Question for the cappies

[*Hippie*]

In Amerika, white males still have more opportunity than minorities or females. Right-wingers say they are for equal opportunity but the facts are that most of the rich people, and people in executive positions in corporations are in fact, white males.

Also, the congress and government is made up almost entirely of white males.
Why is this "fair" and how is it equal?

Not to mention, poor people have little opportunity while people who inherited money have lots of opportunity even though they didn't work for it.

[Capital Punishment]

Originally posted by *Hippie*@Jul 14 2005, 12:13 PM
In Amerika, white males still have more opportunity than minorities or females. Right-wingers say they are for equal opportunity but the facts are that most of the rich people, and people in executive positions in corporations are in fact, white males.

Also, the congress and government is made up almost entirely of white males.
Why is this "fair" and how is it equal?

Not to mention, poor people have little opportunity while people who inherited money have lots of opportunity even though they didn't work for it.
Not all "cappies" are right wing. Anyway, minorities and females actually have a better oppurtunity for college acceptance among other things than do white males. Poor people have education, and that can go a long way. You can make a living from nothing.

Also, most CEO's are bureaucrats anyway, and bureaucrats suck.

[Publius]

In Amerika, white males still have more opportunity than minorities or females. Right-wingers say they are for equal opportunity but the facts are that most of the rich people, and people in executive positions in corporations are in fact, white males.

Also, the congress and government is made up almost entirely of white males.
Why is this "fair" and how is it equal?

Not to mention, poor people have little opportunity while people who inherited money have lots of opportunity even though they didn't work for it.

Can you prove that white males have more oppurtunity, or are you just making shit up?

It isn't 'fair' and it isn't 'equal'.

Welcome to democracy.

The voters (The majority of whom are not white males) vote for these people, blame them.

The reason it isn't 'fair' and 'equal' is that people don't vote for it to be 'fair' and 'equal'.

And I think it's mighty racist of you to bring up this divisions. I don't vote for someone on the basis of race and neither should you, or anyone.

Race isn't an issue to me.

Women and minorities run in almost every race. It's not that they're under represented, it's that people don't vote for them.

Poor people have plenty of oppurtunity, and could you give me the number of these rich people who don't have to work for a living?

I'm sure it's miniscule.

[*Hippie*]

Not all "cappies" are right wing.

Sorry, my bad.


Can you prove that white males have more oppurtunity, or are you just making shit up?

I am sure there have been studies done on it. I just know from my experience working at a call center that most executives I have spoken with have been white males.


It isn't 'fair' and it isn't 'equal'.

Welcome to democracy.

Thank you, that is all I wanted you to admit.


And I think it's mighty racist of you to bring up this divisions. I don't vote for someone on the basis of race and neither should you, or anyone.

I certainly don't vote based on race and I am not rascist at all. Where I live in Canada, most of the candidates are male or white, I figure this must be a problem within the parties themselves. In Canada, we had a female PM for a short period, and in the U.S., there has never been a female president. I think there is an underlying sexist sentiment in these countries, and maybe in most of the world, because mostly all world leaders are male.

What about even in the lower eschelons, it seems like the majority of waitresses are female. I have had male friends who applied to be waiters and not accepted and they feel it was because of their sex. And I tend to agree. What about places like Hooters who hire only women? This is blatant sexism.

Looking at the world, I am totally for affirmative action.

[Publius]

Looking at the world, I am totally for affirmative action.

Racist.

You're helping people because they are a different color?

How racist.

[Capital Punishment]

Originally posted by *Hippie*@Jul 14 2005, 04:11 PM
Sorry, my bad.
No problem.

It isn't sexist hiring only women in hooters, exploitive, but not really sexist. Most men don't get up and say, "hey i'm gonna go apply for a job at hooters!" Anyway, I would gladly vote for a woman or non-white male. But unfortunately there hasn't been a great canidate yet, and the rest of America might not agree with me. Let's get one thing straight though, if Hiliary Clinton runs, please don't vote for her. She's no better than her husband.

[Publius]

Thank you, that is all I wanted you to admit.

You should understand that my "Welcome to democracy" was fecetious.

I'm not a big supporter of democracy.

[LSD]

You're helping people because they are a different color?

How racist.

Helping people who are oppressed.

A little anti-white racism halps to somewhat counter the entrentched anti-notwhite racism of our society.

[Capital Punishment]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2005, 04:32 PM
I'm not a big supporter of democracy.
Why not? YOu'd rather the gov just pick some random person to lead your country?

[Publius]

Why not? YOu'd rather the gov just pick some random person to lead your country?

Why not?

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/anarchist.html

Now I'm not an anarchist, but the principle is the same.

I want the demos to have as little say over my life as possible.

I want a monarchy, where every single person is king.

And I would RATHER there not be a state at all, but I regard it as necessary.

[Capital Punishment]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2005, 05:07 PM

Why not? YOu'd rather the gov just pick some random person to lead your country?

Why not?

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/anarchist.html

Now I'm not an anarchist, but the principle is the same.

I want the demos to have as little say over my life as possible.

I want a monarchy, where every single person is king.

And I would RATHER there not be a state at all, but I regard it as necessary.
You sound like an anarcho-capitalist (sub ideology of libertarianism) to me. I used to be into that. But a state is very necessary, though it's power should be limited. So is democracy. People need to decide together who should rule. If you don't like the outcome, well, then it's off to canada I guess.

Though you do make a good point. If everyone else votes for a facist leader, then it would suck. But I don't think that will happen to AMerica

[zinc]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid [email protected] 14 2005, 08:35 PM

You're helping people because they are a different color?

How racist.

Helping people who are oppressed.

A little anti-white racism halps to somewhat counter the entrentched anti-notwhite racism of our society.

Are you serious?

[Publius]

You sound like an anarcho-capitalist (sub ideology of libertarianism) to me. I used to be into that. But a state is very necessary, though it's power should be limited. So is democracy. People need to decide together who should rule. If you don't like the outcome, well, then it's off to canada I guess.

Though you do make a good point. If everyone else votes for a facist leader, then it would suck. But I don't think that will happen to AMerica

I agree with the existence of a state, but with many caveats.

[truthaddict11]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid [email protected] 14 2005, 03:35 PM

You're helping people because they are a different color?

How racist.

Helping people who are oppressed.

A little anti-white racism halps to somewhat counter the entrentched anti-notwhite racism of our society.
how is affirmitive action helping? its forcing colleges and companies to hire and accept blacks, women ect even if thier skills are less than someone who happens to be a white man. and makes these people rely on a discriminating policy
enrollment and hiring should be color and gender blind.

and anti-white racism? what the hell does that mean? did you learn that from your white guilt class?

[dietrite]

Racist.

You're helping people because they are a different color?

How racist.

:lol:

[kidicarus20]

Originally posted by Capital Punishment+Jul 14 2005, 08:31 PM--> (Capital Punishment @ Jul 14 2005, 08:31 PM)
*Hippie*@Jul 14 2005, 04:11 PM
Sorry, my bad.
No problem.

[/b]
Maybe you could explain your political science definition of "capitailst" since the authoritarian system of capitalism could only exist on the far right. Aristotle defined politics as being between demcracy and aristocracy, capitalism is way far on the right then in favor of the aristocracy, and opposed to democracy.

In essense, all capitalists would be right-wing.

[Capital Punishment]

ah so libertarians are right wing? I should be ashamed of myself. Kid, you are ignorant

[Publius]

Forgive me for seeking non-contradictions.

[Loknar]

White people are %75 of this country, of course they will take up most high up positions.

[TheKingOfMercy]

You're helping people because they are a different color?

How racist.


Helping people who are oppressed.

A little anti-white racism halps to somewhat counter the entrentched anti-notwhite racism of our society.

Thats one of the bad ways of managing multiculturalism that I mentioned in my post. Annoying the majority to placate a minority isn't a good thing. And neither is racism, no matter which way you look at it.

And aren't most large and important cities, in most large/important countries getting awfully liberal about all this nowadays ? I've lived in heavily mixed-race environments all my life, and have never seen one oppressed black, asian, etc. That could just be europe though, I haven't travelled much outside of it.

[*Hippie*]

White people are %75 of this country, of course they will take up most high up positions.

What about MALES, are they 75% of the country as well?
:blink:

[Donnie]

In Amerika, white males still have more opportunity than minorities or females. Right-wingers say they are for equal opportunity but the facts are that most of the rich people, and people in executive positions in corporations are in fact, white males.
In the ruling class, inheritance of property is passed down through the male line, this provides a distinct from of patriarchy within the family and so it is inevitable that it reflects this in today’s society.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 12:25 PM
In the ruling class, inheritance of property is passed down through the male line, this provides a distinct from of patriarchy within the family and so it is inevitable that it reflects this in today’s society.
Take a look the the US rich list and work out what percentage is through inheritance.

[Led Zeppelin]

Take a look the the US rich list and work out what percentage is through exploitation. :rolleyes:

[*Hippie*]

Take a look the the US rich list and work out what percentage is through exploitation. :D

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by Marxism-[email protected] 15 2005, 01:41 PM
Take a look the the US rich list and work out what percentage is through exploitation. :rolleyes:
Exploitation is a word without any positive or negative implication. Patients exploit doctors.

Sloganeering won't get you anywhere with me.

[kidicarus20]

Originally posted by Capital [email protected] 15 2005, 02:33 AM
ah so libertarians are right wing? I should be ashamed of myself. Kid, you are ignorant
Of course libertarian-capitalists are on the far right: every political scientist places them on the hard right, like the people who created political compass. It's simple, the system of oppression works in such away that democracy is destroyed.

I've read libertarian literature, for instance Libertarianism: A Primer (sine I'm interested in when the word in the US became perverted to mean capitalist where it always has meant libertarian-socialist), and even your own "party" views itself as far to the right. They see the left-right line as an "economic line" (it isn't, economics is a pseudo-science that applies mostly to capitalism and to few left-wing systems like anarchy), and, according to the primer, anything that IS not free-market capitalism, like fascism, though it's created from fascism and has only existed in semi-capitalist economies, is on the right.

Libertarian-fascists do shift their arguments according to whatever is good for them at the time, so some might claim to be "moderates" or something like that, perhaps to get new party members. That's just saying Anarchy is "moderate" since it's not communism, it's not capitalism. Or Fascism is "moderate" because it's between capitalism and communism. Libertarians say that because they think it'll help them with voters, it's just party propaganda.

Just because a system is between Republican and Democrat -- already close together on the political scalse thus you're zooming in on it -- doesn't mean they're in the middle of the political line.

[Led Zeppelin]

Exploitation is a word without any positive or negative implication.

I used it in a negative way, obviously.


Patients exploit doctors.

Wrong, doctors are payed to treat patients.

[Publius]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 03:47 PM



Of course libertarian-capitalists are on the far right: every political scientist places them on the hard right, like the people who created political compass. It's simple, the system of oppression works in such away that democracy is destroyed.

I've read libertarian literature, for instance Libertarianism: A Primer (sine I'm interested in when the word in the US became perverted to mean capitalist where it always has meant libertarian-socialist), and even your own "party" views itself as far to the right. They see the left-right line as an "economic line" (it isn't, economics is a pseudo-science that applies mostly to capitalism and to few left-wing systems like anarchy), and, according to the primer, anything that IS not free-market capitalism, like fascism, though it's created from fascism and has only existed in semi-capitalist economies, is on the right.

Libertarian-fascists do shift their arguments according to whatever is good for them at the time, so some might claim to be "moderates" or something like that, perhaps to get new party members. That's just saying Anarchy is "moderate" since it's not communism, it's not capitalism. Or Fascism is "moderate" because it's between capitalism and communism. Libertarians say that because they think it'll help them with voters, it's just party propaganda.

Just because a system is between Republican and Democrat -- already close together on the political scalse thus you're zooming in on it -- doesn't mean they're in the middle of the political line.

Tell me, Socialist, how are libertarianism and fascism alike when libertarianism promotes a miniscule state that protects individual rights, and fascism promotes a massive state built on the prinicipal of the individual being subservient to the state?

I've debated fascists before, and there shared nothing in common with me.

They don't believe in a free-market, but a state-dictated market. They don't believe in individual rights but collective good. They don't preach anything but subservience to the state, whereas a large percentage of libertarians don't even condone the existence OF a state.

They are at odds with each other.

And libertarianism is right-wing on economic issues and left-wing on social issues.

[Capital Punishment]

Therefore Libertarians are "extreme" centrists

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by Marxism-[email protected] 15 2005, 03:52 PM
Wrong, doctors are payed to treat patients.
Workers are payed to work.

[Free Palestine]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2005, 08:31 PM

Looking at the world, I am totally for affirmative action.

Racist.

You're helping people because they are a different color?

How racist.
This stance seems right because it describes the situation that would exist in an ideal world. Eventually, this is the way the world should be.

However, the reality is that the world is far from ideal. The fact remains that African Americans and other minorities still face countless disadvantages in our society, disadvantages that result from systematic enslavement and oppression. They are still more likely to be given harsher sentences than whites for similar crimes and still less likely to get a job than a similarly qualified white applicant. Ignoring these facts and eliminating affirmative action will only set the clock back on gains made by minorities in America.

Contrary to what Publius would have you believe, racism still exists in this country. I'm not talking about overt racism, but the more subtle forms of it are what affirmative action addresses. I agree that massive amounts of study needs to accompany affirmative action programs to judge their efficacy, and those that aren't working should be scrapped. But until all people - employers, police, and prosecutors especially - see the races equally and until the gross inequality of resources distributed among races is addressed, affirmative action should remain. We'll know we've gotten it right when board rooms reflect American diversity.

[Led Zeppelin]

Workers are payed to work.

Wrong, workers are underpaid to work, at least the vast majority are.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by Marxism-[email protected] 16 2005, 04:24 AM

Workers are payed to work.

Wrong, workers are underpaid to work, at least the vast majority are.
There is no such thing as "underpaid", only "paid".

[Led Zeppelin]

There is no such thing as "underpaid", only "paid".

underpaid (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=underpaid)

Sorry, but there is such a thing, i suggest you start reading something other then fairytales.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by Marxism-[email protected] 16 2005, 11:43 AM

There is no such thing as "underpaid", only "paid".

underpaid (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=underpaid)


A worker is paid according to the price he and his employer agree on. Unless the money he was paid was actually less (or more) than the agreed price, it would make little sense to say that he is under(or over)paid.


Sorry, but there is such a thing, i suggest you start reading something other then fairytales.

A dictionary is no substitute for a brain.

"To pay insufficiently or less than is deserved."

Who decides what is "deserved" ?

[Led Zeppelin]

A worker is paid according to the price he and his employer agree on. Unless the money he was paid was actually less (or more) than the agreed price, it would make little sense to say that he is under(or over)paid.


Actually the worker is forced to accept the price the employer is willing to give, if he doesn't he will starve (in 90% of the world, not in welfare states), therefore the worker is a wage slave.


A dictionary is no substitute for a brain.

If only it was for you.


Who decides what is "deserved" ?

Basic economic theory decides.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by Marxism-[email protected] 18 2005, 02:11 PM
Actually the worker is forced
The worker is no more "forced" to work than he is "forced" to eat. "Work or starve" is the choice of every human being because life requires productive effort. If you don't provide that effort, someone else has to do it for you.

This is a fact of reality that no revolution is going to overthrow. Sorry.


to accept the price the employer is willing to give, if he doesn't he will starve (in 90% of the world, not in welfare states),

And this is supposed to indicate a "capitalist bias", right ? Is the fact that the employer is "forced" to accept the price the worker is willing to work for and if he doesn't, his company is screwed (and he will starve). Does that indicate a "worker bias" ?


therefore the worker is a wage slave.

You enjoy misusing the English language, don't you ? A slave is not paid. He is forced to work for nothing under threat of violence. A common phenomenon is socialist countries, albeit in a less overt manner.



Who decides what is "deserved" ?

Basic economic theory decides.

Voluntary transactions and the law of supply and demand; that's how it's decided.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

Take a look the the US rich list and work out what percentage is through exploitation.

Exploitation meaning employment? Hell yeah! Bring on the exploitation, have people WORK and EARN a living. Or are those two verbs absent from your communist dictionary? Get this: WEALTH is worked for and earned; not to be distributed and "shared". Workers are being paid what they are because they are only contributing to a fraction of the wealth that is being produced.

Give it up kid. When are you going to realize you've been played for a fool?

Now this is where Redstar2000 comes in for the rescue right? Wrong, the professor hit the nail right on the head, and I couldn't have said it better myself.

Amen to "exploitation" and rich people: they put people (like myself which allows me to continue living) to work.

[KC]

The worker is no more "forced" to work than he is "forced" to eat. "Work or starve" is the choice of every human being because life requires productive effort. If you don't provide that effort, someone else has to do it for you.

This is a fact of reality that no revolution is going to overthrow. Sorry.

Agreed.



And this is supposed to indicate a "capitalist bias", right ? Is the fact that the employer is "forced" to accept the price the worker is willing to work for and if he doesn't, his company is screwed (and he will starve). Does that indicate a "worker bias" ?


If the worker doesn't want to work for the company because of the wage that the employer sets, the employer finds other workers that are willing to work for that amount. It's simple, really.



You enjoy misusing the English language, don't you ? A slave is not paid. He is forced to work for nothing under threat of violence. A common phenomenon is socialist countries, albeit in a less overt manner.

Wage slave: A wage earner whose livelihood is completely dependent on the wages earned.

Dictionary.com, genius.



Voluntary transactions and the law of supply and demand; that's how it's decided.

Basic economic theory decides. This means that the employer can't pay the worker the value of the commodities that the workers produce because the employer won't make a profit. The employer must pay the worker less than the value of his work or the company will go out of business.



Exploitation meaning employment? Hell yeah! Bring on the exploitation, have people WORK and EARN a living.

Exploitation meaning workers being paid less than what their work is worth.




Get this: WEALTH is worked for and earned; not to be distributed and "shared".

Wealth is based on luck. If it was based on skill then everybody would become rich becasue they would try to be. Wealth is usually based around high-risk investments coming out as a profit for the investor. This isn't usually "work".



Workers are being paid what they are because they are only contributing to a fraction of the wealth that is being produced.

So you're saying because they don't own the company that they don't get paid more becasue they only produce the commodity, they don't sell it? So 9 year old children get paid 50 cents a day to produce shirts for a company like disney, and your solution is that they should start a company themselves?



Amen to "exploitation" and rich people: they put people (like myself which allows me to continue living) to work.

They put people like you to work for less than what you should be earning so they can use that money that you shouldve been paid to become richer themselves.

[Free Palestine]

To get back on subject, anyone care to respond to my earlier post?

[Led Zeppelin]

Exploitation meaning employment? Hell yeah! Bring on the exploitation, have people WORK and EARN a living. Or are those two verbs absent from your communist dictionary? Get this: WEALTH is worked for and earned; not to be distributed and "shared". Workers are being paid what they are because they are only contributing to a fraction of the wealth that is being produced.


"Wage labour is a form of exploitation in which the working class is exploited by capital.

Marx defined the “rate of exploitation”, also referred to as the rate of surplus value, as the proportion of unpaid, surplus labour a worker performs for their employer to the necessary labour workers perform, producing the value equivalent of the wage they are paid."


Now this is where Redstar2000 comes in for the rescue right?

No, this is where Marx comes in for the rescue.


The worker is no more "forced" to work than he is "forced" to eat. "Work or starve" is the choice of every human being because life requires productive effort. If you don't provide that effort, someone else has to do it for you.

This is a fact of reality that no revolution is going to overthrow. Sorry.


Nice try, cutting up my posts to make me look wrong, not gonna work though, here was the complete sentence:


Actually the worker is forced to accept the price the employer is willing to give, if he doesn't he will starve (in 90% of the world, not in welfare states), therefore the worker is a wage slave.

Do you get it now? If the worker gets payed less then he is worth he is being exploited.


Is the fact that the employer is "forced" to accept the price the worker is willing to work for and if he doesn't, his company is screwed (and he will starve). Does that indicate a "worker bias" ?


The reserve army of labour prevents this from happening, when workers of a factory go on strike others will take their place.


You enjoy misusing the English language, don't you ? A slave is not paid. He is forced to work for nothing under threat of violence.

Can you read? I said wage slave.


Voluntary transactions and the law of supply and demand; that's how it's decided.

Yes, that is how it is decided today, this however is the future:


In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished, after labor has become not only a livelihood but life's prime want, after the productive forces have increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be left behind in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 04:53 AM
If the worker doesn't want to work for the company because of the wage that the employer sets, the employer finds other workers that are willing to work for that amount. It's simple, really.



And if the worker doesn't like the wage he is offered, he is free to work elsewhere.


Wage slave: A wage earner whose livelihood is completely dependent on the wages earned.

No one can live off what hasn't been earned unless you're into begging or stealing.


Basic economic theory decides. This means that the employer can't pay the worker the value of the commodities that the workers produce because the employer won't make a profit. The employer must pay the worker less than the value of his work or the company will go out of business.

You're trying to override voluntary negotiation with the LTV. How many times do we need to refute this ?


Exploitation meaning workers being paid less than what their work is worth.

Their labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it.


Wealth is based on luck.

No, I definitely get my money by working. The lottery doesn't tend to be too profitable as far as occupations go.


If it was based on skill then everybody would become rich becasue they would try to be.

No, only the skilled would be rich. Those without any marketable skills would not be as no one would be willing to pay for them. Makes sense, doesn't it ?


Wealth is usually based around high-risk investments coming out as a profit for the investor. This isn't usually "work".

How do you get something to invest in the first place, then ?


So you're saying because they don't own the company that they don't get paid more becasue they only produce the commodity, they don't sell it? So 9 year old children get paid 50 cents a day to produce shirts for a company like disney, and your solution is that they should start a company themselves?

The vast majority of workers aren't 9 years old though, are they ?


They put people like you to work for less than what you should be earning so they can use that money that you shouldve been paid to become richer themselves.

I prefer to negotiate my wages. It gets you further than putting a gun against people's heads and earns you less contempt.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by Marxism-[email protected] 19 2005, 08:39 AM
Marx defined the “rate of exploitation”, also referred to as the rate of surplus value, as the proportion of unpaid, surplus labour a worker performs for their employer to the necessary labour workers perform, producing the value equivalent of the wage they are paid."



You intend to undermine the idea of the contractual agreement between the worker and the employer ? You know what the only alternative to the voluntary transaction is, don't you ?


Nice try, cutting up my posts to make me look wrong, not gonna work though,

I don't need to cut up your sentences to prove you wrong.


Do you get it now? If the worker gets payed less then he is worth he is being exploited.

You've ignored my reply and repeated your original statement.


The reserve army of labour prevents this from happening, when workers of a factory go on strike others will take their place.

You mean you're planning on using violence not only against bosses who haven't done anything to you, but against other workers too (who have also done nothing to you) ?


Can you read? I said wage slave.

Again, you've ignored what I posted :

"A slave is not paid. He is forced to work for nothing under threat of violence. A common phenomenon is socialist countries, albeit in a less overt manner."

If a worker is paid and works out of choice, then he is not a slave.


Yes, that is how it is decided today, this however is the future:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished, after labor has become not only a livelihood but life's prime want, after the productive forces have increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois law be left behind in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

This has no future.

[Zangetsu]

Originally posted by Professor [email protected] 19 2005, 01:41 PM


Exploitation meaning workers being paid less than what their work is worth.

Their labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it.




If it was based on skill then everybody would become rich becasue they would try to be.

No, only the skilled would be rich. Those without any marketable skills would not be as no one would be willing to pay for them. Makes sense, doesn't it ?


"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" -disgusting standard.

"marketable skills..." so, CEO's deserve to be rewarded ('earn') more than good judges, doctors and hard working labourers???

In a capitalist economy, thats how it works. What you describe is unfair and unacceptable.

Perhaps you have no complaint because you live on the more profitable side of a capitalist system. For others the injustices this system generates, along with the insane conclusions it spells out for the world, needs to be combatted.

[KC]

And if the worker doesn't like the wage he is offered, he is free to work elsewhere.

Elsewhere where he will be underpaid.



No, I definitely get my money by working. The lottery doesn't tend to be too profitable as far as occupations go.

You earn your livelihood by working. You get wealthy by getting lucky.


No, only the skilled would be rich. Those without any marketable skills would not be as no one would be willing to pay for them. Makes sense, doesn't it ?

If it was that simple then everybody would acquire those skills.



How do you get something to invest in the first place, then ?

You work for it, obviously. But work doesn't get you wealthy. That was the whole point of that response.



The vast majority of workers aren't 9 years old though, are they ?

No, that was an example, but that's beside the point. Most of the workers are single women under the age of 20.



I prefer to negotiate my wages. It gets you further than putting a gun against people's heads and earns you less contempt.

Negotiating your wages doesn't solve the problem that you are being underpaid. Again, moneybags, nobody said anything about putting a gun against people's heads.

[Led Zeppelin]

If a worker is paid and works out of choice, then he is not a slave.


The worker has no choice, if he doesn't work he starves. Like i said in my previous post:


Actually the worker is forced to accept the price the employer is willing to give, if he doesn't he will starve (in 90% of the world, not in welfare states), therefore the worker is a wage slave.



This has no future.

It is the future, deal with it.

[Purple]

Education costs money. Education is opportunities. If you dont have money you dont have opportunities. If the providers for the student dont have money, the student will have problems advancing to a job which is profitable enough so that the student later can send his/her kids to college, or some other form of higher education.


Evil Circle..

[Taiga]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2005, 02:58 PM
Education costs money. Education is opportunities. If you dont have money you dont have opportunities. If the providers for the student dont have money, the student will have problems advancing to a job which is profitable enough so that the student later can send his/her kids to college, or some other form of higher education.


Evil Circle..
Wait for the arguments concerning scholarships. You know, something about the opportunity for talented people ;)

[Professor Moneybags]

The worker has no choice, if he doesn't work he starves. Like i said in my previous post:


Actually the worker is forced to accept the price the employer is willing to give, if he doesn't he will starve (in 90% of the world, not in welfare states), therefore the worker is a wage slave.


Repeat....repeat....repeat....



This has no future.

It is the future, deal with it.

Translation : I'm right because I say so !

[Professor Moneybags]

"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" -disgusting standard.

Unless you think- no, demand that people pay you a million dollars an hour for your ability to fart, then it's the correct standard.


In a capitalist economy, thats how it works. What you describe is unfair and unacceptable.

What you're calling for is command economy where everyone is handed a blank cheque.


Perhaps you have no complaint because you live on the more profitable side of a capitalist system.

I have few complaints because I don't deal with people by force.

[Professor Moneybags]

You earn your livelihood by working. You get wealthy by getting lucky.

There is no logic behind that argument, because the difference is only a matter of scale.


If it was that simple then everybody would acquire those skills.

No, they wouldn't. Many of us can't/don't want to.


You work for it, obviously. But work doesn't get you wealthy.

Clearly it does.


No, that was an example, but that's beside the point. Most of the workers are single women under the age of 20.

Is there a law banning single women under 20 from starting their own companies?

[Led Zeppelin]

Repeat....repeat....repeat....

Can't comprehend......can't comprehend.......can't comprehend......


Translation : I'm right because I say so !

No, it's more like "I'm right because Marx said so".

[KC]

There is no logic behind that argument, because the difference is only a matter of scale.

Yes good job! People can earn a living from their wage, but people won't get rich that way. Wealthy is a synonym for rich. To get rich you get lucky.



Clearly it does.


Clearly it doesn't.



Is there a law banning single women under 20 from starting their own companies?

In the countries that they work, probably. Even if there wasn't, they wouldn't be able to afford it as they can barely afford to live.



Unless you think- no, demand that people pay you a million dollars an hour for your ability to fart, then it's the correct standard.

If they bottled your fart and sold it for a million dollars then you deserve it.



I have few complaints because I don't deal with people by force.

You don't, but many people do. In a capitalist society. Not communist.

[Zangetsu]

Originally posted by Professor [email protected] 20 2005, 02:35 PM

"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" -disgusting standard.

Unless you think- no, demand that people pay you a million dollars an hour for your ability to fart, then it's the correct standard.


In a capitalist economy, thats how it works. What you describe is unfair and unacceptable.

What you're calling for is command economy where everyone is handed a blank cheque.


Perhaps you have no complaint because you live on the more profitable side of a capitalist system.

I have few complaints because I don't deal with people by force.
you have cut up my reply like letters from a newspaper article... making it say something totaly new and differant... then you attempt to counter 'my' arguement?

"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" - is a disgusting standard because it makes those with "marketable skills" masters and exploiters of those who are arguably more skilled.


You just assume it is correct that when a man risks capital, he is entitled to profit from anothers work... How would you like to be at someone elses whims simply because s/he had been awarded that status almost randomly by the system of the day.

I believe in everyone getting the oppertunity to excell, to be sucessful, but never should one have the oppertunity to own the means of production which only the community is meant to benefit from. Isnt that the point of private enterprise anyway? to furfil peoples needs...? without that component how can they 'earn' their profit. Communism merely rearranges the relationships of these concepts, Everyone owns the means of production, and instead the profit that would of been made in private enterprise this surplus is spent on the community itself in the form of- less working hours, more people friendly arrangement of work and probably much more. And since marketing would most probably disapear causing frivolous consumption too die out, that labour surplus created wouldnt mean the economy would be in grave trouble and collapse; but that this newly created extra labour would be yet more surplus for the community to spend on making its life even more comfortable...

When the people as a whole own the means of production- a lot of very stupid economic practices can be done away with. I look forward to a better quality of life that this 'consumer driven society' could never afford. Not to mention an end to the denial of the fact that we are killing ourselves (collectivley a very very bad thing you probably hardly hear about on American news stations) in exchange for the gain of a sellect few.

[Publius]

"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" is the only tenable maxim there is.

Anything else is a lie.

Your labor has the value you and I agree to ascribe to it. No more, no less.

Labor has no intrinsic value, it has the value given to it.

Labor is a commodity. Nothing more.

[Professor Moneybags]

No, it's more like "I'm right because Marx said so."

Appeal to authority. And not a very good authority at that.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2005, 10:39 PM
you have cut up my reply like letters from a newspaper article... making it say something totaly new and differant... then you attempt to counter 'my' arguement?


Don't come that. You've made that excuse before and it's wearing thin. What have I changed ? What has been taken out of context ?


"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" - is a disgusting standard because it makes those with "marketable skills" masters and exploiters of those who are arguably more skilled.

Non sequitur. Does my ability to paint, as opposed to your inability to do so make you my slave ?


You just assume it is correct that when a man risks capital, he is entitled to profit from anothers work...

Excuse me ? I didn't say anyone was entitled to another's work without their permisson.


I believe in everyone getting the oppertunity to excell, to be sucessful, but never should one have the oppertunity to own the means of production which only the community is meant to benefit from.

I don't think the people who created these means of production did it with the "community benefit" as their primary goal.


Isnt that the point of private enterprise anyway? to furfil peoples needs...?

Not as a primary.


without that component how can they 'earn' their profit. Communism merely rearranges the relationships of these concepts,

< snip the boilerplate >


When the people as a whole own the means of production-

You mean take it by force, don&#39;t you ? Do you think people are just going to just carry on providing things for you take by force ? I doubt it.


I look forward to a better quality of life that this &#39;consumer driven society&#39; could never afford.

North Korea awaits. Have fun.

[Zangetsu]

Originally posted by Professor Moneybags+Jul 21 2005, 02:20 PM--> (Professor Moneybags @ Jul 21 2005, 02:20 PM)
[email protected] 20 2005, 10:39 PM
you have cut up my reply like letters from a newspaper article... making it say something totaly new and differant... then you attempt to counter &#39;my&#39; arguement?


Don&#39;t come that. You&#39;ve made that excuse before and it&#39;s wearing thin. What have I changed ? What has been taken out of context ?


"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" - is a disgusting standard because it makes those with "marketable skills" masters and exploiters of those who are arguably more skilled.

Non sequitur. Does my ability to paint, as opposed to your inability to do so make you my slave ?


You just assume it is correct that when a man risks capital, he is entitled to profit from anothers work...

Excuse me ? I didn&#39;t say anyone was entitled to another&#39;s work without their permisson.


I believe in everyone getting the oppertunity to excell, to be sucessful, but never should one have the oppertunity to own the means of production which only the community is meant to benefit from.

I don&#39;t think the people who created these means of production did it with the "community benefit" as their primary goal.


Isnt that the point of private enterprise anyway? to furfil peoples needs...?

Not as a primary.


without that component how can they &#39;earn&#39; their profit. Communism merely rearranges the relationships of these concepts,

< snip the boilerplate >


When the people as a whole own the means of production-

You mean take it by force, don&#39;t you ? Do you think people are just going to just carry on providing things for you take by force ? I doubt it.


I look forward to a better quality of life that this &#39;consumer driven society&#39; could never afford.

North Korea awaits. Have fun. [/b]
You ask me what you have taken out of context&#33;? well, to tell you the truth i dont know... But i do know you didnt actualy counter anything i said... i mean, where is the contradiction in your response?


Non sequitur. Does my ability to paint, as opposed to your inability to do so make you my slave ?

I have no idea how to answer that. Again, what relevance does that have to my post?



You mean take it by force, don&#39;t you ?

Yes initialy i guess you could say the means of production will be &#39;stolen&#39; from their middle and upper class &#39;owners&#39; (thats too bad).

Stealing the means of prodution... perhaps would just be considered like some of those other crimes dotted through history; France stolen from its King, America stolen from Britain, slaves stolen from their masters. Oh the impunity&#33;

Your justification for the ways things are, and for why they shouldnt progress to some other state... is consent? picking the most comfortable existance one can find -doesnt mean that you consent to your treatment, nor that the state of affiars in this regard is OK.

[Publius]

I think the problem here is not that Professor is taking things out of context, but that you simply have no idea what the hell you&#39;re talking about.

[JKP]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2005, 03:52 PM
"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" is the only tenable maxim there is.

Anything else is a lie.

Your labor has the value you and I agree to ascribe to it. No more, no less.

Labor has no intrinsic value, it has the value given to it.

Labor is a commodity. Nothing more.
You do realize that when Adam Smith speaks of Liberty, he also means liberty of labour? A system that perverts the sanctity of labour is not suitable for his vision of the market.

[Professor Moneybags]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 01:45 PM
You do realize that when Adam Smith speaks of Liberty, he also means liberty of labour?
And this is restricting labor, how ?

[JKP]

Originally posted by Professor Moneybags+Jul 22 2005, 06:51 AM--> (Professor Moneybags @ Jul 22 2005, 06:51 AM)
[email protected] 22 2005, 01:45 PM
You do realize that when Adam Smith speaks of Liberty, he also means liberty of labour?
And this is restricting labor, how ? [/b]
Was I implying that it limits Labour?

[Professor Moneybags]

I have no idea how to answer that. Again, what relevance does that have to my post?

You said :


"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" - is a disgusting standard because it makes those with "marketable skills" masters and exploiters of those who are arguably more skilled.

I replied :


Non sequitur. Does my ability to paint, as opposed to your inability to do so make you my slave ?

You implied that having marketable skills makes someone a "master" and those without skills a "slave". I pointed out the absurdity of that idea.


Yes initialy i guess you could say the means of production will be &#39;stolen&#39; from their middle and upper class &#39;owners&#39; (thats too bad).

I&#39;m glad you&#39;re honest.


Stealing the means of prodution... perhaps would just be considered like some of those other crimes dotted through history; France stolen from its King, America stolen from Britain, slaves stolen from their masters. Oh the impunity&#33;

And you consider stealing a factory to be an anology of the same order ? Do you consider stealing cars to be like "stealing France from its King" too ? What about bank robbery ? Explain why you think this is so.


Your justification for the ways things are, and for why they shouldnt progress to some other state... is consent?

Yes, consent is the difference between trade and theft. It&#39;s the difference between sex and rape, too...A difference you wave away as "irrelevent" and "reactionary".

[Publius]

You do realize that when Adam Smith speaks of Liberty, he also means liberty of labour? A system that perverts the sanctity of labour is not suitable for his vision of the market.

I don&#39;t believe I was referencing Adam Smith.

And I don&#39;t understand what you mean by &#39;perverts the sanctity of labour&#39;?

Labour is not sanct, so I don&#39;t see how it could possibly be perverted, and I don&#39;t see how the current systme purporetedly does this.

[Zangetsu]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2005, 10:52 PM
"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" is the only tenable maxim there is.

Anything else is a lie.

Your labor has the value you and I agree to ascribe to it. No more, no less.

Labor has no intrinsic value, it has the value given to it.

Labor is a commodity. Nothing more.
The quantum of money some people are willing to use to &#39;remunerate&#39; individuals for services rendered is disgusting. And yes, this comes from treating labour as a commodity. Can a CEO do the work of 10 000 sweat shop workers? the answer is obviously no, so then why would your system of worth then proclaim that objectivley the CEO&#39;s labour is worth 10 000 times more than a sweat shop worker&#39;s? A capitalist economic system&#39;s value system isnt the only paradigm that exists.

[JKP]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 07:30 AM


You do realize that when Adam Smith speaks of Liberty, he also means liberty of labour? A system that perverts the sanctity of labour is not suitable for his vision of the market.

I don&#39;t believe I was referencing Adam Smith.

And I don&#39;t understand what you mean by &#39;perverts the sanctity of labour&#39;?

Labour is not sanct, so I don&#39;t see how it could possibly be perverted, and I don&#39;t see how the current systme purporetedly does this.
Tell Smith that.

If you&#39;ve read the Wealth of Nations he reaches point somewhat like this:

In a state of absolute liberty, there would be equality. And only in a relative state of equality can a market properly function. You have to keep in mind that Smith was pre-capitalist and that great agglomerations of private power didn&#39;t exist.

And as for what Smith meant by labour being part of liberty, if a person creates something, he should have a say over how he creates it, and what its eventual use will be.

In a modern inustrialized country, only a non-capitalist free market would meet Adam Smith&#39;s vision.

However, I don&#39;t personally believe that the market is the ultimate solution.

[Zangetsu]

Originally posted by Professor [email protected] 22 2005, 02:08 PM

I have no idea how to answer that. Again, what relevance does that have to my post?

You said :


"Labor is worth what people are willing to pay for it" - is a disgusting standard because it makes those with "marketable skills" masters and exploiters of those who are arguably more skilled.

I replied :


Non sequitur. Does my ability to paint, as opposed to your inability to do so make you my slave ?

You implied that having marketable skills makes someone a "master" and those without skills a "slave". I pointed out the absurdity of that idea.


i did not state an objective law i saw in every corner of society, i do however believe what i described is widely applicable to many boss-employee relationships.

Skill in administration, skill in business allignment, skill in having friends in the right places that allow the company you are a CEO of to run smoother and &#39;skill&#39; in obtaining capital -does not mean you have earned the profits that are really created by the people that work under you which are EXPLOITED.

[Publius]

The quantum of money some people are willing to use &#39;remunerate&#39; individuals for services rendered is disgusting. And yes, this comes from treating labour as a commodity. Can a CEO do the work of 10 000 sweat shop workers? the answer is obviously no, so then why would your system of worth then proclaim that objectivley the CEO&#39;s labour is worth 10 000 times more than a sweat shop worker&#39;s? A capitalist economic system&#39;s value system isnt the only paradigm that exists.

Because someone pays that CEO that much money.

The capitalist system of value is the only one that exists in that it&#39;s a subjective value system.

All values are subjective. There is no objective value.

IN light of this fact, we see that you and your labor have no intrinsic worth; they have the value we agree to ascribe to it.

That CEO deserves that money simply because he gets it. It&#39;s all subjective.

It doesn&#39;t matter who does more work, or who does less work.

It&#39;s a non-value.

[Publius]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 02:59 PM










Tell Smith that.

I would like to.



If you&#39;ve read the Wealth of Nations he reaches point somewhat like this:

I&#39;m in the middle of it, but other books usurped it.


In a state of absolute liberty, there would be equality. And only in a relative state of equality can a market properly function. You have to keep in mind that Smith was pre-capitalist and that great agglomerations of private power didn&#39;t exist.

They had enough governmental power to go around.

Define &#39;relative state of equality&#39;.


And as for what Smith meant by labour being part of liberty, if a person creates something, he should have a say over how he creates it, and what its eventual use will be.

Good. That&#39;s exactly what happens. If you create something, you decide what&#39;s done with it.

If you create something FOR someone else, your decision is to give control to that person.

This is exactly what happens in a capitalist society.



In a modern inustrialized country, only a non-capitalist free market would meet Adam Smith&#39;s vision.

How can there be a non-capitalist free-market?



However, I don&#39;t personally believe that the market is the ultimate solution.

Then tell me, what IS the ultimate solution?

[JKP]

That is because in a modern industrial capitalist economy, most markets are dominated by a few large firms, which is called oligopolistic competition. Under oligopolistic competition, a firm can use its position of dominance to override market forces through its use of advertising, product differentiation, and a production capacity that only a very large firm can afford. Since the great depression, capitalist states have been much more interventionist in the economy, changing interest rates to slow the economy down when it grows to fast, and keeping up consumption by spending enormous sums in the military industrial complex (called military Keynesianism), among other things. If capitalism worked in the ways that the neoclassical economists say it does, in which business was conducted in a state of perfect competition, these kinds of problems would never happen. In the early years of US history (and in the economy that Adam Smith was talking about when he wrote), their was enough land (which at the time was the main form of capital) for everyone, heavy industry did not really exist, the ideal system that the neoclassical theories describe may have existed and to be a large firm required government protection or the employment of slaves.

Your other question is one that I am also very interested in. The article on Wikipedia.org entitled Spanish Revolution may give you some idea of what a worker run economy would look like, but it appears to have only had very limited use of markets so this may not answer the question. The occupied factory movement in Argentina sell their products on the market just as any other firm would, but as they make up only a small minority of the firms in the economy this example is not sufficient either. Seymour Melman wrote a book called After Capitalism which I believe attempts to answer this question but I cannot say for sure because I still have not had the chance to read it.

Free market theory in our current government—which is to a large extent irrelevant to the economy anyway—tells us nothing about adjustment of market to needs. There was a very weak argument to that effect in Adam Smith, who based his (rather nuanced) approval of markets on the principle that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets would tend towards perfect equality. But our current conditions make that impossible.

Actually, in his book What is Property?, Proudhon said essentially the same thing, with the exception that he saw the institution of private property as something that made “perfect equality” impossible. He suggested that the private property system should be replaced with one based on personal possesions, which would mean that people would only own a means of production if they use it themselves. People would then trade with each other on a truly free market, and with the government abolished, capitalism could not exist because nobody would protect, for example, the right of a few people in Arkansas to own and control stores all over a country and to be in a position to rent (and consequently to control and exploit) the labor of over 1 million people (as in the case of Wal Mart). Thus the commodification of labor would no longer exist and any means of production used by more than one person would have to be owned collectively by all who use it, making all firms democratic and libertarian. Also, because the means of production would be owned by the workers rather than by a capitalist class that will only invest in the most profitable and fastest growing enterprises, the need for constant growth, the trade cycles, and the imperialist wars to open up new markets would cease to exist. This idea of a non- capitalist market system is called mutualism. Under truly perfect liberty (meaning without the existence of tyranny in the public sector or the private sector) a market based economy would lead to perfect equality. Proudhon argued very persuasively in What is Property? that a truly free market would indeed lead to perfect equality.

However, it is my opinion that a free market should only be transitional phase. Namely, to Anarcho-communism.

[JKP]

You may find this to be interesting aswell.


How a Libertarian Capitalist Became a Libertarian Socialist





By Chris Wilson




A couple years back when I was working toward a philosophy major in college, I wrote a rebuttal the section of The Anarchist FAQ that covers anarcho-capitalism. I removed the rebuttal from the web because I didn&#39;t have the time or inclination to continue to maintain it or expand upon it. Three years later, I&#39;ve come to find myself disagreeing with my old rebuttals and agreeing with the FAQ. What follows is my story.

I began my tenure as a right-wing libertarian by reading Ayn Rand, who dissuaded me from the rather muddled left-wing sympathies I held at the time. I was only a Rand enthusiast for a short time, however, and I soon developed an interest in the "more reasonable" free-market thinkers, such as von Mises, Nozick, Hayek, David Friedman, etc. I was an ardent supporter of unimpeded and "stateless" capitalism for the course of almost 3 years, and developed and/or adopted every possible philosophical and economic justification that can be conceived of for its defense. Before I graduated college, however, I expelled my belief that one can claim private property rights upon land. I advocated a labor theory of property, and considering that land is not a produced good, I found that it wasn&#39;t defensible according to the principles I advocated. I concluded that one who hoards land is placing a restriction upon the liberty of others to use it or to travel by way of it without justification, and hence the claimant should compensate them by paying a land value tax to earn exclusive rights to it.

Despite my new Georgist land-socialist views, I still advocated a capitalist economic system with respect to produced goods. However, I did become much more critical of corporations, and I became upset with other libertarians for their lack of focus upon the injustices perpetrated by corporations. I wanted to abolish corporate charters, subsidies, intellectual property, regulatory privileges, land grants, etc., as I considered them violations of liberty. If you press a right-libertarian about the privileges corporations receive, they usually say, "Oh, well I&#39;m against those", but they hardly ever take the initiative in directing any criticism against them. More often than not, they praise the alleged "virtues" of corporations, while focusing upon how the government violates these corporations "rights".

When I first became an "anarcho-capitalist", I thought corporate abuses could be avoided in an economic realm in which corporations didn&#39;t enjoy as many regulatory privileges. I initially liked all the "dot coms" and "ecommerce" companies -- I considered the Internet industry to be one in which free market principles were respected, contrary to so many other industries. However, in the past year, I&#39;ve seen all these companies become just as ruthless as any multinational. I thought that all of the "dot coms" were small as a result of the industry functioning according to genuine free market principles, but in reality, they were just small *to begin with*. Most of them are small no longer. Furthermore, the more prosperous of these companies are now seeking to benefit from state privilege, which is evident in the many intellectual property lawsuits that are currently pending in the ecommerce industry.

When I was discovering this (and becoming a hardcore Linux user in the process), I was working as a customer service representative in a large and very well known software corporation (not Microsoft). The act of *working* instead of going to school gave me a new respect for organized labor movements. Additionally, it gave me an appreciation for the extent to which corporations screw their customers. As I spent the next six months working for this producer of buggy software, I came to the realization that my job as a "customer service" rep involved little more than developing clever rationalizations to defend this company&#39;s fraudulent activities. Most other reps bought into the company&#39;s rationalizations -- most of the employees, including the supervisors, sincerely believed that the company provided "world class" service to the customers, which couldn&#39;t be further from the truth. I&#39;m ashamed to say that I bought into *some* of the propaganda as a result of searching for ways to pacify irate customers. And because of the position that we were in -- that is, being constantly screamed at and criticized for policies beyond our control -- it was impossible to refrain from becoming extremely resentful towards rightfully upset customers. Finally, the company adopted some nasty new policies which were so obviously indefensible that I had to end my relationship with the company on general principle. I left completely disillusioned with corporate culture.

Although I favored free markets, I did so because I considered them to be necessitated by the principles that I held. Principles always came *first* for me -- not economics. However, around the time that I quit working at the software corporation, it finally truly sank in that businesses couldn&#39;t *care less* about principles. The questions "Is it right?" or "Is it just?" do not even enter the minds of the decision makers of capitalist businesses -- such questions are beside the point in their eyes. Although I was a right-libertarian at the time, I held my views because I genuinely believed that they followed logically from my beloved principle of self-government. Even though I knew that *many* capitalist businesses were completely lacking in principles, I did ignorantly believe that this was only true of large government aided corporations. It was very disheartening to learn over time that this fact applies to *most* businesses, regardless of whether or not they happen to be corporations that profit from state favor. If they don&#39;t actually receive favors from the state, then it is typically their *aim* to receive them.

A week after I quit the software company, I got lucky and snagged a job providing tech support at a local ISP. I thought to myself that this company, being a local business, would be fundamentally different. While I do greatly prefer working for the ISP to working for the mega-software giant, it quickly became obvious to me that the motivations and principles (or lack thereof) of the president and major shareholders of the ISP are no different from that of any major corporation. Although the ISP is relatively small as of now, it doesn&#39;t aim to remain as such for very long. I will say that an ISP&#39;s expansion is generally not favored by employees, as it forces us to take responsibility for customer issues that we&#39;re in no position to fix (as was so common with the software company). Furthermore, those who run the company still think of the employees as a cost to be minimized. The rule is to hire as few as possible, pay them as little as possible, and make them work as often as possible. Since starting with the company, I&#39;ve taken on many more responsibilities than just tech support, but my wages haven&#39;t risen. Despite the technical nature of my job, the workers at the nearby grocery store make more than I, as they&#39;re unionized and I&#39;m not.

My experience in the work world forced me to seriously reconsider my advocacy of capitalism in any form. As I was still very committed to libertarian principles, I began to study the "socialist anarchists". (I put "socialist anarchist" in quotes, as I now consider such a term to be a redundancy -- anarchists are necessarily socialists.) I forced myself to consider the fundamental disagreement that separates Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta from Rand, von Mises, and Friedman. My answer to myself: The advocates of capitalism believe that one can sign away or sell off one&#39;s liberty, whereas anarchists do not. As a right-wing libertarian capitalist, I was of the opinion that one could enter into a morally binding agreement in which one sacrifices one&#39;s liberty in exchange for a wage. My position was that a worker would be committing fraud against the employer if he attempted to retain rights to the full product of his labor. My argument was that if an employer has a "legitimate" prior claim upon the capital being used, then he has the right to dictate its terms of use. The laborer doesn&#39;t have the right to anything more than what the capitalist agrees to give, just as the capitalist doesn&#39;t have the right to take anything more than what the laborer agrees to give. (Of course, I didn&#39;t realize in my early "anarcho-capitalist" days that capitalists almost always demand more than what the worker initially agrees to give.)

My current position is that one cannot be ethically bound by agreements that restrict one&#39;s liberty to be self-governing. It has always been my view that one cannot be bound by an agreement to be a slave. Although one can enter into a contract that mandates one to serve as a slave, one should be considered free to cease honoring that contract at any time. However, I hadn&#39;t been applying this principle to all forms of domination -- I only applied it to full-time chattel slavery, not to wage slavery, domestic tyranny, etc. When I was working out my views regarding this issue, I decided to simplify my decision by subjecting myself to a thought experiment: Jones is a individual who has zero access to capital, which excludes him from being self-employed. He must must find somebody who will share access to capital if he is to continue to eat. Fortunately, Smith has plenty of capital, and is willing to share it -- under certain conditions of course. Smith says to Jones that he can use Smith&#39;s capital to produce, *provided* that Jones engages in 90% of the productivity while Smith engages in 10%. Also, Jones will only receive 10% of the revenues despite all of his hard work, while Smith gets to keep 90% for his hoggish self. Jones agrees to these conditions because he has no other option. Is Jones morally bound by his agreement to allow Smith to keep 8 in 9 parts of what what Jones produces? The capitalist, of course, answers, "Yes", and I once would have given the same answer, even though I knew intuitively that such an arrangement would be grossly unfair. My current answer is "No" -- this relationship between Smith and Jones is inherently exploitive, and Jones is entitled to much better.

That completed my conversion to real anarchism, which is to say *libertarian socialism*. The evolutionary process was slow -- it didn&#39;t happen all in one night. I continued to consider myself an individualist anarchist for awhile, and remained more attracted to the ideas of Tucker and Proudhon than any of the social anarchists. But as I read more Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and Rocker and studied the Spanish Civil War and Russian Revolution, I concluded that social anarchism was a better alternative. Unlike the individualist or mutualist varieties of anarchism, anarcho-communism doesn&#39;t provide an avenue for capitalism to reestablish itself and it has had partial revolutionary success in the past histories of countries such as Spain and the Ukraine. What initially turned me off to social anarchism is the fact that many of its advocates don&#39;t address the prospect of what&#39;s commonly called the "tyranny of the majority", which I think is a valid concern. It cannot be emphasized enough that under anarchism, nobody would be forced to join a commune or a federation. If one wishes to be free to work independently of a democratic collective, this freedom would be acknowledged and respected, provided that one doesn&#39;t attempt to hoard more resources than one uses or employ people for a wage. Granted, anarchists wouldn&#39;t *ban* wage labor, but "agreements" in which workers sign away their liberty would not be enforced.

Since making the transition from right-wing to left-wing libertarianism, I&#39;ve discovered that factionalism and sectarianism is just as pervasive here as it was there, if not more so. Technology is a good example of an issue that divides the anarchist movement. On one hand, there are the anarcho-primitivist luddites who eschew all forms of complex technology and wish to return to a hunter-gather society, and on the other, there are the anarchists who feel that technology can be beneficial if its development is directed by workers themselves in a manner that is accountable to the communities it affects. I fall somewhere in the middle between the two positions -- I have no desire to return to a hunter/gatherer society, but would also prefer not to rely upon technology that requires a division of labor so extreme that productivity becomes an alienated and meaningless activity. Working within the computer industry, I also understand that when technological complexity transcends our ability to understand it, this is an instance of the machine being in control of us and not vice-versa. Whether technology is a form of liberation or domination is a topic hotly debated by anarchists, but they agree, contra the right-wing "libertarians", that a society in which human-created circumstances force people to "agree" to subject their will to that of a boss is by no means "free".

[Publius]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 03:42 PM



That is because in a modern industrial capitalist economy, most markets are dominated by a few large firms, which is called oligopolistic competition. Under oligopolistic competition, a firm can use its position of dominance to override market forces through its use of advertising, product differentiation, and a production capacity that only a very large firm can afford. Since the great depression, capitalist states have been much more interventionist in the economy, changing interest rates to slow the economy down when it grows to fast, and keeping up consumption by spending enormous sums in the military industrial complex (called military Keynesianism), among other things. If capitalism worked in the ways that the neoclassical economists say it does, in which business was conducted in a state of perfect competition, these kinds of problems would never happen. In the early years of US history (and in the economy that Adam Smith was talking about when he wrote), their was enough land (which at the time was the main form of capital) for everyone, heavy industry did not really exist, the ideal system that the neoclassical theories describe may have existed and to be a large firm required government protection or the employment of slaves.

In most cases, these large firms do not destroy market forces. If anything, they reinforce them.

Give me an example of said oligopolisitic competition, and how it destroys competition.

Certainly the economy has changed since the time of Smith, but it hasn&#39;t necessarily changed for the worse.


Your other question is one that I am also very interested in. The article on Wikipedia.org entitled Spanish Revolution may give you some idea of what a worker run economy would look like, but it appears to have only had very limited use of markets so this may not answer the question. The occupied factory movement in Argentina sell their products on the market just as any other firm would, but as they make up only a small minority of the firms in the economy this example is not sufficient either. Seymour Melman wrote a book called After Capitalism which I believe attempts to answer this question but I cannot say for sure because I still have not had the chance to read it.

I think it&#39;s safe to say that an effective free-market cannot exist without capitalist forces, namely price.


Free market theory in our current government—which is to a large extent irrelevant to the economy anyway—tells us nothing about adjustment of market to needs. There was a very weak argument to that effect in Adam Smith, who based his (rather nuanced) approval of markets on the principle that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets would tend towards perfect equality. But our current conditions make that impossible.

Did he indeed mean perfect material equality, or perfect equality in the philosophical sense that everyone be treated the same?



Actually, in his book What is Property?, Proudhon said essentially the same thing, with the exception that he saw the institution of private property as something that made “perfect equality” impossible.

I would agree. I would also say perfect equality is not desirable.

I don&#39;t think it&#39;s possible at all, actually.



He suggested that the private property system should be replaced with one based on personal possesions, which would mean that people would only own a means of production if they use it themselves.

Can 2 people own the means of production if they are the only two people that use it?

There is no true distinction between a means of production you solely use, and one you own that many people use.



People would then trade with each other on a truly free market, and with the government abolished, capitalism could not exist because nobody would protect, for example, the right of a few people in Arkansas to own and control stores all over a country and to be in a position to rent (and consequently to control and exploit) the labor of over 1 million people (as in the case of Wal Mart).

Even if they were the best at running the stores? Even if giving the control of the stores over to the local communities turned out to be imminently harmful?



Thus the commodification of labor would no longer exist and any means of production used by more than one person would have to be owned collectively by all who use it, making all firms democratic and libertarian.

Democracy and liberty are not compatible.



Also, because the means of production would be owned by the workers rather than by a capitalist class that will only invest in the most profitable and fastest growing enterprises, the need for constant growth, the trade cycles, and the imperialist wars to open up new markets would cease to exist.

Those enterpises are fast growing and profitable for a reason: People want them.

I thought this was supposed to be democratic?



This idea of a non- capitalist market system is called mutualism. Under truly perfect liberty (meaning without the existence of tyranny in the public sector or the private sector) a market based economy would lead to perfect equality. Proudhon argued very persuasively in What is Property? that a truly free market would indeed lead to perfect equality.

Again, said quality is impossible and not even desirable.

[JKP]

Let me hear your opinion on Chris Wilson&#39;s essay.

[Publius]

You may find this to be interesting aswell.


How a Libertarian Capitalist Became a Libertarian Socialist





By Chris Wilson




A couple years back when I was working toward a philosophy major in college, I wrote a rebuttal the section of The Anarchist FAQ that covers anarcho-capitalism. I removed the rebuttal from the web because I didn&#39;t have the time or inclination to continue to maintain it or expand upon it. Three years later, I&#39;ve come to find myself disagreeing with my old rebuttals and agreeing with the FAQ. What follows is my story.

I began my tenure as a right-wing libertarian by reading Ayn Rand, who dissuaded me from the rather muddled left-wing sympathies I held at the time. I was only a Rand enthusiast for a short time, however, and I soon developed an interest in the "more reasonable" free-market thinkers, such as von Mises, Nozick, Hayek, David Friedman, etc. I was an ardent supporter of unimpeded and "stateless" capitalism for the course of almost 3 years, and developed and/or adopted every possible philosophical and economic justification that can be conceived of for its defense. Before I graduated college, however, I expelled my belief that one can claim private property rights upon land. I advocated a labor theory of property, and considering that land is not a produced good, I found that it wasn&#39;t defensible according to the principles I advocated. I concluded that one who hoards land is placing a restriction upon the liberty of others to use it or to travel by way of it without justification, and hence the claimant should compensate them by paying a land value tax to earn exclusive rights to it.

Despite my new Georgist land-socialist views, I still advocated a capitalist economic system with respect to produced goods. However, I did become much more critical of corporations, and I became upset with other libertarians for their lack of focus upon the injustices perpetrated by corporations. I wanted to abolish corporate charters, subsidies, intellectual property, regulatory privileges, land grants, etc., as I considered them violations of liberty. If you press a right-libertarian about the privileges corporations receive, they usually say, "Oh, well I&#39;m against those", but they hardly ever take the initiative in directing any criticism against them. More often than not, they praise the alleged "virtues" of corporations, while focusing upon how the government violates these corporations "rights".

When I first became an "anarcho-capitalist", I thought corporate abuses could be avoided in an economic realm in which corporations didn&#39;t enjoy as many regulatory privileges. I initially liked all the "dot coms" and "ecommerce" companies -- I considered the Internet industry to be one in which free market principles were respected, contrary to so many other industries. However, in the past year, I&#39;ve seen all these companies become just as ruthless as any multinational. I thought that all of the "dot coms" were small as a result of the industry functioning according to genuine free market principles, but in reality, they were just small *to begin with*. Most of them are small no longer. Furthermore, the more prosperous of these companies are now seeking to benefit from state privilege, which is evident in the many intellectual property lawsuits that are currently pending in the ecommerce industry.

When I was discovering this (and becoming a hardcore Linux user in the process), I was working as a customer service representative in a large and very well known software corporation (not Microsoft). The act of *working* instead of going to school gave me a new respect for organized labor movements. Additionally, it gave me an appreciation for the extent to which corporations screw their customers. As I spent the next six months working for this producer of buggy software, I came to the realization that my job as a "customer service" rep involved little more than developing clever rationalizations to defend this company&#39;s fraudulent activities. Most other reps bought into the company&#39;s rationalizations -- most of the employees, including the supervisors, sincerely believed that the company provided "world class" service to the customers, which couldn&#39;t be further from the truth. I&#39;m ashamed to say that I bought into *some* of the propaganda as a result of searching for ways to pacify irate customers. And because of the position that we were in -- that is, being constantly screamed at and criticized for policies beyond our control -- it was impossible to refrain from becoming extremely resentful towards rightfully upset customers. Finally, the company adopted some nasty new policies which were so obviously indefensible that I had to end my relationship with the company on general principle. I left completely disillusioned with corporate culture.

Although I favored free markets, I did so because I considered them to be necessitated by the principles that I held. Principles always came *first* for me -- not economics. However, around the time that I quit working at the software corporation, it finally truly sank in that businesses couldn&#39;t *care less* about principles. The questions "Is it right?" or "Is it just?" do not even enter the minds of the decision makers of capitalist businesses -- such questions are beside the point in their eyes. Although I was a right-libertarian at the time, I held my views because I genuinely believed that they followed logically from my beloved principle of self-government. Even though I knew that *many* capitalist businesses were completely lacking in principles, I did ignorantly believe that this was only true of large government aided corporations. It was very disheartening to learn over time that this fact applies to *most* businesses, regardless of whether or not they happen to be corporations that profit from state favor. If they don&#39;t actually receive favors from the state, then it is typically their *aim* to receive them.

A week after I quit the software company, I got lucky and snagged a job providing tech support at a local ISP. I thought to myself that this company, being a local business, would be fundamentally different. While I do greatly prefer working for the ISP to working for the mega-software giant, it quickly became obvious to me that the motivations and principles (or lack thereof) of the president and major shareholders of the ISP are no different from that of any major corporation. Although the ISP is relatively small as of now, it doesn&#39;t aim to remain as such for very long. I will say that an ISP&#39;s expansion is generally not favored by employees, as it forces us to take responsibility for customer issues that we&#39;re in no position to fix (as was so common with the software company). Furthermore, those who run the company still think of the employees as a cost to be minimized. The rule is to hire as few as possible, pay them as little as possible, and make them work as often as possible. Since starting with the company, I&#39;ve taken on many more responsibilities than just tech support, but my wages haven&#39;t risen. Despite the technical nature of my job, the workers at the nearby grocery store make more than I, as they&#39;re unionized and I&#39;m not.

My experience in the work world forced me to seriously reconsider my advocacy of capitalism in any form. As I was still very committed to libertarian principles, I began to study the "socialist anarchists". (I put "socialist anarchist" in quotes, as I now consider such a term to be a redundancy -- anarchists are necessarily socialists.) I forced myself to consider the fundamental disagreement that separates Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta from Rand, von Mises, and Friedman. My answer to myself: The advocates of capitalism believe that one can sign away or sell off one&#39;s liberty, whereas anarchists do not. As a right-wing libertarian capitalist, I was of the opinion that one could enter into a morally binding agreement in which one sacrifices one&#39;s liberty in exchange for a wage. My position was that a worker would be committing fraud against the employer if he attempted to retain rights to the full product of his labor. My argument was that if an employer has a "legitimate" prior claim upon the capital being used, then he has the right to dictate its terms of use. The laborer doesn&#39;t have the right to anything more than what the capitalist agrees to give, just as the capitalist doesn&#39;t have the right to take anything more than what the laborer agrees to give. (Of course, I didn&#39;t realize in my early "anarcho-capitalist" days that capitalists almost always demand more than what the worker initially agrees to give.)

My current position is that one cannot be ethically bound by agreements that restrict one&#39;s liberty to be self-governing. It has always been my view that one cannot be bound by an agreement to be a slave. Although one can enter into a contract that mandates one to serve as a slave, one should be considered free to cease honoring that contract at any time. However, I hadn&#39;t been applying this principle to all forms of domination -- I only applied it to full-time chattel slavery, not to wage slavery, domestic tyranny, etc. When I was working out my views regarding this issue, I decided to simplify my decision by subjecting myself to a thought experiment: Jones is a individual who has zero access to capital, which excludes him from being self-employed. He must must find somebody who will share access to capital if he is to continue to eat. Fortunately, Smith has plenty of capital, and is willing to share it -- under certain conditions of course. Smith says to Jones that he can use Smith&#39;s capital to produce, *provided* that Jones engages in 90% of the productivity while Smith engages in 10%. Also, Jones will only receive 10% of the revenues despite all of his hard work, while Smith gets to keep 90% for his hoggish self. Jones agrees to these conditions because he has no other option. Is Jones morally bound by his agreement to allow Smith to keep 8 in 9 parts of what what Jones produces? The capitalist, of course, answers, "Yes", and I once would have given the same answer, even though I knew intuitively that such an arrangement would be grossly unfair. My current answer is "No" -- this relationship between Smith and Jones is inherently exploitive, and Jones is entitled to much better.

That completed my conversion to real anarchism, which is to say *libertarian socialism*. The evolutionary process was slow -- it didn&#39;t happen all in one night. I continued to consider myself an individualist anarchist for awhile, and remained more attracted to the ideas of Tucker and Proudhon than any of the social anarchists. But as I read more Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and Rocker and studied the Spanish Civil War and Russian Revolution, I concluded that social anarchism was a better alternative. Unlike the individualist or mutualist varieties of anarchism, anarcho-communism doesn&#39;t provide an avenue for capitalism to reestablish itself and it has had partial revolutionary success in the past histories of countries such as Spain and the Ukraine. What initially turned me off to social anarchism is the fact that many of its advocates don&#39;t address the prospect of what&#39;s commonly called the "tyranny of the majority", which I think is a valid concern. It cannot be emphasized enough that under anarchism, nobody would be forced to join a commune or a federation. If one wishes to be free to work independently of a democratic collective, this freedom would be acknowledged and respected, provided that one doesn&#39;t attempt to hoard more resources than one uses or employ people for a wage. Granted, anarchists wouldn&#39;t *ban* wage labor, but "agreements" in which workers sign away their liberty would not be enforced.

Since making the transition from right-wing to left-wing libertarianism, I&#39;ve discovered that factionalism and sectarianism is just as pervasive here as it was there, if not more so. Technology is a good example of an issue that divides the anarchist movement. On one hand, there are the anarcho-primitivist luddites who eschew all forms of complex technology and wish to return to a hunter-gather society, and on the other, there are the anarchists who feel that technology can be beneficial if its development is directed by workers themselves in a manner that is accountable to the communities it affects. I fall somewhere in the middle between the two positions -- I have no desire to return to a hunter/gatherer society, but would also prefer not to rely upon technology that requires a division of labor so extreme that productivity becomes an alienated and meaningless activity. Working within the computer industry, I also understand that when technological complexity transcends our ability to understand it, this is an instance of the machine being in control of us and not vice-versa. Whether technology is a form of liberation or domination is a topic hotly debated by anarchists, but they agree, contra the right-wing "libertarians", that a society in which human-created circumstances force people to "agree" to subject their will to that of a boss is by no means "free".

Fair enough. But quite simply, I disagree.

Cutting out all the superflous writing, I do not believe the worker is trading away his liberty at all; he is excercising his liberty.

It isn&#39;t slavery at all.

His arguments stem from entry level, low paying jobs which make up a small percentage of the overall labor force.

You only have to look at the world around you to see some errors in what he is saying.

And his characterization of capitalists as only out for money is only half accurate. He does not take into account the positive aspects this single-mindedness has.

Without this drive to cut costs and expan, inefficiences would develop and propagate. It has been the downfall of every state socialist country and presumably, would be the downfall of socialisms in general.

Capitalism is the utter peak of performance and efficiency. I don&#39;t think that can be disputed.

Socialism, in my view, is looking at half the equation and coming up with a plan. It&#39;s a great plan for the data you&#39;re using, but without taking the rest into account, it&#39;s flawed.

And his stories don&#39;t do much for me. I can counter with stories that say the exact opposite about capitalists.

Hell, read a Rand book and you get nothing but.

[JKP]

It&#39;s fine that you think capitalists were great, even though most famous capitalists were monopolists who undermined and trampled on markets. However, Smith didn&#39;t. He vehemently attacks businessmen and frequently calls them masters and conspirators. Never does he praise them for "entrepreneurialism"

And as for equality being undesirable, that&#39;s somewhat of a moot point. Perfect equality would be a side effect of perfect liberty. Remember, this is Smith&#39;s opinion, not mine.


So this brings us back to my original statement on the santity of labour. When Smith speaks of liberty, he believed that a worker must have the full rights to his labour, and that this should never be violated(This was a widely held concept during the enlightenment, almost indisputable). You can also hear the same opinions in the philsophers of his time, such as John Stuart Mill.


I suppose what I&#39;m trying to get at is this:

Do you believe in Adam Smith&#39;s vison?

Or do you believe in capitalism?

[Publius]

Capitalism.

Attacking this dichotomy between Smith and I is serving no real purpose.

I never purported to be a doctrinaire Smithian.

He made a lot of valid points, many of which I agree with, some of which I don&#39;t.

But Smith isn&#39;t some sort of God-head to me. Capitalist theory and reality has evolved much since Smith.

[JKP]

Obviously capitalism has been influenced by Smith, but I take it that you consider capitalism to be a stand alone idealogy onto its own?

[Publius]

I don&#39;t know if you can quite say that.

There are certainly many strands and variants of capitalism, but I would say it&#39;s close.