Worker Owned Businesses?

[Capitalist Lawyer]

While, in theory, groups of workers might organize and set their own deadlines, work priorities, budgets, pay, etc. In reality, in every group of workers will be some unmotivated slackers who would always set their deadline as "tomorrow" and their budget at "more" and there pay at "even more."

Such a business would be extremely inefficient, at best, making their products more and more costly to consumers and the quality of their products would become shoddier and shoddier (protected, I'm sure from foreign competition from the less enlightend countries where capatalism is still practiced).

[STI]

Wow. Good thing there aren't any examples of worker-owned businesses :lol:



Sweat-X! (http://www.sweatx.net/)

OWNED!

YOU SUCK!

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Gee Capitalist Lawyer, you've really got a grasp of history. You post has shown me that the increases in production, imporvement in working conditions, etc. in collectivised anarchist Spain were all some sort of terrifying mistake. Hmmm . . . maybe if we were lazy everywhere, production would increase everywhere.

(Oh, and what about the factory occupations in Argentina?)

[h&s]

In reality, in every group of workers will be some unmotivated slackers who would always set their deadline as "tomorrow" and their budget at "more" and there pay at "even more."

And in reality in a capitalist world most bosses are those who set wages as 'as little as possible' and working conditions 'as cheap and bad as possible.'

[NovelGentry]

In reality, in every group of workers will be some unmotivated slackers who would always set their deadline as "tomorrow" and their budget at "more" and there pay at "even more."

Are you talking about corporate executives?

[cubist]

Such a business would be extremely inefficient, at best, making their products more and more costly to consumers and the quality of their products would become shoddier and shoddier (protected, I'm sure from foreign competition from the less enlightend countries where capatalism is still practiced).


TWAT,

[STI]

Funny, this little kid hasn't responded yet. :lol: :lol:


I wonder why :lol: :lol: :lol:

I think we can safely say, comrades, that WE ROCK!

[Anarchist Freedom]

pwned!

[STI]

pwned indeed.

We kick ass. Take that, cappie-beehatch.

[Marvs Cicero]

Gee Capitalist Lawyer, you've really got a grasp of history. You post has shown me that the increases in production, imporvement in working conditions, etc. in collectivised anarchist Spain were all some sort of terrifying mistake. Hmmm . . . maybe if we were lazy everywhere, production would increase everywhere.

I don't understand what your point is. Spain was never a Capitalist country, so what exactly are you attacking here?


Wow. Good thing there aren't any examples of worker-owned businesses

Sweat-X!

OWNED!

YOU SUCK!

How many sales have they had? How much does it cost to manufacture a single shirt at "Sweat-X"?

You have done nothing, but post a site with little content and information. I'm not very impressed.

[Vinny Rafarino]

Originally posted by Capitalist [email protected] 12 2004, 12:35 PM
While, in theory, groups of workers might organize and set their own deadlines, work priorities, budgets, pay, etc. In reality, in every group of workers will be some unmotivated slackers who would always set their deadline as "tomorrow" and their budget at "more" and there pay at "even more."

Such a business would be extremely inefficient, at best, making their products more and more costly to consumers and the quality of their products would become shoddier and shoddier (protected, I'm sure from foreign competition from the less enlightend countries where capatalism is still practiced).
Are you saying that without the proper "guidence" (someone like yourself I presume), workers will be unable to perform the duties they already perform?

In any case, your juvenile opinion of how "production will be affected" is completely absurd from an actual ecomomic standpoint.

Even the most daft in a 100 level economics course would consider you views to be silly.

[LSD]

I don't understand what your point is. Spain was never a Capitalist country,

I don't undersand what your point is!

He never said Spain was capitalist, he said it was anarchist.


so what exactly are you attacking here?

You!


Any other questions?

[Poop]

Yes, without bosses, workers would just wallow in their own puddle of urine and the economy would crumble. Luckily, some superhuman people are endowed with a work ethic that the rabble don't possess. These superhuman people bless the lesser peoples with authority. They set the stupid, lazy, thoughtless cogs in the machine in motion. Otherwise, the workers would just twiddle their thumbs and starve because, as you pointed out, survival is not a very effective motivation, so everyone would turn into "unmotivated slackers" without the fear of authority.

[Marvs Cicero]

I don't undersand what your point is!

He never said Spain was capitalist, he said it was anarchist.

He is trying to contrast it with the system prior to it. So what he said could mean that instead of having X ammount of work related injuries they would have less then X ammount of work related injuries because the anarchism created higher unemployment rates and decreased the ammount of factories, where such an injury could take place. This renders his statement completly meaningless.


You!


Any other questions?

Yes, are you aware that the post I responded to was posted before I posted for the first time on this forum making it impossible for it to be attacking me?

[LSD]

Yes, are you aware that the post I responded to was posted before I posted for the first time on this forum making it impossible for it to be attacking me?

In english, "you" refers to both the singular and the plural second-person.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Well Marvs, while Spain as a whole was not capitalist, the industrial centers seized by the anarchists were. Hence, the increase in industrial production. Unless it was some sort of fudal factory, run by serfs . . . (DUH.)


(Wonderful post by "poop")

[tcip]

There are many fine worker owned businesses. Woodsmans foods comes to mind. I believe they have the stock options set up as such. Fine business, I bought most of my food there while I was still living up north.


...

I don't quite see any problem whatsoever with worker owned businesses, as long as they compete.

[Marvs Cicero]

In english, "you" refers to both the singular and plural second person.

Actually, you were responding specificly to me.

What you are trying to do is tantamount to me asking you who you were attacking and then you looking me dead in the face and saying "You!" and then claiming you were talking to everyone in the room.

Please don't pull that crap with me.

[LSD]

I meant you, and everyone who thinks like you.

In short, cappies.

[Osman Ghazi]

While, in theory, groups of workers might organize and set their own deadlines, work priorities, budgets, pay, etc. In reality, in every group of workers will be some unmotivated slackers who would always set their deadline as "tomorrow" and their budget at "more" and there pay at "even more."


You don't work with people much, do you? And you definately aren't a manager. Because, about 50 years ago, management theorists discovered that that simply wasn't true. People don't use scientific management practices anymore. Today, worker autonomy and team structures have shown themselves to be far more productive. Research management theory some, then come back again and post.

[STI]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Notice how CL hasn't responded?

Guess why.

Chalk up one more for the 0wnz0rs.

[New Tolerance]

Originally posted by Capitalist [email protected] 12 2004, 12:35 PM
While, in theory, groups of workers might organize and set their own deadlines, work priorities, budgets, pay, etc. In reality, in every group of workers will be some unmotivated slackers who would always set their deadline as "tomorrow" and their budget at "more" and there pay at "even more."

Such a business would be extremely inefficient, at best, making their products more and more costly to consumers and the quality of their products would become shoddier and shoddier (protected, I'm sure from foreign competition from the less enlightend countries where capatalism is still practiced).
The same arguement could be used to attack democracy. Now, people aren't always voting for politicians who pursue short term benefits at the expanse of longterm gains now are they?

[cubist]

what truly makes me laugh is that bosses are usually the ones who need guidance and help.

BTW spain is part of europe and uses the euro a capitalist currency, supported by capitalist nations, a socialist iparty in power doesn't make a socialist economy

[LSD]

BTW spain is part of europe and uses the euro a capitalist currency, supported by capitalist nations, a socialist iparty in power doesn't make a socialist economy

I think we all know that....

To whom were you addressing this?

[antieverything]

Sweat-X actually went under recently...the reason was bad management before the worker control and ownership were implimented. Still, this is hardly suprising since the idea of a start-up garment collective in the United States is pretty experimental. Those involved with the project are confident they can make things work better in the future.

To say that worker ownership and control are counterproductive actually goes against every piece of scholarship on the subject ever. In conclusion, you are ignorant. I can see where your opinion comes from but it is simply wrong and completely unsupportable by evidence.


"Research Evidence on Prevalence and Effects of Employee Ownership Testimony before the Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations Committee on Education and the Workforce U.S. House of Representatives" http://www.nber.org/~confer/2002/lss02/kruse.pdf

National Center for Employee Ownership
http://www.nceo.org/

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/08/...l?oneclick=true (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/08/1036308479390.html?oneclick=true)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=308759
http://www.sfworlds.com/linkworld/coop.html
http://www.justpeace.org/coop.htm
http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unificatio...con/Econ-07.htm (http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Books/Econ/Econ-07.htm)

Mondragón:
The Remarkable Achievement
Pioneering a significant social invention
in the Basque region of northern Spain
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC02/Gilman2.htm


Of course, worker cooperatives fail and some prominent corporations have been phasing out worker ownership incentives.

http://www.washingtonfreepress.org//08/Working.html

But the reasons rarely include ineffiency caused by workers inability to properly manage themselves. Rather, cooperatives have trouble with the expansionary dynamic of capitalism. Specifically, many cooperatives are defeated by their failure to expand into a Mondragon-style "cooperative corporation" composed of related (or even unrelated) industries (lateral expansion...something like that).

Of course, this is a bit harder to do in the US than it is in Spain due to the relatively low number of cooperatives in this country.


One last note--Mondragon's cooperatively-controlled investment bank (yes, they have one of those) is regularly among the top 100 lending institutions in the world based on return on investment and making secure loans. This is more impressive when you take into account that most of the loans are to cooperatives.

The future for cooperatives? Probably international cooperative corporations, assuming of course that there is a future for cooperatives in the global (capitalist) economy.

Peace.

[STI]

It's one thing to be "called" a "socialist" party. They're basically social democrats.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

Are you saying that without the proper "guidence" (someone like yourself I presume), workers will be unable to perform the duties they already perform?


Umm... in a word... yes.

Oh sure, now that I've been fully trained in my job, I know WHAT I'm supposed to do and how to do it. But there are others who are more in touch with what the customers' needs are than I since I'm concentrating on how to do MY duties more efficiently. THEY set my priorities, and without them, I'd be doing things very efficiently that the customer doesn't necessarily want.

And no, I'm not a lawyer....not yet atleast.



Luckily, some superhuman people are endowed with a work ethic that the rabble don't possess.


You know... it's really a pity that you don't recognize how well you're illustrating your own ignorance. No one has said that managers are superhuman. The simply have a different skill set than labor. Different people have different talents. Nothing "superhuman" about it.

It's all been explained to you before probably and I'll using typing as a great example. Under your system, you'd have Stephen Hawking still hunting and pecking his way to publishing his brilliance.

[Hate Is Art]

It's all been explained to you before probably and I'll using typing as a great example. Under your system, you'd have Stephen Hawking still hunting and pecking his way to publishing his brilliance.

And under your system Steven Hawking would still be hunting and pecking his way to a decent health system to buy a fucking wheel chair.

[Sasha]

You guys can do better than that. Worker coops still have management -- they still have men at the top making more than the workers at the bottom. There is NOTHING anti-capitalist about them. Look at the most successful example: Mondragon. From their website (http://www.mondragon.mcc.es/ing/contacto/faqs1.html):

Each Division is headed by a corporate Vice President. The nine Vice Presidents, along with the Heads of Department at the Corporate Centre, together constitute the General Council, which is chaired by a President. The General Council is responsible for drawing up, co-ordinating and applying corporate strategies and objectives.

Yes, the "worker-members" have more power and the system works more democratically than traditional corporations, but what would you expect from a company that requires its members to invest part of their salary back into it? All it is doing is essentially shifting the ownership from outside stockholders to the workers, which might be a good strategy in certain cases and certainly isn't against capitalist ideals.

Granted, there is a lot of anti-capitalist sentiment among the intellectuals who created Mondragon, but that is NOT the reason for their success. I read the book From Mondragon to America (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0920336531/qid%3D1093728328/sr%3Dka-3/ref%3Dpd%5Fka%5F3/102-7031555-0780110), which explains how Mondragon is a collection of individual co-ops centered around a bank (the Caja Laboral) that detects when one of the co-ops is struggling and immediately rallies the other co-ops to help it out financially. They call this "altruistic and community-oriented"; I call it a sound business strategy that the Japanese have been practicing for decades (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=keiretsu).

[New Tolerance]

Would you bother to explain why this thing isn't anti-capitalist?

[Sasha]

It makes MONEY. If a capitalist thinks a worker co-op is a better way to run his particular business, he'll do it!

[New Tolerance]

You misunderstand what I mean by "anti-capitalist", which means anti-private property. What you are talking about has little to do with that.

Now, what's your definition of anti-capitalist?

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)You misunderstand what I mean by "anti-capitalist", which means anti-private property.[/b]
There's nothing about Mondragon that is anti-private property either. Remember, the worker-members have to invest part of their salaries back into the company -- thus they legitimately own part of that company.


New Tolerance
Now, what's your definition of anti-capitalist?

Anti-self, anti-happiness, anti-life.

My point was that worker coops like Mondragon are not examples of the kind of communist companies the thread-starter was initially criticizing, so their success does not prove anything.

[New Tolerance]

There's nothing about Mondragon that is anti-private property either. Remember, the worker-members have to invest part of their salaries back into the company -- thus they legitimately own part of that company.

Exactly, you just said it yourself, "they (the workers) own part of that company", it is collectively owned.


Anti-self, anti-happiness, anti-life.

Hahaha, one would be hard pressed to find a modern ideology that doesn't say it is pro-self, pro-happiness, and pro-life. Claiming such means nothing, a better definition requires the actual methods of reaching happiness and life etc to be listed.


My point was that worker coops like Mondragon are not examples of the kind of communist companies the thread-starter was initially criticizing, so their success does not prove anything.

See above.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)Exactly, you just said it yourself, "they (the workers) own part of that company", it is collectively owned.[/b]
In that case, Microsoft is collectively owned -- by its shareholders, each of whom own part of the company.


New Tolerance
Hahaha, one would be hard pressed to find a modern ideology that doesn't say it is pro-self, pro-happiness, and pro-life.
I know one that doesn't.

[New Tolerance]

In that case, Microsoft is collectively owned -- by its shareholders, each of whom own part of the company.

Sure, but shareholders do not actually work in the factories/offices of the company. They perform no actual labour. So their 'collective' owning of the industry is different from the employees 'collectively' owning of the industry.

The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation, if they are allowed to have a saying in how company works then this might be possible. Where as the shareholders collectively own the corporation for a different purpose. So the way shareholders 'collectively' own an industry is not in the communist style, while the workers who actually work in the company collectively owning an industry is. Which means the industry you have refered to does work does work in the communist style (although not to a full extent). While Microsoft isn't.


I know one that doesn't.

Name it.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance
Sure, but shareholders do not actually work in the factories/offices of the company. They perform no actual labour. So their 'collective' owning of the industry is different from the employees 'collectively' owning of the industry.
Why should they have to work in the factories they partially own? The shareholders performed labor somewhere else, and invested their salary in a company. In worker co-ops, the same exact thing happens, except the ones who perform the labor agree to invest in their own company.

It is the same capitalistic process, except you as the worker make a trade-off: In exchange for less freedom to spend your money elsewhere, you get more power in your company. The similarities to the communist system are superficial.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance
Name it.
I didn't want to fall into another one of these but...The system that demands you live not for yourself, but for others. The system that demands you give up the hard-earned luxuries that bring you happiness. The system whose members frequently proclaim they are willing to kill innocent people in order to bring about the "revolution".

[LSD]

The system that demands you live not for yourself, but for others

Capitalism?

A system in which one's labour is owned by another, while the worker himself is "compensated" with drastically less than his labour is worth.


The system that demands you give up the hard-earned luxuries that bring you happiness.

Capitalism!

A system that requires you to posess magic pieces of paper or you can't have those "luxuries" not to mention food, cloths, a home... The pieces of paper are haphazzardly apportioned based on birth, government decree, and "market" action. In other words, whatever the rulling class can "get away with".


The system whose members frequently proclaim they are willing to kill innocent people in order to bring about the "revolution".

um...neoliberalism?

The WTO certainly seems willing to let millions die in its quest to "revolutionize" the world to "free market trade". You're right, it is sick.

[New Tolerance]

Why should they have to work in the factories they partially own? The shareholders performed labor somewhere else, and invested their salary in a company. In worker co-ops, the same exact thing happens, except the ones who perform the labor agree to invest in their own company.

It is the same capitalistic process, except you as the worker make a trade-off: In exchange for less freedom to spend your money elsewhere, you get more power in your company. The similarities to the communist system are superficial.

Why? Here's why: As you've just said, in one case the workers get more power in their own company, in the other it is not the workers who get more power. Now, the existences of shareholders do not grant the workers in the company that they invest in more power by simply investing in it, now do they?


I didn't want to fall into another one of these but...The system that demands you live not for yourself, but for others. The system that demands you give up the hard-earned luxuries that bring you happiness. The system whose members frequently proclaim they are willing to kill innocent people in order to bring about the "revolution".

Once again, the reference to Leninism, most of us are not Leninists.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)
Originally posted by Sasha+--> (Sasha)The system that demands you live not for yourself, but for others[/b]
A system in which one's labour is owned by another, while the worker himself is "compensated" with drastically less than his labour is worth.[/b]
So you don't demand that I, as a rich man, live for others? You mean I can keep my money? Great!

BTW I've never heard someone say I "owned" the labor of those who work for me. Perhaps it's because they realized that my "property" has the right to walk out on me whenever it wants.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

Originally posted by Sasha
The system that demands you give up the hard-earned luxuries that bring you happiness.
A system that requires you to posess magic pieces of paper or you can't have those "luxuries" not to mention food, cloths, a home...
Right, so you demand that the rich give up the luxuries that bring them happiness because others don't have access to them -- I understand you, I just would rather you be honest.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

Originally posted by Sasha
The system whose members frequently proclaim they are willing to kill innocent people in order to bring about the "revolution".
The WTO certainly seems willing to let millions die in its quest to "revolutionize" the world to "free market trade". You're right, it is sick.
"Letting" millions die is far different than killing them. This is almost as bad as the commie who said that not giving to the poor is the same as stealing from them :D


New [email protected]
Why? Here's why: As you've just said, in one case the workers get more power in their own company, in the other it is not the workers who get more power.
Right, workers in traditional corporations get less power, but in return they get their FULL salary to spend wherever they want. Like I said, there is a trade-off. The communist system would have none of this; it demands that workers own whatever products result from their labor because communists don't understand the power of money.

Money allows you to hold in your hand a year's worth of labor, giving you the flexibility to wire it into a company's bank account half-way across the world, getting partial ownership of it. Money allows people to work in a factory and, in return, get dollars instead of ownership of the company. In capitalism, both are valid means of pay.

If you want to show me a truly communist company, there can't be any heirarchy, any pay scale -- hell, there can't be any pay at all. The products or services it provides can't be attached to any price at all. As long as a worker has a bank account recognizing his ownership of property, he is in the capitalist system.


New Tolerance
Once again, the reference to Leninism, most of us are not Leninists.
How do you explain the responses to this (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=27140&hl=) thread?

[LSD]

So you don't demand that I, as a rich man, live for others?

No.

I demand that you are no longer rich, but then if capitalism is abolished neither will anyone else. But, you personally will not be required to contribue any more than anyone else, your past financial status notwithstanding.

I think you are confusing communism with social democracy. I'm not proposing that as a rich man you should have to pay a higher tax rate, I'm advocating the elimination of the entire economic system. The same will be expected of you as of anyone else, no one gives a fuck if you used to be "rich".

Sorry for your confusion.


BTW I've never heard someone say I "owned" the labor of those who work for me.

Yes, language is usually controlled by the rulling class.

Thank you for pointing out this clear example of linguistic revisionism.


Perhaps it's because they realized that my "property" has the right to walk out on me whenever it wants.

Yes....they can choose to have their labour owned by someone else...

....or they could starve.

Great choices.


"Letting" millions die is far different than killing them.

um...who's "killing them"? (other than the US and her allies, of course)

Besides, from a moral perspective, ordering the death of millions and conciously allowing the easily preventable death of millions are practically indistinguishable. They are both forms of bureacratic homocide and they are both functionaly indirect.

Ethically speaking they are not "far different".

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)I demand that you are no longer rich, but then if capitalism is abolished neither will anyone else. But, you personally will not be required to contribue any more than anyone else, your past financial status notwithstanding.[/b]
So you do require me to contribute something. No confusion here.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Yes, language is usually controlled by the rulling class.

Thank you for pointing out this clear example of linguistic revisionism.[/b]
Something is not your property if it can voluntarily walk away. No language revisionism here.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Yes....they can choose to have their labour owned by someone else...

....or they could starve.

Great choices.
This is the greatest evasion of reality I've yet seen. You curse existence for not offering a Garden of Eden in which we can all lazily fill ourselves with peaches and strawberries without an ounce of labor.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
Besides, from a moral perspective, ordering the death of millions and conciously allowing the easily preventable death of millions are practically indistinguishable. They are both forms of bureacratic homocide and they are both functionaly indirect.
How do you define "easily preventable" and why should I be thought of as a killer for not giving my wealth to the starving masses?


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Ethically speaking they are not "far different".
According to the ethics of sacrifice, of course.

[LSD]

This is the greatest evasion of reality I've yet seen. You curse existence for not offering a Garden of Eden in which we can all lazily fill ourselves with peaches and strawberries without an ounce of labor.

Absolutely not.

I just believe that humanity can achieve a better society than the one we live in now.

Do you disagree? Do you honestly believe that capitalism is the ultimate form of economic evolution?


So you do require me to contribute something. No confusion here.

None at all.

Everyone must contribute... I know it's not as much fun as capitalism where you can just "get rich" by being born right or "playing the market", but it's a better system.


Something is not your property if it can voluntarily walk away. No language revisionism here.

"Labour" can't walk away. I never said the worker is owned, merely their labour: that which they do while in your "employ". Sure the person can leave (albeit usually they don't have any alternatives), but capitalism nescessitates that you always own that work which they did "for you".


How do you define "easily preventable"

Preventable: That which can be prevented.
Easily: With ease.


and why should I be thought of as a killer for not giving my wealth to the starving masses?

You shouldn't.

You're just operating within the confines of the system in which you were raised. Besides which, you could never be personally acountable for all of the stavation that capitalism has caused. Your own responsiblity is rather negligable.

However, once you attempt to actively defend a system which you know to be the cause of the suffering of millions, then your moral responsiblity rises dramtically. We're not at that point yet, and may not be durring your lifespan. But as nothing lasts forever and capitalism is an inherently ephemeral padigm, the time will come eventuall. I only hope you make the right choices then or you could be "thought of as a killer".

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Do you disagree? Do you honestly believe that capitalism is the ultimate form of economic evolution?[/b]
I believe capitalism is the only moral political system. I do not believe in sacrifice, which is what every other system demands.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Everyone must contribute...[/b]
What if I don't want to contribute? Will you just morally condemn me, or are you willing to use force? If you are, you cannot accurately state that your system is pro-self, pro-happiness, and pro-life.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
I know it's not as much fun as capitalism where you can just "get rich" by being born right or "playing the market", but it's a better system.
So you are against a parent's right to provide the best for their children? If inheritance is wrong, does that mean all other forms of gift-giving are wrong too? How do you square that with communism's demand for altruism?

Oh, and I don't know what "playing the market" means.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Sure the person can leave (albeit usually they don't have any alternatives), but capitalism nescessitates that you always own that work which they did "for you".
They didn't do that work for me, they did it for the reason you hate: money.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
Preventable: That which can be prevented.
Easily: With ease.
Nice try. My experience is that what commies view as "easy" doesn't always hold up to the laws of physics.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
You're just operating within the confines of the system in which you were raised. Besides which, you could never be personally acountable for all of the stavation that capitalism has caused. Your own responsiblity is rather negligable.
The system in which I was raised? There's nothing about the system preventing me from sending my money to starving people in Africa. I don't because I want to drive an SUV, send my son to a private school, and relax in a hot tub. Am I or am I not a killer?

[New Tolerance]

Right, workers in traditional corporations get less power, but in return they get their FULL salary to spend wherever they want. Like I said, there is a trade-off. The communist system would have none of this; it demands that workers own whatever products result from their labor because communists don't understand the power of money.

Who the hell told you that this is how communism is supposed to work?


Money allows you to hold in your hand a year's worth of labor, giving you the flexibility to wire it into a company's bank account half-way across the world, getting partial ownership of it. Money allows people to work in a factory and, in return, get dollars instead of ownership of the company. In capitalism, both are valid means of pay.

Two things:

One: communism doesn't necassarily advocate the end of a medium of commerical exchange (money in this case, some modifications done to the medium may still allow it to exist in a communist system)

Two: Money doesn't necassarily allow you to hold you year's worth of labour. A corporation can have two employees doing the same thing, with one in China and the other in the US. It doesn't take much to figure out who's doing more labour, and who's actually getting paid more... in fact much more. coughtheguyintheUScough Your year worth of labour indeed.


If you want to show me a truly communist company, there can't be any heirarchy, any pay scale -- hell, there can't be any pay at all. The products or services it provides can't be attached to any price at all. As long as a worker has a bank account recognizing his ownership of property, he is in the capitalist system.


Once again, you are talking as if you know how a communist system is supposed work, when in fact you are just showing me that you don't know what communism is about.

It is supposed to end wage-slavery and alienation of labour, it is not necassarily supposed to setup society so that it would not have a medium of exchange or so that it is some kind of happy-go-lucky-utopia. In fact Marx denied that communism is an utopian society.


How do you explain the responses to this thread?

The question was: would you shoot ONE person to achieve this. Two things has to be accounted for.

One: we have no idea what the response of the people we be if the question was restated as: would you should a MILLION people to achieve this.

Second, this follows the same logic as: killing one person (or a few) so that millions would be liberated (I don't advocated it, but it is not exceeding unreasonable, in fact modern society does it everyday it's called criminal justice, we punish people even though an absolute law of morals has not been proved, which means some of those people are not necassarily guilt of anything, and we are hurting them in the name of the common good, do you advocate the abolishment of this system?), this can also be applied to George Washington (Did he not think that innocent people will die as a result of a revolution?), was George Washington a Leninist?

And if that doesn't work for you, put it this way: I am not a Leninist. You can check my response from that thread.

[LSD]

the system in which I was raised? There's nothing about the system preventing me from sending my money to starving people in Africa. I don't because I want to drive an SUV, send my son to a private school, and relax in a hot tub.

That's the system in which you were raised.

A system which tells you it is moral to allow the starvation of others in order to satisfy selfish present material interest. If everyone were to abandon that principle, capitalism would collapse. As economists much older and wiser than you have said, capitalism is predicated on the principle of "unlimited demand" and "rationally selfish actors".


Am I or am I not a killer?

As I already said, no. "You're just operating within the confines of the system in which you were raised. Besides which, you could never be personally acountable for all of the stavation that capitalism has caused. Your own responsiblity is rather negligable."


So you are against a parent's right to provide the best for their children? If inheritance is wrong, does that mean all other forms of gift-giving are wrong too?

It means the system is wrong.

Within the contexts of this paradigm there is nothing wrong with gifts, nor anything inherently wrong with inheritence. But any system that allows one's life to be primarily dictated to by esoteric circumstances of their birth is not a good one.


How do you square that with communism's demand for altruism?

Communism does not deman "altruism". Clearly you have misunderstood the ideology. I would suggest further reading before you attempt to critisize a model you do not understand.


What if I don't want to contribute? Will you just morally condemn me, or are you willing to use force?

If you refuse to work, you will be asked to leave the community.

You can go and live on your own if you wish, "not contributing" to your hearts delight, no one will stop you.


If you are, you cannot accurately state that your system is pro-self, pro-happiness, and pro-life.

Oh come on!

Every system nescessitates that its members contribute. Capitalism does it through the latent coercion of a "money" system. You refuse to work, you don't eat.

But capitalism has a "wonderful" caveat that many other systems share, work is only nescessary for some. While most people have to work to ge their magic pieces of paper that let them eat and survive, if your born to the right people or invest in the right companies or "hire" enough labour BAMM you don't have to contribute any more.

So while communism would require everyone to work, capitalism requires most people to work. But don't be naive, both coerce people to "contribute".


They didn't do that work for me, they did it for the reason you hate: money.

And what is money?

It's pieces of paper.

Magic pieces of paper that your workers must have or they starve or they loose they homes. Don't kid yourself and believe that "money" is anything more esoteric than that. It's a "unit of exchange", a glorifed barter system.

"Money" is the way that capitalism ensures that workers work, no one denies that, but to say that the money their recieving is equal to the work they've provided is ludicrous. If it was....where would your "cut" come from?


I believe capitalism is the only moral political system.

What...that will ever exist?!?!?

Talk about arrogance! I'm sure that the Augustine said the same thing, I know Jefferson Davies did.

Everyone initially believes that their system is the greatest...


I do not believe in sacrifice, which is what every other system demands.

"Sacrifice"?

Capitalism doesn't require "sacrifice"?!?!? :lol: :lol: :lol:

I know you're not doing so well, but the economies doing better.
We've had to eliminate some reduncencies, but its ultimately better for the company

Every form of society nescessitates sacrifice. If you live with other people you can't do what you want when you want. The only question is whether or not the sacrifice is justified.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)One: communism doesn't necassarily advocate the end of a medium of commerical exchange (money in this case, some modifications done to the medium may still allow it to exist in a communist system)[/b]
Money is a medium of exchange, a way to trade value for value. This is in no way compatible with communism -- from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.


Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)Two: Money doesn't necassarily allow you to hold you year's worth of labour. A corporation can have two employees doing the same thing, with one in China and the other in the US. It doesn't take much to figure out who's doing more labour, and who's actually getting paid more... in fact much more. coughtheguyintheUScough Your year worth of labour indeed.[/b]
"Value" is not intrinsic; it assumes a valuer. A Chinese worker will value far less money for the same amount of work.


Originally posted by New Tolerance

If you want to show me a truly communist company, there can't be any heirarchy, any pay scale -- hell, there can't be any pay at all. The products or services it provides can't be attached to any price at all. As long as a worker has a bank account recognizing his ownership of property, he is in the capitalist system.
Once again, you are talking as if you know how a communist system is supposed work, when in fact you are just showing me that you don't know what communism is about.
Read my assertion again and tell me what specifically is wrong with it. Either there is a heirarchy, or there isn't. Either you do hand out wages and charge prices, or you don't. Which will it be?

It is supposed to end wage-slavery and alienation of labour, it is not necassarily supposed to setup society so that it would not have a medium of exchange or so that it is some kind of happy-go-lucky-utopia. In fact Marx denied that communism is an utopian society.
But the concept of "exchange" is exactly what communism is revolting against. They want distribution based on need.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
One: we have no idea what the response of the people we be if the question was restated as: would you should a MILLION people to achieve this.
Doesn't matter; the point was whether you value human life, or view it as a means to other ends.


New [email protected]
Second, this follows the same logic as: killing one person (or a few) so that millions would be liberated (I don't advocated it, but it is not exceeding unreasonable, in fact modern society does it everyday it's called criminal justice, we punish people even though an absolute law of morals has not been proved, which means some of those people are not necassarily guilt of anything, and we are hurting them in the name of the common good, do you advocate the abolishment of this system?),
So you don't advocate it, but it "is not exceeding[ly] unreasonable." Where exactly do you stand?

Also, the criminal justice system doesn't kill innocent people in the name of the common good; it puts people through a fair and impartial process that decides whether or not they are guilty. So that's not enough for you? You condemn existence for not making it possible to get inside their heads and know for sure? You're the second person in this thread to commit a serious evasion of reality. You demand that existence be what it is not.


New Tolerance
this can also be applied to George Washington (Did he not think that innocent people will die as a result of a revolution?), was George Washington a Leninist?
Innocents die in war, but the responsibility for those lives rests with the one who made the war necessary. And don't try to use this principle to justify revolution agaisnt the borgeous; only the initiation of force can make war necessary.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)That's the system in which you were raised.

A system which tells you it is moral to allow the starvation of others in order to satisfy selfish present material interest. If everyone were to abandon that principle, capitalism would collapse. As economists much older and wiser than you have said, capitalism is predicated on the principle of "unlimited demand" and "rationally selfish actors".[/b]
So you're letting me off the hook because I don't know any better? It was just the system I was raised in? My mind is not the result of deterministic factors; if you think what I'm doing is wrong and murderous, at least have the backbone to say it.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)It means the system is wrong.

Within the contexts of this paradigm there is nothing wrong with gifts, nor anything inherently wrong with inheritence. But any system that allows one's life to be primarily dictated to by esoteric circumstances of their birth is not a good one.[/b]
Again, if you think mine and every other life-loving American family is wrong for giving their kids special treatment over other people, say it. Don't hide behind the deterministic fallacy that the "system" is the one to blame.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Communism does not deman "altruism". Clearly you have misunderstood the ideology. I would suggest further reading before you attempt to critisize a model you do not understand.
What do you call giving up life's comforts for the poor? Are you really trying to argue that this system is well-suited for a thoroughly selfish man like myself? How can this not be altruism?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Every system nescessitates that its members contribute. Capitalism does it through the latent coercion of a "money" system. You refuse to work, you don't eat.
When a capitalist refuses to give food to the penniless, he isn't coercing them. Furthermore he isn't demanding a "contribution", he's demanding something in exchange for the food he is offering. Value for value.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Magic pieces of paper that your workers must have or they starve or they loose they homes. Don't kid yourself and believe that "money" is anything more esoteric than that. It's a "unit of exchange", a glorifed barter system.
Glorified indeed. Under a barter system, the chicken farmer who wants to buy milk must hope that the milkman wants chicken. Money is the middle-man that allows exchange to occur without this worry (and it's easier to carry around, too!).


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
What...that will ever exist?!?!?

Talk about arrogance! I'm sure that the Augustine said the same thing, I know Jefferson Davies did.
What can I say, I am a self-confident, principled human being. I am not shrouded with perpetual doubt about my moral righteousness.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
"Sacrifice"?

Capitalism doesn't require "sacrifice"?!?!? :lol: :lol: :lol:
Give me a rational argument indicating when one is sacrificed under capitalism. Lay-offs don't count, because there is no agreement in their contract saying they have guaranteed employment.

[New Tolerance]

Money is a medium of exchange, a way to trade value for value. This is in no way compatible with communism -- from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

How is from each according to their ability to each according to their need no a form of exchange?


"Value" is not intrinsic; it assumes a valuer. A Chinese worker will value far less money for the same amount of work.


So are you acknowledging the commdity character of labour?


Read my assertion again and tell me what specifically is wrong with it. Either there is a heirarchy, or there isn't. Either you do hand out wages and charge prices, or you don't. Which will it be?

The industry will be democratically controlled by its workers (as in they elect their managers and have other such democratic processes), if you consider that to be a heirarchy then so be it. The wages and prices will also work in the same manner. (so yes, there would still be wages and prices, but that is not a certainty and may not work in the way as we know it does now)


But the concept of "exchange" is exactly what communism is revolting against. They want distribution based on need.

See above. (the first entry to be exact)


Doesn't matter; the point was whether you value human life, or view it as a means to other ends.

Well, if you don't think that's justified then let me ask you this: If you had to move towards capitalism by cutting welfare and in doing so knowing that some people will die as a result would you still cut welfare?


So you don't advocate it, but it "is not exceeding[ly] unreasonable." Where exactly do you stand?

It means that I don't advocate the ends justifies the means, but I'm willing to listen to the opposition and consider their points.


Also, the criminal justice system doesn't kill innocent people in the name of the common good; it puts people through a fair and impartial process that decides whether or not they are guilty. So that's not enough for you? You condemn existence for not making it possible to get inside their heads and know for sure? You're the second person in this thread to commit a serious evasion of reality. You demand that existence be what it is not.

Now you are just putting words in my mouth. My point was NOT that we can't determine if a person was really guilty of killing someone. My point was we don't know if there is really anything wrong with what he did. We can talk about this if you answer my question concerning the next section of your post:


Innocents die in war, but the responsibility for those lives rests with the one who made the war necessary. And don't try to use this principle to justify revolution agaisnt the borgeous; only the initiation of force can make war necessary.

Now, tell me what constitute as "initiation" of force.

[LSD]

What do you call giving up life's comforts for the poor? Are you really trying to argue that this system is well-suited for a thoroughly selfish man like myself? How can this not be altruism?

What?

Who's "giving" up anything? If anything most people will have more under communism than capitalism. The miniscule minority that would have less would not really be losing much in terms of "life's comforts".

Again, it isn't altruistic.


So you're letting me off the hook because I don't know any better?

No, I'm saying don't flatter yourself. You are not responsible for the misery of millions, you're simply not important enough. The fact that hundreds of millions act the same way as you, however, is responsible. I understand that you like there to be an easy "someone to blame", however I cannot in good concience blame each individual for the collective effect that their cumulative actions cause...so I blame the system and seek to change it.

Much like blaming each racist for their racism wouldn't have solved the problem, institutional change is required for their to be any significant improvement.


My mind is not the result of deterministic factors;

Really?

Well, good to meet you Superman, it's nice to know that on Krypton, people are not influenced by their envronment.

(I guess you've single-handedly solved the nature-nurture debate, good for you!)


if you think what I'm doing is wrong and murderous, at least have the backbone to say it.

I think what you're doing is wrong. I don't think its murderous. Murder requires intent. Since I think it's propable that you do not believe your actions to be immoral, I cannot claim that you are intentionally causing harm, even if harm is the inevitable result of your actions.

Morality's complex, my friend, there aren't always "simple answeres".


Again, if you think mine and every other life-loving American family is wrong for giving their kids special treatment over other people, say it.

It isn't.

It's the best they can do within the system.

Much as how a slave owner is not "wrong" in treating their slaves well. It's better than the alternative, but it doesn't mean that slave owning is acceptable. (calm down, that was just an analogy, I'm not saying inheritence is akin to slavery).


When a capitalist refuses to give food to the penniless, he isn't coercing them. Furthermore he isn't demanding a "contribution", he's demanding something in exchange for the food he is offering. Value for value.

"Value for value"?

Everything has value, and that value is always ultimately subjective.

Not being beaten has exceptional value to a slave. The slave's work has value to his owner. If the slave provdes work, the slave-owner provides not being beaten. It's an exchange. "Value for value".

The presence of an exchange of value does not in and of itself prove that there is no coercion involved. In fact every instance of coercion is by definition and exchange of value.

In your example, the "penniless worker" offers you work in exchange for not starving. It's also an exchange, and no one would deny that it's "value for value", but are those "values" remotely equal.

But then you never mentioned "equality" did you? All you stipulated was that values are exchanged. Well values are always exchanged. If you move beyond the axioms implicit to capitalism you'll see that the exchanges in capitalism are no more "moral" than any others.

Using a "unit of exchange" to mediate the coercion does not mean that coercion is not taking place. You'll find that people are willing to do a great deal for the "value" of not starving and having a home.


Give me a rational argument indicating when one is sacrificed under capitalism. Lay-offs don't count, because there is no agreement in their contract saying they have guaranteed employment.

:lol:

You're asking me to show examples of sacrifice in capitalism, but from within a capitalist perspective while accepting capitalist assumption! :lol:

Nice try!

Sacrifice: The destruction or surrender of something valued or desired for the sake of something having, or regarded as having, a higher or a more pressing claim

You honestly can't think of how capitalism asks for sacrifice?

Currency economies are founded on the principle of sacrifice, ever heard of "opportunity cost"?

Workers have to sacrifice their time for food/clothes/shelter. They have to sacrifice their labour for "luxuries". and not to fall into an old ecnomics cliché, but they have to sacrifice that which they would otherise have for that which they have.

Now, sacrifice isn't unique to capitalism, as I said before, it is nescessary in every human relationship and every economic system relying thereof. Again, the point is whether the sacrifices in question are justifiable.

I would propose that the sacrifices required under communism are preferable to those required under capitalism.


What can I say, I am a self-confident, principled human being. I am not shrouded with perpetual doubt about my moral righteousness.

A little "self-doubt" would probably help. Those who are afraid of introspection usually have something to hide.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."

[New Tolerance]

What do you call giving up life's comforts for the poor? Are you really trying to argue that this system is well-suited for a thoroughly selfish man like myself? How can this not be altruism?

Just a small side conversation:

I don't think you are "thoroughly" selfish, if you are, then is it that your avatar bears the flag of the USA - a country to be exact, a country is a collectivist institution.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)How is from each according to their ability to each according to their need no a form of exchange?[/b]
In communism, you give all that you can and get back what you need. It is not an exchange of value for value. You do not give according to how much you are given.


Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)
"Value" is not intrinsic; it assumes a valuer. A Chinese worker will value far less money for the same amount of work.
So are you acknowledging the commdity character of labour?[/b]
You're switching the subject; I was responding to your criticism of the unequal pay in China compared to the US. If you want to know my opinion of the "commodity character" of labor, I do think that workers "exchange" their labor for money much like they would a material object.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
The industry will be democratically controlled by its workers (as in they elect their managers and have other such democratic processes), if you consider that to be a heirarchy then so be it. The wages and prices will also work in the same manner. (so yes, there would still be wages and prices, but that is not a certainty and may not work in the way as we know it does now)
Like I said in my initial post, there is nothing anti-capitalist about worker coops in which workers invest back into their company and, in return, democratically control them. The existence of a heirarchy, wages, and prices in Mondragon are what make me think it is not at all compatible with communism. How could any wage be given at all, when people differ in their needs?


Originally posted by New Tolerance
Well, if you don't think that's justified then let me ask you this: If you had to move towards capitalism by cutting welfare and in doing so knowing that some people will die as a result would you still cut welfare?
Hell yes; if you've been following my discussion with Lysergic, I've already stated that not giving to the starving masses is not the same as killing them.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
It means I don't advocate it at this point in time, but I'm willing to be presuvaded to think otherwise.
That is enough to show me you follow no set moral principles, but instead operate on the expediency of the moment. This invalidates any claim you might have that your system is pro-self, pro-happiness, and pro-life -- how could it claim to be anything, without any principles guiding it?


New [email protected]
Now you are just putting words in my mouth. My point was NOT that we can't determine if a person was really guilty of killing someone. My point was we don't know if there is really anything wrong with what he did.
Read that again and tell me if you can see a difference between "we can't determine if he's guilty" and "we don't know if he did anything wrong".


New Tolerance
Now, tell me what constitute as "initiation" of force.
"Force" is the causing of involuntary action, as opposed to persuasion, which is the causing of voluntary action. "Initiation of force" means starting the use of force against those who haven't used it against others. A capitalist would more succinctly define it as "the violation of one's right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness."

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Who's "giving" up anything? If anything most people will have more under communism than capitalism. The miniscule minority that would have less would not really be losing much in terms of "life's comforts".[/b]
Right, and I'm one of that miniscule minority, so I'm losing life's comforts. You've just sacrificed me, my life, and my happiness to the majority. Only an altruist would comply with that.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)No, I'm saying don't flatter yourself. You are not responsible for the misery of millions, you're simply not important enough.[/b]
Does that exempt me from guilt?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Much like blaming each racist for their racism wouldn't have solved the problem, institutional change is required for their to be any significant improvement.
You mean make racism illegal. You would rather use force than words.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Well, good to meet you Superman, it's nice to know that on Krypton, people are not influenced by their envronment.
I didn't say I'm not influenced by it, I said my mind is not the result of it. I am a volitional being, so unlike a volcano that kills 50 people, if I kill someone, I must be judged morally. Judge me!


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
It's the best they can do within the system.
What makes you think they would be different under communism? If they love their children as much as I think they do, they will be willing to give everything to them.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Not being beaten has exceptional value to a slave. The slave's work has value to his owner. If the slave provdes work, the slave-owner provides not being beaten. It's an exchange. "Value for value".
"Not being beaten" is a negative value, protected by negative rights, under capitalism.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
The presence of an exchange of value does not in and of itself prove that there is no coercion involved. In fact every instance of coercion is by definition and exchange of value.
That's why you must distinguish between force and reason, between negative values and positive ones.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Sacrifice: The destruction or surrender of something valued or desired for the sake of something having, or regarded as having, a higher or a more pressing claim
This is not my definition of sacrifice. In fact, mine is the exact opposite:

Sacrifice The surrender of a value, such as money, career, loved ones, freedom, for the sake of a lesser value or nonvalue.

Anyway, we're getting off track. My point was that all other systems are based on the use of force against others; that is what separates capitalism from every other system, and is what makes it moral.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance
I don't think you are "thoroughly" selfish, if you are, then is it that your avatar bears the flag of the USA - a country to be exact, a country is a collectivist institution.
I'm not an anarchist. I believe that a political entity is needed to protect our rights. The United States of America is emphatically NOT a collectivist institution; the principles of reason, rights, and individualism it was founded on make it the greatest country on the planet, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

[New Tolerance]

In communism, you give all that you can and get back what you need. It is not an exchange of value for value. You do not give according to how much you are given.

Well, is "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" to be taken that literally? All it means is that the ideal end result would be people tap into the maximum amount of potential ability they have, and that they would hopefully get everything they need. It is an end, not a means.


You're switching the subject; I was responding to your criticism of the unequal pay in China compared to the US. If you want to know my opinion of the "commodity character" of labor, I do think that workers "exchange" their labor for money much like they would a material object.


I'm not switching the subject, because I agree with you on that point, but if that point is true then the problem of the commodity character of labour has to be addressed. Now why is it that you think the "exchange" of labour is different from the "exchange" of commodities?


Hell yes; if you've been following my discussion with Lysergic, I've already stated that not giving to the starving masses is not the same as killing them.

You didn't address my point, suppose that is it an absolute outcome that they will die. Will you still do it? Taking a gun and firing the bullet into someone kills them, and you know that outcome before you pull the tigger, suppose that you know that the people will die before you pull the welfare plug on them, how are these two things different? They both constitute as doing something to someone that in the end will kill them, and in both cases you know that they will die before you do it.


Like I said in my initial post, there is nothing anti-capitalist about worker coops in which workers invest back into their company and, in return, democratically control them. The existence of a heirarchy, wages, and prices in Mondragon are what make me think it is not at all compatible with communism. How could any wage be given at all, when people differ in their needs?

Time to set this straight: "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" is not necassarily to be taken literally.

The main point of communism is to liberate the working class from alienation and exploitation. "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" is a descripition of what might happen afterwards, it is not the main goal of the working class. (and I don't know why it keeps on getting emphasized)


That is enough to show me you follow no set moral principles, but instead operate on the expediency of the moment. This invalidates any claim you might have that your system is pro-self, pro-happiness, and pro-life -- how could it claim to be anything, without any principles guiding it?

Now, you misunderstand what I mean, when I said I am willing to be persuvaded to think otherwise, all it means is that one of my moral principles is keeping an openmind. Which is equal to the US constitution allowing itself to be amended. But does allowing itself to be amended mean that the United States has no guiding principles?


Read that again and tell me if you can see a difference between "we can't determine if he's guilty" and "we don't know if he did anything wrong".

The difference is:
Guilty? : Did he actually kill this person?
Was it wrong: is there anything wrong with killing this person? (in which case it is acknowledged that he did indeed killed this person)


"Force" is the causing of involuntary action, as opposed to persuasion, which is the causing of voluntary action. "Initiation of force" means starting the use of force against those who haven't used it against others. A capitalist would more succinctly define it as "the violation of one's right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness."

and why should it be those values specifically?

[New Tolerance]

I'm not an anarchist. I believe that a political entity is needed to protect our rights. The United States of America is emphatically NOT a collectivist institution; the principles of reason, rights, and individualism it was founded on make it the greatest country on the planet, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

The United States collects taxes does it not?

[LSD]

This is not my definition of sacrifice. In fact, mine is the exact opposite:

Sacrifice The surrender of a value, such as money, career, loved ones, freedom, for the sake of a lesser value or nonvalue.

Well, my definition is from the Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edition. Yours is from....where?

If you want to use the language you have to use words correctly. Sorry. :(


Right, and I'm one of that miniscule minority, so I'm losing life's comforts. You've just sacrificed me, my life, and my happiness to the majority. Only an altruist would comply with that.

I highly doubt that.

Unless your Rupert Murdock and got bored kissing Bush's ass, you probably don't fit that category. I think you're underestimating just how miniscule that miniscule minority will be. We're talking about the very rich here. For almost everyone it will be a "step up" as it were.

Besides, you're not "sacrificing" anything! You're getting a lifestyle of equal if not better calibre, access to resources that you do not presently have, and most likely, less work!

Exactly what is it that you're "loosing"?


Does that exempt me from guilt?

Guilt is your own moral judge of yourself, I cannot tell you to be guilty, only you can control that.


I didn't say I'm not influenced by it, I said my mind is not the result of it. I am a volitional being, so unlike a volcano that kills 50 people, if I kill someone, I must be judged morally. Judge me!

I already have: "No, I'm saying don't flatter yourself. You are not responsible for the misery of millions, you're simply not important enough. The fact that hundreds of millions act the same way as you, however, is responsible. I understand that you like there to be an easy "someone to blame", however I cannot in good concience blame each individual for the collective effect that their cumulative actions cause...so I blame the system and seek to change it."


You mean make racism illegal. You would rather use force than words.

I mean de-institutionalizing racism. Desegregating schools, dismantling "Jim Crow" laws, passing Civil Rights laws.

But tell me, do you oppose such actions? Does banning "white only" water fountains strike you as "initiation of force"? Do you think the Supreme Court made the "wrong call" on Brown v. Board of Education?


What makes you think they would be different under communism? If they love their children as much as I think they do, they will be willing to give everything to them.

Absolutely!

The difference is they have nothing to give...personally. By the very act of having the child in the community they have already assured that that child will have access to every resource in that community. No additional act of "inheritence" is required nor compelled.


"Not being beaten" is a negative value, protected by negative rights, under capitalism.

That's why you must distinguish between force and reason, between negative values and positive ones.

Ah yes, the much vaunted "negative / positive right" divide.

As much as capitalists persist in glorifying one and denegrating the other, I have still not seen a credible argument for why positive rights are not valid.

Of course capitalism does seem to contradict with the conception of positive rights...so le't lose capitalism.

In a society in which people are working because they like their work and not "for the money", issues regarding "working for free" or being "forced to work" is moot. Everyone is working, regardless, and the results of that work are available to everyone. Since questions of compensation or remuneration are nonexistant the lack thereof is qually meaningless.

The primary fear that critics of positive rights seem to have is of state action. That the state will confiscate property and wealth. That in order to "pay" for the goods and/or services accorded by the right in question, others will be required to "foot the bill".

Of course if wealth and property no longer exists, their confiscation is not exactly a problem. Without private stashes of "money" and "value", nothing we have to be confiscated, in fact there is no need for a state at all!

By communalizing resources and resource production, everyone is effectively equal. No confiscation.


Anyway, we're getting off track. My point was that all other systems are based on the use of force against others; that is what separates capitalism from every other system, and is what makes it moral.

Communism requires no force. If you choose to not work, you will simply be asked to leave the community. No force. No violence.

But, as you say, "we're getting off track". Surely you can't actually believe that capitalism doesn't employ force.

What happens if I try to go to the store and take an apple? Force will be initiated against me. Why? Because I didn't meat systemic requirements for food, namely possesion of an adequate supply of "money" and a willingness to surrender it in exchange for said apple.

Alright then, is the "force" which the police will no doubt "initiate" against me justified?

"Yes"?!?!

but...Why?

Let me guess: because it is in response to my action "against" the "property rights" of the apple store owner? This "right" you clearly assume to be axiomatic but it is no such thing. It is as much a part of capitalism as money, but just as mutable. This conception of capitalism (and, granted, of other models as well) requires force to support it. "Stealing" the apple was not an initiation of force against the store owner. No matter how highly you value "property rights", treating an assault against "property" as an assault against person is obviously ludicrous. Therefore, from a force-level analysis, it is the police and the owner himself, indirectly, who have initiated force. This force is required to keep capitalism running.

Whether you like it or not, capitalism is built on coercion.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)Well, is "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" to be taken that literally? All it means is that the ideal end result would be people tap into the maximum amount of potential ability they have, and that they would hopefully get everything they need. It is an end, not a means.[/b]
If that were true, this principle could just as easily apply to capitalism. My experience is that communists do morally condemn those with a material surplus, demanding they give it to the poor. Are you suggesting they are taking that principle too literally?


Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)Now why is it that you think the "exchange" of labour is different from the "exchange" of commodities?[/b]
I don't think they're very different. I just got done saying that labor is exchanged for money much like material objects.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
You didn't address my point, suppose that is it an absolute outcome that they will die. Will you still do it?
Yes! The right to life, like all rights under capitalism, is a negative one; it means that others may not actively initiate force to end your life, not that I am obligated to keep you alive with my wealth.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
The main point of communism is to liberate the working class from alienation and exploitation. "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" is a descripition of what might happen afterwards, it is not the main goal of the working class. (and I don't know why it keeps on getting emphasized)
Right, liberating the working class is the main point, and the way to do that is by eliminating the system of greed and value-for-value trading, which results in "exploitation", and replacing it with altruism: From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. This can't possibly just be a vague end goal -- it is an essential part of the plan.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
Now, you misunderstand what I mean, when I said I am willing to be persuvaded to think otherwise, all it means is that one of my moral principles is keeping an openmind. Which is equal to the US constitution allowing itself to be amended. But does allowing itself to be amended mean that the United States has no guiding principles?
Right, so you have no concrete moral principles; by "open-minded", you mean you are willing to change them. You don't need to feel guilty of this; it is a major part of being a communist. Communism is based on the leftist philosophy of subjectivism, the belief that there is no right or wrong beyond what the majority thinks.

The US Constitution is a great document, but it has flaws. If it were made objectively, and it explicitly recognized all of our individual rights, it wouldn't need to be amendable.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
The difference is:
Guilty? : Did he actually kill this person?
Was it wrong: is there anything wrong with killing this person? (in which case it is acknowledged that he did indeed killed this person)
Okay, so you believe the criminal justice system is wrong because there is no system of right and wrong to base it on. This ties in well with the previous quote, about subjectivism.


New [email protected]
and why should it be those values specifically?
Because humans are conscious, volitional beings, meaning they can do voluntary actions. Force is the opposite of this: It paralyzes the mind by making action involuntary. Enough force makes life impossible, and undoubtedly justifies retaliatory action.


New Tolerance
The United States collects taxes does it not?
I could make you a very long list of problems in this country -- it isn't perfect. But the founding principles are still there, making it very resilient to collectivist ideas. You'll find that the far left splinter groups like the socialist party have no support at all over here, and if you saw the last Democratic National Convention, you'll notice how militaristic they pretended to be just to get Americans to vote for them. John Kerry is forced to repeatedly assert that he doesn't care about world opinion because he knows that most Americans don't want a yellow-bellied pansy running the show.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)If you want to use the language you have to use words correctly. Sorry. :([/b]
Your definition is slanted towards altruism. It protrays the lesser value as a "higher" value.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Unless your Rupert Murdock and got bored kissing Bush's ass, you probably don't fit that category. I think you're underestimating just how miniscule that miniscule minority will be. We're talking about the very rich here. For almost everyone it will be a "step up" as it were.[/b]
Not true. If you demand I give up my "surplus", and have only what I "need", a very large portion of the population would fit that category.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Besides, you're not "sacrificing" anything! You're getting a lifestyle of equal if not better calibre, access to resources that you do not presently have, and most likely, less work!
At least that was the campaign promise :/


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
But tell me, do you oppose such actions? Does banning "white only" water fountains strike you as "initiation of force"? Do you think the Supreme Court made the "wrong call" on Brown v. Board of Education?
I completely support any ban on discrimination in government-funded jobs and services; if everyone has to pay the taxes, they all deserve what comes out. That said, I do not support any such regulation in the private sector; the company is the employer's property, and he should be free to hire on whatever basis he wants.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
The difference is they have nothing to give...personally. By the very act of having the child in the community they have already assured that that child will have access to every resource in that community. No additional act of "inheritence" is required nor compelled.
If everything those rich parents owned became public under communism, they would not be able to provide the same for their children that they would've under capitalism. Why else would so many communists condemn the system for allowing people to be "born into" a life of comfort?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
As much as capitalists persist in glorifying one and denegrating the other, I have still not seen a credible argument for why positive rights are not valid.
Positive rights require that you initiate force against someone else to provide whatever service you are promising them. They don't just come from thin air, as many commies seem to think.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
In a society in which people are working because they like their work and not "for the money", issues regarding "working for free" or being "forced to work" is moot. Everyone is working, regardless, and the results of that work are available to everyone. Since questions of compensation or remuneration are nonexistant the lack thereof is qually meaningless.
You're assuming their only source of pleasure is their work -- I LIKE stuff, so those issues are not moot to me.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Of course if wealth and property no longer exists, their confiscation is not exactly a problem. Without private stashes of "money" and "value", nothing we have to be confiscated, in fact there is no need for a state at all!
Who took wealth and property out of existence? Where did the private stashes of money go? Won't a government need to do this, or is my original belief correct that communists want to succeed culturally -- with everyone voluntarily agreeing to be altruistic and live communally?


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
Alright then, is the "force" which the police will no doubt "initiate" against me justified?
The police do not initiate force, they retaliate against those who have already initiated force against others.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Let me guess: because it is in response to my action "against" the "property rights" of the apple store owner? This "right" you clearly assume to be axiomatic but it is no such thing. It is as much a part of capitalism as money, but just as mutable.
I do not believe they are axiomatic, I believe they are derived from the fact that we are conscious, volitional beings, meaning we can do voluntary actions. Force is the opposite of this: It paralyzes the mind by making action involuntary. Enough force makes life impossible, which is why we need individual rights.

[New Tolerance]

If that were true, this principle could just as easily apply to capitalism. My experience is that communists do morally condemn those with a material surplus, demanding they give it to the poor. Are you suggesting they are taking that principle too literally?

Yes it can also be applied to capitalism, except the pratical outcome is not always the end result. Material surplus has nothing to do with this concept, this is about wage-slavery and alienation.


I don't think they're very different. I just got done saying that labor is exchanged for money much like material objects.

Well there you go, do I have to tell you about how this affects wage-slavery and alienation?


Right, liberating the working class is the main point, and the way to do that is by eliminating the system of greed and value-for-value trading, which results in "exploitation", and replacing it with altruism: From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. This can't possibly just be a vague end goal -- it is an essential part of the plan.

When you say "they" you mean Marxists don't you. Not every communist is a Marxist, (that means me) the ideals of socialism existed before Marx. and I believe there are others ways of implementing the third emancipation than by dogmatically following From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.


Yes! The right to life, like all rights under capitalism, is a negative one; it means that others may not actively initiate force to end your life, not that I am obligated to keep you alive with my wealth.

and this is where we have to analyze the idea of property, and look at what it means for something to be "yours" or "mine". We can start a whole other thread on this.


Right, so you have no concrete moral principles; by "open-minded", you mean you are willing to change them. You don't need to feel guilty of this; it is a major part of being a communist. Communism is based on the leftist philosophy of subjectivism, the belief that there is no right or wrong beyond what the majority thinks.

The US Constitution is a great document, but it has flaws. If it were made objectively, and it explicitly recognized all of our individual rights, it wouldn't need to be amendable.


Note two things:

First, when it is implied that my ideology works the same way the US constitution works. You describe my ideology as "subjective" while the US constitution as "great" but "has flaws". Describing the same thing two completely different ways is rather subjective is it not?

Second, you completely dodged my point about although the US constitution allows itself to be amended, it still has guiding principles. Which means that I do believe that there is a right or wrong and that ideal guides me, even though I allow myself to fine tune it.


Okay, so you believe the criminal justice system is wrong because there is no system of right and wrong to base it on. This ties in well with the previous quote, about subjectivism.

I would like you to go back and find when I said that I thought it was "wrong", when in fact from the beginning I've used this as a justification for what I'm arguing.


Because humans are conscious, volitional beings, meaning they can do voluntary actions. Force is the opposite of this: It paralyzes the mind by making action involuntary. Enough force makes life impossible, and undoubtedly justifies retaliatory action.

You still have not explained what life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness has to do with this.


I could make you a very long list of problems in this country -- it isn't perfect. But the founding principles are still there, making it very resilient to collectivist ideas. You'll find that the far left splinter groups like the socialist party have no support at all over here, and if you saw the last Democratic National Convention, you'll notice how militaristic they pretended to be just to get Americans to vote for them. John Kerry is forced to repeatedly assert that he doesn't care about world opinion because he knows that most Americans don't want a yellow-bellied pansy running the show.

None of this shadows the fact that it forces people to pay taxes (and imposes other regulations), it imposes its presence (By your arguements anyways), and yet you are siding with it. Is there a reason for you to be siding with this entity that "initiate force"? Other than patriotism/nationalism which is collectivist in itself (and this train of thought opens up the possiblity that you are a patriot first, a capitalist second)

[LSD]

Your definition is slanted towards altruism. It protrays the lesser value as a "higher" value.

MY DEFINITION IS THE DICTIONARY DEFINITION!!!!

What are you not understanding about this?? :unsure:

YOU ARE ARGUING WITH THE ENLGISH LANGUAGE!!!!!!


Not true. If you demand I give up my "surplus", and have only what I "need"

Who said that?!?!?

Again you're oversimplifying. You're imagining a capitalist environment but with an immensly powerful sate influence, sort of like the former USSR. That is most assuredly not what I am advocating.


If everything those rich parents owned became public under communism, they would not be able to provide the same for their children that they would've under capitalism. Why else would so many communists condemn the system for allowing people to be "born into" a life of comfort?

They would be able to provide the same for their children as they had. Namely access to the public resources of the community. They will not be able to provide them with a life free from work, but then that is ultimately better for everyone as the more productive workers in a society the less work everyone has to do.

Just as today parents can't assure their children a life free from the law, under communism parents can't assure their children a life free from work.


You're assuming their only source of pleasure is their work -- I LIKE stuff, so those issues are not moot to me.

I never said you didn't!

I also never suggested that issues of material demand were moot. I said that issues of being "forced to work" or "work for free" were moot as pay-based economics would be defunct. The primary argument against positive rights, that they require the work of others whether they like it or not, is meaningless in a society in which everyone is working anyways. Furthermore the claim that it requires the public "confiscation" of private services/funds is moot when such things are irrelevent.

I never said that the only "source of pleasure is their work" rather that the source of their work is pleasure.


I do not believe they are axiomatic, I believe they are derived from the fact that we are conscious, volitional beings, meaning we can do voluntary actions. Force is the opposite of this: It paralyzes the mind by making action involuntary. Enough force makes life impossible, which is why we need individual rights.

Smokescreen!

Answer the question. How do you go from the right of voluntary action to the right to claim ownership over things/land/labour...


Who took wealth and property out of existence? Where did the private stashes of money go? Won't a government need to do this, or is my original belief correct that communists want to succeed culturally -- with everyone voluntarily agreeing to be altruistic and live communally?

Well, after the revolution, your "stashes of money" will be wholey worthless. You're free to hang on to them if you want to, of course. :D


Positive rights require that you initiate force against someone else to provide whatever service you are promising them.

Not at all!

Everyone is already working. They are working because as members of the community they have to provide productive labour and because they found an occupation which they enjoy.

Again, you're analyzing the situation from a capitalist perspective and are unwilling to take a broader view. If no one is paid than no one can be not paid because no one is paid! That is, positive rights in a communist evironment require no greater action than negative rights. The labour is already provided.

As to the "initiation of force", it is wholly unrequired. The workers "provide whatever service you are promising them" because it's their job, it's what they do for the community. If they choose to "stop working" the same response exists in communism as in capitalism

If a workers chooses to not work under capitalism, they are no longer able to acquire goods and/or services. This is veilled in a complex system of "market forces" and financial monetarianism, but that's what it comes down to. No work, no money. No money, no food. This is the "contract" on which capitalism is built. Force is initiated if the worker breaks this tacit agreement but, capitalists argue, the worker took force first by attempting to break this "contract".

Communism is the same, in this respect. If a worker chooses not to work they are no longer able to access public goods/services as they have broken the, now explicit, agreement on which communism is based. Force is only initiated if they attempt to bypass this and take from the public goods regardless. Again, by your argument it is the worker that initiated force first and therefore the community is justified in using force to stop him from taking from the community.

Just as how the police are justified in arresting a thief, right?

You see, just as how capitalism ensures that workers work trough the threat of starvation, lack of shelter lack of luxuries, etc... so does communism assure work through the threat of the same. The key differences are that 1) The worker is able to choose his own occupation and is not forced by circumstances of birth, money, "breeding"... into a job he hates. 2) Workers control their own means of production and collectively make decisions. 3) There are no "financial" classes who make money off of other's labour. 4) The goods/services/resources that a worker can use are not limited by his job. 5) and on and on and on...

So you see, while both communism and capitalism threaten the worker if he does not work, where the work goes is what seperates them. Capitalism redirects the labour through a complex externalization so that "private interests" end up controlling them. In that system, "positive rights" do seem somewhat incongruous. After all, capitalism is geared towards concentrating wealth and monetary supremecy. Under communism, however, positive rights are implicit. The workers are working and the result of their work is communaly shared. The accordance of associated rights is therefore not an infringement of liberty as no additional or involuntary labour is required.

Capitalism offers "exchange value" for labour, communism does not. But what communism does instead is provide access to the collective resources of the community. In a way, this can be determined to be an exchange of "values". Certainly the public resources have value as does the labour in question. What you fail to realize is that this exchange of value is just as "moral" as the exchanges under capitalism. In fact, this exchange is more so as it assures the health/welbeing of every member of the society. In your words it's "pro-life". It also assures that everyone has access to the same luxuries and no one is granted more than another, so it's "pro-happiness". Finally communism ensures that individuals control their own labour and means of production, choose their own occupation, have free choice in their free time, and make all public decisions; so it's "pro-self" as well.

The agreement that underlies communism is just as valid as the one that underlies capitalism, I just happen to feel that the communism one is a better one for most people. Capitalism does conflict with positive rights, it violates the principles of "private property" and "monetary supremecy". But the question is which is more important? The assurance of these positive rights or the defence of capitalism?

As we've already seen, individuals under communism are not constrained by positive rights, they are implicit to the system. Furthermore the same threat as in capitalism exists in communism. Therfore if you consider communism's "initiation of force" to be invalid you must make the same judgement on capitalism. Likewise, since, I'm sure, you feel that "thieves" should be arrested, you cannot condemn communism's positive rights as the preventative implementation is practically identical.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)Material surplus has nothing to do with this concept, this is about wage-slavery and alienation.[/b]
Then why do commies complain about it so much?


Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)Well there you go, do I have to tell you about how this affects wage-slavery and alienation?[/b]
Yeah, go ahead.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
When you say "they" you mean Marxists don't you. Not every communist is a Marxist, (that means me) the ideals of socialism existed before Marx. and I believe there are others ways of implementing the third emancipation than by dogmatically following From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
There are other ways of implementing the "third emancipation" other than getting rid of greed?


Originally posted by New Tolerance
First, when it is implied that my ideology works the same way the US constitution works. You describe my ideology as "subjective" while the US constitution as "great" but "has flaws". Describing the same thing two completely different ways is rather subjective is it not?

Second, you completely dodged my point about although the US constitution allows itself to be amended, it still has guiding principles. Which means that I do believe that there is a right or wrong and that ideal guides me, even though I allow myself to fine tune it.
They are NOT the same thing. The Constitution has an implicit base of principles which makes it imperfect but nevertheless a great accomplishment.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
I would like you to go back and find when I said that I thought it was "wrong", when in fact from the beginning I've used this as a justification for what I'm arguing.
". . . in fact modern society does it everyday it's called criminal justice, we punish people even though an absolute law of morals has not been proved, which means some of those people are not necassarily guilt of anything, and we are hurting them in the name of the common good . . ."

So you think our system isn't based on any morals, and has to sacrifice people every once in a while -- but it isn't wrong?


New [email protected]
You still have not explained what life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness has to do with this.
Those rights protect you from force.


New Tolerance
Is there a reason for you to be siding with this entity that "initiate force"?
I am siding with the fundamental ideas it is based on, and fighting to bring it closer to them again.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)MY DEFINITION IS THE DICTIONARY DEFINITION!!!![/b]
And it is slanted towards your own philosophy. Now try to get back to the actual discussion before I lose interest.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Again you're oversimplifying. You're imagining a capitalist environment but with an immensly powerful sate influence, sort of like the former USSR. That is most assuredly not what I am advocating.[/b]
Try just about any time when a commie has criticized the "borgeouis" for having more than they need. Try Comrade RAF:

If you are presented with the fact that you may indeed "starve to death", you must rise up and take what you require from those that have a surplus by any means necessary.

If the ruling elite fails to provide even the most basic of human needs, then they must be removed from the position that makes this possible.

In other words, execute them and distribute their surplus value to those that need it to survive.
http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?s...pic=29678&st=20 (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29678&st=20)


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
They would be able to provide the same for their children as they had. Namely access to the public resources of the community. They will not be able to provide them with a life free from work, but then that is ultimately better for everyone as the more productive workers in a society the less work everyone has to do.
I don't care what is better for "society". I want to know whether I, as a rich man, would have to part with anything. It seems I will. If I'm not able to provide my child with a life free from work, it's because I'll have less to give him.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
I also never suggested that issues of material demand were moot. I said that issues of being "forced to work" or "work for free" were moot as pay-based economics would be defunct.
That doesn't even make sense; the issue doesn't go away by taking away money. In a communist society, I'm not going to get according to how much I work. Instead, I will get according to how much I need.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
The primary argument against positive rights, that they require the work of others whether they like it or not, is meaningless in a society in which everyone is working anyways.
Not if they decide not to. You have only their altruistic spirit to rely on -- if that fails, you'll just "ask" them to leave.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Answer the question. How do you go from the right of voluntary action to the right to claim ownership over things/land/labour...
Connect the dots, my friend: Humans survive through voluntary actions. Force makes action involuntary. Individual rights protect you from force. The right to property in particular is required because man needs material goods to survive.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Everyone is already working. They are working because as members of the community they have to provide productive labour and because they found an occupation which they enjoy.
How do you know they found a job they enjoy? I hear this a lot from commies. Assuming you "free" them from the law of supply and demand, what happens when they start producing something that nobody wants?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
If no one is paid than no one can be not paid because no one is paid!
Give me a break. Getting rid of money only means that I will be demanding material goods instead. It does nothing to get rid of my desire to get according to how much I work.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Force is initiated if the worker breaks this tacit agreement but, capitalists argue, the worker took force first by attempting to break this "contract".
Not true, capitalists don't argue that. No force is being initiated on a starving bum on the streets.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Communism is the same, in this respect. If a worker chooses not to work they are no longer able to access public goods/services as they have broken the, now explicit, agreement on which communism is based. Force is only initiated if they attempt to bypass this and take from the public goods regardless. Again, by your argument it is the worker that initiated force first and therefore the community is justified in using force to stop him from taking from the community.
Communism denies property rights, so when a worker chooses not to work, and keeps accessing the public goods/services, how is he initiating force? Blithely taking someone else's property would be a common sight in your world, so I don't see how you could prosecute him.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
But what communism does instead is provide access to the collective resources of the community.
You have no state to enforce this -- you can only rely on the collective "good will" of the people to choose it. Why would rich people choose it?


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
It also assures that everyone has access to the same luxuries and no one is granted more than another, so it's "pro-happiness".
"Assures"? Be careful with your word usage. Only a state can "assure" this. If you are just relying on rich people to give others access to their luxuries, you are demanding altruism.

Write less next time.

[New Tolerance]

Then why do commies complain about it so much?


I just told you, it makes wage-slavery possible. (that's actually disputable with other communists)


Yeah, go ahead.

or you can just pick up a book, but here's a very short version:

If labour works the same way a commodity works then the labour (just as the commodity) does not decide how it shall be used and in what condition (wage-slavery), how much it shall be bought/sold for, for what purpose it shall be used (alienation) and who will use it.


There are other ways of implementing the "third emancipation" other than getting rid of greed?

In short yes probably, but one has to discuss what "greed" really is.


They are NOT the same thing. The Constitution has an implicit base of principles which makes it imperfect but nevertheless a great accomplishment.


You still didn't explain how they are different, once again you just said that the constitution is flawed but great. (now, can what you are doing be considered as subjective - dodging the same question twice)


". . . in fact modern society does it everyday it's called criminal justice, we punish people even though an absolute law of morals has not been proved, which means some of those people are not necassarily guilt of anything, and we are hurting them in the name of the common good . . ."

So you think our system isn't based on any morals, and has to sacrifice people every once in a while -- but it isn't wrong?

To better explain what I actually think you'll have to answer my previous question.


Those rights protect you from force.

Elaborate.


I am siding with the fundamental ideas it is based on, and fighting to bring it closer to them again.

I thought you were selfish, if you are, then why are you "fighting for it". (you are fighting for something other than yourself)

[LSD]

And it is slanted towards your own philosophy.

Oh yes, the dictionary is communist! :lol: :rolleyes:


I don't care what is better for "society". I want to know whether I, as a rich man, would have to part with anything. It seems I will. If I'm not able to provide my child with a life free from work, it's because I'll have less to give him.

Again you persist in looking at the situation from a capitalist perspective. You have to take a broader view.

You won''t have anything to "give" your childre, but by virtue of merely being born they will have access to the communal goods of the collective just like everyone else.


"Assures"? Be careful with your word usage. Only a state can "assure" this. If you are just relying on rich people to give others access to their luxuries, you are demanding altruism.

There won't be "rich" people.

And they aren't "their" luxuries.


How do you know they found a job they enjoy? I hear this a lot from commies. Assuming you "free" them from the law of supply and demand, what happens when they start producing something that nobody wants?

Well, obviously, they can't do anything they want! They have to choose from the availble occupations that the community has deemed to be valuable.

On their free time, of course, they can do whatever the hell they feel like doing (so long as it doesn't hurt anyone) including even "producing something that nobody wants"!


Give me a break. Getting rid of money only means that I will be demanding material goods instead. It does nothing to get rid of my desire to get according to how much I work.

No one has a desire to "get according to how much they work", that's far too complex. As you've said yourself, people have a desire for "THINGS". Capitalism does socialize this idea of "fair pay" but its nothing more than a philosophical abstract.

As long as people are materially provided for and have the "luxuries" they want, nobody cares if they're "getting according to how much they work".


Communism denies property rights, so when a worker chooses not to work, and keeps accessing the public goods/services, how is he initiating force?

Communism denies private "property rights" not public ones. The community clearly has the right to control its own resources.

And I never said that the worker was "initiating force"! I'm just using capitalist arguments. Capitalism stipulates that a "thief" who takes bread (a bit of a cliché, I know) to survive has "initated force" against the "owner" of that bread. Based on this principle capitalists argue that the police are justified in taking action against the "thief".

If it's good for capitalism...


That doesn't even make sense; the issue doesn't go away by taking away money. In a communist society, I'm not going to get according to how much I work. Instead, I will get according to how much I need.

....so?

If people are not being paid for their work but rather the product of their work is communally shared then "working for free" is a meaningless term....

which is pretty much exactly what I said:
"I said that issues of being "forced to work" or "work for free" were moot as pay-based economics would be defunct."

So....how did you disprove that?


Not if they decide not to. You have only their altruistic spirit to rely on -- if that fails, you'll just "ask" them to leave.

As I've already said, if they choose not to work, they aren't permitted to utilzie public resources. If they attempt to anyway, they will be kicked out.

(clearly "asked to leave" was too polite for your boorish mind :lol:)


Connect the dots, my friend: Humans survive through voluntary actions. Force makes action involuntary. Individual rights protect you from force. The right to property in particular is required because man needs material goods to survive.

Let's deconstruct this logic:

1) Humans needs "material goods" to survive
2) Humans "survive through" voluntary action
3) Force makes action involuntary
4) Individual rights protect you from force
5) Humans have a right to take voluntary action (2) to secure the "material goods" (1) they need.
6) Humans have a right to take voluntary action (2) so long as this voluntary action does not prevent the voluntary actions of others (3, 4).
7) Humans do not have a right (3, 4) to prevent others from taking voluntary action (2) to secure needed "material goods" (1) so long as the voluntary action in question does not prevent another from securing their needed goods (6).
8) Property is a concept which stipulates that specific land, goods, and commodities are under the sole control of and available for use solely by a specific individual or group of individual.
9) Property is material goods (8).
10) Humans without property need the property of others (9, 1)
11) Humans will attempt to take voluntary action to acquire the goods on anothers property (5).
12) Property requires force to enforce its restrictions. (3)
13) The enforcement (12) of property (9) is a voluntary action (2)
14) The enforcement of property (10), as a voluntary action (2) of force (12), makes the actions of others involuntary (3).
15) Humans may only initiate force if it is in defense of themselves (4) or of goods they need (7).
16) Enforcement of property is not in defense of the individual
17) Enforcement of property is sometimes in defense of needed goods, sometimes it is not.
18) The enforcement of property (14) is justified (7) solely when what is being defended (15) is nescessary to the survival of the individual (17, 1).

Is there any point on which you disagree?

Those are your axioms, not mine and that is your world.
It is most assuredly not mine.

You have shown that in a world with property rights, it is sometimes justifiable to defend those rights. You have not shown how property itself extends from the axiomatic principles you introduced (1, 2, 3, 4). Property, as introduced in (8), is not nescessary to defend either of your fundamental binary axioms: "1) Humans needs "material goods" to survive
2) Humans "survive through" voluntary action"

Clearly property is one way of assuring (1), but as we've seen it does not seem to be a particularly efficent one as its enforcement (11, 14) sometimes infringes on the rights of others (2, 4, 18).




Not true, capitalists don't argue that. No force is being initiated on a starving bum on the streets.

True!

Force is initiated against the "starving bum" when he tries to take the bread he needs. Likewise communism would not "initiate force" against a worker who decided to stop working. If he then tries to take public resources while refusing to work, then force is "initiated".

Both communism and capitalism rely on the threat of force to maintain themselves.


Now try to get back to the actual discussion before I lose interest.

Write less next time.

Ooooh, you're sexy when you're angry! :wub:

[antieverything]

Good stuff, folks. Nice to see a good debate surface here once in a while.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)I just told you, it makes wage-slavery possible. (that's actually disputable with other communists)[/b]
Okay, so material surplus makes wage-slavery possible. So the solution is to give all that you can and get back what you need. In other words, I correctly interpreted From each according to ability, to each according to need.


Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)If labour works the same way a commodity works then the labour (just as the commodity) does not decide how it shall be used and in what condition (wage-slavery), how much it shall be bought/sold for, for what purpose it shall be used (alienation) and who will use it.[/b]
Doesn't the worker decide that?


Originally posted by New Tolerance

There are other ways of implementing the "third emancipation" other than getting rid of greed?
In short yes probably, but one has to discuss what "greed" really is.
Self-interest. The desire to get according to how much you work, rather than according to how much you need.


Originally posted by New Tolerance

They are NOT the same thing. The Constitution has an implicit base of principles which makes it imperfect but nevertheless a great accomplishment.
You still didn't explain how they are different, once again you just said that the constitution is flawed but great.
Obviously the principles themselves are different. The Constitution is based on reason, rights, and individualism, while yours are based on subjectivism and collectivism. Why is it so surprising that I praise the former and not the latter?


New [email protected]

Those rights protect you from force.
Elaborate.
Individual rights protect you from those who forcefully prevent you from sustaining and protecting your life (right to life), acting by your own will (right to liberty), gaining, keeping, using, and disposing material values (right to property), and living for your own sake (right to the pursuit of happiness).


New Tolerance
I thought you were selfish, if you are, then why are you "fighting for it". (you are fighting for something other than yourself)
There's nothing more selfish, mate ;) Fighting for a government that will protect my rights is fighting for myself -- specifically, it is fighting for my life, my liberty, my property, and my pursuit of happiness.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Again you persist in looking at the situation from a capitalist perspective. You have to take a broader view.[/b]
I'm comparing two systems, so I have to include the capitalist perspective.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)There won't be "rich" people.

And they aren't "their" luxuries.[/b]
There were, before the revolution happened. What happened to them? They became public? Why would the rich let you make their property public?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
No one has a desire to "get according to how much they work", that's far too complex. As you've said yourself, people have a desire for "THINGS". Capitalism does socialize this idea of "fair pay" but its nothing more than a philosophical abstract.

As long as people are materially provided for and have the "luxuries" they want, nobody cares if they're "getting according to how much they work".
You're assuming all those luxuries will be available for everyone. Some luxuries are in short supply, like private jets, and can only be bought by the rich. In communism, they would theoretically be available to anybody who wants one, which of course is impossible. And all of a sudden, "getting according to how much one works" matters.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

Communism denies property rights, so when a worker chooses not to work, and keeps accessing the public goods/services, how is he initiating force?
Communism denies private "property rights" not public ones. The community clearly has the right to control its own resources.
What does that mean? The community is protected from theft by outsiders?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
And I never said that the worker was "initiating force"! I'm just using capitalist arguments. Capitalism stipulates that a "thief" who takes bread (a bit of a cliché, I know) to survive has "initated force" against the "owner" of that bread. Based on this principle capitalists argue that the police are justified in taking action against the "thief".
Why are you using capitalist arguments in a hypothetical communist society? It is true that in capitalism, a thief is initiating force when he steals bread. But then you said "Communism is the same, in this respect." It's not! Communism doesn't recognize property rights. When a person stops working but continues taking from the public, you can't use a capitalist argument to justify using force against him.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
If people are not being paid for their work but rather the product of their work is communally shared then "working for free" is a meaningless term....
Just because nobody is being paid doesn't mean "working for free" is meaningless. In communism, I would still want to get according to how much I worked; the fact that everyone else is altruisticly sharing their resources will not change that.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Property, as introduced in (8), is not nescessary to defend either of your fundamental binary axioms: "1) Humans needs "material goods" to survive
2) Humans "survive through" voluntary action"
It certainly is if you don't want to be stolen from.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
Clearly property is one way of assuring (1), but as we've seen it does not seem to be a particularly efficent one as its enforcement (11, 14) sometimes infringes on the rights of others (2, 4, 18).
It does not violate the rights of others. For the umpteenth time, law enforcement is retaliation, it is not the initiation of force.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
True!

Force is initiated against the "starving bum" when he tries to take the bread he needs.
Force is not being initiated against the starving bum who tries to take the bread he needs. See previous quote.

[New Tolerance]

Okay, so material surplus makes wage-slavery possible. So the solution is to give all that you can and get back what you need. In other words, I correctly interpreted From each according to ability, to each according to need.

Well in that sense yes you interpreted the abstract ideal of it correctly, and as I've said this is the ideal result, but I'm talking about the practical methods in which they will be implemented, it's not going to be as simple as just start giving things out.


Doesn't the worker decide that?

The whole point of the commodity character of labour is that labour themselves do not decide. I thought you understood that when you acknowledged the commodity character of labour. You've said it yourself, the Chinese labour's value is determined by a valuer and in this case it is obivously not himself, or else he would be paid the same as the US worker. He's not the one doing the deciding.


Self-interest. The desire to get according to how much you work, rather than according to how much you need.

The desire to get according to how much you work - the desire for equality (my pay is proporational to my work and that proporation is the same for everyone) is not greed.

"Greed" from the dictionary:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=greed

"An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth: “Many... attach to competition the stigma of selfish greed” (Henry Fawcett). "


Obviously the principles themselves are different. The Constitution is based on reason, rights, and individualism, while yours are based on subjectivism and collectivism. Why is it so surprising that I praise the former and not the latter?

This is laughable, let's lay this out:

1 You critize me for allowing myself to make my principles amendable.
2 Because if it is amendable then I technically have no principles (in which case I can't be advocating pro-life, pro-self and pro-happiness).
3 The US constitution is amendable.
4 The US constitution has no principles by (2)

But now you say that the principles are different, this have to mean that I DO have principles, which basically blows up (1) and (2). Which also leads back to my very old post of us also advocating pro-life, pro-happiness, and pro-self, which has not yet been debated, since you threw it out the window by declaring (1) and (2) which you've just blown up yourself.

So let me ask you now, where do you actually stand? and what the heck is going on here?


Individual rights protect you from those who forcefully prevent you from sustaining and protecting your life (right to life), acting by your own will (right to liberty), gaining, keeping, using, and disposing material values (right to property), and living for your own sake (right to the pursuit of happiness).

You are going in a circle, I asked you why is it that it is these specifc things that should be protected, in particular I'm referring to property (private property in this case), which is what I'm trying to get at. Let me clearify the question: what justifies private property?


There's nothing more selfish, mate Fighting for a government that will protect my rights is fighting for myself -- specifically, it is fighting for my life, my liberty, my property, and my pursuit of happiness.

Sure, fighting for such a government can constitute as selfishness, but the US government doesn't necassarily do anything of the things you listed, but yet you say you are "proud" of it (as it is that is), proud of what? a government that initates force? If you really want to be consistent I think you ought to take off that flag and only put it back up until the government that you are taking about actually materializes. Or else you are just acting like a diluted communist who talks of a grand peaceful utopia while holding up the flag of the Soviet Union.

[Urban Rubble]

There were, before the revolution happened. What happened to them? They became public? Why would the rich let you make their property public?

Are you familiar with what a revolution is ? They wouldn't let "us", no. But if there was support for a popular revolution these rich people who oppose it would be in the vast minority, would they not ? "Let us" ceases to be an issue.


You're assuming all those luxuries will be available for everyone. Some luxuries are in short supply, like private jets, and can only be bought by the rich. In communism, they would theoretically be available to anybody who wants one, which of course is impossible. And all of a sudden, "getting according to how much one works" matters.

You've got to think "outside the box", as they say. No, private jets would not be available for everyone. I assume if they were in use at all it would be for necessary functions. And that does not include flying your secretary to Paris for dinner. Society would have to be re-shaped in ways none of us can fathom at the moment. I imagine that personal travel would be done on something more efficient like a ocean liner.


Just because nobody is being paid doesn't mean "working for free" is meaningless. In communism, I would still want to get according to how much I worked; the fact that everyone else is altruisticly sharing their resources will not change that.

Do you really believe you get paid the fair share of your work in Capitalist society ? At any rate, if someone is not working their fair share there is nothing preventing him being removed from the job. If that's what the workers democratically decide of course.

[FuckWar]

I work in a worker owned business that has existed since about 1973. We offer low priced, vegetarian healthfood. Down the street there is a collectively owned bookstore, and copy making place. These are also long established worker owned businesses. To be honest, I thought this topic was a joke. This is old news to me. Maybe capitalist lawyer should leave starbuck's or the gap or wherever he or she lives and see the answers to these self- explaining, painfully obvious questions.

Oh, and being a co- manager there beats working anywhere else ive worked up to this point.

[LSD]

here were, before the revolution happened. What happened to them? They became public? Why would the rich let you make their property public?

Did the south "want" to free their slaves?
Did the British "want" to free America?

That's why it's called a revolution!


You're assuming all those luxuries will be available for everyone. Some luxuries are in short supply, like private jets, and can only be bought by the rich. In communism, they would theoretically be available to anybody who wants one, which of course is impossible. And all of a sudden, "getting according to how much one works" matters.

Such excessive luxuries would be unescessary and would probably be destroyed.

But again, you're imagining that "getting according to how much one works" is an inborn human desire, which you have not proven to be so. And regardless, you haven't shown that that happens in capitalism. In fact, under capitalism workers get far less than "according to how much one works".

As a capitalist you cannot support such a principle. Isn't the "market" supposed to determine what I am paid? Accordingly people who work very hard can be paid very little, and workers who work very little can be paid a great deal. It's the "free market".

So, if humans really had an intrinsic desire to be "getting according to how much one works", why haven't they overthrown capitalism, yet?

Could it be because this nebulous and distinctly anti-capitalist notion of "getting according to how much one works" is only in your mind?


Just because nobody is being paid doesn't mean "working for free" is meaningless. In communism, I would still want to get according to how much I worked; the fact that everyone else is altruisticly sharing their resources will not change that.

see above.


What does that mean? The community is protected from theft by outsiders?

Yes.


Why are you using capitalist arguments in a hypothetical communist society? It is true that in capitalism, a thief is initiating force when he steals bread. But then you said "Communism is the same, in this respect." It's not! Communism doesn't recognize property rights. When a person stops working but continues taking from the public, you can't use a capitalist argument to justify using force against him.

Since you've insisted on looking at verything from a capitalist perspective, I thought a capitalist parallel would be helpfull inunderstanding.

I'm not "using a capitalist argument against him", I'm using a communist one, but clearly you don't understand communism! Communism advocates that the product of labour must be controlled by the worker who laboured. Thereby, communism respects public ownership. You are correct in that it does not respect private property, but that proves nothing. If a worker refuses to work and attempts to take from the public than he has violated the agreement of that community and will either start working again or leave.

There is nothing "capitalist" about that.

My point in mentioning capitalism was to show that at a basic level capitalism uses the same threat (that of not having access to needed goods) to ensure that its workers work.


It does not violate the rights of others. For the umpteenth time, law enforcement is retaliation, it is not the initiation of force.

Force is not being initiated against the starving bum who tries to take the bread he needs. See previous quote.

Oh come on, the "starbing bum" who steals bread has committed a crime against the system. He has broken an economic law. He has not attacked the life or liberty of the individual and based on your axioms,

1) Humans needs "material goods" to survive
2) Humans "survive through" voluntary action
3) Force makes action involuntary
4) Individual rights protect you from force

he may be justified in his action. He had taken voluntary action to acquire the "material" goods he needs to survive without making the actions of others "involuntary". Even within a property system, your principles outline that if he needs the bread he is justified in taking it.

But regardless, the police do initiate force on him. The chase him, they beat him, they arrest him, they confine him. Force. You are arguing that that force is exerted in "retaliation" for the "bum's" crime of theft. Fine. But don't deny that it is force that is that "retaliation".

In effect you are arguing that it is judtifiable force. It is this threat of force that keeps every "starving bum" from getting the food they need. It is this threat of force which ensures that workers work, because they know that if they don't work they don't get magic pieces of paper and without magic pieces of paper they'll be "arrested" when they try to take food.

[Professor Moneybags]

As to the "initiation of force", it is wholly unrequired.

Five minutes ago it was necessary (see sig). Have you changed your mind now ?


If a workers chooses to not work under capitalism, they are no longer able to acquire goods and/or services. This is veilled in a complex system of "market forces" and financial monetarianism, but that's what it comes down to.

So if you die of starvation on a desert island from choosing not to work and just to sit down and do nothing then that's the fault of capitalism too, is it ?


This is the "contract" on which capitalism is built.

That's the contract on which metaphysical reality is built too. But then, that's the tell-tale trait of a concrete-bound mentality; the inablility to tell the difference between the metaphysical and the man-made.

Thanks, LSD. As usual, you've been a hoot.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid [email protected] 17 2004, 07:04 PM
Force is initiated against the "starving bum" when he tries to take the bread he needs.
Was Nazi Germany justified in invading Poland ? Or were the Polish initiating force by witholding/defending their land from Hitler ?

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)The whole point of the commodity character of labour is that labour themselves do not decide. I thought you understood that when you acknowledged the commodity character of labour. You've said it yourself, the Chinese labour's value is determined by a valuer and in this case it is obivously not himself, or else he would be paid the same as the US worker. He's not the one doing the deciding.[/b]
Why do you think a peasant would rather work in a factory for a fraction of what an American would get? Either (1) the evil profiteers forced him to, or (2) it beats working in the scorching sun all day.


Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)The desire to get according to how much you work - the desire for equality (my pay is proporational to my work and that proporation is the same for everyone) is not greed.

. . .

"An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth: “Many... attach to competition the stigma of selfish greed” (Henry Fawcett). "[/b]
"Greed" has a negative connotation in the English language, but ignore that for a second. I'll restate my question with a different word:

There are other ways of implementing the "third emancipation" other than getting rid of self-interest?


Originally posted by New Tolerance
But now you say that the principles are different, this have to mean that I DO have principles, which basically blows up (1) and (2).
Sorry about that, my wording was confusing. The ideologies are different. Neither your beliefs nor the Constitution are explicitly based on principles.


New [email protected]
Let me clearify the question: what justifies private property?
So we don't get stolen from.


New Tolerance
Sure, fighting for such a government can constitute as selfishness, but the US government doesn't necassarily do anything of the things you listed, but yet you say you are "proud" of it (as it is that is), proud of what? a government that initates force?
I already answered your question: The United States is implicitly based on the same principles I believe in. That is what I am praising.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Did the south "want" to free their slaves?
Did the British "want" to free America?

That's why it's called a revolution![/b]
So you do demand I give something up. You've just implied that it doesn't matter what rich people think; their property will be forcefully taken.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Such excessive luxuries would be unescessary and would probably be destroyed.[/b]
I LIKE excessive luxuries. You want me to give them up. Will you now admit that you demand sacrifice and altruism?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
But again, you're imagining that "getting according to how much one works" is an inborn human desire, which you have not proven to be so.
No, I don't think it is an inborn human desire. But I do think that anyone who wants to live as a human being ought to live, should want to get according to their work.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
And regardless, you haven't shown that that happens in capitalism. In fact, under capitalism workers get far less than "according to how much one works".
Certainly it doesn't if you regard "work" as only physical, which many commies do. I measure work by how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it. A computer programmer performs almost no physical work, but their programs can sell for hundreds of dollars because people WANT them.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

What does that mean? The community is protected from theft by outsiders?

Yes.
Okay, so nobody outside the community will steal from me. What about people inside my community?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Since you've insisted on looking at verything from a capitalist perspective, I thought a capitalist parallel would be helpfull inunderstanding.
No, you weren't using a capitalist parallel to help my understanding -- you were using it to justify something. You were using the capitalist right to property to justify using force in the communist system against someone who takes from the public without working.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Communism advocates that the product of labour must be controlled by the worker who laboured.
Even if he agrees to get money instead of the product of his labor?


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
He had taken voluntary action to acquire the "material" goods he needs to survive without making the actions of others "involuntary".
Taking someone else's material goods is a form of force; the owner did not voluntarily give his goods away.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
You are arguing that that force is exerted in "retaliation" for the "bum's" crime of theft. Fine. But don't deny that it is force that is that "retaliation".
Oh I would never deny that it is force. I deny that it is an initiation of force. Crucial difference.

[New Tolerance]

Why do you think a peasant would rather work in a factory for a fraction of what an American would get? Either (1) the evil profiteers forced him to, or (2) it beats working in the scorching sun all day.


No, it's (3), it beats starving to death since the government is not providing them with a fair alternative when it should be. According your second arguement the worker should like working in those factories, if that's the case then why are there so many complains coming from the workers themselves? (about working conditions) Namely the formation of unions and other such institutions.


"Greed" has a negative connotation in the English language, but ignore that for a second. I'll restate my question with a different word:

There are other ways of implementing the "third emancipation" other than getting rid of self-interest?

Of course. (That's my view specifically, other communists here might kick my ass, but o well)


Sorry about that, my wording was confusing. The ideologies are different. Neither your beliefs nor the Constitution are explicitly based on principles.


Different in the sense that communism is not pro-life, pro-self and pro-happiness? Communism is pro-life: it rescues workers and others from possible death caused by careless policies. It is pro-self: It rescues worker from alienation so that they will do work that spring forth from their true nature and individuality rather than being forced to perform tasks that is not apart of his nature merely with mechanical exactness out of necassity. It is pro-happiness: One is happier than one used to be when one is not exploited or alienated.


So we don't get stolen from.

The reason why you would care if someone "steal" your things is because you might need those things to survive. But all that means is that you need resources to survive, it doesn't mean that the property has to be specifically private, you could just survive off of public property.


I already answered your question: The United States is implicitly based on the same principles I believe in. That is what I am praising.

So you are not actually the physical United States itself?

Further more, didn't you just say that the US constitution has no principles?

[LSD]

So you do demand I give something up. You've just implied that it doesn't matter what rich people think; their property will be forcefully taken.

Well, yes, of course. Much like how the slave-owners were forced to give up slaves. If the enough of the people rise up, you'll have no choice but to give up your property. But, then again, you really won't have to physically "give up" much!

After all most of your assests are not in your possesion. Your "money" will simply become invalid, your "stocks" will be meaningless. Your claim that you "own" that lakeside property will be ignored, but little force needs to be used. Once society simply disregards your "claims" there's very little you can do.


Certainly it doesn't if you regard "work" as only physical, which many commies do. I measure work by how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it. A computer programmer performs almost no physical work, but their programs can sell for hundreds of dollars because people WANT them.

:lol:

You are clever! :lol:

Communism gives fair value for work...if you determine work by capitalist value!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

That is downright evil! :P Talk about circular argumentation!! :lol: :lol:


Satisfaction and "market demand" is a way of measuring value, no one uses it to measure work.


Okay, so nobody outside the community will steal from me. What about people inside my community?

What???

Have you been paying attention at all?!?!?

You won't have anything to steal! There are public goods which you can use, and while your using them someone can't "rip them from your hands". In that sense, yes, you have some protection against "theft".

As to what the specific punnishment would be...I don't know. That is something that communities would have to work out for themselves, democratically of course.


No, you weren't using a capitalist parallel to help my understanding -- you were using it to justify something. You were using the capitalist right to property to justify using force in the communist system against someone who takes from the public without working.

The only time I used "capitalist arguments" was here: "And I never said that the worker was "initiating force"! I'm just using capitalist arguments. Capitalism stipulates that a "thief" who takes bread (a bit of a cliché, I know) to survive has "initated force" against the "owner" of that bread. Based on this principle capitalists argue that the police are justified in taking action against the "thief".

And that was to illustrate a parallel.

I don't need "capitalist arguments" to justify my statement regarding " using force in the communist system against someone who takes from the public without working", it's a basic tennant of communism!

I was, again, showing that that notion is not wholly incongruous with capitalist ideas but is in fact very similar to capitalism's method of ensuring work.

Sorry for the confusion.


Even if he agrees to get money instead of the product of his labor?

He hardly has a choice.

In capitalism he either "agrees" to be "paid for his work" or he starves. No one gives him the opportunity to control his own labour.


Taking someone else's material goods is a form of force; the owner did not voluntarily give his goods away.

Property is a conceptual idea.

It is a justification for the initiation of force. It is the method through which capitalism ensures that workers work. Property stipulates that you must acquire it and in order to acquire property you must work.

Again you're looking at the situation as if property is an intrisinc factor of the world, instead of a human invention. You have to go beyond capitalism and look at it externally.


No, I don't think it is an inborn human desire. But I do think that anyone who wants to live as a human being ought to live, should want to get according to their work.

AHA!!!!!

That, my friend, is called ideological imperialism.

With no justification for your ideology and admitting that it has no grounding in "human nature" or the like, you still declare that "anyone who wants to live as a human being ought to live, should" believe what I believe.

That is sheer arrogance. Why should "anyone who wants to live as a human being ought to live" trust you? What do you know that you haven't told us? What divine insight has allowed you to determine that "anyone who wants to live as a human being ought to live" must share your desire for work based payment.

You have unilaterally decided that this nebulous esoteric concept is an essential factor in living "as a human being ought to live". That anyone who does not share this rather spurious ideology is not living "as a human being ought to live".

Wow...I'm still in shock at the pure arrogance of that one....

[Anti-Capitalist1]

Originally posted by Sasha+Oct 18 2004, 08:55 PM--> (Sasha @ Oct 18 2004, 08:55 PM)
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
And regardless, you haven't shown that that happens in capitalism. In fact, under capitalism workers get far less than "according to how much one works".
Certainly it doesn't if you regard "work" as only physical, which many commies do. I measure work by how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it. A computer programmer performs almost no physical work, but their programs can sell for hundreds of dollars because people WANT them.
[/b]
Ok, then why shouldn't the people on the assembly line get an equal share of those hundreds? People WANT the programs, and you need people to make the cds, the boxes, and all that other stuff.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)No, it's (3), it beats starving to death since the government is not providing them with a fair alternative when it should be.[/b]
Since when did you believe in government?


Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)According your second arguement the worker should like working in those factories, if that's the case then why are there so many complains coming from the workers themselves? (about working conditions) Namely the formation of unions and other such institutions.[/b]
Unions are a perfectly legitimate means to raise wages and improve working conditions. And BTW, nothing of what I said should have implied that they like their work. All I said was that they weren't forced.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
Different in the sense that communism is not pro-life, pro-self and pro-happiness? Communism is pro-life: it rescues workers and others from possible death caused by careless policies. It is pro-self: It rescues worker from alienation so that they will do work that spring forth from their true nature and individuality rather than being forced to perform tasks that is not apart of his nature merely with mechanical exactness out of necassity. It is pro-happiness: One is happier than one used to be when one is not exploited or alienated.
You've performed the worst kind of injustice to those terms by ensuring the life, self, and happiness of some at the expense of others. I do not believe in sacrifice.


Originally posted by New Tolerance
The reason why you would care if someone "steal" your things is because you might need those things to survive.
So I can assume you think all thieves throughout history were worthless bums struggling for survival?


New [email protected]
So you are not actually the physical United States itself?
No, I am not a nation. I am a single person.


New Tolerance
Further more, didn't you just say that the US constitution has no principles?
I said the US Constitution is implicitly based on my principles.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Well, yes, of course. Much like how the slave-owners were forced to give up slaves. If the enough of the people rise up, you'll have no choice but to give up your property. But, then again, you really won't have to physically "give up" much![/b]
How can you equate a man who hires people on a voluntary basis with a slave-owner?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)You are clever! :lol:

Communism gives fair value for work...if you determine work by capitalist value!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

That is downright evil! :P Talk about circular argumentation!! :lol: :lol:


Satisfaction and "market demand" is a way of measuring value, no one uses it to measure work.[/b]
Please translate this gibberish into English. Smiley faces do not replace rational arguments.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
You won't have anything to steal! There are public goods which you can use, and while your using them someone can't "rip them from your hands". In that sense, yes, you have some protection against "theft".
Why can't they? What is stopping them from taking the goods I am using?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
I don't need "capitalist arguments" to justify my statement regarding " using force in the communist system against someone who takes from the public without working", it's a basic tennant of communism!
Where did it come from?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
In capitalism he either "agrees" to be "paid for his work" or he starves. No one gives him the opportunity to control his own labour.
That only means there aren't many people interested in starting worker co-ops. Are you going to hold that against them?


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
With no justification for your ideology and admitting that it has no grounding in "human nature" or the like, you still declare that "anyone who wants to live as a human being ought to live, should" believe what I believe.
Unlike President Bush, I do not believe that everyone "wants" to be free. Freedom is a superior concept, but it does not come naturally to the human mind. It took centuries of great thinkers to come to fruition.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
You have unilaterally decided that this nebulous esoteric concept is an essential factor in living "as a human being ought to live". That anyone who does not share this rather spurious ideology is not living "as a human being ought to live".

Wow...I'm still in shock at the pure arrogance of that one....
Sure. Who am I to say that the splendor of Western Civilization is any better than the primitive lives of African tribesmen? How arrogant of me!

[Osman Ghazi]

But I do think that anyone who wants to live as a human being ought to live, should want to get according to their work.


What you are actually saying is that every human being should desire to be payed not 'according to their work' in the sense of man-hours (how much effort they themselves put into it) but according to the value of their work. well, it's an interesting notion, but i don't know many people who say things like "I'm glad I get $7.15 an hour because I know I'm getting market value for my time." :lol:

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Osman [email protected] 18 2004, 11:30 PM
What you are actually saying is that every human being should desire to be payed not 'according to their work' in the sense of man-hours (how much effort they themselves put into it) but according to the value of their work. well, it's an interesting notion, but i don't know many people who say things like "I'm glad I get $7.15 an hour because I know I'm getting market value for my time." :lol:
It beats starting a business whose sole service was to hire hundreds of workers to dig useless holes in the ground. Should they get paid according to the amount of labor they put in, which would be substantial, or the market value, which would be nil?

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Anti-[email protected] 18 2004, 09:59 PM
Ok, then why shouldn't the people on the assembly line get an equal share of those hundreds? People WANT the programs, and you need people to make the cds, the boxes, and all that other stuff.
Because I could easily get a group of people to do those jobs. If you complain about low wages, I'll fire your ass and get someone else to replace you.

[LSD]

Why can't they? What is stopping them from taking the goods I am using?

The same thing that is stopping them from killing, raping, and assaulting. Everyone else.


Because I could easily get a group of people to do those jobs. If you complain about low wages, I'll fire your ass and get someone else to replace you.

Answer the question.

The fact that you could act as you outline doesn't address the moral issues that you've raised. If you truly believe that workers should be paid according the the demand for that which they produce, how can you justify a pay which is significantly less than this.

Because I can is not a good justification.


Please translate this gibberish into English. Smiley faces do not replace rational arguments.

You're arguing that capitalism correctly values work by defining work as capitalist value.

Its circular logic and you know it.


How can you equate a man who hires people on a voluntary basis with a slave-owner?

I didn't (although the argument can be made).

I merely pointed out that when great social and economic upheavels occur, those who bennefitted from the previous order will attempt to maintain their status.

Slave-owners are one relevent example, but they are not the only one. European aristocratic reaction to the rise of capitalism are another.


Where did it come from?

It came from the determination that workers must control their labour. Accordingly, one who is not contributing to the production of that labour by choice should not be able to exert control over its product.


That only means there aren't many people interested in starting worker co-ops. Are you going to hold that against them?

As has been pointed out in this thread, a true worker's co-op is impossible within the framework of communism.

Besides which your argument relies on the assumption that "starting worker co-ops" is easy. Under capitalism's concentration of wealth, "the cards are stacked against them".


Unlike President Bush, I do not believe that everyone "wants" to be free. Freedom is a superior concept, but it does not come naturally to the human mind. It took centuries of great thinkers to come to fruition.

But now we're done?

We've finished our cultural evolution and this is as good as it gets?

What about the "great thinkers" of the future? Don't they have any "great thoughts" to contribute? Or will you condemn them as past generations condemned those you know glorify.

Feudalists condemned capitalism, monarchists condemned democracy. They all had nice fancy arguments about "human nature" and "natural rights" but in the end they convinced.

It's pure historical ignorance that would lead one to believe that "it will never happen again".


Sure. Who am I to say that the splendor of Western Civilization is any better than the primitive lives of African tribesmen? How arrogant of me!

Reporter: "Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of
Western Civilization?"
Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."

[New Tolerance]

Since when did you believe in government?

What does this have to do with anything?


Unions are a perfectly legitimate means to raise wages and improve working conditions. And BTW, nothing of what I said should have implied that they like their work. All I said was that they weren't forced.

They were forced by their own necassities. Such a force can reduce the most noble human being to a savage of a character trying to survive, that's why it has to be eliminated.


You've performed the worst kind of injustice to those terms by ensuring the life, self, and happiness of some at the expense of others. I do not believe in sacrifice.

Which particular kinds of forced sacrifices are you referring to?


So I can assume you think all thieves throughout history were worthless bums struggling for survival?

No you may not assume that, I was referring to the person being robbed, not the person doing the robbing.


No, I am not a nation. I am a single person.

Forgive my typo, what meant to say was:

So you are not praising the physical United States itself?


I said the US Constitution is implicitly based on my principles.

You want to clearify what you mean by "implicitly" a little more? I don't want to jump to conclusions.

[Professor Moneybags]

The same thing that is stopping them from killing, raping, and assaulting. Everyone else.

And what if "everyone else" thinks it's fun and decides to join in ? If fact, what if it's "everyone else" is doing the killing, raping, and assaulting in the first place ? It's not like it doesn't happen. You have this rosy idea that collectives are incapable of doing anything wrong.


It's pure historical ignorance that would lead one to believe that "it will never happen again".

You're not providing anything "new", though. As much as you like to claim that communism is the "next step", in reality it's just a rehash of primitive tribalism.

[Invader Zim]

Right so your theory is that workers, IE your self, wont work as hard for them selves where its in their interest to be profitable, than for some corporation, which pays them next to nothing, gives few benefits and generally treats them like shit?

Genius...

And no, I'm not a lawyer....not yet atleast.

Sunshine, I know numerous law students, they are all extreamly bright, judging by your opening post, you haven't got what it takes... an IQ over 75 being part of it.

[LSD]

And what if "everyone else" thinks it's fun and decides to join in ? If fact, what if it's "everyone else" is doing the killing, raping, and assaulting in the first place ? It's not like it doesn't happen. You have this rosy idea that collectives are incapable of doing anything wrong.

Yes, the "tyranny of the majority. I think I've heard that argument before...from 17th century monarchists!!

Again, Proffessor you reveal yourself to be classic anti-democrat.

Clearly the people cannot be trusted to govern themselves.

We must have a great leader to control our baser tendencies.


Let me guess, Proffessor, you nominate yourself?

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)The same thing that is stopping them from killing, raping, and assaulting. Everyone else.[/b]
So it is the whim of the populous that is left to create, interpret, and enforce rules.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)The fact that you could act as you outline doesn't address the moral issues that you've raised. If you truly believe that workers should be paid according the the demand for that which they produce, how can you justify a pay which is significantly less than this.[/b]
The demand for their job plays a big role as well. That's why unsafe jobs will generally have good pay; few people will want the job.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
You're arguing that capitalism correctly values work by defining work as capitalist value.
Ohh, I see. You think my definition of work has a capitalist slant, and thus is useless. Let's review what I said:

Certainly it doesn't if you regard "work" as only physical, which many commies do. I measure work by how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it. A computer programmer performs almost no physical work, but their programs can sell for hundreds of dollars because people WANT them.

I didn't define work that way. Ordinary people do, every day, by paying their own cold hard cash for computer programs, novels, paintings, and science journals -- all of which required very little physical exertion to make. Do you question their judgement? Are you ready to declare that their work isn't really "work"?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
I merely pointed out that when great social and economic upheavels occur, those who bennefitted from the previous order will attempt to maintain their status.
This is the source of your bad reasoning. You condemn those who benefitted, regardless of whether they initiated force to get that benefit.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
It came from the determination that workers must control their labour. Accordingly, one who is not contributing to the production of that labour by choice should not be able to exert control over its product.
And you still haven't explained why workers need to control their labor. You are complaining that most company-owners choose only to offer wages, rather than partial ownership of the company, to workers in exchange for their labor. It was the voluntary choice of the company-owner to make such an offer, and it was the voluntary choice of the workers to accept it.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
As has been pointed out in this thread, a true worker's co-op is impossible within the framework of communism.

Besides which your argument relies on the assumption that "starting worker co-ops" is easy. Under capitalism's concentration of wealth, "the cards are stacked against them".
Why does it matter whether a "true workers' coop" is possible in communism? We're talking about capitalism here, and they are perfectly possible in capitalism.

And workers aren't the ones that start worker coops. They are started by businessmen -- and no cards are stacked against businessmen. They simply choose to start traditional companies, and that is their perogative.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
We've finished our cultural evolution and this is as good as it gets?
I would certainly change my life philosophy and political persuasion if I found flaws in my reasoning, buy that hasn't happened yet.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Reporter: "Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of
Western Civilization?"
Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."
Quotes do not replace rational arguments.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)
Since when did you believe in government?

What does this have to do with anything?[/b]
You said:
No, it's (3), it beats starving to death since the government is not providing them with a fair alternative when it should be.

You can't be complaining about the government not "providing" something if you do not believe in government.


Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)
Unions are a perfectly legitimate means to raise wages and improve working conditions. And BTW, nothing of what I said should have implied that they like their work. All I said was that they weren't forced.
They were forced by their own necassities. Such a force can reduce the most noble human being to a savage of a character trying to survive, that's why it has to be eliminated.[/b]
In that case, you commies have beening blaming the wrong thing: It is reality, not the factory owner, that is doing the "forcing". That wretched physical world is bringing once-noble souls to the level of savages. Are you ready to make an apology?


Originally posted by New Toleration
Which particular kinds of forced sacrifices are you referring to?
First of all, you want to forcefully take the wealth of rich people during the initial revolution. Then, when communism is implemented, you want the able to work for the public good rather than keep their property.

Granted, that latter won't be forced (like it would under socialism), but it still demands sacrifice.


Originally posted by New Toleration
No you may not assume that, I was referring to the person being robbed, not the person doing the robbing.
I'll reread your post since I read it wrong:

The reason why you would care if someone "steal" your things is because you might need those things to survive. But all that means is that you need resources to survive, it doesn't mean that the property has to be specifically private, you could just survive off of public property.

Good to know the public will have an endless supply of everything I own. Or am I wrong to think this?


New [email protected]
Forgive my typo, what meant to say was:

So you are not praising the physical United States itself?
Why would I praise a piece of land? Well, I do think it is beautiful, but that's beside the point. I am praising the philosophy that this country was founded on.


New Toleration
You want to clearify what you mean by "implicitly" a little more? I don't want to jump to conclusions.
I mean it doesn't explicitly say "All Powers of the Government are henceforth limited to the protection of the right of each citizen to his Life, Liberty, Property, and Pursuit of Happiness." It gets closer to that than any other country did, but it's not there yet. Nevertheless, the basic spirit of individual rights and of an accountable, limited government exist throughout the writings of our Founding Fathers.

[New Tolerance]

You said:
No, it's (3), it beats starving to death since the government is not providing them with a fair alternative when it should be.

You can't be complaining about the government not "providing" something if you do not believe in government.


And when exactly did I say that I don't believe in government? (in a sense I don't, but it is still preferable over that other condition, that is not to say however that the government is the best solution)


In that case, you commies have beening blaming the wrong thing: It is reality, not the factory owner, that is doing the "forcing". That wretched physical world is bringing once-noble souls to the level of savages. Are you ready to make an apology?

To reach the solution to a problem, one has to determine what should be done/changed. I can not change my physical needs (one day someone may figure out a way, but I certainly can't figure it out and there seems to be no solution in sight coming from others) But I can reform how industries work, that's why the factory owners are "blamed" for the problems. In this case all "blame" really means is that they are recognized as a component of what might be changed, nothing more. The "blame" does not mean that the factory owner should in turn be killed. I never blamed the factory owners personally, it is not the individuals who are monstrous, it is the institution they are working in/with that is monstrous.


First of all, you want to forcefully take the wealth of rich people during the initial revolution. Then, when communism is implemented, you want the able to work for the public good rather than keep their property.

Granted, that latter won't be forced (like it would under socialism), but it still demands sacrifice.

First thing first, I don't think you have been exposed all the different views that the various kinds of communists have. I will not "forcefully take" the wealth from the rich, I prefer a less invasive approach, probably by using the government or some other kind of institution that has a revenue and purchase the industries from the rich (and then reorganize the labour structure within that industry, other more wide scale reforms will be undertaken when a significant portion of the economy has been transfered over), it will probably be a very slow process, but it is not forceful.


I'll reread your post since I read it wrong:

The reason why you would care if someone "steal" your things is because you might need those things to survive. But all that means is that you need resources to survive, it doesn't mean that the property has to be specifically private, you could just survive off of public property.

Good to know the public will have an endless supply of everything I own. Or am I wrong to think this?


It will have an adequent supply of materials to keep you alive and give you the power to participate in society (such as shelter, food, education etc). Things that are more "luxurious" are a different matter, and since one don't physically need them to survive they will be handled differently. We can talk about the economics of this, it doesn't take that much to keep a person alive and give him equality of opportunity.


Why would I praise a piece of land? Well, I do think it is beautiful, but that's beside the point. I am praising the philosophy that this country was founded on.

But those philosphies are not confined to the United States itself, isn't using the symbol of the US a little too specific?


I mean it doesn't explicitly say "All Powers of the Government are henceforth limited to the protection of the right of each citizen to his Life, Liberty, Property, and Pursuit of Happiness." It gets closer to that than any other country did, but it's not there yet. Nevertheless, the basic spirit of individual rights and of an accountable, limited government exist throughout the writings of our Founding Fathers.

"It gets closer to that than any other country did..." hmm, I'll have to check on that, one usually hasn't read the constitution of more than a couple of countries.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)And when exactly did I say that I don't believe in government? (in a sense I don't, but it is still preferable over that other condition, that is not to say however that the government is the best solution)[/b]
So you have no philosophical differences with your socialist counterparts other than the "practical" consideration that it isn't the best solution?


Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration) . . . In this case all "blame" really means is that they are recognized as a component of what might be changed, nothing more. The "blame" does not mean that the factory owner should in turn be killed. I never blamed the factory owners personally, it is not the individuals who are monstrous, it is the institution they are working in/with that is monstrous.[/b]
But you still want to use force against someone who is not responsible for the workers' situation. You punish them anyway solely because they provide a convenient way to relieve the workers. In other words, those factory owners are being sacrificed.


Originally posted by New Toleration
. . . but it is not forceful.
Okay, so you take a "less invasive approach". Your flavor of communism seeks not to initiate any force. All flavors, however, end up demanding altruism, forced or otherwise.


New [email protected]
It will have an adequent supply of materials to keep you alive and give you the power to participate in society (such as shelter, food, education etc). Things that are more "luxurious" are a different matter, and since one don't physically need them to survive they will be handled differently. We can talk about the economics of this, it doesn't take that much to keep a person alive and give him equality of opportunity.
As a human being, I don't want mere survival. Since luxuries are a "different matter", and will be "handled differently", could you explain exactly what that means?


New Toleration
But those philosphies are not confined to the United States itself, isn't using the symbol of the US a little too specific?
Are you kidding? This country was the first to implement such philosophies, and I'll be damned if that didn't make the flag one of the greatest symbols of capitalism there is.

[New Tolerance]

So you have no philosophical differences with your socialist counterparts other than the "practical" consideration that it isn't the best solution?

Which philosophy of my "socialist counterparts" are you referring to?


But you still want to use force against someone who is not responsible for the workers' situation. You punish them anyway solely because they provide a convenient way to relieve the workers. In other words, those factory owners are being sacrificed.

The whole point of my paragraph is to tell you that I don't intent to punish them. If it wasn't clear, let it be so now.


Okay, so you take a "less invasive approach". Your flavor of communism seeks not to initiate any force. All flavors, however, end up demanding altruism, forced or otherwise.

What part of my policy "demanded" altruism?


As a human being, I don't want mere survival. Since luxuries are a "different matter", and will be "handled differently", could you explain exactly what that means?


They might be traded like they are today. I'm still considering this.


Are you kidding? This country was the first to implement such philosophies, and I'll be damned if that didn't make the flag one of the greatest symbols of capitalism there is.

This is where the problem is, it never really "implemented" the philosophies, it has only merely implicitly implied them. If you want use this as the reason then so be it, but it seems to be somewhat of a weak reason when I consider the reality of things. As there are other places that implemented the philosophies to a greater degree. If I remember correctly the last time they checked Hong Kong was consistently ranked as the world's freest economy for the last 25 years including this year. I would consider it to be a part representation of capitalism than the United States.

[LSD]

So it is the whim of the populous that is left to create, interpret, and enforce rules.

Yes, there's a word for that: democracy.


I didn't define work that way. Ordinary people do, every day, by paying their own cold hard cash for computer programs, novels, paintings, and science journals -- all of which required very little physical exertion to make. Do you question their judgement? Are you ready to declare that their work isn't really "work"?

I think your missing the flaw with your argument.

You are advocating the following: Market value is a fair judge of work.

Your logic is as follows: since work is best measured by market value, Market value is a fair judge of work.

That is what is called begging the question. You are assuming that which you are trying to prove

You then attempt to "prove" your case by showing that capitalist valuing is popular, aside from being an appeal to popularity it is wholly irrelevent. We know that capitalist valuing is popular, capitalism is popular.

So was feudalism, it doesn't show validity.

I am not suggesting that work should be defined solely by physical exertion, but I am arguing that "market value" should definitely not be the determination. So far you have not shown otherwise.


This is the source of your bad reasoning. You condemn those who benefitted, regardless of whether they initiated force to get that benefit.

I didn't "condemn" them, I merely pointed out the following: when great social and economic upheavels occur, those who bennefitted from the previous order will attempt to maintain their status.

That isn't a "shocking" statement when you think about it, nor is it a "condemnation" of anyone. I am simply explaining what history has shown us which is that "when great social and economic upheavels occur, those who bennefitted from the previous order will attempt to maintain their status".

I'm not "condemning" them for this, it is to be expected. They are, after all, "bennefitting from the previous order".

Do you disagree? Do you think that the rulling class won't try to fight a proletarian revolution?


And you still haven't explained why workers need to control their labor. You are complaining that most company-owners choose only to offer wages, rather than partial ownership of the company, to workers in exchange for their labor. It was the voluntary choice of the company-owner to make such an offer, and it was the voluntary choice of the workers to accept it.

That isn't at all what I'm complaining about.

I'm complaining about capitalism. you seem to have someone convinced yourself that I am advocating some sort of labour reform. Well, correct yourself of this notion immediately. I am no reformist.

I am proposing the abolition of capitalism. Offering "part-ownership of the company" is a meaningless gesture.


Why does it matter whether a "true workers' coop" is possible in communism?

Sorry, typo. It should have read " impossible within the framework of capitalism.


And workers aren't the ones that start worker coops. They are started by businessmen -- and no cards are stacked against businessmen. They simply choose to start traditional companies, and that is their perogative.

Yes, I wonder why... :rolleyes:

Could it be personal profit?


We're talking about capitalism here, and they are perfectly possible in capitalism.

Not in any true sense.

The economic framework of capitalism nescessitates that "profit" must be priority. That is the "market forces" constrain private organization to some pretty delineated structural models.

I would go into specifics here, but you did ask me not to type so much! :lol:

Suffice it to say that although "worker co-ops" can be set up they are certainly not communist co-ops and are capitalist insitutions dependent on that system to maintain themselves and their "owner" workers. There are still managers and "officers" and all decisions are still geared towards maximizing profits which takes away from the aim of prioritising the individual rather than the capital. Finally, value is still measured by capitalist deteminations so even if a group wanted to create a true worker co-op they couldn't support it for very long!


Quotes do not replace rational arguments.

The "rational argument" that "WESTERN CIVILIZATION KICKS ASS!"?

Sorry, I hardly think that that's worthy of a response. :lol:

[Professor Moneybags]

Yes, the "tyranny of the majority. I think I've heard that argument before...from 17th century monarchists!!

The collective lynch mob can do no wrong, eh ? Isn't there a logical fallacy based on that ?


Again, Proffessor you reveal yourself to be classic anti-democrat.

I wasn't aware there was anything "classical" about it. I advocated limited majority rule. You advocate unlimited majority rule- where the majority can do as they please to whoever they please.


Clearly the people cannot be trusted to govern themselves.

We must have a great leader to control our baser tendencies.

You took the "Minority Dictatorship vs Majority Dictatorship" dichotomy you learned at school and swallowed it hole.

How about having no dictatorship ?

[Professor Moneybags]

Yes, there's a word for that: democracy.

What you are advocating is unlimited democracy, or mob rule.

[New Tolerance]

What you are advocating is unlimited democracy, or mob rule.


To claim such is to claim that people are somehow naturally evil, the last time I checked objectivists are against the idea that people are nautrally evil. But then again, I don't know if you are an objectivist, so...

[Osman Ghazi]

The collective lynch mob can do no wrong, eh ? Isn't there a logical fallacy based on that ?


I don't know if you know this, but human beings make mistakes. Capitalists do it. Communists do it. Every single person in existence has done it. Thousands of people die every hour and now you claim to be worried that people might get hurt?

Well, I don't believe it.


I wasn't aware there was anything "classical" about it.

Are you joking? Your view has been around in America since 1776 (well, before that too, but it's been the official ideology since then.) Why do you think you have the electoral college system? It's so that 'radicals' can't get a big majority and sweep into national power.


How about having no dictatorship ?

I fear that it is impossible. Now, I hope that it isn't but, who knows?


What you are advocating is unlimited democracy, or mob rule.

What you are advocating is impossible, so that puts us at least a peg or two higher. Seriously though, how do laissez-faire capitalists expect it to come about?

And Sasha, you seem to think that only work that is 'exerting' is 'physical work'. Well, there is no 'non-physical work' because even the programmer is creating something that exists in the physical world. As a general rule however, many communists believe that non-exerting work 'isn't real work' and that is a shame because it shows a flawed understanding of our world.

What really isn't work is saying "Hey, you! Work!" which is what most of us are talking about when we claim that capitalists don't work for their money.

[LSD]

I wasn't aware there was anything "classical" about it. I advocated limited majority rule. You advocate unlimited majority rule- where the majority can do as they please to whoever they please.

OK, sport, define "limited majority rule" for us.

Who decides what "limitations" are put on majority rule?

Who decides what's to be democratically considered and what's to be considered "untouchable" by the masses?

You?

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)Which philosophy of my "socialist counterparts" are you referring to?[/b]
The philosophy that it is valid to initiate force against the rich and take their money.


Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)The whole point of my paragraph is to tell you that I don't intent to punish them. If it wasn't clear, let it be so now.[/b]
Oh it was very clear. But if you don't force them to do anything, you can only hope that they will altruistically decide to stop "exploiting" the workers. That's where the hole comes in: neither you nor Lysergic will admit that communism demands altruism in order to work.


Originally posted by New Toleration
What part of my policy "demanded" altruism?
See above.


New [email protected]
They might be traded like they are today. I'm still considering this.
Traded? You mean, value-for-value exchanges between consenting individuals? How uncommunistic of you! Perhaps you should just give up and take Lysergic's postition:

Such excessive luxuries would be unescessary and would probably be destroyed.


New Toleration
This is where the problem is, it never really "implemented" the philosophies, it has only merely implicitly implied them. If you want use this as the reason then so be it, but it seems to be somewhat of a weak reason when I consider the reality of things. As there are other places that implemented the philosophies to a greater degree. If I remember correctly the last time they checked Hong Kong was consistently ranked as the world's freest economy for the last 25 years including this year. I would consider it to be a part representation of capitalism than the United States.
We're not talking about "which country is currently implementing capitalism most", we're talking about "which country is the greatest symbol of capitalism." Naturally, it's the one whose countrymen, including such giants as Thomas Jefferson, we're the first to subordinate their government to moral law. Yes, such law was not defined explicitly to the degree needed to preserve it, which is why we were able to end up a welfare state today.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Your logic is as follows: since work is best measured by market value, Market value is a fair judge of work.[/b]
That's ridiculous. When did I say that?

Market value essentially means the amount that people are willing to pay you. I think this is right because there is no force involved. That's it.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)I am not suggesting that work should be defined solely by physical exertion, but I am arguing that "market value" should definitely not be the determination. So far you have not shown otherwise.[/b]
Where does the value come from, apart from the valuer? No combination of astrological mysticism and tarot cards can tell you whether something is intrinsically work. In a free society, only the man you are voluntarily dealing with can decide that.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
I didn't "condemn" them, I merely pointed out the following: when great social and economic upheavels occur, those who bennefitted from the previous order will attempt to maintain their status.
Okay, you don't condemn the rich, but you still are going to forcefully loot them when the revolution starts. What I was pointing out was that in all of these comparisons to slave-owners and monarchs, you forgot one thing: Modern day rich people did not initiate force to get their wealth.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
That isn't at all what I'm complaining about.

I'm complaining about capitalism. you seem to have someone convinced yourself that I am advocating some sort of labour reform. Well, correct yourself of this notion immediately. I am no reformist.
You seem to have forgotted what you said. Let's review:
*******
Lysergic: Communism advocates that the product of labour must be controlled by the worker who laboured.
Sasha: Even if he agrees to get money instead of the product of his labor?
Lysergic: He hardly has a choice. In capitalism he either "agrees" to be "paid for his work" or he starves. No one gives him the opportunity to control his own labour.
Sasha: That only means there aren't many people interested in starting worker co-ops. Are you going to hold that against them?
Lysergic: As has been pointed out in this thread, a true worker's co-op is impossible within the framework of [capitalism].
*******
So you were complaining that "no one has the opportunity to control his labor." But members of worker coops DO, and there is nothing in capitalism preventing people from starting them. If control of one's labor is all you want, stop condemning capitalism, and start promoting worker coops.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Yes, I wonder why... :rolleyes:

Could it be personal profit?
You don't think Mondragon is making profits right now? Don't you think they want to maximize the profits for their shareholders (who happen to also be their workers)?

Anyway, even coops that aren't pursuing profits can exist in capitalism: Purchasing coops seek to reduce the cost of certain goods and maximize the value for their members. A company does not need to generate money to be of interest to a capitalist; it simply must generate some form of gain, monetary or otherwise.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Not in any true sense.

The economic framework of capitalism nescessitates that "profit" must be priority. That is the "market forces" constrain private organization to some pretty delineated structural models.
See above.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
Suffice it to say that although "worker co-ops" can be set up they are certainly not communist co-ops and are capitalist insitutions dependent on that system to maintain themselves and their "owner" workers. There are still managers and "officers" and . . .
Thank you! That's what I was saying when I first came into this thread. Does this mean you think your fellow commies were wrong to respond to Capitalist Lawyer with such "capitalist institutions" as Mondragon?


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
The "rational argument" that "WESTERN CIVILIZATION KICKS ASS!"?
Hell yeah! Ever since the Enlightenment, it has been more influenced by reason, science, and freedom than any other culture, leading to the greatest living standards the world has ever seen. I think this is how human beings ought to live, but not everyone agrees. Some people glorify the lives of those in third-world nations, and use words like "arrogant" to describe those who think otherwise.

[New Tolerance]

The philosophy that it is valid to initiate force against the rich and take their money.

Then no, philosophically we are somewhat different.


Oh it was very clear. But if you don't force them to do anything, you can only hope that they will altruistically decide to stop "exploiting" the workers. That's where the hole comes in: neither you nor Lysergic will admit that communism demands altruism in order to work.

refer to the practical example I gave about purchasing industries from the private sector, was there any kind of hoping or forcing in there? You still have yet to point out what part of the practical policies that I'm advocating is forceful.


See above.

See above, you know what? In fact, see this: What part of that policy I'm advocating is forceful? Point it out specifically.


Traded? You mean, value-for-value exchanges between consenting individuals? How uncommunistic of you! Perhaps you should just give up and take Lysergic's postition:

Such excessive luxuries would be unescessary and would probably be destroyed.


If it is uncommunistic then so be it. I disagree with Lysergic on that one.


We're not talking about "which country is currently implementing capitalism most", we're talking about "which country is the greatest symbol of capitalism." Naturally, it's the one whose countrymen, including such giants as Thomas Jefferson, we're the first to subordinate their government to moral law. Yes, such law was not defined explicitly to the degree needed to preserve it, which is why we were able to end up a welfare state today.

And my point remains, the reason for using the flag is not very strong in a comtemporary sense. But if you wish to continue to use it then go ahead. (I would have much preferred an actual picture of Thomas Jefferson)

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)Then no, philosophically we are somewhat different.[/b]
But wait a minute, you said:

And when exactly did I say that I don't believe in government? (in a sense I don't, but it is still preferable over that other condition, that is not to say however that the government is the best solution)

What that means is that you have no moral qualms with force, you just don't this it "is the best solution." Philosophically, you are no different than a socialist.


Originally posted by New [email protected]
You still have yet to point out what part of the practical policies that I'm advocating is forceful.
I acknowledged that you do not believe in force. Read my statement again. My only point was that if you do not use force, you must rely on altruism, which you continue to deny.


New Toleration
If it is uncommunistic then so be it.
Then you aren't being consistent. With regards to normal companies, you do not believe in value-for-value trades; you believe in altruism. With regards to companies that manufacture luxury items, you DO believe in value-for-value trades. Why?

[New Tolerance]

But wait a minute, you said:

And when exactly did I say that I don't believe in government? (in a sense I don't, but it is still preferable over that other condition, that is not to say however that the government is the best solution)

What that means is that you have no moral qualms with force, you just don't this it "is the best solution." Philosophically, you are no different than a socialist.


Democratic governments are not forceful, since they allow you to leave the system when ever you like. Participation is voluntary.


I acknowledged that you do not believe in force. Read my statement again. My only point was that if you do not use force, you must rely on altruism, which you continue to deny.


Do millionaire painters paint because of force or out of altruism? If the alienation of labour is ended then the people can perform taskes which is true to their nature. They will love the labour for its own sake (just like the artist), altruism is not necassary.


Then you aren't being consistent. With regards to normal companies, you do not believe in value-for-value trades; you believe in altruism. With regards to companies that manufacture luxury items, you DO believe in value-for-value trades. Why?

The problem is not value-for-value trades, the problem is exploitation and alienation, if institutions protects workers from those things, then will can they operate on a value-for-value basis?

I don't "believe" altruism in the sense that I oppose everything altruistic. I like altruism, I encourage it, but is not absolutely necassary. (and when did I say that I have a "problem" with value-for-value trades again?)

[Osman Ghazi]

I acknowledged that you do not believe in force. Read my statement again. My only point was that if you do not use force, you must rely on altruism, which you continue to deny.


Or we could just use the threat of force. Then, when the rich fail to respond with their own force, the whole ordeal will be over.

In another sense, it could be viewed as a value-for-value trade. I mean, we are offering them their lives in exchange for most of their stuff.

[LSD]

Okay, you don't condemn the rich, but you still are going to forcefully loot them when the revolution starts. What I was pointing out was that in all of these comparisons to slave-owners and monarchs, you forgot one thing: Modern day rich people did not initiate force to get their wealth.

Well, force is a complex issue.

Did the middle age aristocrats "inititate force"? Most of them were simply born into their wealth and never did much with it?

Was it right to deprive them of their wealth and feudalist manorial estates?

How about slave owners? They didn't initiate force within the context of their societies. And that is the key. You don't consider force in support of property to be force because this society values property, well, slave societies considered slaves to be that property so foce in defense of that property was not initiating force.


So you were complaining that "no one has the opportunity to control his labor." But members of worker coops DO, and there is nothing in capitalism preventing people from starting them. If control of one's labor is all you want, stop condemning capitalism, and start promoting worker coops.


Originally posted by See [email protected] emphasis added
You seem to have forgotted what you said. Let's review:
*******
Lysergic: Communism advocates that the product of labour must be controlled by the worker who laboured.
Sasha: Even if he agrees to get money instead of the product of his labor?
Lysergic: He hardly has a choice. In capitalism he either "agrees" to be "paid for his work" or he starves. No one gives him the opportunity to control his own labour.
Sasha: That only means there aren't many people interested in starting worker co-ops. Are you going to hold that against them?
Lysergic: As has been pointed out in this thread, a true worker's co-op is impossible within the framework of [capitalism].
*******

Feel like we're going in circles? :lol:


Thank you! That's what I was saying when I first came into this thread. Does this mean you think your fellow commies were wrong to respond to Capitalist Lawyer with such "capitalist institutions" as Mondragon?

I don't think those are examples of genuine worker controlled institutions if that's what you mean.

I think they are practical examples that moving in the direction of worker-control does not nescessarily mean a collapse to chaos, but they are not by any means the "end of the road".


That's ridiculous. When did I say that?

Me: "And regardless, you haven't shown that that happens in capitalism. In fact, under capitalism workers get far less than "according to how much one works"."

You: "Certainly it doesn't if you regard "work" as only physical, which many commies do. I measure work by how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it."

hmmm.... so capitalism values work correctly if we define work as "how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it" which is exactly how capitalism defines VALUE!!!!!

So if we define work to be capitalist market value (how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it) then work is equivalent to capitalist market value...because you defined them to be the same!!


Market value essentially means the amount that people are willing to pay you. I think this is right because there is no force involved. That's it.

Force is required to maintain property "rights", but then we've already covered this.

Let me just remind you that every society considers it's initiation of force to be "self-defense" or "nescessary", capitalism is no different.

Protecting "property" is no more moral than protecting "divine rule", it's all societal. You have to look at capitalism externally and acknowledge that force must be "initated" to maintain it. Now, you could, of course, argue that that force is warrented, but to deny that it exists is either tragic naivite or blatant hypocrasy.


Hell yeah! Ever since the Enlightenment, it has been more influenced by reason, science, and freedom than any other culture, leading to the greatest living standards the world has ever seen. I think this is how human beings ought to live, but not everyone agrees. Some people glorify the lives of those in third-world nations, and use words like "arrogant" to describe those who think otherwise.

So not only is this society the "greatest ever", but it is the greatest that ever will be??

We shouldn't strive for a better world but instead every "human being ought to live" like this forever??

On a side note, you do now that it is physically impossible for everyone on earth to live like the first world, right? The only way that you and I live the way we do is because half the world is starving.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Tolerance+--> (New Tolerance)Democratic governments are not forceful, since they allow you to leave the system when ever you like. Participation is voluntary.[/b]
Not if the majority says otherwise. And certainly not if there are no other free countries to flee to. And definitely not if you are forced to leave your property behind when you do flee. Face it: You do not have the moral right to create a tyrannical society and hide behind the "freedom to leave" as proof that you aren't forceful.


Originally posted by New [email protected]
Do millionaire painters paint because of force or out of altruism? If the alienation of labour is ended then the people can perform taskes which is true to their nature. They will love the labour for its own sake (just like the artist), altruism is not necassary.
What do millionaire painters have to do with this? We're talking about the traders, the businessmen; the ones whose desire for selfish value-for-value trades is standing between you and your communist society. If you don't believe in force, you must convince these people to stop what they're doing.


New Tolerance
The problem is not value-for-value trades, the problem is exploitation and alienation, if institutions protects workers from those things, then will can they operate on a value-for-value basis?
Before I answer this, I need to know: Are you a communist? Or are you just a capitalist who prefers the worker coop model? My understanding is that exploitation and alienation, according to a communist, occurs because workers have little control over what they produce. Since worker coops give them more control, in exchange for mandatory investment in the company, doesn't this solve your problem?

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)Did the middle age aristocrats "inititate force"? Most of them were simply born into their wealth and never did much with it?

Was it right to deprive them of their wealth and feudalist manorial estates?[/b]
It isn't complex, you just have no understanding of it. If you steal property and give it to someone else, that property is still stolen and must be returned.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)How about slave owners? They didn't initiate force within the context of their societies. And that is the key. You don't consider force in support of property to be force because this society values property, well, slave societies considered slaves to be that property so foce in defense of that property was not initiating force.[/b]
Truth doesn't come from what the majority thinks. They might have thought slaves were property, but that didn't make it the truth.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Feel like we're going in circles? :lol:
The statement you put in bold was FALSE, and I was arguing against it. Worker coops are completely possible in capitalism.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
I don't think those are examples of genuine worker controlled institutions if that's what you mean.
Why? One worker, one vote. Everything about them screams worker control.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
You: "Certainly it doesn't if you regard "work" as only physical, which many commies do. I measure work by how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it."

hmmm.... so capitalism values work correctly if we define work as "how much it satisfies other people, and thus how much they are willing to pay for it" which is exactly how capitalism defines VALUE!!!!!
Capitalism doesn't define value that way; the people do.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Protecting "property" is no more moral than protecting "divine rule", it's all societal.
I've argued this point to death. I give up.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
. . . You have to look at capitalism externally and acknowledge that force must be "initated" to maintain it. Now, you could, of course, argue that that force is warrented, but to deny that it exists is either tragic naivite or blatant hypocrasy.
I've argued this point to death. I give up.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
So not only is this society the "greatest ever", but it is the greatest that ever will be??
I've argued this point to death. I give up.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid [email protected] 20 2004, 08:03 PM

OK, sport, define "limited majority rule" for us.

Who decides what "limitations" are put on majority rule?

Who decides what's to be democratically considered and what's to be considered "untouchable" by the masses?

You?
The limitations are the individual rights protecting each citizen.

[New Tolerance]

Not if the majority says otherwise. And certainly not if there are no other free countries to flee to. And definitely not if you are forced to leave your property behind when you do flee. Face it: You do not have the moral right to create a tyrannical society and hide behind the "freedom to leave" as proof that you aren't forceful.

The majority will not have the power to destroy the right of movement of minorities.

The existance of a democratic entity does not prevent the from forming a capitalist country somewhere else. You can't blame the democratic society for you having no where to go.

And as for property, no such thing exists, so that can't be fitted into this arguement. But considering that if you wish to emigrate and you need resources to adjust to where you are moving to, arrangements can be made for you to have some provisions before you leave.


What do millionaire painters have to do with this? We're talking about the traders, the businessmen; the ones whose desire for selfish value-for-value trades is standing between you and your communist society. If you don't believe in force, you must convince these people to stop what they're doing.

Well, I don't plan on "convincing them", they can do whatever they want as long as they don't violate any protocols, and if they don't like it, they can leave whenever they wish.


Before I answer this, I need to know: Are you a communist? Or are you just a capitalist who prefers the worker coop model?

I'm a communist. I like the worker coop model, but it is still not yet the ideal system.


My understanding is that exploitation and alienation, according to a communist, occurs because workers have little control over what they produce. Since worker coops give them more control, in exchange for mandatory investment in the company, doesn't this solve your problem?

Well yes, and in the capitalist ideology industries are private. By allowing the workers to also control a part of the industry they are no longer as private as they used to be, and thus no longer as capitalist as they used to be, didn't we already talk about this?

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)The majority will not have the power to destroy the right of movement of minorities.[/b]
Since when did you believe in individual rights?


Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)The existance of a democratic entity does not prevent the from forming a capitalist country somewhere else. You can't blame the democratic society for you having no where to go.[/b]
I was only pointing out that if you are going to create a state that initiates force on its citizens, but hide behind the "freedom to leave", there must be a free country to GO to. If, hypothetically, your socialist/communist ideals were instituted everywhere, how would one "leave"?


New [email protected]
And as for property, no such thing exists, so that can't be fitted into this arguement. But considering that if you wish to emigrate and you need resources to adjust to where you are moving to, arrangements can be made for you to have some provisions before you leave.
At the risk of sounding like I am not passionately against theft, I'm going to let this one go. I'm through with arguing this point.


New Toleration
Well yes, and in the capitalist ideology industries are private. By allowing the workers to also control a part of the industry they are no longer as private as they used to be, and thus no longer as capitalist as they used to be, didn't we already talk about this?
All worker coops do differently is have the workers invest part of their wages rather than get it from outside sources. If you are going to argue that this is any less capitalistic than traditional corporations, you have some explaining to do.

[Sasha]

Sorry I missed one.


Originally posted by New Toleration
I'm a communist. I like the worker coop model, but it is still not yet the ideal system.
Tell me, if the problem is alienation and exploitation, what do the worker coops not solve?

[New Tolerance]

Since when did you believe in individual rights?

Always.


I was only pointing out that if you are going to create a state that initiates force on its citizens, but hide behind the "freedom to leave", there must be a free country to GO to. If, hypothetically, your socialist/communist ideals were instituted everywhere, how would one "leave"?

It can be arranged that a piece of land will operate under the capitalist, and they can run it however they want, given that they also allow their citizens to leave whenever they want.


All worker coops do differently is have the workers invest part of their wages rather than get it from outside sources. If you are going to argue that this is any less capitalistic than traditional corporations, you have some explaining to do.

The website you provided did not supply me with enough information to address this accurately. I would like to know some things about worker coops: can the person who own the industry change the rules so that it is no longer a worker coop? To what extend does the workers have in influencing decisions?

[New Tolerance]

Tell me, if the problem is alienation and exploitation, what do the worker coops not solve?

The answer can be provided when you answer the last question above.

[LSD]

The limitations are the individual rights protecting each citizen.

And these rights are what, external?

Given by God?

These rights must be decided by the people themselves. You have no right to enforce your conception of "morality" upon them.

I encourage you to try and "make your case", but in the end, it's not up to you.


It isn't complex, you just have no understanding of it. If you steal property and give it to someone else, that property is still stolen and must be returned.

You just refuse to listen don't you?

THAT IS A SOCIETAL RULE

There is nothing "absolute" about that statement, that is merely the way that this society, and others, work.


Capitalism doesn't define value that way; the people do.

:lol:

"the people"??

Of course, capitalism defines value that way. That is classic liberal capitalist theory!!! That is one of the chief tennants of a market economy, it's "how it works".

What exactly are you talking about? The "people" are living in a capitalist economy and following the rules therof. If the laws of market ecnomics are not capitalist....what are they?


The statement you put in bold was FALSE, and I was arguing against it. Worker coops are completely possible in capitalism.

Why? One worker, one vote. Everything about them screams worker control.

A true worker co-op is impossible when the goal is still proffit and competition is still present.

Whereas a true worker co-op would be better for the individual worker, it would not generate as much "profit" as the competing comapnies and would therefore quickly collapse. The "way around this" is to create psudo-coops, which are certainly better for the worker and do give them a level of control but which maintain capitalist structures as well as salary deductions and "market" model conceptions ensuring that, ultimately, the worker's power is severely limited.

Again, it's better, but it isn't enough.


Truth doesn't come from what the majority thinks. They might have thought slaves were property, but that didn't make it the truth.

You missed my point, which is that the "initiation of force" is a mimetic conception. You believe that "theft" is an "initiation of force" but it is only so because this society has determined that people can "own things". If this society did not have "property rights" than taking an apple would not be an initiation of force.

Much like how when slavery is condones any attempt to free those slaves is considered an initiation of force.

In both cases, it's subjective.

In neither case was the inividual actually harmed, it was their "property" which was "stolen". The response by the slave-owner and the shopkeeper will be force, but neither will consider it to be "initiation" as you do not consider arresting "thieves" to be "initation".

But it is.

It is in response to another action (stealing), but action must still be "initiated" even if the actor believes that that action is justified.


I've argued this point to death. I give up.

I've argued this point to death. I give up.

I've argued this point to death. I give up.

Brilliant rebuttal.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)These rights must be decided by the people themselves. You have no right to enforce your conception of "morality" upon them.[/b]
And the majority has the right to enforce its morality on me?


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide+--> (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide)There is nothing "absolute" about that statement, that is merely the way that this society, and others, work.[/b]
And I would argue that it is needed for any human society to exist.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
What exactly are you talking about? The "people" are living in a capitalist economy and following the rules therof. If the laws of market ecnomics are not capitalist....what are they?
Capitalism only ensures that all human actions remain voluntary. The system doesn't influence the peoples' conception of "value" beyond that point.


Originally posted by Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
A true worker co-op is impossible when the goal is still proffit and competition is still present.
You and New Toleration seem to have conflicting views of what needs to be achieved. He seems to have a narrower complaint: alienation and exploitation. It seems that you want to get rid of voluntary value-for-value trades no matter what. I know which one I prefer.


Lysergic Acid [email protected]
In both cases, it's subjective.
You continue to treat this as if it were a given. Add all the bold you want, even throw in some exclamation points; it will not make your point any more valid.


Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
Brilliant rebuttal.
Don't take this personally, but your recycled arguments are beginning to bore me, and inasmuch as my day doesn't revolve around waiting for you to yell at me in caps some more, I have no desire to continue arguing with you.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by New Toleration+--> (New Toleration)Always.[/b]
But you've already admitted you're a communist, mate. This idea of "freedom of movement" stands out like a sore thumb in the barren wastelands of your "majority rules" ideology. How do you justify it?


Originally posted by New [email protected]
It can be arranged that a piece of land will operate under the capitalist, and they can run it however they want, given that they also allow their citizens to leave whenever they want.
Now you're just getting desperate. The very concept of a socialist regime voluntarily creating a parcel of freedom is loony at best.


New Toleration
The website you provided did not supply me with enough information to address this accurately. I would like to know some things about worker coops: can the person who own the industry change the rules so that it is no longer a worker coop? To what extend does the workers have in influencing decisions?
Those who invest in the coop, own it. A single person could not rearrange the workers' property to such a radical degree that it is no longer a worker coop. Their influence is: One worker, one vote

[DaCuBaN]

Sasha:

A little lesson in misplaced loyalties, courtesy of wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism)

Try and digest some of what it's trying to tell you, and follow up on as many of the links as you can. If you don't like the definitions given, then dispute them - that's the joy of "rule by majority".

Similarly, the above definitions seem to indicate that coops are technically impossible under a capital economy - it defies the very nature of the system.

[New Tolerance]

But you've already admitted you're a communist, mate. This idea of "freedom of movement" stands out like a sore thumb in the barren wastelands of your "majority rules" ideology. How do you justify it?

Majority rule ideology? I already told you, the goal of the proletariat is liberation from exploitation. What if the proletariat made up the minority? Then by a majority rule ideology their exploitation is justified, but by communist terms this can not be justified. The communist ideology is supposed to be one which attempts to bring more freedom, not one that supposed to impose majority rule.



Now you're just getting desperate. The very concept of a socialist regime voluntarily creating a parcel of freedom is loony at best.


How is this comment of yous at all rational? What evidence do you have to show that I'm getting desperate? (you can't even hear the sound of my voice) what evidence do you have to show that this policy is loony? Put some evidence on the table, then we can talk about it.


Those who invest in the coop, own it. A single person could not rearrange the workers' property to such a radical degree that it is no longer a worker coop. Their influence is: One worker, one vote

First of all, where are your sources?

Second, what are they voting for? Their manager?

[New Tolerance]

A little lesson in misplaced loyalties, courtesy of wikipedia

Aye aye, I think Sasha is just a liberal.

[DaCuBaN]

Aye aye, I think Sasha is just a liberal.

Precisely why I linked to such an article: I think he is under the common misconception that capitalism is synonymous with freedom - this is not true. Capitalism is only synonymous with freedom of trade - in it's way an admirable thing, but like Socialism it has it's own failings - these must be recognised and remedied, not whitewashed.

The only way to do that is to invite introspection, which I do hope Sasha will partake in.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2004, 03:00 AM
Precisely why I linked to such an article: I think he is under the common misconception that capitalism is synonymous with freedom - this is not true. Capitalism is only synonymous with freedom of trade
If you are not free to trade and make voluntary deals with other men, then you are not free. Are you trying to claim this is "impractical" ?

[DaCuBaN]

If you are not free to trade and make voluntary deals with other men, then you are not free

I agree: Socialism will never make you free. Capitalism - even in it's purest form - does not make you free either. Communism - that untested ideology of a statless classless society?

I'm putting my "money" there.

I challenge you to prove the "freedom" that pure capitalism would bring.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2004, 09:42 PM
I'm putting my "money" there.

I challenge you to prove the "freedom" that pure capitalism would bring.
The NIF principle guarantees freedom.

But as for socialism, it's just communism "lite".Communism (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/marframe.htm) will not bring you freedom any more than socialism will.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Er, speaking from a slightly different persepective, and I've only skimmed this thread so it may have been brought up all ready, but FUCK MAJORITY RULE. Absolutely key to a communist society is absolutely voluntary individual participation in which consent and consensus are the only legitimate means of making and enacting decisions. Othwise, we create the conditions for the rise of states - of institutions in which the interests of powerful groups (Majorities included) take precedence. When this happens, and consent from those effected is not full, it becomes necessary to find a method of coercion, and the need for groups to hold a monopoly on violence in a given area arises. Seriously, fuck that.

[DaCuBaN]

ut as for socialism, it's just communism "lite"

Wow. You certainly are narrow minded!

Communism is in effect a utopia: That which you understand to be communism isn't! You've fallen into the oh-so-common misconception that socialism is communism. I remember once you asked me not to misrepresent your ideals - something I have not done since.

I would expect the same respect from yourself, and would expect you at least to understand the basic principles on which it's founded.