesses so that the workers get exactly what they produce.

Resources and Capital are not infinate. Thats like saying, "someone just kicked you out of your home, that you built, and now says its his home, so just go and build another home."


did you invent those statistics? if not, where did you get them from? show me the data.

yaawwwwn. google.
http://www.wider.unu.edu/events/past-events/2006-events/en_GB/05-12-2006/

http://www.gizmag.com/go/6571/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

Blablabla. I can't believe your arguing that. My made up statistic is actually pretty conservative and I use it just for overall examples.


i know enough about the drugs to know that everyone would be better off if their trade wasn't forbiden, as there isn't any logical explanation for it to to continue to be forbiden now.

Well they operate outside the law. Meaning no regulation, no government control, only violent cartels that make brutal governments look like boy scouts. That was my point, if they were legalized they would have to operate INSIDE the law, with regulations and govnernment oversight.


"The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories and mines, thus facilitating the organisation of combinations or trade unions to help advance the interests of working people. The power of a union could demand better terms by withdrawing all labour and causing a consequent cessation of production. Employers had to decide between giving in to the union demands at a cost to themselves or suffer the cost of the lost production. Skilled workers were hard to replace, and these were the first groups to successfully advance their conditions through this kind of bargaining
Working people also formed friendly societies and co-operative societies as mutual support groups against times of economic hardship. Enlightened industrialists, such as Robert Owen also supported these organisations to improve the conditions of the working class.
Unions slowly overcame the legal restrictions on the right to strike. In 1842, a General Strike involving cotton workers and colliers was organised through the Chartist movement which stopped production across Great Britain.[42]"

Yeah, unions, one of the most democratic and socialistic concepts around. Which were simply trying to counter tyranny, but would'nt it be better without the tyranny? Bosses don't want unions for a good reason.


i'll agree with you on that, the government is a tool for big business, and big business uses it so they can eliminate competition and get more profits.

Not so they can eliminate compeition (only), but also as a tool of class war, and international control.

[Havet]

But this system of *private wealth* has far outlived its usefulness. While it was *progressive* in that it brought great numbers of workers together for industrial production, the problem is that competition is inevitable. At more-local levels competition can be mitigated through the construction of governments and regulations, and financial conglomerations, but ultimately there are gargantuan clashes at the global level among nation-states that represent their respective groupings of business concerns in various major industries. It started with World War I -- the friction between the economic system of the markets, against the patchwork of nation-states, continues through today.competition in business is what increases the quality of products, reduces prices and increases the standard of living. So long as that competition is done without force - which is what happens most of the time - then there is neither a moral nor a consequentialist disadvantage in its existance.



Considering the vast areas and populations of the world that *do not* have everyday access to these necessities, we *have* to ask, *why not*???

Obviously the *technology* exists, and the *transportation* exists, so what's the hold-up? We can only conclude that the problem is *not* with the know-how, or the *physical capacity* for providing these material things, the problem is with the *social organization* of the world's people.Yes, you should wonder why in some areas they don't have access to basic necessities. If you had actually looked at those places, you will find its where they have largely restricted free trade and where the economy is placed under the control of a government/dictatorship.



But the reality is that this is *not* an *isolated* phenomenon. Actually there are *millions* unemployed today in the world's largest economy -- the U.S. This shows us that pointing fingers and putting blame on *individuals* is pointless and only aggravates the situation. It overlooks that there is an overall *pattern* to the phenomenon of unemployment and poverty. Again this means that we *must* look back to our *social* reality, or *social* organization that is *preventing* millions (and billions worldwide) from carrying out their life plans.you are arguing that because so many are unemployed, they can't all be "stupid enough to don't realize" they could make a better life for themselves. But the truth is they all could.

And the recent wage of unemployment is the result of government programs which led to bad market investments (not to say some entrepeneurs didnt have some fault at it too, they could have foreseen where it would lead, but they chose not to). A free market doesn't overlook that problem, it is the best system to deal with it. If i wish to be rich there is nothing preventing me except some government regulations and the chance that i might fail at the process if i am not smart or careful enough.


Right -- so again this begs the question -- *why not?* Might there be ways so that not everyone has to work while they can enjoy full lives at the same time? Maybe the *physical capacity* for that kind of world is available.... Maybe we could use automation and mechanization so that *no one* has to do any shit jobs.what you're actually saying is that there might be ways for people to get what they don't deserve, by not producing it simply because they need it. And that can only be achieved by forcing those who produce (entrepeneurs, workers, businesses) to give to those who claim their products. As technology advances "shitty" jobs will disappear, because they will be replaced by machines, and in turn there will come more jobs for people to create these machines and to fix them.


Just as it would be inaccurate to blame individuals for unemployment, it would also be incorrect to blame individual capitalists for the same -- this is a *systemic* thing, beyond the control of *individual* workers or capitalists.some people may wish to remain unemployed. some entrepeneurs may close a factory and leave people unemployed. However, if you look at what's really causing, and was causing, the great numbers of unemployment in developed countries, you will see that its government intervention, not free market, that has caused it.

-------

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8&feature=PlayList&p=C508C05C017CEC8E&index=0&playnext=1 (video of how the free market promotes cooperation, lasts 2 mins)


But what your allowed to do is useless without access to anyway to do it. ANYONE can be president, everyone is free to be president, your allowed to do it, but that does'nt justify his power, or mean that the people that arn't president are just as free as the one that is.

to be president you need to convince +50% of the population, and then force the decision to the other 49%. To become an entrepeneur, you need some money, an idea, and to start trading with customers. needless to say you are both free to become an entrepeneur and have access to do it. The access to do it is freedom. What you need to do to get there is get the resources to achieve it. I do not grow food by simply being free to do it, i have to know how to plant the seeds, when to water them, etc.


I don't know what feaudalism your talking about. But when the Capitalists control virtually everything, you don't need a gun. If your in a desert, there is a lake in the middle, but no ones allowed to drink from it because you say its yours, and they die, who's responsible for their death?I certainly wouldn't have a claim on it just because i needed to drink to not die. However the issue here is dependant on property rights, which are debatable to the extent that the current method of "finders-keepers" isn't at all satisfiable. But if you take another example, like if i have a banana and someone who is starving shows up, it isn't my fault if he dies of hunger, although it would be best for him if i gave him the banana, he has no right to it simply because he needs it, and as such cannot use that argument to justify using force on me.


The "fruits of their labor" is the full value of what they produce, and workers are paid just a fraction of that (if they wern't profits could'nt exist). They consented to the job because the Capitalist controls the means of production.

Back to the lake illustration, if you "owning" the lake, say "you can only drink from 'my' lake if you lick my toes" People are going to lick your toes rather than die. But that does'nt justify anything, that lake is'nt yours to begin with, so the so-called 'consent' is really just extortion.I've already explained that just because individuals control the means of production doesn't mean that you cannot control a means of producing something as well, and therefore getting the full value of your work. And i gave examples of people (even though there are much more) who have done precisely that.

now you're confusing a part of property rights which is debatable with the right for someone to own property. But let's imagine that that person really owned the lake (he brought water from somewhere and decided to make a lake in the middle of nowhere). And if you define "licking toes" as people being forced to drink from my lake, then you are wrong, because nobody is forcing them AT THE POINT OF A GUN. They are only "slaves" to Nature as everyone else, and as such it doesn't give them right to anyone's righfully aquired property.


You ignored my post, and just restated what I had allready refuted.You ahve not given any single straight answer as to how that method isn't doable and preferable.


Stalin did'nt become dictator by luck either, he worked hard and he was very smart, but so what, how does that justify anything?How does it justify the killings stalin did? it doesn't. how does it justify someone's wealth? because they worked for it and achieved that wealth by their own effort, by trading with others, and by making rational connections. It is precisely middle-aged notions that "to achieve wealth one only needs to be lucky" that prevents many people from actually understanding that wealth has to be produced (except in cases of actual theft or of heritage)


So the solution is everyone being an euntrepeneir, poor people just hav'nt tried hard enough. Do you realize how proposterous your thinking is? Essencially your argument is, well every one can roll the dice and hope to become one of the ruling class, and thus, that justifies the ruling class.they are NOT rolling the dice being at the mercy of FATE, DESTINY, whatever. honest entrepeneurs made their wealth by acumulating and investing, by understanding what people value and providing it. You do not seem to grasp the fact that wealth has to be produced. here's an interesting quote on the subject:

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward.

So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.


"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will."

Resources and Capital are not infinate. Thats like saying, "someone just kicked you out of your home, that you built, and now says its his home, so just go and build another home.Except nobody "kicked anybody out of anyone's home" because the home owner said: you can keep the home ive built in return for a wage.


Blablabla. I can't believe your arguing that. My made up statistic is actually pretty conservative and I use it just for overall examples. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen .html

skip to 6.07 minutes, and you will find how inequality has been declining in the poorest countries. But i could even argue how that does't matter from another viewpoint. Unequal salaries reflect unequal abilities, and the fact that they have both been growing shows how a greater salary does not increase at the expense of lower salaries. In effect: the rich get richer and the poor get richer.


Well they operate outside the law. Meaning no regulation, no government control, only violent cartels that make brutal governments look like boy scouts. That was my point, if they were legalized they would have to operate INSIDE the law, with regulations and govnernment oversight.And those violent cartels exist because there is government force trying to stop the trade of those products. The best solution, in my opinion, is for them to be "legalized" without having regulation and goverment oversight.


Yeah, unions, one of the most democratic and socialistic concepts around. Which were simply trying to counter tyranny, but would'nt it be better without the tyranny? Bosses don't want unions for a good reason.They were in effect and rightfully trying to counter the tyranny of government trying to forbid their existence, and the fact that the workers had low conditions to perform their job. The fact that there were bosses in the first place does not constitute tyranny. The fact that they were trying to forbid their existance outside the workplace is.

---

Now i'd like to present an argument to anyone daring to listen to it, about how it is not only workers who produce, and how the existance of a business owner that makes profit is NOT exploiting.

The problem with your arguing is that it does not recognize that paying for tools today and waiting for years to get the money back is itself a productive activity, and that the interest earned by capital is the corresponding payment.
Consider a specific situation. A factory built during 1849 produces from 1850 to 1900. Having cost $1 million, it generates for its woner an income of 100 000$ a year. This, according to Marx, is either wealth produced by the workers who built the factory, which should go to them, or wealth stolen from the workers working in the factory, who in that case are being paid less than they really produce.
Assume that the workers who built the factory were paid $1 million, the total cost of building it. (For simplicity's sake I will ignore other costs of production. According to Marx, such costs ultimately can eb traced back to the cost of the labor of other workers at an earlier time). The money provided by the capitalist will be returned to him in the first 10 years. After that the income is, from Marxist standpoint, pure eexploitation.
This arguments depends on regarding the $1million paid in 1849, when the work was done, as being "equal" to $1million received over the next decade. The workers themselves would not agree with this. They would hardly have done the job if they expected to wait 10 years for their pay. If they had been willing and able to work on those terms, the capitalist would indeed have been superfluous; the workers could have built the factory themselves, working for free, received their pay over the next ten years, and continue to receive it for 40 years more. It is the function of the capitalist to pay them wages in advance. If he were not available to pay them, the factory would not be built and the goods would not be produced. He himself bears a cost, since he too would rather have the money to do as he wishes in 1850, instead of having it tied up and released slowly over a period of time. If is perfectly reasonable that he should receivesomething for his contribution.

Another way of making this point is to say that money representes a bundle of alternatives. If i have ten dollars now, I can either spend it taking my girlfriend to a restaurant, or use it as bus fare somewhere, or... Having additional alternatives is always desirable, since then i have a wider range from which to pick the most attractive. Money is easily stored, so i do not have to spend it when i get it; 10 dollars today can either be saved until tomorrow and spend on one of the alternatives possible for 10 dollars tomorrow, or it can be spent today if i see an alternative more atractive than any i expect to see later. Thus, ten dollars today is worth more than ten dollars tomorrow. This is why interest rates exist, why, if i borrow ten dollars from you today, i must give back a little more than ten dollars tomorrow.
The advantage of money today over money tomorrow is tinty, as is the interest accumulated by ten dollars one day. When the time involved is a substantial portion of a man's life, the difference in value is also substantial. It is not a matter of indiference to me whther i can buy a house for my family today or ten years from now. Nor is the ten years insignificant to the man who lends me money now and expects to receive something in exchange. The Marxists are wrong to regard interest received by a capitalist or paid by a debtor to a creditor as stolen money. It is actually a payment for value received.

[ckaihatsu]

So, again, you'd prefer to ignore my valid perspective on reality, one which points out *millions* of preventable deaths due to the repressive conditions facing people of color and the working class.

You're taking the classical supply-side, business approach to politics which is to dump blame on the government -- which gladly plays the role of the whipping-boy -- while artificially severing *any* connection between the purposes of business and the purposes of government, for the sake of your arguments.

You are describing the system at eye-level *only* -- which would be fine if there weren't larger, emergent dynamics from the workings of the economy. But a lack of competition from your viewpoint *doesn't mean* there *aren't* problems as soon as you step to the periphery or get a bird's-eye view of the whole thing. As a result your perspective is *very* limited in scope -- I would call it myopic.

It's not worth my time to reply to all of your points because my summation covers your entire perspective. At this point we're talking *past* each other, not *to* each other....

[Havet]

So, again, you'd prefer to ignore my valid perspective on reality, one which points out *millions* of preventable deaths due to the repressive conditions facing people of color and the working class.

You're taking the classical supply-side, business approach to politics which is to dump blame on the government -- which gladly plays the role of the whipping-boy -- while artificially severing *any* connection between the purposes of business and the purposes of government, for the sake of your arguments.

You are describing the system at eye-level *only* -- which would be fine if there weren't larger, emergent dynamics from the workings of the economy. But a lack of competition from your viewpoint *doesn't mean* there *aren't* problems as soon as you step to the periphery or get a bird's-eye view of the whole thing. As a result your perspective is *very* limited in scope -- I would call it myopic.

It's not worth my time to reply to all of your points because my summation covers your entire perspective. At this point we're talking *past* each other, not *to* each other....

you might think youve refutted my arguments, but i think you havent.

anyway, your stance will get both of us nowhere. I am still available to discuss the issue. We are both here because we believe we can convince the other of our views. Very well, let's stay here until we do. I propose we BOTH open our minds more and re-discuss the issues focusing on core issues instead of just sliding to particular cases (which inevitably lead to huge posts)

[RGacky3]

to be president you need to convince +50% of the population, and then force the decision to the other 49%. To become an entrepeneur, you need some money, an idea, and to start trading with customers. needless to say you are both free to become an entrepeneur and have access to do it. The access to do it is freedom. What you need to do to get there is get the resources to achieve it. I do not grow food by simply being free to do it, i have to know how to plant the seeds, when to water them, etc.

So? Some money for the vast majority is a big big deal. Just because one is harder than the other does'nt justify anything, my argument stands, they are both attainable, does'nt justify either of them.


I certainly wouldn't have a claim on it just because i needed to drink to not die. However the issue here is dependant on property rights, which are debatable to the extent that the current method of "finders-keepers" isn't at all satisfiable. But if you take another example, like if i have a banana and someone who is starving shows up, it isn't my fault if he dies of hunger, although it would be best for him if i gave him the banana, he has no right to it simply because he needs it, and as such cannot use that argument to justify using force on me.

No the bannana is'nt a good example, because thats not the same or even close to "private property" a better example is a banana tree, or a group of banana trees. Its not your "fault" if he dies, but your claim on the tree is as good as his.

What does needing to drink have anything to do with property rights? It doesn't change the argument at all.


I've already explained that just because individuals control the means of production doesn't mean that you cannot control a means of producing something as well, and therefore getting the full value of your work. And i gave examples of people (even though there are much more) who have done precisely that.

now you're confusing a part of property rights which is debatable with the right for someone to own property. But let's imagine that that person really owned the lake (he brought water from somewhere and decided to make a lake in the middle of nowhere). And if you define "licking toes" as people being forced to drink from my lake, then you are wrong, because nobody is forcing them AT THE POINT OF A GUN. They are only "slaves" to Nature as everyone else, and as such it doesn't give them right to anyone's righfully aquired property.

And I just explained that attainability DOES NOT justify authority.

Btw, you don't have to make something to own it, thats not how property rights work, soooo, your argument falls there, I definte licking toes as literally licking toes, thats what the guy has to do to drink and not die.

His claim as as good as anyones to that lake, my claim on any part of the earth is as good as anyone elses.


You ahve not given any single straight answer as to how that method isn't doable and preferable.

Yes I have, re-read and answer.


How does it justify the killings stalin did? it doesn't. how does it justify someone's wealth? because they worked for it and achieved that wealth by their own effort, by trading with others, and by making rational connections. It is precisely middle-aged notions that "to achieve wealth one only needs to be lucky" that prevents many people from actually understanding that wealth has to be produced (except in cases of actual theft or of heritage)


It does'nt justify, thats my point. They worked for it yes, that does'tn justify expliotation, and mayby they did'nt work for it, probably someone else did. One does'nt only need to be "lucky" but so what? Wealth is produced, but it is'nt distributed based on who produces it.


Except nobody "kicked anybody out of anyone's home" because the home owner said: you can keep the home ive built in return for a wage.


No, because he did'nt build it, the workers did, so they should take it.


Unequal salaries reflect unequal abilities

You don't know a damn thing about labor markets do you?


In effect: the rich get richer and the poor get richer.

Slave conditions improved under slavery too, does that justify slavery?


And those violent cartels exist because there is government force trying to stop the trade of those products. The best solution, in my opinion, is for them to be "legalized" without having regulation and goverment oversight.

you ignored my post did'nt you. Your essencially claiming that if the government stopped arresting and hunting the cartels, they would stop being violent, and turf wars would stop.


The fact that there were bosses in the first place does not constitute tyranny. The fact that they were trying to forbid their existance outside the workplace is.


Yes it does. Its unjustified authority that steals wealth.

Now if you think a Bosses pay is earned, what you are saying is that if a vote were taken in everyword place today, about what the pay should be for every employee, and everyone had an equal vote, the pay rates would be the same, and the authority would be the same.

Now do you believe that?


anyway, your stance will get both of us nowhere. I am still available to discuss the issue. We are both here because we believe we can convince the other of our views. Very well, let's stay here until we do. I propose we BOTH open our minds more and re-discuss the issues focusing on core issues instead of just sliding to particular cases (which inevitably lead to huge posts)

You ignore arguments, and make proposterous fantasy propositions and compleatly ignore the real world.

Arguments along the lines of, "why don't slaves and slave owners just work together?" "why not just ask the monarch for independance."

You have no idea how Capitalism works.

[Havet]

This thread started as a critique of what caused the current financial crisis and has now ended at direct attacks on the communist ideology. I must say i'm proud of myself.

We both hold governments, in their current form, are undesirable or "not managing things properly". That is not what I want to discuss with you. I want to discuss the specific issues you have against business which is not using government force to their advantage.

You have claimed that workers are exploited. I have asked you how. You say that, since few people (capitalists) control the means of production, people have no other choice than to work for them and be at their mercy.

First of all, people have other choices. They can just lie down and die. People are not forced to work, but it is the best alternative they have than to die. Yes, even capitalists are subject to laws of nature. they too must work to get money. both workers and capitalists are humans, even though many people here insist on ignoring that fact.

But of course, you will claim, lying down and dying is not a choice at all. Very well, you have overlooked one of my arguments. In poorer countries, people have other choices than to go to work for capitalists and to die. They can actually work their own land! How? I'll quote myself.

"and by claiming that most poor people don't have land as an alternative to working is overlooking FACTS.
the poorest places have the most land. nearly everyone in africa owns large amounts of land. same with china. In fact, in china people sell large farm land to go move to a small city apartment because theres more money involved."

In fact, people in china seem to like money-grubbing capitalists so much they are willing to sell their land to work in their factories. According to you, they would either have no choice, or are just stupid and do not recognize their actions.

Even if you fail to see the logic of my argument, let me try to explain this differently.

Your basic and fundamental claim is that workers are exploited in the sense that they do not receive the full value of their work. And you believe in the labor theory of value. I don't agree but let's both of us discuss this, open-minded preferably.

What is the point of business? Profit. Businesses can only exist where profit exists. Let me give you a concrete example of how your claim doesn't make much sense to me:

if i have a worker and he is worth £5,000 a year, and I pay him £5,000 a year, what is the point in me hiring him?

if he earns me £5,000 a year and i pay him £5,000, what profit have i made?

why should i go to the effort of hiring him providing him with work for no benefit to myself?

The same goes for shops. should shops only sell food for what its worth? in that case how can the shop expect to exist? how can they pay for electricty and rent if they only sell food for what they pay for it?

If you still think my arguments are logically flawed, or undoable in "the practical reality", let me ask you some questions:

what would normal people do without capitalists?

if someone decides to start their own business, and doesnt hire any other workers, how is it right to steal from them because they are exploiting?

and if you answer: "well its not fair for him to have wealth when others are starving"

then what do you do if he doesn't give you his wealth?

[ckaihatsu]

I am going to use select portions of your post for my own illustrative purposes, as a convenience.





First of all, people have other choices. They can just lie down and die. People are not forced to work, but it is the best alternative they have than to die.


This is a * disgusting * statement to make. You are making my case *for me* -- that capitalism is a failure and a disappointment to humanity since it is *worse* than frontier wilderness (individualistic) living, even though capitalism contains the *means* to be *far better*, as evidenced by the lives of those who have wealth.

The "option" between doing something or facing death is called *coercion*, in any social context. There are more-dramatic and less-dramatic instances of this "choice", but the underlying reality remains the same -- we can't blame nature and we can't blame the individual's (or masses') biological need for food (etc.).





But of course, you will claim, lying down and dying is not a choice at all. Very well, you have overlooked one of my arguments. In poorer countries, people have other choices than to go to work for capitalists and to die. They can actually work their own land!


Not if they don't *have* (inherited) land -- no one can control *how much stuff* they inherit or grow up with, just as we cannot control *where*, *when*, and *what kind of body* we are born with.





Your basic and fundamental claim is that workers are exploited in the sense that they do not receive the full value of their work. And you believe in the labor theory of value. I don't agree but let's both of us discuss this, open-minded preferably.

What is the point of business? Profit. Businesses can only exist where profit exists. Let me give you a concrete example of how your claim doesn't make much sense to me:

[B]if i have a worker and he is worth £5,000 a year, and I pay him £5,000 a year, what is the point in me hiring him?

if he earns me £5,000 a year and i pay him £5,000, what profit have i made?

why should i go to the effort of hiring him providing him with work for no benefit to myself?


This portion alone shows the *arbitrariness* of cost and *valuation* (what is formally valued, and at what prices) in the capitalist system. What if the economic conditions were such -- through mass labor organizing and victories -- that the capitalists *had to* make do with this scenario you're positing?

One way would be to (attempt to) realize profit from the fixed-cost, or capital investment, part of the business. If your business is so hot-shit, then you should be able to buy low and sell high, even while returning the full value of your employees' labor right back to them, right?

If business objectively couldn't make a profit in this kind of economic climate (which would be inevitable -- look at the *current* financial crisis *despite being able to* exploit labor), then the profit-motivated system would collapse altogether, leaving labor to control its own destiny through organizing and political demands, being the far more numerous part of the business equation.





and if you answer: "well its not fair for him to have wealth when others are starving"

then what do you do if he doesn't give you his wealth?


No, I am *not* a moralist. I do not base my arguments on "fairness" or "sour grapes" -- I merely point out that those who labor may find it more in their *interests* to organize and *demand* a better standard of living from the existing society, however it happens to be composed.

[RGacky3]

First of all, people have other choices. They can just lie down and die. People are not forced to work, but it is the best alternative they have than to die. Yes, even capitalists are subject to laws of nature. they too must work to get money. both workers and capitalists are humans, even though many people here insist on ignoring that fact.

But of course, you will claim, lying down and dying is not a choice at all. Very well, you have overlooked one of my arguments. In poorer countries, people have other choices than to go to work for capitalists and to die. They can actually work their own land! How? I'll quote myself.

"and by claiming that most poor people don't have land as an alternative to working is overlooking FACTS.
the poorest places have the most land. nearly everyone in africa owns large amounts of land. same with china. In fact, in china people sell large farm land to go move to a small city apartment because theres more money involved."

Choices EXISTING, does'nt justify unjust power. If it does then giving a death row inmate the choice of death justifies the death penalty, if it does putting an innocent man in prison, but letting him choose the prison is justified.


if i have a worker and he is worth £5,000 a year, and I pay him £5,000 a year, what is the point in me hiring him?

if he earns me £5,000 a year and i pay him £5,000, what profit have i made?

why should i go to the effort of hiring him providing him with work for no benefit to myself?

The same goes for shops. should shops only sell food for what its worth? in that case how can the shop expect to exist? how can they pay for electricty and rent if they only sell food for what they pay for it?

Yeah I agree, of coarse thats the way it works, but we, as communists want to change that. Thats why we want to get rid of the profit motive (power motive), and make work for sustainability, nessesity and comfort.


what would normal people do without capitalists?

if someone decides to start their own business, and doesnt hire any other workers, how is it right to steal from them because they are exploiting?

and if you answer: "well its not fair for him to have wealth when others are starving"

then what do you do if he doesn't give you his wealth?

Thats like saying what would slaves do without their owners? I don't know, live their lives as free and equal people. If you take away private property rights, all of what your talking about does'nt come up, production is for the community and for yourself.

You can't look at the alternative through the concepts of Capitalism because we want to get rid of Capitalism.

[Havet]

Both of your arguments support that people should not be free to organize businesses, and that everyone who is very wealthy, regardless of whether he got that wealth from employing others or from directly stealing others (through taxes, or at the point of a gun), must be stolen back.

The problem of productivity, you claim, has been solved and deserves no study or concern; the only problem for you is now of distribution. Who solved the problem of production? Humanity, you will answer. What was the solution? The goods are here. How did they got there? Somehow. What has caused it? Nothing has causes.

You proclaim that every man born is entitled to exist without labor and, the laws of reality to the contrary notwithstanding, is entitled to receive his "minimum sustenance"- his food, his clothes, his shelter- with no effort from his part, as his due and his birthright. To receive it - from whom? Blank-out. Every man, you announce, owns an equal share of the technological benefits created in the world. Created - by whom? Blank-out. Frantic cowards who pose as the defenders of the industrialists now define the purpose of economics as an adjustment between the unlimited desires of men and the goods supplied in limited quantity. Supplied - by whom?Blank-out.

If you want to know what would happen if there were no capitalists and business owners - stand on an empty stretch of soil in a wilderness unexplored by men and ask yourself what manner of survival you would achieve and how long would you last if you refused to think, with no one around you to teach you the motions, or, if you chose to think, how much your mind would be able to discover - ask yourself how many independent conclusions you have reached in the course of your life and how much of your time was spent performing actions you learned from others - ask yourself whether you would be able to discover how to till the soil and grow your food, whether you would be able to invent a wheel, a lever, an induction coil, a generator, an electronic tube - then decide whether men of ability are exploiters who live by the fruit of your labor and rob you of the wealth you produce, and whether you dare to believe you have the power to enslave them.

You shutter that ideas are created by men's means of production, that a machine is not the product of human thought, but a mystical power that produces human thinking. You have never discovered the industrial age. When you clamor for public ownership of the means of production, you are claiming for oublic ownership of the mind. And the only answer you deserve is: Try and get it.

You proclaim yourself unable to harness the forces of inanimate matter, yet propose to harness the minds of men who are able to achieve the feats you cannot equal. You proclaim that you cannot survive without us, yet indulge in your pertinence of asserting your right to rule us by force- and expect that we will cower at the sight of any lout who has talked you into voting him a chance to command us.

You propose to establish a social order based on the following tenets: that you are incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others - that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler- that you're unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge.

But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? it is not the strength of guns and muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by intelligents at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? Money is made - before it can be looted or mooched - made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electrical generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left for you by the men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but phisical motions - and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

Look past the range of the moment, you who cry that you fear to compete with men of superior intelligence, that their mind is a threat to your livelihood, that the strong leave no chance to the weak in a market of voluntary trade. What determines the material value of your work? Nothing but the productive effort of your mind-if you lived on a desert island. The less efficient the thinking of your brain, the less your physical labor would bring you-and you could spend your life on a single routine, collecting a precarious harvest or hunting with bow and arrows, unable to think any further. But when you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.

When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom your spend your time denouncing.

The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time. If you worked as a blacksmith in the Middle Ages, the whole of your earning capacity would consist of an iron bar produced by your hands in days and days of effort. How many tons of rail do you produce per day if you work for an industrialist? Would you dare to claim that the size of your pay cheek was created solely by your physical labor and that those rails were the product of your muscles? The standard of living of that blacksmith is all that your muscles are worth; the rest is a gift from the capitalists.

Every man is free to rise as far as he’s able or willing, but it’s only the degree to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he’ll rise. Physical labor as such can extend no further than the range of the moment. The man who does no more than physical labor, consumes the material value-equivalent of his own contribution to the process of production, and leaves no further value, neither for himself nor others. But the man who produces an idea in any field of rational endeavor-the man who discovers new knowledge-is the permanent benefactor of humanity. Material products can’t be shared, they belong to some ultimate consumer; it Is only the value of an idea that can be shared with unlimited numbers of men, making all sharers richer at no one’s sacrifice or loss, raising the productive capacity of whatever labor they perform. It is the value of his own time that the strong of the intellect transfers to the weak, letting them work on the jobs he discovered, while devoting his time to further discoveries. This is mutual trade to mutual advantage; the interests of the mind are one, no matter what the degree of intelligence, among men who desire to work and don’t seek or expect the unearned.

In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns. But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, receives an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability. The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the ‘competition’ between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of ‘exploitation’ for which you have damned the strong.

In essence, you attempt to replace the mind (the capitalists, the inventors, the scientists) by seizing the products of the mind (the factories, the means of production, the tools)

[RGacky3]

Both of your arguments support that people should not be free to organize businesses, and that everyone who is very wealthy, regardless of whether he got that wealth from employing others or from directly stealing others (through taxes, or at the point of a gun), must be stolen back.

Of coarse people are free to organize business, but without private property laws which require the threat of violence, so pretty much your organizing a business where everyone has equal righst to the business.

Yes it much be stolen back because both forms of accumulating wealth are extortion. One through private property laws (meaning violence), one through the tax system (violence, but at least we have control someone over the tax collector through voting), and direct violence.


In essence, you attempt to replace the mind (the capitalists, the inventors, the scientists) by seizing the products of the mind (the factories, the means of production, the tools)

VERY VERY rarely does an inventor or scientist become a capitalist, and very rarely do capitalists actually use thier mind productively in a way that benefits society, its generally how to sqrew people over, make more money, win competition and so on and so forth.

I'm going to skip your post in bold, because it seams you just ignored our post, and did'nt respond to our points, and just wrote up some sophistic crap rather than engaging in actual discussion.

[Havet]

Fine, if it hurts your feelings, i will answer to it directly, by quoting, although i have pretty much answered what i wanted to discuss in my bold post.


So? Some money for the vast majority is a big big deal. Just because one is harder than the other does'nt justify anything, my argument stands, they are both attainable, does'nt justify either of them.In this case i wasn't justifying it, which i have done in my BOLD post, i was merely stating how one was more desirable and effective a method than the other, as i too have stated earlier but seemed to not be answered:

"what you call public pressure on governments is called consumer demand in businesses, and the later is a much more effective way of dealing with problems and different interests of people.

in order to judge a politician who has held officce, you must consider how his administration turned out, and other factors which he had no part in, like the makeup of congress, and the weather at harvest time. judging politicians who have not yet held office is even more hopeless

Not only does a consumer have better information than a voter, it is of more use to him. if i investigate alternative brands of cars or protection, decide which is best for me, and buy it, i get it . If i investigate alternative politicians and vote, i get what the majority votes for.

imagine buying cars the way we buy governments. under such institutions, the quality of cars would quickly decline."


No the bannana is'nt a good example, because thats not the same or even close to "private property" a better example is a banana tree, or a group of banana trees. Its not your "fault" if he dies, but your claim on the tree is as good as his.

What does needing to drink have anything to do with property rights? It doesn't change the argument at all.Yes, but like I said, in the case you're presenting we are discussing the rights for someone to own a piece of land. I believe this is a matter where we agree already. The current system of finders keepers has problems and doesn't allow people to decide more pertinent issues like, who owns space? But that is another matter which you are already discussing with DejaVu in his learning thread and i suggest we'd keep that argument there. As far as to what i was referring as private property, the banana, you call it something else, so our disagreement is merely a matter of semantics, in this case at least.


And I just explained that attainability DOES NOT justify authority.

Btw, you don't have to make something to own it, thats not how property rights work, soooo, your argument falls there, I definte licking toes as literally licking toes, thats what the guy has to do to drink and not die.

His claim as as good as anyones to that lake, my claim on any part of the earth is as good as anyone elses.So how do property rights work in your opinion? In the case of the capitalist, he didn't "appropriate over the existing factory" (which is in fact one of the solutions you proposed), he went to the land, hired workers to build the factory, and once the factory was built the land has now a higher value. We can spend all day *****ing about if the actual land behind the factory is actually his, which involves a lot of arguments, like some people believe he could only claim it if he mixed his labor with the land, like growing crops or using a fertilizer, but if that labor disapeared then he would no longer own the land. Others believe no one can own land at all, because space cannot be owned, only used. And if someone were using a space, like him with his factory, he does not own the space inside his factory, but by building a factory, which he owns, he gets to decide whom he lets enter his enclosed space.

Like I said earlier, the matter of whether he can claim to own a land or not is not relevant to the questions I raised. In fact, the issue of private ownership of the land doesn't need to be used by either of us to discuss whether he can hire the workers and pay them less than what they produce.



Yes I have, re-read and answer.
Your proposal is'nt doable BECAUSe first of all the Capitalist class would'nt allow it, second because the raising that type of money to compete with established tyrannical businesses is next to impossible for paycheck to paycheck workers to save enough disposible income to risk, plus why would they risk their disposible income on a next to impossible venture? Also your proposal would'nt actaully change the balance of power. Control is'nt just owning a business, its controling Capital and resources, which includes money

Also its not preferable, because the Capitalists control the means of production unjustifiable. Plus revolution does'nt have to be violent, as long as the Capitalist class does'nt start it (which historically, its almost always the Capitalist class, as a classic example take recently in Oaxaca).there we go. Why would the capitalists not allow it or want? Im sure we can both agree their motive is profit, and if they can get it quicker, better right? I do not share your idea that they just want to have workers to exploit them for the sake of it. But your argument still stands that they might not allow it. Workers don't need to publicly state they want to buy the company (even though i believe the capitalist would prefer it). If the capitalist hated the idea of being bought by his own workers, the workers could stage a scene whether they would hire a "private investor" who wished to buy the factory from the capitalist and use the investor as a puppet for the workers to buy the company themselves.

Your claim that raising that amount of money is next to impossible is not very accurate. I already provided you with a rough estimate on how much it would cost, how long it would take to buy it, and even other ways to buy it without making it too apparent.

"if the workers had chosen to live at the consumption standard of hippies, they could have gotten a majority share in every firm in 2 and a half years and bought the capitalists out, lock, stock, and barrel, in five. That is a substantial cost, but surely cheaper than organizing a revolution, where people can be killed."

"unlike a revolution, it dosn't have to be all at once. the employees of one firm can buy it this decade, then use their profits to help fellow workers buy theirs later."

"Those assets-the net working capital of all corportations in the United States-in 1965-totalled 171.7billion dollars. The workers could buy that much and go into business for themselves with fourteen months worth of savings. "

And the matter of how their ownership is unjustifiable has been adressed in my bold statement.


Sometimes yaeh, sometimes no, so what, Stalin did'nt become dictator by luck either, he worked hard and he was very smart, but so what, how does that justify anything?Good point. However, the business owners don't do one tenth the things stalin did, and they don't RULE the workers, they TRADE with them.


So the solution is everyone being an euntrepeneir, poor people just hav'nt tried hard enough. Do you realize how proposterous your thinking is? Essencially your argument is, well every one can roll the dice and hope to become one of the ruling class, and thus, that justifies the ruling class.The solution is not for everyone to become an entrepeneur. I just stated a LIVE example of how someone, who was a poor person, become rich by his own effort. And what is preposterous about my thinking? Most people honestly haven't tried hard enough. They settle with little, and they don't have much ambitions. Sure, they are in their freedom to do it, but then they are being hypocritical by blaming rich people for their lack of success, when in fact they have better chances at getting richer when there is a freer trade environment. And people DON'T ROLL THE DICE. The only case you could claim that example I did had any luck is here: "When Li was 30, he accidentally got into real estate because he couldn’t renew the
lease for his factory and was forced to purchase and develop a site himself."


yaawwwwn. google.
http://www.wider.unu.edu/events/past...GB/05-12-2006/ (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.wider.unu.edu/events/past-events/2006-events/en_GB/05-12-2006/)

http://www.gizmag.com/go/6571/ (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.gizmag.com/go/6571/)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth)

Blablabla. I can't believe your arguing that. My made up statistic is actually pretty conservative and I use it just for overall examples.Wealth distribution should be considered alongside such factors as job opportunities, the costs of goods and services, and the base standard of living.

It is precisely in centralized institutions of power, like the USSR (does't matter if you think it was or wasn't communist), where there are far greater chances of a fewer percentage of population (the party, the government, etc) controling the means of production, the natural resources, etc. It is precisely in places where you have a generous amount of free trade (mixed economies, free markets) where the concentration of such resources is spread fairly evenly. I think that in fact, what you propose and what i propose are the same thing, except with different names.

Your property is that which you control the use of. If most things are controlled by individuals, individually or in voluntary association, a society is capitalist. If such control is spread fairly evenly among a large number of people, the society approximates competitive free enterprise - better than ours does. If it's members call it socialist, why should I object?


Well they operate outside the law. Meaning no regulation, no government control, only violent cartels that make brutal governments look like boy scouts. That was my point, if they were legalized they would have to operate INSIDE the law, with regulations and govnernment oversight.I think it is the existance of brutal repression by government on those who practice those businessnesses that breed more brutality from the business owners and create those cartels. I would recommend you reading the chapter "Monopoly, how to lose your shirt" of the book "The Machinery of Freedom", by David Friedman. It has a lot of information on how cartels weren't able to succeed in the late 19th - early 20th century without government intervention. I can quote some if you are interested.

In fact, friedman himself argues that the best historical refutation for the thesis that unregulated laissez-faire leads to monopoly is in a socialist historian Gabriel Kolko's books called "The triumph of Conservatism" and "Railroads and Regulation". He argues that at the end of the 19th century businessmen believed the future was with bigness, with conglomerates and cartels, but were wrong: the organizations they formed to control markets and reduce costs were almost invariably failures, returning lower profits than their smaller competitors, unable to fix prices, and controlling a steadily shrinking share of the market. The regulatory comissions supossedly were formed to restrain monopolistic businessmen. Actually, Kolko argues, they were formed at the request of unsuccessful monopolists to prevent the competition which had frustrated their efforts.


Yeah, unions, one of the most democratic and socialistic concepts around. Which were simply trying to counter tyranny, but would'nt it be better without the tyranny? Bosses don't want unions for a good reason. Yeah i totally support unions, because they are truly the only democratic and voluntary way of showing businessman that if they dont improve the conditions of their workers then nobody will work for them. Sure bosses don't want unions, it's understandeable. However, its not understandeable that they use government force to restrict the existance of such unions.


I'm going to skip your post in bold, because it seams you just ignored our post, and did'nt respond to our points, and just wrote up some sophistic crap rather than engaging in actual discussion.

The "sophisticated crap" is ACTUALLY the rebuttal of your arguments. How intelligent of you to avoid the very things that might prove you wrong.

"When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom your spend your time denouncing."

I suggest you reread ATTENTIVELY what i have said, because my arguments are VERY pertinent

[Havet]

The "option" between doing something or facing death is called *coercion*, in any social context. There
are more-dramatic and less-dramatic instances of this "choice", but the underlying reality remains the same -- we
can't blame nature and we can't blame the individual's (or masses') biological need for food (etc.).If i'm in a desert island, facing death by starvation, who is coercing me? nature? haha.

Basically you argue that if i provide a service and people now BECOME DEPENDANT of it then i should be forced to
CONTINUE to do business no matter what. You're wrong. Just because someone has chosen to become dependant on me
doesn't give them a claim on what I do or don't do.


Not if they don't *have* (inherited) land -- no one can control *how much stuff* they inherit or grow up
with, just as we cannot control *where*, *when*, and *what kind of body* we are born with.But most of them do have *inhertited* land. nearly everyone in africa owns large amounts of land. same with china. In fact, in china people sell large farm land to go move to a small city apartment because theres more money involved."

In fact, people in china seem to like money-grubbing capitalists so much they are willing to sell their land to
work in their factories. According to you, they would either have no choice, or are just stupid and do not
recognize their actions.


This portion alone shows the *arbitrariness* of cost and *valuation* (what is formally valued, and at what
prices) in the capitalist system. What if the economic conditions were such -- through mass labor organizing and
victories -- that the capitalists *had to* make do with this scenario you're positing?

One way would be to (attempt to) realize profit from the fixed-cost, or capital investment, part of the business.
If your business is so hot-shit, then you should be able to buy low and sell high, even while returning the full
value of your employees' labor right back to them, right?Then they would no longer create businesses, because they would not get any benefit from it.

You're contradicting yourself. If the conditions were such that I had to pay workers exactly what they thought
their labor was worth, then I COULD NOT buy LOW and sell HIGH, precisely because now I could only buy and sell
the same value, without any extra profit.

and I have nothing against labor organizing itself. You can already leave "labor to control its own destiny", like
i explained earlier, by making your own organizations. So long as you do not use force (either directly or
politically) then fine by me.


No, I am *not* a moralist. I do not base my arguments on "fairness" or "sour grapes" -- I merely point out
that those who labor may find it more in their *interests* to organize and *demand* a better standard of living
from the existing society, however it happens to be composed.Demand? to whom? why? what makes you believe you can replace the mind that created the initial structure
you are complaining about to by seizing the structure itself?

[ckaihatsu]

If i'm in a desert island, facing death by starvation, who is coercing me? nature? haha.


This is childish. Sure, anyone can make stuff up, but then it may not be that *realistic* -- like I said, it's *common* for human beings to live in *social* environments, *not* individualistically. And, then, at that point, we have to look at *how* those social arrangements are structured, and why, and if that's the best way to structure things.





Basically you argue that if i provide a service and people now BECOME DEPENDANT of it then i should be forced to
CONTINUE to do business no matter what. You're wrong. Just because someone has chosen to become dependant on me
doesn't give them a claim on what I do or don't do.


Hey -- *don't* put words in my mouth. I *did not* say that. My short answer is that you're forgetting about *increasing returns*, which happens when tools / technology are used to leverage human labor efforts.





But most of them do have *inhertited* land. nearly everyone in africa owns large amounts of land. same with china. In fact, in china people sell large farm land to go move to a small city apartment because theres more money involved."


I really don't know about this, and it's beside the point anyway -- why would you *want* people to *settle* at being farmers? That sounds like a description of feudalism all over again if done on a wide scale. Cities provide a far greater variety of cultural experiences -- why *shouldn't* people *at least* have access to jobs that consistently pay a living wage?

And if people *do* own land, why is the economic situation such that they *have* to sell their land instead of having access to jobs that pay a living wage? The end result would be larger buyers *buying up* more and more parcels of land on the cheap, which leads to big-business and monopoly ownership of land -- the *opposite* of *your* political ideals....





In fact, people in china seem to like money-grubbing capitalists so much they are willing to sell their land to
work in their factories. According to you, they would either have no choice, or are just stupid and do not
recognize their actions.


Well, what "options" do they have for procuring an income?

(Also, note that selling possessions or working in factories is *not* what capitalists do -- capitalists make money by combining their ownership of capital assets (investments) with the exploitation of labor.)





Then they would no longer create businesses, because they would not get any benefit from it.


Fine by me -- that would be the definition of a potentially *revolutionary* situation -- the former businesspeople would have to step down from power, due to economic inactivity, or else they would reformulate on the basis of forced state control of labor, or fascism.





You're contradicting yourself. If the conditions were such that I had to pay workers exactly what they thought
their labor was worth, then I COULD NOT buy LOW and sell HIGH, precisely because now I could only buy and sell
the same value, without any extra profit.


It's not "what you think" their labor is worth -- it's *what their labor -is- worth*, in terms of revenue. All businesses combine 2 things: capital investments and exploiting labor. If a business *doesn't* exploit labor then it has to realize a profit from buying low and selling high on its fixed costs -- it would basically be arbitrage.





and I have nothing against labor organizing itself. You can already leave "labor to control its own destiny", like
i explained earlier, by making your own organizations. So long as you do not use force (either directly or
politically) then fine by me.


Well, then, this may be the biggest difference in our political viewpoints. The way I see it is that if the workers *don't* have access to the potential use of violence then they will simply become victims of those who *do* use violence -- the military, the police, and the legal system.





Demand? to whom? why? what makes you believe you can replace the mind that created the initial structure
you are complaining about to by seizing the structure itself?


There was *no* "master architect" of capitalism -- it *emerged* out of mercantilism (the buildup of private stores of wealth). And that's the biggest problem with it -- no one's at the wheel. Labor *needs* to replace capitalism with a *collectivized*, *planned* network of administration over the largest tools that exist -- factories and (large-scale) equipment, and resources.

[Havet]

Hey -- *don't* put words in my mouth. I *did not* say that. My short answer is that you're forgetting about *increasing returns*, which happens when tools / technology are used to leverage human labor efforts.

You did not say it, but that's what your statement implied.


I really don't know about this, and it's beside the point anyway -- why would you *want* people to *settle* at being farmers? That sounds like a description of feudalism all over again if done on a wide scale. Cities provide a far greater variety of cultural experiences -- why *shouldn't* people *at least* have access to jobs that consistently pay a living wage?

I do not want people to settle at being farmers. You are ignoring the fact that i showed a valid alternative to how workers AREN'T FORCED, AND HAVE OTHER ALTERNATIVES than to be employed.


And if people *do* own land, why is the economic situation such that they *have* to sell their land instead of having access to jobs that pay a living wage? The end result would be larger buyers *buying up* more and more parcels of land on the cheap, which leads to big-business and monopoly ownership of land -- the *opposite* of *your* political ideals....


They don't *have* to sell their land. But they are smart enough to realize there are better benefits from being employed than to live by themselves. The end result is a raise in the standard of living of people.



Well, what "options" do they have for procuring an income?

(Also, note that selling possessions or working in factories is *not* what capitalists do -- capitalists make money by combining their ownership of capital assets (investments) with the exploitation of labor.)

are you just plain blind? I already said that other "options" to get an income is by working their land and selling the "fruits of their labor", without anyone "exploiting them". Guess workers prefer to be exploited huh? It must suck for them to receive more money by being "exploited" than by staying in their land.



It's not "what you think" their labor is worth -- it's *what their labor -is- worth*, in terms of revenue. All businesses combine 2 things: capital investments and exploiting labor. If a business *doesn't* exploit labor then it has to realize a profit from buying low and selling high on its fixed costs -- it would basically be arbitrage.

Hmm...They could profit, but not from the worker.

The worker would just be a waste of time. The owner would have to use his time to pay the worker and to hire the worker but he wouldn't make any profit from him. So essentially you're asking for a business owner to use his time to give someone else the ability to profit from his business, with no benefit for the owner.

It would be better just sending the worker a cheque every month. It would take less time to actually manage the work the worker produced.

However, you are assuming a linear form of profit. If you paid the worker what he produced, one would have to spend hours working out all the other ways their work have profited me and pay them extra, which would definitely kill the business and end up with everyone unemployed.

If i had 10 workers and paid them like that, I would have to spend all my time working out how to pay each worker what "he was worth".


Well, then, this may be the biggest difference in our political viewpoints. The way I see it is that if the workers *don't* have access to the potential use of violence then they will simply become victims of those who *do* use violence -- the military, the police, and the legal system.

And those institutions that use force are branches of GOVERNMENT, and not business. If there were no government, business and unions/communes/cooperatives would stand in equal footing and would seek to resolve their conflicts without considering the use of force as the first alternative.


There was *no* "master architect" of capitalism -- it *emerged* out of mercantilism (the buildup of private stores of wealth). And that's the biggest problem with it -- no one's at the wheel. Labor *needs* to replace capitalism with a *collectivized*, *planned* network of administration over the largest tools that exist -- factories and (large-scale) equipment, and resources.

And finally you have admitted it yourself. What you want is power. You want to collectivize, to plan, to steal those who made factories and production possible. All I want to know is, what do you think will allow you to do that? Your action would be a contradiction

You propose to establish a social order based on the following tenets: that you are incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others - that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler- that you're unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge.

[ckaihatsu]

In sequence:





The "option" between doing something or facing death is called *coercion*, in any social context. There are more-dramatic and less-dramatic instances of this "choice", but the underlying reality remains the same -- we can't blame nature and we can't blame the individual's (or masses') biological need for food (etc.).





Basically you argue that if i provide a service and people now BECOME DEPENDANT of it then i should be forced to
CONTINUE to do business no matter what. You're wrong. Just because someone has chosen to become dependant on me
doesn't give them a claim on what I do or don't do.





Hey -- *don't* put words in my mouth. I *did not* say that. My short answer is that you're forgetting about *increasing returns*, which happens when tools / technology are used to leverage human labor efforts./QUOTE]


[QUOTE=hayenmill;1449461]

You did not say it, but that's what your statement implied.


No, I did *not* imply anything, and I resent the accusation. If you read the exchange, above, you'll see that -- for whatever reason -- you're *personalizing* this discussion, when in fact I don't know you, you don't know me, and this is a discussion board for revolutionary *politics*. I strongly suggest you stick to the *point*, or issue, of the discussion, and not take this personally.

[ckaihatsu]

I do not want people to settle at being farmers. You are ignoring the fact that i showed a valid alternative to how workers AREN'T FORCED, AND HAVE OTHER ALTERNATIVES than to be employed.


Your "valid alternative" -- the "option" of selling land in order to pay one's bills when work (for a living wage) is not available is *not good enough*, even IF one *did* own land, which many people do not.





They don't *have* to sell their land. But they are smart enough to realize there are better benefits from being employed than to live by themselves. The end result is a raise in the standard of living of people.


You're assuming that work is plentiful, not too stressful, and pays a living wage. If the available jobs are *anything short* of being readily attainable, are not damaging to one's well-being, and pay a consistent living wage, then there's a *problem*.

Needless to say, there are *millions* and *billions* of individual experiences with working life under capitalism that document widespread, systematic patterns of problems with the way work is set up and utilized, especially for the workers and their lives.





are you just plain blind? I already said that other "options" to get an income is by working their land and selling the "fruits of their labor", without anyone "exploiting them". Guess workers prefer to be exploited huh? It must suck for them to receive more money by being "exploited" than by staying in their land.


Again, you're assuming that many regular people *own* *land*, which in fact many do *not*. You're also assuming that farming is still a viable business -- many small farmers have *no* chances of competing against corporate agri-business. I suppose those who own land could *attempt* to live off of their land, but then they'd still be outside of the cash economy.

For those who do, why should they only have the "options" of staying in one place to work the land, or else have labor value continuously stolen from them by going to work for a wage? The "choices" given to us under the economic system of capitalism aren't very impressive.





Hmm...They could profit, but not from the worker.

The worker would just be a waste of time. The owner would have to use his time to pay the worker and to hire the worker but he wouldn't make any profit from him. So essentially you're asking for a business owner to use his time to give someone else the ability to profit from his business, with no benefit for the owner.


Even *if* workers *weren't* exploited by working they *wouldn't* be making a *profit* by working for the true value of their labor -- they'd be *breaking even* in the sale of their labor to the employer.





It would be better just sending the worker a cheque every month. It would take less time to actually manage the work the worker produced.


Cool -- how soon can I expect that from you?


x D





However, you are assuming a linear form of profit. If you paid the worker what he produced, one would have to spend hours working out all the other ways their work have profited me and pay them extra, which would definitely kill the business and end up with everyone unemployed.


No, it's not that complicated. The business makes revenue from the sale of its goods and services. The inputs into the business are the value from the capital, and the value from the labor. Once the capital is paid for the remaining revenue is profit on the capital. Once the wages are paid the remaining revenue there is profit on the labor.

I don't know what this "extra" stuff is that you're making up -- health insurance benefits, maybe?





If i had 10 workers and paid them like that, I would have to spend all my time working out how to pay each worker what "he was worth".


Just figure out the proportion of capital costs to total costs -- the remaining portion that is *not* capital cost is, necessarily, labor costs. So capital cost + labor cost = 100%. If you subtract the capital cost *percentage* from the total (100%), you will get the percentage of your costs that come from labor (wages).

This means that labor should receive *that same percentage* of the revenue, or sales, because that's the proportion that labor is worth to the business.





And those institutions that use force are branches of GOVERNMENT, and not business. If there were no government, business and unions/communes/cooperatives would stand in equal footing and would seek to resolve their conflicts without considering the use of force as the first alternative.


Hah! You * wish * -- there's *no way* that rank-and-file unions would "seek to resolve their conflicts" with the bosses -- sure, corporate, paid-off *business unions* do what you're describing, but then they don't represent the best interests of the workers, do they? The workers' best interests are for higher wages, which translates into a greater proportion of control of the economy as a whole.





And finally you have admitted it yourself. What you want is power. You want to collectivize, to plan, to steal those who made factories and production possible. All I want to know is, what do you think will allow you to do that? Your action would be a contradiction


It's *labor* that has exerted muscle effort to build factories and make production possible. It is the *bosses* that have *stolen* the assets from labor, so any revolutionary activity would be a matter of economic justice. This isn't about *my* wants or actions, either -- don't personalize -- this is about what *objective interests* the working class has, for its own material betterment.





You propose to establish a social order based on the following tenets: that you are incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others - that you're unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler- that you're unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge.


Again, don't personalize. Thank you.

[Havet]

No, I did *not* imply anything, and I resent the accusation. If you read the exchange, above, you'll see that -- for whatever reason -- you're *personalizing* this discussion, when in fact I don't know you, you don't know me, and this is a discussion board for revolutionary *politics*. I strongly suggest you stick to the *point*, or issue, of the discussion, and not take this personally

I'm sorry, but your statement did implied it. And don't run away from the issue by claiming i'm personalizing it when im doing nothing of the kind. Just answer whether what i thought you had implied was valid or not.

(for the record i do not engage in ad hominem, if thats what you mean by *personalization*)


Your "valid alternative" -- the "option" of selling land in order to pay one's bills when work (for a living wage) is not available is *not good enough*, even IF one *did* own land, which many people do not.

I did not even suggest people with land should sell it. I suggested that people who feel they will be exploited if working for a boss, can stay at their land and work whatever they can produce from it.

LIke i said: "nearly everyone in africa owns large amounts of land. same with china. In fact, in china people sell large farm land to go move to a small city apartment because theres more money involved"


You're assuming that work is plentiful, not too stressful, and pays a living wage. If the available jobs are *anything short* of being readily attainable, are not damaging to one's well-being, and pay a consistent living wage, then there's a *problem*.

I'm not assuming work is plentiful, i'm assuming there are some capitalists prodividing jobs, and that former farmers decided to quit living by their land and be employed


Needless to say, there are *millions* and *billions* of individual experiences with working life under capitalism that document widespread, systematic patterns of problems with the way work is set up and utilized, especially for the workers and their lives.

And there are millions of individual experiences under capitalism that have succeeded at improivng their lives, income, health, by their own effort.



Again, you're assuming that many regular people *own* *land*, which in fact many do *not*. You're also assuming that farming is still a viable business -- many small farmers have *no* chances of competing against corporate agri-business. I suppose those who own land could *attempt* to live off of their land, but then they'd still be outside of the cash economy.

For those who do, why should they only have the "options" of staying in one place to work the land, or else have labor value continuously stolen from them by going to work for a wage? The "choices" given to us under the economic system of capitalism aren't very impressive.

I'm assuming, in the poor places you enjoy so much of mentioning, like asia and africa, that most of the people there own some piece of land they can work on. And farmers don't need to compete, because that would be making a profit, which you regard as evil right? They can simply make enough for themselves and their family. And being outside the cash economy has nothing bad with it.



Even *if* workers *weren't* exploited by working they *wouldn't* be making a *profit* by working for the true value of their labor -- they'd be *breaking even* in the sale of their labor to the employer.

Yes they would, but you haven't answered, why should the employer hire them in the first place if theres no benefit from him? Why should he support others through his business, instead of making a charity specifically for it?



Cool -- how soon can I expect that from you?


x D


lol, employers won't do that, and i see nothing wrong with them not doing it, just as i see nothign wrong with them hiring people and fulfilling their part of the contract.



No, it's not that complicated. The business makes revenue from the sale of its goods and services. The inputs into the business are the value from the capital, and the value from the labor. Once the capital is paid for the remaining revenue is profit on the capital. Once the wages are paid the remaining revenue there is profit on the labor.

I don't know what this "extra" stuff is that you're making up -- health insurance benefits, maybe?

If you pay workers exactly what they are worth, you will not have profit, because you will pay them exactly what they produce, and you will sell it exactly by that price, because according to your idea, if i payed them what it was worth and then proceeded to sell the product expensively to make profit, then I wouldn't be paying them the exact value would I? And you could also claim I would be "exploiting" customers, whatever that means.



Just figure out the proportion of capital costs to total costs -- the remaining portion that is *not* capital cost is, necessarily, labor costs. So capital cost + labor cost = 100%. If you subtract the capital cost *percentage* from the total (100%), you will get the percentage of your costs that come from labor (wages).

This means that labor should receive *that same percentage* of the revenue, or sales, because that's the proportion that labor is worth to the business.

And where's the benefit for the employer? Why should he hire people if he gets nothing in return? Whatever is not capital cost IS NOT necesssarily labor cost. Once again i can see you haven't read my daring bold speech:

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electrical generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left for you by the men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but phisical motions - and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom your spend your time denouncing.


Hah! You * wish * -- there's *no way* that rank-and-file unions would "seek to resolve their conflicts" with the bosses -- sure, corporate, paid-off *business unions* do what you're describing, but then they don't represent the best interests of the workers, do they? The workers' best interests are for higher wages, which translates into a greater proportion of control of the economy as a whole.

Have you ever wondered why many unions never achieve the goals they set up to? Sure they might have been bought, corrupted, blinded. But what if the actual goal is so irrational that nobody takes it seriously, yet the union workers believe it is right?

Imagine of workers that got, lets imagine, 5$ an hour now demanded to work at 50$ an hour. Sure, it might happen in the future, but what about now? How can a business owner expect to be in business while paying so much for something which has less value than what you are proposing?



It's *labor* that has exerted muscle effort to build factories and make production possible. It is the *bosses* that have *stolen* the assets from labor, so any revolutionary activity would be a matter of economic justice. This isn't about *my* wants or actions, either -- don't personalize -- this is about what *objective interests* the working class has, for its own material betterment.

Who designed the factory? Who designed the machines that the workers use? Who risked his money to pay for workers building it? You are denying that man's mind is of infinite more value that labor in itself.


Again, don't personalize. Thank you.

If you think i am hurting your feelings in any way when i wrote that then i should tell you it was not my intention. What I wrote was part of a speech, and the *you* it is directing is not you ckaihatsu, it's the *you* of the public, the *you* the narrator is directing, which was in a different context, yet applies in this one.

So now that you realize this, can you read what I said and stop trying to avoid it?

[ckaihatsu]

I'm sorry, but your statement did implied it. And don't run away from the issue by claiming i'm personalizing it when im doing nothing of the kind. Just answer whether what i thought you had implied was valid or not.


I told you that my statement did *not* imply that which you're accusing me of implying (in the next quote). We have a difference of opinion then. If you stick to making statements in generalities and avoid the words "you", "I", and "me" then you'll be sure to avoid personalizations and accusations altogether.





Basically you argue that if i provide a service and people now BECOME DEPENDANT of it then i should be forced to
CONTINUE to do business no matter what. You're wrong. Just because someone has chosen to become dependant on me
doesn't give them a claim on what I do or don't do.


I did *not* imply the meaning contained in this quote whatsoever despite your repeated accusations of such.

You may want to keep the economic context in mind -- currently, under capitalism, there *is no* central planning, so the current global financial meltdown is the result of the dynamics of capitalism itself, and not from *any* actions, inaction, or wrong actions on the part of any individuals or groups. (This is not to say that those major capitalists making major, broad-reaching decisions should be ignored, either -- ultimately they should be held accountable for their decision-making roles.)

In relation to your quote this means that, unless there's some sort of legality involved, the *economic system itself* does not *require* anything of you, or anyone else, ever, because there's no conscious human management over the entirety of it.

Marxists fight for a *direct* worker-collective control of the economy, as opposed to the so-called "free market", or hegemonic capitalist political approach to economics.





(for the record i do not engage in ad hominem, if thats what you mean by *personalization*)


No, that's not what I meant. I can see that you aren't making any ad hominem attacks, but you have been particularizing some scenarios in my direction, like the one quoted above.





I did not even suggest people with land should sell it. I suggested that people who feel they will be exploited if working for a boss, can stay at their land and work whatever they can produce from it.


And I'll repeat that this is not much of an option -- it's about as restrictive as feudalism was. Why should people lie down and settle for this economic surrender when society has developed the *means* for people to live much more interesting lives, for billions of people?





LIke i said: "nearly everyone in africa owns large amounts of land. same with china. In fact, in china people sell large farm land to go move to a small city apartment because theres more money involved"


Right -- exactly. This is *my* point -- the economic system should *at least* be capable of providing the people of the earth with dwellings and cultural lives in safe, clean, navigable modern cities. It's obvious that capitalism *doesn't* care about the *human beings* living in crowded, poverty-stricken urban conditions -- things could be *much* better....





I'm not assuming work is plentiful, i'm assuming there are some capitalists prodividing jobs, and that former farmers decided to quit living by their land and be employed


Okay, but is this *enough* considering what modern productivity is capable of?





And there are millions of individual experiences under capitalism that have succeeded at improivng their lives, income, health, by their own effort.


Certainly. I'll acknowledge that, but since you're also acknowledging my point about the shortcomings -- and downright brutality -- of capitalist economics, you might also agree with the corollary that things could be far better.





I'm assuming, in the poor places you enjoy so much of mentioning, like asia and africa, that most of the people there own some piece of land they can work on. And farmers don't need to compete, because that would be making a profit, which you regard as evil right? They can simply make enough for themselves and their family. And being outside the cash economy has nothing bad with it.


Again, why should people be *forced* to *settle* for *regressive*, pre-modern modes of living?





Yes they would, but you haven't answered, why should the employer hire them in the first place if theres no benefit from him? Why should he support others through his business, instead of making a charity specifically for it?


Business can't do *anything* without using labor -- unless you're a business of one person you're going to *have to* use labor. If you *don't exploit* the workers, and actually pay them the correct proportion of the business revenue, in parallel with the proportion that their labor value is worth to the business, then you can still do business -- just buy low and sell high, like any other day.


( from previously: )




It would be better just sending the worker a cheque every month. It would take less time to actually manage the work the worker produced.





Cool -- how soon can I expect that from you?


x D






lol, employers won't do that, and i see nothing wrong with them not doing it, just as i see nothign wrong with them hiring people and fulfilling their part of the contract.


I don't think we're communicating on this part -- I may have misunderstood you. Please re-state your original point, thanks.





If you pay workers exactly what they are worth, you will not have profit, because you will pay them exactly what they produce, and you will sell it exactly by that price, because according to your idea, if i payed them what it was worth and then proceeded to sell the product expensively to make profit, then I wouldn't be paying them the exact value would I?


All I'm saying is that, in order to not-exploit workers, one would pass along the proportion of revenue that is equal to the proportion of the value to the business that the labor provides. I explained the math involved in this in a previous post.

Whoever invested capital -- whether it be a sole proprietor or a group of investors -- those people would receive the proportion of revenue from sales that is equal to the proportion of the value that *their capital* is worth to the business. I have to note here that I'm *not* actually *advocating* this, since this is politically a type of reformism, which is pointless. I *do advocate* the full and total overthrow of the ruling, capitalist class in favor of a revolutionary workers' state.





And you could also claim I would be "exploiting" customers, whatever that means.


This is where you're *personalizing* -- do *not* put words in my mouth, or assert that I would claim something. You can always ask.

Customers are exploited differently, through retail markups, and from the costs of finance, marketing, and advertising.





And where's the benefit for the employer? Why should he hire people if he gets nothing in return?


Because even if there's no return on labor the business *cannot function* *without* labor.





Whatever is not capital cost IS NOT necesssarily labor cost.


Yes, it is, despite your objections.





Once again i can see you haven't read my daring bold speech:

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electrical generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left for you by the men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but phisical motions - and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think and whom your spend your time denouncing.


All of the efforts you're referring to here were paid for, at exploitative rates, if they came from a wage worker, and then they were incorporated into the ownership (profit-making) of the business.

Your lofty phrasing is just an attempt to fool the wage worker into being grateful while being exploited on the job.





Have you ever wondered why many unions never achieve the goals they set up to? Sure they might have been bought, corrupted, blinded. But what if the actual goal is so irrational that nobody takes it seriously, yet the union workers believe it is right?


The goal of forming a union is to have better representation for one's labor, individually and collectively, than if one tried to represent one's own labor in the marketplace, through individual contracts. Beyond that unions are supposed to represent the best interests of labor, which is for higher wages and benefits.





Imagine of workers that got, lets imagine, 5$ an hour now demanded to work at 50$ an hour. Sure, it might happen in the future, but what about now? How can a business owner expect to be in business while paying so much for something which has less value than what you are proposing?


I don't know, and it's not my concern, hypothetically, objectively, or subjectively.





Who designed the factory? Who designed the machines that the workers use? Who risked his money to pay for workers building it? You are denying that man's mind is of infinite more value that labor in itself.


Mental labor ("white-collar") is labor, just as physical ("blue-collar") labor is labor.





If you think i am hurting your feelings in any way when i wrote that then i should tell you it was not my intention. What I wrote was part of a speech, and the *you* it is directing is not you ckaihatsu, it's the *you* of the public, the *you* the narrator is directing, which was in a different context, yet applies in this one.

So now that you realize this, can you read what I said and stop trying to avoid it?


No prob -- I can see you're not being antagonistic, so I think we're basically okay here.

[Havet]

I did *not* imply the meaning contained in this quote whatsoever despite your repeated accusations of such.

You may want to keep the economic context in mind -- currently, under capitalism, there *is no* central planning, so the current global financial meltdown is the result of the dynamics of capitalism itself, and not from *any* actions, inaction, or wrong actions on the part of any individuals or groups. (This is not to say that those major capitalists making major, broad-reaching decisions should be ignored, either -- ultimately they should be held accountable for their decision-making roles.)There is some central planning. That is why countries like the USA are now described as having Mixed economies.

"A mixed economy is an economic system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_system) that incorporates a mixture of private and government ownership or control, or a mixture of capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism) and socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism).

"include: a degree of private (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economies#cite_note-0)economic freedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_freedom) (including privately owned industry) intermingled with centralized economic planning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_economy) and government regulation (which may include regulation of the market for environmental concerns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism) and social welfare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_welfare), or state ownership (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ownership) and management of some of the means of production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production) for national or social objectives)."

The U.S. is considered a mixed economy. Some examples of this include:


People can own their own businesses, but political leaders make policies concerning these.
The government controls the mail system.
The government controls most of the road networks.
The government controls most of the schools.
Waste collection and treatment are usually provided as a service by the local government.
The government has a virtual monopoly on the provision of policing.
Intercity passenger rail (Amtrak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak)) is a nationalized industry, as are almost all local trains.
All American airports are government operated but all American airlines are private.
The government tells manufacturers what to make if something is in need during war time.
The FDA bans certain drugs.
The government has created a minimum wage law.
The government provides social welfare payments to some citizens.
The majority of pre-college education is government-provided and a large part of tertiary education is run by state governments.
In recent years, the Federal government has given taxpayers money to failing businesses, in the form of bail outs.




In relation to your quote this means that, unless there's some sort of legality involved, the *economic system itself* does not *require* anything of you, or anyone else, ever, because there's no conscious human management over the entirety of it.

Marxists fight for a *direct* worker-collective control of the economy, as opposed to the so-called "free market", or hegemonic capitalist political approach to economics. Yeah, i know it doesn't require anything of what i have stated. Yet. But I, by incorrectly assuming you would hold such a thought, proceeded to explain why, if you held such opinion, it was wrong to my eyes.



And I'll repeat that this is not much of an option -- it's about as restrictive as feudalism was. Why should people lie down and settle for this economic surrender when society has developed the *means* for people to live much more interesting lives, for billions of people? "The social and economic system which characterized most European societies in the Middle Ages goes by the name of feudalism. The system, in its most basic essence, is the granting of land in return for military service."

Like I said, they would only engage in such action if they hated society or thought they were being exploited by remaining there and being employed.

Society has developed the means to live much more interesting lives - except they can (or should) only achieve those lives by hard work, intelligence, and honest paths. Do not mistake the concept with granting the unearned, by claiming rights, that people should live without earning their life.



Right -- exactly. This is *my* point -- the economic system should *at least* be capable of providing the people of the earth with dwellings and cultural lives in safe, clean, navigable modern cities. It's obvious that capitalism *doesn't* care about the *human beings* living in crowded, poverty-stricken urban conditions -- things could be *much* better....It provides them, for those who are willing to trade something for those values. It's obvious capitalism major motive is NOT charity, which can exist inside it. Capitalism's major motive is trade, value for value.

And don't forget in africa they have one of the most conflictive authoritatian governments that truly exploit their people, in the true sense of the word.


Okay, but is this *enough* considering what modern productivity is capable of?depends on the farmer's motives and purposes. If he wishes to not be "exploited", he'll have to give up many benefits. If he doesn't care, he can achieve much more than simply being at his farm.


Certainly. I'll acknowledge that, but since you're also acknowledging my point about the shortcomings -- and downright brutality -- of capitalist economics, you might also agree with the corollary that things could be far better. I have not agknowledged it. In fact, I have been trying, for the last days, to show you, to prove to you, how the brutality and shortcomings of he capitalist economics are not the fault of people being free to trade, but of (for the most part) government intervention (whether to directly benefit big business or not).


Again, why should people be *forced* to *settle* for *regressive*, pre-modern modes of living?Lol, you are not forced. FORCE is exactly what most socialists and communists plan to use to steal those that provide employment and allow the generation of products that raise everyones standard of living.




Business can't do *anything* without using labor -- unless you're a business of one person you're going to *have to* use labor. If you *don't exploit* the workers, and actually pay them the correct proportion of the business revenue, in parallel with the proportion that their labor value is worth to the business, then you can still do business -- just buy low and sell high, like any other day. again you are saying that employers should exist only for the sake of providing jobs to workers, with no beenfit to themselves. We have also discussed how the economics of paying workers the same could not happen unless violating someone's life, liberty and property.


I don't think we're communicating on this part -- I may have misunderstood you. Please re-state your original point, thanks.I said that employers won't send a cheque every month, and that i see nothing wrong with them doing it.



All I'm saying is that, in order to not-exploit workers, one would pass along the proportion of revenue that is equal to the proportion of the value to the business that the labor provides. I explained the math involved in this in a previous post.

Whoever invested capital -- whether it be a sole proprietor or a group of investors -- those people would receive the proportion of revenue from sales that is equal to the proportion of the value that *their capital* is worth to the business. I have to note here that I'm *not* actually *advocating* this, since this is politically a type of reformism, which is pointless. I *do advocate* the full and total overthrow of the ruling, capitalist class in favor of a revolutionary workers' state.You are ignoring one very special point. How can business make profit by paying workers what they are worth?

"they will pay them exactly what they produce, and they will sell it exactly by that price", thus no profit involved, no gain for the employer, no reason for the business to exist.



Customers are exploited differently, through retail markups, and from the costs of finance, marketing, and advertising. they are not exploited. Nobody is forcing (AT THE POINT OF A GUN) them to buy the product. They have no right to DEMAND that want that product, they have no reason to force others to provide for them what they want exactly. They do have the power to decide what products will survive and which ones won't.




Because even if there's no return on labor the business *cannot function* *without* labor.but they business cannot exist without profit, and your method doesn't allow the creation of profit for the business owner. he gets no benefit, apart from some spiritual feeling that he may be doing more for his workers than others. There wouldnt be any point for him to have the business. It would be more profitable for him to just become a worker as well.



All of the efforts you're referring to here were paid for, at exploitative rates, if they came from a wage worker, and then they were incorporated into the ownership (profit-making) of the business.

Your lofty phrasing is just an attempt to fool the wage worker into being grateful while being exploited on the job.my lofty phrasing, as i have already explained, refered to a specific audience by a specific narrator. But the points remain the same, and you cannot escape its logic. You can ignore it, but you cannot evade the consequences of ignoring it.



The goal of forming a union is to have better representation for one's labor, individually and collectively, than if one tried to represent one's own labor in the marketplace, through individual contracts. Beyond that unions are supposed to represent the best interests of labor, which is for higher wages and benefits.

i agree, that was their goal. Are they acheiving it? Why? Why not?




I don't know, and it's not my concern, hypothetically, objectively, or subjectively.actually it is, it shows how there can be a situation where demands from unions are illogical, unreasonable and undoable.



Mental labor ("white-collar") is labor, just as physical ("blue-collar") labor is labor.So if they are all labor, why do you claim physical labor should get more benefits than mental labor?

[ckaihatsu]

There is some central planning.


*Not* over the economy itself. Note that the heads of state *and* business executives are *powerless* to control the stunning decline in sales and growth that we've been seeing since the summer of '07.





That is why countries like the USA are now described as having Mixed economies.


Okay, fine, if that's the term you want to use. My point (above) still stands.





"The social and economic system which characterized most European societies in the Middle Ages goes by the name of feudalism. The system, in its most basic essence, is the granting of land in return for military service."


Hmmmmm, that doesn't sound that far from the conditions of the postwar U.S. -- think of the G.I. Bill...(!)

I'm of the position that our post-national economics can best be described as 'neofeudalism'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neofeudalism





Like I said, they would only engage in such action if they hated society or thought they were being exploited by remaining there and being employed.

Society has developed the means to live much more interesting lives - except they can (or should) only achieve those lives by hard work, intelligence, and honest paths. Do not mistake the concept with granting the unearned, by claiming rights, that people should live without earning their life.


This second part is downright *precious* -- do us all a favor and go tell that to the AIG executives!!!


: D


B- |





It provides them, for those who are willing to trade something for those values. It's obvious capitalism major motive is NOT charity, which can exist inside it. Capitalism's major motive is trade, value for value.

And don't forget in africa they have one of the most conflictive authoritatian governments that truly exploit their people, in the true sense of the word.


You, like all economic idealists, keep forgetting that *any* social organization, no matter how sparse, or on whatever economic basis, is a *form of collectivism*. Calling the *outcome* of that social organization "charity", "infrastructure", "trade", "value", or whatever else are merely *ways* of *describing* the uses of the social surplus that results from more-efficient ways of organizing society.

Since we're *not* confined to villages anymore the *globalization* of our human social organization begs the question: What is it *for*??? Do we want more surplus value extracted, to be used in the future? Should we make more of the surplus available now for human consumption? Should we use it to build up better societal infrastructure in common (roads, etc.)?

All of these questions / issues should *not* be left up to the capitalist economy *itself*, under the profit motive, because we can all see where it gets us -- to the *destruction* of financial wealth (financial losses), not to mention imperialist warfare, petty Third World dictatorships, mass poverty, and so on.





depends on the farmer's motives and purposes. If he wishes to not be "exploited", he'll have to give up many benefits. If he doesn't care, he can achieve much more than simply being at his farm.


Well, you're obviously okay with a world that allows people to live like that. I'm not.





I have not agknowledged it. In fact, I have been trying, for the last days, to show you, to prove to you, how the brutality and shortcomings of he capitalist economics are not the fault of people being free to trade, but of (for the most part) government intervention (whether to directly benefit big business or not).


Well, you've been astoundingly unconvincing. By *not* acknowledging that society could do far better in the way it uses its surplus you're defending the economic status quo -- one of capital-based trade. You *haven't* demonstrated how a governmental-type structure could be avoided altogether, and you *haven't* addressed the fact that capitalism itself runs into the problem of a declining rate of profit, leading to economic crisis, which we're witnessing today.





Lol, you are not forced. FORCE is exactly what most socialists and communists plan to use to steal those that provide employment and allow the generation of products that raise everyones standard of living.


I am *forced* to accept capitalism as the default economic system for the world. Even though I and many more around the world *prefer* to have the workers of the world in collective control of the means of mass production, it's not happening due to the *threat of physical repression* from various national militaries and business owners.

Don't accuse me of *anything* -- you can *ask questions*, but don't accuse.





again you are saying that employers should exist only for the sake of providing jobs to workers, with no beenfit to themselves.


This convention of ownership-backed employers (managers) making jobs available according to the business needs for labor is *only* a convention of economics. We have to ask ourselves, "How else can production be accomplished?" (It could be self-organized by the workers themselves, running the factory / workplace for themselves. On a local scale this is called syndicalism.)


Syndicalism - Socialism - Communism Transition Diagram

http://tinyurl.com/bgqgjw





We have also discussed how the economics of paying workers the same could not happen unless violating someone's life, liberty and property.


This is *not* what I said -- I *never* said to "pay workers the same." Look back at my previous posts -- I don't need to re-type it.





I said that employers won't send a cheque every month, and that i see nothing wrong with them doing it.


(I still don't understand you here. You may want to explain it in different terms.)





You are ignoring one very special point. How can business make profit by paying workers what they are worth?


Don't you *get* it??? I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE PROFIT MOTIVE.





"they will pay them exactly what they produce, and they will sell it exactly by that price", thus no profit involved, no gain for the employer, no reason for the business to exist.


Again, that is *not* what I said. And, again, I have no sympathy for those who are in the process of trying to realize a profit. Their motivation and effort in that direction turns them into the puppets of property.





they are not exploited. Nobody is forcing (AT THE POINT OF A GUN) them to buy the product.


Okay, but then *how else* would people obtain products -- especially ones essential for living, like food and medicine -- if not by *purchase*? And what if they happen to not have enough money to *purchase* those products? Is there some option, or *alternative*, to the system of capitalist economics that we're not aware of?





They have no right to DEMAND that want that product, they have no reason to force others to provide for them what they want exactly.


And yet it happens all the time. Look at what the U.S. did to Iraq, for the sake of oil.





They do have the power to decide what products will survive and which ones won't.


Only if there's money involved.





but they business cannot exist without profit, and your method doesn't allow the creation of profit for the business owner. he gets no benefit, apart from some spiritual feeling that he may be doing more for his workers than others. There wouldnt be any point for him to have the business. It would be more profitable for him to just become a worker as well.


* Exactly. * Now you're getting it.





my lofty phrasing, as i have already explained, refered to a specific audience by a specific narrator. But the points remain the same, and you cannot escape its logic. You can ignore it, but you cannot evade the consequences of ignoring it.


Look, people are creative, all the time, even *without* being motivated by profit-seeking. It would happen regardless, so we don't *need* a profit-driven economics just for people to be creative and inventive.





i agree, that was their goal. Are they acheiving it? Why? Why not?


This is a *huge* topic that could take several lifetimes to answer thoroughly. The brief answer is that no, most workers who are unionized have been sold out by their respective union representatives.





actually it is, it shows how there can be a situation where demands from unions are illogical, unreasonable and undoable.


Actually, don't presume to *tell me* what my concerns are. As long as unions are *achieving* pay raises and improvements in benefits for the workers in the union they're doing their job correctly.





So if they are all labor, why do you claim physical labor should get more benefits than mental labor?


I didn't say that.

[Havet]

yikes, we are again following the trend of bigness in replies.





Okay, fine, if that's the term you want to use. My point (above) still stands.

they amount of power they have over the economy is capable of changing it drastically, which is what i initially argued on the first page of this thread.


Hmmmmm, that doesn't sound that far from the conditions of the postwar U.S. -- think of the G.I. Bill...(!)

I'm of the position that our post-national economics can best be described as 'neofeudalism'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neofeudalism

The part which i disagree with is this one right here: "These policies, traditionalists say, would continue to devalue the labor of the working class while creating a wealthy elite that is permanently entrenched in the style of a feudal state."



This second part is downright *precious* -- do us all a favor and go tell that to the AIG executives!!!


: D


B- |


AIG is a Corporation, and the problem with corporations is that when ownership is separated from management (i.e. the actual production process required to obtain the capital), the former will inevitably begin to neglect the interests of the latter, creating dysfunction within the company.[/URL] Some maintain that recent events in corporate america may serve to reinforce Adam Smith's warnings about the dangers of legally-protected collectivist hierarchies.

And the fact that it was bailed out can also be assumed that the directors could have knew someone would pay for their losses, again, by some of the reasons I have stated in the first page.



You, like all economic idealists, keep forgetting that *any* social organization, no matter how sparse, or on whatever economic basis, is a *form of collectivism*. Calling the *outcome* of that social organization "charity", "infrastructure", "trade", "value", or whatever else are merely *ways* of *describing* the uses of the social surplus that results from more-efficient ways of organizing society.

Well, if you define "Collectivism as a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#cite_note-28) and the importance of a collective (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective), rather than the importance of separate individuals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual).", then I agree with you.



All of these questions / issues should *not* be left up to the capitalist economy *itself*, under the profit motive, because we can all see where it gets us -- to the *destruction* of financial wealth (financial losses), not to mention imperialist warfare, petty Third World dictatorships, mass poverty, and so on.

Yes, we can see where it gets us, provided you are assuming the current mixed economy, and NOT the free market, has caused this mess. Again, imperialist warfare is an intrinsicate part of government (which may or may not hire busiensses and create profit for them while waging war), as well as third world dictatorships and mass poverty. You have done a very good job identifying governments, now make sure you do realize its governments you're talking about and not what would actually happen in a free market "capitalism".



Well, you're obviously okay with a world that allows people to live like that. I'm not.

I'm not okay with a world that allows people to live like that. Our motives are the same, but what you plan to get to the objective is what i do not agree with, which is forcing others at gunpoint to achieve your objectives.

A true businessman could say to you that he has done more good for his fellow men than you can ever hope to accomplish - but he would not say it, because he does not seek the good of others as a sanction for his right to exist, nor does he recognise the good of others as a justification for their seizure of his property or their destruction of his life. He will not say that the good of others was the purpose of his work - his own good was his purpose, and he would despise the man who surrenders his. He could say to you that you do not serve the public good - that nobody's good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices - that when you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the right of all, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction.

If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own - I would refuse. I would fight it with every strength I had.


Well, you've been astoundingly unconvincing. By *not* acknowledging that society could do far better in the way it uses its surplus you're defending the economic status quo -- one of capital-based trade. [U]You *haven't* demonstrated how a governmental-type structure could be avoided altogether, and you *haven't* addressed the fact that capitalism itself runs into the problem of a declining rate of profit, leading to economic crisis, which we're witnessing today.

i have adressed the issues, it is you who have found it in your interest to claim my arguments are unconvincing.

I did not demonstrated how a governmental-type structure could be avoided, because i didn't think it was in the nature of the discussion we were having. I can show to you some arguments, that im currently having in this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/question-anarco-cappys-t109410/index.html) thread.

I have adressed the fact that capitalism does NOT run permanently into economic crisis. I have showed you the info in the first page, but you wish to ignore it. That which most people in this board believe to be systemic failures of capitalism are actually systemic failures of state capitalism, mixed economies, etc. I believe you are taking wrong conclusions from the current economic crisis, just like people have ben doing throughout history. And the wrong conclusions they took allowed for the emergance of policies to restrict free trade, which consequently end up bringing more crisis.


I am *forced* to accept capitalism as the default economic system for the world. Even though I and many more around the world *prefer* to have the workers of the world in collective control of the means of mass production, it's not happening due to the *threat of physical repression* from various national militaries and business owners.

i have not accused you. I said "exactly what most socialists and communists plan to use", and did not refer to you ONE SINGLE TIME.

Again, we go back to the previous point. You can prefer it, you can believe it is the greatest way of organizing a society, but so long as you propose to force at gunpoint to adopt your measures then your objective is no longer legitimate. I have said to you how you could have those instituitions today, and yet you continue to fail to understand that under a true free market, your kind of instituions WOULDN'T be target of threat of physical repression, (I concede, however, that in a free market some people would try to intitiate force on others, however nobody could argue, and not agree with your right of defending your institution, provided your institution itself had not coerced), and that they could NOT physically threat other institutions.




This convention of ownership-backed employers (managers) making jobs available according to the business needs for labor is *only* a convention of economics. We have to ask ourselves, "How else can production be accomplished?" (It could be self-organized by the workers themselves, running the factory / workplace for themselves. On a local scale this is called syndicalism.)

like i said, i have nothing wrong with other ways for production to be accomplished, provided it does not force others at gunpoint to join it or prevent others at gunpoint from leaving it, because that would disrespect a human's life, liberty and property.



This is *not* what I said -- I *never* said to "pay workers the same." Look back at my previous posts -- I don't need to re-type it.

yeah sorry, i mistyped. What i actually mean was that

"We have also discussed how the economics of paying workers the exact amoount of what their labor is worth could not happen unless violating someone's life, liberty and property, because you would need to force institutions who would not do that in order for yours to succeed".


(I still don't understand you here. You may want to explain it in different terms.)

Its not that important, i was merely restating what i had said, and why i agreed with it.


Don't you *get* it??? I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE PROFIT MOTIVE.

you don't? well you should. after all, most socialist/communist ideologies propose to steal, enslave, murder the people who wish to act by the profit motive.


Again, that is *not* what I said. And, again, I have no sympathy for those who are in the process of trying to realize a profit. Their motivation and effort in that direction turns them into the puppets of property.

sure whatever. You may not like that they realize profit, but since they are not forcing someone at gunpoint then you cannot initiate force against them.


Okay, but then *how else* would people obtain products -- especially ones essential for living, like food and medicine -- if not by *purchase*? And what if they happen to not have enough money to *purchase* those products? Is there some option, or *alternative*, to the system of capitalist economics that we're not aware of?

Yes there's an alternative. Do it yourself. Under a truly free society, people like you, could think that people should not have to pay for food or medicine. Therefore, you would gather with mindlike people and build your own community and provide those items for free (without having to buy them). Your community could grow its own food, have its own doctors and be completely self-sustainable so that it wouldn't be subject to any potential crisis generated by the free market (which varely happens, like ive said earlier, what happens most of the times is crisis created by government intervention)



And yet it happens all the time. Look at what the U.S. did to Iraq, for the sake of oil.

I happen to think the reasons for he USA invading Iraq were others besides oil. I think that due to 9/11, there was a stress on the government to *do something* and not stay still, so they went to Iraq. But even if they went to Iraq solely by the oil, It was not consumer demand that forced the iraqis. It was government force, government miltary, government arms that went there, and the sheep-minded people who supported those actions by the USA government ought to realize the harm theyve done to other people. Like i said, forcing people to do what you want is not a legitimate option, but the people of the USA, especially the government, decided to
simply ignore the facts that Iraq never threatened, harmed or killed a SINGLE U.S citizen.



* Exactly. * Now you're getting it.

The only thing i *got* was that that is how you would prefer to run your own institutions. As long as you don't use force, i don't care and might even proceed to support you.


Look, people are creative, all the time, even *without* being motivated by profit-seeking. It would happen regardless, so we don't *need* a profit-driven economics just for people to be creative and inventive.

Of course we don't need a profit-seeking system so people can be creative.

But because people can be inventive without having a profit-system DOESN'T mean we should eliminate the profit-system. Non-sequitur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29)



This is a *huge* topic that could take several lifetimes to answer thoroughly. The brief answer is that no, most workers who are unionized have been sold out by their respective union representatives.

if it's too lengthy, maybe it would be best to avoid it, unless we go by it again and you think you should add some arguments about it.



Actually, don't presume to *tell me* what my concerns are. As long as unions are *achieving* pay raises and improvements in benefits for the workers in the union they're doing their job correctly.

Actually i have not said what your concerns were. And i fully support the union's objectives and a specific method which they can achieve it: strike.


I didn't say that.

Ok, sorry, you didn't say it. But would you agree with the statement?

[IcarusAngel]

You, like all economic idealists, keep forgetting that *any* social organization, no matter how sparse, or on whatever economic basis, is a *form of collectivism*. Calling the *outcome* of that social organization "charity", "infrastructure", "trade", "value", or whatever else are merely *ways* of *describing* the uses of the social surplus that results from more-efficient ways of organizing society.

This very true. Like all things, there are good forms of collectivism and bad forms of collectivism. Science: Good form of collectivism. Capitalism: A very bad form of collectivism. The institutions that it proprs up are needlessly oppressive.

Certainly, the individual leader in a capitalism is also bad, much like Hitler spoke of the "triumph of the individual." But true individualism can be good; like most anything else, it also can have a good side (thinking for yourself) and a bad side (not caring about human rights or the planet).

Good post btw.

[ckaihatsu]

they amount of power they have over the economy is capable of changing it drastically, which is what i initially argued on the first page of this thread.


If this is true then why is everyone so powerless in the face of this economic crash? And why was there ever a *first* Great Depression, and now this one? They *don't* have power over the economy.





The part which i disagree with is this one right here: "These policies, traditionalists say, would continue to devalue the labor of the working class while creating a wealthy elite that is permanently entrenched in the style of a feudal state."


Well, as far as I'm concerned, it's accurate, because it is.





AIG is a Corporation, and the problem with corporations is that when ownership is separated from management (i.e. the actual production process required to obtain the capital), the former will inevitably begin to neglect the interests of the latter, creating dysfunction within the company.


So your concern is with the side of manufacturing capital -- it's understandable. You should be aware of *why* the interests of manufacturing capital and finance capital became more and more *divergent* as the 20th century wore on.





What the American political establishment failed to understand, or, perhaps, preferred to ignore, was that the economic forces that undermined the Stalinist regimes were global in character, and that these same pressures—emanating from the irresistible pressure of a global and increasingly integrated economy on national states—were bearing down upon and weakening the United States.





21. Among the most significant innovations introduced by American capitalism in the early years of the 20th century was the creation of the industrial corporation. This new form of economic organization was a response to the challenges posed by the development of new communications and transportation technologies associated with the railroad, steamship, telegraph and cable. As one of the most brilliant historians of American business, Alfred Chandler, Jr., explained in his monumental study, Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990):

The building and operating of the rail and telegraph systems called for the creation of a new type of business enterprise. The massive investment required to construct those systems and the complexities of their operations brought the separation of ownership from management. The enlarged enterprises came to be operated by teams of salaried managers who had little or no equity in the firm. The owners, numerous and scattered, were investors with neither the experience, the information, nor the time to make the myriad decisions needed to maintain a constant flow of goods, passengers and messages. Thousands of shareholders could not possibly operate a railroad or a telegraph system.

22. A major theme of Chandler's study, which he documents industry by industry, was the increasing separation during the first decades of the 20th century of ownership from management. In most cases, the powerful capitalist families that owned substantial portions of entire industries exerted direct and daily influence over corporate policy only to the extent that individual members became part of the professional management team. Significant sections of American industry were directed by managers who, according to Chandler, "owned less than 1% of the stock of the company they administered." He writes:

... These salaried managers, unencumbered by the wishes of large stockholders (whether members of founding families, venture capitalists, or outside investors) selected their own boards of directors and nominated their own successors (p. 145).

23. The management structure of the American corporation emphasized long-term growth. Again, quoting Chandler:

Until well after World War II, both the managers with little equity in the enterprise (the inside directors) and the representatives of the major stockholders (the outside directors) agreed that retained earnings should be reinvested in facilities and personnel in industries where the enterprises had developed competitive advantages based on its organizational capabilities. They agreed that such investment carried lower risk and higher probability of a satisfactory rate of return than making comparable investments in industries where the firm did not have such advantages (p. 595).

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/dnor-m26.shtml





[/URL] Some maintain that recent events in corporate america may serve to reinforce Adam Smith's warnings about the dangers of legally-protected collectivist hierarchies.


You're still missing the point that government will *always* back profitable business, no matter *how large* it gets -- don't you think that national governments *want* strong, large, profitable businesses, like corporations, within their lands so that the country as a whole can compete successfully against other countries, especially militarily -- ?!!!





And the fact that it was bailed out can also be assumed that the directors could have knew someone would pay for their losses, again, by some of the reasons I have stated in the first page.


Structurally we have to ask who insures the insurers of the insurers? *No one* has to be responsible for taking up the slack when the momentum in the economy is there, but once things begin to slow down and business risks (bets) on investments become overextended, across the board, those with exposed positions look immediately to cover their exposures somehow, and so they call up their insurers. The insurers start to freak out because everyone's calling in on their policies, and so the *insurers* want to get some support for *their* now-naked exposure to all of *their* bad business, and so they go to the *reinsurers*, like AIG.

AIG is the insurer of last resort, so when the black hole knocks on *their* door who do *they* go to? That's right, the taxpayers, and the government is more than gracious to provide for them because of the gargantuan sums involved, including lobbying funds, campaign donations, kickbacks, junkets, and so on. All the government has to do is to point at the hurricane and say, "We need to throw money at it in order to stop it." Of course the government's answer is ludicrous, but it *is* a hurricane after all, so what else is anyone going to say?





Well, if you define "Collectivism as a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdependence"]interdependence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#cite_note-28) and the importance of a collective (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective), rather than the importance of separate individuals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual).", then I agree with you.


Thank you -- this is the beginning of a recognition that we, as human beings, *do* utilize some degree of interdependence. As Marxists we say that this current degree of interdependence is far too low, and that we could do much better by collectivizing property itself so that it's not a distracting private matter anymore.





Yes, we can see where it gets us, provided you are assuming the current mixed economy, and NOT the free market, has caused this mess. Again, imperialist warfare is an intrinsicate part of government (which may or may not hire busiensses and create profit for them while waging war), as well as third world dictatorships and mass poverty. You have done a very good job identifying governments, now make sure you do realize its governments you're talking about and not what would actually happen in a free market "capitalism".


I am not a the-public-sector-is-perfect type of person, by any means. I can appreciate your critique of both big business (corporations) and big government (including Stalinism) because the problems with both are obvious to anyone who's paying attention. I hope you'll also acknowledge that those two sectors *reinforce* each other's interests -- as with the AIG example -- and act in collusion on an everyday basis. This is because they are of the same ruling class, or bourgeoisie.

Where I still have differences with you is on your point of economic idealism -- you still cling to the notion that businesses could somehow stay small and that governmental-type structures would somehow *not* form around growing regions of business.





I'm not okay with a world that allows people to live like that. Our motives are the same, but what you plan to get to the objective is what i do not agree with, which is forcing others at gunpoint to achieve your objectives.


If you support the principle of self-defense then I am on the side of self-defense for labor collectives (rank-and-file unions), on the basis of the workers' best interests -- *against* the forces of corporations, governments, and the military violence *they* use to keep labor exploited and oppressed.





A true businessman could say to you that he has done more good for his fellow men than you can ever hope to accomplish - but he would not say it, because he does not seek the good of others as a sanction for his right to exist, nor does he recognise the good of others as a justification for their seizure of his property or their destruction of his life.


What you're doing here is bringing forth the boogeyman of Stalinism -- it's implicitly an *accusation* against *my* politics. You're confusing my Marxist position with a bastardization of it, which was (historical) Stalinism. I'll ask you to *not* foist this on me, but rather to *clearly understand* my position and the politics I *do* support.





He will not say that the good of others was the purpose of his work - his own good was his purpose, and he would despise the man who surrenders his. He could say to you that you do not serve the public good - that nobody's good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices - that when you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the right of all, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction.

If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own - I would refuse. I would fight it with every strength I had.


Okay, well, you're off on a trip here, so I don't know what pertinence this has to our conversation.





i have adressed the issues, it is you who have found it in your interest to claim my arguments are unconvincing.


Hey, it's the truth -- I've said it repeatedly that I, on principle, have *zero* concern for the interests of ownership (and management), while that is all you seem to want to talk about. So then we're talking *past* each other at that point....





I did not demonstrated how a governmental-type structure could be avoided, because i didn't think it was in the nature of the discussion we were having. I can show to you some arguments, that im currently having in this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/question-anarco-cappys-t109410/index.html) thread.


Just state your arguments here.





I have adressed the fact that capitalism does NOT run permanently into economic crisis.


Then why was there the stock market crash in 1929, and again this year? When is capitalism going to *stop* going into repeated recessions and depressions which it's been doing for *centuries* now -- ?





I have showed you the info in the first page, but you wish to ignore it. That which most people in this board believe to be systemic failures of capitalism are actually systemic failures of state capitalism, mixed economies, etc. I believe you are taking wrong conclusions from the current economic crisis, just like people have ben doing throughout history. And the wrong conclusions they took allowed for the emergance of policies to restrict free trade, which consequently end up bringing more crisis.


You can *believe* anything you want -- just don't *expect* others to *believe* along with you. Your take on economics and politics is more faith-based than reality-based -- it's idealism.





i have not accused you. I said "exactly what most socialists and communists plan to use", and did not refer to you ONE SINGLE TIME.


Well, again you're misrepresenting my position as a Marxist, by referencing Stalinism. I have *not* misrepresented your position.





Again, we go back to the previous point. You can prefer it, you can believe it is the greatest way of organizing a society, but so long as you propose to force at gunpoint to adopt your measures then your objective is no longer legitimate.


This is implicitly an accusation, and you need to stop it.





I have said to you how you could have those instituitions today, and yet you continue to fail to understand that under a true free market, your kind of instituions WOULDN'T be target of threat of physical repression, (I concede, however, that in a free market some people would try to intitiate force on others, however nobody could argue, and not agree with your right of defending your institution, provided your institution itself had not coerced), and that they could NOT physically threat other institutions.


So you acknowledge that business competition leads to physical confrontations and physical threats. I acknowledge this as well, and that why there's warfare. It's unavoidable as long as the overriding drive is to *accumulate private property*, no matter who has to get maimed and killed in that process.





like i said, i have nothing wrong with other ways for production to be accomplished, provided it does not force others at gunpoint to join it or prevent others at gunpoint from leaving it, because that would disrespect a human's life, liberty and property.


Well, as with any confrontation, violence can be avoided if one party relents -- the capitalists need to relent.





yeah sorry, i mistyped. What i actually mean was that

"We have also discussed how the economics of paying workers the exact amoount of what their labor is worth could not happen unless violating someone's life, liberty and property, because you would need to force institutions who would not do that in order for yours to succeed".


Well, then, tell me what it would take for workers to get paid for what their labor is worth.





you don't? well you should. after all, most socialist/communist ideologies propose to steal, enslave, murder the people who wish to act by the profit motive.


Stop your accusations. *Again*, I do *not* have any sympathy or concern with anyone who is pursuing profit, not *should* I -- don't tell me what I "should" do.





sure whatever. You may not like that they realize profit, but since they are not forcing someone at gunpoint then you cannot initiate force against them.


What about Blackwater? Or CACI? Or the U.S, military? You're forgetting about self-defense.





Yes there's an alternative. Do it yourself. Under a truly free society, people like you, could think that people should not have to pay for food or medicine. Therefore, you would gather with mindlike people and build your own community and provide those items for free (without having to buy them). Your community could grow its own food, have its own doctors and be completely self-sustainable so that it wouldn't be subject to any potential crisis generated by the free market (which varely happens, like ive said earlier, what happens most of the times is crisis created by government intervention)


You acknowledged in an earlier post that society is not about to go back to village-level kinds of labor -- factories are a part of the modern age and they are here to stay. So with this reality *who* gets to control factories and the way that work is done in them? I say it should be decided and done by the control of the workers themselves.





I happen to think the reasons for he USA invading Iraq were others besides oil. I think that due to 9/11, there was a stress on the government to *do something* and not stay still, so they went to Iraq. But even if they went to Iraq solely by the oil, It was not consumer demand that forced the iraqis. It was government force, government miltary, government arms that went there, and the sheep-minded people who supported those actions by the USA government ought to realize the harm theyve done to other people. Like i said, forcing people to do what you want is not a legitimate option, but the people of the USA, especially the government, decided to
simply ignore the facts that Iraq never threatened, harmed or killed a SINGLE U.S citizen.


Okay, well I *do* appreciate the anti-war stance taken by yourself and people like yourself -- libertarians and left-nationalists. At least you're not neoconservatives.





The only thing i *got* was that that is how you would prefer to run your own institutions. As long as you don't use force, i don't care and might even proceed to support you.


No, you're close, but you're still not correctly describing my politics -- it's about *all of the workers* *running production themselves*, *without* markets, or private ownership or private management.





Of course we don't need a profit-seeking system so people can be creative.

But because people can be inventive without having a profit-system DOESN'T mean we should eliminate the profit-system. Non-sequitur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29)


Yes, it does, because you yourself are acknowledging that it is superfluous.





Actually i have not said what your concerns were. And i fully support the union's objectives and a specific method which they can achieve it: strike.


Well, this is good to hear -- so you support the rank-and-file's right to labor actions, like strikes. Do you also support their right to self-defense if violence is used against them while they're on strike?





Ok, sorry, you didn't say it. But would you agree with the statement?


You're asking me to make a determination of valuation of mental labor verus physical labor, in the abstract. I cannot. Not only is it not my determination to make, but you're also not providing the least amount of context for this comparison to be made, by anyone.

[ckaihatsu]

This very true. Like all things, there are good forms of collectivism and bad forms of collectivism. Science: Good form of collectivism. Capitalism: A very bad form of collectivism. The institutions that it proprs up are needlessly oppressive.

Certainly, the individual leader in a capitalism is also bad, much like Hitler spoke of the "triumph of the individual." But true individualism can be good; like most anything else, it also can have a good side (thinking for yourself) and a bad side (not caring about human rights or the planet).

Good post btw.


Thanks -- 'ppreciate it. It's good to be able to rise to the occasion.... Good to keep in practice, too...!

[Havet]

If you wish to learn more about the Great Depression I would recommend reading this (http://mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf)

I'm not missing the point that government will always back profitable businesses - in fact that's what i've been trying to explain since we first started to discuss, which is why whatever government and whatever business exists, at some point, will begin to use each other for more power.


AIG is the insurer of last resort, so when the black hole knocks on *their* door who do *they* go to? That's right, the taxpayers, and the government is more than gracious to provide for them because of the gargantuan sums involved, including lobbying funds, campaign donations, kickbacks, junkets, and so on. All the government has to do is to point at the hurricane and say, "We need to throw money at it in order to stop it." Of course the government's answer is ludicrous, but it *is* a hurricane after all, so what else is anyone going to say?Yes, they went to the taxpayers, but they SHOULD HAVE NOT. They should have failed, they should have gone bankrupt if it were truly their business decisions that made them lose value. If government bails them out then they are claiming it's ok to force people to pay taxes to finance those who cannot run businesses.

And regarding Collectivism, it's ok if some wish to gather and join forces, provided they don't force at gunpoint others who don't wish to join the collectivization, and who wish to have private property.



Where I still have differences with you is on your point of economic idealism -- you still cling to the notion that businesses could somehow stay small and that governmental-type structures would somehow *not* form around growing regions of business.No, i did not say that. I said that businesses could ONLY stay small if there wasn't any governmental-type structure they could cling to.


If you support the principle of self-defense then I am on the side of self-defense for labor collectives (rank-and-file unions), on the basis of the workers' best interests -- *against* the forces of corporations, governments, and the military violence *they* use to keep labor exploited and oppressed.If the forces they use are threat of violence, direct physical harm, murder and fraud then I too am in the side of self-defense of workers.


arguments on government and anarchy
Government: an agency of legitimized coercion. Coercion being the violation of what people in a particular society believe to be the rights of individuals with respect to other individuals.

"Another related argument against ancap is that the "strongest" protection agency will always win, the big fish will eat the little fish, and the justice you will get will depend on the military strength of the agency you patronize.

This is a fine description of governments, but protection agencies are not territorial sovereigns. An agency which settles its disputes on the battlefield has already lost, however many battles it wins. Battles are expensive - also dangerous for clients whose front yards get turned into free-fire zones. No clients mean no money to pay for the troops.

Perhaps the best way to see why ancap would be so much more peaceful than our present system is by analogy. Consider our world as it would be if the cost of moving from one country to another were zero. Everyone lives ina housetrailer and speaks the same language. One day, the president of France anounces that because of troubles with neighburing countries, new military taxes are being levied and conscription will begin shortly. The next morning the president of France finds himself ruling a peaceful but empty landscape, the population having been reduced to himself, three generals and twenty-seven war correspondants.

We cannot all live in housetrailers. But, if we buy our protection from a private firm instead of a government, we can buy it from a different firm as soon as we think we can get a better deal. We can change protectors without changing countries.
The risk of private protection agencies throwing their weight - and lead - around is not great, provided there are lots of them. Which bring us to the second and far more serious argument against ancap.

The protection agencies will have a large fraction of the armed might of society. What can prevent them from getting toguether and using that might to set themselves up as government?
In some ultimate sense, nothing can prevent that save a populace possesing arms and willing, if necessary, to use them. That is one reason I am against gun-control legislation.
But there are safeguards less ultimate than armed resistance. After all, our present police departments, national guard, and armed forces already possses most of the armed might. Why have they not combined to run the country for their own benefit? Neither soldiers nor policement are especially well paid; surely they could impose a better settlement at gunpoint.

A brief answer is that people act according to what they perceive as right, proper, and practical. The restraints which prevent a military coup are essentially restraints interior to the men with guns.
We must ask not whether an ancap society would be safe from a power grab by the men with the guns, but whether it would be safer than our current society.
In our society, the men who must engineer a coup are politicians, military officers, and policement, men selected precisely for the characteristic of desiring power and being good at using it. They are men who already believe they have the right to push other men around - that is their job. Under ancap the men in control of protection agencies are "selected" by their ability to run an efficient business and please their customers. It is always possible that some will turn to be secret power freaks as well, but it is surely less likely than under our system where the corresponding jobs are labeled "non-power freaks need not apply"

anotherrelevant factor is the number of protection agencies. If there are only two or three agencies in the entire area now covered by the USA, a conspiracy among them may be practical. If there are 10,000, then when any group starts acting like government, their customers will hire someone else to protect them against their protectors.

Protection agencies have no rights which individuals do not have, and they therefore cannot engage in legitimized coercion. This does not mean that they will never coerce anyone. a protection agency, like a government, can make a mistake and arrest the wrong man. In exactly the same way, a private citizen can shoot at what he thinks is a prowler and bag the postman instead. In each case, coercion occurs, but by accident, and the coercer is liable for the consequences of his acts.
This is not true for government actions. In order to sue a policeman for false arrest, I must prove not merely that I was innocent but also that the policeman had no reason to suspect me. If i am locked up for 20 years and then proven innocent, i have no legal claim against the government for my lost time and mental anguish. It is recognized the government made a mistake, but the government is allowed to make mistakes and need not pay for them like the rest of us."True Free Market "Capitalism" will stop going into these great crisis when government stops interfering and regulating who sells what where, who produces what when.



So you acknowledge that business competition leads to physical confrontations and physical threats. I acknowledge this as well, and that why there's warfare. It's unavoidable as long as the overriding drive is to *accumulate private property*, no matter who has to get maimed and killed in that process.it's unavoidable that government and business will cling toguether, but in the absense of such a centralized institution of force, and with some market mechanisms already in practice (such as arbitrators, protection agencies, insurances) there would be little violence, from business and to business.



Well, as with any confrontation, violence can be avoided if one party relents -- the capitalists need to relent.Government needs to stop violence to favor big business, and whatever business uses direct violence for its own purposes, that business must stop as well.

--

Workers cannot get paid the same and expect to succeed unless in a very protected and closed market.


What about Blackwater? Or CACI? Or the U.S, military? You're forgetting about self-defense.those institutions could only legitimately exist if they only practiced self-defense: defense for justly aquired property (property that wasnt stolen), defense for individuals who bought their service, defense for communities who bought their service. They are legitimate so long as they don't use their resources to initiate force; the mere existance of profit seeking protection agencies doesn't imply they are forcing someone to do something


You acknowledged in an earlier post that society is not about to go back to village-level kinds of labor -- factories are a part of the modern age and they are here to stay. So with this reality *who* gets to control factories and the way that work is done in them? I say it should be decided and done by the control of the workers themselves.I would say it should be decided however people prefered: some would be only controled by workers, other businesses by business owners, others by boards of directors, others without owners at all, etc.


Yes, it does, because you yourself are acknowledging that it is superfluous. No it doesn't. you have commited a fallacy called non sequitur (does not follow).

Let me restate my argument. Just because people can be inventive without having a profit-system DOESN'T mean we should eliminate the profit-system.

You are ignoring that many people can engage in all sorts of actions under many different regimes and societies.


Do you also support their right to self-defense if violence is used against them while they're on strike?Yes, provided they are not in strike INSIDE the owner's fctory. But if they are striking outside it, without blocking anyone's access to it, then they are completely legitimate in defending themselves against the police (who might act because of big business relations to government).


You're asking me to make a determination of valuation of mental labor verus physical labor, in the abstract. I cannot. Not only is it not my determination to make, but you're also not providing the least amount of context for this comparison to be made, by anyone.Fine, let me invent a context. Who has done more labor, the man who invented an electric motor or the worker who builts it?

If its the inventor, then why should he not as well be protected from government/bigbusiness exploitation?

If its a business owner who has invented the motor and then decided to hire some workers, teach them how to built it, and then sell his motors, how is he "exploting" his workers? How are they producing all the value? He could have built it himself, but with workers he can make more in a smaller timeframe. Does that allow his effort to be completely ignored?

[ckaihatsu]

If you wish to learn more about the Great Depression I would recommend reading this (http://mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf)

I'm not missing the point that government will always back profitable businesses - in fact that's what i've been trying to explain since we first started to discuss, which is why whatever government and whatever business exists, at some point, will begin to use each other for more power.


Business and government *work with* each other for more power.





Yes, they went to the taxpayers, but they SHOULD HAVE NOT. They should have failed, they should have gone bankrupt if it were truly their business decisions that made them lose value. If government bails them out then they are claiming it's ok to force people to pay taxes to finance those who cannot run businesses.


This is a naive statement to make because right after you're acknowledging that business and government work together you're then expecting a market-based system to *not* turn to government for a bailout. Either you're trying to fool others, or you're fooling yourself -- maybe both.





And regarding Collectivism, it's ok if some wish to gather and join forces, provided they don't force at gunpoint others who don't wish to join the collectivization, and who wish to have private property.


Well, you know that the ownership of private property just leads right back to *competition* over the use of assets and resources (markets), so in reality those who are using guns the most are the protectors of business interests to property -- the government's military forces.





No, i did not say that. I said that businesses could ONLY stay small if there wasn't any governmental-type structure they could cling to.


But don't you see that this is *impossible* -- ? As soon as some small businesses start doing business together somewhere -- let's say in a hypothetically remote, blank-slate area -- they're going to need to formulate some policy on how they conduct their trade over longer periods of time. This policy will require a "referee" type of person or office to act as an impartial mediator between the two parties, and now we're back to having a governmental-type structure that is needed by business.

Over time the mediation office will expand its services and then monopolize the administration of blanket policies, or laws, while institutionalizing a system of tax collection in order to fund its efforts. The collection of taxes will be far from equitable because it's easier to collect taxes broadly, by law, from (poorer) people who you have *no* dealings with, than it is to collect from those you work with and cater to in the process of mediation -- businesses.





If the forces they use are threat of violence, direct physical harm, murder and fraud then I too am in the side of self-defense of workers.


Terrific. Then you have political principles that are in line with labor militancy.





True Free Market "Capitalism" will stop going into these great crisis when government stops interfering and regulating who sells what where, who produces what when.

it's unavoidable that government and business will cling toguether, but in the absense of such a centralized institution of force, and with some market mechanisms already in practice (such as arbitrators, protection agencies, insurances) there would be little violence, from business and to business.


I vehemently disagree. I actually have the *opposite* take -- that in the absence of a centralized institution of force the offices of business management, like arbitrators, protection agencies, and insurance / finance companies, will become *extremely aggressive* and will take up the means of force for themselves against their competitors. The evidence is in the black market, which is unregulated, where maiming and killing is common in the course of business, and from feudal warfare where the lack of a monopoly of force in an area left free reign for nobles (or warlords in general) to battle.





Government needs to stop violence to favor big business, and whatever business uses direct violence for its own purposes, that business must stop as well.


From my point of view these words are almost revolutionary in their political nature. I'd be curious to know how you would propose to make this happen?





Workers cannot get paid the same and expect to succeed unless in a very protected and closed market.


Or -- if we do away with the market altogether then we don't run into the complications of market overhead -- this would be an area of productivity (factory, small town, etc.) wherein the workers control the machinery in their own interests without being bothered by market pricing fads that come and go like bad weather. It would be a relatively closed, relatively stable population of workers that cooperate in order to make the best use of the assets and resources in common.





those institutions could only legitimately exist if they only practiced self-defense: defense for justly aquired property (property that wasnt stolen), defense for individuals who bought their service, defense for communities who bought their service. They are legitimate so long as they don't use their resources to initiate force; the mere existance of profit seeking protection agencies doesn't imply they are forcing someone to do something


This is problematic because we would then have to deal with the issue of an abstract population of people who will be arbitrarily making claims over an abstract expanse of land and assets. In other words, who's to say who should own what parcels of land? Who's to say what's "legitimate" private ownership once we have this hypothetical peace (only self-defense, no offense) -- ?

The underlying problem with your scenario is that if you ignore the dynamic of labor productivity you wind up in a no-man's-land of trying to define what kind of land ownership is "legitimate" and what isn't.

The best reason for focusing and basing one's politics on the agency of the working class is because it is the only force that can respond to the initiating *political demands* of general human need (not market-based purchasing demands).





I would say it should be decided however people prefered: some would be only controled by workers, other businesses by business owners, others by boards of directors, others without owners at all, etc.


Again the problem here would be one about legitimacy -- I would forsee major clashes over control of productive output, between the labor force of a factory and a managerial elite claiming "ownership" of the factory.





No it doesn't. you have commited a fallacy called non sequitur (does not follow).

Let me restate my argument. Just because people can be inventive without having a profit-system DOESN'T mean we should eliminate the profit-system.

You are ignoring that many people can engage in all sorts of actions under many different regimes and societies.


Well, I see it as a matter of superfluousness -- I can walk down the street with a stack of rabbits balanced delicately on top of my head, or I can just walk down the street.

People, provided with resources, can be creative in all sorts of ways, and they *don't objectively require* a profit-oriented economic system to exist in the world in order for them to be creative.





Yes, provided they are not in strike INSIDE the owner's fctory. But if they are striking outside it, without blocking anyone's access to it, then they are completely legitimate in defending themselves against the police (who might act because of big business relations to government).


Well then you're obviously missing the *whole point* of what a labor strike is for. If you support the workers' right to strike then you must realize that strikes are usually initiated over the unjustifiable withholding of compensation (private property) from the workers, like unpaid wages and the like. On this basis of unjustifiable withholding of compensation owed every single worker in every location around the world would have valid cause to go on strike immediately because they (we) have *never* been paid in relation to what our labor has been worth to the businesses worked for.

It would also be valid to say that a labor strike is just one step taken in the direction of attempting to collect on a debt. Considering the immense vastness of value that's been expropriated from generations of workers worldwide I think the handover of factories and other major assets would be appropriate.

Moreover, since this back-debt has *not* been historically recognized by the owners of private capital there are valid grounds for *politicizing* this issue by whatever means available.





Fine, let me invent a context. Who has done more labor, the man who invented an electric motor or the worker who builts it?

If its the inventor, then why should he not as well be protected from government/bigbusiness exploitation?

If its a business owner who has invented the motor and then decided to hire some workers, teach them how to built it, and then sell his motors, how is he "exploting" his workers? How are they producing all the value? He could have built it himself, but with workers he can make more in a smaller timeframe. Does that allow his effort to be completely ignored?


The difference between the inventor in this scenario and the workers he (or she) employs to build it is a matter of *ownership*. In the case that this electric motor becomes a hot item and sells well it's the *owner* who will be rewarded according to *sales*, and *not* according to the proportion of labor put in.

[Havet]

Business and government *work with* each other for more power.

yes



This is a naive statement to make because right after you're acknowledging that business and government work together you're then expecting a market-based system to *not* turn to government for a bailout. Either you're trying to fool others, or you're fooling yourself -- maybe both.I would only be acknowledging that if I knew there was an alternative, which there is = free market anarchism

I, like you, completely disagree with government using taxpayers money to pay for failures, but I have strong reason to believe that without a government, business itself would NOT become a government.



Well, you know that the ownership of private property just leads right back to *competition* over the use of assets and resources (markets), so in reality those who are using guns the most are the protectors of business interests to property -- the government's military forces.Again you're doing a fine job describing the current government's actions. You seem to be against private property and property rights, so can I come over your house and take your monitor away? Why not?


But don't you see that this is *impossible* -- ? As soon as some small businesses start doing business together somewhere -- let's say in a hypothetically remote, blank-slate area -- they're going to need to formulate some policy on how they conduct their trade over longer periods of time. This policy will require a "referee" type of person or office to act as an impartial mediator between the two parties, and now we're back to having a governmental-type structure that is needed by business.

Over time the mediation office will expand its services and then monopolize the administration of blanket policies, or laws, while institutionalizing a system of tax collection in order to fund its efforts. The collection of taxes will be far from equitable because it's easier to collect taxes broadly, by law, from (poorer) people who you have *no* dealings with, than it is to collect from those you work with and cater to in the process of mediation -- businesses.I thought i had already shown some arguments on how businesses would not, or at least have very low chance of, becoming governments:


Government: an agency of legitimized coercion. Coercion being the violation of what people in a particular society believe to be the rights of individuals with respect to other individuals.

"Another related argument against ancap is that the "strongest" protection agency will always win, the big fish will eat the little fish, and the justice you will get will depend on the military strength of the agency you patronize.

This is a fine description of governments, but protection agencies are not territorial sovereigns. An agency which settles its disputes on the battlefield has already lost, however many battles it wins. Battles are expensive - also dangerous for clients whose front yards get turned into free-fire zones. No clients mean no money to pay for the troops.

Perhaps the best way to see why ancap would be so much more peaceful than our present system is by analogy. Consider our world as it would be if the cost of moving from one country to another were zero. Everyone lives ina housetrailer and speaks the same language. One day, the president of France anounces that because of troubles with neighburing countries, new military taxes are being levied and conscription will begin shortly. The next morning the president of France finds himself ruling a peaceful but empty landscape, the population having been reduced to himself, three generals and twenty-seven war correspondants.

We cannot all live in housetrailers. But, if we buy our protection from a private firm instead of a government, we can buy it from a different firm as soon as we think we can get a better deal. We can change protectors without changing countries.
The risk of private protection agencies throwing their weight - and lead - around is not great, provided there are lots of them. Which bring us to the second and far more serious argument against ancap.

The protection agencies will have a large fraction of the armed might of society. What can prevent them from getting toguether and using that might to set themselves up as government?
In some ultimate sense, nothing can prevent that save a populace possesing arms and willing, if necessary, to use them. That is one reason I am against gun-control legislation.
But there are safeguards less ultimate than armed resistance. After all, our present police departments, national guard, and armed forces already possses most of the armed might. Why have they not combined to run the country for their own benefit? Neither soldiers nor policement are especially well paid; surely they could impose a better settlement at gunpoint.

A brief answer is that people act according to what they perceive as right, proper, and practical. The restraints which prevent a military coup are essentially restraints interior to the men with guns.
We must ask not whether an ancap society would be safe from a power grab by the men with the guns, but whether it would be safer than our current society.
In our society, the men who must engineer a coup are politicians, military officers, and policement, men selected precisely for the characteristic of desiring power and being good at using it. They are men who already believe they have the right to push other men around - that is their job. Under ancap the men in control of protection agencies are "selected" by their ability to run an efficient business and please their customers. It is always possible that some will turn to be secret power freaks as well, but it is surely less likely than under our system where the corresponding jobs are labeled "non-power freaks need not apply"

anotherrelevant factor is the number of protection agencies. If there are only two or three agencies in the entire area now covered by the USA, a conspiracy among them may be practical. If there are 10,000, then when any group starts acting like government, their customers will hire someone else to protect them against their protectors.

Protection agencies have no rights which individuals do not have, and they therefore cannot engage in legitimized coercion. This does not mean that they will never coerce anyone. a protection agency, like a government, can make a mistake and arrest the wrong man. In exactly the same way, a private citizen can shoot at what he thinks is a prowler and bag the postman instead. In each case, coercion occurs, but by accident, and the coercer is liable for the consequences of his acts.
This is not true for government actions. In order to sue a policeman for false arrest, I must prove not merely that I was innocent but also that the policeman had no reason to suspect me. If i am locked up for 20 years and then proven innocent, i have no legal claim against the government for my lost time and mental anguish. It is recognized the government made a mistake, but the government is allowed to make mistakes and need not pay for them like the rest of us."If you have other doubts on how other parts of society could work, lets say, justice and protection, i'll be glad to explain.


I vehemently disagree. I actually have the *opposite* take -- that in the absence of a centralized institution of force the offices of business management, like arbitrators, protection agencies, and insurance / finance companies, will become *extremely aggressive* and will take up the means of force for themselves against their competitors. The evidence is in the black market, which is unregulated, where maiming and killing is common in the course of business, and from feudal warfare where the lack of a monopoly of force in an area left free reign for nobles (or warlords in general) to battle.Above I have a very good argument for that: businesses are there to make money. If they take down their competitors by force nobody will want to do business with them.


From my point of view these words are almost revolutionary in their political nature. I'd be curious to know how you would propose to make this happen?I already stated above how they would not become governments. Now I will show you how disputes could be handled in the free market.


Private law would be law provided by the free-market. There could be two ways of achieving this. One would support the establishment of a mutually agreed-upon centralized libertarian legal code which private courts would pledge to follow. Such a code for Internet commerce, called The Common Economic Protocols was developed by Andre Goldman.
Other way would be that the systems of law would be produced for profit on the open market, just as books and bras are produced today. There could be competition among different brands of law, just as there is competition among different brands of cars. This was proposed by David Friedman. However, as he states, whether this would lead to a libertarian society "remains to be proven." He thinks there is a possibility that very unlibertarian laws may result, such as laws against drugs. But, he thinks this would be rare. He reasons that "if the value of a law to it supporters is less than its cost to its victims, that law...will not survive in an anarcho-capitalist society.This other way would work sort of like this:


since there can't be any unlegitimate use of force, a court that would issue a ruling against an hypothetical A person would give the A person with two choices. Choices have consequences. Person A can either abide the ruling or ignore it.

If person A decided to ignore it, she would pay a price in terms of reputation. There would be a record of the person's credit report and crime report, besides her personal reputation. Therefore, the "rating" of the person would be lowered, and the information could be transfered to other agencies who wished to deal with the person. A similar system is already in place in Ebay, where Ebay "enforces" (in the sense that if the person who wishes to use ebay must do that part of the "contract") a system that keeps track of how legitimate a person is when selling or buying, that information being displayed to other sellers or buyers.

All these things already exist and are private, but in ancap what would change would be their degree (how much and where else would they be used).

And no, it isn't to start sounding like government because:
a) it is very rare that in a free market appear natural monopolies, and government has artificial monopoly over the current legal system, so there would be competition
b) a person is not forced to accept the rulingExample of how a claim of theft could be handled:


it would not be just "people creating rules for others to enforce them". If you had a different set of laws and contracted with a different protection firm, and another guy claimed you stole his tv set and he had another protection firm, there would of course be a contrast of itnerests. What could happen?

The other guy's firm would contract a private police force to go to your house to retrieve what they thought was the guy's property. They would be in effect trying to enforce the law on you. But you had the choice of contacting your own firm to place your own private police firm in defense of your property, since you believed they were going after your property. The stage seems set for a nice little war between the two firms. It is precisely that possibility that has led some libertarians who are not anarchists to reject the possibility of competing free-market protection agencies.

But wars are expensive and both protection firms are profit-making corporations, more interested in saving their money than their face.

with both the police forces near to one another, there could be a fight. someone could get hurt, whoever wins, by the time the conflict is over it will be expensive for both sides. how could they resolve this dispute?

A firm suggests the best way to deal with this is through arbitration. They will take the dispute over the guy's tv set to a reputable local arbitration firm. If the arbitrator decides that the guy is innocent and that you stole his tv, your protectin firm would agree to pay the guy and his protection firm an indemnity to make up for the time and trouble. If he is found guilty, his protection firm will accept the verdict, since it is not his tv set, they have no obligation to protect him any longer. They might not even contract with him anymore, since he has lied for his own interest.

What was described here was a very makeshift arrangement. In ancap institutions that are well established, such difficulties would be antecipated and arranged in contracts in advance, before specific conflicts occured, specifying the arbitrator in advance.


Laws are being produced for a market, and that is what the market wants. But market demands are in dollars, not votes. The legality of heroin, for example, will be determined, not by how many are for or against, but by how high a cost each side is willing to bear in order to get its way. People who want to control other people's lives are rarely eager to pay for the privilege; they usually expect to be paid for the "services" they provide for their victims. And those on the receiving end - whether of laws against drugs, laws against pornography, or laws against sex - get a lot more pain out of the oppression than their oppressors get pleasure. They are thus willing to pay a much higher price to be left alone than anyone is willing to pay to push them around. For that reason the laws of an anarcho-capitalist society should be heavily biased towards freedom."Crimes without victims" do not hurt anyone except in the vague sense of arousing indignation, so there is little market demand for laws against them.

There is also incredible amount of information on how these kind of agencies already appeared in America, during the "Not so Wild West"


"In the absence of a formal structure for the definition and enforcement of
individual rights, many of the groups of associates who came seeking their
fortunes organized and made their rules for operation before they left their
homes. Much the same as company charters today, these voluntary con-
tracts entered into by the miners specified financing for the operation as well
as the nature of the relationship between individuals. These rules applied
only to the miners in the company and did not recognize any outside
arbitrator of disputes; they did not "recognize any higher court than the law
of the majority of the company."

on company's relation to their employees:

"In addition to the rules listed above, company
constitutions often specified arrangements for payments to be used for
caring for the sick and unfortunate, rules for personal conduct including the
use of alcoholic spirits, and fines which could be imposed for misconduct, to
mention a few.'In the truest nature of the social contract, the governing
rules of the company were negotiated, and as in all market transactions
unanimity prevailed. Those who wished to purchase other "bundles of
goods" or other sets of rules had that alternative."

on how land disputes were settled:

"A mass meeting of miners was held June 8, 1859, and a committee
appointed to draft a code of laws. This committee laid out boundaries
for the district, and their civil code, after some discussion and amend-
ment, was unanimously adopted in mass meeting, July 16. 1859. The
example was rapidly followed in other districts, and the whole Territory
was soon divided between a score of local sovereignties.'"

resolving of disputes:

"While the mining camps did not have private courts where individuals
could take their disputes and pay for arbitration, they did develop a system
of justice through the miners' courts. These courts seldom had permanent
officers, although there were instances ofjustices of the peace. The folk-moot
system was common in California. By this method a group of citizens was
summoned to try a case. From their midst they would elect a presiding
officer or judge and select six or twelve persons to serve as the jury. Most
often their rulings were not disputed, but there was recourse when disputes
arose. For example, in one case involving two partners, after a ruling by the
miners' court, the losing partner called a mass meeting of the camp to plead
his case and the decision was reversed.44 And if alarger group of miners was
dissatisfied with the general rulings regarding camp boundaries or individual
claim disputes, notices were posted in several places calling meeting of those
wishing a division of the territory. "If a majority favored such action, the
district was set apart and named. The old district was not consulted on the
subject, but received a verbal notice of the new organization. Local condi-
tions, making different regulations regarding claims desirable, were the chief
causes of such separations."4~ "The work of mining, and its environment and
conditions, were so different in different places, that the laws and customs of
the miners had to vary even in adjoining districts."4"

competition for justice:

"In Colorado there is some evidence of competition among the courts for
business, and hence, an added guarantee that justice prevailed.

The civil courts promptly assumed criminal jurisdiction, and the year
1860 opened with four governments in full blast. The miners' courts,
people's courts, and "provisional government" (a new name for "Jeffer-
son") divided jurisdiction in the mountains; while Kansas and the
provisional government ran concurrent in Denver and the valley. Such
as felt friendly to either jurisdiction patronized it with their business.
Appeals were taken from one to the other, papers certified up or down
and over, and recognized, criminals delivered and judgments accepted
from one court by another, with a happy informality which it is pleasant
to read of. And here we are confronted by an awkward fact: there was
undoubtedly much less crime in the two years this arrangement lasted
than in the two which followed the territorial organization and regular
government"
Or -- if we do away with the market altogether then we don't run into the complications of market overhead -- this would be an area of productivity (factory, small town, etc.) wherein the workers control the machinery in their own interests without being bothered by market pricing fads that come and go like bad weather. It would be a relatively closed, relatively stable population of workers that cooperate in order to make the best use of the assets and resources in common.To do away with the market is to have someone control what others buy and what others sell, and that is dictatorship; it goes against everyone's life, liberty and property. Again you can make your own community like that, as long as you didn't enforce it on me AND you didn't prevent the community people from leaving when they wished.



This is problematic because we would then have to deal with the issue of an abstract population of people who will be arbitrarily making claims over an abstract expanse of land and assets. In other words, who's to say who should own what parcels of land? Who's to say what's "legitimate" private ownership once we have this hypothetical peace (only self-defense, no offense) -- ?

The underlying problem with your scenario is that if you ignore the dynamic of labor productivity you wind up in a no-man's-land of trying to define what kind of land ownership is "legitimate" and what isn't.

The best reason for focusing and basing one's politics on the agency of the working class is because it is the only force that can respond to the initiating *political demands* of general human need (not market-based purchasing demands).So what is legitimate property for you? I find legitimate property, or someone having a legitimate claim over land, if he has mixed his labor with it and changed its value.



Again the problem here would be one about legitimacy -- I would forsee major clashes over control of productive output, between the labor force of a factory and a managerial elite claiming "ownership" of the factory.Like I said, people would be free to try any type of management, as long as they didn't enforce it on others. If i had my business and you and your fellow workers owned your own worker-managed business, why would you think you would have any legitimate action in stealing the factory i bought, with money, from: the workers who built it, the engineers that designed it and designed the machines, from the scientists that discovered the principles which make production possible, etc etc?



Well, I see it as a matter of superfluousness -- I can walk down the street with a stack of rabbits balanced delicately on top of my head, or I can just walk down the street.

People, provided with resources, can be creative in all sorts of ways, and they *don't objectively require* a profit-oriented economic system to exist in the world in order for them to be creative.Yes, it doesn't require, but it doesn't mean that we should eliminate profit-based systems.

If some people are happy in dictatorship, that doesn't mean we should eliminate. It is not the correct argument against dictatorship. The correct argument against dictatorship is that it violates people's freedom, forces them at gunpoint to engage in activity they don't want, etc..



Well then you're obviously missing the *whole point* of what a labor strike is for. If you support the workers' right to strike then you must realize that strikes are usually initiated over the unjustifiable withholding of compensation (private property) from the workers, like unpaid wages and the like. On this basis of unjustifiable withholding of compensation owed every single worker in every location around the world would have valid cause to go on strike immediately because they (we) have *never* been paid in relation to what our labor has been worth to the businesses worked for.aw, that's another matter. If they have contracted to receive X and they do not get it, then i fully support them demanding, inside the factory, or blocking the entrance until they get what they are owed.


It would also be valid to say that a labor strike is just one step taken in the direction of attempting to collect on a debt. Considering the immense vastness of value that's been expropriated from generations of workers worldwide I think the handover of factories and other major assets would be appropriate.Workers are not on debt. They agreed to the debt when they took the job. I have already went through this, but you don't seem to be paying attention.

Just because one needs to survive doesn't mean others should provide him with the means of surviving. That is what charities are for. Businesses are not charities, they are trading money for labor, not life for labor. In the end, it is everyone's responsability to find the best way to live well with the least effort. And certainly just staying in a factory is a very crude choice. When first immigrants arrived to america, they stayed in sweat shops at first, but they managed to provide a better life for themselves and allow their children to not have to meet the same conditions, enabling them to get better jobs


Moreover, since this back-debt has *not* been historically recognized by the owners of private capital there are valid grounds for *politicizing* this issue by whatever means available.If i own a business i do not owe anyone anything unless:
a)I have asked for a lending and haven't payed it back yet
b)I have not payed my workers what both of us have agreed in the contract


The difference between the inventor in this scenario and the workers he (or she) employs to build it is a matter of *ownership*. In the case that this electric motor becomes a hot item and sells well it's the *owner* who will be rewarded according to *sales*, and *not* according to the proportion of labor put in.But what labor do you find more important? What labor requires more effort AND produces more results? The man who has learned from others how to build a car or the man who designed the car, the pieces, and discovered how to put it all toguether?

What about the business owner who discovered a new way to produce the same product, yet that it will save a lot more hours and produce more? Is his labor not recognized as well?

[commerican]

Did imperialist powers wage wars before the Federal Reserve and fractional banking?

Yes.

Have they since the Fed Res was formed?

Yes.

Will simply dismantling the Fed Res prevent imperialist powers from waging wars?

No. It is doubtful this would even slow them down.


Honest questions regarding the wider debate:

Why are ancaps so consistently inconsistent?

Is it intentional maliciousness or well-meaning ignorance?

Why do people who have never read Marx feel the need to tell those who have what he wrote?

[ckaihatsu]

Is it intentional maliciousness or well-meaning ignorance?


It's the inevitable consequence of letting your gold do all your thinking for you. They're pissed off that they were born too late and missed the frontier period of adventurist capital build-up -- when a short-cut *did* exist to extract wealth directly from nature, by mining for gold (etc.). I guess there's no *purer* way to be a capitalist than that.... If capitalist heaven exists God Himself would be at their feet, listening attentively to all their stories about their mining adventures...(!)

[Havet]

Did imperialist powers wage wars before the Federal Reserve and fractional banking?

Yes.

I agree


Have they since the Fed Res was formed?

Yes.

I agree


Will simply dismantling the Fed Res prevent imperialist powers from waging wars?

No. It is doubtful this would even slow them down.

I agree that it will not prevent the waging of wars, although it is an alternative to reduce the number of crisis caused by government, which could lead to less wars.



Honest questions regarding the wider debate:

Why are ancaps so consistently inconsistent?

Is it intentional maliciousness or well-meaning ignorance?

Why do people who have never read Marx feel the need to tell those who have what he wrote?

Fascists will say both of us are inconsistent, i will say you are inconsistent, you will say i am inconsistent, that leads us nowhere. Am I inconsistent? I have adressed all the arguments why you think I am inconsistent, apparently it was not enough for some other people in this board. I will be glad to restate them for the record, until you come to agree with me or I realized you do not care about logic and reason. I will stand corrected if my arguments are not logic and reasonable when facing more reasonable and logical arguments you may present.

Both of us have things in common, and our divergences are not the greatest there exist. We have common enemies, and many times our differences are purely semantical.

I have never mentioned marx in person. I do not care about who invented those ideas, I am questioning THE ideas, and hoping for others to see some other inconsistencies in them.

[ckaihatsu]

Again you're doing a fine job describing the current government's actions. You seem to be against private property and property rights, so can I come over your house and take your monitor away? Why not?


I'd like to make a distinction between *public* property, *private* property, and *personal* property -- from a leftist perspective there's no issue with anyone's *personal* property. Personal stuff is made up of the objects we *actually use ourselves* in the course of our day. In this way leftists aren't against ownership for the sake of being anti-ownership, rather, we're against ownership in the spheres of private property and public property, because that's where claims to ownership are most likely to become problematic, with conflicting interests rising over the same property, leading to disputes and chaos.





I thought i had already shown some arguments on how businesses would not, or at least have very low chance of, becoming governments:

If you have other doubts on how other parts of society could work, lets say, justice and protection, i'll be glad to explain.

Above I have a very good argument for that: businesses are there to make money. If they take down their competitors by force nobody will want to do business with them.


We've been over some arguments of yours in previous exchanges, and I've responded to some of your points in turn. Merely asserting your own positions and then ignoring responses from me doesn't necessarily add up to a process of convincing others, like me.

I addressed the issue of the black market already, which is far more pervaded by gangster-type business methods than non-black-market industries, and yet business continues there -- that means there must exist networks of partners, associates, customers, and all other types of business relationships that go with making money, despite the unsavoriness of some aspects of those markets.

Every single person has probably thought about the world at some point and has dreamt up their own idealized version of how the world could be better, and what they think the world should look like. But just asserting certain parts of our vision doesn't mean that it's necessarily *realistic* or *plausible* -- it takes more than that to really pick through it using what we know about society, politics, and economics.





Government: an agency of legitimized coercion. Coercion being the violation of what people in a particular society believe to be the rights of individuals with respect to other individuals.


I'm going to have to take your anti-government critique head-on. Yes, government, by definition, has the power of coercion. Yes, this use of coercive power *will* violate people's sensibilities, to put it very lightly. And, yes, there are widely differing beliefs as to what are considered rights by some, and rights by others.

So in this statement of yours alone you're really not saying much because more to the point is really *whose* rights are being upheld by the government in question, and *who* is being coerced, and in what ways, by the use of government power. The governmental apparatus is just a formality since we know that coercion can come from other sources as well (whether government existed or not). The recipient of unwanted coercion or the imposition of "rights" / privileges against the recipient will simply want the coercion or imposition to stop -- they will *not* be so academically concerned about the formalities of *where* the pressure is coming from or what institution is administering it.

Your statement also begs a third definition, that of legitimacy -- and I really think that this is the real point we're skating around.

You are demonstrating an infinite faith in the doings of people who are motivated by, and are in the process of fulfilling, the profit motive. As you consider this to be a valid impulse it follows that you consider the basic activities of profit-making to be legitimate ones. This is a *very dangerous* proposition to uphold, and we have historical evidence for why this is so.

Your idealism is based on somehow *separating* business dealings from government interference, yet you readily admit that, in the current period, government *works with* business in the normal course of things. I have attempted to demonstrate that, given business, there *could be no way* of extricating governmental structures and preventing them from *emerging* if there were none.

Your entire framework sounds remarkably like the sectional feudalism of centuries past, and it is *not* inviting. We should *not*, for lack of putting in the effort to forge new ways, lazily *revert* to traditional ways and the lower forms of production that go with them.





I already stated above how they would not become governments. Now I will show you how disputes could be handled in the free market.





Private law would be law provided by the free-market.


This is a contradiction in terms, which I've pointed out before -- the term 'law' implies a blanket application of its rules which must be administered in common over a consistent area. The administration required for this would essentially be a governmental-type structure. It would have to enforce the law over an area whether each particular individual within that area agreed to all the rules or not. If people could neutralize the effect of a private law by stating "I abide by the law of a different jurisdiction", or "I abide by my *own* private law", then the *meaning* and reality of private law would be rendered useless.





This other way would work sort of like this:





since there can't be any unlegitimate use of force,


Your contention is that an unhindered open market would develop its own system of private law, and that you would consider this to be a "legitimate" set of laws. By further extension you're now saying that any force used by this system of private law would then be a "legitimate" use of force.





And no, it isn't to start sounding like government because:
a) it is very rare that in a free market appear natural monopolies, and government has artificial monopoly over the current legal system, so there would be competition
b) a person is not forced to accept the ruling


a) By definition a legal jurisdiction is a *monopoly* of law and its enforcement.

b} If people are not forced to accept rulings then the system of law is reduced to meaninglessness and a charade. Would people be able to avoid physical punishments, like beatings and jailings, by simply stating "I do not accept your ruling." -- ?

So either your construction is about as substantive as a board game, or else it would *have* to rely on the monopolization of law and the governmental application of it -- *government*, in short.





Example of how a claim of theft could be handled:





The stage seems set for a nice little war between the two [private protection] firms.


You're making my case *for* me here....





But wars are expensive and both protection firms are profit-making corporations, more interested in saving their money than their face.


But what if the television set in question was *** really expensive *** ? Like it was encrusted with diamonds and had a thick layer of pure gold throughout with platinum fixtures and so on -- ?

One private firm may have been part of the stealing of the TV in the first place because they want to do well for their client, make him / her more prominent, *and* they're already equipped with the knowledge on how this kind of thing gets done. And the other firm would be motivated *not* to settle the dispute because it would want its client to be satisfied by having the TV set back in possession, with a return to material stature.

So the additional layers of outsourced private resources are just the build-up of feudal-like fiefdoms around the private ownership of private property. *Very* *un-*impressive -- why not go in the other direction and *collectivize* these stores of wealth so that we don't have to waste away so many people's life-time competing and bothering about it all?





"Crimes without victims" do not hurt anyone except in the vague sense of arousing indignation, so there is little market demand for laws against them.


This is also incredibly naive -- why wouldn't one type of business, say the tobacco or alcohol industries, *not* make laws that illegalize the sale of their competition's products, say, other types of inebriants and substances used for getting high? Even if, hypothetically, *all* substances that people have *ever* ingested never produced even one tummyache, from a business standpoint the major industries would say that their potential market base is being infringed on, and so they would claim to be victimized by their competition's products.





There is also incredible amount of information on how these kind of agencies already appeared in America, during the "Not so Wild West"





[Libertarians let their] gold do all [their] thinking for [them]. They're pissed off that they were born too late and missed the frontier period of adventurist capital build-up -- when a short-cut *did* exist to extract wealth directly from nature, by mining for gold (etc.). I guess there's no *purer* way to be a capitalist than that.... If capitalist heaven exists God Himself would be at their feet, listening attentively to all their stories about their mining adventures...(!)





To do away with the market is to have someone control what others buy and what others sell, and that is dictatorship; it goes against everyone's life, liberty and property. Again you can make your own community like that, as long as you didn't enforce it on me AND you didn't prevent the community people from leaving when they wished.


Take a look at my blog entry, in this posting's header, about a * socialist * supply and demand -- that's my contribution towards the solution of our historic world crisis of capitalism. That's also my formal position of advocacy, if only so that there's no confusion about what my politics really are.





So what is legitimate property for you?


I've explained this innumerable times now to you -- it's the *collection* of a group of workers *controlling* the means of mass production that is in front of them, without interference from any private capital / claims to private ownership. (Yeeesh!)





Like I said, people would be free to try any type of management, as long as they didn't enforce it on others. If i had my business and you and your fellow workers owned your own worker-managed business, why would you think you would have any legitimate action in stealing the factory i bought, with money, from: the workers who built it, the engineers that designed it and designed the machines, from the scientists that discovered the principles which make production possible, etc etc?


This is funny because, by this thread of logic, we should all be paying rent to the Native Americans, yet I don't hear *this* argument coming from you....

The reason to collectivize human society's major tools (factories, etc.) is so that *no one* owns them, or rather, that they're owned by *everyone* in common, under a common administration, like public parks.

You're obviously intentionally resistant to acknowledging your *understanding* of my position while you're certainly intelligent enough *to understand* it -- you'd *rather* intentionally misrepresent my politics in a pathetic attempt to win people over to a false representation of what Marxism is about.





Yes, it doesn't require, but it doesn't mean that we should eliminate profit-based systems.

If some people are happy in dictatorship, that doesn't mean we should eliminate. It is not the correct argument against dictatorship. The correct argument against dictatorship is that it violates people's freedom, forces them at gunpoint to engage in activity they don't want, etc..


Of *course* we should eliminate profit-based systems, because there's no longer any need for a primitive accumulation of capital -- that was done *centuries* ago when joint-stock companies were first formed. Now that society has done it we've long since passed through the doorway of common stock ownership, or the system of *collectivized ownership* instead of leaving it only to kings, queens, the church, and the nobility.

A 'dictatorship of the proletariat' simply means the mass of workers administering the major tools in common.





Well then you're obviously missing the *whole point* of what a labor strike is for. If you support the workers' right to strike then you must realize that strikes are usually initiated over the unjustifiable withholding of compensation (private property) from the workers, like unpaid wages and the like. On this basis of unjustifiable withholding of compensation owed every single worker in every location around the world would have valid cause to go on strike immediately because they (we) have *never* been paid in relation to what our labor has been worth to the businesses worked for.





aw, that's another matter. If they have contracted to receive X and they do not get it, then i fully support them demanding, inside the factory, or blocking the entrance until they get what they are owed.


Terrific again -- glad to hear it -- let me ask you one more question: If *several* rank-and-file unions across a large geographic area communicated and decided that *none* of their memberships would go to work for less than X dollars per hour, would you say they would be justified in *not working* in common until their price was met by the respective employers? (And they would be justified in using self-defense against any possible violence initiated against them as a result of their not working.)





It would also be valid to say that a labor strike is just one step taken in the direction of attempting to collect on a debt. Considering the immense vastness of value that's been expropriated from generations of workers worldwide I think the handover of factories and other major assets would be appropriate.





Workers are not on debt. They agreed to the debt when they took the job. I have already went through this, but you don't seem to be paying attention.


No, you're misunderstanding. You just said that if workers don't get the compensation they were contracted to get then they would be fully justified for staging a strike within the factory. I'm pointing out that unpaid compensation is essentially ownership's *debt* to the workers.





Just because one needs to survive doesn't mean others should provide him with the means of surviving.


But you wouldn't object, would you, if a society set up some social services that provided the means of living to numerous people, paid for by the public in common -- ? Today we have urban zoning, water supplies, roads, parks, schools, sewage, garbage disposal, and many other modern services provided in common this way....





That is what charities are for.


How about if we call the provision of these public services "mass charities", or "government" -- ? Would that be copacetic?





Businesses are not charities, they are trading money for labor, not life for labor. In the end, it is everyone's responsability to find the best way to live well with the least effort. And certainly just staying in a factory is a very crude choice.


If workers controlled factories maybe they would set up workers militias and workers neighborhoods in the immediate vicinity of the respective factories they controlled -- if there was no significant pollution coming out of the factories that wouldn't be such a bad set-up....





When first immigrants arrived to america, they stayed in sweat shops at first, but they managed to provide a better life for themselves and allow their children to not have to meet the same conditions, enabling them to get better jobs


Hey, far be it for me to tell a migrant how to make a living in a different country -- I have *zero* experience in that.... (However, organizing labor solidarity is the greatest strength available to workers, across the board.)





But what labor do you find more important? What labor requires more effort AND produces more results? The man who has learned from others how to build a car or the man who designed the car, the pieces, and discovered how to put it all toguether?

What about the business owner who discovered a new way to produce the same product, yet that it will save a lot more hours and produce more? Is his labor not recognized as well?


You can't just separate labor from ownership in this example -- look at how your argument here has just swung over into focusing *only* on the labor involved, whereas all of the rest of your arguments have been about *ownership*.

Before I address this scenario further I would have to know what the percentages of ownership are in this business, and the respective number of work hours put in by each person.

[Havet]

So one can own property as long it can only be consumed, but own no property which can produce?

Then that means motors, household machines and other producing items should be collectivized and stolen from "the people" for "their own good". Who is anyone but the people themselves to decide what they want to do with justly acquired property? Just as someone can create a motor to produce mechanical energy, one should be able to create a factory to produce products. What is the difference? What if a person, in his home, hires people to bring him the fuel to make his motor work, just as in factories, businessman hire people to bring their labor to produce the products the factory is making? Why would it be any different to trade with people their labor, with their consent, for a reward?

In response to your points about the black market, you have some valid points about supposedly breeding violence, although i don't think either of us have concrete evidence that this is simply because it is an unregulated market, or because there is government coercion behind every trade, because every trade has a penalty: jail. I will look into it with more detail and proceed to discuss it at a later time.

Regarding your goverment comment, I do not support those who fulfill their profit motive by stealing, enslaving and murdering others, as I employ the terms:

- theft (also known as stealing or filching) is the illegal taking of another person's property (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property) without that person's freely-given consent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent).
-murder, unlawful killing of another human being with intent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intent) (or malice aforethought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malice_aforethought)), and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide).
-Slavery is a form of forced labor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor) in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others. Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remuneration) (such as wages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages)).

I do not wish to revert to lesser efficient means of production. I, in fact, only believe better and more efficient means of production, which will benefit everyone, will only come when there are no limits based on irrational claims, by government, to what people can invent and create, as long as they do not harm anyone in the process.

In regard to your comment on private law, i hold law to be: Law is a system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System) of rules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules), usually enforced through a set of institutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institution).

In the case of a free society, institutions would not enforce these laws like current governments do: at the threat of a gun. People could abide by different laws, and whenever there was a dispute, both protection agencies, and the disputers, would represent themselves in a court previously agreed by the protection agencies and agreed by the disputers when they signed the contract.

I find that there can be no legitimate use of force unless in self-defense, and that would be exactly where the protection agencies would have a legitimate use of force: to protect themselves or the clients they have contracted to defend.

There would be no monopoly because there would be different protection agencies, which would abide by different laws and appeal to different courts. The law would not be the same, but in order to reach an agreement both agencies would have to reach a compromise. If too many laws were found to be confusing, courts and protection agencies would have an incentive to adopt uniform law in a certain area, like paper companies currently have an incentive to produce standardized size of paper: it brings them more profit.

Could this uniform law happen? it is possible. Would it be similar to the current one? Doubtly. Laws in such a society would be heavily biased towards free market, and if an uniform law were found to be very unfair, anyone wishing to create a protection agency/arbitration or court ruling could make more money by offering a different set of laws.

I have thought of the possibility of people, especially criminals, never actually wanting to go to jail, because they wouldnt have a self interest in being honest in that particular case. However, their actions would not go undone. People would know who they were and what they had done, they would not contract with them and the individual would see his options reduced by his theft, enslavement or murder of others.

In many ways, people would not come to such conditions to begin with. I predict such society would be, like in switzerland, aware of the benefits of carrying guns or keeping guns at home to protect themselves. Who would want to steal in the first place when society would be like one giant NRA convention where everyone would be armed? And not everyone would need to be armed; a sufficient majority of the population would suffice to prevent any mass stealing, killing and/or enslavement.

To continue, its hard to believe there would be such a valuable material in posession which would not have a lot of security around it. If the firm that protected the victim would not settle the dispute, don't you think that would arise suspicion to the victim? The victim would switch protection agency as soon as it realized his interests, and the terms agreed in the contract, were not being met. David friedman predicts there would be around 1000 different protection firms in such society, so it could not be possible to convince all of them to become part of a big consiracy to steal a tv, or a much more valuable object.


why not go in the other direction and *collectivize* these stores of wealth so that we don't have to waste away so many people's life-time competing and bothering about it all?Why not just enslave people to do what communist dictator want them to do so that they don't waste time competing for their life and bothering about it all? Would it be better, by the logic of your assumption, to prevent people to have any life at all? Perhaps it would be a lot more easier, if people stopped being so "selfish", and just did their part to the "common good", haha.

It would be incredibily naive to believe business could MAKE laws to forbid something. Who would enforce them? Nobody, because a protection agency is protecting people from agression. Perhaps the industry could form their own army and impose the decision, but you are forgetting most people would be armed, and, in the worst scenario, where that industry has bough all the 1000 businesses of protection (very unlikely) and have disarmed the population voluntarily (by removing the products of the market, which would also be very difficult, since by doing that they would make businesses who wished to sell them gain more profit, so it could not be done without coercion), then I believe some force, by a gathering of the population, could be legitimate into forcing others to get into a *war* to defend themselves from this *foreign* agression. It would be like a military draft, only in case enough people could not be convinced to voluntarily fund the resources for the population to defend itself.

As to your private property advocacy, if only a group of workers can own it, why not one worker own its own property? By what standard are you denying him of the fruit of his labor: the effort he took on building his house and the decision he may only make whether he wishes to sell the house to others or not, or to trade money with others to help him make more houses to sell?

If someone individually cannot own a means of production, that means workers cannot own their labor, because their labor is a means of producing, just as an engineer could not sell his motor to anyone, because the fact that someone would own it would mean he was able to produce mechanical energy by using a fuel. Do you really think enslaving people to not be free to OWN their own labor, which is what you have been advocating ever since we started, is going to benefit anyone? someone could even claim what you advocate is hidden tyranny, just like what happened in the USSR, from what you have been claiming.


This is funny because, by this thread of logic, we should all be paying rent to the Native Americans, yet I don't hear *this* argument coming from you....My thread of logic doesn't lead to the path you are claiming, because I have always stated I find it illegitimate for someone to steal someone's property. In the case you presented, immigrants were not legitimate in stealing the property of the native americans, and I believe there could be room for everyone.

On profit-based systems, what gives you the legitimacy of destroying those who produced the means of production by arguing they are not needed?

You seem to be proclaiming that the only requirement for running a factory is the ability to turn the cranks of the machines, and you are blanking out the question of who created the factory. You almost seem to imply that a factory is a ‘natural resource,’ like a tree, a rock or a mud puddle.

The only proper definition of the expropriation you defend is that of a parasite: that entity who wishes to expropriate the wealth created by others by their own effort, the effort of those who employed them when they started, and the effort of those who employ others now.

You praise any venture that claims to be non-profit, and damn the men who made the profits that make the venture possible.

A dictatorship, by anyone, will only bring more destruction. Men are not to be treated like caddle, brutes and slaves.


Terrific again -- glad to hear it -- let me ask you one more question: If *several* rank-and-file unions across a large geographic area communicated and decided that *none* of their memberships would go to work for less than X dollars per hour, would you say they would be justified in *not working* in common until their price was met by the respective employers? (And they would be justified in using self-defense against any possible violence initiated against them as a result of their not working.)They would be justified in trying to negotiate better terms. But if it were found that such terms were impossible to meet by the employers, you would not be fulfilling your contract,a nd would be fired. This is PRECISELY why workers, when being hired, should negotiate, in their contracts, conditions in which they could strike, so as to not be fired when actually striking.


I'm pointing out that unpaid compensation is essentially ownership's *debt* to the workers.In one case they have contracted to receive something which they do not. In the other, they have NOT contracted to receive their full value of their labor, whatever that means, so they are not owed anything.


But you wouldn't object, would you, if a society set up some social services that provided the means of living to numerous people, paid for by the public in common -- ? Today we have urban zoning, water supplies, roads, parks, schools, sewage, garbage disposal, and many other modern services provided in common this way....I would object if the public was forced at gunpoint, like we are today, through taxes, to pay for those services.


How about if we call the provision of these public services "mass charities", or "government" -- ? Would that be copacetic?mass charities/government get their money through threat of force, private charities do so by voluntary consent, by convincing people to help others, not forcing others to help others.


If workers controlled factories maybe they would set up workers militias and workers neighborhoods in the immediate vicinity of the respective factories they controlled -- if there was no significant pollution coming out of the factories that wouldn't be such a bad set-up....as long as it were workers who created their own factories in their own communities and forced no one outside their communities or forbade anyone from leaving (the denial of that would be enslavement), then fine by me


Before I address this scenario further I would have to know what the percentages of ownership are in this business, and the respective number of work hours put in by each person.be my guest - make your own example

[ckaihatsu]

So one can own property as long it can only be consumed, but own no property which can produce?

Then that means motors, household machines and other producing items should be collectivized and stolen from "the people" for "their own good".


These are *your* words, not mine. I *warned* you about *not* putting words in my mouth.

You're *purposely* avoiding the *level* of production that Marxism addresses, which is the *largest*, *broadest* methods of production, namely mass industrial production in factories.





Who is anyone but the people themselves to decide what they want to do with justly acquired property? Just as someone can create a motor to produce mechanical energy, one should be able to create a factory to produce products. What is the difference? What if a person, in his home, hires people to bring him the fuel to make his motor work, just as in factories, businessman hire people to bring their labor to produce the products the factory is making? Why would it be any different to trade with people their labor, with their consent, for a reward?


Now you're sidestepping these issues:

- The continuous stealing of labor value from those who work for a wage, through the exploitation of the wages system.

- This past debt of unpaid labor value, for generations and generations of workers, whose labor built the factories that exist today.

- Any mass-production industrial property seized by working people in the process of collecting on this debt from ownership would be fully justified actions.





In response to your points about the black market, you have some valid points about supposedly breeding violence, although i don't think either of us have concrete evidence that this is simply because it is an unregulated market, or because there is government coercion behind every trade, because every trade has a penalty: jail. I will look into it with more detail and proceed to discuss it at a later time.


And here you're sidestepping my *point* about the black market -- it wasn't about *violence* -- it was responding to your argument that:





businesses are there to make money. If they take down their competitors by force nobody will want to do business with them.


In other words, the black market *doesn't* drive away customers -- it is the *only* system of trade available for certain goods and services.





Regarding your goverment comment, I do not support those who fulfill their profit motive by stealing, enslaving and murdering others, as I employ the terms:

- theft (also known as stealing or filching) is the illegal taking of another person's property (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property) without that person's freely-given consent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent).
-murder, unlawful killing of another human being with intent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intent) (or malice aforethought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malice_aforethought)), and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide).
-Slavery is a form of forced labor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor) in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others. Slaves are held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and are deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remuneration) (such as wages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages)).


Your definitions hinge on the determinations of "illegal", "unlawful", and "forced labor", respectively.





I do not wish to revert to lesser efficient means of production. I, in fact, only believe better and more efficient means of production, which will benefit everyone, will only come when there are no limits based on irrational claims, by government, to what people can invent and create, as long as they do not harm anyone in the process.


Contrary to your critique, the reality is that government -- public funds -- usually provides the basis for the basic research and development that underlies products subsequently developed for sale by private firms on the market.





In regard to your comment on private law, i hold law to be: Law is a system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System) of rules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules), usually enforced through a set of institutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institution).

In the case of a free society, institutions would not enforce these laws like current governments do: at the threat of a gun. People could abide by different laws, and whenever there was a dispute, both protection agencies, and the disputers, would represent themselves in a court previously agreed by the protection agencies and agreed by the disputers when they signed the contract.


Well, that might be okay for those who enter into contractual agreements, but what about everyone else who is *not* part of that handshake? There may be innocent bystanders, like the people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Iraq, who are *not* provided for by the contracts signed between the U.S. and the soldiers that make up its military. By the formalities of your private, contract-based approach billions of people who are secondarily affected by these business arrangements would be legally disregarded and ignored.





I find that there can be no legitimate use of force unless in self-defense, and that would be exactly where the protection agencies would have a legitimate use of force: to protect themselves or the clients they have contracted to defend.


Once again you're describing open feudal warfare or black market competition-elimination, all by force of arms and violence. These "protection agencies" would provide the muscle for their clients to engage in aggressive territory expansion for growing their businesses.





There would be no monopoly because there would be different protection agencies, which would abide by different laws and appeal to different courts. The law would not be the same, but in order to reach an agreement both agencies would have to reach a compromise. If too many laws were found to be confusing, courts and protection agencies would have an incentive to adopt uniform law in a certain area, like paper companies currently have an incentive to produce standardized size of paper: it brings them more profit.

Could this uniform law happen? it is possible. Would it be similar to the current one? Doubtly. Laws in such a society would be heavily biased towards free market, and if an uniform law were found to be very unfair, anyone wishing to create a protection agency/arbitration or court ruling could make more money by offering a different set of laws.


Here you're describing the history of bourgeois, or existing, law. It's already been done.





I have thought of the possibility of people, especially criminals, never actually wanting to go to jail, because they wouldnt have a self interest in being honest in that particular case. However, their actions would not go undone. People would know who they were and what they had done, they would not contract with them and the individual would see his options reduced by his theft, enslavement or murder of others.


I don't see white-collar criminals suffering from this social ostracizing you're suggesting.... (And they've stolen *billions* of dollars!)





In many ways, people would not come to such conditions to begin with. I predict such society would be, like in switzerland, aware of the benefits of carrying guns or keeping guns at home to protect themselves. Who would want to steal in the first place when society would be like one giant NRA convention where everyone would be armed? And not everyone would need to be armed; a sufficient majority of the population would suffice to prevent any mass stealing, killing and/or enslavement.

To continue, its hard to believe there would be such a valuable material in posession which would not have a lot of security around it. If the firm that protected the victim would not settle the dispute, don't you think that would arise suspicion to the victim? The victim would switch protection agency as soon as it realized his interests, and the terms agreed in the contract, were not being met. David friedman predicts there would be around 1000 different protection firms in such society, so it could not be possible to convince all of them to become part of a big consiracy to steal a tv, or a much more valuable object.


Yeah, but once the deed is done -- *you're the one* who came up with the scenario of a TV being stolen -- how would this system of self-interested parties ever agree on a way to get the stolen goods back to the rightful owner? *All* of them have their *separate* interests in increasing their wealth, while only *one* party is the "rightful" owner of the TV set.





Why not just enslave people to do what communist dictator want them to do so that they don't waste time competing for their life and bothering about it all? Would it be better, by the logic of your assumption, to prevent people to have any life at all? Perhaps it would be a lot more easier, if people stopped being so "selfish", and just did their part to the "common good", haha.


Hahaha -- why don't you stop accusing me of having politics that I don't have? Like I said, you can ask (inquisitive) questions -- *don't* make accusations.





It would be incredibily naive to believe business could MAKE laws to forbid something. Who would enforce them? Nobody, because a protection agency is protecting people from agression. Perhaps the industry could form their own army and impose the decision, but you are forgetting most people would be armed,


Now you're pretending that all people are *armed* equally -- don't you think that a single conglomeration of businesses represented by a private industrial army would have access to much more firepower than a bunch of individuals, each with their own dinky protection agencies?

The U.S. uses billions in public funds to contract mercenary military services from the likes of Blackwater -- how many regular people would have access to that kind of offensive capability?!





and, in the worst scenario, where that industry has bough all the 1000 businesses of protection (very unlikely) and have disarmed the population voluntarily (by removing the products of the market, which would also be very difficult, since by doing that they would make businesses who wished to sell them gain more profit, so it could not be done without coercion),


The biggest company would monopolize the industry it's in and could just *buy out* its smaller competition -- think Wal-Mart, Microsoft, etc....





then I believe some force, by a gathering of the population, could be legitimate into forcing others to get into a *war* to defend themselves from this *foreign* agression. It would be like a military draft, only in case enough people could not be convinced to voluntarily fund the resources for the population to defend itself.


And what organization would be in charge of implementing this "military draft" -- ??? Sure sounds like a governmental agency to me...!





As to your private property advocacy, if only a group of workers can own it, why not one worker own its own property? By what standard are you denying him of the fruit of his labor: the effort he took on building his house and the decision he may only make whether he wishes to sell the house to others or not, or to trade money with others to help him make more houses to sell?


I *do not* advocate private property ownership.





If someone individually cannot own a means of production, that means workers cannot own their labor, because their labor is a means of producing, just as an engineer could not sell his motor to anyone, because the fact that someone would own it would mean he was able to produce mechanical energy by using a fuel. Do you really think enslaving people to not be free to OWN their own labor, which is what you have been advocating ever since we started, is going to benefit anyone? someone could even claim what you advocate is hidden tyranny, just like what happened in the USSR, from what you have been claiming.


Someone can claim pretty much *anything* about me -- doesn't mean it's true.





My thread of logic doesn't lead to the path you are claiming, because I have always stated I find it illegitimate for someone to steal someone's property. In the case you presented, immigrants were not legitimate in stealing the property of the native americans, and I believe there could be room for everyone.


So then do we all owe back-rent to the Native Americans or what? (How do we figure out this issue of back-ownership?)





On profit-based systems, what gives you the legitimacy of destroying those who produced the means of production by arguing they are not needed?

You seem to be proclaiming that the only requirement for running a factory is the ability to turn the cranks of the machines, and you are blanking out the question of who created the factory. You almost seem to imply that a factory is a ‘natural resource,’ like a tree, a rock or a mud puddle.


No, I have explicitly stated that it was wage laborers who created factories.





The only proper definition of the expropriation you defend is that of a parasite: that entity who wishes to expropriate the wealth created by others by their own effort, the effort of those who employed them when they started, and the effort of those who employ others now.


No, this is incorrect. See my previous point.





You praise any venture that claims to be non-profit, and damn the men who made the profits that make the venture possible.


No, I praise any labor actions taken by rank-and-file workers on their own behalf.





A dictatorship, by anyone, will only bring more destruction. Men are not to be treated like caddle, brutes and slaves.

They would be justified in trying to negotiate better terms. But if it were found that such terms were impossible to meet by the employers, you would not be fulfilling your contract,a nd would be fired.


Contracts obviously have not been returning the full value of what workers' labor is worth to the employers, to the workers. This continuing condition of business is equivalent to an economic dictatorship, since there is no alternative to the capitalist system of private ownership and wage labor.





This is PRECISELY why workers, when being hired, should negotiate, in their contracts, conditions in which they could strike, so as to not be fired when actually striking.


I agree.





In one case they have contracted to receive something which they do not. In the other, they have NOT contracted to receive their full value of their labor, whatever that means, so they are not owed anything.


The state of labor rights has a loooong way to go....





I would object if the public was forced at gunpoint, like we are today, through taxes, to pay for those services.

mass charities/government get their money through threat of force, private charities do so by voluntary consent, by convincing people to help others, not forcing others to help others.

as long as it were workers who created their own factories in their own communities and forced no one outside their communities or forbade anyone from leaving (the denial of that would be enslavement), then fine by me

be my guest - make your own example


I fully support social services from the government, to the extent that they work to the public's benefit. I also fully support the seizure of major industrial assets by workers, to be controlled by the workers themselves.

[Outinleftfield]

I think this is an area we might find common ground with libertarians(capitalist).

Libertarians don't want government power favoring certain private companies or banks over others which the Fed does. We want to socialize banking (or for some of us abolish it but socializing it would be a step in the right direction).

Libertarians might see nationalized banking (without any ownership or control of the fed by private bankers) as better than the current situation since it removes government favoritism towards certain private groups. Even though they'd prefer privatization over nationalization they might see this as better and so support us in fully nationalizing the banking system.

[ckaihatsu]

Libertarians might see nationalized banking (without any ownership or control of the fed by private bankers) as better than the current situation since it removes government favoritism towards certain private groups. Even though they'd prefer privatization over nationalization they might see this as better and so support us in fully nationalizing the banking system.


Good luck with that -- libertarians abhor the implementation of publicly managed lands, goods and services, and they fully support private property. Nationalization and privatization are mutually exclusive.

(The whole of libertarianism is just a fancy 'sour grapes' argument since they're fully invested in the capitalist game.)