Free-Trade

[The Vegan Marxist]

I was just wondering, given that Free-Trade doesn't necessarily mean capitalism, & vice versa, can anyone give me an exact clarification why Free-Trade doesn't work & leads only problems like capitalism? I ask this because I've heard a few people say they're free-market socialists, which I find as odd, but I was wondering if there's a reason behind this or if they're just blinded still?

[Argument]

The problem is that many people who defends free trade only really defend it for the capitalists, for big business, for the transnational corporations. Many liberals and conservatives (and some anarcho-capitalists) say that capitalism is free trade. They also claim that the current system isn't free trade, which is true. When they describe free trade, they often remove a lot of the regulations, that's true. However, they often fail to remove the biggest problem of capitalism, the state given privileges that capitalists receive. As long as capitalists still have the land monopoly (land based on neo-Lockeanism instead of occupancy and use, land property instead of land possession, as long as they have their intellectual monopolies, sorry, "intellectual property", as long as the state retains a central bank and basically outlaws* alternative banks such as the Mutual Bank, capitalism will probably prevail.

The liberals and conservatives say "Privatize!" without thinking about the consequences. I, as an anarchist, of course don't want the factories and companies and all that to be owned by the state. Yet, who has payed for these things? The workers, the tax payers, the people. Who benefits when it's "privatized"? The capitalists, who has gotten rich because of state intervention in the market, because of state given privileges. Of course the state own factories and companies should be privatized, but privatized for real. I say, give them back to the workers!

When we have real free trade, without state given privileges to capitalist, I predict capitalism will fall. Without subsidies, without regulation of the market that hurt small business so that big business can dominate, without intellectual property and land monopoly, I don't think the capitalists will stand a chance against strong workers' cooperatives. There will be free trade, but not free trade for the capitalists, no, we shall have free trade for the workers, for the people! This is free market socialism, and this is what I support.



*While the state might not directly outlaw Mutual Banks, in practice it almost is. How are we to create Mutual Banks when the capitalist banks have received a lot of unfair advantages and support from the state? How are we to overcome all the regulation and taxation that makes it hard to run a worker-based cooperative?

[CartCollector]

If cooperation between workers works so well within worker-run businesses, why not have the whole economy based on cooperation too? Does something horrible happen when businesses work together to produce for human needs instead of profits?

[Argument]

If cooperation between workers works so well within worker-run businesses, why not have the whole economy based on cooperation too? Does something horrible happen when businesses work together to produce for human needs instead of profits?People would work together because they benefit more from being part of a workers' cooperative than being an employee of some company. Every worker should receive the value of what he produces. He should not be forced to give it away, neither to a capitalist nor to "society" as a whole. If he desires to give to charity, he can. If he desires to keep the products of his labor, he should be allowed to do that. Why? If we take the products of his labor, aren't we stealing from him? Isn't that an act of oppression, an act of force, an act of coercion? If we did that, we wouldn't be anarchists, we would be rulers, dictators, men with power over other people.

Now, if people voluntary agree to share their resources, the products of their labor, they should be free to do so. Anarcho-communism is acceptable because it's voluntary, if anarcho-communists start to steal from people, they would lose my support. Not that I think they would, though.

To answer your question: I think mutualism is preferable to anarcho-communism because I don't think anarcho-communism would be as efficient. People work harder when they are rewarded for their hard work. If people share the resources, some people might slack off, since they don't see a point to work hard when they get as much as when they slack off. I might be wrong, perhaps anarcho-communism is more efficient that mutualism. Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not. I guess we'll see, if we ever achieve our goal.

[BAM]

Argument,

what do you think of Proudhon's argument that labour-time should be the direct measure of prices in the market? That is, existing currency should be replaced with a currency based on labour-time?

[Argument]

Argument,

what do you think of Proudhon's argument that labour-time should be the direct measure of prices in the market? That is, existing currency should be replaced with a currency based on labour-time?I haven't read what he's written about that. When it comes to currency, I don't really have a strong opinion. However, if you attempt to sell, say, a hot dog, if you charge $20 for it, you won't sell many hot dogs. If you instead charge 1$, you might sell some hot dogs. If you charge 0.2$, you will sell many hot dogs, but at a loss. How much you get depends on how much people are willing to pay.

[BAM]

I haven't read what he's written about that. When it comes to currency, I don't really have a strong opinion. However, if you attempt to sell, say, a hot dog, if you charge $20 for it, you won't sell many hot dogs. If you instead charge 1$, you might sell some hot dogs. If you charge 0.2$, you will sell many hot dogs, but at a loss. How much you get depends on how much people are willing to pay.

I certainly agree that price affects demand. I won't quibble over that at all.

My understanding of mutualist economic theory is that it is based on a normative theory of value. That is, labour-time should be the measure of exchange value, as opposed to the descriptive labour theories of value of, say, Ricardo and Marx, who argue that the movement of supply and demand in the market reveals value, which is the point around which market prices fluctuate. (For Marx, market prices actually fluctuate around prices of production and in the long-run average market price will correspond to production price).

According to my understanding, Proudhon's mutualism reverses this. It is value itself that can create the balance of supply and demand in the market (ie, I put in, say, four hours of my labour and extract the equivalent in labour from the market). The problem is that this bypasses the social validation mechanism of market exchange. How do you know if your labour is productive enough?

If you accept a labour theory of value then working twice as long as something does not produce twice as much value. If you spend four hours making a widget instead of the average of two hours in your branch of production, you have wasted two hours of labour. You (or the mutual bank that issues the labour currency) would not know until you come to market and are forced to sell at or around the prices everyone else is selling at. Your four hours you put in may not be equal to the four hours you believe you are entitled to take out. Also, as productivity increases, value declines as less labour is needed per commodity produced. As productivity increases, so those firms or co-operatives who can produce the cheapest grow in size and can corner the market.

But if labour were the direct measure of price in the market, it would have to be two things at once: the determining element of value and also its nominal independent expression. However, it is only through the fluctuations of nominal values (prices) that value is revealed, so we have a reversal in the mutualist notion of exchange. In short, it misses the point that price is not equal to value.

Now, you can of course say that none of this applies to you if you don't accept Proudhon's ideas. If you do, though, I think you miss a very important part of mutualist economics.

[Klaatu]

I would like to offer some calculations on a business which is:

(a) capitalist owned: One guy owns it and earns $1,000,000/year. His 50 workers are paid minimum wage $15,000/year.

(b) socialist (worker) owned: no rich guy: the 50 workers now earn his salary of $1,000,000/50 = $20,000 each.
Each worker now averages 15,000 + 20,000 = $35,000, more than double his meager capitalistic wages.

Here is proof that "worker-owned" socialism raises the standard of living for the masses, not just a few filthy-rich capitalists.

No government-run wealth redistribution schemes needed here either.

[CartCollector]

If he desires to keep the products of his labor, he should be allowed to do that. Why? If we take the products of his labor, aren't we stealing from him? Isn't that an act of oppression, an act of force, an act of coercion? If we did that, we wouldn't be anarchists, we would be rulers, dictators, men with power over other people.
But why do people labor? Is it just for the heck of it, because they enjoy it? No, it's to fulfill someone's desires, more often than not someone else's. Face it, modern day production is between groups of people. It's not hunter-gatherer times, we aren't just working for our own survival anymore. We produce for each other (which results under capitalism in the division of labor) and greater surpluses are created when we work together (economies of scale). Therefore it makes sense that the surplus should be socially owned, as it is produced socially. People meeting their needs with what they produce collectively isn't theft. Taking what is produced collectively and fencing it off for your own gain is.

[BAM]

Here is proof that "worker-owned" socialism raises the standard of living for the masses, not just a few filthy-rich capitalists.

No government-run wealth redistribution schemes needed here either.

That's true, as far as it goes. Co-operatives are excellent examples of how the working class can organize production without bosses and even be more efficient than capitalist enterprises. That said, the point of a co-operative firm in a capitalist society is still the accumulation of capital, with workers acting as their own capitalist.

However, they point to an important development within capitalist society, namely, the increasing socialization of production within the capitalist mode production itself, which is itself the result of the development of the credit system and the factory:


The co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent within the old form the first sprouts of the new, although they naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system. But the antithesis between capital and labour is overcome within them, if at first only by way of making the associated labourers into their own capitalist, i.e., by enabling them to use the means of production for the employment of their own labour. They show how a new mode of production naturally grows out of an old one, when the development of the material forces of production and of the corresponding forms of social production have reached a particular stage. Without the factory system arising out of the capitalist mode of production there could have been no co-operative factories. Nor could these have developed without the credit system arising out of the same mode of production. The credit system is not only the principal basis for the gradual transformation of capitalist private enterprises into capitalist stock companies, but equally offers the means for the gradual extension of co-operative enterprises on a more or less national scale. The capitalist stock companies, as much as the co-operative factories, should be considered as transitional forms from the capitalist mode of production to the associated one, with the only distinction that the antagonism is resolved negatively in the one and positively in the other.

Capital Vol III, ch27. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch27.htm)

[MarxSchmarx]

I would like to offer some calculations on a business which is:

(a) capitalist owned: One guy owns it and earns $1,000,000/year. His 50 workers are paid minimum wage $15,000/year.

(b) socialist (worker) owned: no rich guy: the 50 workers now earn his salary of $1,000,000/50 = $20,000 each.
Each worker now averages 15,000 + 20,000 = $35,000, more than double his meager capitalistic wages.

Here is proof that "worker-owned" socialism raises the standard of living for the masses, not just a few filthy-rich capitalists.

No government-run wealth redistribution schemes needed here either.

Yet the argument is that if this sort of calculation is expanded to society as a whole instead of the 50 workers, then the standard of living for everyone will improve.

Which is all well and good. However the issue with these sort of calculations that omit a society-wide redistributions is that they rely on the same assumption that capitalism does - that is to say, there already are decisions made about "redistributing", e.g., either to the workers of the plant or the society as a whole in the form of taxation on enterprises. The former implicitly requires that the workers front the capital of their own accord in order to be fair. However, there are economies of scale that make this unsuitable and do not reasonably increase the standard of living as much as society-wide investments. The latter is arguably the only way that future profit can be fronted by society as a whole to improve capital, but hence is inherently redistributive.

Thus the superiority of socialism to capitalism, based on renumeration of workers, only works with a redistributive component.

[Klaatu]

In this worker-cooperative, where 50 people are the owners of production, there might still be a problem with greed.
There always exists an element of greed in all humans. For example, one of the workers might try a form of "hostile takeover"
(as it's known in the capitalist world) of this socialist company. As yet, there is nothing to prevent this from happening
other than the good faith of the other 49 owners. That is, they could all vote to kick this greedy bastard out of the co-op.
OR there could be laws in place which would prevent any co-op member from dominating the others. Some might see
this as an infringement on their freedoms. But these are the minority of people who are doing the dirty deed anyway;
most people have more common sense: their freedom to own equal shares trumps his "freedom" to be a criminal.

Just thought of something here: isn't this similar to our present system of "step-on-all-the-faces-you-can-to-get-to-the-top?"
A system which is entirely legal in America? Legal because it is a "private business?" A big fish eat little fish type system?


This is how Capitalism works
http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/images/Picture-25.jpg