From each according to his ability...

[Publius]

...to each according to his need.

How can ability or need be defined?

Aren't they completely arbitrary?

[New Tolerance]

are you implying that these things don't exist because they can't be defined?

[Publius]

are you implying that these things don't exist because they can't be defined?

No.

Only that it's impossible to define them.

They do exist, but they cannot be defined in any manner other than an arbitrary one.

[New Tolerance]

And the significance of this would be?

[Publius]

My ability is none, my need is immense.

Feed me and clothe me.

I think you'll find many others suffering from this affliction.

[New Tolerance]

Well, when that is said, it should not be taken as a process, but rather as an end (although some Marxists would disagree with this).

That statement embodies the results of the reforms, it is not the way the reform is to be carried out (which is to end exploitation through the labour's control of industry).

[Publius]

So the end of half the society doing absolutely nothing is perfection?

Sign me up, I like getting everything and doing nothing.

[New Tolerance]

What makes you think that much of society has no ability? If, this is what you are trying to say.

remember:

"from each according to his ability..."

[Anarchist Freedom]

wow just wow i thought that statement was pretty black and white but hey wtf do i know!?

[Publius]

No.

I'm saying that people are lazy.

People have all kinds of ability but when given the chance to slink by without working (While getting the exact same things as if you were working), any smart human is going to shirk his duties and stay home all day.

Your "ability" is defined by you.

As is your need.

I don't "need" to have society take care of me, but I could claim I did.

And if I did that, your communstic society would have to, because that's my need.

[Liberalista Classico]

Originally posted by New [email protected] 3 2005, 12:16 AM
What makes you think that much of society has no ability? If, this is what you are trying to say.

remember:

"from each according to his ability..."
What if half of society realizes they don't have to do anything and decides to be "without ability?" Without mind reading and sheer force, there is no way to get these loafers to participate productively in the communal system.

Do you recommend force on these people? If not, do not rely on social pressure, these people don't care, they want something for nothing.

[New Tolerance]

Then you've misunderstood my post about it being an end not a process:

Everyone in the system will still be working (the reforms are not aimed at creating mass give-aways of products, they will just change some working conditions, and power structures), and as a 'result' of their work the people will contribute to their ability and get what they need. Things will not be free, if that's what you think.

[Publius]

But mister!

My leg doesn't work!

I'm crazy!

Look at me!

I can't work, I'm crazy!

Help me kind socialist!

[New Tolerance]

You're crazy? I'll find a place for you in the psych ward.

Leg not working? What does the doctor say?

[Publius]

But mister!

*starts crying*



Maybe I just won't show up every 3rd day and not work when I do show up. That'll work.

[Liberalista Classico]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 01:03 AM
But mister!

*starts crying*



Maybe I just won't show up every 3rd day and not work when I do show up. That'll work.
Or you could show up drunk every day. Because you value socializing more than producing on the job.

[New Tolerance]

Are you still trying to make a point?

Capitalism depends on the "rational selfishness" of people does it not? Isn't it "rationally selfish" for people to keep working, as if they don't then the whole economy will collapse and they will all die?

If there isn't "rational selfishness" in people, then what's to stop people from competing in capitalism by sabotaging their competitors rather than improving their products? The government? What's to stop people from trying to destroy the government?

In short, if people are not rational and that's why "communism" wouldn't work, then why should capitalism work?

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 01:35 AM
But mister!

My leg doesn't work!

I'm crazy!

Look at me!

I can't work, I'm crazy!

Help me kind socialist!
So you would only work with either a gun in your back or gaining personal favors?

Why do you oppose this society? If you are indeed a mental ill, extremely lazy person (which I don't doubt). Suit yourself. Nobody is going to force you to anything. You even get what you need. If you find happiness in front of the tv, suit yourself, nobody would force you to anything else. Be happy that you get the freedom to do what you want (as long as you don't hurt others).

[Publius]

Are you still trying to make a point?

Capitalism depends on the "rational selfishness" of people does it not? Isn't it "rationally selfish" for people to keep working, as if they don't then the whole economy will collapse and they will all die?

If there isn't "rational selfishness" in people, then what's to stop people from competing in capitalism by sabotaging their competitors rather than improving their products? The government? What's to stop people from trying to destroy the government?

In short, if people are not rational and that's why "communism" wouldn't work, then why should capitalism work?

No, it isn't.

It's rationally selfish that other people keep working and they get a free ride.

Do I need to post Confessions of a Welfare Queen to make this example?


When, in capitalism, do people sabatoage consumers, and get away with it?

That is clearly fruad and is clearly illegal. You will be prosecuted on it.


Capitalism works because you don't have the luxery of relying on others (Mostly), you have to make your own way or starve.

Socialism does not do this. It allows you to slack off, give less than 100%, do less work.

Tell me, would you work harder if your life depended on it?

Sad but true, it's the way things are oftentimes in captitalism.

[Publius]

Originally posted by Non-Sectarian Bastard!@Feb 3 2005, 01:27 AM




So you would only work with either a gun in your back or gaining personal favors?

Why do you oppose this society? If you are indeed a mental ill, extremely lazy person (which I don't doubt). Suit yourself. Nobody is going to force you to anything. You even get what you need. If you find happiness in front of the tv, suit yourself, nobody would force you to anything else. Be happy that you get the freedom to do what you want (as long as you don't hurt others).

Actually, I would rather read.

Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard, Socialism by Ludwig von Mises.

All the classics that destroy the ideology I'm working to destroy.

Just keep my power up, a drink in my hand (Mt. Dew please, keep that in your communistic state, it's good), and a place to stay (And books to read) and I'm happy.

[New Tolerance]

It's rationally selfish that other people keep working and they get a free ride.

Not rational selfishness? So in other words capitalism is not driven by something which is rational, in other words it's irrational. If it's irrational, then why should I ever support it?


When, in capitalism, do people sabatoage consumers, and get away with it?

That is clearly fruad and is clearly illegal. You will be prosecuted on it.

That's why I said if people are irrationally selfish, they will attempt to destroy the government, since if they do then no one will prosecute them.


Capitalism works because you don't have the luxery of relying on others (Mostly), you have to make your own way or starve.

So in other words, you are for a system that forces people to toil by using their own bodies (which starves) against them.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Good, suit yourself. But when you on an insulting tour. Then do it right. There is no such thing as a communist country. Since one of the charasteristics of communist society is being stateless. Maybe you should read up to communism before you insult? It might actually hurt then or at least make sense.

[Publius]

Good, suit yourself. But when you on an insulting tour. Then do it right. There is no such thing as a communist country. Since one of the charasteristics of communist society is being stateless. Maybe you should read up to communism before you insult? It might actually hurt then or at least make sense.

Yeah, I'll get right on that.

After I finish up Socialism by Mises.

[Publius]

Capitalism is perfectly rational.

I could explain it though I doubt you care to listen and I doubt I'm best at explaining it.



Or people can just abide by the rules because when doing that, the army wielded by the State won't kill them, ending their "rational selfishness".

States stay in power because they have armies and for no other reason.



Yeah. Your forced to work for your living.

This sucks but is better than communism where you work for everyone elses living.

Compare the two. I'll take the first.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Obviously I want to abolish Capitalism, the state and professional armies. But "dude", do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want in communism, as long as it doesn't hurt others. If you don't want to work, because you fear that others might take advantage of you, then don't. What's the fuss about?

[New Tolerance]

Or people can just abide by the rules because when doing that, the army wielded by the State won't kill them, ending their "rational selfishness".

This sentence barely make any sense. Abiding by the rules (if they are rational rules) is not rational?!


Yeah. Your forced to work for your living.

This sucks but is better than communism where you work for everyone elses living.

Compare the two. I'll take the first.

In that respect you are still missing the point, by "working for others" you are actually working for yourself. (it's the same thing under capitalism, you still work for others, your managers and such, except you just have less of a say in what should happen next)

[Taiga]

Yeah. Your forced to work for your living.

This sucks but is better than communism where you work for everyone elses living.

Compare the two. I'll take the first.
What about the fact that very often people have to get a job that they don't very like but it's profitable? In a communist society you will choose the job according to the moral satisfaction it brings to you. Since the paycheck doesn't matter. Isn't it more fair?

[synthesis]

When, in capitalism, do people sabatoage consumers, and get away with it?

Apparently you've never heard of Marlboros.

[Essential Insignificance]

What about the fact that very often people have to get a job that they don't very like but it's profitable? In a communist society you will choose the job according to the moral satisfaction it brings to you. Since the paycheck doesn't matter. Isn't it more fair?

People will not be able to choose specific outlets to center their "labor-activity" -- for expended amounts of time.

Because -- for obvious reasons -- some "labor-activities" are more "desirable" and "pleasurable" then others.

Thus, to work around some getting "better-quality" and others receiving "dull" and "cyclical" "labor-activities" -- society will regulate , constantly, assorted "life-activates" for all individuals.

Thereby spreading the amount of "monotonous" work.

[NovelGentry]

Aren't they completely arbitrary?

No. Ability is not completely arbitrary. Are you capable of lifting 10 lbs? Then you are able to do so. Do you need food to survive? yes. Do you need TV to survive? no. Whether or not you want to lift 10 lbs or whether or not you think you need TV to survive does not change the absolute answers.

You may interpret that previous sentence as saying we will force you into a type of labor, if you can lift 10 lbs and refuse to do anything else you will pull a lever in a machine shop with 10 lbs of resistence every day. This is not the case. However, when combined with your need, this very well may be the case. If you need the product that pulling that 10 lbs lever creates, you will pull that 10 lbs lever, or else you will die. That is the essence of necessity. Regardless of society you are faced with this.

If you were the only person on the planet you would need food to survive, as such if you did not have the ability to gather, hunt, or produce food in any way, you would die. It is within your very nature that you have the ability to settle your own need, thus it is within the nature of an entire society that they have the ability to settle their own needs. If they do not offer their ability to produce what they need, in order to acquire what they need, they will die.

Thus the sentence: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," is not nearly as polarized as you would like it to be. They are in fact two separate parts to the same problem, it is the production and consumption of goods, just as it is under capitalism, which deems whether the consumption and production of goods (inversely) can occur.

If you do not eat (if your needs are not settled) you will die. If you do not have the ability to get food, you will not meet your necessity, and thus die. We are given the ability to satisfy our need, and in turn our needs give us the ability to satisfy those needs again tomorrow. We need to use energy to acquire energy, and we need to acquire energy to use energy.

If these were truly arbitrary, one could exist without the other, they would be nothing more than pseudo-principles to which we do not need to adhere. Unfortunately for us (and all other living creatures I'm aware of) they are, in fact, truth.


My ability is none, my need is immense.

Feed me and clothe me.

Regardless of your idiocy, you do bring up a good point here. You point out the fact that the abilities of one can sustain the needs of a many. The question of course is whether or not this is sustainable indefinitely. Whether you like to believe so or not, this is the current condition of capitalism (classical and neo). It is of course the ability of the proletariat that satisfies the needs (and let's not forget the desire) of the bourgeoisie. It is also their ability which satisfies their own needs.

In fact. If the working class was not able to satisfy their own needs by their own ability, they would die. If their numbers decreased significantly enough they would be unable to then satisfy the needs of the bourgeoisie, which is of course dependent on the ability for them to satisfy their own needs first. If this were to happen the bourgeoisie would be forced to work to help satisfy the needs of these people, so that these people may live another day to satisfy the needs of the bourgeoisie once again.

This is of course why the illusion of the welfare state seems to solve this problem. It is the money that belongs to the bourgeoisie that funds these welfare states. It is their generosity, their charity, their taxes that fund the welfare state and thus give the working class their necessity and thus their ability to continue working.

The reason this is an illusion of course is that the bourgeoisie has produced none of this wealth. The corporate taxes on products, the sale of those products, and even on the income which the corporation "dishes out" to the working class, are all generated from the working class itself. It is their products which make the money that not only sustains these companies, but also makes them profitable. Thus, the proletariat is already sustaining itself. What we wish to abolish is the subjugation of that labor through the false mantra "private property" that allows the bourgeoisie to also be sustained from this labor.

We already know we are capable of sustaining ourselves. We already know our ability can supply us with our need. What we, as communists, cannot agree to is that this relation to ourselves is in no way our decision, it is no way our freedom.

The proletariat is forced to work, for it is only by working that they can supply themselves with what they need. This, indeed, is natural. For any individual to supply their necessity they must use their ability. What remains unnatural is that we are forced to work so that we may sustain the needs of others.

Sounds like communism to you? right? That people will be forced to work to sustain the needs of those too lazy to work? What you fail to account for is the fact that no one is forced to work, exactly what allows those "lazy" people to exist. Since no one is forced to work you are not forced to supply the needs of anyone, including yourself. So how does this even work? By the same principle that natural self-sustainence works. You will work, because you need to work in order to survive. Furthermore, it is within your ability to work so that you may satisfy that need. This relationship between ability and need occurs regardless of whether we're talking about an individual, or whether we're talking about an entire society.

Capitalism on the other hand keeps the two mutually inclusive. If you work to supply your own needs, that is, if you acquire a job so you can buy shelter, food, clothing, etc... you do not have a choice whether or not to supply the needs of another, it is a given that your employer will consistently profit from your labor. That is indeed what makes capital.

Under communism you are capable of working for your own needs alone. You can grow your own food, build your own house, create your own clothes, etc. The means of production is available to all, and as such you can satisfy your own needs and completely ignore the needs of others. What I find unlikely about this scenario is that it is unlikely that you will be able to grow your own food and eat comparible to those who work within society. It is unlikely that you will be able to build your own house, more to the point, one which is comparible to those who work within society. It is unlikely that you will be able to supply yourself with proper clothing, indeed far from proper when compared to those who work within society.

Society has created, for the benefit of itself, relationships between producer and consumer that extend beyond the individual. For every consumer of a good pair of shoes, there is a producer of a good pair of shoes. But for every producer of a good pair of shoes there is a producer which has produced the tools they used to make those shoes, as well as the raw materials to make those shoes. And for every one of those producers there is someone producing food for these people so they can live and have the energy to produce these things. These are the links of society, and they are to the benefit of society. There is little reason for you to ignore such relationships and for that matter oppose them, unless of course you lose something by the overt clarity of such links. Ifthe abstraction is to your benefit; if you are bourgeois.

The only justification for why you would fear this return to freedom and the true nature of man is if indeed you already produced nothing, and consumed immensley. That is to say, if you are already bourgeoisie. The current system offers you that freedom already, thus you see no freedom in the move to communism. However, not all are so lucky.


Do you recommend force on these people?

No one is forced to work. What we aim to do is make the only force that makes you work the most natural force in existence, the need to sustain your life. If half of society decides not to work, it is doubtful necessity will be fulfilled. Thus when they need something, they will be forced to do it themselves because it is unavailable. Just as if you were alone in the world, the only thing that would force you to work is your own survival.


Maybe I just won't show up every 3rd day and not work when I do show up. That'll work.

Why would you bother to even go? We've said already you are not forced to work.


It's rationally selfish that other people keep working and they get a free ride.

It may be selfish. I'm not so sure it's rational. But for the most part I think I agree with what you're saying. Down with the bourgeoisie... oh, but you're ok with them getting a free ride. Afterall they "own the factory." Who built the factory again? Oh yeah, workers. They paid them you say? Where did they get the money? Oh yeah, workers made products for them which they sold for profit. Where did they get the money to pay these workers? Other workers made products as well for their profit. Where'd they get that money? Their father owned a company that employed workers that made products so he could obtain a profit. This goes on and on and on, to the very birth of the bourgeoisie. Which for the most part was grown out of the land owners of feudal society. Land was of course the first instance of private property and it is of course the first example of a means of production. It produces food. Those who owned the land could subjugate the labor of those that did not to produce food for themselves as well as those who subjugated their labor. Why did they own this land? Oh right, it was their daddy's. Why did their daddy own the land? His dads?... again another cycle.

You cannot realize the evolution of a single class society without the preceeding class society. The historical context stretches back hundreds to thousands of years to the very first people who claimed any "right" to land. Land which they were able to claim, sometimes because it simply hadn't been stepped on before, other times because they had the force to do so. The abolition of private property is established first in the abolition of private property in the form of land. Once you are OK with the idea that no one has any right to claim ownership of a part of the earth, then you can progress from there and realize how all private property has been established from that original manifestation.


Capitalism works because you don't have the luxery of relying on others (Mostly), you have to make your own way or starve.

You do have that luxury, so long as you're born into it or get very very lucky. If you do not have that luxury you more than likely don't have the luxury to make your own way without making someone elses.


Socialism does not do this. It allows you to slack off, give less than 100%, do less work.

Actually, socialism does not allow you to "slack off." Socialism has at the least a 1 to 1 ratio of production to consumption. It is necessay for you to produce so that you may consume, this is regulated through a form of "pay." Unlike money is is not for circulation, thus cannot be used by a single person or even a group of people to subjugate the labor of others.

At it's best socialism has a 1x to 1 ratio where x is greater than one for production vs consumption. Oversupply is a non-issue (so long as we rely on renewable items). However, most non-renewable items do not "go bad." You can store oil if oil production exceeds consumption. You can store iron if iron mining exceeds the necessity of iron for steel. Even some renwable items, for example livestock can be stored through modern technology. You can freeze excess beef, fish, and poultry. Even vegetables!

Overproduction is a product of capitalism's change in the material capabilities of man. It creates the machines that allows us to produce ten pairs of pants where we only were able to produce one before. It creates the means to refine millions of barrels of oil where refining a single barrel was not even possible in the past, let alone drilling it out of the ground.

This is precisely why socialism/communism is nearly impossible to achieve without first having capitalism, and for a decent amount of time. Nations like the USSR and China ignored this fact, attempting to industrialize under forms of demi-socialism or deformed workers states. Their lack of advancement in an industrial sense may have been overcome, but not without problems, problems which were handled by authoritarian control of resources, etc. Even still, without the material advancment and the placement of capitalism, much of these people maintained goals of a society they'd barely even known, such as the peasant farmers of the USSR who became the new petit-bourgeoisie under Lenin's NEP.


Actually, I would rather read.

Suggested reading:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6579/

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...11/prin-com.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...gotha/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm)

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/Community-Policing.htm

If you'd like more after you're done I can point the way and will gladly do so.


Yeah. Your forced to work for your living.

And consequently the living of your bourgeoisie employers.


This sucks but is better than communism where you work for everyone elses living.

The difference, as you have clearly pointed out by ommitting the word, is that you are not forced. In fact, the only reason you're probably working for "everyone elses living" under communism is because in return much of them are working for your living. You may be working to build someone elses house, but someone else is working so that you can eat, wear clothes, take hot showers, have lights in your house, sit in chairs... would you like me to continue?


Compare the two. I'll take the first.

There is no accounting for insanity, to which you have already admitted to.

[Big_Don]

Bravisimo,Novelgrentry. :: applaude :: I found that VERY interesting Novel!
I hope that has answered your question Publius!

[Publius]

I do think you could have explained that without the verbiage, but nonetheless, good response.

I'll read at least one of your links and in return, read this.

You claim workers deserve the means of production because they built them. I don't think so.

Read this essay, it explains it perfectly: http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1687

[NovelGentry]

The essay makes about a dozen concession to the possibility that we are right. Furthermore, it's entire basis is on the idea that a market exists and there is to be profit made. That these products must "wait" to come to market, at one point mentioning something of a several year wait before a product comes to fruition. The problem with this is that we do not believe a market needs to exist. There need not be a profit goal, and a product coming to fruition does so when it is useful, not when it creates the most "interest value" over the wage of the worker, as the article states.

The article then goes ont to use the example of a petty-bourgeoisie sheep hurder who apparently owns property and sheep, but works daily for his own needs, of course tending to his business.

Using this example the article attempts to justify that the worker is something of the exploiter of the capitalist. That if the sheep hurder is to hire a worker, he does so out of his own pocket, and is even considered "wise and prudent" for setting aside the wage of the worker so that he may use that workers help to increase the overalll profit of his newly founded business.

The article titled "Who Exploits Who" with a subsection of "The Issue of Which was First" is a sad argument. In fact, you attempt to use it in some way to overturn my own arguments, but it makes the same mistake of ignoring much of what I pointed out.

From a Marxist perspective it is the worker who would not take the job unless he needs to. In fact, the article very clearly points this out:


To understand the matter more clearly, we extend our original example and assume that our sheep owner hires his propertyless neighbor Murat to help him out watching the sheep and guard them against hungry wolves.

If the worker were not propertyless and owned sheep (or other live stock) and the land necessary to hurd them, the worker could expend the time used to work for the shephard in order to work his own land just the same as the shephard. However, it is the shephard's control over "his land" and "his sheep." That make this an unrealistic possibility. In fact, it is that illusion of private property (and yes it IS and illusion) that allows him to subjugate the labor of Murate, the worker.

The question is of course is how did the sheep hurder get his sheep? How did the sheep hurder get his land to hurd his sheep on? Did he find his sheep? Could Murat not also find sheep? Did he claim his land where he saw no one owned it?

It seems to try and exemplify the transition of a feudal peasant of sorts into a petty bourgeoisie and what would probably eventually grow into a bourgeoisie member of society. Yet it takes in no account of how the sheep hurder obtained this private property to begin with. This exactly what my first statements pointed out. The context of this private property goes back literally thousands of years to the earliest claims of land through things like "Divine right" and "God's will." Deers on the King's land are the King's deer, are they not? Indeed all the land is the Kings, the king now has a monopoly on deer meat.

The argument of ownership is as foolish as the first person who stood on the same ground as another and said "I own this land, and if you wish to gather or grow food off of it, you must also gather and grow food for me. If you do this on my land without doing it for me, I will kill you." Of course this is dependent on force and the essential idea of inequality. It is the same inequality that gave white colonialists the ability to acquire and trade African men as slaves for centuries on end.

Inequality is rampant in all socio-economic relations that are NOT socialized. It is as fundamental to the existence of those relations and further, those forms of society, as the necessity for a society itself where such relations can exist. Without Inequality there is no founding principle for private property. Without private property there was no way for the sheep hurder to subjugate Murat's labor (who needed money, or the means of production available to him in order to survive). Murat is in essence forced to turn to one capitalist or another -- without any property he has no other option. Thus Murat is forced into his position, and through the sheep hurder's control of private property he is able to subjugate that labor, more he is able to exploit it. Murat isn't going anywhere, he needs that money in order to live, the article points out where exploitation occurs very clearly.


By employing Murat the sheep owner hopes, naturally, to earn more gold coins than he expends paying Murat.

It is Murat's labor which allows for the sheep hurder to earn more gold coins in the first place. Yet he seeks to earn more than he expends paying Murat, is this not exploitation?



ex·ploi·ta·tion Audio pronunciation of "exploitation" (ksploi-tshn)
n.
1. The act of employing to the greatest possible advantage: exploitation of copper deposits.


Is this not what the sheep hurder attempts to do? Increase wage continually beyond what he expends on paying Murat. Does he not employ the greatest possible advantage (acquire the greatest amount of profit and pay Murat the least amount of money?). If he does not, it's difficult to even call this situation capitalism. As I've mentioned elsewhere, capital begets capital. What makes it capital is that constant expansion of more capital, based on previous capital. So that maybe one day the sheep hurder can hire another worker (more capital) to shave the wool from the sheeps and he can sell that too for more profit, and then hire the necessary machine to turn wool into yarn (more capital), and a worker to run that machine (even more capital), so that he may sell clothes for more profit again.

The way the article attempts to justify this exploitation, which is truly a theft of labor power, when you take away the abstraction of money, is with the idea that there is an "overall physical marginal productivity" which Murat benefits from. It goes on to say that "Had the sheep owner consumed the one coin (Murat's consistent wage), say, by buying his wife delicious fruits, Murat would have remained unemployed and there would have been fewer sheep for humans to consume. (More sheep, thus, more overall physical marginal productivity, thus more supposed *REAL* wage.)"

It would appear the author of the article had a second rate understanding of what Marx was saying. He starts to go down the right roads showing "who was first" and "who exploits who" in order to "disprove Marx," but when he realizes if he goes any further he will have to defend the foolishness of private property, he retracts. He retracts to a simple example that he believes would somehow unravel Marx's theory by inversing the roles of exploter and exploitee, yet ignores what Marx has shown as the reason that exploitation is possible.

In fact, Marx goes as far as to say that communism can be summed up in a single sentence: The abolishion of private property. The author attempts to dispell the relationship without dispelling the reason the relationship exists. In fact, he attempts to go one step further and say that the relationship is inversed. What he fails to account for is that Murat comes to the sheep hurder because he is starving, because it is he who needs work. If the sheep hurder were to come to Murat, a property owning man who makes his own way, building his own house, and hunting food for his family while his wife makes clothes from animal hide or wool, and say "I want to make some more money, so I need a worker." Do you think Murat would settle for one gold piece for every dozen or more than is made off his extra hands?

This is of course a major argument of capitalists in the U.S. The right to free contract, that we don't "have to work that job that pays us shit." However, the right to free contract goes out the window when your needs are unmet and someone else is the only one who can supply them immediately. When you're starving your contract is very simply take whatver job you can, for whatever money you can, or die. It is the only contract your life allows you to live by.

Of course not everyone is starving, but no contracts of employment I'm aware of are any less free. If you are unable to change the contract (ever) without voiding it's validity or it's ability to get you what you need, you have no such freedom.

[Veritas]

Originally posted by Non-Sectarian Bastard!+Feb 3 2005, 01:27 AM--> (Non-Sectarian Bastard! @ Feb 3 2005, 01:27 AM)
[email protected] 3 2005, 01:35 AM
But mister!

My leg doesn't work!

I'm crazy!

Look at me!

I can't work, I'm crazy!

Help me kind socialist!
So you would only work with either a gun in your back or gaining personal favors?

Why do you oppose this society? If you are indeed a mental ill, extremely lazy person (which I don't doubt). Suit yourself. Nobody is going to force you to anything. You even get what you need. If you find happiness in front of the tv, suit yourself, nobody would force you to anything else. Be happy that you get the freedom to do what you want (as long as you don't hurt others). [/b]
What about artists? If everyone decides they want to work as artists, poets, muscians or other things that don't produce food, clean water, steel or other necessities. Would everyone just die? Would people let that happen?

[NovelGentry]

What about artists? If everyone decides they want to work as artists, poets, muscians or other things that don't produce food, clean water, steel or other necessities. Would everyone just die? Would people let that happen?

What about them?

No, why would everyone just sit around and play music while they're starving?

No, why would people let that happen. If you were alone in the world and you wanted to just play music all the time, would you let yourself die of starvation? I don't know, maybe you would. I'd like to think we haven't lost the will to survive though.

Questions like these make me wonder if people even bother to think before they ask.

[Raisa]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 11:51 PM
My ability is none, my need is immense.

Feed me and clothe me.

I think you'll find many others suffering from this affliction.
Are you really handicapped or are you just lazy?

Most people have an ability.