The role of the gold standard in the Great Depression

[Revy]

Apparently OI'ers just love gold and like to go on about how fiat currency is "worthless" (ignoring the point of currency and the concept of money itself, the value assigned to it is what it is worth).

So I'm posting this to further expand on what I said in that thread (the market trends babble doesn't interest me).

The types who fawn over the gold standard are often "Austrian School" cappies (i.e., the people who think linking to some huge online tl;dr book on the Mises website full of cappie propaganda is an argument). It's apparently something they feel passionate about.

From an economics blog (http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html) (I, in no way endorse the political views the blog may have in general):




How the gold standard contributed to the Great Depression.
There always seem to be voices raising the possibility that a return to a monetary gold standard could solve all our problems. Among those championing this meme this week were Chris Mayer at Daily Reckoning (http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Issues/2005/DRUS120805.html), Robert Blumen at Mises Economics Blog (http://blog.mises.org/archives/004420.asp), and some of my fellow blogjammers (http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/blogjam_at_the.html).
Under a pure gold standard, the government would stand ready to trade dollars for gold at a fixed rate. Under such a monetary rule, it seems the dollar is "as good as gold."


Except that it really isn't-- the dollar is only as good as the government's credibility to stick with the standard. If a government can go on a gold standard, it can go off, and historically countries have done exactly that all the time. The fact that speculators know this means that any currency adhering to a gold standard (or, in more modern times, a fixed exchange rate) may be subject to a speculative attack.


After suspending gold convertibility in World War I, many countries stayed off gold and experienced chaotic fiscal and monetary policies in the early 1920's. Many observers reasoned then, just as many observers reason today, that the only way to restore fiscal and monetary responsibility would be to go back on gold, and by the end of the 1920's, most countries had returned to the gold standard.


I argued in a paper titled, "The Role of the International Gold Standard in Propagating the Great Depression," published in Contemporary Policy Issues in 1988, that counting on a gold standard to enforce monetary and fiscal discipline in an environment in which speculators had great doubts about governments' ability to adhere to that discipline was a recipe for disaster. International capital flows became more erratic, not less, as doubts were raised about whether first the pound would be devalued and then the dollar. Britain gave in to the speculative attacks and abandoned gold in 1931, whereas the U.S. toughed it out by deliberately raising interest rates in 1931 at a time when the economy was already near free fall.


Because of this uncertainty, there was a big increase in demand for gold, the one safe asset in this setting, which meant the relative price of gold must rise. If everybody is trying to hoard more gold, you're going to have to pay more potatoes to get an ounce of gold. Since the U.S. insisted on holding the dollar price of gold fixed, this meant that the dollar price of potatoes had to fall. The longer a country stayed on the gold standard, the more overall deflation it experienced. Many of us are persuaded that this deflation greatly added to the economic difficulties of those countries that insisted on sticking with a fixed value of their currency in terms of gold.




Ben Bernanke and Harold James, in a paper called "The Gold Standard, Deflation, and Financial Crisis in the Great Depression: An International Comparison" published in 1991 (NBER working paper version here (http://papers.nber.org/papers/w3488.v5.pdf)), noted that 13 other countries besides the U.K. had decided to abandon their currencies' gold parity in 1931. Bernanke and James' data for the average growth rate of industrial production for these countries (plotted in the top panel above) was positive in every year from 1932 on. Countries that stayed on gold, by contrast, experienced an average output decline of 15% in 1932. The U.S. abandoned gold in 1933, after which its dramatic recovery immediately began. The same happened after Italy dropped the gold standard in 1934, and for Belgium when it went off in 1935. On the other hand, the three countries that stuck with gold through 1936 (France, Netherlands, and Poland) saw a 6% drop in industrial production in 1935, while the rest of the world was experiencing solid growth.


A gold standard only works when everybody believes in the overall fiscal and monetary responsibility of the major world governments and the relative price of gold is fairly stable. And yet a lack of such faith was the precise reason the world returned to gold in the late 1920's and the reason many argue for a return to gold today. Saying you're on a gold standard does not suddenly make you credible. But it does set you up for some ferocious problems if people still doubt whether you've set your house in order.

Cliffs:
Countries that kept the gold standard suffered the hardest in the Great Depression, until they were forced to abandon it to try and recover.

Open, shut case. The gold standard sucks, even from a non-socialist perspective, will the Mises cultists ever abandon their fixation?

[ckaihatsu]

Economics -- and politics, for that matter -- both of which are *materialist* in basis -- is *exactly like* economics and politics at the *individual*, or small-scale, level.

If we can, we *all* probably prefer to be more individualistic and have personal discretion over our material resources -- this is akin to the gold standard level in which a country is seen to have a stronger, healthier, exporting economy. But, in times of distress, weaker terms of exchange, including a floating of debts into "fiat" currency -- or cheap money, for those of us on the ground -- are what's required since production -- or employment -- has gone into a lull.

This may seem intuitive since it's part of all of our lives' experience under capitalism, but it is *not* "natural" -- *instead* we could find it just as "natural" to endlessly explore the surface of the earth's crust at our leisure, without the least bit of work, planning, or anxiety, since people *could* potentially effortlessly work as cooperatively and constructively as the nodes that brought this information to your screen.

Capitalism, however, maintains a mixed-mode social environment in which some can gain tremendous advantages by being more competitive, to put it lightly. It's for this reason that economics and politics can seem so messy and complicated -- it's really not, from a bird's eye viewpoint, but it *is* tumultuous and fluctuating, especially to be *in it*, and everyone's not necessarily in the mood to be surfing all of it, all of the time.


Chris



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[Havet]

The types who fawn over the gold standard are often "Austrian School" cappies (i.e., the people who think linking to some huge online tl;dr book on the Mises website full of cappie propaganda is an argument). It's apparently something they feel passionate about.

From an economics blog (http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html) (I, in no way endorse the political views the blog may have in general):


So you think linking to an economic website who has another view on the gold standard is an argument?

:lol:

[Revy]

So you think linking to an economic website who has another view on the gold standard is an argument?

:lol:

You're super dense.

What I put on there was short enough. that's the point I said.

If you want to dispute it, let's go. But you have to put forward some arguments first.

You just proved me right. You've got no arguments....

[Havet]

You're super dense.

What I put on there was short enough. that's the point I said.

If you want to dispute it, let's go. But you have to put forward some arguments first.

You just proved me right. You've got no arguments....

What you put in there was totally worthless as an argument.

I'm not going to debate that "argument" (which you would not even consider an argument) if you would not care to debate any possible argument I could make out of an Austrian website link.

By stating your one-sidedness and biased position, one can certainly infer that this thread is merely a provocation and not an honest pursuit of truth.

This means that you are not open to reason, so you would never agree with what I were saying even if I were right.

Q.E.D

[Revy]

*sigh* You're wrong. Why in the world would I have posted this if I didn't want to debate, let alone in the Opposite Ideologies section?

If you want to look ignorant by being pedantic then go ahead.

[Dejavu]

What you put in there was totally worthless as an argument.

I'm not going to debate that "argument" (which you would not even consider an argument) if you would not care to debate any possible argument I could make out of an Austrian website link.

By stating your one-sidedness and biased position, one can certainly infer that this thread is merely a provocation and not an honest pursuit of truth.

This means that you are not open to reason, so you would never agree with what I were saying even if I were right.

Q.E.D


I was thinking the same thing. I'd love to have a real debate over gold as money (reserves) but I did not find in this thread any real argument. Judging by the OP's comments, I don't think he has a good grasp on the subject at any rate. That sucks because the title had me excited too. :crying:

[Dejavu]

Demogorgan ! You actually thanked that? LoL. I'm shocked dude. I thought you would expect more out of an 'argument' to warrant your respect. Seems I overestimated you.:crying:

[Demogorgon]

Demogorgan ! You actually thanked that? LoL. I'm shocked dude. I thought you would expect more out of an 'argument' to warrant your respect. Seems I overestimated you.:crying:
Sure, anything that winds gold bugs gets a thanks from me. If I wanted to debate the Gold Standard today I would write something different, but this gets people wound up and ready for when I do wish to.

The article isn't the strongest ever written on the subject, but posting it gets the desired effect.

[IcarusAngel]

Demogorgan ! You actually thanked that? LoL. I'm shocked dude. I thought you would expect more out of an 'argument' to warrant your respect. Seems I overestimated you.:crying:

Dejavu, if you're not even going to post serious responses why don't you just take it to Mises forums instead of continuing to personalize issues here? This is a forum to DEBATE, it is not like Mises forums where members are victorous merely by being the loudest and making the most posts about their supposed knowledge.

At least Olaf only posts his bizarre opinions on things, no matter how pathetic it is. So remember, when we post here let's not be on our 'mises' forum' behavior.

[Dejavu]

Its ironic that you claim I am personalizing things. If there is anyone on these forums with personal disdain for particular kinds of thought , my nomination would go for you. Not only do you attempt to critique austrians and libertarians, you also mix in a lot of venom as you hiss at their positions to the point where you seem to have personalized it.

If I were to guess , I think you have tried to post on their forums and probably got 'pwned' badly and you're bitter about it. Those people are not always right over there but you gotta be on top of your game to debate a lot of them. Its not like here where a lot of 'debators' are emotive , sloganish , and dogmatic. ( Might have something to do with average age around here but my guess is simple lack of sufficient knowledge about the controversial topics they discuss.)

Anyway , I never post on Mises and I did only a few times like a couple years ago. I find it lacking in entertainment there and the people rather blandish. Its more much alive over here at revleft :) ( And I swear , Its not only because debates are so much easier here. :P)

[Revy]

Why Not the Gold Standard? (http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Politics/whynotthegoldstandard.html)

Talking Points on the Likely Consequences of Re-Establishment of a Gold Standard:

Brad DeLong
U.C. Berkeley
Consequences for the Magnitude of Business Cycles:

Loss of control over economic policy. If the U.S. and a substantial number of other industrial economies adopted a gold standard, the U.S. would lose the ability to tune its economic policies to fit domestic conditions.


For example, in the spring of 1995 the dollar weakened against the yen. Under a gold standard, such a decline in the dollar would not have been allowed: instead the Federal Reserve would have raised interest rates considerably in order to keep the value of the dollar fixed at its gold parity, and a recession would probably have followed.

Recessionary bias. Under a gold standard, the burden of adjustment is always placed on the "weak currency" country.


Countries seeing downward market pressure on the values of their currencies are forced to contract their economies and raise unemployment.
The gold standard imposes no equivalent adjustment burden on countries seeing upward market pressure on currency values.
Hence a deflationary bias which makes it likely that a gold standard regime will see a higher average unemployment rate than an alternative managed regime.

The gold standard and the Great Depression. The current judgment of economic historians (see, for example, Barry J. Eichengreen, Golden Fetters) is that attachment to the gold standard played a major part in keeping governments from fighting the Great Depression, and was a major factor turning the recession of 1929-1931 into the Great Depression of 1931-1941.


Countries that were not on the gold standard in 1929--or that quickly abandoned the gold standard--by and large escaped the Great Depression
Countries that abandoned the gold standard in 1930 and 1931 suffered from the Great Depression, but escaped its worst ravages.
Countries that held to the gold standard through 1933 (like the United States) or 1936 (like France) suffered the worst from the Great Depression

Commitment to the gold standard prevented Federal Reserve action to expand the money supply in 1930 and 1931--and forced President Hoover into destructive attempts at budget-balancing in order to avoid a gold standard-generated run on the dollar.
Commitment to the gold standard left countries vulnerable to "runs" on their currencies--Mexico in January of 1995 writ very, very large. Such a run, and even the fear that there might be a future run, boosted unemployment and amplified business cycles during the gold standard era.
The standard interpretation of the Depression, dating back to Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's Monetary History of the United States, is that the Federal Reserve could have but for some mysterious reason did not boost the money supply to cure the Depression; but Friedman and Schwartz do not stress the role played by the gold standard in tieing the Federal Reserve's hands--the "golden fetters" of Eichengreen.
Friedman was and is aware of the role played by the gold standard--hence his long time advocacy of floating exchange rates, the antithesis of the gold standard.



Consequences for the Long-Run Average Rate of Inflation:

Average inflation determined by gold mining. Under a gold standard, the long-run trajectory of the price level is determined by the pace at which gold is mined in South Africa and Russia.


For example, the discovery and exploitation of large gold reserves near present-day Johannesburg at the end of the nineteenth century was responsible for a four percentage point per year shift in the worldwide rate of inflation--from a deflation of roughly two percent per year before 1896 to an inflation of roughly two percent per year after 1896.
In the election of 1896, William Jennings Bryan's Democrats called for free coinage of silver as a way to end the then-current deflation and stop the transfer of wealth away from indebted farmers. The concurrent gold discoveries in South Africa changed the rate of drift of the price level, and accomplished more than the writers of the Democratic platform could have dreamed, without any change in the U.S. coinage.
Thus any political factors that interrupted the pace of gold mining would have major effects on the long-run trend of the price level--send us into an era of slow deflation, with high unemployment. Conversely, significant advances in gold mining technology could provide a significant boost to the average rate of inflation over decades.
Under the gold standard, the average rate of inflation or deflation over decades ceases to be under the control of the government or the central bank, and becomes the result of the balance between growing world production and the pace of gold mining.

Why Do Some Still Advocate a Gold Standard?



A belief that governments and central banks should not control the average rate of inflation over decades, and that the world will be better off if the long-run drift of the price level is determined "automatically."
A belief that bondholders and investors will be reassured by a government committed to a gold standard, will be confident that inflation rates will be low, and so will bid down nominal interest rates.
Of course, if you do not trust a central bank to keep inflation low, why should you trust it to remain on the gold standard for generations? This large hole in the supposed case for a gold standard is not addressed.
Failure to recognize the role played by the gold standard in amplifying and propagating the Great Depression.
Failure to recognize that the international monetary system functions best when the burden-of-adjustment is spread between balance-of-payments "surplus" and "deficit" countries, rather than being loaded exclusively onto "deficit" countries.
Failure to recognize how gold convertibility increases the likelihood of a run on the currency, and thus amplifies recessions.

[Dejavu]

^ Ok , fair enough. I will reply to that soonish.

Question to human condition, do you understand the arguments actually being made there or did you just copy and past because it seems knowledgeable and correct?

I'll address everyone of those bullet points both the ones I agree and disagree with. Can you do the same? I am interested in hearing your thoughts.

[Parker]

Actually, from a Marxist perspective, it's pretty easy to see the capitalist case for gold: commodity production requires commodity money. Fiat money cannot represent abstract social labour directly.

Money evolved out of the internal tension in a commodity between its use-value and its value. The value of one commodity is expressed in terms of the use-value of another standard commodity (in this case, gold, but in earlier societies it was slaves, camels, copper, etc.).

Gold is pretty much the ideal metal for money. It doesn't rust, it is a single element, it is scarce (a lot of labour goes into mining it and processing it) and it has few other industrial uses. A small amount of gold represents a huge amount of labour.

Gold is excellent as a measure of value. However, it is poor as a medium of circulation, for obvious reasons. So fiat money evolved out of the requirements of industrial capitalist society, credit relations, etc., and money is now just symbols.

The abandonment of the gold standard by Britain, etc., in the 1930s meant that their currencies were cheaper relative to the dollar. If everyone devalued at the same time, there would have been no net advantage for anyone.

But it's all beside the point.

Even if money were just pure gold, we would still see capitalist society subject to successive crises as the blindly operating law of value seeks to readjust itself back through the devaluation/destruction of capital. The real barrier to the accumulation of capital is capital itself.

[Skooma Addict]

The types who fawn over the gold standard are often "Austrian School" cappies (i.e., the people who think linking to some huge online tl;dr book on the Mises website full of cappie propaganda is an argument). It's apparently something they feel passionate about.


The vast majority of Modern Austrians do not support a "gold standard." Most either want either 100% reserve banking or free banking.

[swirling_vortex]

The vast majority of Modern Austrians do not support a "gold standard." Most either want either 100% reserve banking or free banking.
Huh? Austrian economics is based on the fantasy that all fiat money is worthless. All the Paulbots I've talked to have a big fetish for a gold standard.

[Skooma Addict]

Huh? Austrian economics is based on the fantasy that all fiat money is worthless. All the Paulbots I've talked to have a big fetish for a gold standard.

Well Ron Paul supporters are not the best people to go to when you want to learn about AE. But many Austrian Economists advocate free banking with fiat currency. So no, they do not think that all fiat money is worthless.

[Demogorgon]

Well Ron Paul supporters are not the best people to go to when you want to learn about AE. But many Austrian Economists advocate free banking with fiat currency. So no, they do not think that all fiat money is worthless.Not that I know of. You mean fiduciary currency surely?

[Skooma Addict]

Not that I know of. You mean fiduciary currency surely?

Yea. My bad. Although there may actually be some Austrians out there who actually do support fiat currency.

[swirling_vortex]

Well Ron Paul supporters are not the best people to go to when you want to learn about AE. But many Austrian Economists advocate free banking with fiat currency. So no, they do not think that all fiat money is worthless.
Trust me, I was a kooky Paulbot before I really discovered what socialism was (and capitalism to an extent) and all they talk about is how fiat currency somehow is the cause for every economic problem. You're probably thinking of Monetarism, which is ok without implementing a gold standard.

[greymatter]

I agree that gold is a silly currency to use, as it's value is almost as imaginary as that of fiat currency, but what do y'all think about using the kilowatt hour as a standard form of currency? It would definitely have an effect on the psychology of money.

[ckaihatsu]

I agree that gold is a silly currency to use, as it's value is almost as imaginary as that of fiat currency, but what do y'all think about using the kilowatt hour as a standard form of currency? It would definitely have an effect on the psychology of money.


The shortcoming of focusing on an Energy Accounting-type approach is that it's *still* an arbitrary valuation, like gold or fiat currency -- why should the entire economic system hinge on a definition of value that is as random as the available flows of energy that nature provides?

*All* of these approaches are *reformist* in nature because of this arbitrariness -- what *should* matter to us as revolutionary leftists is the *human* factor, labor (since animals don't produce a surplus). Indexing a post-capitalist economy to labor hours makes the *most* sense.


Chris





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[Havet]

People should just use whatever standard they like, whether that's gold, silver, palladium, seashells, caps, whatever. If enough people find one standard suitable, then they should be able to use it freely.

However, given the current development of technology, I suspect any standard would be replaced by electronic cards similar to what we have today, except they could actually be backed by something.

[ckaihatsu]

People should just use whatever standard they like, whether that's gold, silver, palladium, seashells, caps, whatever. If enough people find one standard suitable, then they should be able to use it freely.

However, given the current development of technology, I suspect any standard would be replaced by electronic cards similar to what we have today, except they could actually be backed by something.


You're not understanding -- the *medium* of exchange is *not* the point. What *matters* is how well the currency, in whatever form, *functions*, along with the economic system as a whole, to convey goods and services to the population given certain work inputs.

Whenever the *mechanism* of the economic system gets erratic and becomes more trouble than it's worth, as with the current rampant *deflation* and drying up of private-sector investments (extensions of credit / financial risk-taking) to the manufacturing process -- that we've been seeing for about 2 years now -- then we have to stop and ask ourselves if this currency / economy *mechanism* is truly reflecting the *value* that's going into it, particularly from labor.

If the private sector can't even function well enough to provide capital for the growth of manufacturing and prevent job losses, then the public funding *bailouts* on the scale of trillions of dollars is basically the equivalent of economic *fascism*, or the reintroduction of royalty-type concentration and "control" over the productive process -- Wall Street.

[IcarusAngel]

Humans don't need a currency. The scarcity of a product could be determined by how rare it is and how much work/labor went into it. Then, the people who need those products the most could be given them. Food is a product everybody needs, and, given the right production methods, everybody could have access to it. In a democratic factory obviously the members would decide what jobs they will perform and what needs to be traded with whom, etc.

[Havet]

You're not understanding -- the *medium* of exchange is *not* the point. What *matters* is how well the currency, in whatever form, *functions*, along with the economic system as a whole, to convey goods and services to the population given certain work inputs.

Whenever the *mechanism* of the economic system gets erratic and becomes more trouble than it's worth, as with the current rampant *deflation* and drying up of private-sector investments (extensions of credit / financial risk-taking) to the manufacturing process -- that we've been seeing for about 2 years now -- then we have to stop and ask ourselves if this currency / economy *mechanism* is truly reflecting the *value* that's going into it, particularly from labor.

If the private sector can't even function well enough to provide capital for the growth of manufacturing and prevent job losses, then the public funding *bailouts* on the scale of trillions of dollars is basically the equivalent of economic *fascism*, or the reintroduction of royalty-type concentration and "control" over the productive process -- Wall Street.

Hey, I agree with everything you've said. The current currency/economic mechanism does not truly reflect the value of commodities, resources and labor. That is one of the problems of fiat currency.

[ckaihatsu]

Hey, I agree with everything you've said. The current currency/economic mechanism does not truly reflect the value of commodities, resources and labor. That is one of the problems of fiat currency.


Yeah, but you haven't acknowledged that the problem encompasses *all* value-abstractions into *all* mediums, not just fiat currency -- that means gold and silver as well. This problem is because, once again, it's not *only* about the currency mechanism itself but about the *entire* mechanical tendency of the commodity production system itself.

I've attached an illustration that depicts Marx's Declining Rate of Profit -- it's for this empirical fact about the capitalist system that people here are anti-capitalists (among many other reasons).

Also please see:





It is from Potosí that most of the silver shipped through the Spanish Main came. According to official records, 45,000 tons of pure silver were mined from Cerro Rico from 1556 to 1783. Of this total, 7,000 tons went to the Spanish monarchy. Indian laborers, forced by Francisco de Toledo, Count of Oropesa through the traditional Incan mita institution of contributed labor, came to die by the thousands, not simply from exposure and brutal labor, but by mercury poisoning: in the patio process the silver-ore, having been crushed to powder by hydraulic machinery, was cold-mixed with mercury and trodden to an amalgam by the native workers with their bare feet. [2] The mercury was then driven off by heating, producing deadly vapors.

To compensate for the diminishing indigenous labor force, the colonists made a request in 1608 to the Crown in Madrid to begin allowing for the importation of 1500 to 2000 African slaves per year. An estimated total of 30,000 African slaves were taken to Potosí throughout the colonial era. African slaves were also forced to work in the Casa de la Moneda as acémilas humanas (human mules). Since mules would die after couple of months pushing the mills, the colonists replaced the four mules with twenty African slaves. (Angola Maconde 1999)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potos%C3%AD


---





Used generally to describe a series of economic events from the second half of the 15th century to the first half of the 17th, the price revolution refers most specifically to the high rate of inflation that characterized the period across Western Europe, with prices on average rising perhaps sixfold over 150 years.

It was once thought that this high inflation was caused by the large influx of gold and silver from the Spanish treasure fleet from the New World, especially the silver of Peru which began to be mined in large quantities from 1545. According to this theory, too many people with too much money chasing too few goods.

The start of the price rises actually predated the large-scale influx of bullion from across the Atlantic, reflecting in part a quintupling of silver production in central Europe in 1460-1530: though this output fell by two-thirds by the 1610s, it was significant in fueling the early stages of inflation that were causing an undermining price regime in place since the previous upsurge in silver production in 1170-1320.

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


[23] A Business Perspective on the Declining Rate of Profit

[Havet]

Yeah, but you haven't acknowledged that the problem encompasses *all* value-abstractions into *all* mediums, not just fiat currency -- that means gold and silver as well. This problem is because, once again, it's not *only* about the currency mechanism itself but about the *entire* mechanical tendency of the commodity production system itself.

Yes of course. The current system, with its governmental privilege to capital, alienates the true value of some products and services and expropriates some of the consequent reward to the labor that went to create them.

This is why i'm a free-market anti-capitalist (http://www.mutualist.org/) sort of guy now.

[ckaihatsu]

Yes of course. The current system, with its governmental privilege to capital, alienates the true value of some products and services and expropriates some of the consequent reward to the labor that went to create them.

This is why i'm a free-market anti-capitalist (http://www.mutualist.org/) sort of guy now.


Okay, so if we're basically agreed on the nature of the *current* system, let me ask you this...





Mutualists belong to a non-collectivist segment of anarchists. Although we favor democratic control when collective action is required by the nature of production and other cooperative endeavors, we do not favor collectivism as an ideal in itself. We are not opposed to money or exchange. We believe in private property, so long as it is based on personal occupancy and use. We favor a society in which all relationships and transactions are non-coercive, and based on voluntary cooperation, free exchange, or mutual aid. The "market," in the sense of exchanges of labor between producers, is a profoundly humanizing and liberating concept. What we oppose is the conventional understanding of markets, as the idea has been coopted and corrupted by state capitalism.

Our ultimate vision is of a society in which the economy is organized around free market exchange between producers, and production is carried out mainly by self-employed artisans and farmers, small producers' cooperatives, worker-controlled large enterprises, and consumers' cooperatives. To the extent that wage labor still exists (which is likely, if we do not coercively suppress it), the removal of statist privileges will result in the worker's natural wage, as Benjamin Tucker put it, being his full product.


- How, exactly, would you determine the value of your currency? What agency would have the final word on what the currency's value is, as for purposes of borrowing / credit ?

- How, exactly, would contracts be enforced if the parties -- say, two adjacent landowners -- discovered divergent interests? Without a state authority to enforce a body of laws there is no law, and *with* a state authority there has to be a collective "chip-in", or regularized taxation, to cover the costs of the state authority.

- Besides all this, "free-market anti-capitalism" is a *contradiction* in terms. The term 'free market' is *antithetical* to the term 'anti-capitalism' -- capitalism uses markets as its sole mechanism for *all* major transactions, so someone who is anti-capitalist is *also*, necessarily, anti-markets.

[Havet]

- How, exactly, would you determine the value of your currency? What agency would have the final word on what the currency's value is, as for purposes of borrowing / credit ?

Intersubjective majority consensus


- How, exactly, would contracts be enforced if the parties -- say, two adjacent landowners -- discovered divergent interests? Without a state authority to enforce a body of laws there is no law, and *with* a state authority there has to be a collective "chip-in", or regularized taxation, to cover the costs of the state authority.

The State might produce law currently, but its an overstatement to assume that without a State there will be no law or rules in a society.

As for law, the law could appear spontaneously as it has in the past in the form of common law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law). The most important thing is that this law can only exist if it serves the interests and beliefs of most people in that area. A worker's/people's militia could exist to take care of the law enforcement.


- Besides all this, "free-market anti-capitalism" is a *contradiction* in terms. The term 'free market' is *antithetical* to the term 'anti-capitalism' -- capitalism uses markets as its sole mechanism for *all* major transactions, so someone who is anti-capitalist is *also*, necessarily, anti-markets.

Not really.

To some, capitalism might mean individual ownership of capital is allowed, or even encouraged, but on a larger scale capitalism is synonymous with mercantilist practice.

Capitalism is functionally a state enforced system and is quite contrary to anarchism. This also makes capitalism incompatible with free enterprise and free markets.

Anyway, when I talk of free-markets, its important to point out that I don't use the term as most ancaps/vulgar libertarians use it.

Visit my two (http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-anarcho-socialist-t116765/index.html?t=116765) threads (http://www.revleft.com/vb/capitalism-vs-free-t122671/index.html?t=122671) about this subject so as to enlighten what I mean when I use the term free-market and why I consider a true free-market to be anti-capitalist.

[ckaihatsu]

As for law, the law could appear spontaneously as it has in the past in the form of common law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law). The most important thing is that this law can only exist if it serves the interests and beliefs of most people in that area. A worker's/people's militia could exist to take care of the law enforcement.


Okay, this is synonymous with the concept of a collective workers' political economy.





To some, capitalism might mean individual ownership of capital is allowed, or even encouraged, but on a larger scale capitalism is synonymous with mercantilist practice.


And I take it that you support the first and could see a society in which a collective workers' political economy would disallow the latter -- ?

If this is the case then I'd *really* like to know just where you think the people of such a society would * draw the line * between the first and the second. In other words, at what point would a small-scale private concern -- one that is "free" to make profits -- be *halted* from any further growth, so as to prevent mercantilist (arbitrage) practice?

This very topic came up a year or so ago in a discussion elsewhere with a right-wing libertarian, and I fault *all* libertarians on the grounds of not having a fully worked-out conception of how to handle the differences in the economy that would arise between the small-scale, private interests and the larger, industrial-oriented properties that would have to be more-collectively managed.

Basically, how would the products from industrial production be fit into the "free market" economic system of exchange values? And what would prevent small-scale private ownerships (farmers, artisans) from taking exception to the flood of goods being introduced into the market from industrial production? Certainly their local operations could never expect to compete and stay in business alongside mass production, given a certain basis price for the raw materials needed for either type of production (seed, steel).





From: Chris Kaihatsu
Sent on: Friday, May 2, 2008 3:05 PM

Thanks, Rick, I understand there's a world of difference between a
mom-and-pop store and a Wal-Mart busting down the city's doors, but
let me ask you this:

What if the uncles of several mom-and-pop operations throughout the
Midwest happened to meet up and figured out that by pooling their
inheritances / nest eggs / whatever they could buy *more* goods, at
cheaper wholesale prices, and could leverage a brand name to create
awareness across an entire region? Then they could sell their goods
cheaper than the mom-and-pop stores, *and* be more responsive to the
overall market?

What term do you give to this, Rick?



On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 2:40 PM, Rick Flosi <[address removed]> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Capitalism is not the problem, Corporatism is. The Socialist Movement seems
> to incorrectly define and identify the problem and thus place blame on the
> wrong place and then erroneously conclude that Socialism is the answer.
> Capitalism is the mom and pop shop down the street. Corporatism is Bush's
> Oil Company. So unless you think that mom and pop shop is evil, please
> update your terminology.
>
> Thanks.


[...]


http://www.meetup.com/lonelantern/messages/2798342/

[Havet]

And I take it that you support the first and could see a society in which a collective workers' political economy would disallow the latter -- ?

I guess. I support individual property as well as collective property, so long as they are not acquired without going by the intersubjective consensus of the community (in other words, majority agreement).

I was talking about this with RGacky3 as well, in that you need property rights to prevent other people from destroying the specific purpose you were working on, destroy the betterments you brought to your surroundings, steal your provisions for yourself and your family and/or destroy projects that benefit the community.

Individual property rights are no more justified than collective property rights. It doesn't matter if there's profit or not, it matters that anyone, whether individually or collectively, cannot survive if their products of their labor are not secured by force, which can be done by worker's militia, for eg.


If this is the case then I'd *really* like to know just where you think the people of such a society would * draw the line * between the first and the second. In other words, at what point would a small-scale private concern -- one that is "free" to make profits -- be *halted* from any further growth, so as to prevent mercantilist (arbitrage) practice?

When at some point he restricted other people's equality of opportunity.

Look at it this way: Free-market means free exchange of goods and services. This implies that there must be equality of opportunity, otherwise people are not as free to exchange and trade goods and services.

If a business were to increase so much as to achieve a natural monopoly position, it would likely use its power to restrict other people's equality of opportunity to produce for the same market. It would then be necessary to abolish such institution with such monopoly.

However, you may argue: "well then what's the point of having free-markets if they lead to monopolies? We would just be continuously having to abolish them!". But this, of course, presupposes that the appearance of monopolies throughout history was a natural phenomena, which it wasn't (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1560065&postcount=71).


This very topic came up a year or so ago in a discussion elsewhere with a right-wing libertarian, and I fault *all* libertarians on the grounds of not having a fully worked-out conception of how to handle the differences in the economy that would arise between the small-scale, private interests and the larger, industrial-oriented properties that would have to be more-collectively managed.

Well, in the context of a free-market/free-enterprise society with equality of opportunity, the dominant forms of economic organization in an authentic free market would be worker-owned and operated industries, partnerships, cooperatives, a mass of small businesses, modestly sized private companies and self-employed persons. Industries that remained nominally owned by outside shareholders would largely function on a co-determined basis, that is, as partnerships between shareholders and labor with labor having the upper hand.(See "Iron Fist", by Kevin Carson) So the traditional anarcho-syndicalist ideal of an industrial system owned and operated by the workers could, for the most part, be achieved in the context of a stateless free market.


Basically, how would the products from industrial production be fit into the "free market" economic system of exchange values? And what would prevent small-scale private ownerships (farmers, artisans) from taking exception to the flood of goods being introduced into the market from industrial production? Certainly their local operations could never expect to compete and stay in business alongside mass production, given a certain basis price for the raw materials needed for either type of production (seed, steel).

First of all, there are forces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseconomies_of_scale) which make mass-production businesses have to increase their prices.

Second, remmember, there would be equality of opportunity. Mass-production has advantages and disadvantages - which can be used to the advantage of local operations. Besides, people might be willing to pay a bit more in order to get more quality.

[ckaihatsu]

I was talking about this with RGacky3 as well, in that you need property rights to prevent other people from destroying the specific purpose you were working on, destroy the betterments you brought to your surroundings, steal your provisions for yourself and your family and/or destroy projects that benefit the community.


So *this* is virtually synonymous with a *communist* conception of *personal* property -- anything that you yourself use, for your own person, which is *not* an investment or accumulation.





I guess. I support individual property as well as collective property, so long as they are not acquired without going by the intersubjective consensus of the community (in other words, majority agreement).


Okay, so if we combine the respect for *personal* property alongside the (collective) workers' political economy of intersubjective consensus over large-scale, industrial assets then we have communism.





Well, in the context of a free-market/free-enterprise society with equality of opportunity, the dominant forms of economic organization in an authentic free market would be worker-owned and operated industries, partnerships, cooperatives, a mass of small businesses, modestly sized private companies and self-employed persons. Industries that remained nominally owned by outside shareholders would largely function on a co-determined basis, that is, as partnerships between shareholders and labor with labor having the upper hand.


If you're going to insist on a private property, "free market" shareholder model for the ownership of industry then there will *not* be a common interest of cooperation between labor and capital. Please recall that from revenue a portion would go to shareholders and a portion would go to the factory's collectivized labor -- each party has divergent interests here. It's back to profit vs. wages. (And that would make you a liberal, with this position.)





Individual property rights are no more justified than collective property rights. It doesn't matter if there's profit or not, it matters that anyone, whether individually or collectively, cannot survive if their products of their labor are not secured by force, which can be done by worker's militia, for eg.


Actually the *profit* thing *is* kind of important here -- with a motive to profit the private ownership goes into a mode of *accumulation*, always enabled and seeking to *grow* their private shares, at the expense of labor's return on its own labor input -- even in competition with other private property, profit-seeking entities.

If the workers' militia was an outgrowth of collective workers' control of industry then it would *never* allow the existence of profit-seeking private ownership shares in the factories.

I'll counterpose a purely communist model I developed recently, for just such occasions as this one:


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

[Havet]

So *this* is virtually synonymous with a *communist* conception of *personal* property -- anything that you yourself use, for your own person, which is *not* an investment or accumulation.

I do not see any problem with investment or accumulation provided it does not limit the existing equality of opportunity of anyone by its greater accumulation, which is naturally impossible to do in a free-enterprise environment unless there is exploitation occurring, but since the workers could leave to stop being exploited (to other jobs or to self-employment), the exploiter would cease to exploit.


Okay, so if we combine the respect for *personal* property alongside the (collective) workers' political economy of intersubjective consensus over large-scale, industrial assets then we have communism.

I just call it market anarchism, really. At least I guess we can both agree it is a revolutionary leftist proposal, so I shouldn't be restricted ^^


If you're going to insist on a private property, "free market" shareholder model for the ownership of industry then there will *not* be a common interest of cooperation between labor and capital.

Sure there will. First of all, like I already said, there are mechanisms and natural restrictions which prevent a sole proprietor from accumulating so much wealth as to start restricting equality of opportunity and start exploiting.

Secondly, there is always an incentive to cooperate, especially in an environment of equality of opportunity and free enterprise, given the existence of a system of free banking, where cooperative banks would be able to form and issue private bank notes as credit against the output of future production. Genuine competition among free banks would dramatically reduce interest rates, perhaps to the cost of administrative overhead. Access to cheap credit would make self-employment possible for nearly any industrious person with marketable skills or services, and cooperative ventures would be the most common form of economic organization as each member pooled their resources together.


Please recall that from revenue a portion would go to shareholders and a portion would go to the factory's collectivized labor -- each party has divergent interests here. It's back to profit vs. wages. (And that would make you a liberal, with this position.)

I already explained the dominant forms of economic organization. So it's not profit vs wages, especially since each worker is a shareholder of the business they are in (in a cooperative), and in case one did try to put profit ahead of a business, likely nobody would accept their conditions in face of non-exploitative alternatives and access to capital by mutual/free banks.


Actually the *profit* thing *is* kind of important here -- with a motive to profit the private ownership goes into a mode of *accumulation*, always enabled and seeking to *grow* their private shares, at the expense of labor's return on its own labor input -- even in competition with other private property, profit-seeking entities.

I agree, but see above for a more comprehensive explanation of why profit incentives would be different for one businessman as they would be for worker-owned businesses.


If the workers' militia was an outgrowth of collective workers' control of industry then it would *never* allow the existence of profit-seeking private ownership shares in the factories.

Perhaps. Nobody can know for sure until we achieve this society though.


I'll counterpose a purely communist model I developed recently, for just such occasions as this one:


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

Interesting read. Do you make these out of pure entertainment or do you have some sort of a job where they require this kind of information?

[ckaihatsu]

I just call it market anarchism, really. At least I guess we can both agree it is a revolutionary leftist proposal, so I shouldn't be restricted ^^


No, please don't attempt to put words in my mouth.





Interesting read. Do you make these out of pure entertainment or do you have some sort of a job where they require this kind of information?


With your assumption above (that your position is a revolutionary leftist one), and this remark characterizing my model as "entertainment", you're really not setting up a hospitable ground for discussion.





[T]here is always an incentive to cooperate, especially in an environment of equality of opportunity and free enterprise, given the existence of a system of free banking, where cooperative banks would be able to form and issue private bank notes as credit against the output of future production. Genuine competition among free banks would dramatically reduce interest rates, perhaps to the cost of administrative overhead. Access to cheap credit would make self-employment possible for nearly any industrious person with marketable skills or services, and cooperative ventures would be the most common form of economic organization as each member pooled their resources together.


The terms of the money supply are irrelevant, since that is a business-sided concern for capital, and does not have any bearing on labor's concern with jobs and wages / benefits.

It would be preferable to labor for labor to aggregate its own labor power, in the form of collectively controlled industrial assets (factories), outside of capital claims to ownership.





Actually the *profit* thing *is* kind of important here -- with a motive to profit the private ownership goes into a mode of *accumulation*, always enabled and seeking to *grow* their private shares, at the expense of labor's return on its own labor input -- even in competition with other private property, profit-seeking entities.





I agree, but see [below] for a more comprehensive explanation of why profit incentives would be different for one businessman as they would be for worker-owned businesses.




[T]here are mechanisms and natural restrictions which prevent a sole proprietor from accumulating so much wealth as to start restricting equality of opportunity and start exploiting.


This is the very definition of liberalism -- you're saying that the inherent function of business, profit-making, could be somehow checked -- and you're ignoring the fact that those with more wealth would, by definition, have more resources with which to push for changes in legislation, including patronage and pork-barrel politics, that favor their own interests over their competitors'. The "intersubjective consensus" that you advocate is, in practice, the same as having government. (Note that you haven't specified what "mechanisms" and "natural restrictions" would limit unchecked profit-making.)





I do not see any problem with investment or accumulation provided it does not limit the existing equality of opportunity of anyone by its greater accumulation, which is naturally impossible to do in a free-enterprise environment unless there is exploitation occurring, but since the workers could leave to stop being exploited (to other jobs or to self-employment), the exploiter would cease to exploit.


You're sidestepping the fact that the production process *is* an *inherently* exploitative process, *wherever* employment happens, because labor *never* receives the portion of the revenue that is theirs. If the compensation equation was as simple as removing capital's proportion of the revenue to give to capital, and leaving labor the rest, then I think we could discuss possibilities. But I haven't heard this from you.





I already explained the dominant forms of economic organization. So it's not profit vs wages, especially since each worker is a shareholder of the business they are in (in a cooperative), and in case one did try to put profit ahead of a business, likely nobody would accept their conditions in face of non-exploitative alternatives and access to capital by mutual/free banks.


But as a whole business (economic organization) the business would have an interest in putting profit ahead of doing *non-*profitable types of business -- its very *existence* could depend on this, since profitable businesses will handle larger books of business and will thus have better access to larger supplies of resources, or raw materials, at cheaper prices, as a result.

You seem to be forgetting that in business the point is to find cheaper sources of supplies (buy low), and this goes for supplies of labor as well -- that's why labor is exploited. Businesses, no matter their ownership membership composition, that *don't* exploit would see their costs skyrocket and they would be unable to stay in business in the face of leaner, more efficiently run businesses.

If your proposed banking system would provide limitless capital to businesses regardless of their profitability (return on capital), then you've essentially made the banks superfluous -- why have a capital function at all? Workers could simply control assets, resources, and production through collective decision-making themselves.





If the workers' militia was an outgrowth of collective workers' control of industry then it would *never* allow the existence of profit-seeking private ownership shares in the factories.





Perhaps. Nobody can know for sure until we achieve this society though.

[Havet]

No, please don't attempt to put words in my mouth.

Whatever


With your assumption above (that your position is a revolutionary leftist one), and this remark characterizing my model as "entertainment", you're really not setting up a hospitable ground for discussion.

I'm sorry if I offended you by claiming that you've done that file for your own entertainment, but I neither claimed that to criticize it. It was an honest curious question. You don't have to answer if you don't want to.


The terms of the money supply are irrelevant, since that is a business-sided concern for capital, and does not have any bearing on labor's concern with jobs and wages / benefits.

Wrong. If there is no sufficient money supply, the ability for workers to gather capital and join together in economic institutions is dramatically decreased, creating inequality of opportunity and ultimately leading to concentration of capital in the hands of a few at the expense of the majority.


It would be preferable to labor for labor to aggregate its own labor power, in the form of collectively controlled industrial assets (factories), outside of capital claims to ownership.

That is an option open to workers if they so wish. Nothing wrong with that.


This is the very definition of liberalism -- you're saying that the inherent function of business, profit-making, could be somehow checked -- and you're ignoring the fact that those with more wealth would, by definition, have more resources with which to push for changes in legislation, including patronage and pork-barrel politics, that favor their own interests over their competitors'. The "intersubjective consensus" that you advocate is, in practice, the same as having government.

First of all, those with more wealth now are in an illegitimate position of power (if there's even one). So once the current system collapses naturally or through a revolution, the syndicalist principle of property rights defined according to usufructuary principles (i.e., use and occupation) should be applied.

Second, intersubjective consensus may be in practice the same as having a government, but even if its results were equal or better, [government] is based on irrational and immoral beliefs of privilege and force.


(Note that you haven't specified what "mechanisms" and "natural restrictions" would limit unchecked profit-making.)

Diseconomies of scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseconomies_of_scale), historical examples of failures in the past (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1560065&postcount=71)

And natural ways to restrict monopolies:

First, a small introduction: A natural monopoly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly) occurs when, due to the economies of scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale) of a particular industry, the maximum efficiency of production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production,_costs,_and_pricing) and distribution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_%28business%29) is realized through a single supplier.

We, smaller competitors are less efficient than the monopoly firm and hence unable to compete with it. Except where the market is very small (a small town grocery store for example), this is a rather uncommon situation. Even so, there are several ways to remove that monopoly.

Potential Competition

If a natural monopoly raises prices high enough, we smaller and less efficient firms can compete profitably, because customers will find the monopoly prices too much expensive.

If otherwise, the monopoly decides to keep prices low enough so that we cannot compete, well it depends on the actual competition. If they keep the prices low, but enough new firms still keep appearing, at some point they won't be able to keep placing the prices so low without losing large amounts of money, making it more profitable to stop trying to drive us out and thus losing its monopoly position. Thus a solution is to keep new firms appearing.

Indirect Competition

Imagine steel production were a natural monopoly. Even if the monopoly firm were enormously more efficient than potential competitors, its prices would be limited by the existence of substitutes of steel. As it drove prices higher and higher, people would use more aluminium, plastic, and wood for construction. Similarly a railroad, even if it is a monopoly, faces competition from canal barges, trucks and airplanes. So another way to dismantle a monopoly is by entering commerce in substitutes of the monopoly's products/services.

Example by David D. Friedman

"Suppose a monopoly is formed, as was U.S.Steel, by financers who succeed in buying up many of the existing firms. Assume further that there is no question of a natural monopoly; a firm much smaller than the new monster can produce as efficiently perhaps even more efficiently. It is commonly argued that the large firm will nonetheless be able to achieve and maintain complete control of the industry. This argument, like many others, depends on the false analogy of market competition to a battle in which the strongest must win.

Suppose the monopoly starts with 99% of the market and that the remaining 1% is held by a single competitor. To make things more dramatic, let me play the role of the competitor. It is argued, that the monopoly being bigger and more powerful, can easily drive me out.

In order to do so, the monopoly must cut its price to a level at which I am losing money. But since the monopoly is no more efficient than I am, it is losing just as much money per unit sold. Its resources may be 99 times as great as mine, but it is also losing money 99 times as fast as I am.
It is doing worse than that. In order to force me to keep my prices down, the monopoly must be willing to sell to everyone who wants to buy; otherwise unsupplied customers will buy from me at the old price. Since at the new old price customers will want to buy more than before, the monopolist must expand production, this losing even more money. If the good we produce can be easily stored, the anticipation of future prices rises, once our battle is over, will increase present demand still further.

Meanwhile, i have more attractive options. I can, if I wish, continue to produce at full capacity and sell at a loss, loing one dollar for every hundred or more lost by the monopoly. Or I may save money by laying off some of my workers, closing down part of my plant, an decreasing production until the monopoly gets tired of wasting money.

What about the situation where the monopoly engages in regional price cutting, taking a loss in the area i am operating and making it up in other parts of the country? If i am seriously worried about that prospect, I can take the precaution of opening outlets in all his major markets. Even if i do not, the high prices he charges in other areas to make up for his losses against me will make those areas very attractive to other new firms. Once they are established, he no longer has a market in which to make up his losses."

"Over-Agglomeration" tactic

So what if the monopolist tries to buy out competitors? After all, this is usually cheaper than spending a fortune trying to drive them out - at least, it is cheaper in the short run.

Well, to tell you truth, this problem is not new. It was once done by Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller) in order to achieve monopoly. Using oil refineries as the example, I would recommend realizing that you can build a new refinery, threaten to drive down prices, and sell out to monopolist at a whopping profit. Repeat this action several times until the monpolist can no longer afford to have so many refineries.

For a real-life example of this, let's go back to Rockefeller's time. David.P.Reighard apparently made a sizable fortune by selling three consecutie refineries to Rockefeller. There was a limit to how many refineries Rockefeller could use. Having built his monopoly by introducing efficient business organization into the petroleum industry, Rockefeller was unable to withstand the competition of able imitation in his later years and failed to maintain his monopoly.



You're sidestepping the fact that the production process *is* an *inherently* exploitative process, *wherever* employment happens, because labor *never* receives the portion of the revenue that is theirs. If the compensation equation was as simple as removing capital's proportion of the revenue to give to capital, and leaving labor the rest, then I think we could discuss possibilities. But I haven't heard this from you.

You're trying to throw in wage-slavery, and I agree with its existence, but not in the way you are equating it.

Production is NOT an inherently exploitative process. Profit is. You can produce without profit, as seen in cooperatives and communes.

Even so, profit is not always an exploitative process. Profit is only exploitative because the worker has no other choice but to work for the employer.

For instance, can you see any competition between the farmer and his hired man? Don't you think he would prefer to work for himself? Why does the farmer employ him? Is it not to make some profit from his labor? And does the hired man give him that profit out of pure good nature? Would he not rather have the full product of his labor at his own disposal?

Can't you see that since the hired man does not willingly resign a large share of his product to his employer (and it is out of human nature to say he does), there must be something which forces him to do it? Can't you see that the necessity of an employer is forced upon him by his lack of ability to command the means of production? He cannot employ himself, therefore he must sell his labor at a disadvantage to him who controls the land and capital. Hence he is not free to compete with his employer any more than a prisoner is free to compete with his jailer for fresh air.

It follows that if they had access to land and opportunity to capitalize the product of their labor they would either employ themselves, or, if employed by others, their wages, or remuneration, would rise to the full product of their toil, since no one would work for another for less than he could obtain by working for himself.

Even if one decided to work and not receive the full product of his labor (for whatever reason) he couldn't claim he was being exploited out of necessity, because in a free society he could work for himself.


But as a whole business (economic organization) the business would have an interest in putting profit ahead of doing *non-*profitable types of business -- its very *existence* could depend on this, since profitable businesses will handle larger books of business and will thus have better access to larger supplies of resources, or raw materials, at cheaper prices, as a result.

I'm sure it would engage in profitable business actions rather than non-profitable business actions, but the point is that the profit it would acquire would not be achieved at the expense of the workers, but for the benefit of all of them, since they could produce more and/or better at a lower cost.


You seem to be forgetting that in business the point is to find cheaper sources of supplies (buy low), and this goes for supplies of labor as well -- that's why labor is exploited. Businesses, no matter their ownership membership composition, that *don't* exploit would see their costs skyrocket and they would be unable to stay in business in the face of leaner, more efficiently run businesses.

You've done a fine job describing why co-ops and communes fail to succeed in the current market environment. I agree, they would not be able to compete, but this is all because there is wage-slavery in mass-scale. We end wage-slavery, institute a free-society with equality of opportunity and end the problem.


If your proposed banking system would provide limitless capital to businesses regardless of their profitability (return on capital), then you've essentially made the banks superfluous -- why have a capital function at all? Workers could simply control assets, resources, and production through collective decision-making themselves.

That's a good question. I suppose that the banks would eventually serve as the collective decision making institutions for workers to get loans or to acquire assets and resources necessary for production.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm sorry if I offended you by claiming that you've done that file for your own entertainment, but I neither claimed that to criticize it. It was an honest curious question. You don't have to answer if you don't want to.


All of this that we're doing here is the discussion of *politics* -- if you want to address something, like that model of mine, then just go ahead and address its content.





Wrong. If there is no sufficient money supply, the ability for workers to gather capital and join together in economic institutions is dramatically decreased, creating inequality of opportunity and ultimately leading to concentration of capital in the hands of a few at the expense of the majority.




I'm sure [a business] would engage in profitable business actions rather than non-profitable business actions, but the point is that the profit it would acquire would not be achieved at the expense of the workers, but for the benefit of all of them, since they could produce more and/or better at a lower cost.


I won't deny that the overall capitalist economy is premised on the supply of funds for the operation and growth of (for-profit) businesses. However, I disagree that the worker-shareholder model is a good one for labor. This is because the worker-shareholders would have to conform to all of the parameters of business ownership, just like any other shareholders, and this would include the objective need to exploit labor, in the best interests of the business entity, which would render the worker-shareholders as more shareholders than workers.





First of all, those with more wealth now are in an illegitimate position of power (if there's even one). So once the current system collapses naturally or through a revolution, the syndicalist principle of property rights defined according to usufructuary principles (i.e., use and occupation) should be applied.





It would be preferable to labor for labor to aggregate its own labor power, in the form of collectively controlled industrial assets (factories), outside of capital claims to ownership.





That is an option open to workers if they so wish. Nothing wrong with that.





You've done a fine job describing why co-ops and communes fail to succeed in the current market environment. I agree, they would not be able to compete, but this is all because there is wage-slavery in mass-scale. We end wage-slavery, institute a free-society with equality of opportunity and end the problem.




You're trying to throw in wage-slavery, and I agree with its existence, but not in the way you are equating it.

Production is NOT an inherently exploitative process. Profit is. You can produce without profit, as seen in cooperatives and communes.

Even so, profit is not always an exploitative process. Profit is only exploitative because the worker has no other choice but to work for the employer.


Okay, I'm basically agreed with this -- now let's take it up a level and look at how *small businesses* are "exploited", or, *screwed*, rather, by the pricing regime that is set by the "market" -- really by the largest conglomerations.

Even if (if!) profits could be disallowed and workers paid from revenues in proportion to their labor value input, there would *still* be exploitation because the largest buyers would set the pace for the pricing regime. Smaller businesses (the archetypal mom-and-pop shops) could *never* hope to buy on the scale that the *largest* businesses could. By sheer volume alone wholesale prices would drop for large businesses buying in enormous quantities while prices would stay much higher for small businesses, eliminating their competitive ability in the market.

How would you guarantee "equal opportunity" at this point? You'd have to introduce the *heaviest* of regulations through some kind of administration, and enforce it against all market-oriented initiatives straining at the leash to break free. By this point you may as well just do away with capital and competition-mindedness altogether, in favor of collective worker control over *all* industrial production -- communism, in short.





For instance, can you see any competition between the farmer and his hired man?


Absolutely. The farmer (owner) *has* to compensate the hired man's labor, but it would be more beneficial to the farmer to hang onto as much as possible, paying out as *little* as possible. In contrast the hired man's interest is to *get paid* as much as possible, free of any obligations to ownership.





Don't you think he would prefer to work for himself?


It depends. That would be crossing a threshold into the realm of business ownership and "market" "competition". Laborers, especially those involved in manufacturing, have far more intrinsic interest in organizing in common, leveraging their *collective* political power to *withhold* their *combined labor* until better terms are met by ownership.





Why does the farmer employ him?


To make money from the labor that he produces.





Is it not to make some profit from his labor?


Yes.





And does the hired man give him that profit out of pure good nature?


The laborer has no say in the matter.





Would he not rather have the full product of his labor at his own disposal?


A better way of phrasing it is, "Wouldn't *all* workers, throughout the entire world, rather control their *combined labor*, in *common*, so as to put capitalist ownership on the defensive?"





Can't you see that since the hired man does not willingly resign a large share of his product to his employer (and it is out of human nature to say he does), there must be something which forces him to do it?


Yeah, it's called the wages system. It's enforced by the total physical coercive power of the state.





Can't you see that the necessity of an employer is forced upon him by his lack of ability to command the means of production?


Yes, but more to the point is that the laborers, *in total*, have not organized to command *their own* labor in common. If they did, their taking command of the means of production would be a trifling.





He cannot employ himself, therefore he must sell his labor at a disadvantage to him who controls the land and capital. Hence he is not free to compete with his employer any more than a prisoner is free to compete with his jailer for fresh air.


Hey, we're *in agreement* on all of these realities -- you're describing wage slavery to a "t".





It follows that if they had access to land and opportunity to capitalize the product of their labor they would either employ themselves, or, if employed by others, their wages, or remuneration, would rise to the full product of their toil, since no one would work for another for less than he could obtain by working for himself.




Even if one decided to work and not receive the full product of his labor (for whatever reason) he couldn't claim he was being exploited out of necessity, because in a free society he could work for himself.


It's on the *strategy* that you have it ass-backwards -- workers will *never* gain access to "land and opportunity" through manueverings *in* the markets. You *seem* to be indirectly suggesting something along the lines of mass political consciousness but then you're *individuating* the workers and expecting them to *individually* negotiate for better terms, on their own, *individually*.... When the capitalist class holds all the cards they don't have to bother haggling with this-or-that *individual* employee -- the axe just comes down in an instant and the next bedraggled, impoverished, desperate person steps up to the desk in hopes of employment.





If your proposed banking system would provide limitless capital to businesses regardless of their profitability (return on capital), then you've essentially made the banks superfluous -- why have a capital function at all? Workers could simply control assets, resources, and production through collective decision-making themselves.





That's a good question. I suppose that the banks would eventually serve as the collective decision making institutions for workers to get loans or to acquire assets and resources necessary for production.


Are you just making this up for the sake of convenience, or is this what you actually think would be best, and support?

Why should banks be allowed to continue being the uppermost overseers over which enterprises live, and which die? If you acknowledge that their economic function -- which is what they do -- is *superfluous* then why allow them a political role at all? (This doesn't sound very grassroots at all, btw....)





It would be preferable to labor for labor to aggregate its own labor power, in the form of collectively controlled industrial assets (factories), outside of capital claims to ownership.





That is an option open to workers if they so wish. Nothing wrong with that.

[Havet]

I won't deny that the overall capitalist economy is premised on the supply of funds for the operation and growth of (for-profit) businesses. However, I disagree that the worker-shareholder model is a good one for labor. This is because the worker-shareholders would have to conform to all of the parameters of business ownership, just like any other shareholders, and this would include the objective need to exploit labor, in the best interests of the business entity, which would render the worker-shareholders as more shareholders than workers.

Wait, they don't have to "conform", they have a say in how the business is run. An equal say. That is democracy in the economy. They can't even agree on exploiting themselves because its not really exploitation, since the profit goes right back to them.


Okay, I'm basically agreed with this -- now let's take it up a level and look at how *small businesses* are "exploited", or, *screwed*, rather, by the pricing regime that is set by the "market" -- really by the largest conglomerations.

I already explained that there are forces which prevent largest conglomerations from existing and, more importantly, from allowing them to take over the market.


Even if (if!) profits could be disallowed and workers paid from revenues in proportion to their labor value input, there would *still* be exploitation because the largest buyers would set the pace for the pricing regime. Smaller businesses (the archetypal mom-and-pop shops) could *never* hope to buy on the scale that the *largest* businesses could. By sheer volume alone wholesale prices would drop for large businesses buying in enormous quantities while prices would stay much higher for small businesses, eliminating their competitive ability in the market.

That would be true if freedom to trade actually tended towards centralization and larger institutions taking over smaller ones. Historically this has not been the case (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1560065&postcount=71) (or better, it has been the case whenever the state aided such corporations).


How would you guarantee "equal opportunity" at this point? You'd have to introduce the *heaviest* of regulations through some kind of administration, and enforce it against all market-oriented initiatives straining at the leash to break free. By this point you may as well just do away with capital and competition-mindedness altogether, in favor of collective worker control over *all* industrial production -- communism, in short.

Regulations would occur naturally without any state enforcing it. Then again, i already explained above why historically regulations enforced by an entity (the state) led to the agglomeration worries you are describing.


It's on the *strategy* that you have it ass-backwards -- workers will *never* gain access to "land and opportunity" through manueverings *in* the markets. You *seem* to be indirectly suggesting something along the lines of mass political consciousness but then you're *individuating* the workers and expecting them to *individually* negotiate for better terms, on their own, *individually*.... When the capitalist class holds all the cards they don't have to bother haggling with this-or-that *individual* employee -- the axe just comes down in an instant and the next bedraggled, impoverished, desperate person steps up to the desk in hopes of employment.

Ah, well I don't expect ALL workers to individually bargain with their employers. One of the central ideas to market anarchism is the freedom for workers to organize and collectively bargain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargain) for better conditions or even taking over a company. There are many options available.

Workers may elect to convert their industries to employee-run cooperatives with individual non-marketable shares being the basis of ownership or, if they wished, they could sell shares to outsiders as well. Productive institutions might well span the whole spectrum from private contractual business corporations to worker owned cooperatives to stockholder owned businesses managed by the workers to collective institutions of the Israeli kibbutzim variety. Intentional communities might be formed that held certain industrial or manufacturing or utility services in common.


Are you just making this up for the sake of convenience, or is this what you actually think would be best, and support?

Why should banks be allowed to continue being the uppermost overseers over which enterprises live, and which die? If you acknowledge that their economic function -- which is what they do -- is *superfluous* then why allow them a political role at all? (This doesn't sound very grassroots at all, btw....)

You're talking of banks in that context almost as if they would strongly resemble what we see today in the banking industry. They wouldn't.

The virtual elimination of interest through market competition (in the context of free banking enterprises) would also significantly lower mortage payments and credit card debt. The cost of housing would drop and overall workers’ savings would increase. This means that the banks would be run democratically by the workers in the sense that they would serve as the pool of resources of the worker's products. Some workers would deposit their savings there (assuming banks would still offer protection of one's wealth, which is a plausible prediction) while others asked for loans in order to start their own (collective) ventures. This would happen anyway with or without banks, so I predict the only reason why they would choose banks would be due to the advantages it would provide, such as easily transferable credit (credit cards, internet exchanges, etc) and the ability to have their money secured in a physical place.

[ckaihatsu]

Wait, they don't have to "conform", they have a say in how the business is run. An equal say. That is democracy in the economy. They can't even agree on exploiting themselves because its not really exploitation, since the profit goes right back to them.


Jesus, don't you see that as long as you have business competition you'll have *pressures* on each business to cut costs, be productive, turn a profit, grow, etc. -- ? That's what it takes to be in the game, because what you're describing is *business*, and *not* a worldwide workers' cooperative.





That would be true if freedom to trade actually tended towards centralization and larger institutions taking over smaller ones. Historically this has not been the case (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1560065&postcount=71) (or better, it has been the case whenever the state aided such corporations).




I already explained that there are forces which prevent largest conglomerations from existing and, more importantly, from allowing them to take over the market.


No, you *haven't* explained what these forces are that prevent monopolies. The reality is that they will spontaneously form out of conglomerations of smaller businesses that find advantages in merging and combining their operations to realize greater economies of scale -- just look at the banking sector recently....





Regulations would occur naturally without any state enforcing it. Then again, i already explained above why historically regulations enforced by an entity (the state) led to the agglomeration worries you are describing.


You're wanting it both ways here -- if you have a "free market", without governmental regulations, then there are *no* regulations -- they *don't* "occur naturally".

And if you *want* an "intersubjective consensus" to oversee and regulate the market, then it's *not* a "free market" anymore.





Ah, well I don't expect ALL workers to individually bargain with their employers. One of the central ideas to market anarchism is the freedom for workers to organize and collectively bargain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargain) for better conditions or even taking over a company. There are many options available.


This part is fine -- I'm all for collective bargaining, too -- but workers could even displace the rule of capital altogether, all over the world.





Workers may elect to convert their industries to employee-run cooperatives with individual non-marketable shares being the basis of ownership or, if they wished, they could sell shares to outsiders as well. Productive institutions might well span the whole spectrum from private contractual business corporations to worker owned cooperatives to stockholder owned businesses managed by the workers to collective institutions of the Israeli kibbutzim variety. Intentional communities might be formed that held certain industrial or manufacturing or utility services in common.





You're talking of banks in that context almost as if they would strongly resemble what we see today in the banking industry. They wouldn't.

The virtual elimination of interest through market competition (in the context of free banking enterprises) would also significantly lower mortage payments and credit card debt. The cost of housing would drop and overall workers’ savings would increase. This means that the banks would be run democratically by the workers in the sense that they would serve as the pool of resources of the worker's products. Some workers would deposit their savings there (assuming banks would still offer protection of one's wealth, which is a plausible prediction) while others asked for loans in order to start their own (collective) ventures. This would happen anyway with or without banks, so I predict the only reason why they would choose banks would be due to the advantages it would provide, such as easily transferable credit (credit cards, internet exchanges, etc) and the ability to have their money secured in a physical place.


From a revolutionary's point of view it seems strange and anachronistic to hold over *any* frameworks and practices of "private ownership", like shares, once the working class controls the means of production everywhere. It sounds like you're trying to please two camps at once, the working class and the capitalists, by politicking to both. In doing so you're just advancing a plan that's a mish-mash while not realizing / acknowledging that labor and capital have fundamentally divergent interests.

[Havet]

Jesus, don't you see that as long as you have business competition you'll have *pressures* on each business to cut costs, be productive, turn a profit, grow, etc. -- ? That's what it takes to be in the game, because what you're describing is *business*, and *not* a worldwide workers' cooperative.

I never said anything about a worldwide worker's cooperative, but sure I support competition, thats what allows for better forms of production, thats what reduces costs, the point i'm making is that in a free environment those benefits wouldn't come at the expense of anybody, especially the workers in the business.


No, you *haven't* explained what these forces are that prevent monopolies. The reality is that they will spontaneously form out of conglomerations of smaller businesses that find advantages in merging and combining their operations to realize greater economies of scale -- just look at the banking sector recently....

And you completely forget that the banking sector is one of the most regulated and with government-special (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability) privilege (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction#Corporate_personality) granted industry sector of the world, especially with the recent bailouts.

Either you adress my historical points in the past, which I suspect are the basis for your opinion that free-markets naturally tend to conglomeration and monopolies, or you stop pretending you have something to say. I mean, did you even what i linked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseconomies_of_scale) as some of the sources (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1486069&postcount=38)?


You're wanting it both ways here -- if you have a "free market", without governmental regulations, then there are *no* regulations -- they *don't* "occur naturally".

It sounds like you're trying to please two camps at once, the working class and the capitalists, by politicking to both.

Regulations do occur naturally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand). When I say naturally, I mean that there is no entity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_order#Markets) which acquired ownership without going by the intersubjective consensus (a state) enforcing something, and that people through normal market interactions provide the incentives and disincentives for what is to be produced.


And if you *want* an "intersubjective consensus" to oversee and regulate the market, then it's *not* a "free market" anymore.

the market is what happens when people trade freely and make voluntary choices. Choices are not constant, and neither is trade, so its natural that the demand and supplies of the market change overtime. The free market is the free exchange of goods and services. If it so happened (and as I have historically proven, it only happens due to the State) that monopolies naturally appeared, it would be necessary to remove them, since they harm the equality of opportunity, and prevent the free exchange of goods and services AT SOME POINT.


From a revolutionary's point of view it seems strange and anachronistic to hold over *any* frameworks and practices of "private ownership", like shares, once the working class controls the means of production everywhere.

I use the term "private property" (or "property") in a distinctly different manner than what is meant by theorists on the "libertarian"-right or what is commonly accepted as "private property" under capitalism.

It is important to note that there are many different kinds of private property. If quoting Karl Marx is not too out of place:
"Political economy confuses, on principle, two very different kinds of private property, one of which rests on the labour of the producer himself, and the other on the exploitation of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter is not only the direct antithesis of the former, but grows on the former's tomb and nowhere else. "In Western Europe, the homeland of political economy, the process of primitive accumulation is more of less accomplished . . .
"It is otherwise in the colonies. There the capitalist regime constantly comes up against the obstacle presented by the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems has its practical manifestation here in the struggle between them." [Capital, vol. 1, p. 931]
So, under capitalism, "property turns out to be the right, on the part of the capitalist, to appropriate the unpaid labour of others, or its product, and the impossibility, on the part of the worker, of appropriating his own product." In other words, property is not viewed as being identical with capitalism. "The historical conditions of [Capital's] existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It arises only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence finds the free worker available on the market, as the seller of his own labour-power." Thus wage-labour, for Marx, is the necessary pre-condition for capitalism, not "private property" as such as "the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They only become capital under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation of, and domination over, the worker." [Op. Cit., p. 730, p. 264 and p. 938]

Artisan and co-operative property is not capitalist. It does not generate relationships of exploitation and domination as the worker owns and controls their own means of production. It is, in effect, a form of socialism (a "petit bourgeois" form of socialism, to use the typical insulting Marxist phrase).

To use Proudhon's terminology, there is a fundamental difference between property and possession.


while not realizing / acknowledging that labor and capital have fundamentally divergent interests

How can an inanimate entity, like capital, have any interests?

[ckaihatsu]

I never said anything about a worldwide worker's cooperative, but sure I support competition, thats what allows for better forms of production, thats what reduces costs, the point i'm making is that in a free environment those benefits wouldn't come at the expense of anybody, especially the workers in the business.


Competition also introduces duplication of effort, waste from speculatively produced, unconsumed product, waste from competitive friction, and waste from competitive destruction, as through warfare.





No, you *haven't* explained what these forces are that prevent monopolies. The reality is that they will spontaneously form out of conglomerations of smaller businesses that find advantages in merging and combining their operations to realize greater economies of scale -- just look at the banking sector recently....





And you completely forget that the banking sector is one of the most regulated and with government-special (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability) privilege (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction#Corporate_personality) granted industry sector of the world, especially with the recent bailouts.


You're evading the point which is that smaller businesses will tend towards mergers and acquisitions in order to realize economies of scale.





Either you adress my historical points in the past, which I suspect are the basis for your opinion that free-markets naturally tend to conglomeration and monopolies, or you stop pretending you have something to say. I mean, did you even what i linked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseconomies_of_scale) as some of the sources (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1486069&postcount=38)?


I am not obligated to do any outside reading -- either you make your point here in your response, or else you will not receive a response.





Regulations do occur naturally (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand). When I say naturally, I mean that there is no entity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_order#Markets) which acquired ownership without going by the intersubjective consensus (a state) enforcing something, and that people through normal market interactions provide the incentives and disincentives for what is to be produced.


But what you're *ignoring* is that the state *does enforce* the legitimacy of private property itself. If workers are not paid back-wages, for example, the state does *not* favor their seizing the employer's assets as acceptable recompense.





the market is what happens when people trade freely and make voluntary choices. Choices are not constant, and neither is trade, so its natural that the demand and supplies of the market change overtime. The free market is the free exchange of goods and services.




If it so happened (and as I have historically proven, it only happens due to the State) that monopolies naturally appeared, it would be necessary to remove them, since they harm the equality of opportunity, and prevent the free exchange of goods and services AT SOME POINT.


You may want to work on the backing for your assertion that monopolies only occur due to state involvement -- your entire ideology hinges on this assertion and it is *not* convincing.





How would you guarantee "equal opportunity" at this point? You'd have to introduce the *heaviest* of regulations through some kind of administration, and enforce it against all market-oriented initiatives straining at the leash to break free. By this point you may as well just do away with capital and competition-mindedness altogether, in favor of collective worker control over *all* industrial production -- communism, in short.





I use the term "private property" (or "property") in a distinctly different manner than what is meant by theorists on the "libertarian"-right or what is commonly accepted as "private property" under capitalism.

It is important to note that there are many different kinds of private property. If quoting Karl Marx is not too out of place:
"Political economy confuses, on principle, two very different kinds of private property, one of which rests on the labour of the producer himself, and the other on the exploitation of the labour of others. It forgets that the latter is not only the direct antithesis of the former, but grows on the former's tomb and nowhere else. "In Western Europe, the homeland of political economy, the process of primitive accumulation is more of less accomplished . . .
"It is otherwise in the colonies. There the capitalist regime constantly comes up against the obstacle presented by the producer, who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour to enrich himself instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of these two diametrically opposed economic systems has its practical manifestation here in the struggle between them." [Capital, vol. 1, p. 931]
So, under capitalism, "property turns out to be the right, on the part of the capitalist, to appropriate the unpaid labour of others, or its product, and the impossibility, on the part of the worker, of appropriating his own product." In other words, property is not viewed as being identical with capitalism. "The historical conditions of [Capital's] existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It arises only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence finds the free worker available on the market, as the seller of his own labour-power." Thus wage-labour, for Marx, is the necessary pre-condition for capitalism, not "private property" as such as "the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They only become capital under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation of, and domination over, the worker." [Op. Cit., p. 730, p. 264 and p. 938]




Artisan and co-operative property is not capitalist. It does not generate relationships of exploitation and domination as the worker owns and controls their own means of production. It is, in effect, a form of socialism (a "petit bourgeois" form of socialism, to use the typical insulting Marxist phrase).


Yes, but better still than a plot of one's own is the collective, *industrial* strength of the world's proletariat, combined to reclaim the products of their efforts -- the factories.





How can an inanimate entity, like capital, have any interests?




So, under capitalism, "property turns out to be the right, on the part of the capitalist, to appropriate the unpaid labour of others, or its product, and the impossibility, on the part of the worker, of appropriating his own product."

[Havet]

Competition also introduces duplication of effort, waste from speculatively produced, unconsumed product, waste from competitive friction, and waste from competitive destruction, as through warfare.

If you hate competition on all levels, then you *must* hate direct democracy. That's the ultimately form of competition: individuals competing with votes for the best decision that will benefit themselves. And there is duplication of effort, waste from speculative produced slogans to convince other people, wastes from competition, etc.


You're evading the point which is that smaller businesses will tend towards mergers and acquisitions in order to realize economies of scale.

I am not obligated to do any outside reading -- either you make your point here in your response, or else you will not receive a response.

You may want to work on the backing for your assertion that monopolies only occur due to state involvement -- your entire ideology hinges on this assertion and it is *not* convincing.

Read any "outside reading" and then get back to me. No way I am going to copy all of that into my post, EVEN with spoil tags.


But what you're *ignoring* is that the state *does enforce* the legitimacy of private property itself. If workers are not paid back-wages, for example, the state does *not* favor their seizing the employer's assets as acceptable recompense.

Of course! If a community which holds the intersubjective consensus that personal/private property is wrong, and only go about with common/collective property, then by definition, a State could be a person or group of people who claimed ownership of things against the community's perceived legitimacy of property.

It would be just as wrong (pluralistically speaking) for a private property state to do that in a radical collective property community as it would be for a collective property state to do that in a radical private property community. Of course, there are two very important conditions which needed to be held to keep peace: individuals should be free to leave the community at any time, and no community would have any right of enforcing their views upon their neighbours.


Yes, but better still than a plot of one's own is the collective, *industrial* strength of the world's proletariat, combined to reclaim the products of their efforts -- the factories.

There is a possibility that that will occur as well. I really just prefer to have freedom and then let things roll. If they roll into a degeneration of freedom, we try again, if not, then all problems solved.

BTW, you sparked a question of interest since you mentioned that. On what grounds can current workers legitimately reclaim the factories other workers (now dead) built in the past?

Just because they are workers doesn't give them special privilege to someone else's products of their labor. It seems irrational to try and pretend that all workers are the same and behave the same, getting the same treatment and rewards, just as it is irrational to pretend all black people are the same and behave the same and therefore deserve the same treatment and rewards (as SFers believe...).

[ckaihatsu]

If you hate competition on all levels, then you *must* hate direct democracy.


No, now you're just trying to be snide and clever....

Collective decision-making, as with direct democracy or a collective workers' cooperative, does not necessarily have to be *competitive*, especially if all the people involved have roughly equivalent interests going into it. I'm sure you can differentiate between the detached, scientific competition of *ideas* and the competition based on stakes of material ownership (often displaced into the psychological term "ego").





That's the ultimately form of competition: individuals competing with votes for the best decision that will benefit themselves. And there is duplication of effort, waste from speculative produced slogans to convince other people, wastes from competition, etc.


If you're talking about *politicking* for *professional political positions*, then that's not *direct democracy*, is it?





But what you're *ignoring* is that the state *does enforce* the legitimacy of private property itself. If workers are not paid back-wages, for example, the state does *not* favor their seizing the employer's assets as acceptable recompense.





Of course! If a community which holds the intersubjective consensus that personal/private property is wrong, and only go about with common/collective property, then by definition, a State could be a person or group of people who claimed ownership of things against the community's perceived legitimacy of property.


No, you *don't* get to re-define terminology arbitrarily -- a *state* is a governmental body that has a monopoly on law and the use of physical force, and is maintained by a system of taxation.

A "person or group of people" acting in an independent manner, as you're suggesting, is *not* a state.

You're being evasive here because what I'm pointing out is that all debts are *not* treated equally, due to the class division in society.

Moreover, in a society whose intersubjective consensus disallowed profit-making private property, there *would not be* any persons or groups of people who *could* claim proprietary ownership against the intersubjective consensus that disallowed profit-making private property, since such ownership would be, by definition, illegitimate and disallowed.





But what you're *ignoring* is that the state *does enforce* the legitimacy of private property itself. If workers are not paid back-wages, for example, the state does *not* favor their seizing the employer's assets as acceptable recompense.





It would be just as wrong (pluralistically speaking) for a private property state to do that in a radical collective property community as it would be for a collective property state to do that in a radical private property community. Of course, there are two very important conditions which needed to be held to keep peace: individuals should be free to leave the community at any time, and no community would have any right of enforcing their views upon their neighbours.


See, this is where you're having to admit that capitalism and communism are fundamentally *incompatible* -- previously you were trying to sell a vision of a hybrid of the two, but here you're describing how the interference of one with the other would be "wrong".

Merely "giving" individuals the "freedom" to leave one "community" for another is a cop-out: You're *still* trying to *straddle* the two, pretending as though individuals could walk from one to the other, like sections in a theme park. Yet you're acknowledging that private property has inherently *different* and *antagonistic* interests to those of a "collective property state". The two systems would *not* co-exist like peaceful neighbors.





Yes, but better still than a plot of one's own is the collective, *industrial* strength of the world's proletariat, combined to reclaim the products of their efforts -- the factories.





There is a possibility that that will occur as well. I really just prefer to have freedom and then let things roll. If they roll into a degeneration of freedom, we try again, if not, then all problems solved.


Well, I'm glad that you're open to the idea of a worldwide workers' proletarian revolution, but the rest of what you're saying here is politically irresponsible. "Freedom" is politicking, and "let things roll" means that you would be fine with not being politically active in any of it.





BTW, you sparked a question of interest since you mentioned that. On what grounds can current workers legitimately reclaim the factories other workers (now dead) built in the past?

Just because they are workers doesn't give them special privilege to someone else's products of their labor. It seems irrational to try and pretend that all workers are the same and behave the same, getting the same treatment and rewards, just as it is irrational to pretend all black people are the same and behave the same and therefore deserve the same treatment and rewards (as SFers believe...).


I think we have a precedent in the institution of inheritance as it's currently practiced -- families with large holdings routinely pass down their wealth to their children at a specified age, with zero or minimal requirements for the next generation's receipt of the inheritance.

Since the inheritors didn't actually put any labor of their own into the creation of the wealth it's obvious that they're not receiving the inheritance on the basis of any merit or material input.

We can use this as a guide for the establishing of a system of passing down *labor-controlled* assets, like factories, to incoming generations of workers -- perhaps it could be done through a pan-industrial-union type of organization in which like workers would receive admittance to shared controllership upon reaching a certain age, with certain education, training, and apprenticeship requirements, for any given respective work positions.

[Paul Cockshott]

Actually, from a Marxist perspective, it's pretty easy to see the capitalist case for gold: commodity production requires commodity money. Fiat money cannot represent abstract social labour directly.

Money evolved out of the internal tension in a commodity between its use-value and its value. The value of one commodity is expressed in terms of the use-value of another standard commodity (in this case, gold, but in earlier societies it was slaves, camels, copper, etc.).

Gold is pretty much the ideal metal for money. It doesn't rust, it is a single element, it is scarce (a lot of labour goes into mining it and processing it) and it has few other industrial uses. A small amount of gold represents a huge amount of labour.


For capital to accumulate the money stock must rise at a rate roughly proportional to the accumulation rate. In the gold standard the rate of growth of the money stock tends to be relatively low usually lower than 1%. This exerts a depressing effect on the rate of profit since the money stock can not rise fast enough to realise the accumulated surplus value.
Hence one got period crises as the growth of credit ( tied to the rate of growth of capital ) exceeded the rate of growth of the gold stock, so that one got increasingly severe financial vrises - culminating in the great depression

[Havet]

Collective decision-making, as with direct democracy or a collective workers' cooperative, does not necessarily have to be *competitive*, especially if all the people involved have roughly equivalent interests going into it. I'm sure you can differentiate between the detached, scientific competition of *ideas* and the competition based on stakes of material ownership (often displaced into the psychological term "ego").

Not all people have roughly the equivalent interests. Anyway, you cannot deny that competition in a direct democracy environment can be based on stakes of material ownership, ESPECIALLY if the thing being voted is who gets to work on what, to produce what, to trade with whom (assuming worldwide communist federations which were co-dependent of one another).


If you're talking about *politicking* for *professional political positions*, then that's not *direct democracy*, is it?

No, i'm talking of direct democracy.

Genecosta explains it better, really:

"Suppose limits are achieved where we now have to decide between producing more automobiles or bikes with an engineered metal that resists aging. We don't have the capital goods necessary to produce both en masse, so we can only go one way or another. I want cars, because I can't ride a bike. Kenneth wants bikes, because she hates pollution. A vote is taken, and I lose. In effect, you are witnessing a form of competition manifest itself. "

"Communism is competitive as well; it's just masked in a different shade of red. When you vote on an issue of production, losers and winners emerge. Unless we want to speak of some imaginary consenses-based society, the argument "competition is bad" doesn't hold any true meaning. "


No, you *don't* get to re-define terminology arbitrarily -- a *state* is a governmental body that has a monopoly on law and the use of physical force, and is maintained by a system of taxation.

A "person or group of people" acting in an independent manner, as you're suggesting, is *not* a state.

You're being evasive here because what I'm pointing out is that all debts are *not* treated equally, due to the class division in society.

Moreover, in a society whose intersubjective consensus disallowed profit-making private property, there *would not be* any persons or groups of people who *could* claim proprietary ownership against the intersubjective consensus that disallowed profit-making private property, since such ownership would be, by definition, illegitimate and disallowed.

I don't "re-define" it arbitrarily. From the 3 most common meanings given to the word state, I use the one which has the more explanatory power (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1480146&postcount=1). (BTW, this is a revleft post, so it doesn't count as "outside reading").


See, this is where you're having to admit that capitalism and communism are fundamentally *incompatible* -- previously you were trying to sell a vision of a hybrid of the two, but here you're describing how the interference of one with the other would be "wrong".

No, i was trying to show a vision of a hybrid between collective ownership of property and individual "ownership" of "property": free-market anti-capitalism, or if you prefer it, free-market socialism.

There is nothing to stop "my" kind of society from appearing just as there isn't anything stopping "your" ideal kind of society from appearing. I was merely pointing out that there will be choice for people to choose between the two (and probably more options), even though the two will not be mixed with each other.


Merely "giving" individuals the "freedom" to leave one "community" for another is a cop-out: You're *still* trying to *straddle* the two, pretending as though individuals could walk from one to the other, like sections in a theme park. Yet you're acknowledging that private property has inherently *different* and *antagonistic* interests to those of a "collective property state". The two systems would *not* co-exist like peaceful neighbors.

They can co-exist (though I would doubt the term private property would be used the same in such societies as we use it now, due to the existence of competitive idelogical alternatives) so long as there is freedom of movement and equality of opportunity.

If social communes can prove they are more efficient, they can exist inside of (and even dominate) a mutualist/free-market-anti-capitalist society.


...But the rest of what you're saying here is politically irresponsible. "Freedom" is politicking, and "let things roll" means that you would be fine with not being politically active in any of it.

When I say "let things roll" i am talking in a generalist sense in that I would see which form of social organization, from the multiple choices available, would prove to be the most productive while banning any form of exploitation. Obviously I have a vested interest in being active in the social organization I find the most rational, so as to show others why it is superior.


I think we have a precedent in the institution of inheritance as it's currently practiced -- families with large holdings routinely pass down their wealth to their children at a specified age, with zero or minimal requirements for the next generation's receipt of the inheritance.

Since the inheritors didn't actually put any labor of their own into the creation of the wealth it's obvious that they're not receiving the inheritance on the basis of any merit or material input.

We can use this as a guide for the establishing of a system of passing down *labor-controlled* assets, like factories, to incoming generations of workers -- perhaps it could be done through a pan-industrial-union type of organization in which like workers would receive admittance to shared controllership upon reaching a certain age, with certain education, training, and apprenticeship requirements, for any given respective work positions.

So basically you're saying that just because inheritance was used in the past (at the expense of workers and their exploitation, even though most communists oppose inheritance of the ownership of the means of production), then it is justified to do the same but with workers.

Why? Why does it apply in one case but not in the other? Why is it illegitimate to trade ownership from an elder group (businessmen) to a newer group which did not labor on it in (typical spoiled businessmen children) but legitimate to trade ownership from an elder group (the elder workers) to a newer group which did not labor on it (the new workers)?

[ckaihatsu]

Not all people have roughly the equivalent interests. Anyway, you cannot deny that competition in a direct democracy environment can be based on stakes of material ownership, ESPECIALLY if the thing being voted is who gets to work on what, to produce what, to trade with whom (assuming worldwide communist federations which were co-dependent of one another).


Under *your* market-retaining model there *would* be property-based competition, which I would consider retrograde and unfortunate.





Direct democracy, classically termed pure democracy,[1] comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens who choose to participate. Depending on the particular system, this assembly might pass executive motions, make laws, elect or dismiss officials, and conduct trials.

Direct democracy stands in contrast to representative democracy, where sovereignty is exercised by a subset of the people, usually on the basis of election. Deliberative democracy incorporates elements of both direct democracy and representative democracy.[2]





Genecosta explains it better, really:

"Suppose limits are achieved where we now have to decide between producing more automobiles or bikes with an engineered metal that resists aging. We don't have the capital goods necessary to produce both en masse, so we can only go one way or another. I want cars, because I can't ride a bike. Kenneth wants bikes, because she hates pollution. A vote is taken, and I lose. In effect, you are witnessing a form of competition manifest itself. "


Yeah, but this is *all* premised on a condition of *scarcity* -- there *can be* *no* competition for material items when there is *more* of something than the demand for it -- my favorite example is the air that we breathe.

In this example you seem to be positing a scenario where all of the participants *do* have roughly equivalent stakes in the decision -- perhaps they're two individual, differing faction representatives in a collectivized, worker-controlled factory in your monopoly-free market economy -- ?

I would suggest that we look at the bigger picture -- which you have a difficult time doing -- and see if the participants in this scenario couldn't obtain additional financial backing and/or additional supplies of the engineered metal.





"Communism is competitive as well; it's just masked in a different shade of red. When you vote on an issue of production, losers and winners emerge. Unless we want to speak of some imaginary consenses-based society, the argument "competition is bad" doesn't hold any true meaning. "


Again, this whole competition thing is based on there being a condition of scarcity -- if you insist on *always* positing a condition of scarcity then you're serving in the political interests of the status quo which uses the state to *enforce* an artificial scarcity in order to prop up market prices.





No, i was trying to show a vision of a hybrid between collective ownership of property and individual "ownership" of "property": free-market anti-capitalism, or if you prefer it, free-market socialism.


Whatever you want to call it, the fact remains that it's a *problematic* formulation -- those who are in the context of collective ownership have a combined interest in retaining that property as "the commons" without distinguishing individual claims. *Contrary* to this is the current system of *private property*, in which *individual* accumulations are the basis of ownership.

These are as different and unmixable as public parks are with residential zoning -- can't you see this? They *don't* fucking mix!!





There is nothing to stop "my" kind of society from appearing just as there isn't anything stopping "your" ideal kind of society from appearing. I was merely pointing out that there will be choice for people to choose between the two (and probably more options), even though the two will not be mixed with each other.


The thing that stops "your" society from appearing is that it's untenable -- it's as unsustainable as living in a never-ending civil war. You treat these matters as if it's like making a shopping decision while pushing a grocery cart down the aisle, and it's nowhere nearly as simplistic as that.





They can co-exist (though I would doubt the term private property would be used the same in such societies as we use it now, due to the existence of competitive idelogical alternatives) so long as there is freedom of movement and equality of opportunity.


No, they *can't* co-exist.





If social communes can prove they are more efficient, they can exist inside of (and even dominate) a mutualist/free-market-anti-capitalist society.


The ironic thing here is that, since you ultimately leave the world to its fate, you're effectively apolitical -- while you go on about consumer choices over political models you're not actually taking a stand. Advocating a hybrid model doesn't count because it's an impossibility.






When I say "let things roll" i am talking in a generalist sense in that I would see which form of social organization, from the multiple choices available, would prove to be the most productive while banning any form of exploitation. Obviously I have a vested interest in being active in the social organization I find the most rational, so as to show others why it is superior.


If your only yardstick is sheer productivity then you've already disqualified yourself from serious politics.





So basically you're saying that just because inheritance was used in the past (at the expense of workers and their exploitation, even though most communists oppose inheritance of the ownership of the means of production), then it is justified to do the same but with workers.

Why? Why does it apply in one case but not in the other? Why is it illegitimate to trade ownership from an elder group (businessmen) to a newer group which did not labor on it in (typical spoiled businessmen children) but legitimate to trade ownership from an elder group (the elder workers) to a newer group which did not labor on it (the new workers)?


Don't you understand that I'm *partisan* -- ???

I advocate for the collective workers' control of the means of mass production -- you already know that.

[Havet]

Under *your* market-retaining model there *would* be property-based competition, which I would consider retrograde and unfortunate.

So it all boils down to your personal opinion. I have no problem with that.


Yeah, but this is *all* premised on a condition of *scarcity* -- there *can be* *no* competition for material items when there is *more* of something than the demand for it -- my favorite example is the air that we breathe.

In this example you seem to be positing a scenario where all of the participants *do* have roughly equivalent stakes in the decision -- perhaps they're two individual, differing faction representatives in a collectivized, worker-controlled factory in your monopoly-free market economy -- ?

I would suggest that we look at the bigger picture -- which you have a difficult time doing -- and see if the participants in this scenario couldn't obtain additional financial backing and/or additional supplies of the engineered metal.

You cannot eliminate scarcity. At least at the physical level.

The example I was positing was a fairly good representation of "your" idealized type of society. I just mentioned two people because it was easier to understand, but you can surely imagine thousands of people voting on the same issue in a directly democratic manner.


Again, this whole competition thing is based on there being a condition of scarcity -- if you insist on *always* positing a condition of scarcity then you're serving in the political interests of the status quo which uses the state to *enforce* an artificial scarcity in order to prop up market prices.

There's a difference between artificial scarcity - which I oppose - and natural scarcity, which will always exist, irrelevant of the existence of a State or not.


Whatever you want to call it, the fact remains that it's a *problematic* formulation -- those who are in the context of collective ownership have a combined interest in retaining that property as "the commons" without distinguishing individual claims. *Contrary* to this is the current system of *private property*, in which *individual* accumulations are the basis of ownership.

These are as different and unmixable as public parks are with residential zoning -- can't you see this? They *don't* fucking mix!!

And what you can't seem to understand is that people can have an interested in retaining something as common property while other things as personal property, with the enforcement of those rules being made by commonly agreed upon entities. Some people my want to keep the media industry reliant on personal property while rivers, roads and other things as common property.


The thing that stops "your" society from appearing is that it's untenable -- it's as unsustainable as living in a never-ending civil war. You treat these matters as if it's like making a shopping decision while pushing a grocery cart down the aisle, and it's nowhere nearly as simplistic as that.

What is your evidence that it will be untenable?


No, they *can't* co-exist.

Why?


The ironic thing here is that, since you ultimately leave the world to its fate, you're effectively apolitical -- while you go on about consumer choices over political models you're not actually taking a stand. Advocating a hybrid model doesn't count because it's an impossibility.

I've already made my stand: market anarchism. But I have tolerance for other forms of social organization, so deep down i'm more of an anarchist without adjectives, and I think in a freer environment it would be cheaper and more easy for people to choose the kind of societies they want to live in, just as you can choose today to live in an increasingly right-libertarian state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_state_project) or to live in an egalitarian community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Oaks_Community) (though the cost of moving there is still high).

Furthermore, the development of projects such as the seasteading instute (http://seasteading.org/) will only allow people to live in the society closest to their ideal more cheaply than what they are allowed to now.


If your only yardstick is sheer productivity then you've already disqualified yourself from serious politics.

Strawman; read again:


...to be the most productive while banning any form of exploitation...


Don't you understand that I'm *partisan* -- ???

I advocate for the collective workers' control of the means of mass production -- you already know that.

So again it boils down to your opinion, without you being able to argue in favor of it. Interesting.

[ckaihatsu]

So it all boils down to your personal opinion. I have no problem with that.


You know where I stand. I've provided supporting evidence for my position.





You cannot eliminate scarcity. At least at the physical level.


*Of course* we can -- it's already been done, for thousands -- if not millions -- of common, everyday consumer items. In the modernized world plenty of things are readily available at nominal cost to any wage-earner that were not even *imaginable*, much less available, to the average person 100 years ago.

It's odd that I should have to make this obvious point to the backer of a market system....





There's a difference between artificial scarcity - which I oppose - and natural scarcity, which will always exist, irrelevant of the existence of a State or not.


You're speaking in such broad generalities that what you're saying is too abstract and unclear. What do you mean by "natural scarcity" -- ?

As long as we have the know-how to build the machines to produce what we need as human beings there can be no excuse for any existing scarcity, especially for the basics of human life, like food, water, shelter, electricity, education, and so on.





And what you can't seem to understand is that people can have an interested in retaining something as common property while other things as personal property, with the enforcement of those rules being made by commonly agreed upon entities. Some people my want to keep the media industry reliant on personal property while rivers, roads and other things as common property.


And what *you* can't seem to understand is that your little arrangement is *not acceptable* to millions and billions of people because it is inherently *elitist*. The broadcast media, for example, should *not* retain a *monopoly* over the public airwaves.





The thing that stops "your" society from appearing is that it's untenable -- it's as unsustainable as living in a never-ending civil war. You treat these matters as if it's like making a shopping decision while pushing a grocery cart down the aisle, and it's nowhere nearly as simplistic as that.





What is your evidence that it will be untenable?





[T]he fact remains that it's a *problematic* formulation -- those who are in the context of collective ownership have a combined interest in retaining that property as "the commons" without distinguishing individual claims. *Contrary* to this is the current system of *private property*, in which *individual* accumulations are the basis of ownership.





No, they *can't* co-exist.





Why?





[T]he fact remains that it's a *problematic* formulation -- those who are in the context of collective ownership have a combined interest in retaining that property as "the commons" without distinguishing individual claims. *Contrary* to this is the current system of *private property*, in which *individual* accumulations are the basis of ownership.





I've already made my stand: market anarchism. But I have tolerance for other forms of social organization, so deep down i'm more of an anarchist without adjectives, and I think in a freer environment it would be cheaper and more easy for people to choose the kind of societies they want to live in, just as you can choose today to live in an increasingly right-libertarian state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_state_project) or to live in an egalitarian community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Oaks_Community) (though the cost of moving there is still high).

Furthermore, the development of projects such as the seasteading instute (http://seasteading.org/) will only allow people to live in the society closest to their ideal more cheaply than what they are allowed to now.


Yes, these are all fine from the *consumer* point of view, but it doesn't address the *overall* *political* composition -- of production, and of the state.





Strawman; read again:




...to be the most productive while banning any form of exploitation...


Exploitation is *synonymous* with private property because those who want to really advance their private interests will have to utilize -- exploit -- the labor of others. An array of private interests, rather than advocating for anti-trust regulations over all of them, will rather each turn a blind eye to the exploitation practiced by the next guy in return for the same.

[Havet]

You know where I stand. I've provided supporting evidence for my position.

I know where you stand. But you don't have evidence to support it, as your previous comment demonstrates.


*Of course* we can -- it's already been done, for thousands -- if not millions -- of common, everyday consumer items. In the modernized world plenty of things are readily available at nominal cost to any wage-earner that were not even *imaginable*, much less available, to the average person 100 years ago.

It's odd that I should have to make this obvious point to the backer of a market system....


You're speaking in such broad generalities that what you're saying is too abstract and unclear. What do you mean by "natural scarcity" -- ?

As long as we have the know-how to build the machines to produce what we need as human beings there can be no excuse for any existing scarcity, especially for the basics of human life, like food, water, shelter, electricity, education, and so on.

Ok, let me give you some examples:

Oil is scarce because it is a finite resource. Furthermore, it is artificially scarce because the international intergovernmental cartel known as the OPEC induces a higher price so as to increase profits for its members.

Even if productivity does increase enormously, the argument assumes that total demand is limited; otherwise, increases in productivity will be met by increases in demand, as in the past, and the conflict between different people who want the same resources will still exist.
Believers in such a saturation of demand, like you, argue that above some income (usually about twice their own) consumption ceases to be useful and becomes pure show, so that when production reaches this level, there need be no more scarce goods. This argument confuses amount of consumption with the physical quantity consumed.

There is a limit to the amount of food I can eat or the number of cars I can conveniently use. There is no obvious limit to the resources that can be usefully employed in producing a better car or better food. For $10,000 a car can be made better than for $5,000; for $20,000, better than $10,000. If the median income rises to $1000,000 a year, we shall have no difficulty spending it.

The argument also confuses the technical economic meaning of "scarce resources" with the conventional meaning of "scarce". Even if no one is hungry, food is still "scarce", since for me to have more or better food, some cost must be incurred. Either someone has to give up food or someone must pay the cost of producing more. The opposite of a "scarce" good is not a "plentiful" good but a "free" good, something available in sufficient supply for everyone at no cost. Air was a free good until demand for breathing and for carrying off industrial wastes, exceeded supply.

The problem of plenty is not a new one for markets. It has dealt with that problem by providing more and better ways to use larger and larger incomes - so successfully that we are enormously rich by the standards of previous centuries, as you said. Markets will continue to deal with the "problem" of plenty in the same way. It's only fair: markets created the "problem".


And what *you* can't seem to understand is that your little arrangement is *not acceptable* to millions and billions of people because it is inherently *elitist*. The broadcast media, for example, should *not* retain a *monopoly* over the public airwaves.

Either you provide evidence that it is "inherently elitist" or you refrain from talking about your personal opinion.

I agree the broadcast media has an unfair monopoly of public airwaves, but this is because of governments.

The printed media (newspapers, magazines and the like) are produced entirely with "private property". Buy newsprint and ink, rent a printing press, and you are ready to go (today its even easier with the computers and the internet). You can print whatever you want without asking permission from any government. Provided, of course, that you do not need the U.S. Post Office to deliver what you print (the government has occasionally used its control over the mails as an instrument of censorship).

Broadcast media (radio and television) are another matter. The airwaves have been designated as public property. Radio and television stations can operate only if they receive permission by the Federal Communications Commission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission) to use that property. If the FCC judges that a station does not operate "in the public interest", it has a legal right to withdraw the station's license, or at least to refuse to renew it. Broadcasting licenses are worth a great deal of money, consequently.

The comparison between both is obvious. Printed media are enormously diverse. Any viewpoint, political, religious, aesthetic, has its little magazine, its newsletter, its underground paper. Many of those publications are grossly offensive to the views and tastes of most americans.

The broadcast media cannot afford to offend. Anyone with a license worth several million dollars at stake is VERY careful. How would you persuade the honorable commissioners of the FCC that your show is in the public interest?

They say it themselves: "Though we may not censor, it is our duty to see that broadcast licenses do not afford mere personal organs, and also to see that a standard of refinement fitting our day and generation is maintained" . 1931

Printed media does not have to be in the public interest; it does not belong to the public. Radio and television do. The FCC once ruled out out that songs that seem to advocate drug use may not be broadcast. Is that an infringement of freedom of speech? Not really. You can say anything you want, but not on the public's airwaves.

It would not be possible to let everyone use the airwaves for whatever he wants; there isn't enough room on the radio dial. If the government owns the airwaves, it must ration them; it must decide what should and should not be broadcast.

The same is true for ink and paper. Free speech may be free, but printed speech is not; it requires scarce resources. There is no way that everyone who thinks his opinion is worth writting can have everyone in the country read it, We would run out of trees long before we have enough paper to print a hundred million copies of everyone's manifesto.

Nonetheless, we have freedom of press. Things are not printed for free, but they are printed if someone is willing to pay the cost. If the writter is willing to pay, he prints up handbills and hands them out on the corner. More often, the reader pays by subscribing to a magazine or buying a book.

Under public property, the values of the "public" (aka government) as a whole are imposed on the individuals who require the use of that property to accomplish their ends. Under "private property", each individual can seek his own ends, provided that he is willing to bear the cost.

Broadcast media is dull; printed media, diverse. And when I say diverse, i don't just mean that there is media that talks of guns, environment, sports, cartoons, etc. I'm talking, for example, of the lack of political variety in the broadcast media. You don't see communist shows, or anarchist shows. They "hurt someone's feelings"...


Yes, these are all fine from the *consumer* point of view, but it doesn't address the *overall* *political* composition -- of production, and of the state.

Oh sure. Seasteading doesn't intend to win an election or create a revolution. Its premise is that if you allow people to create alternative societies, and they work better than the ones we have now, other people will want to imitate them producing probably far more radicalization of people back in the current statist countries.


Exploitation is *synonymous* with private property because those who want to really advance their private interests will have to utilize -- exploit -- the labor of others. An array of private interests, rather than advocating for anti-trust regulations over all of them, will rather each turn a blind eye to the exploitation practiced by the next guy in return for the same.

Exploitation is synonimous with inequality of opportunity. And you can have personal property based societies without exploitation so long as there is equality of opportunity, which generates spontaneous order and allows the creation of self-regulation of that society.

[Robert]

In the modernized world plenty of things are readily available at nominal cost to any wage-earner that were not even *imaginable*, much less available, to the average person 100 years ago.

(Emphasis mine.) Careful, you can get restricted for less than that.

[ckaihatsu]

I know where you stand. But you don't have evidence to support it, as your previous comment demonstrates.


- Whatever -





The problem of plenty is not a new one for markets. It has dealt with that problem by providing more and better ways to use larger and larger incomes - so successfully that we are enormously rich by the standards of previous centuries, as you said. Markets will continue to deal with the "problem" of plenty in the same way. It's only fair: markets created the "problem".


While the importance of abolishing the rule of capital can't be stressed enough, for the sake of literally billions who live in malnourished and substandard conditions, there is also a need to replace the general growth and development function that capitalism currently provides (on a very elitist and favoritism-oriented basis).

I've shared my own model (earlier in this thread) that could very well fulfill the framework needs of a post-capitalist society, but *any* system that allows the world's collective proletariat to rationally determine its own material future would be *vastly* preferable to what we're *currently* stuck with for the time being.





And what *you* can't seem to understand is that your little arrangement is *not acceptable* to millions and billions of people because it is inherently *elitist*.





Either you provide evidence that it is "inherently elitist" or you refrain from talking about your personal opinion.


Here:





Nonetheless, we have freedom of press. Things are not printed for free, but they are printed if someone is willing to pay the cost. If the writter is willing to pay, he prints up handbills and hands them out on the corner. More often, the reader pays by subscribing to a magazine or buying a book.


The definition of elitism is that *certain* kinds of people are *automatically* favored over others, right? As long as the costs of communication, as through conventional media, are paid for by public funds, as through taxation and tax breaks for media corporations, while the authorship is reserved for the wealthy, there is elitism.

You're condoning an alternative system of private property that may *possibly* discontinue socializing the cost burden onto the public at large, but it *would* retain the favoritism, or elitism, that comes with private wealth ownership. If a party happened to be the heir to a private family fortune that party would be in a much more favorable position to benefit from the exercise of freedom of the press, through a massive, expensive printing campaign that few others could afford.





You don't seem communist shows, or anarchist shows. They "hurt someone's feelings"...


It's far beyond a touchy-feely "sensitivity", as you're making it out to be -- the *reality* is that the bourgeois-elitist ownership would *never* allow their true political opposition, or class enemy, to benefit from the very same channels of mass saturation that the elites themselves control.





Exploitation is *synonymous* with private property because those who want to really advance their private interests will have to utilize -- exploit -- the labor of others. An array of private interests, rather than advocating for anti-trust regulations over all of them, will rather each turn a blind eye to the exploitation practiced by the next guy in return for the same.





Exploitation is synonimous with inequality of opportunity. And you can have personal property based societies without exploitation so long as there is equality of opportunity, which generates spontaneous order and allows the creation of self-regulation of that society.


I continue to maintain that there is *no fucking way* that a society based on private accumulations will *ever* enforce a strict regulation that limits ownership to *personal property* *only*....

If we go by the definition that personal property is that which one uses for their person only, without expanding it to accumulations and investments (typically for profit-making), then I DARE YOU to tell me again that your proposed society would stick to this limitation of *personal* property ownership *only*, for the sake of eliminating exploitation and guaranteeing equal opportunity.

I say this because if you stand by this parameter then you've effectively become a communist by default -- limiting individual ownership to a strict definition of *personal property* *means* that all the rest must be "the commons", again by default.

But as soon as you allow true 'private property' then you're allowing the exploitation of labor by private ownership since that's what's required for the buildup of private surpluses (through leveraging, investments, accumulations beyond one's own personal use, etc.).

[Havet]

While the importance of abolishing the rule of capital can't be stressed enough, for the sake of literally billions who live in malnourished and substandard conditions, there is also a need to replace the general growth and development function that capitalism currently provides (on a very elitist and favoritism-oriented basis).

I've shared my own model (earlier in this thread) that could very well fulfill the framework needs of a post-capitalist society, but *any* system that allows the world's collective proletariat to rationally determine its own material future would be *vastly* preferable to what we're *currently* stuck with for the time being.

I can agree with most of what is being said here.


The definition of elitism is that *certain* kinds of people are *automatically* favored over others, right? As long as the costs of communication, as through conventional media, are paid for by public funds, as through taxation and tax breaks for media corporations, while the authorship is reserved for the wealthy, there is elitism.

I agree. I should not have to be forced, by taxes, to pay for the wealthy's privileges, profits and bailouts.


You're condoning an alternative system of private property that may *possibly* discontinue socializing the cost burden onto the public at large, but it *would* retain the favoritism, or elitism, that comes with private wealth ownership. If a party happened to be the heir to a private family fortune that party would be in a much more favorable position to benefit from the exercise of freedom of the press, through a massive, expensive printing campaign that few others could afford.

What is preventing a person who just got the fortune of a family to engage in a massive, expensive printing campaign NOW? That's right, nothing. Yet you don't see rich people doing this.

It seems that the "advocate for freedom" layer you once supported is starting to peel off. Who would have thought you are against the exercise of freedom of the press?


It's far beyond a touchy-feely "sensitivity", as you're making it out to be -- the *reality* is that the bourgeois-elitist ownership would *never* allow their true political opposition, or class enemy, to benefit from the very same channels of mass saturation that the elites themselves control.

They would have no choice but to accept such opposition in an environment of individual private broadcast media. If they used force, people would be armed to fight back.


I continue to maintain that there is *no fucking way* that a society based on private accumulations will *ever* enforce a strict regulation that limits ownership to *personal property* *only*....

It is not based on private accumulation, just on personal property. It would not be easy to accumulate as it is now by the reasons I mentioned in previous posts which you prefer to ignore.


If we go by the definition that personal property is that which one uses for their person only, without expanding it to accumulations and investments (typically for profit-making), then I DARE YOU to tell me again that your proposed society would stick to this limitation of *personal* property ownership *only*, for the sake of eliminating exploitation and guaranteeing equal opportunity.

I say this because if you stand by this parameter then you've effectively become a communist by default -- limiting individual ownership to a strict definition of *personal property* *means* that all the rest must be "the commons", again by default.

But as soon as you allow true 'private property' then you're allowing the exploitation of labor by private ownership since that's what's required for the buildup of private surpluses (through leveraging, investments, accumulations beyond one's own personal use, etc.).

There is no problem with accumulating and investing provided the wealth one uses to do such actions is not derived from exploitation. And the reason why exploitation would occur is because there would be equality of opportunity. People would choose not to be exploited because they would have a choice to self-employ themselves or join cooperatives or communes. There would be mechanism to guarantee equality of opportunity would remain: self-regulation, armed populace, so on.

[ckaihatsu]

You're condoning an alternative system of private property that may *possibly* discontinue socializing the cost burden onto the public at large, but it *would* retain the favoritism, or elitism, that comes with private wealth ownership. If a party happened to be the heir to a private family fortune that party would be in a much more favorable position to benefit from the exercise of freedom of the press, through a massive, expensive printing campaign that few others could afford.





What is preventing a person who just got the fortune of a family to engage in a massive, expensive printing campaign NOW? That's right, nothing. Yet you don't see rich people doing this.

It seems that the "advocate for freedom" layer you once supported is starting to peel off. Who would have thought you are against the exercise of freedom of the press?


Whoa, whoa, whoa -- watch it with the accusations.

You're *changing* the topic of the point, which *was* just about *elitism* a moment ago -- I'm all for people saying what they want to, *especially* if it's socialism-minded. But you're conveniently ignoring the elitism in which those with *private* fortunes have a *disproportionate* access to the *means* of the freedom of speech, as with using their funds for a massive, costly printing campaign.





I continue to maintain that there is *no fucking way* that a society based on private accumulations will *ever* enforce a strict regulation that limits ownership to *personal property* *only*....





It is not based on private accumulation, just on personal property. It would not be easy to accumulate as it is now by the reasons I mentioned in previous posts which you prefer to ignore.





I continue to maintain that there is *no fucking way* that a society based on private accumulations will *ever* enforce a strict regulation that limits ownership to *personal property* *only*....

If we go by the definition that personal property is that which one uses for their person only, without expanding it to accumulations and investments (typically for profit-making), then I DARE YOU to tell me again that your proposed society would stick to this limitation of *personal* property ownership *only*, for the sake of eliminating exploitation and guaranteeing equal opportunity.

I say this because if you stand by this parameter then you've effectively become a communist by default -- limiting individual ownership to a strict definition of *personal property* *means* that all the rest must be "the commons", again by default.

But as soon as you allow true 'private property' then you're allowing the exploitation of labor by private ownership since that's what's required for the buildup of private surpluses (through leveraging, investments, accumulations beyond one's own personal use, etc.).





There is no problem with accumulating and investing provided the wealth one uses to do such actions is not derived from exploitation. And the reason why exploitation would occur is because there would be equality of opportunity. People would choose not to be exploited because they would have a choice to self-employ themselves or join cooperatives or communes. There would be mechanism to guarantee equality of opportunity would remain: self-regulation, armed populace, so on.


The *best* way to avoid exploitation altogether is to bring about the *end* of *private property* -- that way there's no gray area, or temptation to allow *personal property* to *expand* into large accumulations of *private property*.

If the entire world is open to the public and maintained only by those who really want to do it, then there is no longer any need for fences, barriers, walls, borders, or any other kind of arbitrary, private-property-based boundaries. People could access what they would like with requisite labor backing it up and compensated through the *conscious*, *intentional* political economy of the intersubjective consensus. (I like to think of this as the amusement-park or private-club kind of membership and planning, but on a worldwide scale, for all humanity -- please excuse the analogies.)

[Havet]

Whoa, whoa, whoa -- watch it with the accusations.

You're *changing* the topic of the point, which *was* just about *elitism* a moment ago -- I'm all for people saying what they want to, *especially* if it's socialism-minded. But you're conveniently ignoring the elitism in which those with *private* fortunes have a *disproportionate* access to the *means* of the freedom of speech, as with using their funds for a massive, costly printing campaign.

Do those with private fortunes have a disproportionate amount of access to freedom of speech in printed media? I'm not talking about broadcast media (which is obviously biased), but printed media.


The *best* way to avoid exploitation altogether is to bring about the *end* of *private property* -- that way there's no gray area, or temptation to allow *personal property* to *expand* into large accumulations of *private property*.

What is wrong with personal property with lending and accumulation so long as a community has democratically agreed to it, and doesn't enforce it against other communities will?


(I like to think of this as the amusement-park or private-club kind of membership and planning, but on a worldwide scale, for all humanity -- please excuse the analogies.)

I like that idea of a club (with privacy) membership, but I do not understand why it has to necessarily be on a worldwide scale and you cannot tolerate other ways of social organization provided they do not exploit and people are free to leave them.

[ckaihatsu]

Do those with private fortunes have a disproportionate amount of access to freedom of speech in printed media? I'm not talking about broadcast media (which is obviously biased), but printed media.


*** Yes! ***

(If you need me to spell it out for you, it's that more money enables a person to purchase more sheets of paper with printing on them and also more people to stand in public areas handing the sheets of paper out to passers-by. Or it could be more newspaper or magazine advertisements, or whatever.) This is a disproportionate amount of access to the freedom of speech, thanks to private property.





What is wrong with personal property with lending and accumulation so long as a community has democratically agreed to it, and doesn't enforce it against other communities will?


There's no "right" or "wrong" here -- I am *not* a moralist, so I'm *not* the one who tells you, or your community, what to do with yourself(-selves).

However, as far as *politics* goes, I *will* say that there is a *slippery slope* involved if the inherent societal purpose is going to be oriented towards *private accumulations* instead of *collectivizing the organization of labor*.

The initial, historic construction of factories, to enable industrial production, *did* require the coming-together of large moneyed interests -- private property -- in the form of joint-stock companies, to effect the factory-production system. But once this point was reached, and the factories built, it changed the composition and arrangement of the working class forever. Instead of being in disparate locations, like artisans in the shops or farmworkers in the fields, the workers were brought into close proximity with each other, and soon they were able to self-organize their own labor, in their own best interests. A very good example would be the mass railroad strike of 1877:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_railroad_strike_of_1877

What *you're* advocating is a *backwards* step, back to the historic period of *mercantilism*, when *all production* was small-scale and virtually individualized. In *this* context you would see no problem with self-powered work efforts that enabled the production of a *personal surplus*, with which one could do some simple trading and accumulation with others around the local scene.

But what you -- and *all libertarians* -- are *not realizing* is that we *can't*, and *shouldn't* ignore industrial production. For us to rely on individual, artisan-type efforts for the productive force for society would amount to a severe economic crash and dislocation for the world, now that we've come to rely on mass *industrial* production and distribution functions in the imperialist-capitalist mode.

Again, there's *nothing* "wrong" with personal property accumulation and lending -- it's not a moral issue, or a legal issue -- but, since we're on a *political forum* here, the question on the table is whether it is a *sound* material-political path to take.

Instead of *retreating* back to individualized production we should be *pressing forward* towards a society that *encourages* the working class -- wage laborers everywhere -- to "wake up" and consciously organize *their own* labor power in the directions that they, in their *own* judgment, would see as the best, most fit.

This shift in the nature of production *necessarily* comes into conflict with the interests of private property ownership, since the workers' first step would be to stop producing for the benefit of returns on private financial investments. But at the same time it would immediately be an improvement for people generally, without regards to their wealth ownership, because the products of the mass labor productive process could be distributed generally and openly to the population at large -- "collectivized".

So, to sum up, my overall point here is that the society's general economic *orientation* -- its political system -- makes *all* the difference in determining how labor functions. Should labor be individualized, as you're suggesting, or should it be "woken up" and put into a position of conscious control over its own function, now that the world has brought industrial production techniques into existence? It's a matter of "backwards" or "forwards", *not* a matter of "right" or "wrong".





I like that idea of a club (with privacy) membership, but I do not understand why it has to necessarily be on a worldwide scale and you cannot tolerate other ways of social organization provided they do not exploit and people are free to leave them.


Again, that's what I advocate.

[Havet]

*** Yes! ***

(If you need me to spell it out for you, it's that more money enables a person to purchase more sheets of paper with printing on them and also more people to stand in public areas handing the sheets of paper out to passers-by. Or it could be more newspaper or magazine advertisements, or whatever.) This is a disproportionate amount of access to the freedom of speech, thanks to private property.

And do you see this disproportionate amount of "rich printed media" in the streets? Because I don't. And I don't see anything preventing more alternative information - anarchist, communist, primitivist, mutualist - from appearing. In fact, sometimes I catch a glimpse of such type of media.


There's no "right" or "wrong" here -- I am *not* a moralist, so I'm *not* the one who tells you, or your community, what to do with yourself(-selves).

Right= what works, wrong= what doesn't work.


What *you're* advocating is a *backwards* step, back to the historic period of *mercantilism*, when *all production* was small-scale and virtually individualized. In *this* context you would see no problem with self-powered work efforts that enabled the production of a *personal surplus*, with which one could do some simple trading and accumulation with others around the local scene.

But what you -- and *all libertarians* -- are *not realizing* is that we *can't*, and *shouldn't* ignore industrial production. For us to rely on individual, artisan-type efforts for the productive force for society would amount to a severe economic crash and dislocation for the world, now that we've come to rely on mass *industrial* production and distribution functions in the imperialist-capitalist mode.

I never advocated ignoring industrial production. I even layed out information regarding it.

The dominant forms of economic organization in an authentic free market would be worker-owned and operated industries, partnerships, cooperatives, a mass of small businesses, modestly sized private companies and self-employed persons. Industries that remained nominally owned by outside shareholders would largely function on a co-determined basis, that is, as partnerships between shareholders and labor with labor having the upper hand.(See "Iron Fist", by Carson). I don't "ignore" industrial production. I think that it would naturally reflect labor demands given their ability and self-interest to organize and control such ventures.


So, to sum up, my overall point here is that the society's general economic *orientation* -- its political system -- makes *all* the difference in determining how labor functions. Should labor be individualized, as you're suggesting, or should it be "woken up" and put into a position of conscious control over its own function, now that the world has brought industrial production techniques into existence? It's a matter of "backwards" or "forwards", *not* a matter of "right" or "wrong".

It's not a matter of backwards or forwards. Imagine a dictatorship were established tomorrow. I could claim you would want to go "backwards" (and that somehow that is "bad"). Its not about backwards or forwards. Its about what works.

[ckaihatsu]

And do you see this disproportionate amount of "rich printed media" in the streets? Because I don't. And I don't see anything preventing more alternative information - anarchist, communist, primitivist, mutualist - from appearing. In fact, sometimes I catch a glimpse of such type of media.


You're side-stepping the point again, which is about the *quantity* of free speech that can be issued forth depending on the *quantity* of wealth (private property) that one possesses to fund the *material efforts*, or labor, behind that quantity of free speech.

You've just *ghettoized* alternative free speech (anarchist, communist, etc.) by obligingly *disallowing* it from major avenues of printed media. In this way you're not even *arguing* for any kind of democratic access to the printed media -- you're acknowledging that these mainstream channels of free speech are *off limits* to alternative political views due to their lack of funding.





The dominant forms of economic organization in an authentic free market would be worker-owned and operated industries, partnerships, cooperatives, a mass of small businesses, modestly sized private companies and self-employed persons.


Leaving in market controls means that your politics are *not* truly alternative.





Industries that remained nominally owned by outside shareholders would largely function on a co-determined basis, that is, as partnerships between shareholders and labor with labor having the upper hand.(See "Iron Fist", by Carson).


Again, the historic moment for the social usefulness of private shareholdings has *long* since passed -- labor could easily do without shareholders while shareholders *cannot* do without labor.





I don't "ignore" industrial production. I think that it would naturally reflect labor demands given their ability and self-interest to organize and control such ventures.


This is more to the point -- if you would just stick with *this* part on its own you'd be much closer to a viable system.





It's not a matter of backwards or forwards. Imagine a dictatorship were established tomorrow. I could claim you would want to go "backwards" (and that somehow that is "bad"). Its not about backwards or forwards. Its about what works.


Well, a dictatorship would be a *backwards* step, wouldn't it...?

"Backwards" and "forwards" are *valid* descriptive terms since they refer to the history of material development in human society. If we were to talk about rubbing sticks together to make fire that would be a *backwards* step because we have easier, more efficient ways of doing that these days. Just think of it in terms of sophistication, or complexity, or scale....

[Havet]

You're side-stepping the point again, which is about the *quantity* of free speech that can be issued forth depending on the *quantity* of wealth (private property) that one possesses to fund the *material efforts*, or labor, behind that quantity of free speech.

You've just *ghettoized* alternative free speech (anarchist, communist, etc.) by obligingly *disallowing* it from major avenues of printed media. In this way you're not even *arguing* for any kind of democratic access to the printed media -- you're acknowledging that these mainstream channels of free speech are *off limits* to alternative political views due to their lack of funding.

Even if rich people used much of their wealth to support a vast propaganda machine, nothing is stopping other people from coming up with other media information. As you can see today, rich people have many resources, yet they DON'T use this to fund a massive propaganda machine in printed media (though they do so in broadcast media). This is because it simply isn't that profitable for them.


Again, the historic moment for the social usefulness of private shareholdings has *long* since passed -- labor could easily do without shareholders while shareholders *cannot* do without labor.

If it so happens that labor can do without shareholders (even though from the start I specifically defined shareholding as the ability of workers to exchange their participation in a cooperative business for something else), then fine. I don't see any problem with this. I just ask that you let things naturally develop according to the demands of most people rather than starting applying statist restrictions from the beginning.


Well, a dictatorship would be a *backwards* step, wouldn't it...

"Backwards" and "forwards" are *valid* descriptive terms since they refer to the history of material development in human society. If we were to talk about rubbing sticks together to make fire that would be a *backwards* step because we have easier, more efficient ways of doing that these days. Just think of it in terms of sophistication, or complexity, or scale....

What if we had a recent dictatorship society in which the degree of material development in society was drastically superior? Wouldn't it be "forwards", even if it were at the expense of the people?

All i'm saying is descriptive terms like "backwards" and "forwards" are subjective and confusing. Either we refrain from describing a better society, or we explain exactly why and how previous societies had good and bad aspects, and the good ones need to be increased, and the bad ones dissipated.

[ckaihatsu]

Even if rich people used much of their wealth to support a vast propaganda machine, nothing is stopping other people from coming up with other media information.


But can "other people" (the *not*-well-funded, and *politically opposed* Marxists) get their information into the New York Times as quarter-, half-, and full-page ads, or into other major newspapers and magazines? Obviously not, because commercial and bourgeois political interests have far more resources for the same, not to mention control of the "free press" infrastructure itself, through their major shareholdings and government backing.





As you can see today, rich people have many resources, yet they DON'T use this to fund a massive propaganda machine in printed media (though they do so in broadcast media). This is because it simply isn't that profitable for them.


While major businesses have distinct and differing private *commercial* interests from each other, they all have a degree of *combined* *political* interest in common -- as with backing the use of *public* funds for escalating the attacks on Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example.

The *journalism* of the mainstream media channels, in all forms, *reflects* this bourgeois, or propertied, *political culture* that is altogether different and opposed to the interests of their class enemy, the proletariat. Marxist politics represent the best interests of the proletariat, *not* of the bourgeoisie.





If it so happens that labor can do without shareholders (even though from the start I specifically defined shareholding as the ability of workers to exchange their participation in a cooperative business for something else), then fine. I don't see any problem with this. I just ask that you let things naturally develop according to the demands of most people rather than starting applying statist restrictions from the beginning.


The bourgeois-controlled state is *outside* of working-class (proletariat) control -- this is *evidenced* by the type of politics communicated by the major media outlets, as I outlined above.

As revolutionaries, we advocate the *overthrow* of the bourgeois control of the mainstream media. We advocate that most people *change their minds* and *demand* that *workers* take control of the means of mass production, including the mainstream media channels, outside of shareholder demands, no matter *what* the bourgeois government (state) or moneyed interests have to say about it.





What if we had a recent dictatorship society in which the degree of material development in society was drastically superior? Wouldn't it be "forwards", even if it were at the expense of the people?


No, because it wouldn't be a superior *distribution*, or scale of complexity, compared to more-democratic (or proletarian-revolutionary) forms of government.





All i'm saying is descriptive terms like "backwards" and "forwards" are subjective and confusing.


Maybe they're confusing to *you*, but they're valuable and *objective* once you understand the concept.





Either we refrain from describing a better society, or we explain exactly why and how previous societies had good and bad aspects, and the good ones need to be increased, and the bad ones dissipated.


Hey, I'm *all* for explaining and promoting understanding, as you can see by my participation...!

[Havet]

But can "other people" (the *not*-well-funded, and *politically opposed* Marxists) get their information into the New York Times as quarter-, half-, and full-page ads, or into other major newspapers and magazines? Obviously not, because commercial and bourgeois political interests have far more resources for the same, not to mention control of the "free press" infrastructure itself, through their major shareholdings and government backing.

No, they can't. But they can start their own newspapers.


While major businesses have distinct and differing private *commercial* interests from each other, they all have a degree of *combined* *political* interest in common -- as with backing the use of *public* funds for escalating the attacks on Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example.

The *journalism* of the mainstream media channels, in all forms, *reflects* this bourgeois, or propertied, *political culture* that is altogether different and opposed to the interests of their class enemy, the proletariat. Marxist politics represent the best interests of the proletariat, *not* of the bourgeoisie.

I was talking printed media, yet you deviated towards broadcast media. I agree, it is a propaganda arm of the status quo. What i'm saying is that your worries of the "super rich" (which i frankly don't understand how they could become that rich in a freer, more democratic society) taking over the printed press are unfounded because there is nothing stopping them from doing it now, and they haven't.


The bourgeois-controlled state is *outside* of working-class (proletariat) control -- this is *evidenced* by the type of politics communicated by the major media outlets, as I outlined above.

Sure


As revolutionaries, we advocate the *overthrow* of the bourgeois control of the mainstream media. We advocate that most people *change their minds* and *demand* that *workers* take control of the means of mass production, including the mainstream media channels, outside of shareholder demands, no matter *what* the bourgeois government (state) or moneyed interests have to say about it.

Ok, fine. Suppose I am a worker, and I decide to make a living by creating a newspaper/magazine solely about fishing. Would you prevent me from doing this? Would you preventing me from earning my living and accumulating some money at the expense of no one?


No, because it wouldn't be a superior *distribution*, or scale of complexity, compared to more-democratic (or proletarian-revolutionary) forms of government.

How do you define superior and complex? Just because something is more complex doesn't mean its necessarily the most efficient and rational form of organization.

I think you'd just be better off calling it "democratic" or "undemocratic" rather than "backwards" or "forwards.


Hey, I'm *all* for explaining and promoting understanding, as you can see by my participation...!

I was just talking that we need to get into subjects specifically rather than talking in abstract terms

[ckaihatsu]

But can "other people" (the *not*-well-funded, and *politically opposed* Marxists) get their information into the New York Times as quarter-, half-, and full-page ads, or into other major newspapers and magazines? Obviously not, because commercial and bourgeois political interests have far more resources for the same, not to mention control of the "free press" infrastructure itself, through their major shareholdings and government backing.





No, they can't.


Then you agree that "free speech" is more easily *produced* and *leveraged* by those who have more wealth to spend on the *materials* (and political greasing) for exercising free speech -- ?





But they can start their own newspapers.


We both know that it's not just the physical newspaper or magazine, but also the *marketing and distribution channels*, as into the major shopping areas and shelves where the media is much more likely to be seen and purchased.





I was talking printed media, yet you deviated towards broadcast media. I agree, it is a propaganda arm of the status quo. What i'm saying is that your worries of the "super rich" (which i frankly don't understand how they could become that rich in a freer, more democratic society) taking over the printed press are unfounded because there is nothing stopping them from doing it now, and they haven't.


You're projecting here -- I never said I was "worried", or that the problem is the "super rich" -- I was describing the cumulative interests of the *bourgeoisie*, as seen through their communications in the mainstream (corporate) media....

Revolutionary struggle isn't easy or automatic -- other, historic revolutions could have *technically* taken place much earlier in time, but they didn't.





Ok, fine. Suppose I am a worker, and I decide to make a living by creating a newspaper/magazine solely about fishing. Would you prevent me from doing this? Would you preventing me from earning my living and accumulating some money at the expense of no one?


Why are you *personalizing* this? I have virtually *nothing* to do with any of this -- we're talking here about *politics*, and *political dynamics* that go far beyond just you or me.

In terms of my *politics*, the question would be more about where things are in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. You might get asked by the larger proletariat -- perhaps on a discussion board like here -- given the current (hypothetical) offensive that's been gaining against the forces of the bourgeoisie, why you would *want* to be spending your time with a fishing magazine when you could instead be doing more for the struggle.





How do you define superior and complex? Just because something is more complex doesn't mean its necessarily the most efficient and rational form of organization.


'Superior' means that human labor time is being more-leveraged -- usually by the use of machinery and concentrated sources of fuel power, and social organization -- to create the goods and services that are being supplied to the end user.

'Complex' means that there is a greater *diversity* of inputs -- types of labor and materials -- going into the end product or service.

So, when we combine these two variables, we can see that those who have higher standards of living -- the political elites -- are able to access goods and services (the results of human labor) that are far superior and complex, and more numerous, to that which are accessible to the average person.

In terms of the production *process*, that's where the variables of efficiency and rational organization come into play.

In terms of the *social organization*, that's where the variable of *scale* (of the distribution of superior complex goods and services) is relevant.

[Havet]

Then you agree that "free speech" is more easily *produced* and *leveraged* by those who have more wealth to spend on the *materials* (and political greasing) for exercising free speech -- ?

Not really


We both know that it's not just the physical newspaper or magazine, but also the *marketing and distribution channels*, as into the major shopping areas and shelves where the media is much more likely to be seen and purchased.

There are other ways to market products. The internet, for example, is a spectacular marketing device since it allows for niche products to be more easily found. Just because it might be expensive to be on the shelves of some newspaper store doesn't mean they have an advantage. Likely the owner just decides to put those newspapers instead of yours because more people are willing to buy those newspapers and probably never heard of your own.


You're projecting here -- I never said I was "worried", or that the problem is the "super rich" -- I was describing the cumulative interests of the *bourgeoisie*, as seen through their communications in the mainstream (corporate) media....

Revolutionary struggle isn't easy or automatic -- other, historic revolutions could have *technically* taken place much earlier in time, but they didn't.

So do you agknowledge that they have no interest in monopolizing the ownership of all printing presses?


Why are you *personalizing* this? I have virtually *nothing* to do with any of this -- we're talking here about *politics*, and *political dynamics* that go far beyond just you or me.

In terms of my *politics*, the question would be more about where things are in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. You might get asked by the larger proletariat -- perhaps on a discussion board like here -- given the current (hypothetical) offensive that's been gaining against the forces of the bourgeoisie, why you would *want* to be spending your time with a fishing magazine when you could instead be doing more for the struggle.

I'm not personalizing, i was giving an example, which you ignored...



'Superior' means that human labor time is being more-leveraged -- usually by the use of machinery and concentrated sources of fuel power, and social organization -- to create the goods and services that are being supplied to the end user.

'Complex' means that there is a greater *diversity* of inputs -- types of labor and materials -- going into the end product or service.

So, when we combine these two variables, we can see that those who have higher standards of living -- the political elites -- are able to access goods and services (the results of human labor) that are far superior and complex, and more numerous, to that which are accessible to the average person.

In terms of the production *process*, that's where the variables of efficiency and rational organization come into play.

In terms of the *social organization*, that's where the variable of *scale* (of the distribution of superior complex goods and services) is relevant.

Super.

[ckaihatsu]

Then you agree that "free speech" is more easily *produced* and *leveraged* by those who have more wealth to spend on the *materials* (and political greasing) for exercising free speech -- ?





Not really


Then this means that you're *ignoring* the productive abilities of wealth ownership.





We both know that it's not just the physical newspaper or magazine, but also the *marketing and distribution channels*, as into the major shopping areas and shelves where the media is much more likely to be seen and purchased.





There are other ways to market products.


Yes, but why should the compromise be on the basis of wealth ownership, or, rather, the *lack* of wealth ownership?





The internet, for example, is a spectacular marketing device since it allows for niche products to be more easily found. Just because it might be expensive to be on the shelves of some newspaper store doesn't mean they have an advantage. Likely the owner just decides to put those newspapers instead of yours because more people are willing to buy those newspapers and probably never heard of your own.


Yes, the Internet is a far more democratic / populist type of marketing / information tool -- I find it to be downright revolutionary, as far as information goes. But at the same time it can also be termed an information "ghetto" if more conventional, physical-space avenues of (marketing) access are denied, on the basis of wealth ownership.





Then you agree that "free speech" is more easily *produced* and *leveraged* by those who have more wealth to spend on the *materials* (and political greasing) for exercising free speech -- ?





Not really





Likely the owner just decides to put those newspapers instead of yours because more people are willing to buy those newspapers and probably never heard of your own.


You're admitting here that the determining variable in better avenues to free speech *is* money -- the revenue that comes from sales of newspapers.





You're projecting here -- I never said I was "worried", or that the problem is the "super rich" -- I was describing the cumulative interests of the *bourgeoisie*, as seen through their communications in the mainstream (corporate) media....





So do you agknowledge that they have no interest in monopolizing the ownership of all printing presses?


Again, it's not necessarily the *physical means* to mass communications that's the issue here -- a sizeable portion of the world's population now has access to the net, as you noted.

More to the point, at this *imperialist* stage in the development of capitalism, are the conventional *channels* and non-cyberspace *avenues of distribution* -- based on private property -- that are being dominated by the corporate media.





Ok, fine. Suppose I am a worker, and I decide to make a living by creating a newspaper/magazine solely about fishing. Would you prevent me from doing this? Would you preventing me from earning my living and accumulating some money at the expense of no one?





Why are you *personalizing* this? I have virtually *nothing* to do with any of this -- we're talking here about *politics*, and *political dynamics* that go far beyond just you or me.

In terms of my *politics*, the question would be more about where things are in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. You might get asked by the larger proletariat -- perhaps on a discussion board like here -- given the current (hypothetical) offensive that's been gaining against the forces of the bourgeoisie, why you would *want* to be spending your time with a fishing magazine when you could instead be doing more for the struggle.





I'm not personalizing, i was giving an example, which you ignored...


I'm ignoring that scenario because such a decision would not be mine to make.

[Havet]

Then this means that you're *ignoring* the productive abilities of wealth ownership.

No. It just means that you are ignoring the fact that nothing is restricting other people from starting their own printed media.


Yes, but why should the compromise be on the basis of wealth ownership, or, rather, the *lack* of wealth ownership?

Yes, the Internet is a far more democratic / populist type of marketing / information tool -- I find it to be downright revolutionary, as far as information goes. But at the same time it can also be termed an information "ghetto" if more conventional, physical-space avenues of (marketing) access are denied, on the basis of wealth ownership.

Conventional ways of marketing may be denied, but there are still types of marketing which are not denied. As you probably have witnessed yourself, many "conventional" printed media have moved strongly into the internet because its cheaper and more effective.


You're admitting here that the determining variable in better avenues to free speech *is* money -- the revenue that comes from sales of newspapers.

And the owner of that stand can only make more money by meeting the demands of the customers, whatever type of demand that may be.



Again, it's not necessarily the *physical means* to mass communications that's the issue here -- a sizeable portion of the world's population now has access to the net, as you noted.

More to the point, at this *imperialist* stage in the development of capitalism, are the conventional *channels* and non-cyberspace *avenues of distribution* -- based on private property -- that are being dominated by the corporate media.

But these conventional channels and non-cyberspace avenues are mainly dominated by the corporate media precisely because it is broadcast media and, therefore, regulated.


I'm ignoring that scenario because such a decision would not be mine to make.

Ok, i misrepresented myself. When i said "you", i meant the majority decision of your community under your idealized system. That cleared, "Suppose I am a worker, and I decide to make a living by creating a newspaper/magazine solely about fishing. Would you "vote" the decision to force me from doing this? Would you vote the decision to prevent me from earning my living and accumulating some money at the expense of no one?

[ckaihatsu]

You're admitting here that the determining variable in better avenues to free speech *is* money -- the revenue that comes from sales of newspapers.





And the owner of that stand can only make more money by meeting the demands of the customers, whatever type of demand that may be.


And the "demand" is measured by the yardstick of wealth, and by no other standard of human need or demand.





Then this means that you're *ignoring* the productive abilities of wealth ownership.





No. It just means that you are ignoring the fact that nothing is restricting other people from starting their own printed media.


I *never* said that people could not start up their own printed media, if they have the means -- but you *are* ignoring the fact that the practice of free speech is relative because not everyone has the same access to the same *tools* of mass communications -- those with more wealth *will* be able to reach a larger audience with their message through better marketing and distribution channels, and with more-expensive media materials. Here's where you admit it:





Conventional ways of marketing may be denied,


So, again, wealth *will* play a determining factor in reaching an audience with free speech -- this is *separate* from the merits of the *ideas themselves* being communicated, through whatever means.





but there are still types of marketing which are not denied. As you probably have witnessed yourself, many "conventional" printed media have moved strongly into the internet because its cheaper and more effective.


- Whatever -





But these conventional channels and non-cyberspace avenues are mainly dominated by the corporate media precisely because it is broadcast media and, therefore, regulated.


Regulated according to the dictates of the corporate media interests *themselves*, that is...!





Ok, i misrepresented myself. When i said "you", i meant the majority decision of your community under your idealized system. That cleared, "Suppose I am a worker, and I decide to make a living by creating a newspaper/magazine solely about fishing. Would you "vote" the decision to force me from doing this? Would you vote the decision to prevent me from earning my living and accumulating some money at the expense of no one?


I refuse to entertain this hypothetical scenario because it is too speculative and unrealistic -- it is a moot issue.

[Havet]

And the "demand" is measured by the yardstick of wealth, and by no other standard of human need or demand.

Not really. Just because one may be richer doesn't mean he is willing to spend as much money on something he can afford less than a poorer man who is therefore willing to spend more on something he needs more. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1623722&postcount=5)

Regardless, you can build your own "needy commune" and move there.


I *never* said that people could not start up their own printed media, if they have the means -- but you *are* ignoring the fact that the practice of free speech is relative because not everyone has the same access to the same *tools* of mass communications -- those with more wealth *will* be able to reach a larger audience with their message through better marketing and distribution channels, and with more-expensive media materials.

Free speech is free, there is no cost involved. Free press is not "free", because there is always a cost (the cost of buying paper and ink and printing it).

Those with better wealth may reach a larger audience, but they are not restricting the equality of opportunity of those less wealthy, so I don't see the problem.


Regulated according to the dictates of the corporate media interests *themselves*, that is...!

Yup. When something becomes (heavily) regulated (like broadcast media), it becomes more profitable to bribe the holders of such monopoly (the government) and persuade them to give such monopoly to corporations, even though there still continues to be no equality of opportunity. This is why most "privatizations" are a scam.


I refuse to entertain this hypothetical scenario because it is too speculative and unrealistic -- it is a moot issue.

Do you seriously believe it is unrealistic for a person to want to print information about his favourite hobby to trade with other people who have the same hobby? Yeesh.

[ckaihatsu]

And the "demand" is measured by the yardstick of wealth, and by no other standard of human need or demand.





Not really. Just because one may be richer doesn't mean he is willing to spend as much money on something he can afford less than a poorer man who is therefore willing to spend more on something he needs more. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1623722&postcount=5)

Regardless, you can build your own "needy commune" and move there.


Okay, so you're talking about subjective, personal qualitative valuations of available goods and services. That's fair.

But here's the thing -- remember this statement of yours from the other thread -- ?








So here you've agreed that the capacity to supply the world's basic human needs is possible.

Yes, the most basic human needs. Not all demand.


Where exactly do we draw the line as to what the "most basic human needs" are? This is a crucial question because if we can identify those goods and services that are *most commonly used* en masse then we can leverage enormous economies of scale in order to streamline the supply while making them universally available. (Urban public transportation systems come to mind, and it should be the same way for health care coverage, too.)

*I* would say that the supply of news should fall into this category, and so the products of journalism should really be made a publicly available good. Are certain, wealthier, people somehow *more deserving* of having access to a newspaper than those who may not be able to personally budget for an ongoing newspaper subscription? Or, since going online is now a common route of access to the news for the average consumer, why shouldn't Internet access, too, be made a public good so as to completely service this basic human need for daily updates on the larger world?





Free speech is free, there is no cost involved. Free press is not "free", because there is always a cost (the cost of buying paper and ink and printing it).

Those with better wealth may reach a larger audience, but they are not restricting the equality of opportunity of those less wealthy, so I don't see the problem.


The *problem* is that there is *no equality* of outreach to audiences -- you're turning this into a merely *semantic* issue (*not* a real-world one) by saying that people only have "free speech" but not equal reach. Along the same lines I could say that everyone has vocal cords and so everyone has "equal opportunity" to vocalize sounds out of their mouths -- but this is *meaningless* in the real world unless one has had some education, particularly literacy.

So, likewise, are you going to continue to tell me that there is "equal opportunity" in "free speech" just because the state may happen to *not* jail everyone who vocalizes criticism of the government?

And here you're *making my point for me*:





When something becomes (heavily) regulated (like broadcast media), it becomes more profitable to bribe the holders of such monopoly (the government) and persuade them to give such monopoly to corporations, even though there still continues to be no equality of opportunity. This is why most "privatizations" are a scam.


In this statement you're explicitly describing the influence of wealth on the political ability to reach a mass audience. Do you *really* think that there would be a way *around* this power that privatized wealth has, and would continue to have, over the major channels of outreach to audiences? You're explaining very clearly how the profit motive completely undermines equality of opportunity.

[Havet]

Where exactly do we draw the line as to what the "most basic human needs" are? This is a crucial question because if we can identify those goods and services that are *most commonly used* en masse then we can leverage enormous economies of scale in order to streamline the supply while making them universally available. (Urban public transportation systems come to mind, and it should be the same way for health care coverage, too.)

*I* would say that the supply of news should fall into this category, and so the products of journalism should really be made a publicly available good. Are certain, wealthier, people somehow *more deserving* of having access to a newspaper than those who may not be able to personally budget for an ongoing newspaper subscription? Or, since going online is now a common route of access to the news for the average consumer, why shouldn't Internet access, too, be made a public good so as to completely service this basic human need for daily updates on the larger world?

Unless you have scientific evidence of the objective minimum human needs, then indeed it is very difficult to draw the line.

So when you say printed media should be a public mean, does that mean i have to get the permission of some bureaucrat before I can get my own printer and distribute my own newspaper?


The *problem* is that there is *no equality* of outreach to audiences -- you're turning this into a merely *semantic* issue (*not* a real-world one) by saying that people only have "free speech" but not equal reach. Along the same lines I could say that everyone has vocal cords and so everyone has "equal opportunity" to vocalize sounds out of their mouths -- but this is *meaningless* in the real world unless one has had some education, particularly literacy.

So, likewise, are you going to continue to tell me that there is "equal opportunity" in "free speech" just because the state may happen to *not* jail everyone who vocalizes criticism of the government?

Just because the state might not allow equal opportunity in speech or some types of printed media doesn't overrun the fact that they are still largely free (especially printed media) and that the rich people haven't used their enourmous wealth to start a massive propaganda campaign and buy out every other producers of printed media.


In this statement you're explicitly describing the influence of wealth on the political ability to reach a mass audience. Do you *really* think that there would be a way *around* this power that privatized wealth has, and would continue to have, over the major channels of outreach to audiences? You're explaining very clearly how the profit motive completely undermines equality of opportunity.

Yeah, the reason wealth can have such a big influence to reach such a mass audience is because broadcast media (Tv, radio, airwaves) is "public" (aka state) property, and since the state already has the MONOPOLY over that property, its far more profitable for corporations to lobby the state.

[ckaihatsu]

Unless you have scientific evidence of the objective minimum human needs, then indeed it is very difficult to draw the line.


I'll go by this baseline, from the first two levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:





Physiological needs

For the most part, physiological needs are obvious - they are the literal requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met (with the exception of clothing and shelter), the human body simply cannot continue to function.

Physiological needs include:

* Breathing
* Food
* Sexual activity
* Homeostasis

Lack of air and food will kill an individual. A lack of sexual activity would mean the extinction of humanity, probably explaining the strength of the sexual instinct in individuals.


Safety needs

With their physical needs relatively satisfied, the individual's safety needs take precedence and dominate behavior. These needs have to do with people's yearning for a predictable, orderly world in which injustice and inconsistency are under control, the familiar frequent and the unfamiliar rare. In the world of work, these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, and the like.

For most of human history many individuals have found their safety needs unmet, but As of 2009[update] "First World" societies provide most with their satisfaction, although the poor - both those who are poor as a class and those who are temporarily poor (university students would be an example) - must often still address these needs.

Safety and Security needs include:

* Personal security
* Financial security
* Health and well-being
* Safety net against accidents/illness and their adverse impacts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs


Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

http://i45.tinypic.com/30204e8.jpg





So when you say printed media should be a public mean, does that mean i have to get the permission of some bureaucrat before I can get my own printer and distribute my own newspaper?


This is a rhetorical question in the service of your own paranoid fantasy -- go find the phantom bureaucrat you're referring to here and ask them.





Just because the state might not allow equal opportunity in speech or some types of printed media doesn't overrun the fact that they are still largely free (especially printed media) and that the rich people haven't used their enourmous wealth to start a massive propaganda campaign and buy out every other producers of printed media.


"Free" as in having an opinion is *far* different from *free* as in having the funds with which to put that opinion in front of millions of people through the mass media. (Particular combinations or arrangements of media ownership are not nearly as important here as the simple enhanced outreach conferred by *wealth* ownership in general.)





Yeah, the reason wealth can have such a big influence to reach such a mass audience is because broadcast media (Tv, radio, airwaves) is "public" (aka state) property, and since the state already has the MONOPOLY over that property, its far more profitable for corporations to lobby the state.


Yes, but even *without* a (bourgeois) state monopoly over the regulation / legitimation of the mass media a wealthier backer would *still* enjoy greater privilege in the use of "free speech" due to their favored, elitist position of wealth -- they'd be able to *cover the costs* of a wider outreach to a larger audience.

[Havet]

I'll go by this baseline, from the first two levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

Supply prioritization in a socialist transitional economy

http://i45.tinypic.com/30204e8.jpg

How much air?

How much food? What type of food? How many meals?

How much sexual activity?


This is a rhetorical question in the service of your own paranoid fantasy -- go find the phantom bureaucrat you're referring to here and ask them.

So who decides things in a communist society? The majority?

Do you agree that the majority should restrict me from creating my own fishing magazine?


"Free" as in having an opinion is *far* different from *free* as in having the funds with which to put that opinion in front of millions of people through the mass media. (Particular combinations or arrangements of media ownership are not nearly as important here as the simple enhanced outreach conferred by *wealth* ownership in general.)

Yes there is a difference. But the conclusion you are trying to arrive at is flawed. See below.


Yes, but even *without* a (bourgeois) state monopoly over the regulation / legitimation of the mass media a wealthier backer would *still* enjoy greater privilege in the use of "free speech" due to their favored, elitist position of wealth -- they'd be able to *cover the costs* of a wider outreach to a larger audience.

Look, i'll make it very simple for you:

1. We don't have regulation over printed media
2. There are no wealthier capitalists who restrict the equality of opportunity of other printed media newbies.
3. Therefore, the fact that there are wealthier people does not mean that they will necessarily use that wealth to prevent others from printing what they want.

[ckaihatsu]

How much air?

How much food? What type of food? How many meals?

How much sexual activity?


As much as there is to go around.





So who decides things in a communist society? The majority?


The active revolutionary workers.





Do you agree that the majority should restrict me from creating my own fishing magazine?





I refuse to entertain this hypothetical scenario because it is too speculative and unrealistic -- it is a moot issue.





Look, i'll make it very simple for you:

1. We don't have regulation over printed media
2. There are no wealthier capitalists who restrict the equality of opportunity of other printed media newbies.
3. Therefore, the fact that there are wealthier people does not mean that they will necessarily use that wealth to prevent others from printing what they want.





Yes, but even *without* a (bourgeois) state monopoly over the regulation / legitimation of the mass media a wealthier backer would *still* enjoy greater privilege in the use of "free speech" due to their favored, elitist position of wealth -- they'd be able to *cover the costs* of a wider outreach to a larger audience.

[anticap]

FWIW, here's an obligatory YouTube video:

bwsAweTWRIs

It's part of a series (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=96D707FE0E72CFA3) critiquing Austrianism from the "mainstream/Keynesian" perspective.

[Havet]

As much as there is to go around.

Not good enough of an answer. We were discussing the objective bare minimum. Surely you can say how much, in a scientific fashion?


I refuse to entertain this hypothetical scenario because it is too speculative and unrealistic -- it is a moot issue.


Do you seriously believe it is unrealistic for a person to want to print information about his favourite hobby to trade with other people who have the same hobby? Yeesh.


Yes, but even *without* a (bourgeois) state monopoly over the regulation / legitimation of the mass media a wealthier backer would *still* enjoy greater privilege in the use of "free speech" due to their favored, elitist position of wealth -- they'd be able to *cover the costs* of a wider outreach to a larger audience.

So your answer to my reply is the previous reply I answered to. Nice.

In all seriousness now, what do you not understand about what I said?

[ckaihatsu]

How much air?

How much food? What type of food? How many meals?

How much sexual activity?





As much as there is to go around.





Not good enough of an answer. We were discussing the objective bare minimum. Surely you can say how much, in a scientific fashion?


Fortunately for you I just happened to have developed a framework that addresses questions / issues like the one you're raising here. I've attached it -- feel free to have a look!

[Havet]

Fortunately for you I just happened to have developed a framework that addresses questions / issues like the one you're raising here. I've attached it -- feel free to have a look!

Unfortunately for you, to fail to say exactly the objective amounts of each factors we were discussing.

How much volume for air?

How much kilograms of food? What proportion of food exactly?

How many times does one need to have sex in order to be fully satiated?

According to you, all these factors are the same for all humans, since they are the objective bare minimum. Please proceed explaining how much of each is required.

[ckaihatsu]

---




Unfortunately for you, to fail to say exactly the objective amounts of each factors we were discussing.

How much volume for air?

How much kilograms of food? What proportion of food exactly?

How many times does one need to have sex in order to be fully satiated?

According to you, all these factors are the same for all humans, since they are the objective bare minimum. Please proceed explaining how much of each is required.





As much as there is to go around.

[Havet]

---

What if there is not enough volume of air to supply everyone's basic needs?

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

What if there is not enough volume of air to supply everyone's basic needs?

Truly, you have crushed socialism with that cutting remark.

[Havet]

Truly, you have crushed socialism with that cutting remark.

My intention is not to crush socialism, but State socialism as well as some pretty vulgar arguments some people here engage on.

[MMIKEYJ]

I love how people blame the gold standard for the great depression, when was caused the great depression was banks taking money out of the economy, after flooding the economy with cash.

[LeftSideDown]

FWIW, here's an obligatory YouTube video:

bwsAweTWRIs

It's part of a series (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=96D707FE0E72CFA3) critiquing Austrianism from the "mainstream/Keynesian" perspective.

Lol. I stopped at Deflation barely occurs. I was under this weird impression that computers were getting better and better and cheaper, but I must surely be mistaken. Prices are "sticky"

[LeftSideDown]

Except that it really isn't-- the dollar is only as good as the government's credibility to stick with the standard. If a government can go on a gold standard, it can go off, and historically countries have done exactly that all the time. The fact that speculators know this means that any currency adhering to a gold standard (or, in more modern times, a fixed exchange rate) may be subject to a speculative attack.

But somehow fiat currencies are immune to speculation and general changes in value (as compared to goods and services/other currencies)? You know whats funny? During the Weimar republic prices rose FASTER than the rate of inflation because of speculation. No gold standard there!


After suspending gold convertibility in World War I, many countries stayed off gold and experienced chaotic fiscal and monetary policies in the early 1920's. Many observers reasoned then, just as many observers reason today, that the only way to restore fiscal and monetary responsibility would be to go back on gold, and by the end of the 1920's, most countries had returned to the gold standard.

There was monetary instability because these countries that used inflation to finance their war refused (for the most part) to allow prices to adjust. They tried to hold everything constant (including the dollar to gold ratio) when there were many MANY more dollars in circulation than redeemable gold.


I argued in a paper titled, "The Role of the International Gold Standard in Propagating the Great Depression," published in Contemporary Policy Issues in 1988, that counting on a gold standard to enforce monetary and fiscal discipline in an environment in which speculators had great doubts about governments' ability to adhere to that discipline was a recipe for disaster. International capital flows became more erratic, not less, as doubts were raised about whether first the pound would be devalued and then the dollar. Britain gave in to the speculative attacks and abandoned gold in 1931, whereas the U.S. toughed it out by deliberately raising interest rates in 1931 at a time when the economy was already near free fall.

Why did speculators have doubts? Because government inflated the currency to finance the war (its pretty obvious that they had to do this because it'd be a lot more unpopular to go around and just take gold from people's houses, so instead they just took the value)?


Because of this uncertainty, there was a big increase in demand for gold, the one safe asset in this setting, which meant the relative price of gold must rise. If everybody is trying to hoard more gold, you're going to have to pay more potatoes to get an ounce of gold. Since the U.S. insisted on holding the dollar price of gold fixed, this meant that the dollar price of potatoes had to fall. The longer a country stayed on the gold standard, the more overall deflation it experienced. Many of us are persuaded that this deflation greatly added to the economic difficulties of those countries that insisted on sticking with a fixed value of their currency in terms of gold.

It would not have been demanded so highly had its value (in terms of paper money) been devalued so much. You blame the gold standard for the government's actions, and then your solution is to change it for a currency where you're not really sure whats happening to the value so the government is basically given a blank check for any project (or war). Supporting a full, non abandon-able, gold standard is basically supporting peace. Most citizens don't support war so much that they will allow government to come in and take half of their money so that their sons can die. But if the government just sneakily decreases the value, well, people don't really feel the large affects till later.

Anyway, the reason these countries had "rebounds" is because the threshold for business profitability was lower, and while prices were not allowed in any of these countries to adjust to match the supply/demand of goods/services/money once the money supply had been inflated sufficiently this readjustment process took place artificially (and at the cost of consumers).


A gold standard only works when everybody believes in the overall fiscal and monetary responsibility of the major world governments and the relative price of gold is fairly stable. And yet a lack of such faith was the precise reason the world returned to gold in the late 1920's and the reason many argue for a return to gold today. Saying you're on a gold standard does not suddenly make you credible. But it does set you up for some ferocious problems if people still doubt whether you've set your house in order.

So you abandon the gold standard because it only works when its not being inflated away? Honestly, giving them fiat currency just gives them unlimited power to do this with affects that are not felt for years. Its the difference between a family whose house is ablaze with fire and wants immediate action (government to either change parity or to pay back its debt and reduce number of dollars in circulation) to put it out and one whose house is slowly sinking into the mud, but they don't really care because "its only a few inches a year". You think its better for people to not care about the same result (money deevaluation) because fiat currency makes the affect of irresponsible fiscal activity in government not apparent.