Example of market inefficiency

[RGacky3]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32374533/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/)

A great example of how the Capitalist Market is inefficient.


But wage cuts and lost paychecks could seriously jeopardize the recovery of a U.S. economy that still relies on consumer spending for two-thirds of its power.

Companies 'protecting' their profits, end up hurting the economy as a whole, but that is an externality, that the government has to fix.


the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labor costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.

The American worker has to work harder for less, why? To protect the profits of their masters, who not only hurt the economy as a whole, but also exploit the American worker.

Just one more example of the markets gross inefficiency, and how plutocracies work.

[Havet]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32374533/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/)

A great example of how the Capitalist Market is inefficient.

Companies 'protecting' their profits, end up hurting the economy as a whole, but that is an externality, that the government has to fix.

The American worker has to work harder for less, why? To protect the profits of their masters, who not only hurt the economy as a whole, but also exploit the American worker.

Just one more example of the markets gross inefficiency, and how plutocracies work.

You do realize the market is the context, and the cause is the state?

Non-statist capitalists are merely holders of capital, not necessarily ideologically aware and "relatively drone-like non-innovators". They are neutral, ideologically speaking, and do not really understand all of the bad things the current system has, and how they are harming many people. I would place Bud on this category for example, in contrast with pro-statist capitalists, which are the main Evil in the political realm.

A free(d) market (very different from what right-libertarians advocate), would differ greatly from what we see today. It would bring equality of authority, boss-worker relation would disappear as we know it, as well as the exploitation taking place. Labor-owned cooperative firms and associations would be much more common as well.

[eyedrop]

Non-statist capitalists are merely holders of capital, not necessarily ideologically aware and "relatively drone-like non-innovators". They are neutral, ideologically speaking, and do not really understand all of the bad things the current system has, and how they are harming many people. I would place Bud on this category for example, in contrast with pro-statist capitalists, which are the main Evil in the political realm. Except that it doesn't matter if the are ideologically aware, it is in their material interests to keep wages low and business taxes low. I'll concede that they also have a material interest in keeping able and long term employees, although not in areas where it is easy to change workers like fast food places.

Their main overiding concern is keeping profits as high as possible, or else they are outcompeted by someone who can keep the profits high.

[Havet]

Except that it doesn't matter if the are ideologically aware, it is in their material interests to keep wages low and business taxes low. I'll concede that they also have a material interest in keeping able and long term employees, although not in areas where it is easy to change workers like fast food places.

Their main overiding concern is keeping profits as high as possible, or else they are outcompeted by someone who can keep the profits high.

Yes, its most unfortunate that exists such an artificially created oversupply of workers, otherwise they couldn't and wouldn't wield power the way they do now.

However I believe that being ideologically aware is important. Check my thread on the 5 levels of the economy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/5-levels-economy-t115005/index.html), and you'll understand how it might be important to take some of these capitalists away from sectors of the market into other sectors where they won't have as much power as they do now.

[eyedrop]

Yes, its most unfortunate that exists such an artificially created oversupply of workers, otherwise they couldn't and wouldn't wield power the way they do now.

What do you think should be done to decrease the oversupply of workers then.



However I believe that being ideologically aware is important. Check my thread on the 5 levels of the economy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/5-levels-economy-t115005/index.html), and you'll understand how it might be important to take some of these capitalists away from sectors of the market into other sectors where they won't have as much power as they do now. I'll see to the tread later today, I'll have to work as a sculpture model in an hour. I've scimmed over it.

[mykittyhasaboner]

You do realize the market is the context, and the cause is the state?
Well maybe, but that state is just another reason why markets are inefficient; also millions go home (if they have a home) hungry everyday. The market is inefficient whichever way you look at it, it has long surpassed its usefulness in progressing today's society.


Non-statist capitalists are merely holders of capital, not necessarily ideologically aware and "relatively drone-like non-innovators".
"Non-statist capitalists"? Do they even exist in real life? All capitalists, that is, owners of an enterprise, have to interact with a state. There is no such thing as "non-statism" in economics really (that really exists in real life), unless you count things like the black market.


They are neutral, ideologically speaking, and do not really understand all of the bad things the current system has, and how they are harming many people.
Um, if an owner of a large factory pays the 100 people he has working for them barely enough to survive, then I think they are perfectly aware of what they are doing, and are anything but neutral. If your talking about petit-bourgeois capitalists then there exploitation of their employees is minimized (as petit-bourgeois owners of a, small shop or small franchise perhaps are, imo part of the overall working class; however they may have a small stake in capitalism) and it's possible for them to be 'neutral' in terms of how they conduct their business and pay their workers.


I would place Bud on this category for example, in contrast with pro-statist capitalists, which are the main Evil in the political realm.

Bud recently stated, and I paraphrase: "I can't think of a reason why a capitalist would want to eliminate the state, it does more help than harm".


A free(d) market (very different from what right-libertarians advocate),
Um, OK how so?

would differ greatly from what we see today.
Sure it would.

It would bring equality of authority, boss-worker relation would disappear as we know it, as well as the exploitation taking place.
What? You do realize were talking about private ownership, that is the 'right' of one individual or a group of individuals to exclude others from the ownership and control of the MOP? Stop now with your idealistic fantasies, they sound worse than an anarcho-kiddie rambling on about communism.


Labor-owned cooperative firms and associations would be much more common as well.
No, no, no. For cooperative labor firms you need socialism, hands down. None of this market, privately owned bullshit.


Yes, its most unfortunate that exists such an artificially created oversupply of workers, otherwise they couldn't and wouldn't wield power the way they do now.
For once your right.


However I believe that being ideologically aware is important. Check my thread on the 5 levels of the economy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/5-levels-economy-t115005/index.html), and you'll understand how it might be important to take some of these capitalists away from sectors of the market into other sectors where they won't have as much power as they do now.
So you just want to "move capitalists to different sectors" instead of abolishing them outright? Typical.

[Havet]

What do you think should be done to decrease the oversupply of workers then.

Counter-Economics, consequent state abolition and finally freedom for peaceful alternative organization (cooperatives, communes, labor-owned firms, you name it).

The famous socialist sentence that it is very difficult to become a capitalist (even though that does not justify its power) is very true because of this oversupply of workers.

Under this statist system, where licensing and regulation make it unduly difficult to actually be entrepreneurial, a disproportionate number of those who would otherwise be entrepreneurs become wage labor. This creates an oversupply of wage labor as opposed to entrepreneurial activity.

This gives the capitalist class an unfair advantage in two ways. First, it reduces the amount of competition on the market, increasing the capitalist's market share and prices with little effort on the part of the capitalist. Second, it reduces the amount of bargaining power the wage labor has. Because there is an oversupply of wage labor, wage labor is more easily replaced than it would be on a real free market, and wages are depressed. This amounts to an effective expropriation of value by the capitalists (who are in a state-created position of power) from the consumers on the one hand (through reduced competition and higher prices) and from the workers on the other (who are underpaid and have less than their fair amount of inflence) and even doubly due to the fact that the workers ARE consumers when they are not on the job.

In a free market, where more gain-oriented thought was present, where more entrepreneurs were around seeking to take from the reduced supply of voluntary wage labor workers, the capitalists would no longer have this unfair advantage. The workers, being scarcer, will thus command higher wages and more influence upon the employer, making it a much more fair system.

Now do notice that actually being entrepreneurial is for one's consideration. But by creating a freer system, the traditional boss-worker relationship disappears giving way to independent contractors (entrepreneurs) just as easily as labor-owned cooperative firms or communes. It ultimately depends on people's preferences, once the aggression is over.

Counter-economics are my preferred method because it allows workers to keep ALL of their labor and THEN decide where they want to use it (be it at charity, to themselves, to sponsor a public service, to become part of a cooperative, to fund a commune, to make their own public service, to build a business, etc). Also because it will inevitably lead to state abolition as the services where the state and capitalists leeched off begin to disappear.

[Havet]

"Non-statist capitalists"? Do they even exist in real life? All capitalists, that is, owners of an enterprise, have to interact with a state. There is no such thing as "non-statism" in economics really (that really exists in real life), unless you count things like the black market.
Um, if an owner of a large factory pays the 100 people he has working for them barely enough to survive, then I think they are perfectly aware of what they are doing, and are anything but neutral. If your talking about petit-bourgeois capitalists then there exploitation of their employees is minimized (as petit-bourgeois owners of a, small shop or small franchise perhaps are, imo part of the overall working class; however they may have a small stake in capitalism) and it's possible for them to be 'neutral' in terms of how they conduct their business and pay their workers.

Well yes, I suppose I meant petit-bourgeois by non-statist capitalists. Like you correctly pointed out, in the white market EVERY capitalist must interact with the state.


Bud recently stated, and I paraphrase: "I can't think of a reason why a capitalist would want to eliminate the state, it does more help than harm". Yeah, no capitalist would want to eliminate the state. It helps them one way or another. When i mentioned But it was as an example who had minimal (yet still existant) benefits from the state, and who wouldnt be where he is without a state, like all capitalists. However, there nonetheless exists an important difference between active capitalists who use the state and capitalists who are where they are unaware that it was a result of statist activity.


What? You do realize were talking about private ownership, that is the 'right' of one individual or a group of individuals to exclude others from the ownership and control of the MOP? Stop now with your idealistic fantasies, they sound worse than an anarcho-kiddie rambling on about communism. What makes you think I was proposing private property? I for once wasn't talking about private property. Like people here very well state: private property cannot exist without a state. If I am proposing to abolish the state, by your own logic, private property wouldnt exist now would it?


No, no, no. For cooperative labor firms you need socialism, hands down. None of this market, privately owned bullshit. For cooperative labor firms you need freedom. I have already told some of the reasons why they are not common today. A market is simply the result of free human exchanges. You can certainly exhange without privately owning things.


For once your right. Thank you


So you just want to "move capitalists to different sectors" instead of abolishing them outright? Typical.I dont know if you are trying to misunderstand me on purpose or not. I do not wish to move capitalists. I wish to destroy the very thing that makes them a capitalist: unfair legal power. After that is destroyed, they become normal people like you and me.

Do not mistake business owners (which in a free market aren't capitalists) with capitalists. A business owner can be all the workers who democratically run a factory, or only one person who answers to his/her workers or a person who has no workers and provides the services by himself (like a carpenter). You dont need private property for this. You do need possesion, but that would be a preference between communities. Some communities would naturally prefer to hold all resources in common while others would prefer to have them based on possession (à lá mutualist style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#Property)).

[mykittyhasaboner]

What makes you think I was proposing private property?
Your talking about markets.

I for once wasn't talking about private property. Like people here very well state: private property cannot exist without a state. If I am proposing to abolish the state, by your own logic, private property wouldnt exist now would it?
No it wouldn't but then neither would markets. How will these "freed markets" bring "equality of authority, etc etc"? That sounds like a bunch of idealized concepts that doesn't really help your argument.


For cooperative labor firms you need freedom.
Freedom? That is really not going to help; for one what is your definition of 'freedom', and second I may have the 'freedom' to start a cooperative labor firm, but without the means to do so I cannot.


I have already told some of the reasons why they are not common today.
Because of markets and capitalism basically.

A market is simply the result of free human exchanges. You can certainly exhange without privately owning things.
No the market is the result of the historical development of society, and has since over blown its development into monopolized capitalism that hinders the progression of society. Bringing the markets back down to "free markets" where competition existed (like in the 18th century perhaps) would just be going backwards. Unless your proposing market/capitalist cooperation? In which case I wouldn't have an idea of what your talking about.


Thank you
No problem.


I dont know if you are trying to misunderstand me on purpose or not. I do not wish to move capitalists. I wish to destroy the very thing that makes them a capitalist: unfair legal power. After that is destroyed, they become normal people like you and me.
If you want to destroy the legal power of their rule, then you have to expropriate them; you cannot just arbitrarily abolish the state and expect capitalists to become regular people like you and me.


Do not mistake business owners (which in a free market aren't capitalists) with capitalists.
Um, if a business owner, hires another individual for his/her labor, then they are capitalists. They may be small, but there still capitalists; however that doesn't mean they cannot side with the revolutionary proletariat, or vice-versa the bourgeoisie. This is why they are a "middle class".


A business owner can be all the workers who democratically run a factory, or only one person who answers to his/her workers or a person who has no workers and provides the services by himself (like a carpenter).
I never mistook self-employed business owners as exploiting capitalists, however they own their own means of production, so again they are petit-bourgeois, the class in which self employed persons fit into.


You dont need private property for this.
If you own property for your own business, its private property.

You do need possesion, but that would be a preference between communities. Some communities would naturally prefer to hold all resources in common while others would prefer to have them based on possession (à lá mutualist style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_%28economic_theory%29#Property)).
Mutualism may seem like a better way to run a "free-market", but unfortunately it is completely pointless imo; because if we are going to have social ownership of the MOP then a complete scrapping of the market system is neccessary to really build socialism and "freedom".

[Havet]

Your talking about markets.

Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_school_of_thought) which can be traced to the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon), who envisioned a society where each person might possess a means of production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production), either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market). Mutualism also opposes private property.

Surely you can have markets without private property.


No it wouldn't but then neither would markets. How will these "freed markets" bring "equality of authority, etc etc"? That sounds like a bunch of idealized concepts that doesn't really help your argument. Karl Hess once described "the right" as supporting the concentration of power into the fewest hands possible, while in contrast "the left" stands for spreading it about as much as possible in an equilibrium. "The left" implies "equality of authority" in which everyone's freedom is limited by the like freedom of everyone else - a mere restatement of the non-aggression principle.

Using this analysis, right-libertarians are to "the left" to the extent that they oppose the concentration of power in the hands of the state, but they nonetheless are still to "the right" to the extent that they still support private concentrations of power. While the right-libertarian may be consistantly anti-state, they are not consistantly opposed to the concentration of power. They may even fully endorse "private" concentrations of power and portray such organizations as victims of the state.

The left-libertarian does not think that the results of a free market would mirror current economic conditions by any stretch of the imagination. Left-libertarians may tend to think that free competition would function as a check on the general size of economic organizations, and therefore draconian large businesses simply couldn't survive or exist. They are tolerant and supportive of or more open to possible "socialistic" experiments within a free market, and advocate a signficant increase in self-employment over standard wage-employment, as well as cooperatives and even communes.


Freedom? That is really not going to help; for one what is your definition of 'freedom', and second I may have the 'freedom' to start a cooperative labor firm, but without the means to do so I cannot. Freedom: Absence of murder, slavery and theft. Ability to engage in any other activity as long as it doesn't prevent others from doing the same.

Acquiring the means, in contrast to the current society, would be much easier, since they wouldn't be concentrated, and anyone who actually concentrated it (which is extremely difficult without agression), wouldn't have a "legal" state force at their disposal at any time of any day, for free.


No the market is the result of the historical development of society, and has since over blown its development into monopolized capitalism that hinders the progression of society. Bringing the markets back down to "free markets" where competition existed (like in the 18th century perhaps) would just be going backwards. Unless your proposing market/capitalist cooperation? In which case I wouldn't have an idea of what your talking about. The circumstances of the 18th century and those of an imaginary future free market anti-capitalist society are certainly different.

the argument that just because we're "going back" (which we aren't) is somehow bad (without any specific reason) is not really logical. In any case, if you're interested, I have much information regarding how competition actually disappeared during those times.


If you want to destroy the legal power of their rule, then you have to expropriate them; you cannot just arbitrarily abolish the state and expect capitalists to become regular people like you and me. Actually I haven't looked at the expropriation matter very thoroughly. But if you destroy the state, then the capitalists won't be able to defend themselves as easily (unless they hire private defense, which is costly, in contrast to free goverment protection), whereas if you try to expropriate them first with a still-existing state, you're likely to get murdered, and the action become extremely more difficult.



Um, if a business owner, hires another individual for his/her labor, then they are capitalists. They may be small, but there still capitalists; however that doesn't mean they cannot side with the revolutionary proletariat, or vice-versa the bourgeoisie. This is why they are a "middle class".

I never mistook self-employed business owners as exploiting capitalists, however they own their own means of production, so again they are petit-bourgeois, the class in which self employed persons fit into. I think you are blaming something else for the actual harm that is being done. In Tucker's words:


If the men who oppose wages - that is, the purchase and sale of labor - were capable of analyzing their thought and feelings, they would see that what really excites their anger is not the fact that labor is bought and sold, but the fact that one class of men are dependent for their living upon the sale of their labor, while another class of men are relieved of the necessity of labor by being legally privileged to sell something that is not labor, and that, but for the privilege, would be enjoyed by all gratuitously. And to such a state of things I am as much opposed as any one.

But the minute you remove privilege, the class that now enjoy it will be forced to sell their labor, and then, when there will be nothing but labor with which to buy labor, the distinction between wage-payers and wage-receivers will be wiped out, and every man will be a laborer exchanging with fellow-laborers. Not to abolish wages, but to make every man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his whole wages is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism.


If you own property for your own business, its private property. Private property refers to tangible and intangible things owned by firms (either individually or collectively) over which their owners have exclusive and absolute legal rights, and can only be transferred with the owner's consent

If your definition were actually useful, then it would mean me owning a printing press is as much private property as a commune owning a printing press. The only difference is that its used individually in one case and collectively in the other. In the case of the commune, they privately own that printing press, and deny its use to other communes that might exist elsewhere. This is why I think the definition you provided is not very useful. It does not recognize that someone might possess a MOP individually if the rest of society agrees to.


Mutualism may seem like a better way to run a "free-market", but unfortunately it is completely pointless imo; because if we are going to have social ownership of the MOP then a complete scrapping of the market system is neccessary to really build socialism and "freedom".You can have different forms of social ownership of the MOP: individual ownership of the MOP (private concentration), collective ownership of the MOP (which I think is what you are actually proposing), or a mixture of both. Personally I think that after a revolution, or after the status quo dissapears, a mixture of both would coexist, because people have different interests, and some will prefer to organize the MOP individually while others prefer to do so collectively. If you think collective ownership is better, but do not propose individual ownership to be forbidden, just as I wouldn't propose collective ownership were forbidden, then I think an equilibrium would be found between these two different types.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Under this statist system, where licensing and regulation make it unduly difficult to actually be entrepreneurial, a disproportionate number of those who would otherwise be entrepreneurs become wage labor. This creates an oversupply of wage labor as opposed to entrepreneurial activity.

This gives the capitalist class an unfair advantage in two ways. First, it reduces the amount of competition on the market, increasing the capitalist's market share and prices with little effort on the part of the capitalist. Second, it reduces the amount of bargaining power the wage labor has. Because there is an oversupply of wage labor, wage labor is more easily replaced than it would be on a real free market, and wages are depressed.
You're missing the point. We don't oppose wages simply because of how low they are...we oppose the system itself. So the number of entrepreneurs doubles or triples, so what? We'd still be left with huge masses of laborers, not to mention that there will be a large oversupply introduced because of the loss of state restrictions on working time and child labor.

It has also been shown that modern capitalism with it's large firms is actually more competititive
than capitalism was when it was dominated by many small businesses. Larger companies have more resources with which to research cost cutting technologies and such.


In a free market, where more gain-oriented thought was present, where more entrepreneurs were around seeking to take from the reduced supply of voluntary wage labor workers, the capitalists would no longer have this unfair advantage. The workers, being scarcer, will thus command higher wages and more influence upon the employer, making it a much more fair system.Current capitalism isn't gain-oriented? Wha? What about the introduction of child workers and the removal of restrictions on working time? So we abolish the state and move towards your free market...all of a sudden we can get twice the labor out of the same amount of workers and we've got 30 million new child laborers.

[RGacky3]

When I'm talking about Markets, I'm talking about the current style market. Not, non property law, no state, kind of socialist market, which is'nt really capitalist at all. I'm talking about Capitalist market.


Non-statist capitalists are merely holders of capital, not necessarily ideologically aware and "relatively drone-like non-innovators". They are neutral, ideologically speaking, and do not really understand all of the bad things the current system has, and how they are harming many people. I would place Bud on this category for example, in contrast with pro-statist capitalists, which are the main Evil in the political realm.

No capitalists are 'evil' or really ideologically motivated. THey are (like everyone else) intrest motivated. So of coarse they want to socialize the losses and privatize the gains, which is exactly what they are doing.

The current market system, being based on profits, mean that individual companies can and should do whatever no matter what the external effect.

For example the to big to fail doctrine pretty much means that the company is getting bigger and bigger and the profits are going up and up, to the point to where the company actually has a significant effect on the economy, to the point to where if it fails, the whole society suffers, which means the society (the government) has to rescue them from failing, this is essencially socializing losses and privatizing gains. These companies can and do act in a way that will hurt the public, for profits.


While the right-libertarian may be consistantly anti-state, they are not consistantly opposed to the concentration of power.

Which is the exact same thing as a state only with a different name and accountable to no one.

[eyedrop]

You're missing the point. We don't oppose wages simply because of how low they are...we oppose the system itself. Actually I would support the system if productive workers had recieved a larger percentage of their product year by year, as that would eventually lead to them recieving the total product of their labour as the years passed by. Unfortunately the numbers don't support that actually happening. As far as I can see from my country's national beraeu it has stood on a virtual standstill from 1962 to 2002, if it hasn't regressed.

If I just look at the industry since that is the easiest to quantify.

Over the 40 year period the annual real-wage increase has been 2%, or 1.02^40=2.208 for all sectors. The increase in the industrial sector has been slightly higher than other sectors.

Link (http://www.ssb.no/emner/08/05/10/oa/200305/skoglund.pdf)

While productivity per industrial worker has approximately increased from 200 000 to 470 000 NOK, or by a factor of 2.35.

Link (http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/10/07/industri_en/)

So the numbers we end up with is 2.21 increase in industrial real-wages while we have an increased worker productivity of 2.35. Industrial wages have increased slightly more than the average wage though so let's say those numbers are equal. This still doesn't satisfy us radical egalitarian types that demand that workers recieve a larger share of their productivity. If society hasn't succeded in any progress over the last 40 years we can't wait for society's progress to save us.

If actually workers recieved a larger percentage of their productivity per year, I wouldn't be a radical as I could just wait till workers recieved practically all their productivity.

The numbers i have dug up here includes the time when social democrasy seemed to work and the numbers would look somewhat bleaker if we just took the numbers for the last 22 years (1980-2002). These numbers are also for Norway, and I quess places like US for example look way worse.

[RGacky3]

The numbers i have dug up here includes the time when social democrasy seemed to work and the numbers would look somewhat bleaker if we just took the numbers for the last 22 years (1980-2002). These numbers are also for Norway, and I quess places like US for example look way worse.

Its survived in Norway, I'm guessing because of oil.

But I kind of agree with you, its hard to be a radical in such an easy country :P, they have a maoist party in Norway, that just blows my mind.

[Havet]

You're missing the point. We don't oppose wages simply because of how low they are...we oppose the system itself. So the number of entrepreneurs doubles or triples, so what? We'd still be left with huge masses of laborers, not to mention that there will be a large oversupply introduced because of the loss of state restrictions on working time and child labor.

It has also been shown that modern capitalism with it's large firms is actually more competititive
than capitalism was when it was dominated by many small businesses. Larger companies have more resources with which to research cost cutting technologies and such.
Current capitalism isn't gain-oriented? Wha? What about the introduction of child workers and the removal of restrictions on working time? So we abolish the state and move towards your free market...all of a sudden we can get twice the labor out of the same amount of workers and we've got 30 million new child laborers.

You've done a great job describing the status quo: huge masses of workers, therefore its very cheap to replace them.

Like I already said: In a free market, where more gain-oriented thought was present, where more entrepreneurs were around seeking to take from the reduced supply of voluntary wage labor workers, the capitalists would no longer have this unfair advantage. The workers, being scarcer, will thus command higher wages and more influence upon the employer, making it a much more fair system.

Also, check this quote. It might answer some of your objections.


If the men who oppose wages - that is, the purchase and sale of labor - were capable of analyzing their thought and feelings, they would see that what really excites their anger is not the fact that labor is bought and sold, but the fact that one class of men are dependent for their living upon the sale of their labor, while another class of men are relieved of the necessity of labor by being legally privileged to sell something that is not labor, and that, but for the privilege, would be enjoyed by all gratuitously. And to such a state of things I am as much opposed as any one.

But the minute you remove privilege, the class that now enjoy it will be forced to sell their labor, and then, when there will be nothing but labor with which to buy labor, the distinction between wage-payers and wage-receivers will be wiped out, and every man will be a laborer exchanging with fellow-laborers. Not to abolish wages, but to make every man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his whole wages is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism.

[Havet]

When I'm talking about Markets, I'm talking about the current style market. Not, non property law, no state, kind of socialist market, which is'nt really capitalist at all. I'm talking about Capitalist market. I'm aware of it. I was answering specific questions addressed to "my" proposed market. I was perfectly aware of what your post was talking about.



No capitalists are 'evil' or really ideologically motivated. THey are (like everyone else) intrest motivated. So of coarse they want to socialize the losses and privatize the gains, which is exactly what they are doing.

The current market system, being based on profits, mean that individual companies can and should do whatever no matter what the external effect.

For example the to big to fail doctrine pretty much means that the company is getting bigger and bigger and the profits are going up and up, to the point to where the company actually has a significant effect on the economy, to the point to where if it fails, the whole society suffers, which means the society (the government) has to rescue them from failing, this is essencially socializing losses and privatizing gains. These companies can and do act in a way that will hurt the public, for profits.

You just have a minor case regarding semantics here. Everything you said I already agree with, as I've said in my previous posts.



Which is the exact same thing as a state only with a different name and accountable to no one. Exactly. When right-libertarians only oppose the state but not the private concentration of power, then they become a state. They still tend to think of state intervention as somehow being inherently anti-business, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The right-libertarian is essentially pro-business more or less across the board without proper consideration for context. The left-libertarian calls them out on this.

[eyedrop]

Its survived in Norway, I'm guessing because of oil. Yep, but it hasn't succeded in giving workers a larger share of the pie in the last 40 years.


But I kind of agree with you, its hard to be a radical in such an easy country :P, they have a maoist party in Norway, that just blows my mind.
Especially anarchism is dead here unfortunately, except from some occupied houses scattered around. I wish we had something like SAC (http://www.sac.se/en/Om-SAC) (in Sweden) in Norway. But I recon a lot of the folks here supporting various socialistic parties would be perfectly happy as members of SV or Rødt. (Especially the young parts of the parties)

As for the maoists, well one can always find people that believe they can do a substancial difference in some country far off.

[eyedrop]

Counter-Economics, consequent state abolition and finally freedom for peaceful alternative organization (cooperatives, communes, labor-owned firms, you name it).

The famous socialist sentence that it is very difficult to become a capitalist (even though that does not justify its power) is very true because of this oversupply of workers.

Under this statist system, where licensing and regulation make it unduly difficult to actually be entrepreneurial, a disproportionate number of those who would otherwise be entrepreneurs become wage labor. This creates an oversupply of wage labor as opposed to entrepreneurial activity.If we look away from your assumption that smaller companies will outcompete larger if for no government intervention, how would this deal with all the very capital intensive sectors? There couldn't spring up alot of new entrepeneours in those areas as the capital doesn't exist.

[Havet]

If we look away from your assumption that smaller companies will outcompete larger

I never said smaller companies will outcompete large. I said there wouldn't be any large companies to begin with.


how would this deal with all the very capital intensive sectors? There couldn't spring up alot of new entrepeneours in those areas as the capital doesn't exist.

I honestly don't understand your question. Could you please reformulate? What do you mean by capital intensive sectors? The only reason for entrepreneurs to spring is if it is less costly (both in money and in time) than becoming a wage labourer. Currently, it costs more to become an entrepreneur (and after that one effectively becomes a capitalist, whether in a non-capitalist society he would just be an entrepreneur or independent contractor), than it costs to become a wage labourer.

In a free society, not actually existing capitalism, you would be free to set up your own community and abolish owners, if that was your purpose.

You would be far more able to self-employ yourself and if you were a wage labor, the bargaining power you would have against an owner would be far more tremendous, unlike now where there is an artificial oversupply of wage labour, which pulls their bargaining power down.

In essence, there would be more alternatives to supply for oneself than the current system. The current system is, in fact, regulated so that there is an oversupply of wage labor. This is done by physical and ideological means.

The physical means are government regulations, barriers to entry, barriers to exit, fees, taxes and tariffs.

The ideological means are the ones that being mentioned less are believed to exist less, which is not true. Most kids today are trained to think that the only purpose schools serves is to "learn" something to trade to an employer. Very rarely it is even mentioned that anyone can become an employer, or self-sustain himself without hiring or being hired by anyone. The whole concept of an employer is somewhat mystical to most people, partially because they don't question their power (which currently is artificially increased), but mostly because they can't conceptualize that one does not need to become employed by someone else in order to survive or to have a good life. The thought of self-employment, entrepeneurship and innovation is often repressed (both by public schools and by private schools which follow government regulations), and many people live somewhat at the mercy of the guillotine of unemployment coming down onto them.

The idea of creating communities and gathering similar people to "trade" without money or according to need, like many communists propose is even less mentioned.

My point is, in actually existing capitalism, there still are alternatives, but they are much harder to common people, or sound too difficult to most people, and because of the ideological beliefs, many never consider them at all.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

You've done a great job describing the status quo: huge masses of workers, therefore its very cheap to replace them.

Like I already said: In a free market, where more gain-oriented thought was present, where more entrepreneurs were around seeking to take from the reduced supply of voluntary wage labor workers, the capitalists would no longer have this unfair advantage. The workers, being scarcer, will thus command higher wages and more influence upon the employer, making it a much more fair system.

Also, check this quote. It might answer some of your objections.

I didn't describe the status quo, I was directly addressing the quote you just repeated. The problem isn't low wages, it's wage labor itself. You double or triple the amount of entrepreneurs, you still have wage laborers. Do you really find it feasible for every single person to become a business owner? You get rid of certain state restrictions and benefits, and you inflate the labor supply. I'm not sure about the Tucker quote, but the assumptions you're making in your posts all seem to rest on this idea about the labor supply being lowered, and I don't think this is the case. I don't think you have any way of proving any of the assumptions underlying your points.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I never said smaller companies will outcompete large. I said there wouldn't be any large companies to begin with.

You seem to think that with the collapse of the state all monopolies will simply collapse. What is your backing for this? I don't understand how this is supposed to happen.


I honestly don't understand your question. Could you please reformulate? What do you mean by capital intensive sectors?It's fairly obvious what he means...businesses that required a large amount of investment into fixed capital. Factories employing only a hundred people can cost up to one hundred million dollars. What is your stance on Engels criticism, which is far more applicable today?


For Proudhon, on the other hand, the whole industrial revolution of the last hundred years, the introduction of steam power and large-scale factory production which substituted machinery for hand labour and increased the productivity of labour a thousandfold, is a highly repugnant occurrence, something which really ought never to have taken place. The petty-bourgeois Proudhon demands a world in which each person turns out a separate and independent product that is immediately consumable and exchangeable in the market. Then, as long as each person only receives back the full value of his labour in the form of another product, “eternal justice” is satisfied and the best possible world created. But this best possible world of Proudhon has already been nipped in the bud and trodden underfoot by the advance of industrial development which has long ago destroyed individual labour in all the big branches of industries and which is destroying it daily more and more in the smaller and smallest branches which has set social labour supported by machinery and the harnessed forces of nature in its place, and whose finished product immediately exchangeable or consumable, is the joint work of many individuals through whose hands it has to pass. And it is precisely this industrial revolution which has raised the productive power of human labour to such a high level that – for the first time in the history of humanity – the possibility exists, given a rational division of labour among all, to produce not only enough for the plentiful consumption of all members of society and for an abundant reserve fund, but also to leave each individual sufficient leisure so that what is really worth preserving in historically inherited culture – science, art, human relations is not only preserved, but converted from a monopoly of the ruling class into the common property of the whole of society, and further developed.
...
But all this is nothing to friend Proudhon. He wants “eternal justice” and nothing else. Each shall receive in exchange for his product the full proceeds of his labour, the full value of his labour. But to reckon that out in a product of modern industry is a complicated matter. For modern industry obscures the particular share of the individual in the total product, which in the old individual handicraft was obviously represented by the finished product. Further, modern industry abolishes more and more the individual exchange on which Proudhon’s whole system is built up, namely direct exchange between two producers, each of whom takes the product of the other in order to consume it. Consequently a reactionary character runs throughout the whole of Proudhonism; an aversion to the industrial revolution, and the desire, sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly expressed, to drive the whole of modern industry out of the temple, steam engines, mechanical looms and the rest of the swindle, and to return to the old, respectable hand labour. That we would then lose nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our productive power, that the whole of humanity would be condemned to the worst possible labour slavery, that starvation would become the general rule – what does all that matter if only we succeed in organising exchange in such a fashion that each receives “the full proceeds of his labour,” and that “eternal justice” is realized? Fiat justitia, pereat mundus!
Justice must prevail though the whole world perish!


If your goal really is to abolish classes and return to workers control over their product, why the attachment to the market and all it's inefficiencies?

[Havet]

I didn't describe the status quo, I was directly addressing the quote you just repeated. The problem isn't low wages, it's wage labor itself. You double or triple the amount of entrepreneurs, you still have wage laborers. Do you really find it feasible for every single person to become a business owner? You get rid of certain state restrictions and benefits, and you inflate the labor supply. I'm not sure about the Tucker quote, but the assumptions you're making in your posts all seem to rest on this idea about the labor supply being lowered, and I don't think this is the case. I don't think you have any way of proving any of the assumptions underlying your points.

The whole purpose is NOT to inflate labor supply, but to reduce it. This will be done by creating the conditions for wage labor to more easily become entrepreneurial and education so that unskilled wage labor becomes skilled wage labor. The problem with wage labor NOW is that there's too many people who were forced into that position, the supply being higher makes prices go lower. And it's not getting rid of certain state restrictions and benefits. It's getting rid of ALL the state and the capitalists.

I don't find it feasible for every single person to become a business owner. But if a tremendous amount of them do, that means less wage labor, which pulls wage labor bargaining power up to a point where interaction between worker and owner is equal.

[Havet]

You seem to think that with the collapse of the state all monopolies will simply collapse. What is your backing for this? I don't understand how this is supposed to happen. I admit I haven't studied that part yet, but I can safely assume monopolies will no longer have a steady flow of FREE government protection. Expropriation will thus be easier.


It's fairly obvious what he means...businesses that required a large amount of investment into fixed capital. Factories employing only a hundred people can cost up to one hundred million dollars. What is your stance on Engels criticism, which is far more applicable today?

Engels is assuming Proudhon was against industrial advance. I dont really care if he was or not, but industrial advance is precisely a good point in favor of a better society. As we are approaching a more fairer society with equal-in-authority market transactions, at some point in the future, the whole business owner-worker dynamic will be so drastically lower that almost anyone can have a fully automatic factory that trades products, needing only a couple highly skilled workers (therefore expensive workers) to do the maintenance.


If your goal really is to abolish classes and return to workers control over their product, why the attachment to the market and all it's inefficiencies?

Well, the problem with discussing markets is that some socialists typically blame markets for state-caused injustice that takes place in markets.

right-libertarians often apply a shallow analysis that causes them to defend state-caused injustice merely because its visible manifestation is in the marketplace.


Both fail to recognize that the market is the context, the cause is the state.


Anyway, I won't deny there are some market inefficiencies, but most of the time these market ineficciences people talk about are actually state-caused, and a result of the current capitalist society, rather than a manifestation of what a truly free and equal market would provide.

[eyedrop]

I'll take the freedom to answer for SoB.


The whole purpose is NOT to inflate labor supply, but to reduce it. This will be done by creating the conditions for wage labor to more easily become entrepreneurial and education so that unskilled wage labor becomes skilled wage labor. The problem with wage labor NOW is that there's too many people who were forced into that position, the supply being higher makes prices go lower. And it's not getting rid of certain state restrictions and benefits. It's getting rid of ALL the state and the capitalists. The easiest way to reduce labour supply is to reduce the work week.


I don't find it feasible for every single person to become a business owner. But if a tremendous amount of them do, that means less wage labor, which pulls wage labor bargaining power up to a point where interaction between worker and owner is equal.
It's not feasible for a tremendeous amount of the working class to become entrepeneorial in a modern complex economy. It may have been feasible before the industrial revolution but not anymore, when production was done by small workshops and and smithies.

Large industrial complexes are just a more time, resources, energy and labour efficient production method.

[Havet]

The easiest way to reduce labour supply is to reduce the work week.

How you do that without a state? I mean, if in a certain community they decide to restrict work hours then great, but other people might disagree and might wish to work longer in other communities. I don't see how it is moral and anti-statist to force these people to work less as well.

I'll reiterate my position with Tucker once again, since I think you haven't read this exact quote yet:


If the men who oppose wages - that is, the purchase and sale of labor - were capable of analyzing their thought and feelings, they would see that what really excites their anger is not the fact that labor is bought and sold, but the fact that one class of men are dependent for their living upon the sale of their labor, while another class of men are relieved of the necessity of labor by being legally privileged to sell something that is not labor, and that, but for the privilege, would be enjoyed by all gratuitously. And to such a state of things I am as much opposed as any one.

But the minute you remove privilege, the class that now enjoy it will be forced to sell their labor, and then, when there will be nothing but labor with which to buy labor, the distinction between wage-payers and wage-receivers will be wiped out, and every man will be a laborer exchanging with fellow-laborers. Not to abolish wages, but to make every man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his whole wages is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism.

---


It's not feasible for a tremendeous amount of the working class to become entrepeneorial in a modern complex economy. It may have been feasible before the industrial revolution but not anymore, when production was done by small workshops and and smithies.

Large industrial complexes are just a more time, resources, energy and labour efficient production method.

Well the working class cannot become entrepreneurial right now because of restrictions, both physical and ideological, as well as the position of power many capitalists hold. I am NOT advocating for the destruction of modern industrial activities, but I think that as people approximate (in the long run) more independent contractors (this can be done precisely by development of more automated industry), then we will have the people who have ideas and create services and products and others with highly specialized skills that serve as engineers to keep the automation in check. But since we wouldn't have the current unfair power position by capitalists, the bargaining power of any worker would be pulled up precisely by their scarcity.

[eyedrop]

I admit I haven't studied that part yet, but I can safely assume monopolies will no longer have a steady flow of FREE government protection. Expropriation will thus be easier. Fine enough, but you should get it cleared out as it is an quite crucial point.




Engels is assuming Proudhon was against industrial advance.Proudhons views aren't really compitable with modern production methods, except in some it related sectors, in my view.
I dont really care if he was or not, but industrial advance is precisely a good point in favor of a better society. As we are approaching a more fairer society with equal-in-authority market transactions, at some point in the future, the whole business owner-worker dynamic will be so drastically lower that almost anyone can have a fully automatic factory that trades products, needing only a couple highly skilled workers (therefore expensive workers) to do the maintenance. As I tried to show in one of the posts (the one where I showed that workers share of their productivity haven't increased in the last 40 years, not to mention that that is actually the policy they usually follow at wage nation spanning wage negotioations here) we aren't approaching a fairer society, except in social equality (gender equality and such things).

I don't get what you mean by equal-in-authority market transactions. I doubt we ever will achieve a society where almost anyone can have a fully automatic factory. Then we need a science fiction like technoligical advancement first. Not to mention that long before we would reach such a point, if ever possible, we would be able to produce way more than humanity could possible consume.




Well, the problem with discussing markets is that some socialists typically blame markets for state-caused injustice that takes place in markets.

right-libertarians often apply a shallow analysis that causes them to defend state-caused injustice merely because its visible manifestation is in the marketplace.


Both fail to recognize that the market is the context, the cause is the state.


Anyway, I won't deny there are some market inefficiencies, but most of the time these market ineficciences people talk about are actually state-caused, and a result of the current capitalist society, rather than a manifestation of what a truly free and equal market would provide. I think it's quite clear that the market are perfectly capable of achieving lot's of mischief on it's own. It also can't exists in a vakuum.

[Havet]

I don't get what you mean by equal-in-authority market transactions. I doubt we ever will achieve a society where almost anyone can have a fully automatic factory. Then we need a science fiction like technoligical advancement first. Not to mention that long before we would reach such a point, if ever possible, we would be able to produce way more than humanity could possible consume.

I think its good to fight for that position in the future, and in the meantime trying to aproximate equal opportunity and equal authority in transactions (by equal authority I mean that no person is in a position of power over the others, therefore able to use coercion).



I think it's quite clear that the market are perfectly capable of achieving lot's of mischief on it's own. It also can't exists in a vakuum.

Well what examples do you have in mind?

[eyedrop]

How you do that without a state? I mean, if in a certain community they decide to restrict work hours then great, but other people might disagree and might wish to work longer in other communities. I don't see how it is moral and anti-statist to force these people to work less as well. It's quite easy to imagine a way to it without a state. Let's say you have 70% of the worker's in every industry coordinated. They say that if any company decides to employ someone for longer than the agreed upon work week all of them will strike on the day, untill the issue is resolved. Then the companies don't have any choice but to oblige their wishes. (If this had been the case they should instead just take over all the companies though.)


If the men who oppose wages - that is, the purchase and sale of labor - were capable of analyzing their thought and feelings, they would see that what really excites their anger is not the fact that labor is bought and sold, but the fact that one class of men are dependent for their living upon the sale of their labor, while another class of men are relieved of the necessity of labor by being legally privileged to sell something that is not labor, and that, but for the privilege, would be enjoyed by all gratuitously. And to such a state of things I am as much opposed as any one.

But the minute you remove privilege, the class that now enjoy it will be forced to sell their labor, and then, when there will be nothing but labor with which to buy labor, the distinction between wage-payers and wage-receivers will be wiped out, and every man will be a laborer exchanging with fellow-laborers. Not to abolish wages, but to make every man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his whole wages is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism. And by removing the privilege you collectivise all private property. To insure that the privilege doesn't appear again you need to ensure that access and usage of that private property remains egalitarian. If you allow private control over it inequalities will develop again.

In the Spanish half-revolution for example it was a problem that the different communes and collectivised workplaces started to develop inequalities between themselfes. The federations tried to combat actively intervene to combat that by directing effectivisation and modernisation (or closing down) funds to the "enterprices" performing badly.






Well the working class cannot become entrepreneurial right now because of restrictions, both physical and ideological, as well as the position of power many capitalists hold. I am NOT advocating for the destruction of modern industrial activities, but I think that as people approximate (in the long run) more independent contractors (this can be done precisely by development of more automated industry), then we will have the people who have ideas and create services and products and others with highly specialized skills that serve as engineers to keep the automation in check. But since we wouldn't have the current unfair power position by capitalists, the bargaining power of any worker would be pulled up precisely by their scarcity. How will more automated industry lead to more independent contractors? Automated industry is a a general rule expensive therefore fewer people would be able to access it

[eyedrop]

I think its good to fight for that position in the future, and in the meantime trying to aproximate equal opportunity and equal authority in transactions (by equal authority I mean that no person is in a position of power over the others, therefore able to use coercion).Fine, but then we are again stuck what the most effective way to approximate equal opportunity and equal authority in transactions.





Well what examples do you have in mind? Let's take a situation where the cheapest solution and the best solution (for the local community) aren't the same.

A guy has a factory which produces some toxic waste material, the cheapest option for him to dispose of it in a nearby lake. The best solution for society is that it is driven a few miles longer to a waste disposal station. Doesn't the market then dictate that he should choose the cheapest option although, it is not the desirable option for the society as they then get a toxic lake.

It may even be the more expensive option in total as the local community depended on that lake for drinking water and now has to upgrade their water cleaning facility.

[Havet]

It's quite easy to imagine a way to it without a state. Let's say you have 70% of the worker's in every industry coordinated. They say that if any company decides to employ someone for longer than the agreed upon work week all of them will strike on the day, untill the issue is resolved. Then the companies don't have any choice but to oblige their wishes. (If this had been the case they should instead just take over all the companies though.) Blimey, I hadn't use that argument in such a long time I completely forgot about it. Good point.


And by removing the privilege you collectivise all private property. To insure that the privilege doesn't appear again you need to ensure that access and usage of that private property remains egalitarian. If you allow private control over it inequalities will develop again.

In the Spanish half-revolution for example it was a problem that the different communes and collectivised workplaces started to develop inequalities between themselfes. The federations tried to combat actively intervene to combat that by directing effectivisation and modernisation (or closing down) funds to the "enterprices" performing badly.

I don't understand how equal private control leads to inequalities.

From my other thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/individualist-and-communist-t115125/index.html) by Voltairine and Rosa:


The justice you seek lies not in such injustice, where material equality could only be attained at the dead level of mediocrity. As freedom of contract enlarges, the nobler sentiments and sympathies invariably widen. With freedom of access to land and to capital, no glaring inequality in distribution could result. No workman rises far above or sinks much below the average day's labor. Nothing but the power to enslave through controlling opportunity to utilize labor force could ever create such wide differences as we now witness."



How will more automated industry lead to more independent contractors? Automated industry is a a general rule expensive therefore fewer people would be able to access it

I think there is much potential for the cost of automated industry to go down. Nevertheless, workers can always join efforts and build one such industry in the form of a cooperative. When I talk of independent contractors, its not just one person, it can be a group of people, all with the same authority.


Let's take a situation where the cheapest solution and the best solution (for the local community) aren't the same.

A guy has a factory which produces some toxic waste material, the cheapest option for him to dispose of it in a nearby lake. The best solution for society is that it is driven a few miles longer to a waste disposal station. Doesn't the market then dictate that he should choose the cheapest option although, it is not the desirable option for the society as they then get a toxic lake.

It may even be the more expensive option in total as the local community depended on that lake for drinking water and now has to upgrade their water cleaning facility.

I don't see how this is an argument against markets. Its more of an argument against unowned used resources. When the factory disposes of toxic waste in the lake, they are in effect initiating aggression against the people who use the lake for supply. If it was intersubjectively agreed that the rest of the society own the lake because they depend on it, then they are perfectly legitimate in preventing the factory to dispose of more toxic waste there.

I think it's more likely they would be willing to come to some kind of arrangement, as the members of society are still, in all likelihood, going to need the water, and the factory needs to dispose of the waste, they could enter a compromise of society using some of its resources (building roads, pipes, etc) to reduce the cost of sending the waste to proper facilities while ensuring their water supply is protected.

It really comes down to mutuality and reciprocity. In order to have your own rights and demands respected, you need to show that you are willing to respect those of others. However, disputes will arise and people will develop methods of resolving those disputes among themselves. How they will do so, well, is unforeseeable really. I can just provide possible examples.

[eyedrop]

Blimey, I hadn't use that argument in such a long time I completely forgot about it. Good point. :)




I don't understand how equal private control leads to inequalities.

From my other thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/individualist-and-communist-t115125/index.html) by Voltairine and Rosa:

"The justice you seek lies not in such injustice, where material equality could only be attained at the dead level of mediocrity. As freedom of contract enlarges, the nobler sentiments and sympathies invariably widen. With freedom of access to land and to capital, no glaring inequality in distribution could result. No workman rises far above or sinks much below the average day's labor. Nothing but the power to enslave through controlling opportunity to utilize labor force could ever create such wide differences as we now witness." What do you mean by private control?

I completely agree with the quote, the first part is really just dispelling an usual misunderstanding. The important thing is that the "freedom of access to land and capital" is kept egalitarian and in my view that necessates that it must be unownable, or collectivly owned (whichever fits your semantics the best). Here the shoreline is unownable, except from harbours. It is illigal to prevent people from walking, camping on and utilising all the beaches and shorelines. Although the state is unsurprisingly very poor at enforcing such laws. I want to expand those rules to encompass all the land and capital.

This raises the question of how new physical capital get's invested in and I think it's best solved by a federation of the relevant industry (or the society as a whole) setting aside a modernisation pool which is democratically decided where to spend.







I think there is much potential for the cost of automated industry to go down. Nevertheless, workers can always join efforts and build one such industry in the form of a cooperative. When I talk of independent contractors, its not just one person, it can be a group of people, all with the same authority. That may very well be but I'm not counting on it for the foreseeable future. In such a case politics as we know it becomes outdatet anyway.

I don't see how your talk about how "workers can join efforts and build one such industry in the form of a cooperative" with the idea from the quote you provided in that "freedom of access to land and to capital" means, to me, that anyone can get involved in an already built up industry/enterprice as an equal member. Most successful cooperatives that I know of has ended up as a corporation with the individual funders as the capital owners in time




I don't see how this is an argument against markets. Its more of an argument against unowned used resources. When the factory disposes of toxic waste in the lake, they are in effect initiating aggression against the people who use the lake for supply. If it was intersubjectively agreed that the rest of the society own the lake because they depend on it, then they are perfectly legitimate in preventing the factory to dispose of more toxic waste there.

I think it's more likely they would be willing to come to some kind of arrangement, as the members of society are still, in all likelihood, going to need the water, and the factory needs to dispose of the waste, they could enter a compromise of society using some of its resources (building roads, pipes, etc) to reduce the cost of sending the waste to proper facilities while ensuring their water supply is protected.

It really comes down to mutuality and reciprocity. In order to have your own rights and demands respected, you need to show that you are willing to respect those of others. However, disputes will arise and people will develop methods of resolving those disputes among themselves. How they will do so, well, is unforeseeable really. I can just provide possible examples. Aren't you here just providing the ideological framework for why a state , as far as it can be said to represent it's subjects, has the right to enforce environmental policies on private enterprice?

Edit; "If it was intersubjectively agreed that the rest of the society own the lake because they depend on it, then they are perfectly legitimate in preventing the factory to dispose of more toxic waste there." If this is true can't we also say that we depend on all the industry, and therefore should own it all?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

The whole purpose is NOT to inflate labor supply, but to reduce it. This will be done by creating the conditions for wage labor to more easily become entrepreneurial and education so that unskilled wage labor becomes skilled wage labor. The problem with wage labor NOW is that there's too many people who were forced into that position, the supply being higher makes prices go lower. And it's not getting rid of certain state restrictions and benefits. It's getting rid of ALL the state and the capitalists.

I don't find it feasible for every single person to become a business owner. But if a tremendous amount of them do, that means less wage labor, which pulls wage labor bargaining power up to a point where interaction between worker and owner is equal.

You're still ignoring what I'm saying. By removing the state you do inflate the labor supply. Child labor restrictions gone? That's 30 million new workers. Welfare and social security gone? That's millions of new people who need a source of income. Restrictions on the working day gone? Now we can get up to twice the work out of the same number of people. At the same time that you're trying to reduce oversupply of labor you are inadvertently increasing it.


Engels is assuming Proudhon was against industrial advance. I dont really care if he was or not, but industrial advance is precisely a good point in favor of a better society. As we are approaching a more fairer society with equal-in-authority market transactions, at some point in the future, the whole business owner-worker dynamic will be so drastically lower that almost anyone can have a fully automatic factory that trades products, needing only a couple highly skilled workers (therefore expensive workers) to do the maintenance.

No, read it again. He's pointing out that the growth of modern capitalism is linked with technological advancement, and since Proudhon wants to roll back capitalism he in fact wants to roll back technological progress. Industrial advance would be stagnant or at least far lower than in a socialist society. Larger and large concentrations of wealth become necessary to invest in the required capital to compete, but instead you want to distribute the wealth between many different competitors on the market so that no single business has enough capital to invest in advanced labor saving technology. Where is someone going to get the money for a fully automatic factory when even today large firms who have far more capital than any business in your anarchy will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on one factory and wait ten years for it to pay itself off?


Well, the problem with discussing markets is that some socialists typically blame markets for state-caused injustice that takes place in markets.

right-libertarians often apply a shallow analysis that causes them to defend state-caused injustice merely because its visible manifestation is in the marketplace.


Both fail to recognize that the market is the context, the cause is the state.


Anyway, I won't deny there are some market inefficiencies, but most of the time these market ineficciences people talk about are actually state-caused, and a result of the current capitalist society, rather than a manifestation of what a truly free and equal market would provide.

Yes, I've seen Brad Spangler's post, I just don't agree. I don't see how you could possibly prevent the increasing centralization of capital, it's inherent in the market. You don't even seem to know why you're attached to the market, you "just are," and your only real backing is a Tucker quote and a blog post. If you think technological progress is a good argument then I still don't see why you aren't a socialist, seeing that socialism and it's concentrated wealth is capable of devoting far more resources to research and development than your thousands of small, competing concentrations of wealth. Do you not see the inefficiency involved in dividing up all of our resources between millions of people as opposed to pooling them together?


I admit I haven't studied that part yet, but I can safely assume monopolies will no longer have a steady flow of FREE government protection. Expropriation will thus be easier.

If Tucker's assumptions are just slightly off, all you would really be doing is temporarily weakening the capitalist class.

[Havet]

What do you mean by private control?

I completely agree with the quote, the first part is really just dispelling an usual misunderstanding. The important thing is that the "freedom of access to land and capital" is kept egalitarian and in my view that necessates that it must be unownable, or collectivly owned (whichever fits your semantics the best). Here the shoreline is unownable, except from harbours. It is illigal to prevent people from walking, camping on and utilising all the beaches and shorelines. Although the state is unsurprisingly very poor at enforcing such laws. I want to expand those rules to encompass all the land and capital.

This raises the question of how new physical capital get's invested in and I think it's best solved by a federation of the relevant industry (or the society as a whole) setting aside a modernisation pool which is democratically decided where to spend.

Well after we actually get there, I think all the options are merely plausible predictions. In your case, if such actions are agreed by everybody, and there is freedom for those who don't agree to either do something else or to leave then great. The trouble I have with the centralization of institutions, whether to serve the people or not, is that they might simulate the state and end up like the current status quo. But like I said, if such federation or gathering is voluntary, then great. Other people might disagree and have the equality of opportunity to try other things. Great as well. As long as oppression and exploitation do not re-emerge: Great.


I don't see how your talk about how "workers can join efforts and build one such industry in the form of a cooperative" with the idea from the quote you provided in that "freedom of access to land and to capital" means, to me, that anyone can get involved in an already built up industry/enterprice as an equal member. Most successful cooperatives that I know of has ended up as a corporation with the individual funders as the capital owners in time

Well cooperatives was just a suggestion. If other people wish to get involvved equally in an industry without being a cooperative then thats ok as well. I just call for tolerance of different systems that come from the same ground of equality of opportunity, and after that it will be obvious which system is more efficient.



Aren't you here just providing the ideological framework for why a state , as far as it can be said to represent it's subjects, has the right to enforce environmental policies on private enterprice?

Edit; "If it was intersubjectively agreed that the rest of the society own the lake because they depend on it, then they are perfectly legitimate in preventing the factory to dispose of more toxic waste there." If this is true can't we also say that we depend on all the industry, and therefore should own it all?

Nope, i am precisely arguing how this kind of disputes do not need a state. There was only a dispute between society and the factory in your example because the factory violated society's property. LIke i already said, its impossible to foresee the future, but i dont think "everything goes wrong scenarios" are more likely than scenarios where you have cooperation and understanding. Society could, for example, cut the order for whatever the factory produces until the factory stops throwing the waste to the lake. Just another example.

[Havet]

You're still ignoring what I'm saying. By removing the state you do inflate the labor supply. Child labor restrictions gone? That's 30 million new workers. Welfare and social security gone? That's millions of new people who need a source of income. Restrictions on the working day gone? Now we can get up to twice the work out of the same number of people. At the same time that you're trying to reduce oversupply of labor you are inadvertently increasing it.

Do you seriously believe that right after-child labor restrictions are gone, everyone will just go working? Same with welfare and social security, and restrictions on working conditions?

The problem with the state is that its inefficient, and it forces some people to pay for services they will never need. How about replacing that for a system where those who wish to use a system have to contribute to it, either collectively (by pooling resources collectively) or individually?

The reason we have exploitation and oppression, in industry, is because tone man controls another's manner of living and his opportunities to produce. He does this through a special governmental privilege. Now, if this privilege is abolished, land becomes free, and ability to capitalize products removing interest, and one man is stronger or shrewder than another, he nevertheless can make no profit from that other's labor, because he cannot stop him from employing himself. The cause of subjection is removed.

Equality simply means the freedom of every individual to develop all his being, without hindrance from another, be he stronger or weaker.

In this society, a laborer would have two choices: either the laborer will employ himself, or the contractor must pay him the full value of his product. The result would be increased demand for labor. Able to employ himself, the producer will get the full measure of his production, whether working independently, by contract, or cooperatively, since the competition of opportunities, if I may so present it, would destroy the possibility of profits. With the reward of labor raised to its entire result, a higher standard of living will necessarily follow; people will want more in proportion to their intellectual development; with the gratification of desires come new wants, all of which guarantees constant labor-demand.



No, read it again. He's pointing out that the growth of modern capitalism is linked with technological advancement, and since Proudhon wants to roll back capitalism he in fact wants to roll back technological progress. Industrial advance would be stagnant or at least far lower than in a socialist society. Larger and large concentrations of wealth become necessary to invest in the required capital to compete, but instead you want to distribute the wealth between many different competitors on the market so that no single business has enough capital to invest in advanced labor saving technology. Where is someone going to get the money for a fully automatic factory when even today large firms who have far more capital than any business in your anarchy will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on one factory and wait ten years for it to pay itself off?

Yes, I've seen Brad Spangler's post, I just don't agree. I don't see how you could possibly prevent the increasing centralization of capital, it's inherent in the market. You don't even seem to know why you're attached to the market, you "just are," and your only real backing is a Tucker quote and a blog post. If you think technological progress is a good argument then I still don't see why you aren't a socialist, seeing that socialism and it's concentrated wealth is capable of devoting far more resources to research and development than your thousands of small, competing concentrations of wealth. Do you not see the inefficiency involved in dividing up all of our resources between millions of people as opposed to pooling them together?

Seems like you are an apologetic of a state. Pre-arrangement, institution, 'direction' can never bring the desired result—free society. Waving the point that any arrangement is a blow at progress, it really is an impossible thing to do. Thoughts, like things, grow. You cannot jump from the germ to perfect tree in a moment. No system of society can be instituted today which will apply to the demands of the future; that, under freedom will adjust itself. This is the essential difference between Communism and cooperation. The one fixes, adjusts, arranges things, and tends to the rigidity which characterizes the cast off shells of past societies; the other trusts to the unfailing survival of the fittest, and the broadening of human sympathies with freedom; the surety that that which is in the line of progress tending toward the industrial ideal, will, in a free field, obtain by force of its superior attraction. Now, you must admit, either that there will be under freedom, different social arrangements in different societies, some Communistic, others quite the reverse, and that competition will necessarily rise between them, leaving to results to determine which is the best, or you must crush competition, institute Communism, deny freedom, and fly in the face of progress. What the world needs, my friend, is not new methods of instituting things, but abolition of restrictions upon opportunity.

As for gathering resources, individuals can join, cooperate, pool resources voluntarily (in contrast to a state, which forces them to) to achieve higher, more difficult goals. When I speak of individual contractors, this is for the very super future sci-fi sort of way. In the middle run, we would see some independent contractors in smaller-scale industries and cooperatives, communes and communities taking care of larger industries.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Do you seriously believe that right after-child labor restrictions are gone, everyone will just go working? Same with welfare and social security, and restrictions on working conditions?

The problem with the state is that its inefficient, and it forces some people to pay for services they will never need. How about replacing that for a system where those who wish to use a system have to contribute to it, either collectively (by pooling resources collectively) or individually?

So half or a third of them go to work. It doesn't change the fact that you now have 10 or 20 million new laborers. Now these people who are off of social security, such as the elderly and disabled, need someone to provide for them. Cool, that's less income. And if no one wants to? Oh well.

How about a system that will definitively get rid of wage slavery with not even a slight possibility of it leading back to where we started?


The reason we have exploitation and oppression, in industry, is because tone man controls another's manner of living and his opportunities to produce. He does this through a special governmental privilege. Now, if this privilege is abolished, land becomes free, and ability to capitalize products removing interest, and one man is stronger or shrewder than another, he nevertheless can make no profit from that other's labor, because he cannot stop him from employing himself. The cause of subjection is removed.You said that it was not feasible for everyone to employ themselves. Unless you are taking that back, then yes, some people are going to be incapable of employing themselves. There may not be anyone stopping them, but if the economic system prevents it from being feasible, then what the hell is the difference?


In this society, a laborer would have two choices: either the laborer will employ himself, or the contractor must pay him the full value of his product. The result would be increased demand for labor. Able to employ himself, the producer will get the full measure of his production, whether working independently, by contract, or cooperatively, since the competition of opportunities, if I may so present it, would destroy the possibility of profits. With the reward of labor raised to its entire result, a higher standard of living will necessarily follow; people will want more in proportion to their intellectual development; with the gratification of desires come new wants, all of which guarantees constant labor-demand.Full value of his product? Why would anyone ever employ someone if they could not gain from it? They wouldn't, so I'm not sure how this leads to increased demand for labor. All you are doing is copying and pasting crap from libertarian blogs...it's like you are unable to even back up your own views. The only thing that's changed since I posted this:


You don't even seem to know why you're attached to the market, you "just are," and your only real backing is a Tucker quote and a blog post.Is that you've added another persons writing to copy from.


Seems like you are an apologetic of a state. Pre-arrangement, institution, 'direction' can never bring the desired result—free society. Waving the point that any arrangement is a blow at progress, it really is an impossible thing to do. Thoughts, like things, grow. You cannot jump from the germ to perfect tree in a moment. No system of society can be instituted today which will apply to the demands of the future; that, under freedom will adjust itself. This is the essential difference between Communism and cooperation. The one fixes, adjusts, arranges things, and tends to the rigidity which characterizes the cast off shells of past societies; the other trusts to the unfailing survival of the fittest, and the broadening of human sympathies with freedom; the surety that that which is in the line of progress tending toward the industrial ideal, will, in a free field, obtain by force of its superior attraction. Now, you must admit, either that there will be under freedom, different social arrangements in different societies, some Communistic, others quite the reverse, and that competition will necessarily rise between them, leaving to results to determine which is the best, or you must crush competition, institute Communism, deny freedom, and fly in the face of progress. What the world needs, my friend, is not new methods of instituting things, but abolition of restrictions upon opportunity.Cool, more copypasta rhetorical crap. If you are going to ignore what someone is saying and simply copy and paste something without even sourcing it you might as well not post at all. This is pretty much trolling.

[spice756]

Without reading every thing here , I will say the capitalist system in the US and Canada.

Has the capitalist system we have now is borderline monoly.Just look at the box stors / power centers or TV cable or satellite!!

Lack to choose from.

[Havet]

So half or a third of them go to work. It doesn't change the fact that you now have 10 or 20 million new laborers. Now these people who are off of social security, such as the elderly and disabled, need someone to provide for them. Cool, that's less income. And if no one wants to? Oh well.

How about a system that will definitively get rid of wage slavery with not even a slight possibility of it leading back to where we started?


Social cooperatives, charity, cooperative schooling, communes can handle those people much more efficiently than current state activities.



You said that it was not feasible for everyone to employ themselves. Unless you are taking that back, then yes, some people are going to be incapable of employing themselves. There may not be anyone stopping them, but if the economic system prevents it from being feasible, then what the hell is the difference?

It is not possible for everyone to employ themselves NOW. Such would not be the case in a freed society, by the reasons the quote I provided above speaks of.


Full value of his product? Why would anyone ever employ someone if they could not gain from it? They wouldn't, so I'm not sure how this leads to increased demand for labor.

Jesus, have you got no imagination?

The very purpose of a cooperative is NON-PROFIT. What would they gain from this? Depends on the cooperative. If it were an elderly social cooperative, it would gain from helping elderly people spend the last days of their lives in peace. A cooperative has no profit incentive. Even though they are physically altruists, they are intellectually selfish, because they gain the knowledge of their good contribution.


All you are doing is copying and pasting crap from libertarian blogs...it's like you are unable to even back up your own views. The only thing that's changed since I posted this:

Is that you've added another persons writing to copy from.

Cool, more copypasta rhetorical crap. If you are going to ignore what someone is saying and simply copy and paste something without even sourcing it you might as well not post at all. This is pretty much trolling.

Very smart. Now tell me, are you going to use that knowledge to justify not answering to my valid points? I have added the quotes not to shove you away, but to argue in a way I find better than I would naturally do on my own. If you're going to start whining about that, then I'll protest you every time you quote marx, engels, or any other communist or socialist author. Are you in favor of forum internet intellectual property now?

[eyedrop]

Well after we actually get there, I think all the options are merely plausible predictions. In your case, if such actions are agreed by everybody, and there is freedom for those who don't agree to either do something else or to leave then great. The trouble I have with the centralization of institutions, whether to serve the people or not, is that they might simulate the state and end up like the current status quo. But like I said, if such federation or gathering is voluntary, then great. Other people might disagree and have the equality of opportunity to try other things. Great as well. As long as oppression and exploitation do not re-emerge: Great. I'll ask again; What do you mean by private control? Private control of what, by whom?

How do you propose that society controls the mean of production? The means of production are necessary for a modern society as they quadruple our productivity and they are scarce.






Well cooperatives was just a suggestion. If other people wish to get involvved equally in an industry without being a cooperative then thats ok as well. I just call for tolerance of different systems that come from the same ground of equality of opportunity, and after that it will be obvious which system is more efficient. We can easily give everyone who wants the necessary means of production to produce T-shirts (a sewing machine, fabric and some silk-printing essentials). Although industrial fabrication is more efficient (which is mostly used today), and will need to take the brunt of demand.

But the same doesn't apply to heavy industrial, we can't give an one man operatable oil platform to everyone who wants, such things needs collective cooperation to function. Or we can go for the internal tyranny present in such endeavours today.

How would you propose that we operate oil platforms? Oil fields are scarce and society can only build a limited number.





Nope, i am precisely arguing how this kind of disputes do not need a state. There was only a dispute between society and the factory in your example because the factory violated society's property. LIke i already said, its impossible to foresee the future, but i dont think "everything goes wrong scenarios" are more likely than scenarios where you have cooperation and understanding. Society could, for example, cut the order for whatever the factory produces until the factory stops throwing the waste to the lake. Just another example. This is hardly a everything goes wrong example. There tons of examples of companies dumping their toxic waste in the ocean because it was the cheapest option. It hasn't exactly been the state that has forced them to do that. Do you agree that society has a right to place ecological restrictions?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

It is not possible for everyone to employ themselves NOW. Such would not be the case in a freed society, by the reasons the quote I provided above speaks of.

Really? Because this is what you said:


I don't find it feasible for every single person to become a business owner. But if a tremendous amount of them do, that means less wage labor, which pulls wage labor bargaining power up to a point where interaction between worker and owner is equal.

Your posts aren't even coherent. One minute we have large amounts of wage laborers who are simply receiving a higher wage, another we have a society where there is no wage labor, another where society is technologically stagnant, and another where everyone owns an automated factory.


Jesus, have you got no imagination?

The very purpose of a cooperative is NON-PROFIT. What would they gain from this? Depends on the cooperative. If it were an elderly social cooperative, it would gain from helping elderly people spend the last days of their lives in peace. A cooperative has no profit incentive. Even though they are physically altruists, they are intellectually selfish, because they gain the knowledge of their good contribution.You didn't say a cooperative, you said a contractor employing someone.


Very smart. Now tell me, are you going to use that knowledge to justify not answering to my valid points? I have added the quotes not to shove you away, but to argue in a way I find better than I would naturally do on my own. If you're going to start whining about that, then I'll protest you every time you quote marx, engels, or any other communist or socialist author. Are you in favor of forum internet intellectual property now?No, I'm just not going to answer someone who ignores what I say while doing nothing but copying and pasting the arguments(just rhetoric, really) of other people. If you want to do that then I could just go copy some things off of marxists.org and the anarchist FAQ and we could sit here all day copying and pasting things without engaging in any actual thinking.

[Havet]

I'll ask again; What do you mean by private control? Private control of what, by whom?

How do you propose that society controls the mean of production? The means of production are necessary for a modern society as they quadruple our productivity and they are scarce.


I don't recall calling for private control, but being against private concentration of resources or power in a way that takes away equality of opportunity for other people.

I propose tolerance of systems: communes, cooperatives, entrepreneurs, non-wage slave workers. This is why I am against the state.


We can easily give everyone who wants the necessary means of production to produce T-shirts (a sewing machine, fabric and some silk-printing essentials). Although industrial fabrication is more efficient (which is mostly used today), and will need to take the brunt of demand.

But the same doesn't apply to heavy industrial, we can't give an one man operatable oil platform to everyone who wants, such things needs collective cooperation to function. Or we can go for the internal tyranny present in such endeavours today.

How would you propose that we operate oil platforms? Oil fields are scarce and society can only build a limited number.

I don't propose any specific means to operate oil platforms. I oppose restrictions that do not allow for equality of opportunity. After we have equality of opportunity, those who wish to cooperate together and go into such industry would be free to do so.

And i'm fairly confident that by the time the revolution, or society has changed that we achieve this equality of opportunity, we will no longer be as dependent as we are in fossil fuels.


This is hardly a everything goes wrong example. There tons of examples of companies dumping their toxic waste in the ocean because it was the cheapest option. It hasn't exactly been the state that has forced them to do that. Do you agree that society has a right to place ecological restrictions?

I think that communities have a right to place ecological restrictions in commonly owned resources like water and air, because if they don't, they will be physically endangered in the type of scenarios you imagined.

[Havet]

Really? Because this is what you said: Apologies for the incoherence


Your posts aren't even coherent. One minute we have large amounts of wage laborers who are simply receiving a higher wage, another we have a society where there is no wage labor, another where society is technologically stagnant, and another where everyone owns an automated factory.

So here is the simplified version:
-Low amount of wage laborers with higher wage in comparison to current status quo
-Higher amount of entrepreneurs with lower "profits" in comparison to current status quo
- In very long run, future sci-fi like, everyone will own a MOP and will be perfectly self-sustainable (will only engage in trade to improve standard of living).


You didn't say a cooperative, you said a contractor employing someone.

So? both would exist. Suppose a cooperative (who is the contractor) wishes to hire a medical assistant. What does the cooperative gains? More qualified staff to take care of their patients. What does the employee get? High-paying qualified job taking care of patients (his profession).


No, I'm just not going to answer someone who ignores what I say while doing nothing but copying and pasting the arguments(just rhetoric, really) of other people. If you want to do that then I could just go copy some things off of marxists.org and the anarchist FAQ and we could sit here all day copying and pasting things without engaging in any actual thinking.

Actually the Anarchist FAQ defends my position (that market anarchism/mutualism/libertarian socialism is socialist):


This because such claims show an amazing ignorance of socialist ideas and history. The socialist movement has had a many schools, many of which, but not all, opposed the market and private property. Given that the right "libertarians" who make such claims are usually not well informed of the ideas they oppose (i.e. of socialism, particularly libertarian socialism) it is unsurprising they claim that the Individualist Anarchists are not socialists (of course the fact that many Individualist Anarchists argued they were socialists is ignored). Coming from a different tradition, it is unsurprising they are not aware of the fact that socialism is not monolithic. Hence we discover right-"libertarian" guru von Mises claiming that the "essence of socialism is the entire elimination of the market." [Human Action, p. 702] This would have come as something of a surprise to, say, Proudhon, who argued that "[t]o suppress competition is to suppress liberty itself." [The General Idea of the Revolution, p. 50] Similarly, it would have surprised Tucker, who called himself a socialist while supporting a freer market than von Mises ever dreamt of. As Tucker put it:
"Liberty has always insisted that Individualism and Socialism are not antithetical terms; that, on the contrary, the most perfect Socialism is possible only on condition of the most perfect Individualism; and that Socialism includes, not only Collectivism and Communism, but also that school of Individualist Anarchism which conceives liberty as a means of destroying usury and the exploitation of labour." [Liberty, no. 129, p. 2]
Hence we find Tucker calling his ideas both "Anarchistic Socialism" and "Individualist Socialism" while other individualist anarchists have used the terms "free market anti-capitalism" and "free market socialism" to describe the ideas.

The central fallacy of the argument that support for markets equals support for capitalism is that many self-proclaimed socialists are not opposed to the market. Indeed, some of the earliest socialists were market socialists (people like Thomas Hodgskin and William Thompson, although the former ended up rejecting socialism and the latter became a communal-socialist). Proudhon, as noted, was a well known supporter of market exchange. German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer expounded a similar vision to Proudhon and called himself a "liberal socialist" as he favoured a free market but recognised that capitalism was a system of exploitation. ["Introduction", The State, p. vii] Today, market socialists like David Schweickart (see his Against Capitalism and After Capitalism) and David Miller (see his Market, State, and community: theoretical foundations of market socialism) are expounding a similar vision to Proudhon's, namely of a market economy based on co-operatives (albeit one which retains a state). Unfortunately, they rarely, if ever, acknowledge their debt to Proudhon (needless to say, their Leninist opponents do as, from their perspective, it damns the market socialists as not being real socialists).
It could, possibly, be argued that these self-proclaimed socialists did not, in fact, understand what socialism "really meant." For this to be the case, other, more obviously socialist, writers and thinkers would dismiss them as not being socialists. This, however, is not the case. Thus we find Karl Marx, for example, writing of "the socialism of Proudhon." [Capital, vol. 1, p. 161f] Engels talked about Proudhon being "the Socialist of the small peasant and master-craftsman" and of "the Proudhon school of Socialism." [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p. 254 and p. 255] Bakunin talked about Proudhon's "socialism, based on individual and collective liberty and upon the spontaneous action of free associations." He considered his own ideas as "Proudhonism widely developed and pushed right to these, its final consequences" [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 100 and p. 198]

For Kropotkin, while Godwin was "first theoriser of Socialism without government -- that is to say, of Anarchism" Proudhon was the second as he, "without knowing Godwin's work, laid anew the foundations of Anarchism." He lamented that "many modern Socialists" supported "centralisation and the cult of authority" and so "have not yet reached the level of their two predecessors, Godwin and Proudhon." [Evolution and Environment, pp. 26-7] These renown socialists did not consider Proudhon's position to be in any way anti-socialist (although, of course, being critical of whether it would work and its desirability if it did). Tucker, it should be noted, called Proudhon "the father of the Anarchistic school of Socialism." Little wonder, then, that the likes of Tucker considered themselves socialists and stated numerous times that they were.

Looking at Tucker and the Individualist anarchists we discover that other socialists considered them socialists. Rudolf Rocker stated that "it is not difficult to discover certain fundamental principles which are common to all of them and which divide them from all other varieties of socialism. They all agree on the point that man be given the full reward of his labour and recognise in this right the economic basis of all personal liberty. They all regard the free competition of individual and social forces as something inherent in human nature . . . They answered the socialists of other schools who saw in free competition one of the destructive elements of capitalist society that the evil lies in the fact we have too little rather than too much competition, since the power of monopoly has made competition impossible." [Pioneers of American Freedom, p. 160] Malatesta, likewise, saw many schools of socialism, including "anarchist or authoritarian, mutualist or individualist." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 95]

Adolph Fischer, one of the Haymarket Martyrs and contemporary of Tucker, argued that "every anarchist is a socialist, but every socialist is not necessarily an anarchist. The anarchists are divided into two factions: the communistic anarchists and the Proudhon or middle-class anarchists." The former "advocate the communistic or co-operative method of production" while the latter "do not advocate the co-operative system of production, and the common ownership of the means of production, the products and the land." [The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs, p. 81]

However, while not being communists (i.e. aiming to eliminate the market), he obviously recognised the Individualists Anarchists as fellow socialists (we should point out that Proudhon did support co-operatives, but they did not carry this to communism as do most social anarchists -- as is clear, Fischer means communism by the term "co-operative system of production" rather than co-operatives as they exist today and Proudhon supported -- see section G.4.2 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secG4.html#secg42)).

Thus claims that the Individualist Anarchists were not "really" socialists because they supported a market system cannot be supported. The simple fact is that those who make this claim are, at best, ignorant of the socialist movement, its ideas and its history or, at worse, desire, like many Marxists, to write out of history competing socialist theories. For example, Leninist David McNally talks of the "anarcho-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon" and how Marx combated "Proudhonian socialism" before concluding that it was "non-socialism" because it has "wage-labour and exploitation." [Against the Market, p. 139 and p. 169] Of course, that this is not true (even in a Marxist sense) did not stop him asserting it. As one reviewer correctly points out, "McNally is right that even in market socialism, market forces rule workers' lives" and this is "a serious objection. But it is not tantamount to capitalism or to wage labour" and it "does not have exploitation in Marx's sense (i.e., wrongful expropriation of surplus by non-producers)" [Justin Schwartz, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 4, p. 982] For Marx, as we noted in section C.2 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secC2.html), commodity production only becomes capitalism when there is the exploitation of wage labour. This is the case with Proudhon as well, who differentiated between possession and private property and argued that co-operatives should replace capitalist firms. While their specific solutions may have differed (with Proudhon aiming for a market economy consisting of artisans, peasants and co-operatives while Marx aimed for communism, i.e. the abolition of money via state ownership of capital) their analysis of capitalism and private property were identical -- which Tucker consistently noted (as regards the theory of surplus value, for example, he argued that "Proudhon propounded and proved [it] long before Marx advanced it." [Liberty, no. 92, p. 1])

As Tucker argued, "the fact that State Socialism . . . has overshadowed other forms of Socialism gives it no right to a monopoly of the Socialistic idea." [Instead of a Book, pp. 363-4] It is no surprise that the authoritarian left and "libertarian" right have united to define socialism in such a way as to eliminate anarchism from its ranks -- they both have an interest in removing a theory which exposes the inadequacies of their dogmas, which explains how we can have both liberty and equality and have a decent, free and just society.

There is another fallacy at the heart of the claim that markets and socialism do not go together, namely that all markets are capitalist markets. So another part of the problem is that the same word often means different things to different people. Both Kropotkin and Lenin said they were "communists" and aimed for "communism." However, it does not mean that the society Kropotkin aimed for was the same as that desired by Lenin. Kropotkin's communism was decentralised, created and run from the bottom-up while Lenin's was fundamentally centralised and top-down. Similarly, both Tucker and the Social-Democrat (and leading Marxist) Karl Kautsky called themselves a "socialist" yet their ideas on what a socialist society would be like were extremely different. As J.W. Baker notes, "Tucker considered himself a socialist . . . as the result of his struggle against 'usury and capitalism,' but anything that smelled of 'state socialism' was thoroughly rejected." ["Native American Anarchism," pp. 43-62, The Raven, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 60] This, of course, does not stop many "anarcho"-capitalists talking about "socialist" goals as if all socialists were Stalinists (or, at best, social democrats). In fact, "socialist anarchism" has included (and continues to include) advocates of truly free markets as well as advocates of a non-market socialism which has absolutely nothing in common with the state capitalist tyranny of Stalinism. Similarly, they accept a completely ahistorical definition of "capitalism," so ignoring the massive state violence and support by which that system was created and is maintained.

The same with terms like "property" and the "free market," by which the "anarcho"-capitalist assumes the individualist anarchist means the same thing as they do. We can take land as an example. The individualist anarchists argued for an "occupancy and use" system of "property" (see next section (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secG1.html#secg12) for details). Thus in their "free market," land would not be a commodity as it is under capitalism and so under individualist anarchism absentee landlords would be considered as aggressors (for under capitalism they use state coercion to back up their collection of rent against the actual occupiers of property). Tucker argued that local defence associations should treat the occupier and user as the rightful owner, and defend them against the aggression of an absentee landlord who attempted to collect rent. An "anarcho"-capitalist would consider this as aggression against the landlord and a violation of "free market" principles. Such a system of "occupancy and use" would involve massive violations of what is considered normal in a capitalist "free market." Equally, a market system which was based on capitalist property rights in land would not be considered as genuinely free by the likes of Tucker.

This can be seen from Tucker's debates with supporters of laissez-faire capitalism such as Auberon Herbert (who, as discussed in section F.7.2 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secF7.html#secf72), was an English minimal statist and sometimes called a forerunner of "anarcho"-capitalism). Tucker quoted an English critic of Herbert, who noted that "When we come to the question of the ethical basis of property, Mr. Herbert refers us to 'the open market'. But this is an evasion. The question is not whether we should be able to sell or acquire 'in the open market' anything which we rightfully possess, but how we come into rightful possession." [Liberty, no. 172, p. 7] Tucker rejected the idea [I]"that a man should be allowed a title to as much of the earth as he, in the course of his life, with the aid of all the workmen that he can employ, may succeed in covering with buildings. It is occupancy and use that Anarchism regards as the basis of land ownership, . . . A man cannot be allowed, merely by putting labour, to the limit of his capacity and beyond the limit of his person use, into material of which there is a limited supply and the use of which is essential to the existence of other men, to withhold that material from other men's use; and any contract based upon or involving such withholding is as lacking in sanctity or legitimacy as a contract to deliver stolen goods." [Op. Cit., no. 331, p. 4]
In other words, an individualist anarchist would consider an "anarcho"-capitalist "free market" as nothing of the kind and vice versa. For the former, the individualist anarchist position on "property" would be considered as forms of regulation and restrictions on private property and so the "free market." The individualist anarchist would consider the "anarcho"-capitalist "free market" as another system of legally maintained privilege, with the free market distorted in favour of the wealthy. That capitalist property rights were being maintained by private police would not stop that regime being unfree. This can be seen when "anarcho"-capitalist Wendy McElroy states that "radical individualism hindered itself . . . Perhaps most destructively, individualism clung to the labour theory of value and refused to incorporate the economic theories arising within other branches of individualist thought, theories such as marginal utility. Unable to embrace statism, the stagnant movement failed to adequately comprehend the logical alternative to the state -- a free market." ["Benjamin Tucker, Liberty, and Individualist Anarchism", pp. 421-434, The Independent Review, vol. II, No. 3, p. 433] Therefore, rather than being a source of commonality, individualist anarchism and "anarcho"-capitalism actually differ quite considerably on what counts as a genuinely free market.

So it should be remembered that "anarcho"-capitalists at best agree with Tucker, Spooner, et al on fairly vague notions like the "free market." They do not bother to find out what the individualist anarchists meant by that term. Indeed, the "anarcho"-capitalist embrace of different economic theories means that they actually reject the reasoning that leads up to these nominal "agreements." It is the "anarcho"-capitalists who, by rejecting the underlying economics of the mutualists, are forced to take any "agreements" out of context. It also means that when faced with obviously anti-capitalist arguments and conclusions of the individualist anarchists, the "anarcho"-capitalist cannot explain them and are reduced to arguing that the anti-capitalist concepts and opinions expressed by the likes of Tucker are somehow "out of context." In contrast, the anarchist can explain these so-called "out of context" concepts by placing them into the context of the ideas of the individualist anarchists and the society which shaped them.

The "anarcho"-capitalist usually admits that they totally disagree with many of the essential premises and conclusions of the individualist anarchist analyses (see next section (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secG3.html)). The most basic difference is that the individualist anarchists rooted their ideas in the labour theory of value while the "anarcho"-capitalists favour mainstream marginalist theory. It does not take much thought to realise that advocates of socialist theories and those of capitalist ones will naturally develop differing notions of what is and what should be happening within a given economic system. One difference that has in fact arisen is that the notion of what constitutes a "free market" has differed according to the theory of value applied. Many things can be attributed to the workings of a "free" market under a capitalist analysis that would be considered symptoms of economic unfreedom under most socialist driven analyses.

This can be seen if you look closely at the case of Tucker's comments that anarchism was simply "consistent Manchesterianism." If this is done then a simple example of this potential confusion can be found. Tucker argued that anarchists "accused" the Manchester men "of being inconsistent," that while being in favour of laissez faire for "the labourer in order to reduce his wages" they did not believe "in liberty to compete with the capitalist in order to reduce his usury." [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 83] To be consistent in this case is to be something other -- and more demanding in terms of what is accepted as "freedom" -- than the average Manchesterian (i.e. a supporter of "free market" capitalism). By "consistent Manchesterism", Tucker meant a laissez-faire system in which class monopolies did not exist, where capitalist private property in land and intellectual property did not exist. In other words, a free market purged of its capitalist aspects. Partisans of the capitalist theory see things differently, of course, feeling justified in calling many things "free" that anarchists would not accept, and seeing "constraint" in what the anarchists simply thought of as "consistency." This explains both his criticism of capitalism and state socialism:
"The complaint of the Archist Socialists that the Anarchists are bourgeois is true to this extent and no further -- that, great as is their detestation for a bourgeois society, they prefer its partial liberty to the complete slavery of State Socialism." ["Why I am an Anarchist", pp. 132-6, Man!, M. Graham (ed.), p. 136] It should be clear that a "free market" will look somewhat different depending on your economic presuppositions. Ironically, this is something "anarcho"-capitalists implicitly acknowledge when they admit they do not agree with the likes of Spooner and Tucker on many of their key premises and conclusions (but that does not stop them claiming -- despite all that -- that their ideas are a modern version of individualist anarchism!). Moreover, the "anarcho"-capitalist simply dismisses all the reasoning that got Tucker there -- that is like trying to justify a law citing Leviticus but then saying "but of course all that God stuff is just absurd." You cannot have it both ways. And, of course, the "anarcho"-capitalist support for non-labour based economics allow them to side-step (and so ignore) much of what anarchists -- communists, collectivists, individualists, mutualists and syndicalists alike -- consider authoritarian and coercive about "actually existing" capitalism.

But the difference in economic analysis is critical. No matter what they are called, it is pretty clear that individualist anarchist standards for the freedom of markets are far more demanding than those associated with even the freest capitalist market system.

This is best seen from the development of individualist anarchism in the 20th century. As historian Charles A. Madison noted, it "began to dwindle rapidly after 1900. Some of its former adherents joined the more aggressive communistic faction . . . many others began to favour the rising socialist movement as the only effective weapon against billion-dollar corporations." ["Benjamin R. Tucker: Individualist and Anarchist," pp. 444-67, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. p. 464] Other historians have noted the same. "By 1908," argued Eunice Minette Schuster "the industrial system had fastened its claws into American soil" and while the "Individualist Anarchists had attempted to destroy monopoly, privilege, and inequality, originating in the lack of opportunity" the "superior force of the system which they opposed . . . overwhelmed" them. Tucker left America in 1908 and those who remained "embraced either Anarchist-Communism as the result of governmental violence against the labourers and their cause, or abandoned the cause entirely." [Native American Anarchism, p. 158, pp. 159-60 and p. 156] While individualist anarchism did not entirely disappear with the ending of Liberty, social anarchism became the dominant trend in America as it had elsewhere in the world.
As we note in section G.4 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secG4.html), the apparent impossibility of mutual banking to eliminate corporations by economic competition was one of the reasons Voltairine de Cleyre pointed to for rejecting individualist anarchism in favour of communist-anarchism. This problem was recognised by Tucker himself thirty years after Liberty had been founded. In the postscript to a 1911 edition of his famous essay "State Socialism and Anarchism", he argued that when he wrote it 25 years earlier "the denial of competition had not effected the enormous concentration of wealth that now so gravely threatens social order" and so while a policy of mutual banking might have stopped and reversed the process of accumulation in the past, the way now was "not so clear." This was because the tremendous capitalisation of industry now made the money monopoly a convenience, but no longer a necessity. Admitted Tucker, the "trust is now a monster which . . . even the freest competition, could it be instituted, would be unable to destroy" as "concentrated capital" could set aside a sacrifice fund to bankrupt smaller competitors and continue the process of expansion of reserves.
Thus the growth of economic power, producing as it does natural barriers to entry from the process of capitalist production and accumulation, had resulted in a situation where individualist anarchist solutions could no longer reform capitalism away. The centralisation of capital had "passed for the moment beyond their reach." The problem of the trusts, he argued, "must be grappled with for a time solely by forces political or revolutionary," i.e., through confiscation either through the machinery of government "or in denial of it." Until this "great levelling" occurred, all individualist anarchists could do was to spread their ideas as those trying to "hasten it by joining in the propaganda of State Socialism or revolution make a sad mistake indeed." [quoted by James J. Martin, Op. Cit., pp. 273-4]

In other words, the economic power of "concentrated capital" and "enormous concentration of wealth" placed an insurmountable obstacle to the realisation of anarchy. Which means that the abolition of usury and relative equality were considered ends rather than side effects for Tucker and if free competition could not achieve these then such a society would not be anarchist. If economic inequality was large enough, it meant anarchism was impossible as the rule of capital could be maintained by economic power alone without the need for extensive state intervention (this was, of course, the position of revolutionary anarchists like Bakunin, Most and Kropotkin in the 1870s and onwards whom Tucker dismissed as not being anarchists).

Victor Yarros is another example, an individualist anarchist and associate of Tucker, who by the 1920s had abandoned anarchism for social democracy, in part because he had become convinced that economic privilege could not be fought by economic means. As he put it, the most "potent" of the "factors and forces [which] tended to undermine and discredit that movement" was "the amazing growth of trusts and syndicates, of holding companies and huge corporations, of chain banks and chain stores." This "gradually and insidiously shook the faith of many in the efficacy of mutual banks, co-operative associations of producers and consumers, and the competition of little fellows. Proudhon's plan for a bank of the people to make industrial loans without interest to workers' co-operatives, or other members, seemed remote and inapplicable to an age of mass production, mechanisation, continental and international markets." ["Philosophical Anarchism: Its Rise, Decline, and Eclipse", pp. 470-483, The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 41, no. 4, p. 481]

If the indiividualist anarchists shared the "anarcho"-capitalist position or even shared a common definition of "free markets" then the "power of the trusts" would simply not be an issue. This is because "anarcho"-capitalism does not acknowledge the existence of such power, as, by definition, it does not exist in capitalism (although as noted in section F.1 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secF1.html) Rothbard himself proved critics of this assertion right). Tucker's comments, therefore, indicate well how far individualist anarchism actually is from "anarcho"-capitalism. The "anarcho"-capitalist desires free markets no matter their result or the concentration of wealth existing at their introduction. As can be seen, Tucker saw the existence of concentrations of wealth as a problem and a hindrance towards anarchy. Thus Tucker was well aware of the dangers to individual liberty of inequalities of wealth and the economic power they produce. Equally, if Tucker supported the "free market" above all else then he would not have argued this point. Clearly, then, Tucker's support for the "free market" cannot be abstracted from his fundamental principles nor can it be equated with a "free market" based on capitalist property rights and massive inequalities in wealth (and so economic power). Thus individualist anarchist support for the free market does not mean support for a capitalist "free market."

In summary, the "free market" as sought by (say) Tucker would not be classed as a "free market" by right-wing "libertarians." So the term "free market" (and, of course, "socialism") can mean different things to different people. As such, it would be correct to state that all anarchists oppose the "free market" by definition as all anarchists oppose the capitalist "free market." And, just as correctly, "anarcho"-capitalists would oppose the individualist anarchist "free market," arguing that it would be no such thing as it would be restrictive of property rights (capitalist property rights of course). For example, the question of resource use in an individualist society is totally different than in a capitalist "free market" as landlordism would not exist. This is a restriction on capitalist property rights and a violation of a capitalist "free market." So an individualist "free market" would not be considered so by right-wing "libertarians" due to the substantial differences in the rights on which it would be based (with no right to capitalist private property being the most important).

All this means that to go on and on about individualist anarchism and it support for a free market simply misses the point. No one denies that individualist anarchists were (and are) in favour of a "free market" but this did not mean they were not socialists nor that they wanted the same kind of "free market" desired by "anarcho"-capitalism or that has existed under capitalism.

Source (http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secG1.html#secg11)

[eyedrop]

[/B]I don't recall calling for private control, but being against private concentration of resources or power in a way that takes away equality of opportunity for other people. All private concentrations of recources, or power, takes away equality of opportunity for other people.

As far as I remember you couldn't understand how equal personal control over the mean of production could create inequality. Then i wondered what you meant by private control. I would also like too see what mechanisms you propose to keep it equal.

I propose tolerance of systems: communes, cooperatives, entrepreneurs, non-wage slave workers. This is why I am against the state.[quote] Let's say a town has 3 factories as the main productive sources. Would it impede the opportinities of everyone in the town if and entrepeneur gained control of one of them?


[quote]
I don't propose any specific means to operate oil platforms. I oppose restrictions that do not allow for equality of opportunity. After we have equality of opportunity, those who wish to cooperate together and go into such industry would be free to do so.Your being quite vague

If we allow any possibility for anyone to exclude anyone from involving themself as a full member of the group at any time, then we don't have equality of opportinity. So all operational methods that don't allow that are unacceptable.


And i'm fairly confident that by the time the revolution, or society has changed that we achieve this equality of opportunity, we will no longer be as dependent as we are in fossil fuels. Hopefully, but not given. As long as fossil fuels are profitable they will persists.




I think that communities have a right to place ecological restrictions in commonly owned resources like water and air, because if they don't, they will be physically endangered in the type of scenarios you imagined. Good. It isn't just imaginary though.

[Havet]

All private concentrations of recources, or power, takes away equality of opportunity for other people.

Sorry for quoting this, but i think the Individualist Anarchist's response to this from my other thread is pretty good:

"The reason one man controls another's manner of living is because he controls the opportunities to produce? He does this through a special governmental privilege. Now, if this privilege is abolished, land becomes free, and ability to capitalize products removing interest, and one man is stronger or shrewder than another, he nevertheless can make no profit from that other's labor, because he cannot stop him from employing himself. The cause of subjection is removed"


I would also like too see what mechanisms you propose to keep it equal.~

"Does equality mean that I shall enjoy what you have produced? By no means. Equality simply means the freedom of every individual to develop all his being, without hindrance from another, be he stronger or weaker."

This means everyone is equal, as far as his natural ability goes, to achieve what he wants.


Let's say a town has 3 factories as the main productive sources. Would it impede the opportinities of everyone in the town if and entrepeneur gained control of one of them?

No because you would still be free to produce resources. There are still 2 factories left. And when those are full, you are still free to cooperate with others and joining efforts into creating more.


If we allow any possibility for anyone to exclude anyone from involving themself as a full member of the group at any time, then we don't have equality of opportinity. So all operational methods that don't allow that are unacceptable.

Suppose A does produce more than B, does he in anyway injure the latter so long as he does not prevent B from applying his own labor to exploit nature, with equal facilities as himself, either by self-employment or by contract with others?

[eyedrop]

"The reason one man controls another's manner of living is because he controls the opportunities to produce? He does this through a special governmental privilege. Now, if this privilege is abolished, land becomes free, and ability to capitalize products removing interest, and one man is stronger or shrewder than another, he nevertheless can make no profit from that other's labor, because he cannot stop him from employing himself. The cause of subjection is removed" So no governmental, or any other kind, privilege that gives a man a possibility to control the opportunities to produce. But later on in the post you suddenly say that it's okay that an entrepeneur gains control of 1/3 of a towns opportunities to produce.




"Does equality mean that I shall enjoy what you have produced? By no means. Equality simply means the freedom of every individual to develop all his being, without hindrance from another, be he stronger or weaker."

This means everyone is equal, as far as his natural ability goes, to achieve what he wants. No quarrel




No because you would still be free to produce resources. There are still 2 factories left. And when those are full, you are still free to cooperate with others and joining efforts into creating more. What happened to equal opportunities? Know suddenly everyone the entrepeneur likes has increased their opportunities to produce, not to mention his heirs, compared to everyone he doesn't like. It's not just build a new capital intensive factory.

Equal opportunity to produce can't exists while there is private control of the means used to produce.




Suppose A does produce more than B, does he in anyway injure the latter so long as he does not prevent B from applying his own labor to exploit nature, with equal facilities as himself, either by self-employment or by contract with others? No, but if he is allowed to use that extra productivity to gain more private control over the means of production he will impede others. For there to remain equal production facilities, production facilities must be unownable or collectively owned.

[Havet]

So no governmental, or any other kind, privilege that gives a man a possibility to control the opportunities to produce. But later on in the post you suddenly say that it's okay that an entrepeneur gains control of 1/3 of a towns opportunities to produce.

What happened to equal opportunities? Know suddenly everyone the entrepeneur likes has increased their opportunities to produce, not to mention his heirs, compared to everyone he doesn't like. It's not just build a new capital intensive factory.

Equal opportunity to produce can't exists while there is private control of the means used to produce.

No, but if he is allowed to use that extra productivity to gain more private control over the means of production he will impede others. For there to remain equal production facilities, production facilities must be unownable or collectively owned.

Ok, let me get back to your example. Who owns the initial factory?

If no one owns it, then its use rests on the intersubjective criteria for ownership of the people around it. If people believe the basis for ownership is homesteading, then a person can only homestead the factory to own it. If they think its possession and use, then that. If they think its just getting there first, then that.

If it is owned by the community then it is up to the community to decide or not who gets to use it, for what purpose, to meed whose ends.

If there are no factories, then this is pure equality of opportunity. Nobody is actively preventing someone to start one (notice I say no one and not nothing. obviously there are natural factors). This is what i usually use as the background. How does one person or group of people owning a factory not allow another person or other group of people to start one as well? There are scarce resources needed to build a factory, but since we're in an equal opportunity scenario, nobody has the monopoly on them or is actively preventing someone to go there and extract these resources.

Hope this cleared things up.

[anticap]

As we are approaching a more fairer society with equal-in-authority market transactions, at some point in the future, the whole business owner-worker dynamic will be so drastically lower that almost anyone can have a fully automatic factory that trades products, needing only a couple highly skilled workers (therefore expensive workers) to do the maintenance.

You've simply painted a picture with fewer exploited workers; you haven't eliminated the "owner-worker dynamic."

If workers are necessary, then the factory isn't fully automated. A fully automated factory would produce no exchange-values -- unless it were private property, thus allowing its owner to monopolize the output (and, as you know, private property requires a state, or something like it in all but name). It would churn out an abundance of goods, for the benefit of all, at no cost (since there would be no labor involved).

That's assuming the inputs were likewise produced by full automation. If they weren't, then the value of the output would be the cost of the inputs, which would be determined by the labor involved in producing them, and likewise down the chain.

Assuming your mostly-automated factory utilized raw materials that were produced by full automation, it would be your highly-skilled maintenance workers alone who would add value to the product -- and you would have to pay them less than that value in order to make a profit (and, again, we're back to assuming private property).

Looks like the same old exploitative dynamic to me.

[Havet]

You've simply painted a picture with fewer exploited workers; you haven't eliminated the "owner-worker dynamic."

If workers are necessary, then the factory isn't fully automated. A fully automated factory would produce no exchange-values -- unless it were private property, thus allowing its owner to monopolize the output (and, as you know, private property requires a state, or something like it in all but name). It would churn out an abundance of goods, for the benefit of all, at no cost (since there would be no labor involved).

That's assuming the inputs were likewise produced by full automation. If they weren't, then the value of the output would be the cost of the inputs, which would be determined by the labor involved in producing them, and likewise down the chain.

Assuming your mostly-automated factory utilized raw materials that were produced by full automation, it would be your highly-skilled maintenance workers alone who would add value to the product -- and you would have to pay them less than that value in order to make a profit (and, again, we're back to assuming private property).

Looks like the same old exploitative dynamic to me.

It looks like an exploitative dynamic because you are assuming the purpose of the factory to be profit, when for example, a cooperative factory, wouldnt have as motive profit, but the production of necessary goods.

If the factory is mostly automated, its the machines, not the workers, who are producing the labor. The workers labor is in the "well-being" of the machines that keep on working.

Anyway, like I said above, this whole automated idea was just that - an idea. In a free society with equal opportunity we might take another course, and it is the future generations responsibility to figure out which productive activities will be most effective in the free society.

[eyedrop]

Haha, now your reverting back to your old self. Time to scrap those mutualist quotes you used earlier that included no ownership of the means of production.


Ok, let me get back to your example. Who owns the initial factory? Who cares? It's not really relevant to me. How society should manage production in a an democratical way is.

Besides, focusing on a poor ex-factory owner, who may have to do an hour of honest work in his life, while ignoring all other travesties that happens shows an intellectual dishonesty.


If no one owns it, then its use rests on the intersubjective criteria for ownership of the people around it. If people believe the basis for ownership is homesteading, then a person can only homestead the factory to own it. If they think its possession and use, then that. If they think its just getting there first, then that. What the hell does intersubjective criteria mean? Just a fancier and obscufating way of saying; "as agreed upon"? How about if the the "intersubjective criteria" for ownership of the means of production is none? As we don't like the effect exclusive private ownership of the means of production has on society.

I seem to remember that you earlier also said that a town rigthly owns a lake it depends on, so as society depends on factories they should rightly own it.


If it is owned by the community then it is up to the community to decide or not who gets to use it, for what purpose, to meed whose ends. All other options than inexclusive (all that wants can also be a full member) community control is unacceptable as it produces unequal opportunities. And we don't need those pesky entrepeneurs as we are perfectly capable of innovating and modernising without giving them ownership of anything.

If it showed itself necessary I could even accept "monetary" rewards for especially innovative folks. As long as those "monetary" rewards were only usable on consumer goods.


If there are no factories, then this is pure equality of opportunity. Not relevant.
Nobody is actively preventing someone to start one (notice I say no one and not nothing. obviously there are natural factors). This is what i usually use as the background. How does one person or group of people owning a factory not allow another person or other group of people to start one as well? There are scarce resources needed to build a factory, but since we're in an equal opportunity scenario, nobody has the monopoly on them or is actively preventing someone to go there and extract these resources. What advantages are there for the majority of society to grant exclusive control over the means of production?


Hope this cleared things up.

[anticap]

It looks like an exploitative dynamic because you are assuming the purpose of the factory to be profit....

I assumed nothing; I accepted the scenario as you painted it. You didn't say that there were no owners; you said that the "owner-worker dynamic" was "drastically lower" and that anyone could "have" (which I read as "own") a factory with just a couple of workers. This is an "owner-worker dynamic" if ever there was one, and the purpose of that dynamic is for the owner to squeeze profit out of the workers.


If the factory is mostly automated, its the machines, not the workers, who are producing the labor.

Nonsense. Machines are not actors; they don't "labor," they are set into motion by labor. Whatever exchange-values come out of them was put into them by labor.


The workers labor is in the "well-being" of the machines that keep on working.

You're catching on. Whatever exchange-value comes out of your factory is produced by your maintenance workers; remove them, and your machines grind to a halt.

If there appeared magically a factory that was fully-automated, floating, and invisible (so that nobody could fence it off and monopolize it), then it would drop goods with no exchange-values all over the world for the benefit of all.

A couple of short things you could stand to read:

The Fetishism of Commodities (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/reproduction-daily-life) (about 1/4 down the page; by all means read it all if you like)

The Validity of the Labor Theory of Value (http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1967/intromet/ch01.htm#s8) (last section; anchor should take you to it... edit: nope, anonym.to strips anchors)

[Havet]

What the hell does intersubjective criteria mean? Just a fancier and obscufating way of saying; "as agreed upon"? How about if the the "intersubjective criteria" for ownership of the means of production is none? As we don't like the effect exclusive private ownership of the means of production has on society.

Then great. In that particular community, or group of communities, or in the whole of a country that might be the people's choice. I only ask for tolerance to others who have different notions of "as agreed upon", except if they are disrupting the equality of opportunity of other people or murdering, enslaving or stealing others.


I seem to remember that you earlier also said that a town rigthly owns a lake it depends on, so as society depends on factories they should rightly own it. I said a town rightly owns what is agreed upon that they own it (common resource), and that a factory should respect that, or face the consequences. In that example you gave, you are taking factories outside of that particular community. In reality, if a community would be so dependant of a factory they would build one themselves and manage it how they see fit.


All other options than inexclusive (all that wants can also be a full member) community control is unacceptable as it produces unequal opportunities. And we don't need those pesky entrepeneurs as we are perfectly capable of innovating and modernising without giving them ownership of anything.

Well, thats great then. I just don't see how you are justified in forcing other people outside your community to be like you. You should at least show them how your community would eventually be better, but not force them (unless they are being actively murdered, enslaved, stolen, have unequal opportunities, you get the idea).



Not relevant. What advantages are there for the majority of society to grant exclusive control over the means of production?

I think we're purely debating semantics now. What you call society may be different from what I call society. What I think is likely and fair would be to have different communities with different ideologies trying different things and then figuring out the most fair and effective management method.

The majority of society would not be granting any exclusive control to anyone. Everyone would be free to acquire a MOP by their own effort, and set up communities where everyone has a means of production, or organize themselves in communes and collectivize the MOP and manage them demcoratically, or something else that doesnt involve taking away people's freedom and their equality of opportunity.

[Havet]

I assumed nothing; I accepted the scenario as you painted it. You didn't say that there were no owners; you said that the "owner-worker dynamic" was "drastically lower" and that anyone could "have" (which I read as "own") a factory with just a couple of workers. This is an "owner-worker dynamic" if ever there was one, and the purpose of that dynamic is for the owner to squeeze profit out of the workers.

When I talk of people being able to create their own MOP and then hiring workers, it is definitely NOT in the same dynamic we see today. This is because today laborers are free to compete among themselves, and so are capitalists to a certain extent.

But between laborers and capitalists there is no competition whatever, because through governmental privilege granted to capital, and when the volume of the currency and the rate of interest is regulated, the owners of it are enabled to keep the laborers dependent on them for employment, so making the condition of wage-subjection perpetual. If you wish to understand this current exploitation dynamic better, he's my previous post on the subject:


For under this statist system, where licensing and regulation make it unduly difficult to actually be entrepreneurial, a disproportionate number of those who would otherwise be entrepreneurs become wage labor. This creates an oversupply of wage labor as opposed to entrepreneurial activity.

This gives the capitalist class an unfair advantage in two ways. First, it reduces the amount of competition on the market, increasing the capitalist's market share and prices with little effort on the part of the capitalist. Second, it reduces the amount of bargaining power the wage labor has. Because there is an oversupply of wage labor, wage labor is more easily replaced than it would be on a real free market, and wages are depressed. This amounts to an effective expropriation of value by the capitalists (who are in a state-created position of power) from the consumers on the one hand (through reduced competition and higher prices) and from the workers on the other (who are underpaid and have less than their fair amount of inflence) and even doubly due to the fact that the workers ARE consumers when they are not on the job.

In a free market, where more gain-oriented thought was present, where more entrepreneurs were around seeking to take from the reduced supply of voluntary wage labor workers, the capitalists would no longer have this unfair advantage. The workers, being scarcer, will thus command higher wages and more influence upon the employer, making it a much more fair system, the libertarian's view of it as an interaction between peers would be true.

So long as one man, or class of men, are able to prevent others from working for themselves because they cannot obtain the means of production or capitalize their own products, so long those others are not free to compete freely with those to whom privilege gives the means, then they are not free.


Nonsense. Machines are not actors; they don't "labor," they are set into motion by labor. Whatever exchange-values come out of them was put into them by labor. Oh yes, of course. Ultimately, someone had to do labor to create the machines in the first place (physical labor and intellectual labor).


You're catching on. Whatever exchange-value comes out of your factory is produced by your maintenance workers; remove them, and your machines grind to a halt.

If there appeared magically a factory that was fully-automated, floating, and invisible (so that nobody could fence it off and monopolize it), then it would drop goods with no exchange-values all over the world for the benefit of all.

A couple of short things you could stand to read:

The Fetishism of Commodities (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/reproduction-daily-life) (about 1/4 down the page; by all means read it all if you like)

The Validity of the Labor Theory of Value (http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1967/intromet/ch01.htm#s8) (last section; anchor should take you to it... edit: nope, anonym.to strips anchors)

Yes I think the LTV is valid, although I interpret it slighty differently. See here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/labour-theory-value-t112448/index.html) for details.

Anyway, it was never my intention to think workers would not be needed, but that automation and the development of society would make these men so highly skilled (along with a revolution, equality of opportunity and freedom), that they would no longer be under the constant exploitation we see today.

Interesting links btw

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I'm still not entirely sure how mutualism plans to deal with large corporations. Some mutualists seem to think they will collapse on their own if you remove the state, while Tucker seems to think they'd have to be expropriated.

And unless you're planning a worldwide mutualist revolution, how will mutualism handle foreign competition?

[anticap]

When I talk of people being able to create their own MOP and then hiring workers, it is definitely NOT in the same dynamic we see today.

Then you haven't thought it through, which isn't especially difficult since it is immediately apparent that if I own a factory and hire you to work it for me, then I'm a capitalist and you're my wage-slave.

Whether you realize it or not, you're essentially arguing for an expansion of the capitalist franchise. I'm trying to explain to you that the "owner-worker dynamic" is inherently unjust.


Oh yes, of course. Ultimately, someone had to do labor to create the machines in the first place (physical labor and intellectual labor).

Then you agree that machines do not "labor"; capital does not "produce." I'm glad to hear it. Does that mean that you read the Perlman piece? Excellent, isn't it? Such a lucid dismantling of capitalist ideology. I thank comrade JimmyJazz (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=15550) for turning me on to Fredy.


Yes I think the LTV is valid, although I interpret it slighty differently. See here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/labour-theory-value-t112448/index.html) for details.

You may not have noticed, but I commented in that thread, making similar arguments to trivas7, who eventually abandoned our exchange.

Anyway, I'm aware of the modern mutualist position on the LTV, as espoused by Carson. I'm glad to see any concession to reality by market advocates, of course, though I wish they'd give up trying to bend reality to fit their market ideology, and opt for the reverse instead.


Anyway, it was never my intention to think workers would not be needed, but that automation and the development of society would make these men so highly skilled (along with a revolution, equality of opportunity and freedom), that they would no longer be under the constant exploitation we see today.

As I said at the outset, and can only repeat here: all you've really done is paint a picture with fewer exploited workers, who are exploited less than before. You haven't eliminated exploitation, because you haven't eliminated the "owner-worker dynamic."

[Havet]

I'm still not entirely sure how mutualism plans to deal with large corporations. Some mutualists seem to think they will collapse on their own if you remove the state, while Tucker seems to think they'd have to be expropriated.

And unless you're planning a worldwide mutualist revolution, how will mutualism handle foreign competition?

I havent gotten to that part yet, but i've seen arguments for both.

As for foreign competition, I suppose by discrimination towards exploited-based products services, closed markets at the beginning, etc, although I think a mutualist community would be far more cost efficient than a wage-slavery based market, since trading would be done more fairly, giving room to more innovation from everyone in society that was willing to do so without any restriction.

[Havet]

Then you haven't thought it through, which isn't especially difficult since it is immediately apparent that if I own a factory and hire you to work it for me, then I'm a capitalist and you're my wage-slave.

Whether you realize it or not, you're essentially arguing for an expansion of the capitalist franchise. I'm trying to explain to you that the "owner-worker dynamic" is inherently unjust.

As I said at the outset, and can only repeat here: all you've really done is paint a picture with fewer exploited workers, who are exploited less than before. You haven't eliminated exploitation, because you haven't eliminated the "owner-worker dynamic."

In a mutualist society, if I own a factory and I hire people, the dynamic is different than what see today.

The current exploitation today happens through governmental privilege granted to capital, whence the volume of the currency and the rate of interest is regulated, the owners of it are enabled to keep the laborers dependent on them for employment, so making the condition of wage-subjection perpetual.

This gives the capitalist class an unfair advantage in two ways. First, it reduces the amount of competition on the market, increasing the capitalist's market share and prices with little effort on the part of the capitalist. Second, it reduces the amount of bargaining power the wage labor has. Because there is an oversupply of wage labor, wage labor is more easily replaced than it would be on a real free market, and wages are depressed. This amounts to an effective expropriation of value by the capitalists (who are in a state-created position of power) from the consumers on the one hand (through reduced competition and higher prices) and from the workers on the other (who are underpaid and have less than their fair amount of inflence) and even doubly due to the fact that the workers ARE consumers when they are not on the job.

In a mutualist society, there is no governmental privilege granted to capital, from which follows that the volume of the currency and the rate of interest would not be regulated, and the owners of any MOP would not be able to keep the laborers dependent on them for employment. The employers would be just as free to seek a loan (which would be much easier than today) and start their own MOP and seek a better life.

Not only that, but if they actually choose to be employed, the amount of laborers would be much scarcer and specialized (because others had sought to self-employ themselves), rising their wages to a level that the employer and the employee are like equal peers in equal standing, and where one cannot easily replace the other without serious consequences.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I havent gotten to that part yet, but i've seen arguments for both.

As for foreign competition, I suppose by discrimination towards exploited-based products services, closed markets at the beginning, etc, although I think a mutualist community would be far more cost efficient than a wage-slavery based market, since trading would be done more fairly, giving room to more innovation from everyone in society that was willing to do so without any restriction.

If you're going to expropriate the capitalists, why not just establish complete democratic control of the economy with no chance of capitalism forming? How could your small mutualist firms every possibly compete with modern multinational corporations?

Closed markets? What happened to free market anti-capitalism? Discrimination towards exploitation based products in a society based on maximizing profit?

[anticap]

In a mutualist society, if I own a factory and I hire people, the dynamic is different than what see today.

No, it isn't, as I've explained, repeatedly.


The current exploitation today happens through governmental privilege granted to capital

You can repeat this until you're blue in the face, but it still won't change the fact that you haven't eliminated the "owner-worker dynamic."

Your argument is the same one offered by "anarcho"-capitalists, incidentally.


rising their wages to a level that the employer and the employee are like equal peers in equal standing

This is impossible. The purpose of the "owner-worker dynamic" is for the owner to make a profit, which he is able to do by paying the worker less than the value of what she produces.

You claim to accept the LTV, but you don't seem to understand that exploitation occurs even if the worker agrees to it (as most of them do, because they don't recognize the "owner-worker dynamic" as unjust).