Let's face the facts

[Empire]

Greetings all, I am new here, and I am a <gasp> capitalist&#33;

You think you are all greedless communists fighting for liberty. I beleive you are all closet capitalists. Why pray tell? You all seem to want money&#33;

Before I read Marx, I expected a book about communism, Have you ever read Marx? Das Kapital? It is all about MONEY. That&#39;s right. Cold hard MOOLAH from beginning to end. It turns out Marx himself was a capitalist and didn&#39;t have to work. Did he on Engles ever share their fortune? Did the profits from their books go to the poor? If not they were capitalists trying to sell a book&#33; :o

I beleive people become socialists when they realise they are unable, or unwilling to get rich slow. Perhaps you people wish to get rich quick? That&#39;s what &#39;wealth redistribution&#39; is, is it not? A transfer of MONEY? Can anyone here tell me they don&#39;t want money? Can anyone refute me who wishes to stay poor?

So long fellow Capitalists&#33;

[More Fire for the People]

Marx wasn&#39;t a capitalist he was unemployed who drew funds from his close friend Engels who had inherited his father&#39;s factory. Das Kapital is a book about capitalism because it is a critique of capitalism. If you want to read about socialism I suggest you read the following...

The Principles of Communism (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm)
The Civil War in France - Chapter 5 [The Paris Commune] (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm)

[ComTom]

Do you know what you are talking about? IF you can&#39;t come up with a good argument, don&#39;t present one at all. You know nothing about communism, so get out of here.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 06:20 PM




Did the profits from their books go to the poor?

what profits? marx was barely able to live, if there were any profits at all they would have funded his meager existance.


I beleive people become socialists when they realise they are unable, or unwilling to get rich slow.

hey ill let you in on a little secret, some people DONT GET RICH.


Perhaps you people wish to get rich quick? That&#39;s what &#39;wealth redistribution&#39; is, is it not? A transfer of MONEY? Can anyone here tell me they don&#39;t want money? Can anyone refute me who wishes to stay poor?


wealth redistribution? hmm sounds like promoting equality to me not capitalism.

transfering money is a necessity to survive in our society. it does not determine what you think nor what you wish to put in place.


So long fellow Capitalists&#33;

see you on the battlefield.

[Amusing Scrotum]

I think a restriction is coming. :lol:


Before I read Marx, I expected a book about communism,

How can anyone write about a hypothetical social order if that order hasn&#39;t yet occurred?


Have you ever read Marx? Das Kapital?

Is that all the Marx you&#39;ve read?


It is all about MONEY.

Capital if one wanted to be precise.


That&#39;s right. Cold hard MOOLAH from beginning to end.

Well he is writing about Capitalism. What did you expect?


It turns out Marx himself was a capitalist and didn&#39;t have to work.

He was unemployed for long periods of his life. At other times he worked as a newspaper editor.


Did he on Engles ever share their fortune?

Engels shared his "fortune" with Marx and Marx didn&#39;t have a fortune.


Did the profits from their books go to the poor?

Marx couldn&#39;t even make a living off his work while he was alive. He hardly had money to "splash about."


If not they were capitalists trying to sell a book&#33;

He tried to get published. So what?


I beleive people become socialists when they realise they are unable, or unwilling to get rich slow.

"Believe" (i before e) being the operative word.


A transfer of MONEY? Can anyone here tell me they don&#39;t want money?

Communism is a money-less society.


So long fellow Capitalists&#33;

How old are you? ......12, perhaps 13?

[Zingu]

And I thought arguements against Marxism couldn&#39;t get any stupider. The stupidity of this arguement is so large in magnitude, I don&#39;t know how I could ever reaspond with anything reasonable, but I&#39;ll try.




Before I read Marx, I expected a book about communism, Have you ever read Marx? Das Kapital? It is all about MONEY. That&#39;s right. Cold hard MOOLAH from beginning to end.

Its an analysis and critique of capitalism, duh.

And to make that critque, he has to analyze it first, Marx drew off the same analysis as Ricardo and Smith, but he concluded in a view that Ricardo and Smith never saw, the explotation of the working class&#39;s labor.

And it isn&#39;t about &#39;MONEY&#39;, money is a medium of exchange in capitalistic markets, Das Kapital is about the relationship between labor and capital, genius. :rolleyes:

You could also try reading Wage Labor and Capital, The Grundrisse, Class Struggle and Mode of Production.


I beleive people become socialists when they realise they are unable, or unwilling to get rich slow. Perhaps you people wish to get rich quick? That&#39;s what &#39;wealth redistribution&#39; is, is it not? A transfer of MONEY? Can anyone here tell me they don&#39;t want money? Can anyone refute me who wishes to stay poor?


This doesn&#39;t even deserve a intelligent responce. This post has to be a joke.

[Ownthink]

hey ill let you in on a little secret, some people DONT GET RICH.
Try most people don&#39;t get rich.

[Andy Bowden]

Im only a Socialist for the money, rampant sex, drugs and alcohol. :)

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Yes, a vast majority of poeple tend to benefit monetarialy from communism.

[Publius]

I sold my communism for like 30 bucks one time.

Best deal I ever made.

[synthesis]

Does anyone else remember the guy who came here claiming that the Manifesto was actually written satirically with the purpose of warning people against communism?

[Rockfan]

Even the capitalists here must agree that that is one of the worst arguments against communism ever&#33;&#33;&#33; :D

[ComTom]

This was obviously a Lord of the Rings fan who felt like pissing a bunch of dumb shits off so he went on this site. But then he discovered that maybe, we aren&#39;t that dumb and we actually can read. I think that this person deserves to have his Lord of the Rings trilogy ripped from his hands and his pokemon cards confiscated.

[Fidelbrand]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2005, 12:03 PM
and his pokemon cards confiscated.
:lol: :lol: that&#39;s a good one. :D

[Raisa]

the post was too good for the thread.

But you bet your ass I want some money.

[Atlas Swallowed]

No, all I want is for my children to grow up in a system that is not rigged against them for the benefit of the few. Have you ever concidered that some people unlike yourself are not shallow and materialistic?

[Lord Testicles]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 10:20 PM
If not they were capitalists trying to sell a book&#33;


If you look around you can get copys of the manifesto for free :o

[Forward Union]

Shit he&#39;s rumbled me, im really a money craving capitalist, though I&#39;ve never known why I decided to pretend I was the opposite...it&#39;s made me so much money <_<

[Intifada]

Yep.

I wanna be the next Abramovich.

Except I will buy Man Utd off the Glazer scumbags.

[angus_mor]

Empire,

Your views of Communist Theory are limited, and misinformed, as well as evidence that you have not read much of Marxist Theory, if any. Wants and needs are inherent in every human being, and those who realise the ease of fooling a human have masked these basic wants and needs behind money, to appropriate their own greed. When you remove this mask, you reveal what is at the heart of every person who fights for self actualisation, which is what we are in part fighting for. Money simply distorts our perceptions of value almost anywhere the term value is applied, people often ignore distinctions between Money and commodities. Money has dominated so effectively that it has caused many to confuse want and need. With this in mind, realise that everyone needs to secure a livelihood in the world, which means working with the current institutions of society, in this case, capitalism. So either everyone&#39;s a hypocrite, or everyone&#39;s just trying to survive. Personally, I prefer a more rational generalisation as opposed to a cynical one.

[Raisa]

Wanting money isnt what makes you a capitalist. Wanting capital is what makes you a capitalist.

Millions of poor people around the world want money.

[DisIllusion]

Originally posted by Andy [email protected] 13 2005, 03:15 PM
Im only a Socialist for the money, rampant sex, drugs and alcohol. :)
Don&#39;t forget the hot Socialist girls.

Did you really have to read the entire of Das Kapital (Which I highly doubt you did) to find out that it was about *gasp* CAPITAL&#33;? Whodathunkit. I mean, with Capital in the title and everything, it must have been very challenging to realize that.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2005, 03:14 PM
Wanting money isnt what makes you a capitalist. Wanting capital is what makes you a capitalist.

Millions of poor people around the world want money.
very well-said

Marx addressed the fact that communism will allow people to have stuff, depending on the material conditions of that given society. What will not be possible will be the use of capital to exploit others and the exploitation of others for acquiring capital...


Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriations. - Communist Manifesto

[Empire]

Thank you for all your replies. They were all very much appreciated and I have gained new insight, particularly the deconstructive ones. Thanks for the links as well, I read a few. I do however have a few bones to pick.....



This was obviously a Lord of the Rings fan...


We need more good men like you at Scotland Yard&#33; :lol:



I think that this person deserves to have his Lord of the Rings trilogy ripped from his hands and his pokemon cards confiscated.


:o ....WOW I better watch my step around here&#33; :ph34r:




Have you ever concidered that some people unlike yourself are not shallow and materialistic?


Are you saying you don&#39;t want wealth distribution anymore? That&#39;s matter is&#39;nt it?



Did you really have to read the entire of Das Kapital ...


Actually I only got through the first chapter. He was basically saying the workers aren&#39;t getting enough money. All the other pages are the same thing: "The workers are exploited." Why? "Employers don&#39;t give us enough MONEY&#33;" "I want to be an employer" ... "I want to be rich&#33;" "Let&#39;s take over a factory&#33;" "ERRR&#33;"



But you bet your ass I want some money.


I am Vindicated&#33;

[Rockfan]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 04:14 PM
"Employers don&#39;t give us enough MONEY&#33;"
Thus we abolish it because it will eventually have no use.

No where in that book does it say "I want to be an employer" or "I want to be rich&#33;" . Reading one chapter hardly seems like you&#39;ve done enough reasearch into communism to critizes it&#33;&#33;

[Elect Marx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 05:20 PM
Greetings all, I am new here, and I am a <gasp> capitalist&#33;

You think you are all greedless communists fighting for liberty. I beleive you are all closet capitalists. Why pray tell? You all seem to want money&#33;
Indeed; if you are a capitalist, the best way to profit is pretending to be a communist on a message board.


Before I read Marx, I expected a book about communism, Have you ever read Marx? Das Kapital? It is all about MONEY. That&#39;s right. Cold hard MOOLAH from beginning to end.

I know, damn; McCarthy musta been a commie too&#33;


It turns out Marx himself was a capitalist and didn&#39;t have to work. Did he on Engles ever share their fortune? Did the profits from their books go to the poor? If not they were capitalists trying to sell a book&#33; :o

Marx did say he wasn&#39;t a Marxist and Lenin said he would sell rope at his own hanging... it all makes so much sense now&#33;


I beleive people become socialists when they realise they are unable, or unwilling to get rich slow.

Oh yeah, I remember that phase, I was like pffft, hitting the big time takes too long, I&#39;m gonna go where the money is good, in the liberation market. Let&#39;s see how the commie stock is doing.


Perhaps you people wish to get rich quick? That&#39;s what &#39;wealth redistribution&#39; is, is it not? A transfer of MONEY? Can anyone here tell me they don&#39;t want money? Can anyone refute me who wishes to stay poor?

Yeah, Marx&#39;s book on wealth redistribution was a great read, I especially like how he noted the unicorns influence in electoral politics. I can&#39;t wait until communism happens again and we all get our checks in the mail.


So long fellow Capitalists&#33;

Leaving so soon? Do come to a rally real soon comrade.

[Lord Testicles]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 04:14 AM
Actually I only got through the first chapter. He was basically saying the workers aren&#39;t getting enough money. All the other pages are the same thing: "The workers are exploited." Why? "Employers don&#39;t give us enough MONEY&#33;" "I want to be an employer" ... "I want to be rich&#33;" "Let&#39;s take over a factory&#33;" "ERRR&#33;"
WoW, your bloody amazing by reading the first chapter of a book you can tell what the whole book is about i bet you get through books like there was no tomorrow, you know only having to read the first chapter.
What are you about 12?&#33;? you read the first chapter of Das Kapital and you think you know enought knowladge to critizes it, come back when you have done a bit more reserch you fucking dipshit.

[Empire]

Why are you so angry with me Skinz? Are you saying Workers don&#39;t want to take over the factory to make more money? Maybee you should read Marx?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 11:48 AM
Why are you so angry with me Skinz? Are you saying Workers don&#39;t want to take over the factory to make more money? Maybee you should read Marx?
Maybe you should stop trolling?

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 04:14 AM
Actually I only got through the first chapter. He was basically saying the workers aren&#39;t getting enough money. All the other pages are the same thing: "The workers are exploited." Why? "Employers don&#39;t give us enough MONEY&#33;" "I want to be an employer" ... "I want to be rich&#33;" "Let&#39;s take over a factory&#33;" "ERRR&#33;"
Liar.

The first chapter isn&#39;t about money or exploitation of workers by capitalists. It is about commodities.

What&#39;s the point in pretending that you have read a book when you clearly haven&#39;t?

Or the idea is to show that some people who pretend to be socialists here also haven&#39;t? In this case, let me explain to you: We already know.

Thanks for trying to help the Communist International Movement; you are welcome.

Luís Henrique

[Manic_Fist]

i&#39;m really sorry to say this...but that&#39;s a fucking stupid arguement that you have presented, what&#39;s wrong with wanting money? what is wrong with wanting a better standard of living? i don&#39;t have to live in the &#39;projects&#39; and work in &#39;factories&#39; to be a real communist, i can own a multinational company and still be a communist....i don&#39;t have to conform to non-conformity to be a real communist...as long as i make an honest...or dishonest buck,lol...it&#39;s all about survival my friend,until the revolution comes, we have to survive...by whatever means possible.

[KC]

Actually I only got through the first chapter. He was basically saying the workers aren&#39;t getting enough money. All the other pages are the same thing: "The workers are exploited." Why? "Employers don&#39;t give us enough MONEY&#33;" "I want to be an employer" ... "I want to be rich&#33;" "Let&#39;s take over a factory&#33;" "ERRR&#33;"


Actually in the first chapter all he talks about is value of a commodity: use values, values, relative and equivalent commodities in an exchange, the simple form of value, the expanded form, the general form, the money form. Not much about saying workers aren&#39;t getting enough money.


Why are you so angry with me Skinz? Are you saying Workers don&#39;t want to take over the factory to make more money? Maybee you should read Marx?

Communism is about abolishing the monetary system, genius.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

The problem is that individuals will always prefer class. They will want to feel better about themselves by having people beneath them and they will be jealous of people whom they believe to be better--either because of money, job, looks, etc. or some other internal standard.

People who oppose classes generally are jealous of the people above them, not those below them. A truly class-less society is going to more likely resemble an African tribe than the American suburb IMO.

[KC]

You are going to have to provide some proof of that, Capitalist Lawyer, otherwise it doesn&#39;t really count as an argument.

[Cullmac]

I dont look down at the people &#39;below&#39; me and smile, i want to help them and i feel the injustice in the world. Im also not jealous of the people who are richer then me, im angry because they have the power to help the people.

[Apka]

You think you are all greedless communists fighting for liberty. I beleive you are all closet capitalists. Why pray tell? You all seem to want money&#33;

Wanting money for the sake of money itself is absurd, merely a product of social structures. Not rationality.

[Alexknucklehead]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2005, 07:50 PM
Except I will buy Man Utd off the Glazer scumbags.
Who in their right mind would want Man Utd ;)

[Tungsten]

RedZeppelin


Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriations. - Communist Manifesto

Except that you can&#39;t give him the power to appropriate the products of society without granting him the power to subjucate the labour of others.

You never learn, do you?

Cullmac

I dont look down at the people &#39;below&#39; me and smile, i want to help them and i feel the injustice in the world. Im also not jealous of the people who are richer then me, im angry because they have the power to help the people.

So you want to dominate people richer than yourself and force them to spend their money on causes that you think are worthwile and give it to people who you think deserve it?

As sketchy as Empire&#39;s argument is, I think you&#39;ve proven his point.

[Iroquois Xavier]

Wanting money does not make you a capitalist it is how you use it that determines that. :) Empire is scum&#33;

[Capitalist Lawyer]

You are going to have to provide some proof of that, Capitalist Lawyer, otherwise it doesn&#39;t really count as an argument.


Proof of what exactly Lazar?

While your at it, what is your proof of this (although you didn&#39;t say this exactly but it is the underlying premise to communist thought:

Because it is only in classless society that everyone is free to "become themselves" instead of a "cog" in someone else&#39;s economic machine.


I know a few people who are self employed who will tell you the same thing--it is a heck of a lot more stressful economically than being a "wage-slave" as you say. They have to figure out how to keep the lights on, the wages paid, the benefits provided, the endless bills paid, etc. 365 days a year through some pretty lean times. In addition, there is no such thing as a paid holiday, sick day, or vacation day. Your job is with you from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep--no quitting time for you. I was a lot more "myself" as a cog than as a machine.

As for my post, the ego is what it is. People compare themselves to others. If you need explaination of that then take a class in psychology, sociology, or even marketing.

Furthermore, your notion that people being free to "become themselves" is ludicrous. There will be people who become nothing and people who become Bill Gates and social structure will have nothing to do with that, and you will still end up with a society not that unlike the one we already have.

Some people are naturally lazy and some people are over achievers. That can be seen in individual families where the socio-economics are the same for all the children--some children do well and some don&#39;t. The children of the lazy will then likely get a poor start and the children of the over achievers will likely get a better start.

How does a classless society deal with that?

I know that Marxism was indeed an attempt to understand social phenomenon, but also an attempt to predict the future, which failed miserably.

Marx&#39;s views made a certain amount of sense given the period, he wrote in, but he failed to accurately understand human tendencies. As I pointed out, those who advocate a &#39;classless&#39; society usually do so because they are below someone else and looking up. "If only things were equal, I wouldn&#39;t be in this lousy job."

Marx failed to draw the correct conclusions when he designated his various steps of society along the path to communism/socialism/classless society. He assumed that capitalism would be such an evil force and that workers would be supressed so much that they would throw off their shackles and demand equality. But this hasn&#39;t happened because capitaism is always one step ahead of Marx. It&#39;s the ultimate in flexible economic systems. Is it perfect?

Hardly. But if there is one thing the study of human history has shown me, it&#39;s that capitalism and democracy most closely mirror human tendencies.

[KC]

Proof of what exactly Lazar?


Proof that people will prefer class society over a classless one.



While your at it, what is your proof of this (although you didn&#39;t say this exactly but it is the underlying premise to communist thought:

Because it is only in classless society that everyone is free to "become themselves" instead of a "cog" in someone else&#39;s economic machine.

Depends on what you mean by "a &#39;cog&#39; in someone elses economic machine." The reason that this above statement is true (if I&#39;m interpreting it right) is because people are volunteering to work and they are choosing what kind of work they want.




I know a few people who are self employed who will tell you the same thing--it is a heck of a lot more stressful economically than being a "wage-slave" as you say. They have to figure out how to keep the lights on, the wages paid, the benefits provided, the endless bills paid, etc. 365 days a year through some pretty lean times. In addition, there is no such thing as a paid holiday, sick day, or vacation day. Your job is with you from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep--no quitting time for you. I was a lot more "myself" as a cog than as a machine.

It&#39;s hard work stealing from people, eh? :lol:



As for my post, the ego is what it is. People compare themselves to others. If you need explaination of that then take a class in psychology, sociology, or even marketing.

That doesn&#39;t matter. That isn&#39;t even close to evidence for the claim that you made.



Furthermore, your notion that people being free to "become themselves" is ludicrous. There will be people who become nothing and people who become Bill Gates and social structure will have nothing to do with that, and you will still end up with a society not that unlike the one we already have.

What? :lol: How will people "become Bill Gates"? What do you mean by "become"? Economically? What does this even mean?



Some people are naturally lazy and some people are over achievers. That can be seen in individual families where the socio-economics are the same for all the children--some children do well and some don&#39;t. The children of the lazy will then likely get a poor start and the children of the over achievers will likely get a better start.


Laziness is a result of the dislike of a person&#39;s job/school. Nothing more. Nobody is "naturally lazy".



How does a classless society deal with that?

By letting people take whatever job they want and giving people more of a choice over what their life is going to be like.



I know that Marxism was indeed an attempt to understand social phenomenon, but also an attempt to predict the future, which failed miserably.

Hardly.



Marx&#39;s views made a certain amount of sense given the period, he wrote in, but he failed to accurately understand human tendencies.

Actually, he fully understood human tendencies. What human tendencies do you think he failed to understand?


As I pointed out, those who advocate a &#39;classless&#39; society usually do so because they are below someone else and looking up. "If only things were equal, I wouldn&#39;t be in this lousy job."

Marx&#39;s political thought was based on the result of his economic research.



Marx failed to draw the correct conclusions when he designated his various steps of society along the path to communism/socialism/classless society. He assumed that capitalism would be such an evil force and that workers would be supressed so much that they would throw off their shackles and demand equality. But this hasn&#39;t happened because capitaism is always one step ahead of Marx. It&#39;s the ultimate in flexible economic systems. Is it perfect?

I&#39;d give it about 50 more years.



Hardly. But if there is one thing the study of human history has shown me, it&#39;s that capitalism and democracy most closely mirror human tendencies.

Democracy in capitalist society doesn&#39;t exist.

[Hegemonicretribution]

I will try and stay clear of the minefield of flames that is this thread, but here goes. Essentially you are saying that workers just want a bigger slice of the pie (money...wealth..whatever you want to symbolise this)? If so then I would agree, but only in part, as this is misleading.

Capitalism relies upon the assumption that humans infinite wants that need to be met, as best as possible, by the finite resources available, no? I would disagree.

If you look at workers throughout history, some of them stop striving as hard, or even at all towards increasing their wealth after they have reached a position that satisfies their needs comfortably. I am not saying there is a definite level, and relative poverty comes in, but essentially most people do not hold accumulation of wealth as the end goal, although sometimes they see it as the means.

Communism seeks to harness this desire, so that through so-operation these material needs can best be met for all. Of course there are a few on the top that will be worse off, no one denies that. What is denied is their actual right to occuy a position over and above the rest of the workers, especially when they are not, as the system would imply, the hardest workers in many cases.

Capitalism has problems resulting from a lack of greed, communism benifits from the desire of workers to satisy their needs. The problem currently exists where accumulation of unsustainable wealth is promoted as an end unto the proletariat, when it is very unlikely to occur. Communism is only about realistic distribution of wealth according to the resources available, and social freedom.

[Tungsten]

Lazar

Laziness is a result of the dislike of a person&#39;s job/school. Nothing more. Nobody is "naturally lazy".

What about the guy with no job, who finds it easier to live off the state? What&#39;s his laziness the result of?


By letting people take whatever job they want and giving people more of a choice over what their life is going to be like.

You can do that already, you just have to find a willing audience.


Actually, he fully understood human tendencies. What human tendencies do you think he failed to understand?

Most of them. Notably the one where people are just going to work for work&#39;s sake. It isn&#39;t going to happen.


I&#39;d give it about 50 more years.

There was probably some marxist back in 1906 saying exactly the same thing.


Democracy in capitalist society doesn&#39;t exist.

That&#39;s what&#39;s so good about it.

Hegemonicretribution

Communism is only about realistic distribution of wealth according to the resources available, and social freedom.

That&#39;s amazing. Sanctimony, arrogance, contradictions and thuggery all in one sentence.

What are these "resources" that are "available"? Time? Labour? Does this mean that my time and labour is an "available resource" that&#39;s going to be "realistically distributed", too? A bit of freudian slip there, Retribution. You ought to know by now that when dealing with libertarians, such thugspeak gets called out for what it is.

If my time and labour doesn&#39;t belong to me and is a "resource" up for grabs, then doesn&#39;t that make me a slave, seeing as I&#39;m being- for all intents and purposes -owned by these people who are doing the distributing? You might not claim that you advocate slavery, but the intention is definitely there.

[Red Leader]

I know that Marxism was indeed an attempt to understand social phenomenon, but also an attempt to predict the future, which failed miserably.

Holy shit, you can see the future???&#33;&#33;&#33; Tellus, what happens???? :o


What about the guy with no job, who finds it easier to live off the state? What&#39;s his laziness the result of?


Why do you all think that no job equates to laziness? This said person probably tried very hard to get a job but was turned down because of lack of credentials, he smelled, looked like a bum, was discriminated againt or whetever. Things happen, and for some it is very hard to get a job no matter how hard they try.


Most of them. Notably the one where people are just going to work for work&#39;s sake. It isn&#39;t going to happen.

What???&#33;&#33; You can see the future too??? Shit...



What are these "resources" that are "available"? Time? Labour? Does this mean that my time and labour is an "available resource" that&#39;s going to be "realistically distributed", too?

These resources are refering to those being exploited by the rich who buy huge mansions and cars to excess, and consume so much food that they have to actually diet to stay healthy. It actually disgusting if you think about it.

Your time and labour are not "redistributed", but rather regarded as equal to everyone elses. Nobody is enslaving anybody you imbecile, it is simply people doing shit cuz shit needs to be done. There is no need for monetary incentive because money wont exist&#33;

Time and labour is only refered to as a resource because, like other tangeble resources, these things are exploited for someone elses wealth. Just like a rich guy uses up acres of land so he can have a fancy house, the worker&#39;s time and labour have been exploited to excess so that these rich fucks can buy these houses and the like. But that isnt the case with communism. Everyone&#39;s time and labour would be valued equal and nobody would be using anybody&#39;s to benifit any single person, they would use it to benift society. Like in an ecosystem, millions of species living together, weak and strong, however as soon as one single species is exploited to the point wear it can no longer support itself, the whole society crumbles to the the strongest organism.

Imagine what would happen if there were no miners, factory workers or farmers to provide such all that high class decadence to those so fortunate enough to diserve it after all thier "hard work".

[red team]

What about the guy with no job, who finds it easier to live off the state? What&#39;s his laziness the result of?


Oh, you mean like Paris Hilton? She sure does work hard.
I forgot what was her job again? :lol:



By letting people take whatever job they want and giving people more of a choice over what their life is going to be like.

You can do that already, you just have to find a willing audience.


The situation in which I find myself in determines my choices not the other way around.
Some people have better choices than myself because they find themselves in a better situation.
There are some choices I cannot make even though they are objectively fair because of unequal laws instituted in the society. If I insist on making those choices and breaking the law I&#39;ll quickly find myself at the wrong end of a barrel of a gun, even though those choice are indeed objectively fair.


Most of them. Notably the one where people are just going to work for work&#39;s sake. It isn&#39;t going to happen.

Depends on the type of work doesn&#39;t it?
Most people involved in scientific and artistic work do exactly that.

While we&#39;re on the subject of work, when&#39;s the last time you&#39;ve seen an elevator operator or a street lantern lighter or a horse buggy driver?

Jobs that people don&#39;t want to do will become obsolete through time.



I&#39;d give it about 50 more years.

There was probably some marxist back in 1906 saying exactly the same thing.


The Roman Empire a slave empire lasted from its inception to its end for 1000 years
Feudalism which came after the fall of Rome lasted another 1200 years
Capitalism from roughly the French Revolution onwards 1789 to now 217 years and counting

Given the pace of technological progress and cultural change I don&#39;t expect it to last as long as the Roman slavocracy. Probably by 2400 Capitalism would be globally regarded as an obsolete social-economic system.


If my time and labour doesn&#39;t belong to me and is a "resource" up for grabs, then doesn&#39;t that make me a slave, seeing as I&#39;m being- for all intents and purposes -owned by these people who are doing the distributing? You might not claim that you advocate slavery, but the intention is definitely there.

From someone who doesn&#39;t quite understand what slavery means. Your time and labour if you truly are a slave will be distributed only to those who control you. They reap all the benefits of your time and labour with you reaping enough just to keep you alive. If your time and labour are collectively shared with you also sharing in the collective wealth of everybody else&#39;s labour you are not a slave. Since you insist on a master/slave analogy let me put it to you this way. If you reap the benefits of somebody else&#39;s redistributed labour you&#39;re a master. If somebody else reaps the benefits of your redistributed labour you&#39;re a slave. But if both is true as it will be Communist society you&#39;re both a master and a slave which means you&#39;re neither a master nor a slave.

In any case most of your point would be moot when material conditions makes Communist society inevitable. All manual labour of any significance to the economy would not be performed by humans. Mechanisation and automation would make arguments about labour seem silly.


Red Team

[Vladislav]

lalaalalalalalalalala....I don&#39;t care about rich capitalistic pigs swimming in money. I do care about all the shit thats happening in this world and I will work along fellow comrades to improve the world. I do, however, want money. Money to buy guns off fucktards who won&#39;t share them so I can preapare for the revolution, although I do want a peaceful revolution with no casualties, I guess there will be people who will be too stupid to see the truth.

You poor misguided child Empire.

[Tungsten]

Red Leader


What???&#33;&#33; You can see the future too??? Shit...
All you need to do it look at the past...

Your time and labour are not "redistributed", but rather regarded as equal to everyone elses.
That tells me that it&#39;s equal to everyone else&#39;s, not whose is it to dispose of or what&#39;s going to be done with it.

Nobody is enslaving anybody you imbecile, it is simply people doing shit cuz shit needs to be done.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

There is no need for monetary incentive because money wont exist&#33;
So we&#39;re going for the classic "no pay" model of slavery then?

Time and labour is only refered to as a resource because, like other tangeble resources, these things are exploited for someone elses wealth.
I don&#39;t want that to happen, thanks. My "resources" are not up for grabs.

Just like a rich guy uses up acres of land so he can have a fancy house, the worker&#39;s time and labour have been exploited to excess so that these rich fucks can buy these houses and the like. But that isnt the case with communism.
I don&#39;t think you&#39;ve understood a word I&#39;ve said.

Everyone&#39;s time and labour would be valued equal and nobody would be using anybody&#39;s to benifit any single person, they would use it to benift society.
That&#39;s the problem. I don&#39;t want to work to benefit "society" (i.e. other people), at least not directly. I don&#39;t want to be a slave to the needs of others. What&#39;s the problem with someone working to benefit a single person? Surely that&#39;s their choice and what does claiming otherwise amount to, other than claiming ownership of the person and their labour?

red team

Oh, you mean like Paris Hilton? She sure does work hard.
I forgot what was her job again? :lol:
Try answering the question next time. No matter whether you like her or not (I don&#39;t), there are people who do and are willing to pay money to see her do whatever she does, however little she does.

The situation in which I find myself in determines my choices not the other way around.
Some people have better choices than myself because they find themselves in a better situation.
There are some choices I cannot make even though they are objectively fair because of unequal laws instituted in the society.
What, for instance?

If I insist on making those choices and breaking the law I&#39;ll quickly find myself at the wrong end of a barrel of a gun, even though those choice are indeed objectively fair.
Like what?

Depends on the type of work doesn&#39;t it?
No.

From someone who doesn&#39;t quite understand what slavery means.
I do undestand what it means and what&#39;s more, I recognise it even when you dressit up as something else and give it a different name.

Your time and labour if you truly are a slave will be distributed only to those who control you. They reap all the benefits of your time and labour with you reaping enough just to keep you alive.
That&#39;s correct.

If your time and labour are collectively shared with you also sharing in the collective wealth of everybody else&#39;s labour you are not a slave.
But I am. The only thing that is changed is the number of slave masters and the fact that I get to enslave others too.

Since you insist on a master/slave analogy let me put it to you this way. If you reap the benefits of somebody else&#39;s redistributed labour you&#39;re a master. If somebody else reaps the benefits of your redistributed labour you&#39;re a slave.
But if both is true as it will be Communist society you&#39;re both a master and a slave which means you&#39;re neither a master nor a slave.
All that means you are both a master to whoever you need and a slave to whoever needs you and that&#39;s when the race to enslave others while avoiding being enslaved yourself by appearing as needy and incompetent as possible begins. Let&#39;s just not be either master or slave.

Vladislav

I do care about all the shit thats happening in this world and I will work along fellow comrades to improve the world.

And how do you intend to improve the world? I sure hope it doesn&#39;t involve institutionalising slavery like the people I&#39;ve replied to in this thread want to do.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 10:48 PM
That&#39;s amazing. Sanctimony, arrogance, contradictions and thuggery all in one sentence.




You&#39;re welcome ;) :lol:


What are these "resources" that are "available"? Time? Labour? Does this mean that my time and labour is an "available resource" that&#39;s going to be "realistically distributed", too? A bit of freudian slip there, Retribution. You ought to know by now that when dealing with libertarians, such thugspeak gets called out for what it is.

Not a slip, Freudian, or otherwise.I know what I said, and what is more I can justify it now that it has been challenged. I do find it interesting that you accuse me of thugspeak, I don&#39;t think I have ever been grouped with the authoritarian group on this site, but there is a first time for everything.

Land, labour and "capital" are resources. Capital is not exactly the right term to use when talking hypothetically about communism, as essential this relies upon ownership. Land is not owned, so this is neither here nor there.

The laws of supply and demand apparently distribute these resources effectively, or as effectively as we can hope for, although I disagree. Labour is the case of interest here, so I will focus on that.

You are implying that there is coercion required to harness labour, but I ask you why you assume this? You stated many problems with a small part of what I said, but did not explain what you meant by them, or why they will occur.

In capitalism there isn&#39;t coercion as such (you liberals are all about this "freedom"), however there is an economic compulsion to work. Essentially there is a similar occurance in communism, although it is shared over all of society.


If my time and labour doesn&#39;t belong to me and is a "resource" up for grabs, then doesn&#39;t that make me a slave, seeing as I&#39;m being- for all intents and purposes -owned by these people who are doing the distributing? You might not claim that you advocate slavery, but the intention is definitely there.

You are correct that they don&#39;t belong to you, they don&#39;t belong to anyone, there is no belonging. If there was ownership, then I agree that most of these criticisms would require attention, but there is no ownership. That isn&#39;t saying that your right to it is abolished, it is saying that the concept itself is.

You surmised that people doing the distribution would own your labour. Before I can give a truly adequate answer (I realise and accepty this is a little vague), I would have to know what you mean by this. Are you saying that there will be people that are directly calling the shots? If it is then you have missed the point, as this cannot happen. That would be like a class.

Slavery is misleading in this context, because in capitalist society it means someone that works without being paid. When you do away with payment (it becomes useless when what you would buy is provided) then I can see how you would reach that conclusion. However this definition is only applicable in capitalism, as the nature of this role would change along with such a massive social shift.

You don&#39;t get paid for your work, and you don&#39;t buy what you consume, so is that really slavery? When your needs are met (and I don&#39;t mean just that which is fundamental to survival) what purpose would payment serve?

On a macro level the produce of your labour is payment for what is consumed, and this is the same for people in all areas of work.



I just saw that you have replied since I started typing this, so I will redirect efforts there towrds those questions: "your" labour is noones to redirect, there can be no coercion here as there is no authority from which this coercion can come. Individual economic compulsion is replaced by a social one, that is all.

If you choose not to work for the benifits of society, are you also going to abstain from the fruits of this society? Are you wanting some kinsd of subsistance existence outside of society? I don&#39;t understand what you are trying to say here.

Regardless, whilst such problems still exist society will not be complete. It will be in the transitory state, where there is (according to some schools of though) a proletarian dictatorship overseeing this. So in essence noone care about the selfish people, unless they are trying to disrupt things majorly. Then I am affraid it is up to the workers, not me to say what happens. Lets see shall we?

[Tungsten]

Hegemonicretribution

You are implying that there is coercion required to harness labour, but I ask you why you assume this?
Isn&#39;t demanding someone else&#39;s labour by right a form of coercion?

You stated many problems with a small part of what I said, but did not explain what you meant by them, or why they will occur.
Which parts?

In capitalism there isn&#39;t coercion as such (you liberals are all about this "freedom"), however there is an economic compulsion to work.
No more than there is a compulsion to eat.

Essentially there is a similar occurance in communism, although it is shared over all of society.
Not quite. Compare being forced to eat to survive to being force-fed.

You are correct that they don&#39;t belong to you, they don&#39;t belong to anyone, there is no belonging.
So I&#39;m not getting any say in how I work or who gets what I earn? "No belonging" aside, someone, an individual will be getting and consuming what I make, so what will I be then, if not a slave to this individual? It doesn&#39;t matter that everyone else is in the same boat- they&#39;re slaves too. I&#39;d rather this relationship of univeral slavery not come about at all.

Are you saying that there will be people that are directly calling the shots?
Anyone who needs anything will be calling the shots.

If it is then you have missed the point, as this cannot happen. That would be like a class.
And there&#39;s your problem. It will happen and it is indeed like a class- a slave class that we&#39;ll all be members of. No doubt physical punishment will be waiting for those who don&#39;t wish to pander to the needs of others.

Slavery is misleading in this context, because in capitalist society it means someone that works without being paid.
True, in a way. Although I could point a gun at you and force you to do something, but still pay you. Would you still be a slave then? Actually, yes you would.

You don&#39;t get paid for your work, and you don&#39;t buy what you consume, so is that really slavery?
That would depend on how I got it and whether the person who gave me the products did it out of uncoerced choice. If guns were being pointed at him and he was being forced to give me something, would it be fair to say "he is not a slave"? Certainly not.

When your needs are met (and I don&#39;t mean just that which is fundamental to survival) what purpose would payment serve?
Why would I want to merely survive?

I just saw that you have replied since I started typing this, so I will redirect efforts there towrds those questions: "your" labour is noones to redirect, there can be no coercion here as there is no authority from which this coercion can come.
Then how is it going to be put into force or defended? Who&#39;s going to prevent coercion, should it arise?

Individual economic compulsion is replaced by a social one, that is all.
How can it be a compulsion if it isn&#39;t enforced? Do you mean in the same way as someone is being compelled to eat in order to live? That&#39;s a poor anology; needs are&#39;t social. If I refuse to eat, will the rest of society drop dead through starvation? Will I drop dead if the rest of society doesn&#39;t eat? Of course not.

If you choose not to work for the benifits of society, are you also going to abstain from the fruits of this society?
I don&#39;t think there will be many benefits to gain. I&#39;d rather people work voluntarily without compulsion.

Are you wanting some kinsd of subsistance existence outside of society? I don&#39;t understand what you are trying to say here.
I&#39;m saying that I want a choice. And that I want everyone else to have a choice too. But as I&#39;ve said, being part of such a society would not be in anyone&#39;s self interest.

Regardless, whilst such problems still exist society will not be complete. It will be in the transitory state, where there is (according to some schools of though) a proletarian dictatorship overseeing this. So in essence noone care about the selfish people, unless they are trying to disrupt things majorly. Then I am affraid it is up to the workers, not me to say what happens. Lets see shall we?
That sounds an awful lot like an "authority"; one closely resembling a lynch mob, too, if I might say so.

[Tormented by Treachery]

I wish to apply an analogy that may or may not voice opinions well. Bear with it, but think about it, if you will.


Think of the communist system as a typical, white, middle class, 1950&#39;s, American, Christian, nuclear family. There&#39;s the mother, the father, and two little kids, Timmy and Jane. Now, Mother does the dishes, she cooks, and she cleans, among other numerous household tasks. She is not paid for her work, but it must be done. No one forces her to, but the system (the family, household) as a whole benefits. The father works his 9-5, providing food and housing, much like factory workers and carpenters and farmers in the communist system. Again, if it were not for the capitalist complusion to work, if the whole system was merely the family, he would not be forced to work. But it would need to get done, es verdad? Timmy helps dad and does other odd jobs, providing a few services that the system needs, again, not because he is forced to, but because they need to be done. Finally, Jane does the laundry and cleans bedsheets and such, for the same reason.

The whole family is working under no internal compulsion, it&#39;s just that someone needs to make the food, or they starve. Likewise, if father doesn&#39;t get the food, they starve, if Timmy doesn&#39;t go to the store and buy the food (the service), they starve, and if father doesn&#39;t have clothes to wear to work and can&#39;t, they starve. It is an interdependent system that causes the workers to not worry about how much money they have in relation to one another but rather the welfare of the whole system. If father gets a raise, they eat better, and all are happier, mother gets a new dishwasher, making her life easier, and Timmy gets a new 6-speed bike, while Jane acquires a new iron. All lives are made better by the combined effort to increase the stature of the state. Thus, no slavery exists, but a common effort to achieve greater deeds.

Obviously, there are drawbacks to the analogy, but if you make the assumptions that would be evident in communism, it makes sense. For the analogy to work perfectly, there would be no parental rule (akin to classes) - think of if all four members were completely equal in power and wealth.

[Red Leader]

Nobody is enslaving anybody you imbecile, it is simply people doing shit cuz shit needs to be done.


What the hell is that supposed to mean?

It means that people should do things because certain things just need to be done. The mindset that people have that everything they do must be rewarded is not "human Nature" it is a mindset that has evolved with mankind ever since ther has been ometary incentive for work.


That&#39;s the problem. I don&#39;t want to work to benefit "society" (i.e. other people), at least not directly. I don&#39;t want to be a slave to the needs of others. What&#39;s the problem with someone working to benefit a single person? Surely that&#39;s their choice and what does claiming otherwise amount to, other than claiming ownership of the person and their labour?


The problem with that is that people who only work for the betterment of themselves fail to see the harm to other people that goes along with this. if you only care about yourself, you blindly step over others so that you can live a good life. However if people work together and for the betterment of society as a whole, not only will you help out others, but in turn help out yourself. By working for soiciety, THAT INCLUDES YOU. The difference is that people live better without worrying about conflicts and differences fueled by selfishness.


Why would I want to merely survive?

Please tell us what other point to life there is but to survive it? Really when it all boils down, we are all human and we all work to survive. ONe cannot survive off of money alone. That is why it is useless to spend time and energy working on excess surplus and capitol, when in the end it wont help your survival and you will probably live a lot shorter life than most. Take away money, and that drive for survival is still there, however the means for it become easier for everybody and society can focus on more important things, like technologial advancements, medicine, etc....


I&#39;m saying that I want a choice. And that I want everyone else to have a choice too. But as I&#39;ve said, being part of such a society would not be in anyone&#39;s self interest.

Why do you think you wont have a choice? Do you actually belive those fifties propaganda films where under communism people are rounded up and given jobs? Each to his ability, meaning you do what you can.

[Tungsten]

Tormented by Treachery

Obviously, there are drawbacks to the analogy, but if you make the assumptions that would be evident in communism, it makes sense. For the analogy to work perfectly, there would be no parental rule (akin to classes) - think of if all four members were completely equal in power and wealth.
I&#39;ve mentioned this before: Communism as you describe it doesn&#39;t scale up very well. It might work in a close family (sometimes even that doesn&#39;t work) of up to a dozen people, but not for the whole of humanity, or even a small town.

It&#39;s like those dandelion seeds that float in the air- sure they can fly, but would you risk buliding a plane that was intened to fly using the same principle?

Red Leader

It means that people should do things because certain things just need to be done. The mindset that people have that everything they do must be rewarded is not "human Nature" it is a mindset that has evolved with mankind ever since ther has been ometary incentive for work.
Of course it isn&#39;t. What&#39;s the point in doing something if it doesn&#39;t give a reward of any kind. And I&#39;m not just talking about money. What you&#39;re suggesting is that people should just work for work&#39;s sake. No one will do that. You sound like someone trying to advocate slavery.

The problem with that is that people who only work for the betterment of themselves fail to see the harm to other people that goes along with this.
How does "working to better only yourself" cause "harm" to others?

if you only care about yourself, you blindly step over others so that you can live a good life.
That&#39;s right, everyone has two choices in life (and only two): We can either give everything we own to the poor and spend the rest of our lives enslaved to them or we can don jackboots and swastikas and trample on them. :rolleyes:

Please tell us what other point to life there is but to survive it?
Eudaimonia? I don&#39;t think I&#39;d enjoy working as a slave to ensure the survival of others.

Why do you think you wont have a choice? Do you actually belive those fifties propaganda films where under communism people are rounded up and given jobs?
With reasoning like yours, I&#39;m not putting anything past you.

[Vladislav]

Vladislav

I do care about all the shit thats happening in this world and I will work along fellow comrades to improve the world.


And how do you intend to improve the world? I sure hope it doesn&#39;t involve institutionalising slavery like the people I&#39;ve replied to in this thread want to do.

Improving the world requieres some thinking and necesarry action. I never said anything about slavery.

[Tormented by Treachery]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 09:52 AM
I&#39;ve mentioned this before: Communism as you describe it doesn&#39;t scale up very well. It might work in a close family (sometimes even that doesn&#39;t work) of up to a dozen people, but not for the whole of humanity, or even a small town.

It&#39;s like those dandelion seeds that float in the air- sure they can fly, but would you risk buliding a plane that was intened to fly using the same principle?
No, but a coffee cup can rest on 10,000 toothpicks much better than it can on one.

Of course you&#39;d think it won&#39;t work -- it hasn&#39;t. But if correctly instated, with a truly dedicated set of people, it could be worked. There&#39;s no way to predict the future, I suppose I just have more faith in the group as a whole.

[red team]

Originally posted by Tungsten+Jan 19 2006, 09:37 AM--> (Tungsten &#064; Jan 19 2006, 09:37 AM)
Oh, you mean like Paris Hilton? She sure does work hard.
I forgot what was her job again? :lol:
Try answering the question next time. No matter whether you like her or not (I don&#39;t), there are people who do and are willing to pay money to see her do whatever she does, however little she does.[/b]

Try asking a proper question next time. :angry:

I&#39;m quite tired at answering insulting questions posed by right-wingers on the supposed laziness of the workers. Workers in Capitalist society are put in a position that is not much better than pack animals. We don&#39;t get to choose whether we work of not and as every worker knows if some business doesn&#39;t hire you, that is choose you to work you don&#39;t get paid, that means you don&#39;t even have the means at keeping yourself alive. Its all in the hands of people richer than you. Furthermore, if the employer chooses to fire you, s/he can do it without giving you a valid reason. I don&#39;t consider "we need to cut costs" or in other words "improve profits" a valid reason. The personal "laziness" or "productivity" in the material sense of the word is irrelevant to the decision making of businesses for firing or retaining workers. Its whether the company could sell enough of its products for profit to be returned to investors that determines that. 1000 workers can be a lot more productive than 100 workers as far as material output is concerned, but it doesn&#39;t matter. Whats more important is efficiency in labour so if you could fire 900 workers and get the remaining 100 to do double or triple duty then all the better for your bottom line. Which is what really matter isn&#39;t it? So don&#39;t tell me about laziness when some pompous, arrogant VC (Venture Capitalist not Viet Cong) can gamble on the stock market while living a playboy/playgirl life style like Paris Hilton while my life is put on the line by his/her investment decisions.

The question is analogous to asking: "if we don&#39;t beat or deprive the slaves enough then those slaves would be too lazy and pampered to work". Well, a wage slave such as myself when confronted with such a question can only respond in two ways. I can respond intelligently and explain why I couldn&#39;t care less about the supposed laziness of workers like myself even if we really are "lazy" and couldn&#39;t care less about working to make somebody else richer. The more brash approach would be to respond with obscenities so fuck off cappie. Ask a better question next time.


Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 09:37 AM


The situation in which I find myself in determines my choices not the other way around.
Some people have better choices than myself because they find themselves in a better situation.
There are some choices I cannot make even though they are objectively fair because of unequal laws instituted in the society.
What, for instance?

If I insist on making those choices and breaking the law I&#39;ll quickly find myself at the wrong end of a barrel of a gun, even though those choice are indeed objectively fair.
Like what?

For example, if I were to find myself out of work, what I would have to do is to sell myself to potential employers. If I get hired then everything works out hunky dory. I get to be a happy little wage slave working to make my boss richer and my boss gets an obedient little peon he could order around to take care of all that "ungentlemanly" or "unladylike" work. But if the situation turns out bad and I go months on end with little or no work even after selling myself to hundreds of employers then I can take a more forceful approach which is illegal.

I can say to myself "fuck this undignified human crap shoot" and go straight to a place of business and barge into the employee area. I insist on working and being a productive little wage slave to the owner of the business. I could even tell them to pay me a subsistence minimum wage for all that hard work (a pittance to these multi-millionaire business owners). But can you imagine how this could turn out? If I violently insist on being a peon to these business owners then I&#39;ll soon find myself at the wrong end of the law. Imagine that, prosecuted for insisting on having my labour ripped off to profit somebody else. :lol:

That&#39;s from the perspective of me, a lowly worker.

Taken from the perspective of a (petit bourgeois) small shop keeper:
I may feel sorry for the person, but I can&#39;t hire him because I have enough workers. If I hire more then it will eat into my profits and I won&#39;t have enough money for that luxury car I have my eye on.

Taken from the perspective a big investment Capitalist like Warren Buffet:
"Let&#39;s see which stock I can pick to get the biggest return on my billions. Oh, here&#39;s one, they&#39;ve invested a lot into plant production automation and shed a lot of redundant workers so labour costs are down. Looks like a good deal."

This clearly demonstrates that different classes in Capitalist society have different interests. I have irreconcilable differences with business owners, that is Capitalists be they large Capitalists like career investors or small Capitalists like shop keepers. In times of "peace" the number of dispossessed people are relatively small so they can written off as "losers" or "bums". In times of economic crisis the number of dispossessed people grow significantly so they cannot be ignored. When this happens and we become an organized force we will resolve our differences with the Capitalist class and since these differences are irreconcilable they will not be resolved through debate. These differences will be resolved using other methods.


Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 09:37 AM

Depends on the type of work doesn&#39;t it?
No.

Yes.

Example, I writing to you using a software that was freely distributed on the internet and written by volunteers in their spare time. The electricity distribution system of modern society is based on A.C. electricity without which electricity distribution would be made so inefficient as to make modern metropolises like the one we live in today impossible. A.C. electricity distribution was discovered by Nikola Tesla who died a lonely, pennyless, crippled pauper in a hotel room. He was cheated out of any fair compensation for his inventions by the business tycoon Westinghouse.

Many more artists, engineers and scientists have contributed immensely to the store house of human knowledge and to the implementation of life improving technologies. Do you really want an exhaustive list of them? For most of them, they find their work inspiring in itself. I find my work inspiring. I have made some of my own software creations freely available to the general population because I find my work inspiring in itself. Do I desire financial compensation for my work? Absolutely, because I need it to live. Would I still do my work if I&#39;m not paid, but have guaranteed housing and food in Communist society? You bet. Why? I find my work inspiring. Furthermore, artists, engineers and scientists work with ideas. Ideas can be freely distributed and duplicated without incurring any additional cost in effort to the original developer of the idea. Only material objects have the property of requiring more work to produce after they are consumed which will incur a loss with the orignal creator a physical product if they are freely distributed.

Note, most "workers" would be artists, engineers and scientists in Communist society. There won&#39;t be any other work left as they would be made obsolete by the time we get to that point when Communist society becomes possible.


[email protected] 19 2006, 09:37 AM


From someone who doesn&#39;t quite understand what slavery means.
I do undestand what it means and what&#39;s more, I recognise it even when you dressit up as something else and give it a different name.

Your time and labour if you truly are a slave will be distributed only to those who control you. They reap all the benefits of your time and labour with you reaping enough just to keep you alive.
That&#39;s correct.

If your time and labour are collectively shared with you also sharing in the collective wealth of everybody else&#39;s labour you are not a slave.
But I am. The only thing that is changed is the number of slave masters and the fact that I get to enslave others too.

Since you insist on a master/slave analogy let me put it to you this way. If you reap the benefits of somebody else&#39;s redistributed labour you&#39;re a master. If somebody else reaps the benefits of your redistributed labour you&#39;re a slave.
But if both is true as it will be Communist society you&#39;re both a master and a slave which means you&#39;re neither a master nor a slave.
All that means you are both a master to whoever you need and a slave to whoever needs you and that&#39;s when the race to enslave others while avoiding being enslaved yourself by appearing as needy and incompetent as possible begins. Let&#39;s just not be either master or slave.


From a debate with someone who doesn&#39;t understand what slavery is to a debate with someone who doesn&#39;t understand the basic concept of arithmetic.

(-1 Expended labour) + (+1 Received labour) = 0

zero means: no exploitation of either the giving party or the receiving party and hence no slavery.

While what we now actually have in this Capitalist society is something like this:

From the perspective of the Capitalist:

(-4 expenses including labour costs) + (+5 sales revenue) = 1 profit

what can you call this other than slavery for the workers?
If you disagree your concept of slavery is very, very different from mine.


Cybernetic Socialism: http://www.dominic.lopez.net/cyber.html

Red Team

[Red Leader]

How does "working to better only yourself" cause "harm" to others?

Because you ignore those around you and by only work for yourslef, as a result not caring about those you take advantage of to get ahead. For every selfish overly rich individual is a homeless man. For every doller you "earn" is a doller someone else doesnt have.


I don&#39;t think I&#39;d enjoy working as a slave to ensure the survival of others.

For the last time, nobody would be a slave to anybody&#33; You would work not only for others and society but for YOURSELF as well. Society benifits, therefore YOU benifit. Think about how much more productive mankind would be if we worked TOGETHER. We all have the same basic goals of survival, why not work as a team.

[Tungsten]

red team

Workers in Capitalist society are put in a position that is not much better than pack animals. We don&#39;t get to choose whether we work of not
Would you care to explain how it&#39;s possible to live without working? Someone has to provide the means of living.

and as every worker knows if some business doesn&#39;t hire you, that is choose you to work you don&#39;t get paid, that means you don&#39;t even have the means at keeping yourself alive.
How do you think communism is going to be different? Is food going to appear on your table at your command? I don&#39;t think so. These things still need to be provided by someone, regardless of the political system. What&#39;s the point in complaining about having to work for a living?

I don&#39;t consider "we need to cut costs" or in other words "improve profits" a valid reason.
Good job it&#39;s not up to you then, isn&#39;t it? I&#39;m not fond of bullies. Especially not ones who think they have a right to dictate how to run their lives- or businesses.

The personal "laziness" or "productivity" in the material sense of the word is irrelevant to the decision making of businesses for firing or retaining workers.
I thought productivity was the goal of businesses and that keeping on the productive would be an advantage. I guess they just fire people to be mean. :rolleyes:

Whats more important is efficiency in labour so if you could fire 900 workers and get the remaining 100 to do double or triple duty then all the better for your bottom line. Which is what really matter isn&#39;t it?
You need to learn some maths.

So don&#39;t tell me about laziness when some pompous, arrogant VC (Venture Capitalist not Viet Cong) can gamble on the stock market while living a playboy/playgirl life style like Paris Hilton while my life is put on the line by his/her investment decisions.
That would serve you right for making yourself dependent on an idiot.

The question is analogous to asking: "if we don&#39;t beat or deprive the slaves enough then those slaves would be too lazy and pampered to work".
Except:
-You&#39;re not a slave.
-You&#39;re not going to bother to work unless you are going to get something out of it. This is true of everyone.

Well, a wage slave such as myself when confronted with such a question can only respond in two ways. I can respond intelligently and explain why I couldn&#39;t care less about the supposed laziness of workers like myself even if we really are "lazy" and couldn&#39;t care less about working to make somebody else richer.
This isn&#39;t about making someone else richer, it&#39;s about you earning a living- you&#39;re complaining about having to do it.

The more brash approach would be to respond with obscenities so fuck off cappie.
I get the feeling that would be more your style.

For example, if I were to find myself out of work, what I would have to do is to sell myself to potential employers. If I get hired then everything works out hunky dory. I get to be a happy little wage slave working to make my boss richer and my boss gets an obedient little peon he could order around to take care of all that "ungentlemanly" or "unladylike" work. But if the situation turns out bad and I go months on end with little or no work even after selling myself to hundreds of employers then I can take a more forceful approach which is illegal.
So what you&#39;re saying is that you want the right to force people at the point of a gun, to employ you? Does this extend to other areas of your life too? What about your sexual realtionships? Do you demand sex at gunpoint? No? Then don&#39;t demand a job, or anything else at gunpoint either.

I can say to myself "fuck this undignified human crap shoot" and go straight to a place of business and barge into the employee area. I insist on working and being a productive little wage slave to the owner of the business. I could even tell them to pay me a subsistence minimum wage for all that hard work (a pittance to these multi-millionaire business owners). But can you imagine how this could turn out? If I violently insist on being a peon to these business owners then I&#39;ll soon find myself at the wrong end of the law.
Rightly so too. You need to learn some social skills.

Imagine that, prosecuted for insisting on having my labour ripped off to profit somebody else.
If you think that&#39;s what you&#39;d be prosecuted for, then you&#39;re dreaming.

That&#39;s from the perspective of me, a lowly worker.
An incorrect one, too. You&#39;d be prosecuted for demanding something by force that someone else wasn&#39;t willing to give you.

This clearly demonstrates that different classes in Capitalist society have different interests.
No more so than a rapist and a victim have different interests. The only thing it demonstrates is that you are a dangerous person who believes that taking and demanding by force is acceptable- like a rapist.

When this happens and we become an organized force we will resolve our differences with the Capitalist class and since these differences are irreconcilable they will not be resolved through debate. These differences will be resolved using other methods.
Surely not...force? Wow, what a surprise. :rolleyes: Now you understand why every communist country to date is one run by thugs.

A.C. electricity distribution was discovered by Nikola Tesla who died a lonely, pennyless, crippled pauper in a hotel room. He was cheated out of any fair compensation for his inventions by the business tycoon Westinghouse.
Why should Tesla take all the glory? It&#39;s the workers who make all the profit, not the inventors&#33; Besides, all inventions are social. Come on, comrade, get with it.

From a debate with someone who doesn&#39;t understand what slavery is to a debate with someone who doesn&#39;t understand the basic concept of arithmetic.
I&#39;m afraid that I do understand slavery and I understand that what defines being a slave has nothing to do with arithmetic. You&#39;re stalling because you couldn&#39;t refute my argument.
Red Leader

Because you ignore those around you and by only work for yourslef, as a result not caring about those you take advantage of to get ahead.
But what if I don&#39;t take advantage of anyone? Where does that leave your argument?

For the last time, nobody would be a slave to anybody&#33; You would work not only for others and society but for YOURSELF as well.
A slave works for himself too.

Society benifits, therefore YOU benifit.
But the same could be said about the benefits of the invisible hand.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 09:13 PM
Isn&#39;t demanding someone else&#39;s labour by right a form of coercion?

Yes, but who is doing this? If you think this will happen explain why you think this. I find answering questions easier than reading minds, so a little insight into this large "logical" leaps would be benificial.


Which parts?
Your post was a one line response which told how to take my views based on one paragraph. There was no actual explanation there, but you sure gave the impression you didn&#39;t like it. Next time a general overview, or should I assume you agree with what you don&#39;t take issue with? Again explaining why you hold a view is more useful than stating you hold it.

Here is your last post, just assume I didn&#39;t get any of it, unless my assumptions in the rest of the post were right, it was a guessing game, so I don&#39;t mind being way off.
That&#39;s amazing. Sanctimony, arrogance, contradictions and thuggery all in one sentence.


No more than there is a compulsion to eat.
Why do you assume there is more involved in communism? If there is more involved then it isn&#39;t communism, if you think it is a pipe dream then attack it from that stance, but be consistant.


So I&#39;m not getting any say in how I work or who gets what I earn? "No belonging" aside, someone, an individual will be getting and consuming what I make, so what will I be then, if not a slave to this individual? It doesn&#39;t matter that everyone else is in the same boat- they&#39;re slaves too. I&#39;d rather this relationship of univeral slavery not come about at all.

Why are you using a term that is far removed from the spirit it is intended in? Slave has connotations of class, ownership and coercion; all of these are not possible in a society dependant on them not existing. Just as a hypothetically free society can&#39;t be attacked for not being free.

Is teamwork and cooperation really slavery? There is no demand for you to participate in any of this, well not in my view anyway. Some of the authoritarians may disagree, but they talk about something that I am nearly as opposed to as you in some cases.


Anyone who needs anything will be calling the shots.
Sorry, what? Can you explain the jump from needing something to being in charge?


No doubt physical punishment will be waiting for those who don&#39;t wish to pander to the needs of others.

Again you assert this, but this is first of all not what I am talking about, I disagree with it as you do. I already made it clear that I think you are trying to argue a different line above^, if so then I can tailor responses to that, if not I can only say that you are deciding not only what you think, butr what I apparently now think.

I already stated that this is a problem of a transitory society, not a finished one. Also I would have no problem in this state with people opperating by choice outside of a cooperative. The whole point is that this happens when there is proletarian support for such a movement. When the class decides this is what is wanted then why shouldn&#39;t they be allowed to have it?

If you are complaining that you would rather be a loner, then that is O.K. but what right would you have to tell a massive majority that they cannot have an existence that does not effect you? Current society effects me, and you are criticising a different preference to how it should go. Do you not see any hypocrisy?


True, in a way. Although I could point a gun at you and force you to do something, but still pay you. Would you still be a slave then? Actually, yes you would.

Yes, but as I have explined this is as misleading. I didn&#39;t criticise school because they forced me to attend at gunpoint, because it never happened. Why is this appropriate here? I have defined to some extent what I am talking about, could we not talk about that, because there isn&#39;t a lot of discussion to be had about what you are talking about. I agree with a lot of what you say.


Why would I want to merely survive?
I don&#39;t know, but the post that this was in response to said exactly the opposite of what you implied. Needs were clearly described as much more than what is required to survive. You might call it the fast car, or the big house, essentially I agree that luxury items can be "needed." Although not as fundamental as food and shelter, I agree. Are you purposfully misrepresenting everything I say, or is someone altering what I type?


Then how is it going to be put into force or defended? Who&#39;s going to prevent coercion, should it arise?

There you go :), now a discussion can take place. If you don&#39;t understand something, or agree with it, then why not ask? It is more productive than asserting what you already believed prior to "debate" in fact this is something I found very useful in all areas of study.

I don&#39;t want to avoid this, but could I ask a few more questions, so I know what we are talking about first so as to avoid some of the confusion that would almost certainly arise otherwise?

Why do you think coercion would arise? Personally I think this assumption could only rest on a few other assumptions. Why would coercion arise if there was no benifit to be had from its occurance? Why would those doing the coercing want to do this? (There is a point to trhis if you can bare with me)


That&#39;s a poor anology; needs are&#39;t social. If I refuse to eat, will the rest of society drop dead through starvation? Will I drop dead if the rest of society doesn&#39;t eat? Of course not.

On the individual level you are right, one person doesn&#39;t make that much difference. But that is just it, I am only talking about the big picture. There is some elasticity within this, and that can take some of the problems that could arise, be they environmental or human.

Needs are social though. I take social needs as the sum of individual needs. At the moment it isn&#39;t the case, but that is the whole change that people want to engineer. If you don&#39;t want to eat though who am I to stop you?


I don&#39;t think there will be many benefits to gain. I&#39;d rather people work voluntarily without compulsion.
People working voluntarily? I thought that was impossible? Or at least that is a common argument. I disagree about the benifits thing however. If people choose to work they work better, if there needs are met then they are not working merely to live. What more s there to be had from life?


I&#39;m saying that I want a choice. And that I want everyone else to have a choice too. But as I&#39;ve said, being part of such a society would not be in anyone&#39;s self interest.

Everyone has their own versions, but essentially all I am talking about is a society that is in everyone&#39;s self interest. That is as far as this goes, and it is all it has ever been about. When you agree on this you can discuss application and details.

Why is t not in everyone&#39;s self interest again sorry? It didn&#39;t come through that strongly. Also, as I have said, the choisce thing I would not see a problem with.


That sounds an awful lot like an "authority"; one closely resembling a lynch mob, too, if I might say so.
You might have detected the slightest hint of sarcasm, given the context in which it was said? If not, then I appologise, but you were supposed to. I don&#39;t speak for everyone, and I can only really talk about how I see these things, and this isn&#39;t it.

I think that when you talk these things through, and forgo prior assumptions about the other person&#39;s view, then you find that you agree with, or at least better understand each other at the end. So I will appologise for my tone earlier in the post. I right in response to your individual statements, so where you seemed more assertive I was also. I think we are seeing more eye to eye now though.

Please question anything and everything and I will try to explain, although f meeting everyone&#39;s needs is what you aim for , thenm I don&#39;t think our aims are opposed.

[Tungsten]

Hegemonicretribution

Yes, but who is doing this? If you think this will happen explain why you think this.
If I have a right to your labour then I have a right to force you to work, or you will be denying me my "rights". It&#39;s no defence to say that you&#39;ll work willingly- the threat is still there.

Why do you assume there is more involved in communism? If there is more involved then it isn&#39;t communism, if you think it is a pipe dream then attack it from that stance, but be consistant.
You think it leads to freedom when it actually doesn&#39;t. There isn&#39;t anything inconsistent in my argument.

Why are you using a term that is far removed from the spirit it is intended in? Slave has connotations of class, ownership and coercion; all of these are not possible in a society dependant on them not existing.
But I&#39;m arguing that they do and will exist.

Just as a hypothetically free society can&#39;t be attacked for not being free.
We could point to the USSR and say "That is a free society" but we&#39;d be deluding outselves.

Some of the authoritarians may disagree, but they talk about something that I am nearly as opposed to as you in some cases.
It&#39;s the authoritarians that are the problem. There is nothing inherently wrong in participating in a commune, provided that no one was forced to (I still don&#39;t think it would work anyway), but we have plenty of people here who want to force it on others.

Sorry, what? Can you explain the jump from needing something to being in charge?
If I&#39;m in need, you&#39;d better be there to provide, otherwise you&#39;ll be in breach of my rights. What am I doing, if not dictating? What is a dictator if not the man in charge?

I already stated that this is a problem of a transitory society, not a finished one.
It shouldn&#39;t be a problem at any stage. Besides, how long would a transition take?

The whole point is that this happens when there is proletarian support for such a movement. When the class decides this is what is wanted then why shouldn&#39;t they be allowed to have it?
Allowed to have what?

If you are complaining that you would rather be a loner, then that is O.K. but what right would you have to tell a massive majority that they cannot have an existence that does not effect you?
I&#39;m not convinced that it won&#39;t effect me. It&#39;s not the commune-types that bother me, it&#39;s the revolutionaries who think that my business is their business.

Why do you think coercion would arise? Personally I think this assumption could only rest on a few other assumptions.
How about the assumption that the "peaceful communists" will be joined by the "non-peaceful communists". Who do you think will get their way?

Why would coercion arise if there was no benifit to be had from its occurance?
I ultimately believe that there is no benefit to coercion, but there are those who do. The dictators and slavemasters of world, for instance.

Why would those doing the coercing want to do this? (There is a point to trhis if you can bare with me)
To avoid work? There are a number of answers to that. I&#39;m the wrong person to ask.

You might have detected the slightest hint of sarcasm, given the context in which it was said?
It&#39;s hard to tell when some of you are being serious. There are some people here I wouldn&#39;t put anything past.

[red team]

Workers in Capitalist society are put in a position that is not much better than pack animals. We don&#39;t get to choose whether we work of not
Would you care to explain how it&#39;s possible to live without working? Someone has to provide the means of living.

and as every worker knows if some business doesn&#39;t hire you, that is choose you to work you don&#39;t get paid, that means you don&#39;t even have the means at keeping yourself alive.
How do you think communism is going to be different? Is food going to appear on your table at your command? I don&#39;t think so. These things still need to be provided by someone, regardless of the political system. What&#39;s the point in complaining about having to work for a living?


It is actually quite possible to live without working. Rich investors do it all the time. They have more money to last them more than 20 lifetimes without working a single day in their lives. They choose to gamble on the market because its fun for them to gamble with working people&#39;s lives.


Someone has the provide the means of living?
THEN WHY DON&#39;T YOU GO OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS AND BECOME A SUSTENANCE HUNTER/GATHERER YOU HYPOCRITE&#33;&#33;&#33; :angry:

I work for a wage when someone chooses to pay me for my work and I depend on some other worker to provide for me the other necessities of life after I give him a share of my wages. This is call society. I don&#39;t have any problems with working and contributing to society. What I do have a problem with is those who control the wealth of society who operates the means of production on the basis of personal financial gain. If they don&#39;t make a profit, I don&#39;t work. You see, I&#39;m not a factory owner or a shop owner. I don&#39;t get to choose to work in a shop or factory even if I wanted to. Because as you said so yourself, I need to work to live because I need to depend on everybody else&#39;s labour by giving them a share of my wages.



I don&#39;t consider "we need to cut costs" or in other words "improve profits" a valid reason.
Good job it&#39;s not up to you then, isn&#39;t it? I&#39;m not fond of bullies. Especially not ones who think they have a right to dictate how to run their lives- or businesses.

The personal "laziness" or "productivity" in the material sense of the word is irrelevant to the decision making of businesses for firing or retaining workers.
I thought productivity was the goal of businesses and that keeping on the productive would be an advantage. I guess they just fire people to be mean. :rolleyes:

Whats more important is efficiency in labour so if you could fire 900 workers and get the remaining 100 to do double or triple duty then all the better for your bottom line. Which is what really matter isn&#39;t it?
You need to learn some maths.

Would you as a business person given a uniformed quality in goods sell 100 units for &#036;1 labour cost per unit or 1000 units for &#036;3 labour cost per unit? Anybody will choose the former instead of the latter because of a higher profit margin. Given the uniformity in the quality of the goods the product that is produced at &#036;3 labour cost per unit will have to be sold at a higher price to be as profitable per unit as the product that is sold at &#036;1 labour cost per unit. Would I as a consumer buy a product that is more expensive or less expensive given they are equal in quality? Oh, come on. :rolleyes: Making a worker work harder for less improves your profit margin. Everybody knows that.

If somebody works harder than me for less they get to replace me and do my job too. If I then lose my job and I&#39;m driven into desperation and I "agree" to work harder for less than my coworkers then I have the "privilege" of keeping my job and doing double duty since my coworker will be terminated for "laziness". Its really a no-win situation isn&#39;t it?

you know I&#39;m not too fond of bullies myself....



So don&#39;t tell me about laziness when some pompous, arrogant VC (Venture Capitalist not Viet Cong) can gamble on the stock market while living a playboy/playgirl life style like Paris Hilton while my life is put on the line by his/her investment decisions.
That would serve you right for making yourself dependent on an idiot.

The question is analogous to asking: "if we don&#39;t beat or deprive the slaves enough then those slaves would be too lazy and pampered to work".
Except:
-You&#39;re not a slave.
-You&#39;re not going to bother to work unless you are going to get something out of it. This is true of everyone.


Assertion #1: You&#39;re not a slave

Assertion #2: You&#39;re not going to bother to work unless you are going to get something out of it.

To prove or disprove assertion #1 you have to first define the term slavery

My definition of slavery:
Condition #1: Depend on somebody else for a means of sustenance.
Condition #2: Depend on somebody else to either be hired for work or fired and not work.
Condition #3: Means of sustenance provided when hired for work.
Condition #4: Have absolutely no say in whether one is hired or fired.

A worker has (Condition #1 and Condition #2 and Condition #3 and Condition #4) true which implies they are slaves.
Assertion #1 disproven.

I&#39;m assuming that assertion #2 is universal? so it could then be said that: For all workers it is the case that they will work if and only if they are provided with a wage. Workers being defined as any person performing materially productive labour.

There&#39;s lots of volunteer and charity organizations even in this competitive, look out of #1, Capitalist society. Simply their existence disproves assertion #2.
Assertion #2 disproven.



Well, a wage slave such as myself when confronted with such a question can only respond in two ways. I can respond intelligently and explain why I couldn&#39;t care less about the supposed laziness of workers like myself even if we really are "lazy" and couldn&#39;t care less about working to make somebody else richer.
This isn&#39;t about making someone else richer, it&#39;s about you earning a living- you&#39;re complaining about having to do it.


Or it could be about not respecting my employers enough to be dedicated in my work for them. So if I can cut corners I&#39;ll do it. If I can get away with hiding by poor quality work from them I&#39;ll do that too. If I can get away with pilfering some of that ill gotten profit from my employers I&#39;ll do that too. I don&#39;t give a damn about my employer&#39;s well being either physical or financial. If the old hag or miser dies I&#39;ll be out celebrating their deaths with a big smile on my face. If they could lower costs and increase their profit by throwing me out of my job they&#39;ll do it just as easily and without hesitation as I would perform any of the above "unethical" actions on them. Their motivation is diametrically opposed to my motivation. Their motivation is greed, profit and vanity. My motivation is just earning enough to live while contributing to the social wealth.



I can say to myself "fuck this undignified human crap shoot" and go straight to a place of business and barge into the employee area. I insist on working and being a productive little wage slave to the owner of the business. I could even tell them to pay me a subsistence minimum wage for all that hard work (a pittance to these multi-millionaire business owners). But can you imagine how this could turn out? If I violently insist on being a peon to these business owners then I&#39;ll soon find myself at the wrong end of the law.
Rightly so too. You need to learn some social skills.

Imagine that, prosecuted for insisting on having my labour ripped off to profit somebody else.
If you think that&#39;s what you&#39;d be prosecuted for, then you&#39;re dreaming.

For example, if I were to find myself out of work, what I would have to do is to sell myself to potential employers. If I get hired then everything works out hunky dory. I get to be a happy little wage slave working to make my boss richer and my boss gets an obedient little peon he could order around to take care of all that "ungentlemanly" or "unladylike" work. But if the situation turns out bad and I go months on end with little or no work even after selling myself to hundreds of employers then I can take a more forceful approach which is illegal.
So what you&#39;re saying is that you want the right to force people at the point of a gun, to employ you? Does this extend to other areas of your life too? What about your sexual realtionships? Do you demand sex at gunpoint? No? Then don&#39;t demand a job, or anything else at gunpoint either.


I make it a habit not to demand too much by force except when I&#39;m face with the prospect of personal physical extinction because of the dependent relationship forced upon me by those who owns the mean of producing material wealth in this society. If that happens then I get really nasty and will demand that they provide me with something that will sustain me. Or actually, I wouldn&#39;t bother with such niceties since I see it as pointless for me to convince the Capitalists to be "nice" to me. The previous example was simply comic rhetorical irony more for members of my class than for petit-bourgeois liberal debaters.



A.C. electricity distribution was discovered by Nikola Tesla who died a lonely, pennyless, crippled pauper in a hotel room. He was cheated out of any fair compensation for his inventions by the business tycoon Westinghouse.
Why should Tesla take all the glory? It&#39;s the workers who make all the profit, not the inventors&#33; Besides, all inventions are social. Come on, comrade, get with it.


Not my point, Tesla never aspired to be a businessman he was simply someone who provided a break-through invention for improving the quality of life. Westinghouse never contributed anything of significance to what Tesla invented, but expropriated what was the product of Tesla&#39;s genius intended for the general welfare of human society into his own personal cash cow for selfish financial gain. This is wrong.



That&#39;s from the perspective of me, a lowly worker.
An incorrect one, too. You&#39;d be prosecuted for demanding something by force that someone else wasn&#39;t willing to give you.


That someone else being someone who holds the power to either provide me with the means to existence or deny it altogether (speaking of the Capitalist class in general). In that case the law is worthy of my contempt.

If I&#39;m given the choice of either near certain physical non-existence or exploitation (profit making) for somebody else&#39;s financial gain then I really have no "choice" at all. These "choices" are worthy of my contempt.

Yes, I will be prosecuted if I attempt to do that, which is the reason why I never attempt it. I do not get to be "productive" or "lazy". I cannot choose to work or not to work. This has everything to do with which class is in power. The right and obligation to work in a materially productive job is absent in this Capitalist society.



This clearly demonstrates that different classes in Capitalist society have different interests.
No more so than a rapist and a victim have different interests. The only thing it demonstrates is that you are a dangerous person who believes that taking and demanding by force is acceptable- like a rapist.

Garbage in garbage out. The analogy is garbage. Sex is not critical to my physical survival. Shelter and food is. And I pay for both from my employer&#39;s (slave master&#39;s) pay check. If master is not happy with slave, slave gets to go homeless and starve.

BEEP&#33;
*** Invalid Answer ***

sorry try again.



When this happens and we become an organized force we will resolve our differences with the Capitalist class and since these differences are irreconcilable they will not be resolved through debate. These differences will be resolved using other methods.
Surely not...force? Wow, what a surprise. :rolleyes: Now you understand why every communist country to date is one run by thugs.


Another example of garbage in garbage out.
One person&#39;s thug is another person&#39;s liberator.
One person&#39;s liberator is another person&#39;s thug.

BEEP&#33;
*** Invalid and Subjective Answer ***

sorry try again.



From a debate with someone who doesn&#39;t understand what slavery is to a debate with someone who doesn&#39;t understand the basic concept of arithmetic.
I&#39;m afraid that I do understand slavery and I understand that what defines being a slave has nothing to do with arithmetic. You&#39;re stalling because you couldn&#39;t refute my argument.


equal trade does not equal slavery
unequal trade with the worker being paid less than the full value of their work is slavery.

sorry you lose again.
Thanks for playing.

Pointless to comment on these, but I couldn&#39;t resist. There&#39;s no doubt I&#39;m not going to convince this person. This response is simply for those who could be swayed particularly those who are middle class. Irreconcilable differences, Irreconcilable world views, Irreconcilable class interests can never be resolved through debate. We have diametrically opposed interests. These are resolved by civil war.


Red Team
Cybernetic Socialism: http://www.dominic.lopez.net/cyber.html

[Tungsten]

red team

It is actually quite possible to live without working.
We can&#39;t all be on the dole. There would be no one to pay for it.

THEN WHY DON&#39;T YOU GO OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS AND BECOME A SUSTENANCE HUNTER/GATHERER YOU HYPOCRITE&#33;&#33;&#33; :angry:
Are you arguing that it&#39;s not necessary to provide a means of living? Where do you think it all comes from?

I don&#39;t have any problems with working and contributing to society. What I do have a problem with is those who control the wealth of society who operates the means of production on the basis of personal financial gain.
They&#39;re not doing anything different to you.

Would you as a business person given a uniformed quality in goods sell 100 units for &#036;1 labour cost per unit or 1000 units for &#036;3 labour cost per unit? Anybody will choose the former instead of the latter because of a higher profit margin. Given the uniformity in the quality of the goods the product that is produced at &#036;3 labour cost per unit will have to be sold at a higher price to be as profitable per unit as the product that is sold at &#036;1 labour cost per unit. Would I as a consumer buy a product that is more expensive or less expensive given they are equal in quality? Oh, come on. :rolleyes: Making a worker work harder for less improves your profit margin. Everybody knows that.
Increased productivity doesn&#39;t necessarily mean an increase in labour. Plus, a larger profit margin is likely to lead to an increase in wages to attract more/better workers.

If somebody works harder than me for less they get to replace me and do my job too.
You want the right to be lazy and hold others back?

If I then lose my job and I&#39;m driven into desperation and I "agree" to work harder for less than my coworkers then I have the "privilege" of keeping my job and doing double duty since my coworker will be terminated for "laziness". Its really a no-win situation isn&#39;t it?
Who&#39;s fault but yours?

you know I&#39;m not too fond of bullies myself....
That&#39;s a laugh.

My definition of slavery:
Condition #1: Depend on somebody else for a means of sustenance.
Are children slaves to their parents?

Condition #2: Depend on somebody else to either be hired for work or fired and not work.
This is not slavery.

Condition #3: Means of sustenance provided when hired for work.
That would make everyone in the whole world a slave. How else is "means of sustinence" going to be provided? It doesn&#39;t just fall out of the sky, you know.

Condition #4: Have absolutely no say in whether one is hired or fired.
You don&#39;t have a choice as to whether you&#39;re hired or not? That&#39;s certainly slavery, but does it describe your position? No.

A worker has (Condition #1 and Condition #2 and Condition #3 and Condition #4) true which implies they are slaves.
Assertion #1 disproven.
Only in your fevered imagination.

I&#39;m assuming that assertion #2 is universal? so it could then be said that: For all workers it is the case that they will work if and only if they are provided with a wage. Workers being defined as any person performing materially productive labour.

There&#39;s lots of volunteer and charity organizations
How many of them are working for nothing?

Or it could be about not respecting my employers enough to be dedicated in my work for them. So if I can cut corners I&#39;ll do it. If I can get away with hiding by poor quality work from them I&#39;ll do that too. If I can get away with pilfering some of that ill gotten profit from my employers I&#39;ll do that too. I don&#39;t give a damn about my employer&#39;s well being either physical or financial. If the old hag or miser dies I&#39;ll be out celebrating their deaths with a big smile on my face. If they could lower costs and increase their profit by throwing me out of my job they&#39;ll do it just as easily and without hesitation as I would perform any of the above "unethical" actions on them. Their motivation is diametrically opposed to my motivation. Their motivation is greed, profit and vanity. My motivation is just earning enough to live while contributing to the social wealth.
Throwing out shoddy work in the process too, I see.

I make it a habit not to demand too much by force except when I&#39;m face with the prospect of personal physical extinction because of the dependent relationship forced upon me by those who owns the mean of producing material wealth in this society.
How is it being forced on you?

If that happens then I get really nasty and will demand that they provide me with something that will sustain me.
By what right do you demand this?

Or actually, I wouldn&#39;t bother with such niceties since I see it as pointless for me to convince the Capitalists to be "nice" to me. The previous example was simply comic rhetorical irony more for members of my class than for petit-bourgeois liberal debaters.
I&#39;m not so sure.

Not my point, Tesla never aspired to be a businessman he was simply someone who provided a break-through invention for improving the quality of life.
Of course it&#39;s the point. If Tesla has patented and sold his invention, you&#39;d be denouncing him as another greedy capitalist who exploited the workers.

That someone else being someone who holds the power to either provide me with the means to existence
In which case, what makes it yours to take?

If I&#39;m given the choice of either near certain physical non-existence or exploitation (profit making) for somebody else&#39;s financial gain then I really have no "choice" at all. These "choices" are worthy of my contempt.
Ignoring the loaded language, what other choices are there?

Yes, I will be prosecuted if I attempt to do that, which is the reason why I never attempt it. I do not get to be "productive" or "lazy". I cannot choose to work or not to work.
What&#39;s stopping you from making the choice?

Garbage in garbage out. The analogy is garbage. Sex is not critical to my physical survival. Shelter and food is.
So you&#39;re content on robbery on home-invasion for the time being, then?

And I pay for both from my employer&#39;s (slave master&#39;s) pay check.
If you don&#39;t, someone else has to.

If master is not happy with slave, slave gets to go homeless and starve.
In your case, that would be a blessing in disguise.

BEEP&#33;
*** Invalid Answer ***

sorry try again.
You think you&#39;ve justified the use of force against someone who hasn&#39;t done anything to you with this pathetic rationalisation?

Another example of garbage in garbage out.
One person&#39;s thug is another person&#39;s liberator.
You&#39;re not interested in liberating anyone. Who&#39;s a rapist liberating? What about a bank robber?

BEEP&#33;
*** Invalid and Subjective Answer ***

sorry try again.
Then your whole argument is invalid. You have no right to complain about your situation because you view is no more right than anyone else&#39;s.

equal trade does not equal slavery
unequal trade with the worker being paid less than the full value of their work is slavery.
The worker is being paid the full value of his work- what people are willing to pay. There is no other valid way of calculating value.

sorry you lose again.
Thanks for playing.
Again? I&#39;m not sure what I&#39;ve lost but it sure isn&#39;t a debate.

Pointless to comment on these, but
then you realised that you would look stupid if you didn&#39;t. Guess what...

There&#39;s no doubt I&#39;m not going to convince this person. This response is simply for those who could be swayed particularly those who are middle class.
Convice me of what? That you&#39;re a thug? Yep, I&#39;m convinced. Well and truly. Convinced me that thuggery is the way to go? Not a chance. I prefer voluntary associations, thanks.

Irreconcilable differences, Irreconcilable world views, Irreconcilable class interests can never be resolved through debate. We have diametrically opposed interests. These are resolved by civil war.

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetant".

Asimov.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2006, 11:28 PM
If I have a right to your labour then I have a right to force you to work, or you will be denying me my "rights". It&#39;s no defence to say that you&#39;ll work willingly- the threat is still there.


O.K. stating that not allowing someone to infringe on anothers rights is in fact not fair to the person that would infringe upon them is ridiculous. For now lets leave at something like "Everyone should be allowed to do things, at least when it is not directly affecting the rights of another."

You don&#39;t have a right to anyone&#39;s labour. That would imply ownership on some level, which is completely opposed to what must occur in order to constitute communism.


You think it leads to freedom when it actually doesn&#39;t. There isn&#39;t anything inconsistent in my argument.

Think what does, communism? By virtue of meaning it must do, otherwise it isn&#39;t communism. Saying that it is implausible is a usual line of argument to take following on from this, but if you can&#39;t get over this basic language issue then there can be no discussion. I don&#39;t believe you have demonstrated how there is no freedom, normally people say something about private property rights, but you have claimed that not having freedom to abuse people isn&#39;t freedom. I do not see that as freedom anyway, and it is not a desire of mine, but if you do then I don&#39;t see you being talked around.


But I&#39;m arguing that they do and will exist.
Yes, in our current society. They can&#39;t have in a communist society, because it has never happened, or even come close. Why will they exist? You keep saying they will, but not a lot more, and I keep saying that if they do then it isn&#39;t communism we are talking about. To you it may just be a dirty word, but I am clearly using it, in this instance at least, as a tautological term for the type of society I have described.


We could point to the USSR and say "That is a free society" but we&#39;d be deluding outselves.
This isn&#39;t a fair example, you are implying that a country that was called "communist" by American propogandists has anything to do with communism. A basic reading of any Marxist writings would show you that this could not have been the case. Or you could listen to the ever truthful American government who must know more about an ideology than the people that actually designed/profess it.

The DPRK is called both communist and democratic. It is actually neither, but the fact that it is likened to communism, and seen as a joke of a democracy just goes to show the manipulation of the term. If the USSR was communist, then it was free and democratic, if not (as was the case) it wasn&#39;t communist.


It&#39;s the authoritarians that are the problem. There is nothing inherently wrong in participating in a commune, provided that no one was forced to (I still don&#39;t think it would work anyway), but we have plenty of people here who want to force it on others.
Yes, but why does that have anything to do with me, or what I am saying? It is quite clearly a very different idea, but under the same name. Can you just understand that words take on different meanings in different contexts. The word isn&#39;t important, the use of it is. I am not saying that I am right, and everyone else is wrong, but it is not fair to attribute problems of someone else&#39;s argument to mine, when they are not at all alike except in name.


If I&#39;m in need, you&#39;d better be there to provide, otherwise you&#39;ll be in breach of my rights. What am I doing, if not dictating? What is a dictator if not the man in charge?
Have you ever done survival training, or participated in a commune? There is a responsibility untowards the group, and there is a responsibility untowards the individual because the group is just the sum of the individuals.

You don&#39;t need a dictator, things can get done by teamwork, and there are examples of teamwork existing even if there aren&#39;t of communism. I think you seemed to misunderstand me earlier as well. The provission for the individual is from the whole group, not another individual. I am not saying we abandon the division of labour, so in most cases there is the labour of many people involved in the creation of goods. Take cars for example, lots of people make the cars, as it stands, out of thousands of cars made daily, the workers that create them get a small token in monetary form, worth part of a single car. The guy who may or not actually do anythingbut "own" takes the rest of the proceeds. In this system it is realised that there are cars produced, and as everyone is involved they should have use of such cars, not just the part the were responsible for. Extend this over society and you are getting warmer.

There is no dictatorship, it just happens. Why you might ask, especially when humans are greedy right? Well (O.K. the bourgeois might not like this) but society is better off this way. If people have their needs better met by this system, what benifit would, or could come from reverting back? Society currently does not approve of sharing, but it does approve of self interest and greed. That is because that is what is neccessary for it to sustain itself. Social preference would obviously change under this system, and people would probably look back to a time when people were constantly fighting to survive in much the same way as we look back to feudalism. Seeing it in terms of what it was, not what is proffessed to be at the time. I don&#39;t think there are many people that want to go back to those times.


It shouldn&#39;t be a problem at any stage. Besides, how long would a transition take?
Transitions aren&#39;t smooth, and I accept this. Look at the industrial revolution, it was a bad time to be around, but few people argue it was a waste of time. We owe a lot to people that were around at that time. If you are happy never going any further then fair enough, but eventually society will want to change, even if it isn&#39;t for a few hundred years.

How long it would take would depend on many factors. Opposition to the change for one, economic and evironmental condition, the method of transition adopted. Personally I only support undertaking this change when there is a conscious class majority. In other words, when most of society want this, it will happen. There would be no mandate for preventing it. Of course this is heavily contested amongst the left itself.


Allowed to have what?
A society ran in their interests.


I&#39;m not convinced that it won&#39;t effect me. It&#39;s not the commune-types that bother me, it&#39;s the revolutionaries who think that my business is their business
I admit that I fall into both categories. Until conditions are suitable I am more of the first kind, and I have/will spend/t time in communes. They are more primitive, but even then I prefer that existence to the one generally offered by our society. Of course I would ideally like the benifits of civilisation, and benificial political groundings.

I become the second sort when there is a class majority that actively want this change, but are prevented by a small group of people that like manipulating them. There won&#39;t really be a contest though, because they will simply stop being manipulated. There wouldn&#39;t even be a need for violence, but if the majority were lashed out against by the small elite that are using coercion to continue their dominance, then would violence not be justified? I don&#39;t start fights with strange people, but if they lash out at me then I will defend myself. This is more like a case where a bully lashes out, I think that self defence in this case is more than justified.


How about the assumption that the "peaceful communists" will be joined by the "non-peaceful communists". Who do you think will get their way?
I have described my version above, it can accommodate both types of communist. Although why would the violent ones be violent when there is no need?


I ultimately believe that there is no benefit to coercion, but there are those who do. The dictators and slavemasters of world, for instance.
I will not try and pretend that such a system would be benificial to them, but does that matter? They are definitely not benificial to society.


To avoid work? There are a number of answers to that. I&#39;m the wrong person to ask.
Take away the economic compulsion by providing what is needed and this reason goes away. Although I know what you mean even if you can&#39;t say it. There is a little part that thinks poorly of humans, but in all cases I can trace it back to some sort of self interest. When you take away the self interest involved in such activities I think I am justified in asserting they will disappear. Of course this is what there is no real empirical examples for, and this is not tried and tested. However, and you may not agree, I think I have enough of a reasoned view to qualify an attempt under the circumstances I described above.


It&#39;s hard to tell when some of you are being serious. There are some people here I wouldn&#39;t put anything past.
I know what you mean, although these are the people I am not particuarlly popular with here. I just take people on their individual merit. My personal take on language is one if the reasons for this, I try to be as unprejudiced as I can be, it helps me learn.

[red team]

It is actually quite possible to live without working.
We can&#39;t all be on the dole. There would be no one to pay for it.

THEN WHY DON&#39;T YOU GO OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS AND BECOME A SUSTENANCE HUNTER/GATHERER YOU HYPOCRITE&#33;&#33;&#33; :angry:
Are you arguing that it&#39;s not necessary to provide a means of living? Where do you think it all comes from?

Everyone that works, except those who can&#39;t

Are you arguing all workers have the abiltiy to acquire employment. :lol:
Every worker has the ability to seek employment not acquire employment that&#39;s really up to the business that&#39;s hiring. Who hold&#39;s the power again in this society?
Oh, and what about the business that has only 10 openings for 1000 candidates. I suppose those other 990 candidates are incompetent? Their no more incompetent than the business owners who need to hire workers because they can&#39;t do it themselves. Workers are the same as replaceable parts in the view of management. The 10 workers that were hired could just as well be replaced with any 10 from the pool of 990 other poor slobs if they get uppity.

Pretty much self explanatory.



I don&#39;t have any problems with working and contributing to society. What I do have a problem with is those who control the wealth of society who operates the means of production on the basis of personal financial gain.
They&#39;re not doing anything different to you.


Depends on who they are.
Everybody has to acquire a means of survival in this society that includes workers as well as entrepreneurs, but it doesn&#39;t mean they have the same class interests. If you become a business owner, you&#39;re interests is fundamentally opposed to the interests of the workers as a class. You acquire capital investments including workers based on cost/benefit calculations. If your decisions is favorable to your profits you hire workers if not you don&#39;t. It doesn&#39;t matter to you if you could produce more with more helping hands, if it means not being able to sell what you&#39;ve produced for a profit. The interests of workers is simply material production for material production sake. We have no use for profit calculations, therefore there&#39;s no artificial limit based on business profitability set on the number of workers to acquire only the ability and the willingness to work on the part of the worker himself/herself.



If somebody works harder than me for less they get to replace me and do my job too.
You want the right to be lazy and hold others back?


Laziness have nothing to do with it. Desperation has everything to do with it. Nobody in their right mind "agrees" to work to the detriment of their own health and happiness to keep his job and replace his coworker&#39;s job, unless placed under the threat of losing employment and livelihood.



If I then lose my job and I&#39;m driven into desperation and I "agree" to work harder for less than my coworkers then I have the "privilege" of keeping my job and doing double duty since my coworker will be terminated for "laziness". Its really a no-win situation isn&#39;t it?
Who&#39;s fault but yours?


Sorry, I don&#39;t like being coerced to work harder than my coworkers to be "competitive". I don&#39;t see any point to this competition except to improve my employer&#39;s bottom line. I don&#39;t get anything of benefit from seeing my coworkers lose their employment and me replacing them while also doing my own work for the same pay. Sure, I might get an incremental token increase in pay for being such a good back stabber and boot licker but so what?



you know I&#39;m not too fond of bullies myself....
That&#39;s a laugh.


Good to know that you share my humor.
I don&#39;t share yours. :angry:



My definition of slavery:
Condition #1: Depend on somebody else for a means of sustenance.
Are children slaves to their parents?


Do you know how many children in the "advanced" western countries are subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse by their parents?
Do you know how many children are forced to follow in the sick perverted superstitious fantasies of their parent&#39;s religion?
Do you know how many teenage runaways escaping family violence there are on America&#39;s streets on any given night?

Before people on the left fought this evil and pressured governments to set up agencies to protect children it was really "none of our business"

Oh, we also eventually want to abolish the family as an obsolete, archaic institution. Does that bother you? Good, I hope it does.



Condition #2: Depend on somebody else to either be hired for work or fired and not work.
This is not slavery.


It is if you depend on being hired to live, otherwise you die.
I guess you don&#39;t believe in the right to life either.

Actually knowing your types you probably do believe in the right to life for cellular protoplasm, but not fully grown humans.



Condition #3: Means of sustenance provided when hired for work.
That would make everyone in the whole world a slave. How else is "means of sustinence" going to be provided? It doesn&#39;t just fall out of the sky, you know.


Last time I&#39;ve checked, business investors and owners are not the ones living from paycheck to paycheck ever being worried about being thrown out of work and losing their only means of life support. "Means of sustenance" is provided by the labour of the workers. Parasites adding no significant contribution to the value produced by the labour of the workers are not needed. Business owners who own capital investments including their "workforce" are parasites.



Condition #4: Have absolutely no say in whether one is hired or fired.
You don&#39;t have a choice as to whether you&#39;re hired or not? That&#39;s certainly slavery, but does it describe your position? No.


I only receive employment from my potential employer see an advantage in profit making for hiring me, no matter how "hard-working" or talented I am.

I don&#39;t get to acquire anything. I only receive a job if my employer deems me "worthy" of being taken advantage of for his/her gain.

What&#39;s the difference for a worker working in some other country versus a worker working in North America if they both do the same amount and quality of work and they both are equally competent?
The only difference is the exchane rate in respective currency so the worker in the foreign country can be paid less according to the perspective of business owners here.



A worker has (Condition #1 and Condition #2 and Condition #3 and Condition #4) true which implies they are slaves.
Assertion #1 disproven.
Only in your fevered imagination.


I have a very good imagination, thank you, otherwise I wouldn&#39;t be able to develop software for a living. However, I&#39;m quite rational when viewing my own particular situation in the economic food chain. I don&#39;t get to be the shark as you seem to assert. In the grand perspective of things I&#39;m a plankton.



I&#39;m assuming that assertion #2 is universal? so it could then be said that: For all workers it is the case that they will work if and only if they are provided with a wage. Workers being defined as any person performing materially productive labour.

There&#39;s lots of volunteer and charity organizations
How many of them are working for nothing?


Some of them are. If I could find only one counter example your proof collapses. This is what it means by the assertion being universal. College level prepositional logic cappie.

A: workers
B: will work
C: paid a wage

D = for all A, B if and only if C

I&#39;d just proved one case of (not C)
therefore (not D)

You lose again
Care to try for more?



I make it a habit not to demand too much by force except when I&#39;m face with the prospect of personal physical extinction because of the dependent relationship forced upon me by those who owns the mean of producing material wealth in this society.
How is it being forced on you?


I don&#39;t own anything I could sell nor do I own anything capable of producing anything I could sell. Faced with such a situation, I am forced into a relationship of dependency on whoever or whatever requires my labour to make a profit from my labour. If they don&#39;t require my labour then I face the near certain prospect of extinction. I don&#39;t like being extinct.



If that happens then I get really nasty and will demand that they provide me with something that will sustain me.
By what right do you demand this?


Human Rights.

I know you don&#39;t believe in human rights being the parasite that you are.



Not my point, Tesla never aspired to be a businessman he was simply someone who provided a break-through invention for improving the quality of life.
Of course it&#39;s the point. If Tesla has patented and sold his invention, you&#39;d be denouncing him as another greedy capitalist who exploited the workers.


I never said anything about patenting. Most scientists are not capitalists and most capitalists are not scientists. Their mentality don&#39;t go together well. The fact is Tesla was a scientist and never a capitalist. He was exploited by a capitalist for his genius and generosity. This is a fact. Care to dispute that fact cappie?



That someone else being someone who holds the power to either provide me with the means to existence
In which case, what makes it yours to take?


If it is denied because of the other person&#39;s selfish motive for financial gain, I see absolutely no injustice in taking it.

(My Physical Existence) vs. (Somebody Else&#39;s Profit For Non Critical Purposes) :lol: :lol: :lol:

Care to take a guess at what position I would take.



If I&#39;m given the choice of either near certain physical non-existence or exploitation (profit making) for somebody else&#39;s financial gain then I really have no "choice" at all. These "choices" are worthy of my contempt.
Ignoring the loaded language, what other choices are there?


Not much if there is no social safety net such as welfare.
I would have to swallow my pride and be that obediant little peon to my employer.

otherwise I could:

I could sell my bodily organs, sell my blood, sell my body for sex, but ....
I would rather take out my frustration on those who put me into such a position and get some nice loot too.

But that usually doesn&#39;t happen unless my employer needs to enact cost cutting measures for profit maximization purposes (you know you just have to keep those investors happy) and I find myself being one of the "cost" being cut.



Yes, I will be prosecuted if I attempt to do that, which is the reason why I never attempt it. I do not get to be "productive" or "lazy". I cannot choose to work or not to work.
What&#39;s stopping you from making the choice?


Sorry you&#39;re either blind or dumb and I don&#39;t feel like repeating myself.



Garbage in garbage out. The analogy is garbage. Sex is not critical to my physical survival. Shelter and food is.
So you&#39;re content on robbery on home-invasion for the time being, then?


I don&#39;t do either. (yet)



If master is not happy with slave, slave gets to go homeless and starve.
In your case, that would be a blessing in disguise.


Even if I&#39;m doing all of my master&#39;s work while my master get to grow rich and live the good life off of my labour? :lol:

We all know that you&#39;re just a well dressed barbarian.



The worker is being paid the full value of his work- (some garbage).


Oh, don&#39;t make me die laughing. :lol: :lol: :lol:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

This was never intended to be a debate. This was intended to be a public intellectual duel to expose the weakness of your position. We are fighting for the middle forces. But in any case both what you and I fight over is marginal to what will really convince them. The impact of real-world economic trends over people lives will teach them about social reality more than anything you or I could say. Being thrown out of a job through no fault of their own, but because of corporate cost-cutting measures and suffering from intermittent homelessness and/or hunger will teach them more than I ever could. But any occasional public flogging of your position helps in its own small way as well as giving me great satisfaction. When the global economic collapse occur within the next 10 years I&#39;ll know exactly which side I&#39;ll be fighting for in the coming inter-class war.


Red Team
Cybernetic Socialism: http://www.dominic.lopez.net/cyber.html

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2006, 09:54 AM
RedZeppelin


Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriations. - Communist Manifesto

Except that you can&#39;t give him the power to appropriate the products of society without granting him the power to subjucate the labour of others.

You never learn, do you?
Is this the argument that those who provide a good or service must have the freedom to choose to whom s/he can offer that good or service?

This argument doesn&#39;t make any sense at all. Haven&#39;t we already discussed this, Tungsten?

Foremost, communism allows people to manufacture goods and provide services without the subjugation of their labor by others. This means that they therefore control their own labor. Unlike in class society. The product of their labor, likewise, belongs to them. It is capitalism, not communism, that reaps the product of one&#39;s labor. It is capitalism, not communism, that denies control of the product of one&#39;s labor to the laborer. Nobody is subjugated when the goods or services you voluntarily offer are consumed by the society that offers you its goods.

[Tungsten]

red team

Are you arguing all workers have the abiltiy to acquire employment.
Every worker has the ability to seek employment not acquire employment that&#39;s really up to the business that&#39;s hiring.
If they have the skills then why don&#39;t they start their own businesses?

Everybody has to acquire a means of survival in this society that includes workers as well as entrepreneurs, but it doesn&#39;t mean they have the same class interests. If you become a business owner, you&#39;re interests is fundamentally opposed to the interests of the workers as a class.
How are they opposed? They&#39;re co-dependent.

Nobody in their right mind "agrees" to work to the detriment of their own health and happiness
Or course not. That&#39;s why a business that does this will lose it&#39;s workforce to a business that doesn&#39;t.

Sorry, I don&#39;t like being coerced to work harder than my coworkers to be "competitive".
You&#39;re not being coerced unless someone is pointing a gun at you.

Do you know how many children in the "advanced" western countries are subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse by their parents?
Do you know how many children are forced to follow in the sick perverted superstitious fantasies of their parent&#39;s religion?
Do you know how many teenage runaways escaping family violence there are on America&#39;s streets on any given night?

Before people on the left fought this evil and pressured governments to set up agencies to protect children it was really "none of our business"
Can you make sure that your next tirade has something to do with the topic we were discussing?

It is if you depend on being hired to live, otherwise you die.
I guess you don&#39;t believe in the right to life either.
You have the right to your own life, not someone else&#39;s.

Actually knowing your types you probably do believe in the right to life for cellular protoplasm, but not fully grown humans.
:lol: He thinks I&#39;m a "conservative".

Last time I&#39;ve checked, business investors and owners are not the ones living from paycheck to paycheck ever being worried about being thrown out of work and losing their only means of life support.
Living from paycheck to paycheck does not make you a slave.

"Means of sustenance" is provided by the labour of the workers. Parasites adding no significant contribution to the value produced by the labour of the workers are not needed.
Nor are those who seek to take propety from others.

Business owners who own capital investments including their "workforce" are parasites.
They "work" too, I&#39;m afraid. Contary to what the commie mannifesto tells you.

I only receive employment from my potential employer see an advantage in profit making for hiring me, no matter how "hard-working" or talented I am.
But that&#39;s not what you claimed:
" Condition #4: Have absolutely no say in whether one is hired or fired."
You mean you were dragged off the street and forced to sign a contract at gunpoint?

However, I&#39;m quite rational when viewing my own particular situation in the economic food chain.
Economic "food chain"? That&#39;s a good one. You really do have a vivid imagination. Lousy anology, mind you.

Some of them are.
Not even for a tiny bit of emotional satisfaction as a reward? I don&#39;t believe you.

I don&#39;t own anything I could sell nor do I own anything capable of producing anything I could sell.
Liar. You just claimed to be a "software developer".

Faced with such a situation, I am forced into a relationship of dependency on whoever or whatever
Forced by who? Show me this person who&#39;s forcing you into a relationship of dependency. You can&#39;t; everyone has to provide their own means of living, or at least work for a wage and pay others to do it for them.

requires my labour to make a profit from my labour. If they don&#39;t require my labour then I face the near certain prospect of extinction. I don&#39;t like being extinct.
Compare these two situations:
A- I&#39;ve run out of fruit and now I&#39;m forced to eat bread.

B- I&#39;m being forced to eat bread because someone has tied me to the chair and is ramming it down my throat without my consent.

You&#39;re trying to claim that situation A is morally identical to B, which is foolish and dishonest.

Human Rights.
What about the human rights of the people you intend to enslave? The idea of a right is that it applies to everyone. Not just you.

I know you don&#39;t believe in human rights being the parasite that you are.
I&#39;m not the one demanding a free lunch.

I never said anything about patenting. Most scientists are not capitalists and most capitalists are not scientists. Their mentality don&#39;t go together well.
Disproven by every scientist that has ever patented anything or made a profit from his invention.

If it is denied because of the other person&#39;s selfish motive for financial gain, I see absolutely no injustice in taking it.
I sure hope you&#39;re not making any money out of the software you&#39;re developing.

(My Physical Existence) vs. (Somebody Else&#39;s Profit For Non Critical Purposes)

Care to take a guess at what position I would take.
So is a starving person justified in walking into your house and selling the computer you&#39;re typing this rubbish on in order to buy food? After all, it&#39;s hardly "critical".

Not much if there is no social safety net such as welfare.
Which would make you a parasite, living off others.

I would rather take out my frustration on those who put me into such a position
Put you in what position? A or B?

A- I&#39;ve run out of fruit and now I&#39;m forced to eat bread.

B- I&#39;m being forced to eat bread because someone has tied me to the chair and is ramming it down my throat without my consent.

Everyone is in position A. You&#39;re claiming that your situation is analogous with position B, which is a lie.


and get some nice loot too.
You&#39;ve learned your place. Well done.


So you&#39;re content on robbery on home-invasion for the time being, then?

I don&#39;t do either. (yet)
...immediately followed by...

We all know that you&#39;re just a well dressed barbarian.
:lol: Whatever, home-invader.


The worker is being paid the full value of his work- (some garbage).

Oh, don&#39;t make me die laughing. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Laughter doesn&#39;t refute the argument, regardless of the number of smilies you put after it. Try again.


This was never intended to be a debate. This was intended to be a public intellectual duel to expose the weakness of your position.
You failed. There is a consellation prize, though; you managed to prove yourself to be a thug. Congratulations.

We are fighting for the middle forces.
Who&#39;s we? I&#39;m not fighting for anything.

But in any case both what you and I fight over is marginal to what will really convince them. The impact of real-world economic trends over people lives will teach them about social reality more than anything you or I could say. Being thrown out of a job through no fault of their own, but because of corporate cost-cutting measures and suffering from intermittent homelessness and/or hunger will teach them more than I ever could.
Proverty doesn&#39;t magicaly endow people with knowledge into its cause. But then, we live in a world of people all to ready to look for scapegoats.

But any occasional public flogging of your position helps in its own small way as well as giving me great satisfaction.
Be sure to tell me when it starts. (Considering that you can&#39;t even tell what my position is.)

When the global economic collapse occur within the next 10 years I&#39;ll know exactly which side I&#39;ll be fighting for in the coming inter-class war.
Believe it or not, I believe in class warfare too. Unusual for a capitalist I know, but I&#39;m not into the fictional "bourgeoise/proletariat" crap. The real class war will take place between workers of all financial positions who seek to live their lives free from interference from the state and from people like you, and your "class" who seeks to dominate, rule and enslave them for whatever reason.

You need us. We don&#39;t need you.

RedZeppelin

Is this the argument that those who provide a good or service must have the freedom to choose to whom s/he can offer that good or service?
Of course. Would you like to provide services to nazi?

Foremost, communism allows people to manufacture goods and provide services without the subjugation of their labor by others. This means that they therefore control their own labor.
If they can&#39;t choose who they offer goods or services too, then how can they be in control of their own labour?

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Of course. Would you like to provide services to nazi?

In avoiding granting services and goods to Nazis, I assure you that communists have that problem covered a lot better than capitalists. The worker must not only have control of their labor, but s/he must also have control of the means of production and the product of that labor. Otherwise, your so-called "freedoms" are totally arbitrary. Control of the produc of one&#39;s labor is exerted by collective ownership of capital. That is far more control of labor by the laborer than one has in capitalism.

As for nazis, any political agenda which inherently seeks to thwart democratic power and socialism will not be tolerated by the working class. It has no purpose whatsoever. In capitalism, on the other hand, wage slaves to companies have no control over who the product of their labor will be sold to.

[Tungsten]

RedZeppelin

In avoiding granting services and goods to Nazis, I assure you that communists have that problem covered a lot better than capitalists. The worker must not only have control of their labor, but s/he must also have control of the means of production and the product of that labor. Otherwise, your so-called "freedoms" are totally arbitrary.
How are they arbitary?

Control of the produc of one&#39;s labor is exerted by collective ownership of capital.
Don&#39;t be absurd. Collective control and individual control of anything are mutually exclusive. You&#39;re not in control of your own labour if it can simply be voted out of your hands.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2006, 09:35 AM
RedZeppelin

In avoiding granting services and goods to Nazis, I assure you that communists have that problem covered a lot better than capitalists. The worker must not only have control of their labor, but s/he must also have control of the means of production and the product of that labor. Otherwise, your so-called "freedoms" are totally arbitrary.
How are they arbitary?
What is the use of having control of your labor if you do not have control of the product of your labor? That is, in fact, a subjugation of one&#39;s labor. That is what Marx & Engels were talking about.

[red team]

Are you arguing all workers have the abiltiy to acquire employment.
Every worker has the ability to seek employment not acquire employment that&#39;s really up to the business that&#39;s hiring.
If they have the skills then why don&#39;t they start their own businesses?


What year are we living in? Are you from the nineteenth century? Alright, you try to live selling homemade baked bread and hand weaved baskets. :lol: Go into any store and look around at the products being sold. How many are made by self employed individuals? How many are made by mega-corporations? The time when self-employment is an option for the majority of workers are long over that&#39;s why over 90% of the start-up businesses fail in their first year. Furthermore, as I&#39;ve said before workers (real workers, not management lapdogs) are in a dependent relation with their employers. You think they can make enough from their wages to start their own little wage-slave renting racket? :lol:



Everybody has to acquire a means of survival in this society that includes workers as well as entrepreneurs, but it doesn&#39;t mean they have the same class interests. If you become a business owner, you&#39;re interests is fundamentally opposed to the interests of the workers as a class.
How are they opposed? They&#39;re co-dependent.


Wow, you really don&#39;t seem to know your mouth from your arse hole because what you&#39;ve said is total bullshit. What share of the profits do most employers pay workers? What does labour go under in the accounting sheet of business? Profits are surplus to be maximized the employer and wage are expenses to be minimized by the employer. They&#39;re no more co-dependent than a pack animal is to his owner. Their in an antagonistic relationship with the employer holding the advantage because the employer needs the workers labour for generating surplus which s/he can always holdout for a lower price because the worker needs him for more immediate needs such as getting a wage to pay for the necessities of life. If you don&#39;t know this then you don&#39;t know what you&#39;re talking about.

(A Workers Wage For Buying Life Critical Necessities) vs. (A Employer&#39;s Non-Critical Profit)

Do you think the worker has any "choice" other than to accept the "labour contract" presented by his employer if he values his own life? What is this other than extortion? What can you call extortion for one&#39;s life in exchange for his labour other than slavery.



Nobody in their right mind "agrees" to work to the detriment of their own health and happiness
Or course not. That&#39;s why a business that does this will lose it&#39;s workforce to a business that doesn&#39;t.

Given their limited resources workers will usually buy the product with the lower price given they are uniform in quality. The company with the greater production efficiency gains a greater market share for their products because they can plough back their surplus into producing more products cheaply. The company that is more ruthless with its workforce is also the one that can afford to hire more poorly paid workers. This is called being "competitive" in business-speak. The worker&#39;s defense to this is not other business competitors who are also racing to improve efficiency, but by witholding work through strikes.



Sorry, I don&#39;t like being coerced to work harder than my coworkers to be "competitive".
You&#39;re not being coerced unless someone is pointing a gun at you.


I am being coerced if that&#39;s what it takes to keep my job and the pay from my job is the only thing keeping me alive.



Do you know how many children in the "advanced" western countries are subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse by their parents?
Do you know how many children are forced to follow in the sick perverted superstitious fantasies of their parent&#39;s religion?
Do you know how many teenage runaways escaping family violence there are on America&#39;s streets on any given night?

Before people on the left fought this evil and pressured governments to set up agencies to protect children it was really "none of our business"

Can you make sure that your next tirade has something to do with the topic we were discussing?


You asked "So children are slaves to their parents".

Answer: Children depend exclusively on their parents or legal guardian for their only means of life support. There is no other state institution where children can organize under for an independent means to survival if they escape from their families nor is their any law mandating the right of children to use the resources of the state to build such an organization.

Conclusion: Children are as much under slavery from their parents as workers are under slavery from their bosses. They both depend exclusively on somebody else for their means of life support with no law mandated right and no state institution for maintaining an independent means of survival.

The previous post was simply to illustrate to results of said slavery of children to parents when the parents decide to be abusive or to force their creed onto their children. Parents much like employers have the ultimate decision making power over the life and death of their subjects, not by active physical intimidation, but by passive denial of the means to existence which is in their right to do, therefore they are in effect slave masters whether or not they like to think of themselves as such.



It is if you depend on being hired to live, otherwise you die.
I guess you don&#39;t believe in the right to life either.
You have the right to your own life, not someone else&#39;s.


Paragraph #1

I&#39;m not denying my boss of his right to life or of his means of survival if I insist on not being treated as a disposable piece of machinery. However, if my boss does treat me like a disposable piece of machinery like all bosses needs to do then he will be depriving me of my right to life since I depend on him for my means of survival. I need to pay for food and rent and I am incapable of doing either if I&#39;m disposed of by my boss.



Last time I&#39;ve checked, business investors and owners are not the ones living from paycheck to paycheck ever being worried about being thrown out of work and losing their only means of life support.
Living from paycheck to paycheck does not make you a slave.


It does if that paycheck can be arbitrarily terminated at anytime by your "superiors" with no right of challenge from yourself. Because if you are terminated from your work and you cannot challenge this decision (see above paragraph, tired of repeating myself)



"Means of sustenance" is provided by the labour of the workers. Parasites adding no significant contribution to the value produced by the labour of the workers are not needed.
Nor are those who seek to take propety from others.

Business owners who own capital investments including their "workforce" are parasites.
They "work" too, I&#39;m afraid. Contary to what the commie mannifesto tells you.


Work by delegation is not work. In any case they receive a disproportionate amount of the generated wealth from the actual amount of "work" they do which is not work.



I only receive employment from my potential employer see an advantage in profit making for hiring me, no matter how "hard-working" or talented I am.
But that&#39;s not what you claimed:
" Condition #4: Have absolutely no say in whether one is hired or fired."
You mean you were dragged off the street and forced to sign a contract at gunpoint?


Nowhere in the condition did it mention direct physical intimidation. It states: absolutely no say as in absolutely no part in the decision making. Why is this coercion? See paragraph #1 (denial of the sole means to existence)



Human Rights.
What about the human rights of the people you intend to enslave? The idea of a right is that it applies to everyone. Not just you.


Like you said, everyone needs to work for a living. Everyone has an obligation to work. Nobody gets to be a parasite. Those who are capable of work have a right to demand work. Nobody can demand to live off the labour of others without contributing their own share of labour. Those who refuse their obligation to work forfeits their right to share in the wealth generated by those who work.

Am my making it clear to you cappie.



I know you don&#39;t believe in human rights being the parasite that you are.
I&#39;m not the one demanding a free lunch.


I&#39;m the one demanding the right to make the lunch. Your the one demanding a bite of the lunch without doing any contributing work yourself. Who&#39;s the freeloader in this arrangement.



If it is denied because of the other person&#39;s selfish motive for financial gain, I see absolutely no injustice in taking it.
I sure hope you&#39;re not making any money out of the software you&#39;re developing.


My software is not capable of denying anybody the right to work and generate wealth for himself. That is the function of human bosses not computer instructions.



(My Physical Existence) vs. (Somebody Else&#39;s Profit For Non Critical Purposes)

Care to take a guess at what position I would take.
So is a starving person justified in walking into your house and selling the computer you&#39;re typing this rubbish on in order to buy food? After all, it&#39;s hardly "critical".


I didn&#39;t put him in such a position. I am not capable of putting him in such a position because I&#39;m not an employer. One would encourage him to go after and expropriate assets from those who are responsible for putting him in such a position namely Capitalists.



Not much if there is no social safety net such as welfare.
Which would make you a parasite, living off others.


I&#39;m taxed everytime I go to work for my boss. The unspoken tax is called profits. If I&#39;m booted out of work by my employers and end up living off welfare from the taxes paid by employers I consider it fair retribution. One parasite deserves another.



When the global economic collapse occur within the next 10 years I&#39;ll know exactly which side I&#39;ll be fighting for in the coming inter-class war.
Believe it or not, I believe in class warfare too. Unusual for a capitalist I know, but I&#39;m not into the fictional "bourgeoise/proletariat" crap. The real class war will take place between workers of all financial positions who seek to live their lives free from interference from the state and from people like you, and your "class" who seeks to dominate, rule and enslave them for whatever reason.

You need us. We don&#39;t need you.


Assuming you can get enough "allies" together, but can you? People ultimately vote with their wallets and stomach. If you can manage to control the economic situation and provide decent jobs for everybody so everyone gets to live in consumerist paradise you&#39;ll have no need to fear rebellion and we&#39;ll just be discounted as a bunch of raving lunatics. But if the economy takes a nose dive and it sure looks as it will then you&#39;ve got a problem on your hand don&#39;t you? How many mercenary soldiers can you pay-off to guard against the majority of the working population demanding your hide?


Red Team

[Charles]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 10:39 PM
Greetings all, I am new here, and I am a <gasp> capitalist&#33;

You think you are all greedless communists fighting for liberty. I beleive you are all closet capitalists. Why pray tell? You all seem to want money&#33;

Before I read Marx, I expected a book about communism, Have you ever read Marx? Das Kapital? It is all about MONEY. That&#39;s right. Cold hard MOOLAH from beginning to end. It turns out Marx himself was a capitalist and didn&#39;t have to work. Did he on Engles ever share their fortune? Did the profits from their books go to the poor? If not they were capitalists trying to sell a book&#33; :o

I beleive people become socialists when they realise they are unable, or unwilling to get rich slow. Perhaps you people wish to get rich quick? That&#39;s what &#39;wealth redistribution&#39; is, is it not? A transfer of MONEY? Can anyone here tell me they don&#39;t want money? Can anyone refute me who wishes to stay poor?

So long fellow Capitalists&#33;
sure i want money i have to live in this capitolist shit hole dont i? but i am not greedy i give money to charitys, i buy lunch for the homeles guy down the street,
because i know i dont need limitles wealth like so many like so many capitolists do

[Tungsten]

Red Team

What year are we living in? Are you from the nineteenth century? Alright, you try to live selling homemade baked bread and hand weaved baskets. Go into any store and look around at the products being sold. How many are made by self employed individuals? How many are made by mega-corporations?
Believe it or not, there was once a time when those "mega corporations" were just people selilng homemade bread and hand weaved baskets.

Wow, you really don&#39;t seem to know your mouth from your arse hole because what you&#39;ve said is total bullshit. What share of the profits do most employers pay workers?
What&#39;s that got to do with whether their relationship is co-dependent or not?

What does labour go under in the accounting sheet of business? Profits are surplus to be maximized the employer and wage are expenses to be minimized by the employer.
But employer can&#39;t just set whatever wages he wants anymore than the employee can.

They&#39;re no more co-dependent than a pack animal is to his owner.
The pack animal is free to leave to seek his own fortune, as are you.

Their in an antagonistic relationship with the employer holding the advantage because the employer needs the workers labour for generating surplus which s/he can always holdout for a lower price because the worker needs him for more immediate needs such as getting a wage to pay for the necessities of life. If you don&#39;t know this then you don&#39;t know what you&#39;re talking about.
You can&#39;t even see the obvious contradiction in your position. The labourer needs the work, but then the employer need the labourer. The employer does not hold any advantage. It&#39;s a neutral situation.

(A Workers Wage For Buying Life Critical Necessities) vs. (A Employer&#39;s Non-Critical Profit)
And how do you think the empoyer buys "life critical necessities"? Is a workers wage not "profit"?

Do you think the worker has any "choice" other than to accept the "labour contract" presented by his employer if he values his own life?
Does the employer have any choice other than to accept what the worker is wiling to offer him?

What is this other than extortion?
We generally call it value-for-value trade. Ask yourself how you bypass it other than through slavery.

What can you call extortion for one&#39;s life in exchange for his labour other than slavery.
Except that it isn&#39;t slavery or extorsion.

Given their limited resources workers will usually buy the product with the lower price given they are uniform in quality.
But they&#39;re usually not uniform in quality.

The company with the greater production efficiency gains a greater market share for their products because they can plough back their surplus into producing more products cheaply.
Better for the consumer (and therefore the worker).

The company that is more ruthless with its workforce is also the one that can afford to hire more poorly paid workers.
Poorly paid and churning out shoddy goods. How long did Skoda last after the iron curtain came down? It couldn&#39;t compete because it&#39;s products sucked.

This is called being "competitive" in business-speak. The worker&#39;s defense to this is not other business competitors who are also racing to improve efficiency, but by witholding work through strikes.
The worker can work for who he wishes and has the right to withold his labour.

I am being coerced if that&#39;s what it takes to keep my job and the pay from my job is the only thing keeping me alive.
Who are you being coerced by and what are they doing to coerce you?

Answer: Children depend exclusively on their parents or legal guardian for their only means of life support.
That doesn&#39;t make them slaves, though.

However, if my boss does treat me like a disposable piece of machinery like all bosses needs to do then he will be depriving me of my right to life since I depend on him for my means of survival.
That means that a runaway slave must be committing an offence against his master because the master depends on him as a means of survival. In other words, nonsense. You have the right to you own life, not the right to demand a job off someone. You&#39;re not allowed to live by initiating force.

It does if that paycheck can be arbitrarily terminated at anytime by your "superiors" with no right of challenge from yourself.
How does that prevent you from seeking employment elsewhere?

Nowhere in the condition did it mention direct physical intimidation. It states: absolutely no say as in absolutely no part in the decision making. Why is this coercion? See paragraph #1 (denial of the sole means to existence)
It&#39;s not your sole means of existence and you&#39;re not owed it by anyone anyway.

Like you said, everyone needs to work for a living. Everyone has an obligation to work. Nobody gets to be a parasite.
And here you are demaning a right to sustinence. I&#39;ve told you twice already that your situation is an example of position A (read my previous post) and not B, but you keep ignoring it.

Those who are capable of work have a right to demand work.
From who?

I&#39;m the one demanding the right to make the lunch.
You can make your own lunch. If you want to make mine, it&#39;ll be my decision.

Your the one demanding a bite of the lunch without doing any contributing work yourself.
Am I? Where? What am I demanding for free?

My software is not capable of denying anybody the right to work and generate wealth for himself. That is the function of human bosses not computer instructions.
But the human bosses aren&#39;t doing that either.

I didn&#39;t put him in such a position. I am not capable of putting him in such a position because I&#39;m not an employer.
Yes you did. You&#39;re a potential employer who had the potential to help these people. But you&#39;re too self interested, evidently. What about their right to a job?

One would encourage him to go after and expropriate assets from those who are responsible for putting him in such a position namely Capitalists.
How did the capitalist put him into the position? You never say.

I&#39;m taxed everytime I go to work for my boss. The unspoken tax is called profits.
Except that he&#39;s not taking money from you, so it isn&#39;t really a tax at all.

[KC]

Believe it or not, there was once a time when those "mega corporations" were just people selilng homemade bread and hand weaved baskets.

And as capitalism progressed, it became increasingly difficult for these people to compete with rising businesses and corporations.



But employer can&#39;t just set whatever wages he wants anymore than the employee can.

You are correct. In order for the capitalist system to dominate, the workers must be paid just so much as to propogate the working class. Of course, because of class antagonisms that level of pay has been raised somewhat. At the threat of the imminent collapse of the capitalist system, owners were willing to concede to giving higher wages out. They may not be as rich as they were before, but at least they&#39;re still rich&#33;



The pack animal is free to leave to seek his own fortune, as are you.

It is pretty much impossible to escape capitalist society. You must be bourgeois, proletarian, or you must attempt to escape society by going to a place that capitalist society hasn&#39;t yet reached (which is becoming increasingly difficult). Forests, desert, high in the mountains, etc...



You can&#39;t even see the obvious contradiction in your position. The labourer needs the work, but then the employer need the labourer. The employer does not hold any advantage. It&#39;s a neutral situation.

The employer owns the means of production. He is protected by the government from having that seized from him, and the government is backed by brute force. It is possible that if the whole proletariat refuses to work then capitalist society would show its true colors and attempt to take control of the situation through brute force. But if one worker refuses to work nothing will happen. That worker will starve to death. The employer can look elsewhere for workers.


Is a workers wage not "profit"?

No. A worker&#39;s wage is an expense for the employer. The profit goes to the capitalist, which he in turn uses either as dividends, for personal pleasure, or as capital, to generate still further surplus value.



Does the employer have any choice other than to accept what the worker is wiling to offer him?

Yes. The employer can accept the worker that offers to work for the lowest wage. This is in fact what is done. It is quite obvious. This is the competition between workers (Manuscripts of 1844).



Poorly paid and churning out shoddy goods. How long did Skoda last after the iron curtain came down? It couldn&#39;t compete because it&#39;s products sucked.

"Shoddy" good compared to what? It has been said that a lightbulb that lasts indefinitely could be produced. It is possible to produce nylons that don&#39;t tear. Yet they aren&#39;t produced. Why? Because it isn&#39;t profitable.



The worker can work for who he wishes and has the right to withold his labour.

The point is that this exploitation isn&#39;t committed by one business, or a small number of businesses. This exploitation is committed by all businesses. In fact, it is required for a business to survive that it exploit its workers. If there was no profit there would be no business&#33; So the worker can either agree to work and be exploited, or refuse and die.



Who are you being coerced by and what are they doing to coerce you?

The bourgeoisie are coercing the proletariat to work for less than the value of their labour.



Except that he&#39;s not taking money from you, so it isn&#39;t really a tax at all.


The worker produces the commodities. The worker created the value. The commodity is then sold for more than what the worker is paid. The worker did all the work, yet he doesn&#39;t get paid the value of his work.

[ItalianCommie]

Tungsten, didn&#39;t you know the world is round, not flat? Do you think that every worker in the world can actually selfemploy himself? If so, do you think every one of these workers can actually once he starts his own buisness suddenly become rich, making his own corporation? JUST LIKE THAT?&#33;? If so, do you think the planet can actually afford such a huge amount of rich people? If so, then I gather YOU HAVE A VERY DISTORTED VISION OF SOCIETY. :P

Don&#39;t you realize that millions around the world are actually dying in the deserts, in the streets, in the jungles, because of the "slave" employer system? Dying because they don&#39;t even have the basic means to survive? Like no food or water? Do you think 20% of the world&#39;s population(the western civilization) has the right to consume 83% of the world&#39;s resources? Do you think you have the right to become rich, whipping the back of the underpayed(comparable to "enslaved") sod? Or fop, seeing your opinions? :o
Can you justify such a system?

I actually read that 4% of the wealth owned by the 100 richest families in the world(around 50 bilion dollars) is enough to guarantee the basic needs for ALL the poor people in the Third world. The USA is actually spending 250 billion dollars a year on defence now. :o

Shame on you, cappie.

Shame on you. :angry:

[Tungsten]

Lazar

And as capitalism progressed, it became increasingly difficult for these people to compete with rising businesses and corporations.
The larger they get, the less eficient they become. It&#39;s like the government.

The employer owns the means of production. He is protected by the government from having that seized from him, and the government is backed by brute force.
But aren&#39;t you showing your true colours by using brute force to seize property?

It is possible that if the whole proletariat refuses to work then capitalist society would show its true colors and attempt to take control of the situation through brute force. But if one worker refuses to work nothing will happen. That worker will starve to death. The employer can look elsewhere for workers.
Unlikely, seeing as the government wouldn&#39;t have the power to do it.

No. A worker&#39;s wage is an expense for the employer. The profit goes to the capitalist, which he in turn uses either as dividends, for personal pleasure, or as capital, to generate still further surplus value.
But he&#39;s getting paid a sum of money he didn&#39;t have before. He is therefore making a profit.

Yes. The employer can accept the worker that offers to work for the lowest wage. This is in fact what is done. It is quite obvious.
Obviously not, otherwise all workers would be on the minimum wage.

"Shoddy" good compared to what? It has been said that a lightbulb that lasts indefinitely could be produced. It is possible to produce nylons that don&#39;t tear. Yet they aren&#39;t produced. Why? Because it isn&#39;t profitable.
If it&#39;s not profitable, then it&#39;s not worth making. That&#39;s unless you&#39;re willing to enslave in order to do it.

The point is that this exploitation isn&#39;t committed by one business, or a small number of businesses. This exploitation is committed by all businesses. In fact, it is required for a business to survive that it exploit its workers. If there was no profit there would be no business&#33; So the worker can either agree to work and be exploited, or refuse and die.
But he&#39;s not being exploited, so the point isn&#39;t relevent.

The bourgeoisie are coercing the proletariat to work for less than the value of their labour.
The value of their labour is that which the employer is prepared to pay and the price which they&#39;re willing to work for. That&#39;s how value is calculated. There isn&#39;t any other valid way of doing it. I&#39;ve been through this already with the other guy.

The worker produces the commodities. The worker created the value. The commodity is then sold for more than what the worker is paid. The worker did all the work, yet he doesn&#39;t get paid the value of his work.
This isn&#39;t even part of the equasion. What happens to the product, or what it is sold for is out of the worker&#39;s hands unless it is mentioned in their contract.
ItalianCommie

Tungsten, didn&#39;t you know the world is round, not flat? Do you think that every worker in the world can actually selfemploy himself? If so, do you think every one of these workers can actually once he starts his own buisness suddenly become rich, making his own corporation? JUST LIKE THAT?&#33;? If so, do you think the planet can actually afford such a huge amount of rich people? If so, then I gather YOU HAVE A VERY DISTORTED VISION OF SOCIETY.
I don&#39;t recall saying that.

Don&#39;t you realize that millions around the world are actually dying in the deserts, in the streets, in the jungles, because of the "slave" employer system?
Perhaps they ought to get themselves a non-slave employer system i.e. free market capitalism.

Dying because they don&#39;t even have the basic means to survive? Like no food or water?
You won&#39;t find many people like that in countries like ours. Any idea why that might be?

Do you think 20% of the world&#39;s population(the western civilization) has the right to consume 83% of the world&#39;s resources?
You&#39;ve overlooked the fact that 20% of the world&#39;s population created 83% of the worlds resources.

Do you think you have the right to become rich, whipping the back of the underpayed(comparable to "enslaved") sod?
Of course not, but then becoming rich doesn&#39;t involve that. It&#39;s a charicature and a con.

Can you justify such a system?
Certainly not, but I&#39;m not adovcating such a system, so it doesn&#39;t matter.

I actually read that 4% of the wealth owned by the 100 richest families in the world(around 50 bilion dollars) is enough to guarantee the basic needs for ALL the poor people in the Third world.
You need to learn more about economics and how it works. You see, the reason our countries are relatively sucessful is because we don&#39;t run around expropriating money from either rich or poor in order to pay for each other&#39;s pet projects or to give to people who we may percieve as being deserving of it. That&#39;s just despotism.

The USA is actually spending 250 billion dollars a year on defence now.
What&#39;s that got to do with the price of fish?

Shame on you, cappie.

Shame on you.
Same on me for what?

[KC]

The larger they get, the less eficient they become. It&#39;s like the government.

Care to go into a little more detail?



But aren&#39;t you showing your true colours by using brute force to seize property?

You are trailing off the original concept on this one, as we were originally talking about whether or not the bourgeoisie is dependent upon the proletariat. If you have a response to that then I would love to hear it.



Unlikely, seeing as the government wouldn&#39;t have the power to do it.

How wouldn&#39;t it?



But he&#39;s getting paid a sum of money he didn&#39;t have before. He is therefore making a profit.

I&#39;m guessing by &#39;he&#39; you mean the worker. Exchange taking place doesn&#39;t always mean that there is profit involved. The workers are selling their labour-power for money. This does not mean that the worker made a profit at all. In fact, since surplus value is extracted from the work that the worker performs, the workers are getting paid less than the value of their labour-power.



Obviously not, otherwise all workers would be on the minimum wage.

No, they wouldn&#39;t. Take engineers, for example. Engineers will not take a job that pays &#036;10,000 a year. Let&#39;s say there are two engineers with the same qualifications. One desires to work for &#036;75,000 annually and one is content with &#036;50,000 annually. Who do you think will be chosen? The bourgeoisie take the offers from workers to work for the least that is offered. That is why so many engineering jobs are being shipped overseas to people that are willing to work for &#036;10,000 a year.



If it&#39;s not profitable, then it&#39;s not worth making.

Thank you for proving my point.



But he&#39;s not being exploited, so the point isn&#39;t relevent.

Where does profit come from?


That&#39;s how value is calculated. There isn&#39;t any other valid way of doing it. I&#39;ve been through this already with the other guy.

That&#39;s how price is calculated. We are not talking about calculating specific prices here. The price of a good in a given transaction is created through the agreement of both parties. This is why exceptional transactions are possible. Usually, though, most transactions aren&#39;t unusual. Market prices are pretty much the normal price of a product. This is what we can apply Marxist economics to (an &#39;average&#39; transaction, if you will). These are based off of the amount of labour that went into the product.

&#39; Imagine for a moment that there are just two objects in question – say, a deer and a beaver – and just two owners (both of them hunters). Suppose that it requires one day of hunting to capture a deer, but seven days to capture a beaver. If both hunters are equally skilful at catching both types of quarry, then parting with one beaver for one deer seems unreasonable. Why trade the product of seven day’s labour for the product of one day’s labour? Why hunt for seven days to wind up with a deer requiring only one day of hunting?
It is possible to make this exchange – what would prevent it? Any producer can make an unequal exchange either unwittingly or if s/he so desires. But the matter changes when we talk about systematic commodity exchange, that is, capitalism. Here, the principle that regulates commodity exchange is labour-time. Materially, commodities may be totally dissimilar – but they do have one thing in common: all require human effort for their production or appropriation. This provides a basis for exchange. By this standard, seven deer are equal to one beaver. That is, each embodies an equal quantity of labour. This raises a problem: what does it mean to say that a product ‘embodies’ labor?
Just this: that so much labour ‘goes into’ the product. In production, the material object existing before production changes. The body of the object changes with the labour expended upon it. This labour thus has ‘bodily’ results – it is embodied in a material thing.&#39; (Marx&#39;s Kapital for Beginners)



This isn&#39;t even part of the equasion. What happens to the product, or what it is sold for is out of the worker&#39;s hands unless it is mentioned in their contract.

Your lack of education in Marxist economics is unfortunate. Why don&#39;t you read up on it a little? I suggest that you read capital then come back and tell us specifically what you disagree with, because right now you&#39;re not really making enough sense to debate with (that&#39;s what happens when you don&#39;t know anything about the topic at hand).

Answer some questions for me:
Do you think labour is embodied in a commodity? Why/why not?
What is the common thing inherent in all commodities used to determine value? How is x Commodity A determined to be equal to y Commodity B? There must be something that is the same in all commodities, otherwise an equivalent value couldn&#39;t be determined. So what do you think is inherent in all commodities that is used to determine the value of x or y in the above formula?

[Tungsten]

Lazar

Care to go into a little more detail?
No.

You are trailing off the original concept on this one, as we were originally talking about whether or not the bourgeoisie is dependent upon the proletariat. If you have a response to that then I would love to hear it.
It&#39;s dependent in the sense that a shop and a consumer are dependent.

How wouldn&#39;t it?
It wouldn&#39;t be legal.

I&#39;m guessing by &#39;he&#39; you mean the worker. Exchange taking place doesn&#39;t always mean that there is profit involved. The workers are selling their labour-power for money. This does not mean that the worker made a profit at all. In fact, since surplus value is extracted from the work that the worker performs, the workers are getting paid less than the value of their labour-power.
The value of the labour-power is worth that which the worker and the employer have agreed to. There isn&#39;t any surplus to take.

No, they wouldn&#39;t. Take engineers, for example. Engineers will not take a job that pays &#036;10,000 a year.
Why wouldn&#39;t they?

Thank you for proving my point.
So you prefer the coercion route?

That&#39;s how price is calculated. We are not talking about calculating specific prices here. The price of a good in a given transaction is created through the agreement of both parties. This is why exceptional transactions are possible. Usually, though, most transactions aren&#39;t unusual. Market prices are pretty much the normal price of a product.
The market prices, assuming they&#39;re not tampered with are the correct price for the product.

This is what we can apply Marxist economics to (an &#39;average&#39; transaction, if you will).
An average transaction to be determined how? How is "average" to be determined without a realistic pricing system?

These are based off of the amount of labour that went into the product.
A product is worth what the consumer is wiling to pay for it, not how much labour went into it. Attempts to calculate using other means fail.

Do you think labour is embodied in a commodity? Why/why not?
It&#39;s a non-issue. You&#39;ve left the end consumer out of the equation when he is very much a part of it.

Too much labour-centric economics.

[Abood]

Actually, the only reason i want money is to get by. I dont want extra money.. im savin some up incase i wanna start a commie party or some kind of revolutionary thing that needs funding. :)

[red team]

Tungsten


So you prefer the coercion route?

We Want WAR, Wake Up&#33;&#33;&#33; :angry:

(Accompanied by the sound of marching boots of course) :)

[Abood]

We Want WAR, Wake Up&#33;&#33;&#33;
don&#39;t call it war, call it a revolution &#33;&#33;&#33;

[Seong]

I am Vindicated&#33;

Dude you are nowhere near vindicated. If you actually read some of the posts on this site before you started talking out of your ass you would see that many of the members here support the total abolition of monetary systems.

And also, are you so dense that you can&#39;t recognise sarcasm?

[KC]

No.

Why not?



It&#39;s dependent in the sense that a shop and a consumer are dependent.

Not necessarily. The bourgeoisie has a monopoly on the means of production. Therefore, the bourgeoisie controls the workers.



It wouldn&#39;t be legal.

So what? Just because it&#39;s illegal doesn&#39;t mean it doesn&#39;t have the power to do it. The government breaks the law all the time&#33;



The value of the labour-power is worth that which the worker and the employer have agreed to. There isn&#39;t any surplus to take.

Read this (https://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45625). If you are going to discount Marxist economics then you might as well be knowledgable about it.



Why wouldn&#39;t they?

Because that&#39;s shitty pay for an engineer in the United States.



So you prefer the coercion route?

Apparently you do. I prefer the route where the workers decide what to do themselves, without any bosses or "efficiency experts" or having to worry about "making a profit".



The market prices, assuming they&#39;re not tampered with are the correct price for the product.

That is what I said, genius. But then we have to ask the question of how these market prices are determined.



An average transaction to be determined how? How is "average" to be determined without a realistic pricing system?

The Marxist economic system isn&#39;t a price model. An average transaction is a fair transaction (one where neither of the two parties are "ripped off"). In a fair transaction the labour theory of value works perfectly.



A product is worth what the consumer is wiling to pay for it, not how much labour went into it. Attempts to calculate using other means fail.

We&#39;re not calculating anything. We&#39;re defining how the price is determined.



It&#39;s a non-issue. You&#39;ve left the end consumer out of the equation when he is very much a part of it.


I don&#39;t have to put the consumer into the equation because it was a question that didn&#39;t relate to the consumer at all. All I asked you was do you think that there is labour embodied in a commodity. So answer the question.

Also, you missed one:

What is the common thing inherent in all commodities used to determine value? How is x Commodity A determined to be equal to y Commodity B? There must be something that is the same in all commodities, otherwise an equivalent value couldn&#39;t be determined. So what do you think is inherent in all commodities that is used to determine the value of x or y in the above formula?

Answer that for me, will you? Or did you skip it because you cannot? Or do you know that the answer is labour and don&#39;t want to say it because you don&#39;t want to "shame yourself"?

Here&#39;s another question for you. Let&#39;s say you and me are both two hunters living in the forest. We don&#39;t have a monetary system because it is just the two of us. Let&#39;s say it takes both of us 1 hour to hunt a beaver and 5 hours to hunt a deer. Let&#39;s say you hunted the deer, and I hunted the beaver. Let&#39;s also say that we want to exchange our animals. I decide that I am not going to give my beaver up for any less than 1/5 of the deer, because if I did then I would be getting ripped off (after all, I could just go hunt a deer). Knowing this, what would you be willing to trade your deer for to get the best deal?


Actually, the only reason i want money is to get by. I dont want extra money.. im savin some up incase i wanna start a commie party or some kind of revolutionary thing that needs funding. smile.gif

Desiring money is completely different than desiring capital.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Tungsten, do you have any response to my last post? It felt like we were making some ground and then you seemed to stop posting. It is on page 3 by the way. Cheers.

[Qwerty Dvorak]

*EDIT* Lol, now I feel stupid...

Sorry, I forgot to read the last 3 pages :lol:

[ItalianCommie]

ItalianCommie

Tungsten, didn&#39;t you know the world is round, not flat? Do you think that
[QUOTE][QUOTE]Tungsten, do you think that every worker in the world can actually selfemploy himself? If so, do you think every one of these workers can actually once he starts his own buisness suddenly become rich, making his own corporation? JUST LIKE THAT?&#33;? If so, do you think the planet can actually afford such a huge amount of rich people? If so, then I gather YOU HAVE A VERY DISTORTED VISION OF SOCIETY.
I don&#39;t recall saying that.

Oh yes you do. Of course I should have said "slave of the minimum wage" than worker, I apologize for that "vague" term. You answered to a slave of the minimum wage by saying "why don&#39;t you self employ yourself?" Can every slave of the minimum wage do that? NO. 90% of them fail in their first year, so there.



Don&#39;t you realize that millions around the world are actually dying in the deserts, in the streets, in the jungles, because of the "slave"(of the minimum wage) employer system? QUOTE]
Perhaps they ought to get themselves a non-slave employer system i.e. free market capitalism.

Oh, but they do. Cocacola, Nestlè, ExxonMobil are all officially "free marketeers", are they not?


[QUOTE]Dying because they don&#39;t even have the means to survive? Like no food or water?
You won&#39;t find many people like that in countries like ours. Any idea why that might be?

I was talking about Third World countries. Why that might be like that? Because Western World countries conquered those places or supported fascist like regimes which openly supported free market capitalism. Have you ever even heard of countries like Chile or the Congo(DRC) or Chad or Somalia( they&#39;re in Africa and in South America, just in case you once again try and prolonge the argument)? They are all in economic difficulties, with people often starving in slums.
Have you ever heard of globalization? Don&#39;t tell me I have to explain some more? Or are you yet another media-slave?



Do you think 20% of the world&#39;s population (the western civilization) has the right to consume 83% of the world&#39;s resources?
You&#39;ve overlooked the fact that 20% of the world&#39;s population created 83% of the world&#39;s resources.

I don&#39;t think so. Any idea from where most of the world&#39;s oil comes from? From OPEC countries, like Arabia, Lybia, Nigeria and Venezuela. They&#39;re not part of the western civilization.



Do you think that you have the right to become rich, whipping the back of the underpayed(comparable to "enslaved") sod?

Of course not, but then becoming rich doesn&#39;t involve that. It&#39;s a caricature and a con.

Not if you&#39;re born rich. :lol: Becoming rich involves being a ruthless buisnessman. Look at Bill Gates, or the chaps in CocaCola(they payed a killer to assassinate a trade union leader in one of their factories in Colombia, riddling him with 45 bullets. Talk about free market. :angry: )


[QUOTE]Can you justify such a system?
Certainly not, but I&#39;m not advocating such a system, so it doesn&#39;t matter.

You fervently are. SHAME ON YOU FOR SUPPORTING SUCH A SYSTEM&#33; :angry:

Sorry to burst your bubble&#33; :lol:

Those statistics I wrote about on page 3 of this debate are from Alessandro Marescotti, one of Italy&#39;s most renowned economists.

[red team]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/intro.htm


Let us assume that the money price of these means of subsistence averages 3 shillings a day. Our laborer gets, therefore, a daily wage of 3 shillings from his employer. For this, the capitalist lets him work, say, 12 hours a day. Our capitalist, moreover, calculates somewhat in the following fashion: Let us assume that our laborer (a machinist) has to make a part of a machine which he finishes in one day. The raw material (iron and brass in the necessary prepared form) costs 20 shillings. The consumption of coal by the steam-engine, the wear-and-tear of this engine itself, of the turning-lathe, and of the other tools with which our laborer works, represent, for one day and one laborer, a value of 1 shilling. The wages for one day are, according to our assumption, 3 shillings. This makes a total of 24 shillings for our piece of a machine.

But, the capitalist calculates that, on an average, he will receive for it a price of 27 shillings from his customers, or 3 shillings over and above his outlay.

Whence do they 3 shillings pocketed by the capitalist come? According to the assertion of classical political economy, commodities are in the long run sold at their values, that is, they are sold at prices which correspond to the necessary quantities of labor contained in them. The average price of our part of a machine – 27 shillings – would therefore equal its value, i.e., equal the amount of labor embodied in it. But, of these 27 shillings, 21 shillings were values were values already existing before the machinist began to work; 20 shillings were contained in the raw material, 1 shilling in the fuel consumed during the work and in the machines and tools used in the process and reduced in their efficiency to the value of this amount. There remains 6 shillings, which have been added to the value of the raw material. But, according to the supposition of our economists, themselves, these 6 shillings can arise only from the labor added to the raw material by the laborer. His 12 hours’ labor has created, according to this, a new value of 6 shillings. Therefore, the value of his 12 hours’ labor would be equivalent to 6 shillings. So we have at last discovered what the “value of labor” is.

“Hold on there&#33;” cries our machinist. “Six shillings? But I have received only 3 shillings&#33; My capitalist swears high and day that the value of my 12 hours’ labor is no more than 3 shillings, and if I were to demand 6, he’d laugh at me. What kind of a story is that?"

If before this we got with our value of labor into a vicious circle, we now surely have driven straight into an insoluble contradiction. We searched for the value of labor, and we found more than we can use. For the laborer, the value of the 12 hours’ labor is 3 shillings; for the capitalist, it is 6 shillings, of which he pays the workingman 3 shillings as wages, and pockets the remaining 3 shilling himself. According to this, labor has not one but two values, and, moreover, two very different values&#33;

As soon as we reduce the values, now expressed in money, to labor-time, the contradiction becomes even more absurd. By the 12 hours’ labor, a new value of 6 shillings is created. Therefore, in 6 hours, the new value created equals 3 shilling – the mount which the laborer receives for 12 hours’ labor. For 12 hours’ labor, the workingman receives, as an equivalent, the product of 6 hours’ labor. We are, thus, forced to one of two conclusions: either labor has two values, one of which is twice as large as the other, or 12 equals 6&#33; In both cases, we get pure absurdities. Turn and twist as we may, we will not get out of this contradiction as long as we speak of the buying and selling of “labor” and of the “value of labor.” And just so it happened to the political economists. The last offshoot of classical political economy – the Ricardian school – was largely wrecked on the insolubility of this contradiction. Classical political economy had run itself into a blind alley. The man who discovered the way out of this blind alley was Karl Marx.


The origins of all profits are the short changing of the total value of labour produced by the worker by the Capitalist. We call people who in the course of a trade transaction short changes you for what you&#39;ve traded to them cheats or thieves. Because all Capitalists short changes workers as to the total value that is generated by labour embodied in the product through the wages paid to the worker we conclude that all Capitalists are cheats or thieves.


Red Team

[Tungsten]

Red Team

We Want WAR, Wake Up&#33;&#33;&#33; :angry:
I know what you want. I know what you deserve too.

From the quote:

Whence do they 3 shillings pocketed by the capitalist come?..
Good question. Pity Marx is unable to answer. Just saying "it&#39;s stolen" doesn&#39;t cut it; where was this 3 shillings before the capitalist came along? What about the context in which the product was produced. Just because something expensive might have had more labour put into it, doesn&#39;t mean that the labour caused it to be expensive. Generally, the consumer doesn&#39;t care less about how much or little labour went into the product. If they want it, they want it. They don&#39;t care how much you sweated to produce a crappy product when someone else did it effortlessly for a lower price.

You have the wrong idea about where value and pricing originate from. Value is not inherent in objects or labour, but is a product of labourer&#39;s, employer&#39;s and consumer&#39;s judgments. Market values depend upon people&#39;s desires and the more they want a particular product, the more they are willing to trade for it and thus the more it is worth. The alternative is what? A society where prices and values are dictated?

The origins of all profits are the short changing of the total value of labour produced by the worker by the Capitalist.
They&#39;re not shortchanging anyone. The worker has agreed to work for a specific price, the employer has agree to pay a specific price. Deviation from this is a breach of contract.

We call people who in the course of a trade transaction short changes you for what you&#39;ve traded to them cheats or thieves.
But they haven&#39;t short changed you.

Because all Capitalists short changes workers as to the total value that is generated by labour embodied in the product through the wages paid to the worker we conclude that all Capitalists are cheats or thieves.
But they&#39;re not, so it doesn&#39;t matter.

Seong

Dude you are nowhere near vindicated. If you actually read some of the posts on this site before you started talking out of your ass you would see that many of the members here support the total abolition of monetary systems.

And also, are you so dense that you can&#39;t recognise sarcasm?
Was this supposed to be directed at me?
Lazar

Why not?
Because I can&#39;t be arsed.

Not necessarily. The bourgeoisie has a monopoly on the means of production. Therefore, the bourgeoisie controls the workers.
There is no monopoly.

Read this. If you are going to discount Marxist economics then you might as well be knowledgable about it.
That&#39;s interesting, but how does it refute my argument?

Because that&#39;s shitty pay for an engineer in the United States.
Why is it shitty pay for an engineer.

Apparently you do.
Apparently I don&#39;t, nor is there anything to back up this claim.

I prefer the route where the workers decide what to do themselves, without any bosses or "efficiency experts" or having to worry about "making a profit".
That doesn&#39;t imply coercion at all.

That is what I said, genius. But then we have to ask the question of how these market prices are determined.
I&#39;ve already told you how they&#39;re determined.

The Marxist economic system isn&#39;t a price model. An average transaction is a fair transaction
How are we calculating "fair"?

(one where neither of the two parties are "ripped off").
They&#39;re not being ripped off unless there is fraud involved.

In a fair transaction the labour theory of value works perfectly.
It doesn&#39;t at all, plus how do we determine what "fair" is without reference to a free market?

We&#39;re not calculating anything. We&#39;re defining how the price is determined.
I know. It involves calculation.

I don&#39;t have to put the consumer into the equation because it was a question that didn&#39;t relate to the consumer at all.
Oh no, of course the price of the goods doesn&#39;t relate to the person buying is willing to pay at all. :rolleyes:

All I asked you was do you think that there is labour embodied in a commodity
No more than anything else. Labour is not some mystical power that has an intrinsic value. No product is inherently valuable.

What is the common thing inherent in all commodities used to determine value? How is x Commodity A determined to be equal to y Commodity B? There must be something that is the same in all commodities, otherwise an equivalent value couldn&#39;t be determined. So what do you think is inherent in all commodities that is used to determine the value of x or y in the above formula?

Answer that for me, will you?
Repeat in english and I&#39;ll think about it.


Or did you skip it because you cannot? Or do you know that the answer is labour and don&#39;t want to say it because you don&#39;t want to "shame yourself"?

Are you trying to imply that labour has some intrinsic value that is somehow equal to the price of the commodity. Why do people want VWs, but not Ladas? It sure isn&#39;t down to hype. Did more "labour" go into the VWs? No, they&#39;re just better vehicles.

You think I&#39;m going to pay thouands of pounds for a pile of shit when someone else can make a better product at an equal or lower price?

Here&#39;s another question for you. Let&#39;s say you and me are both two hunters living in the forest. We don&#39;t have a monetary system because it is just the two of us. Let&#39;s say it takes both of us 1 hour to hunt a beaver and 5 hours to hunt a deer. Let&#39;s say you hunted the deer, and I hunted the beaver. Let&#39;s also say that we want to exchange our animals. I decide that I am not going to give my beaver up for any less than 1/5 of the deer, because if I did then I would be getting ripped off (after all, I could just go hunt a deer). Knowing this, what would you be willing to trade your deer for to get the best deal?
Why are you asking me this? In this scenario, I&#39;m only a "consumer" and my opinions apparently don&#39;t matter ( :lol: ). I guess that&#39;s where the guns come in...

Desiring money is completely different than desiring capital.
It isn&#39;t.
ItalianCommie

Oh yes you do. Of course I should have said "slave of the minimum wage" than worker, I apologize for that "vague" term. You answered to a slave of the minimum wage by saying "why don&#39;t you self employ yourself?" Can every slave of the minimum wage do that? NO. 90% of them fail in their first year, so there.
Don&#39;t bother with the catchphrases, I&#39;ve heard them all before and I wasn&#39;t impressed or fooled the first time. Any fool can start and run a business, you just need to know what to sell. Either people want what you have, or they don&#39;t. Of course, it&#39;s easier to do business in a society without so many regulations and taxes.

But alas, the system must be cursed because the sucess rate isn&#39;t 100%. And the alternative that doesn&#39;t involve force is what, exactly?

Oh, but they do. Cocacola, Nestlè, ExxonMobil are all officially "free marketeers", are they not?
No, they&#39;re just companies. Companies are not intriniscally "free market". Some of them have blood on their hands too. Claiming that the free market "causes" this is dumb. You won&#39;t be free to kill people off or invade their land.

I was talking about Third World countries.
And I was talking about first world countries. Why are we not starving? Answer: (relatively) free market economy.

Why that might be like that? Because Western World countries conquered those places or supported fascist like regimes which openly supported free market capitalism.
I&#39;m not openly supporting them. Invading other countries isn&#39;t "free market" anything.

Have you ever even heard of countries like Chile or the Congo(DRC) or Chad or Somalia( they&#39;re in Africa and in South America, just in case you once again try and prolonge the argument)? They are all in economic difficulties, with people often starving in slums.
Most of them are in economic difficulties because they don&#39;t follow free market economics.

I don&#39;t think so. Any idea from where most of the world&#39;s oil comes from? From OPEC countries, like Arabia, Lybia, Nigeria and Venezuela. They&#39;re not part of the western civilization.
-My country produces it&#39;s own oil, thanks.
-What use is oil outside western civlization? How many Nigerians have cars?
-What about the cars that run on it? How many come from those countries?

Not if you&#39;re born rich. Becoming rich involves being a ruthless buisnessman.
Cheap shot, commie. Show me a rich man who was ruthless and I&#39;ll show you one that wasn&#39;t. There are people are who are ruthless and "succesful" and they need disposing of. But there are also those that are not. Putting them all in the same pidgeon hole is lazy and dishonest.

Look at Bill Gates,
Yes, he was born the richest man in the world wasn&#39;t he? :rolleyes:

or the chaps in CocaCola(they payed a killer to assassinate a trade union leader in one of their factories in Colombia, riddling him with 45 bullets. Talk about free market.
What&#39;s this got to do with the free market? Shooting people was a criminal act last time I checked.

You fervently are.
I&#39;m fervently not. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[KC]

Oh no, of course the price of the goods doesn&#39;t relate to the person buying is willing to pay at all.

Don&#39;t be silly. Of course it does.



No more than anything else. Labour is not some mystical power that has an intrinsic value. No product is inherently valuable.

You are right. Labour is no such thing, nor have I claimed it to be so.



Repeat in english and I&#39;ll think about it.

In order to exchange two things, there has to be something common in both of those things that is used to determine the magnitude of value. If there wasn&#39;t any such thing, then there would be no such thing as value because two objects couldn&#39;t come into exchange with each other. What is the common thing that is in all commodities that is used to determine value? How is a certain amount of one commodity determined to be equal to a certain amount of another commodity?

Of course, you might think it is money. But it can&#39;t be. Why? Because we can make an exchange of things without money being involved (or an even better example, we can make an exchange in a society that doesn&#39;t have money, such as my two hunters example).



Are you trying to imply that labour has some intrinsic value that is somehow equal to the price of the commodity.

No.


Why do people want VWs, but not Ladas? It sure isn&#39;t down to hype. Did more "labour" go into the VWs?

I couldn&#39;t answer this; I don&#39;t know shit about cars.



You think I&#39;m going to pay thouands of pounds for a pile of shit when someone else can make a better product at an equal or lower price?

They can make a better product at an equal or lower price because they increase the means of production.



Why are you asking me this? In this scenario, I&#39;m only a "consumer" and my opinions apparently don&#39;t matter ( laugh.gif ). I guess that&#39;s where the guns come in...

Answer it.



It isn&#39;t.

It is.

[red team]

You were the one originally asking the question.



So you prefer the coercion route?


I&#39;ve answered it.
Social Revolution is not about what I want, but what the majority of workers want when they get fed up with the rigged game they&#39;re forced to endure in order to survive. Note: soldiers and police are workers too. If they see society crumbling because of a dysfunctional economic system they&#39;ll draw their own conclusions.

Note: WE not I in the original quote.



Good question. Pity Marx is unable to answer. Just saying "it&#39;s stolen" doesn&#39;t cut it; where was this 3 shillings before the capitalist came along? What about the context in which the product was produced. Just because something expensive might have had more labour put into it, doesn&#39;t mean that the labour caused it to be expensive. Generally, the consumer doesn&#39;t care less about how much or little labour went into the product. If they want it, they want it. They don&#39;t care how much you sweated to produce a crappy product when someone else did it effortlessly for a lower price.


You didn&#39;t answer the question. Nowhere did it state an item being more expensive or less expensive in absolute price. Suppose it is 10, 20, 100... who cares what the actual market price is. The person or people owning the company still get a cut above what is paid in terms of what the actual labour was worth either in a market system or a fixed price system. The worker never gets 100% of what his labour is worth in terms of revenue in both cases. whether its consumer defined or government mandated, he gets what amount to crumbs from what is left over when the owners take their largest share, without being workers themselves.

Also, the quality of a good has nothing to do with its price. Note, price gouging by artificially created shortages or hording of supplies. Or the mass marketing of poor quality goods (don&#39;t tell me that doesn&#39;t happen). Furthermore, what reason do workers have for not designing the perfect quality product in the first place? They&#39;re the ones that are going to use it so if they design it with engineering flaws, aren&#39;t they just letting themselves buy their own shoddy work? Sorry, but workers/consumers don&#39;t short change themselves by doing that so that argument falls flat from the workers own self interest in desiring first-rate quality goods.


Red Team

[red team]

As I see it there&#39;s only 1 way you can save the economic system. People when placed into a situation where they are unsatisfied with the conditions of their lives have a high likelihood of rebelling in order to change conditions for the better. Like me for instance. And as the economic competition gets more fierce its only going to encourage more people to be dissatisfied because business needs to be competitive, duh&#33; Therefore wages needs to be cut, safety measures cut back, work made more efficient and faster. The thing is given the brain biology that human workers have, they will express emotions such as anger, sadness and hatred when they encounter conditions they percieve as a threat to their quality of life and happiness. We can&#39;t help that, its embedded right into the structure of our brains to be that way. In that case you got 2 options.

1. Replace human workers with autonomous mechanical workers that is programmed with enough artificial intelligence to perform manual and clerical human tasks so there&#39;s no need for hiring rebellious and picky human workers like me for instance.

2. Genetic engineering technology would provide the solution in this case. Research the human genome to map out genetically exactly the areas of the brain responsible for emotional expression then engineer a virus to destroy those brain areas responsible for the feelings of anger and sadness. Covertly introduce the virus into the food supply of the worker population. Now the workers are perfect in the way that they are biologically incapable of feeling the need to rebel. Stage 2 would requiring implanting this virus into the offsprings of these workers so you can have the next generation of satisfied workers. If I&#39;m biologically incapable of expressing rebellious feelings then that implies that I&#39;m satisfied. Quite a logical scientific solution really.


(Before anybody complain about me putting this unspeakably evil shit up. Consider this, if I could imagine and come up with this, its pretty much a given that they&#39;re already working on it at some secret lab somewhere. I don&#39;t put anything past these guys)


Red Team

[Capitalist Lawyer]

Lazar: blah...blah....blah...blah...


You are reducing the entire US economy to a stereotype Lazar. The largest holder of public stock in the US is, brace yourself, employee pension/retirement plans so most of the employees are keeping themselves down by your logic. You also fail to address any of the legitimate points raised on this thread. I am still waiting for your response to this post :

Some people are naturally lazy and some people are over achievers. That can be seen in individual families where the socio-economics are the same for all the children--some children do well and some don&#39;t. The children of the lazy will then likely get a poor start and the children of the over achievers will likely get a better start. How does a classless society deal with that?

If you cannot or will not give respond to this aspect, then your ideal system, whatever that is, is not worth further discussion IMO.

[KC]

You are reducing the entire US economy to a stereotype Lazar. The largest holder of public stock in the US is, brace yourself, employee pension/retirement plans so most of the employees are keeping themselves down by your logic.

No. In the case of shareholding, only those with a significant portion of the means of production in their possession are bourgeois.


You also fail to address any of the legitimate points raised on this thread.

Which ones? Did I miss some?


I am still waiting for your response to this post :

I don&#39;t even know where the hell this post came from. I certainly don&#39;t remember seeing it anywhere, but since you pointed it out I will be more than glad to respond.



Some people are naturally lazy and some people are over achievers. That can be seen in individual families where the socio-economics are the same for all the children--some children do well and some don&#39;t. The children of the lazy will then likely get a poor start and the children of the over achievers will likely get a better start. How does a classless society deal with that?

First, nobody is "naturally lazy". People are lazy for a variety of reasons, none of which are natural. This cannot be seen in the example you suggest, as each child lives different lives and therefore their consciousnesses will be different. One child might know what career s/he wants, while another can&#39;t decide. This could lead to the child choosing a career that s/he doesn&#39;t enjoy, and that they will perhaps get lazy because of it. In communism, careers won&#39;t be set. The undecided child can take the time and find out which one best suits him/her and because of this will enjoy their work.



If you cannot or will not give respond to this aspect, then your ideal system, whatever that is, is not worth further discussion IMO.

To be honest with you I haven&#39;t even seen this post before.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

The undecided child can take the time and find out which one best suits him/her and because of this will enjoy their work.

And how much time is to be given to Undecided Child? What if Undecided Child becomes Undecided 30 Year Old?

When does Society say to the Undecided that its time to grab a shovel?

And if Undecided suddenly decides that he wants to be the conductor of the NY Philharmonic, how does Society break it to him that that job is taken by someone else?

How does a classless society deal with dissappointment, sloth, or unfullfilled ambition?

Come on, Karl, tell me.

Not only are people naturally lazy, they will spend thousands of dollars to continue to be lazy. If you don&#39;t think this is true, see how many people have riding lawn mowers. Watch them drive around in a parking lot to get a spot 50 feet closer to the door and in good weather. Don&#39;t take my word for it, just open your eyes and see for yourself.

Greed and insatiable desire to look out for "number one" is a cardinal principle of human survival/behavior. Communism and socialism try to stifle that instinct and therefore fall behind. Capitalism uses that drive to advance all of society.

[Seong]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2006, 07:46 AM

Seong

Dude you are nowhere near vindicated. If you actually read some of the posts on this site before you started talking out of your ass you would see that many of the members here support the total abolition of monetary systems.

And also, are you so dense that you can&#39;t recognise sarcasm?
Was this supposed to be directed at me?

Err no, it was directed at Empire. As far as I know you did not declare: "I am vindicated."

But if you feel the need to I&#39;ll be happy to refute that claim as well.

[Seong]

Firstly, you&#39;re a wanka.


Originally posted by Capitalist [email protected] 5 2006, 10:52 AM
And how much time is to be given to Undecided Child? What if Undecided Child becomes Undecided 30 Year Old?

You say that as if it doesn&#39;t happen in Capitalist society. At present Undecided Child isn&#39;t given an option. Undecided Child becomes Undecided 30 year old who either steals to survive or dies - or in some countries hops on the neverending welfare queue. So Undecided 30 year old clogs up the penal system, or kills someone.

And in regards to your example of the &#39;ride-on&#39; lawn mowers, the people who own them are targets of advertising and marketing or in other words propaganda. A ride-on lawn mower is not essential to human existence, it is a product that a company has told someone that they need to make their lives easier. It is just another novel object for your wealthy consumer to marvel over for the next ten minutes, before they see the ad for fridges that walk to you or car keys that come when you whistle.
And in what fucked up world does a person drive a ride-on mower through a carpark? Are they going to the supermarket at 30km an hour?

Yes people are inherently lazy, but they have been made lazier by capitalism. Without capitalism there would be no such thing as a ride-on, or an escalator - the creation of which strangely coincides with the creation of malls.


Greed and insatiable desire to look out for "number one" is a cardinal principle of human survival/behavior. Communism and socialism try to stifle that instinct and therefore fall behind. Capitalism uses that drive to advance all of society.

Greed is a result of Capitalist ideology - competition. If you have more green bits of paper then you are suddenly a superior being. So everyone wants more little bits of paper. Your sense of value as a person is wrapped up in this concept of the &#39;ownership&#39; of private property. You will fuck everyone else over just so you can say that you&#39;re ten times richer than someone else because in Capitalist society that is how you know that you&#39;re worth something.

Capitalism does not advance all of society. Capitalism advances the wealthy and elite of society, and doesn&#39;t give shit about the majority of the workers holding that society together who get left behind. Yes survival is a natural instinct - greed for material goods is the unnatural conditioning of Capitalism.

[Ol' Dirty]

Dude, Marx was an economist; of course he&#39;s going to talk of economy. George Bush isn&#39;t an Islamic extremist (although an overt, extremist capitalist, which you seem to be); aren&#39;t most of his ignorant-ass speeches about Islamic extremism? Personnaly, I have not read the book, but I know enough about Marx to know that he wasn&#39;t a capitalist.

[KC]

Not only are people naturally lazy, they will spend thousands of dollars to continue to be lazy. If you don&#39;t think this is true, see how many people have riding lawn mowers. Watch them drive around in a parking lot to get a spot 50 feet closer to the door and in good weather. Don&#39;t take my word for it, just open your eyes and see for yourself.

Greed and insatiable desire to look out for "number one" is a cardinal principle of human survival/behavior. Communism and socialism try to stifle that instinct and therefore fall behind. Capitalism uses that drive to advance all of society.

Yes, all of you misguided fools claim this to be truth. Yet you never offer up any shred of evidence when asked to do so. So offer some up.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

Capitalism does not advance all of society.

Yes... it does. Again, our system has spread more wealth to more people more evenly than any other system in the history of the planet. In other words... all boats are raised by the power of the tide of everyone looking out for themselves.



Capitalism advances the wealthy and elite of society, and doesn&#39;t give shit about the majority of the workers holding that society together who get left behind.


Been through this argument with many people here too many times before. Capitalism gives a shit about the workers in that their labor is a product of supply and demand too. Otherwise every strike would be a miserable failure.

[red team]

Originally posted by Capitalist [email protected] 8 2006, 05:27 PM

Capitalism does not advance all of society.

Yes... it does. Again, our system has spread more wealth to more people more evenly than any other system in the history of the planet. In other words... all boats are raised by the power of the tide of everyone looking out for themselves.



Capitalism advances the wealthy and elite of society, and doesn&#39;t give shit about the majority of the workers holding that society together who get left behind.


Been through this argument with many people here too many times before. Capitalism gives a shit about the workers in that their labor is a product of supply and demand too. Otherwise every strike would be a miserable failure.
True, but only if there is competition and only if the competition doesn&#39;t conspire to get rich by screwing the consumers, otherwise that&#39;s just a simple oligarchy. Furthermore, you have to specify what sort of "advance" we&#39;re talking about. Business only respect profits and the highest profit only comes from going after the relatively well off consumers rather than the poor ones even if there may be a greater need for critical, but cheap necessities among the poor. Cheap medicines for diseases of poverty such as TB goes unmet while lifestyle drugs for anti-impotency and diseases which also affect the idle wealthy have a disproportionate amount of resources diverted to fund and research them. Furthermore, products that cannot be sold as commodities are deliberately wasted in total disregard to their actual material value. Food which cannot be sold are dumped into the ocean, buried or left to rot in the fields for instance. Far from being an ideal system, Capitalism has many serious problems.

[red team]

On the subject of competition, the cold war competition between opposing ideologies was one of the period in which humanity in general experienced its greatest advances in both quality of life for the general population and technological progress. The mutual balance in terror worked in such a way that Capitalism needed to guard against its own excesses and institute reforms to the benefit of workers, otherwise face defection and rebellion by the working population. I think we need another period in which a balance of terror is established for the general benefit of the working population. :lol: The only way Capitalism can be progressive, is to have a constant threat of it being overthrown by a competing ideology. Competition after all is the mainstay of Capitalist ideology. Its only way to motivate Capitalists who are after all motivated by nothing else other than greed if an external threat isn&#39;t present.

[bombeverything]

Yes... it does. Again, our system has spread more wealth to more people more evenly than any other system in the history of the planet. In other words... all boats are raised by the power of the tide of [b]everyone looking out for themselves.

:D

Then would you care to explain why the gap between the rich and the poor is growing? Obviously a society that promotes competition rather than solidarity will result in nothing but inequality. How could you fail to see this?


Some people are naturally lazy and some people are over achievers. That can be seen in individual families where the socio-economics are the same for all the children--some children do well and some don&#39;t. The children of the lazy will then likely get a poor start and the children of the over achievers will likely get a better start. How does a classless society deal with that?

We live in a capitalist society where a person who is considered an "over achiever" is someone who fits nicely into the system, whereas someone who is considered "lazy" is someone who does not fit nicely into the system. In other words, when you are BORED you are often lazy. In a classless society, people would be free to partake in voluntary and meaningful work and as a result this would not be a problem.

[Seong]

Originally posted by Capitalist [email protected] 9 2006, 04:27 AM

Capitalism does not advance all of society.

Yes... it does. Again, our system has spread more wealth to more people more evenly than any other system in the history of the planet. In other words... all boats are raised by the power of the tide of everyone looking out for themselves.


Hey guys, he&#39;s right. We&#39;re way better off under Capitalism than we would be in Feudalist or Monarchical systems of government. This system does advance more people and spread wealth more evenly than ye olde days when public floggings were par for the course.

And FYI those workers&#39; strikes only get results because the workers are what holds your precious capitalist system together. If your millions of retail assistants suddenly made a unanimous decision to walk off the job, as they surely will one blessed day, all of you right wing arseholes would be screwed.

FFS look at what you are using for comparison. But since you are saying that &#39;everyone looking out for themselves&#39; is somehow universally beneficial in the same post we will overlook your obvious stupidity yet again.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

Furthermore, you have to specify what sort of "advance" we&#39;re talking about. Business only respect profits and the highest profit only comes from going after the relatively well off consumers rather than the poor ones even if there may be a greater need for critical, but cheap necessities among the poor.


Not that they&#39;re the shining stars of capitalism, but Tobacco companies, Liquor companies, and Fast Food Restaraunts, aren&#39;t exactly marketing to "upscale consumers"....

Want to bet, that the profits of these three groups, makes MORE of their profits from the "poor", than they do from the affluent?



Furthermore, products that cannot be sold as commodities are deliberately wasted in total disregard to their actual material value. Food which cannot be sold are dumped into the ocean, buried or left to rot in the fields for instance. Far from being an ideal system, Capitalism has many serious problems.


I don&#39;t see this as a problem, as the cost of excess crops, is not passed along to the consumer. In a capitalistic society, if the demand was there, those crops would be sold.

Farmers do this every year. Their unsold produce, and crop waste, gets converted back into compost and fertilizer, which lowers their costs for the following year, and helps increase their yield, which means that they have even more unsold produce, the following year.

In fact, alot of them try to donate about 2 tons of unsold produce every year to food banks, and programs that say that they&#39;re "feeding the hungry", but they don&#39;t want raw produce. They want money.

And then we all have to watch these "tear jerking" commercials, about kids going to bed hungry at night. Well, if they are, it&#39;s not because of the "capitalist" farmers and businesses.

[red team]

Furthermore, you have to specify what sort of "advance" we&#39;re talking about. Business only respect profits and the highest profit only comes from going after the relatively well off consumers rather than the poor ones even if there may be a greater need for critical, but cheap necessities among the poor.

Not that they&#39;re the shining stars of capitalism, but Tobacco companies, Liquor companies, and Fast Food Restaraunts, aren&#39;t exactly marketing to "upscale consumers"....

Want to bet, that the profits of these three groups, makes MORE of their profits from the "poor", than they do from the affluent?


Yes, but you are forgetting the income level of a consumer determines the choices that can be made by that consumer. If I was a poorly paid worker, I may not want to choose certain consumer products, but it may also be my only viable economic choice. Also, by keeping the poor ignorant, mass marketing can be used as a function to manipulate them into buying all sorts of useless crap, some of which may be detrimental to their own health.

Tobacco and alcohol are not even worth mentioning unless your values are that of a narcotic dealer. What possible social good can come out of producing products that are harmful to consume? Furthermore, people purchasing these products often know their harmful effects, but choose to consume them anyway, which means that they don&#39;t value their own life much anyway. This says a lot about the current state of humanity doesn&#39;t it? As Communists we are materialist in that we believe that material wealth and productive capacity should serve to advance human society. If you argue contrary to this point then what you are really stating is that the human condition cannot be improved so why bother using our material wealth and productive capacity for progressive purposes? As I have said before businesses only respect profit. If it means making profits by selling socially destructive products to a working population that has lost hope in bettering their own conditions then it will be done. I find such a philosophy repulsive.



Furthermore, products that cannot be sold as commodities are deliberately wasted in total disregard to their actual material value. Food which cannot be sold are dumped into the ocean, buried or left to rot in the fields for instance. Far from being an ideal system, Capitalism has many serious problems.

I don&#39;t see this as a problem, as the cost of excess crops, is not passed along to the consumer. In a capitalistic society, if the demand was there, those crops would be sold.

Farmers do this every year. Their unsold produce, and crop waste, gets converted back into compost and fertilizer, which lowers their costs for the following year, and helps increase their yield, which means that they have even more unsold produce, the following year.

In fact, alot of them try to donate about 2 tons of unsold produce every year to food banks, and programs that say that they&#39;re "feeding the hungry", but they don&#39;t want raw produce. They want money.

And then we all have to watch these "tear jerking" commercials, about kids going to bed hungry at night. Well, if they are, it&#39;s not because of the "capitalist" farmers and businesses.


There are really two definition of "excess" depending on different economic systems you view material production from. If you view production from the perspective of our present Capitalist system then excess would mean lack of purchasing power, which does not necessarily mean the lack of actual demand for it. Lack of purchasing power is just that, it does not imply anything else.

The problem with the Capitalist system or actually the whole pricing system is that it operates entirely from the perspective of a debt to be paid for one&#39;s labour in producing a scarcity, so no matter how materially productive you really are you end up wasting your abundance because if you are producing in abundance, that is in excess of what you can actually produce from your own labour, you can either end up taking a share of the "excess" material wealth produced in excess of your own labour in which case workers owe nothing and the producers are no longer in debt and the whole economic system collapses or you exchange you labour debts for a scarcity of production which is only viable if material wealth was scarce in the first place. Either that or you need to destroy excess wealth in order to match human labour output. How this is rational way of organizing material production is anybody&#39;s guess. Basing economic production on debt to be paid to investors will always produce a scarcity even if productive power becomes in excess of corresponding labour. Is this a path to societal abundance? No, but its a quick way to turn the planet into a garbage dump.


Red Team

[red team]

Furthermore, a technical-scientific society based on energy accounting is not as far of as you might think. Manual labour is inefficient. Humans break easily and cannot be fed high energy fuels because biological metabolism is based on oxidizing sugar not deriving mechanical motion from combustion or electromagnetic energy. The only plan worthy of consideration is the development of autonomous mechanical devices embedded with a self-training artificial intelligence. This is not science fiction. Neural networks mimicking the chemical interaction of brain cells through computer instructions is already in the research project stage at major universities. I&#39;m also reading a book on neural networks and artificial intelligence at the moment. The fact that it&#39;s published means this is in the mainstream of research. As far as energy is concerned we can get free energy from treating the Earth as a giant electrical generator. The Earth magnetic field traps electrically charged particles from the solar wind of the sun. All that&#39;s needed to harness this energy is to build a space beanstalk made from super dense, super strong nanotube fibers, put it in geostationary orbit and tap the electricity generated from the wire strand going up into space as it cuts magnetic flux lines.