Capitalism and private property?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Hello,once more I have questions.

#1:Is there a difference between private property and private possessions? I was reading the communist manifesto and it said various statements about abolishing private property.Does this include only land ownership or private possessions as well.For instance under communist/socialist law would I have a right to say to another person "No you can't have that-it's my favorite book!" or would I be forced to give him it (If i'm asked)?

#2:Are communists/socialists against all forms of capitalism or only against,primarly,big international brands of capitalism? For example if I run a small bussiness,I don't have the ambition to grow into a multi-national gonglomerate and my employees are well paid and happy, then why is that bad? How is this spreading imperialism or driving third world countries into starvation?

Thanks for your time,and please leave any comments you think will help.

[this is an invasion]

1) There is a difference between personal property and private property. Private property is property that can be capitalized off of (stores, factories, etc). Personal property is things that individuals own (clothes, books, etc.). I don't think anyone will be all "You need to give up all your shit." However, I do hope that as capitalism is destroyed that our lives will be less based around things and the accumulation of said things and the desire to define ourselves by things.

2) Communists should be against all forms of capitalist economy and capitalist socialization. Unsafe and unfair working conditions are a problem, but they are not the primary reason we are against capitalism. Communists are against capitalism because it commodifies labor and human beings, and because we are against people living off of the labor of others (which is what you would be doing if you had employees working for you - regardless of how well you paid them). This applies to anarchists, too.

[StoneFrog]

You have to look at it like this, communists are against all forms of exploitation, if we look at capitalism labour is exploitation within capitalism. This analysis is based on thetheory of how goods gain value, goods get their value through human labour.

Take a gold bracelet, gold is know as a valuable metal but that value comes from the labour that is put into getting that gold, prospecting and mining that gold out. Gold sitting miles under the earth has no value because it has no use value (nobody can use it), but if we exert labour to get that gold (mining etc) that gold now can be used, but used human labour to achieve it. Then the gold is given to a jeweler (or whom ever can make it into a bracelet), now human labour is being put into it to produce even more use value. More people are going to use and want a bracelet than just a chunk of gold, so the bracelet has more value than the material used to make it. That is only achieved through human labour.

So now we look at who receives the reward of the value of the bracelet, the labourers(miners,jewelers) only receive a small amount of the sale of the gold and sale of the final produce the bracelet. But who have the product all its value? the workers, but the bosses earn the majority. Bosses can use their capital to produce more capital, but the workers who are giving value to all the goods have to sell their labour to be able to live.

Now we look at the small shop owners, they put in their capital in and also some labour. The majority of the capital produced by the shop is still going to the shop owner, and the shop workers still only receive a small amount yet they do more labour than the owner.
The small shop keeper is known as Petit-Bourgeois, someone who still exploits workers and owns the means of production(the shop and assets associated with it).

I did skim over a lot in that but its a general idea of it, im sure someone else can explain better.

[durhamleft]

Most leftists would suggest everyone should have a house to live in that is private and is their own, what they would object to is one man living in a mansion with acres of land while another man starves on a street corner. Fair allocation of resources? I think not.

[Adil3tr]

Oh come on, what do you think? Do you really think millions of workers would rally behind the idea that someone could walk up to them and take something away from them?

[StoneFrog]

Oh come on, what do you think? Do you really think millions of workers would rally behind the idea that someone could walk up to them and take something away from them?

Calm down, most people new the socialism ask this very same question. No need to be confrontational.

[durhamleft]

Calm down, most people new the socialism ask this very same question. No need to be confrontational.

Indeed. The... ignorance of leftist politics in general is absolutely frightening.

[Adil3tr]

#2:Are communists/socialists against all forms of capitalism or only against,primarly,big international brands of capitalism? For example if I run a small bussiness,I don't have the ambition to grow into a multi-national gonglomerate and my employees are well paid and happy, then why is that bad? How is this spreading imperialism or driving third world countries into starvation?

Well others may still have the ambition, and you could grow and need employees, what then? But more important then that, under socialism we would be trying to quickly create a post scarcity society, since almost all goods would then be unprofitable, you couldn't run a business anyway. We wouldn't stop you by force, we would just wait for you to run out of business or stop.