An Anti-communist Column

[Capitalist Lawyer]

I didn't write this but I thought it was well-written and it seems that this anti-communist has a pretty good grasp on the subject.



Marx’s idea was free labor. He looked forward to a world where each person could choose his own work. This would mean a world of free self-creation: in selecting your work, meaning you would decide the person you wished to be, the skills you would develop, and the goods you would produce and identify as your own. Then, on a whim you could set that work aside and take up something new in an improvisational dance of choice and labor. What Marx saw around him in the nineteenth-century was a systematic violation of this ideal, where workers took whatever jobs they could find to keep them in food and shelter. Marx thought even capitalists were slaves, always driven by the threat of bankruptcy. He thought neither the “exploiters of labor” nor the “exploited” had real freedom in choosing how they spent their hours and energies.

Marx was an economic and social analyst more then a political thinker who ultimately rested in the prediction that capitalism’s periodic crises would shake it apart permitting workers to take over in revolution. Needless to say it was a failed and faulty prediction considering the triumph and grandeur of this great capitalistic Nation of “mine”.

Marx was not really a bad man and I think his utopia is quite beautiful if I’m honest.
Like most foolish fantasies that try in vain to prove themselves plausible communism fell flat every time Like all utopia-pipe dreams it ignores human nature and reality and should have been left alone as the unrealistic dream it was and still is.

Marx’s evil successors like yourself turned economics back into politics. (Note: the human nature) and new forms of authoritarianism which killed millions of people. The cold war proved now and forever that when tested communism has no engine and the flames of capitalism grow hotter when its freedom is threatened much like the war in Iraq in proving as we speak.

Capitalism is not perfect but it is the flaws that make it real and ultimately trustworthy. Mankind has never offered a more brilliant example of how to govern free & God fearing people then in the time tested example of the Untied States of America.

We are the envy of the world and facts prove me right. For two hundred years this country has proven democracy and the free market of both ideas and enterprise work.

I’ve read the goals of communism, and the people in this county (people like me) will always beat you back. We are people of purpose, joy and bravery.

[dannie]

well, the only argument against marxism in this article is the same old crap that we have been hearing for years.
I wonder why it is that when capitalists try to refute marxism as a utopian dream they always end up using the argument "Look what happend to russia".

First of all, Russia (and every other socialist state) never claimed to be communist but socialist. Moreover, can every branch of marxim be held accountable for the flaws of the "lennies" in the 20th century? What about libertarian marxist, who didn't got their shot at trying to establish a socialist/communist society. Or the spanish workers who succesfully ran their community's without the need for a centralised government?


Capitalism is not perfect but it is the flaws that make it real and ultimately trustworthy. Mankind has never offered a more brilliant example of how to govern free & God fearing people then in the time tested example of the Untied States of America.

You can't seriously believe this? People are not free, at leats most of us aren't, we are forced to go into our shitty jobs every day to survive, and if we try to chance our lifes an a radical way, we are put away behind bars ... real freedom
btw, i'm sure a lot of americans don't fear god


We are the envy of the world and facts prove me right. For two hundred years this country has proven democracy and the free market of both ideas and enterprise work.

The only thing free market and representative democracy have proven is that they enlarge the gap between rich and poor. Something I as a non-american don't envy!


I’ve read the goals of communism, and the people in this county (people like me) will always beat you back. We are people of purpose, joy and bravery.

So every american will beat us back, talking about generalisation, it should've said, every right winger. I have a purpose, i'm joyful and somethimes i tend to be brave, but i'm not like the writer of this article

[violencia.Proletariat]

This is the same tired arguement


Like most foolish fantasies that try in vain to prove themselves plausible communism fell flat every time Like all utopia-pipe dreams it ignores human nature and reality and should have been left alone as the unrealistic dream it was and still is.

Human nature, again. I still don't see this nature.


Marx’s evil successors like yourself turned economics back into politics. (Note: the human nature) and new forms of authoritarianism which killed millions of people. The cold war proved now and forever that when tested communism has no engine and the flames of capitalism grow hotter when its freedom is threatened much like the war in Iraq in proving as we speak.

Yes this guy is really educated :rolleyes: Russia did no thave the material conditions to have a communist revolution. It's that simple.


Capitalism is not perfect but it is the flaws that make it real and ultimately trustworthy. Mankind has never offered a more brilliant example of how to govern free & God fearing people then in the time tested example of the Untied States of America.

America is not "free" and it never has been. Remember Haymarket, Ludlow, Hampton, Mumia. There's thousands more examples but really no need to list them.


We are the envy of the world and facts prove me right. For two hundred years this country has proven democracy and the free market of both ideas and enterprise work.

Actually we are hated by most of the world. Democracy? :lol:

.

[ummProfessional]

You can't seriously believe this? People are not free, at leats most of us aren't, we are forced to go into our shitty jobs every day to survive, and if we try to chance our lifes an a radical way, we are put away behind bars ... real freedom
btw, i'm sure a lot of americans don't fear god

ohh so what do you want? to just chill in your basement eating Dorito's and playing Halo and expect to survive huh? your just a lazy looser who has nothing better to do than to sit in his ass in front of the computer and complain about how unfair the world is, about how it's slavery to go out and work to put food in your table :rolleyes: yeah you want the food to come to you from the sky without moving a finger...get real man, it's not called slavery it's called responsability something your 15 year old brain doesn't yet comprehend..



The only thing free market and representative democracy have proven is that they enlarge the gap between rich and poor. Something I as a non-american don't envy!

your meaning to tell me that the gap between rich and poor has widened in this country? :lol: keep living in another dimension looser im just wondering where is the proof of this!! lmao 5% of the population actually being poor doesn't constitute a big gap dude..plus our poverty line can't be compared to the poverty lines of the rest of the world, a poor bastard here probably has more material posetions than any high middle class in all of Africa..

[somebodywhowantedtoleaveandnotcomeback]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 07:37 PM

You can't seriously believe this? People are not free, at leats most of us aren't, we are forced to go into our shitty jobs every day to survive, and if we try to chance our lifes an a radical way, we are put away behind bars ... real freedom
btw, i'm sure a lot of americans don't fear god

ohh so what do you want? to just chill in your basement eating Dorito's and playing Halo and expect to survive huh? your just a lazy looser who has nothing better to do than to sit in his ass in front of the computer and complain about how unfair the world is, about how it's slavery to go out and work to put food in your table :rolleyes: yeah you want the food to come to you from the sky without moving a finger...get real man, it's not called slavery it's called responsability something your 15 year old brain doesn't yet comprehend..



The only thing free market and representative democracy have proven is that they enlarge the gap between rich and poor. Something I as a non-american don't envy!

your meaning to tell me that the gap between rich and poor has widened in this country? :lol: keep living in another dimension looser im just wondering where is the proof of this!! lmao 5% of the population actually being poor doesn't constitute a big gap dude..plus our poverty line can't be compared to the poverty lines of the rest of the world, a poor bastard here probably has more material posetions than any high middle class in all of Africa..
:lol: :lol:

Your ignorance is as infinite as your stupidity.

Don't worry, it might improve once you reach puberty.

[Tungsten]

Jannes

First of all, Russia (and every other socialist state) never claimed to be communist but socialist. Moreover, can every branch of marxim be held accountable for the flaws of the "lennies" in the 20th century? What about libertarian marxist, who didn't got their shot at trying to establish a socialist/communist society.
Don't worry about it. Libertarian Marxism won't work either.

[dannie]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 07:37 PM
...
ohh so what do you want? to just chill in your basement eating Dorito's and playing Halo and expect to survive huh? your just a lazy looser who has nothing better to do than to sit in his ass in front of the computer and complain about how unfair the world is, about how it's slavery to go out and work to put food in your table :rolleyes: yeah you want the food to come to you from the sky without moving a finger...get real man, it's not called slavery it's called responsability something your 15 year old brain doesn't yet comprehend..

...
aaah that's right, I met you last week didn't I, that's why you know so much about me :rolleyes:

if working 14 hours a day (of wich 8 would be sitting on your knees, back bent) is lazy, than by all means, call me lazy!

So, is anyone going to refute the arguments made in this thread?

[Kuro Morfos]

I hate how everybody in America has the same political "God fearing" views. And I hate how they associate God with Capitalism, <span style='color:red'>we are talking about economics not religion you sociopath&#33;</span>

[Herman]

Wow, what a load of rubbish.

[ummProfessional]

Your ignorance is as infinite as your stupidity.

Don&#39;t worry, it might improve once you reach puberty

hahaha if this is how arguments are supposed to be refuted, boy you have it easy&#33; ill just be like S3rna and others in this forum everybody&#33;&#33; refuting comments, watch me:


aaah that&#39;s right, I met you last week didn&#39;t I, that&#39;s why you know so much about me

if working 14 hours a day (of wich 8 would be sitting on your knees, back bent) is lazy, than by all means, call me lazy&#33;

So, is anyone going to refute the arguments made in this thread?

your an idiot you know nothing of the subject and your ignorant

VIOLA&#33;&#33; i totally refuted him :lol: i mean what more evidence do you need right S3rna? THAANKS&#33; ;)

[Comrade J]

How can you call anybody an idiot?&#33; How hypocritical, it&#39;d be like the Pope calling somebody a Catholic bastard. :huh: Hopefully you were only joking with that line, in some weak attempt to prove what you believe was a &#39;point.&#39;
Have you ever heard of handy little things called &#39;dictionaries?&#39; Believe me, they are wonderful, and feature a whole selection of words, spelt correctly. ;)

Your punctuation is embarassingly poor, your arguments are simply atrocious; they are unfounded and lack knowledge of any kind, and worst of all they are childish. Whether or not you are a child I do not know, but there are many young teenagers who can put forward a valid and accurate argument without using the many assumptions such as the ones you feel the need to use.

I think this section of Revleft is interesting, seeing as we can debate with cappies and respond to their deluded (yet mostly well-written) arguments, yet it almost feels futile to respond to what you say, as it&#39;s fairly obvious your next response will be equally deplorable, thus continuing the endless cycle of trying to drain some form of intelligence from you, and never recieving a reasonable answer.
Perhaps you should consider getting some evidence for what you say in future, and try to gain a more realist perspective of how the world functions, and how it might change for the better.

[ummProfessional]

you obviously didn&#39;t understand the point of my previous post :rolleyes: but it&#39;s ok comrade one day maybe you will understand it when you learn to read appropriately.. :lol:

[BobKKKindle$]

your meaning to tell me that the gap between rich and poor has widened in this country?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3138232.stm &#39;Nuff said

You are right in saying that the lower class America is relatively well of in compariosn to third world states. However, much of this &#39;prosperity&#39; is a result of the exportation of exploitation abroad and the replacement of primary and secondary employment with &#39;soft&#39; tertiary employment. So The same global exploitation remains, it has simply changed location. It should also be noted that on the UN poverty listing (which is equal for every state) 15% of the US population lives below the poverty line, significantly higher than many other states, particualry the scandanavian nations.

The income going to the richest 1% has gone up threefold in real terms in the past twenty years, while the income of the poorest 40% went up by a more modest 11%.

The share of the poorest 40%, in contrast, declined from 19.1% to 14.6%.

In 1979, the top 1% received just 7.5% of national income, compared to 15.5% in 2000

In fact, the share of income received by bottom 80% of Americans declined in the past twenty years.


yeah you want the food to come to you from the sky without moving a finger

That is the nature of Capitalist production. Private ownership of the means of production means that a select minority can realize wealth that is socially created.


you obviously didn&#39;t understand the point of my previous post

Give some arguments first

[GraylySquirrel]

I hate how everybody in America has the same political "God fearing" views. And I hate how they associate God with Capitalism, <span style='color:red'>we are talking about economics not religion you sociopath&#33;</span>

Whats is all this crap about "God-fearing" anyway?

Lets say, just for purposes of argument, god exists. What kind of sick fuck is god? Think about it. This all omnipitent being, who could do whatever it wants, goes through the trouble of creating earth and all the things in it in only 7 days. In the process gives his children, humans, the great gifts of logic and free will. He also gives humans a powerful desire for sex, and even makes some of these humans desire the same gender for sex.

Then, after going though all of this trouble, he turns around and says that its wrong to use the gifts he gave you. Don&#39;t think want you want, never question, don&#39;t want sex, and its even more wrong to be gay.

It would be teaching a dog how to fetch, and then turnning around and beatting the shit out of the dog when he actually fetches.

What kind of sick twisted fuck is this God guy? If I turn out to be wrong, and there really is a god, I&#39;d rather be in hell than hanging out with this craized sociopath.

If I was a God, and I went through all of the trouble to create a world, I&#39;d want them to like me, not fear me.

[ummProfessional]

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm


&#39;Nuff said ;)




That is the nature of Capitalist production. Private ownership of the means of production means that a select minority can realize wealth that is socially created.

wealth that is socially created? don&#39;t really understand that , seriously if you could develop on this...and you don&#39;t think that business owners have to work and have skills to perform their jobs? anyone can pick up a box or drive a forklift, but how many can run a business? how many can perform brain surgery? how many can defend a client in a trial? obviously these are skills deemed more valuable by society and by anyone sane than picking up a box, so we ourselves as a society decide that it should obviously be paid more...i mean who in their right mind thinks that a tomatoe picker should get paid more than a guy running a major corporation? i can put my damn grandpa or a 10 year old child to pick up tomatoes , even a mental retard can do such a job...


Give some arguments first

jesus&#33;&#33; you didn&#39;t understand it either i see&#33;&#33; :rolleyes:

this whole post of mines was supposed to be a parody of S3rna&#39;s comments, read it carefully and if you don&#39;t get it you must be a retard:



QUOTE
Your ignorance is as infinite as your stupidity.

Don&#39;t worry, it might improve once you reach puberty



hahaha if this is how arguments are supposed to be refuted, boy you have it easy&#33; ill just be like S3rna and others in this forum everybody&#33;&#33; refuting comments, watch me:


QUOTE
aaah that&#39;s right, I met you last week didn&#39;t I, that&#39;s why you know so much about me

if working 14 hours a day (of wich 8 would be sitting on your knees, back bent) is lazy, than by all means, call me lazy&#33;

So, is anyone going to refute the arguments made in this thread?



your an idiot you know nothing of the subject and your ignorant

VIOLA&#33;&#33; i totally refuted him i mean what more evidence do you need right S3rna? THAANKS&#33;


you see all S3rna and other idiots in this forum do is say "your post was ignorant bla bla bla" , but don&#39;t give any real evidencial refutable data, so i was trying to make a joke by refuting Jannes&#39;s comment the way S3rna did by simply replying "your an idiot your ignorant bla bla bla", get it now? HA HA haaaa ok gees you guys really have issues..

[nickdlc]

ohh so what do you want? to just chill in your basement eating Dorito&#39;s and playing Halo and expect to survive huh? your just a lazy looser who has nothing better to do than to sit in his ass in front of the computer and complain about how unfair the world is, about how it&#39;s slavery to go out and work to put food in your table rolleyes.gif yeah you want the food to come to you from the sky without moving a finger...get real man, it&#39;s not called slavery it&#39;s called responsability something your 15 year old brain doesn&#39;t yet comprehend..

No we think work can be more liberating (and not even be thought as work) but in order for work to be more liberating capitalism would have to be destroyed. And what&#39;s wrong with taking a fucking break&#33;


Don&#39;t worry about it. Libertarian Marxism won&#39;t work either. Why not? It was working in spain.

[BobKKKindle$]

wealth that is socially created? don&#39;t really understand that , seriously if you could develop on this...and you don&#39;t think that business owners have to work and have skills to perform their jobs?

When I say that wealth is socially created, I mean that it is unfair for a select minority to recieve extroadinarily large incomes as a result of profit-based production of commodities; simply because they own and control the means of production, because in an economy, there is no such thing as a free standing individual who is autonomous of all others - we all rely upon each other - and so it is only natural that the means of production should be socially owned, instead of having the monetary value of commodties recieved through a tiny group.

In some cases, yes, organising the factors of production in an efficient manner that requires certain skills. However, this cannot be an excuse for the entire Capitalist system. Workers are still not payed the full value - not even one hundreth of the value - of the commodities that they produce, whilst most CEOs are payed 300 times more than the standard assembly worker - do you mean to tell me that these CEOs do 300 times as much work, that their jobs are 300 times more strenouous? More than anything...workers simply dont need a heirachial coprorate structure consisting of bosses ruling over them to produce. Production could easily be coordinated by ordinary workers on the basis of democratic Soviets. As a capitalist, i am sure you will aproove of this, for it is logical and efficient.


http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm

Did you read my post? I accepted that Americans have it better than many in the third world. But its interesting that he first &#39;point&#39; that article makes is the notion that even the lowest class families own their own homes. How exactly does ownership represent equality?&#33; I am from a middle class family and we rent a house - and It should be noted that housing mortgages are responsible for the increasing debt burden on American families, and so are in fact a sign of the impoverishement of lower income groups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6051101779.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101779.html) - From a right wing news paper no less&#33; Shock&#33;

Why are Americans so deeply in debt? It&#39;s not because they are using credit cards to buy plasma TVs and premium coffee drinks at Starbucks. The real culprits, according to a new analysis, are the rising costs of housing, health care and education.


this whole post of mines was supposed to be a parody of S3rna&#39;s comments

This is a political discussion board, not some amatuer comedy club - although your arguments often raise a chuckle. I have never heard of this guy, nor do I really care. I am here to debate.

[CubaSocialista]

Anyone notice that the article cited is from "The Heritage Foundation", an American nationalist-jingoist newspaper?

It&#39;s the American version of Der Sturmer.

[The Resistor]

We are anti-communist because we will not allow to hand over the power to the people. We have the right to be oppressors&#39;.

-every anti-communist



They wont say that exactly because then they will reveal themselves, and the people will certainly univie.

[Tungsten]

bobkindles

because in an economy, there is no such thing as a free standing individual who is autonomous of all others - we all rely upon each otherWhat a ridiculous statement. How does the whole of society create a single product? The only thing this will achieve in practice is giving credit to people who haven&#39;t contributed anything. This will lead to resentment and the re-establishment of class antagonisms.

- and so it is only natural that the means of production should be socially owned, instead of having the monetary value of commodties recieved through a tiny group.
That doesn&#39;t follow at all. Every product can be followed back to it&#39;s source with with a list of individuals responsible for it&#39;s production. You won&#39;t find every member of society on that list, so why should every member be credited?

In some cases, yes, organising the factors of production in an efficient manner that requires certain skills. However, this cannot be an excuse for the entire Capitalist system.
We don&#39;t need to provide you with an excuse.

Workers are still not payed the full value - not even one hundreth of the value - of the commodities that they produce, whilst most CEOs are payed 300 times more than the standard assembly worker - do you mean to tell me that these CEOs do 300 times as much work,
No I&#39;m not telling you that. It&#39;s more labour theory of value bunk.

Production could easily be coordinated by ordinary workers on the basis of democratic Soviets.
We all know how wonderful and sucessful the Soviet system was.
The Resistor

We are anti-communist because we will not allow to hand over the power to the people.
By &#39;the people&#39;, you mean &#39;the communists&#39;, don&#39;t you?

[BobKKKindle$]

What a ridiculous statement. How does the whole of society create a single product? The only thing this will achieve in practice is giving credit to people who haven&#39;t contributed anything. This will lead to resentment and the re-establishment of class antagonisms.

To say that the whole of Society creates a product is something of an overstatement, but it is clear that the Capitalist plays a tiny part in the production process - all he does is provide the means of production as an owner of Capital - a role which the workers could do perfectly well by themselves (through Social ownership and planning) However, the Capitalist owns the commodities that are produced, and the profit that he gains from selling them is far in excess of the cumulative wages of the Workers that sell their labour power. Allow me to ask a simply question: Why does private ownership of the means of production entail the Capitalist to such a large salary - indeed, in most cases the Capitalist does not perform anything reminiscent of work? Similairly, why does being related to a Capitalist allow you to live comfortably on the hereditary transfer of Capital, when you have not even done the small amount of organisation that the Capitalist has done?


Every product can be followed back to it&#39;s source with with a list of individuals responsible for it&#39;s production

If you compiled a list for a car, it would consist mainly of assembly line workers. Yet they recieve no where near the full value of their labour. Fair? Explain how. Saying &#39;LTV is flawed&#39; is not an argument. Tell me why Executives should be payed three hundred times as much as ordinary workers.


We don&#39;t need to provide you with an excuse.

Being in Power allows you to be ignorant, obviously. Why use arguments when you have the police?


We all know how wonderful and sucessful the Soviet system was.

Production in the USSr was not organised on the basis of Worker&#39;s democratic councils. A &#39;Soviet&#39; does not necesarily refer to the USSR model, it is a general term for a worker&#39;s council.

However, even if these &#39;socialist&#39; countries did eventually collapse or were forced to undergo reform, by harnessing all the avaliable resources in the form of a Planned economy, many of these states tansformed from backward feudal contries to modern industrial states in a matter of decades - ref. USSR five year plans. Yes, I know enormous bloodshed took place.

[Tungsten]

bobkindles

To say that the whole of Society creates a product is something of an overstatement, but it is clear that the Capitalist plays a tiny part in the production process - all he does is provide the means of production as an owner of Capital - a role which the workers could do perfectly well by themselves (through Social ownership and planning)
But if they could do it perfectly well-
-Why did they not create the jobs they are working at at the moment?
-If it&#39;s so easy to do this job then why isn&#39;t everybody an entrepreneur and why aren&#39;t banks would dishing out business loans left, right and centre?

However, the Capitalist owns the commodities that are produced, and the profit that he gains from selling them is far in excess of the cumulative wages of the Workers that sell their labour power. Allow me to ask a simply question: Why does private ownership of the means of production entail the Capitalist to such a large salary - indeed, in most cases the Capitalist does not perform anything reminiscent of work?
Setting up a business isn&#39;t work?

Similairly, why does being related to a Capitalist allow you to live comfortably on the hereditary transfer of Capital, when you have not even done the small amount of organisation that the Capitalist has done?
Because it&#39;s his money and he gets decide how it&#39;s spent or who recieves it.

If you compiled a list for a car, it would consist mainly of assembly line workers. Yet they recieve no where near the full value of their labour.
The full value of their labour is printed on the bottom of their monthly paycheck.

Fair? Explain how. Saying &#39;LTV is flawed&#39; is not an argument.
Of course it&#39;s an argument. There&#39;s far more to the value of something than the amount of labour that&#39;s gone into it.

Being in Power allows you to be ignorant, obviously. ?
People don&#39;t have to justify their existence or their jobs to you, you arrogant little turnip. Who do you think you are, god?

Why use arguments when you have the police
We have the police for dealing with people who think they&#39;re god.

Production in the USSr was not organised on the basis of Worker&#39;s democratic councils.
It wouldn&#39;t have mattered if it was, the system was still flawed.

[Comrade-Z]

-Why did they not create the jobs they are working at at the moment?

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.


-If it&#39;s so easy to do this job then why isn&#39;t everybody an entrepreneur and why aren&#39;t banks would dishing out business loans left, right and centre?

It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.

Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."

Actually, I wouldn&#39;t mind it one bit if 50% of the workforce followed your advice, quit their jobs, and tried to start their own businesses. What a mess the capitalist mode of production would be in then&#33;


Setting up a business isn&#39;t work?

Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.

However, simply allowing the use of capital is not work. A capitalist does not work. A capitalist who incidentally works as a manager "works," but the vast majority of his pay is due to his position as a capitalist, not his position as a manager.


Because it&#39;s his money and he gets decide how it&#39;s spent or who recieves it.

Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.


The full value of their labour is printed on the bottom of their monthly paycheck.

No. It should be obvious that labor is paid as much as its production (and reproduction) requires.

What does this mean?

First of all, you must realize that, under capitalism, labor is a commodity. Profit-making is a coldly rational process. The capitalist does not value the worker himself (as a human being), but instead the capitalist values the worker&#39;s labor. Somehow, the capitalist needs to get a worker to labor. Additionally, the capitalist needs that labor to be continually reproduced as long as that labor is needed. That means he needs to pay the workers enough so that they come back in and reproduce their labor the next day. But it need not be from the same particular workers. If the capitalist can get the same labor reproduced by a different worker for a lower price, the capitalist will choose the cheaper worker.

How else could you explain a situation where the capitalist says that the worker is getting paid "the full value of the worker&#39;s labor," and then workers go on strike, and the capitalist is forced to pay the worker more. So now it would appear that the workers are getting paid more than the full value of their labor. If labor is consuming more than its production (if inputs are greater than outputs), then this capitalist cannot possibly be making a profit. He must be losing money on these workers. The rational thing to do, then, would be to either try to lower the wage again (and risk losing the reproduction of his workers&#39; labor), or close up the loss-incurring business. And sometimes this happens, but not always (or even very often). This should impossible if workers truly did get paid the full value of their labor.


Of course it&#39;s an argument. There&#39;s far more to the value of something than the amount of labour that&#39;s gone into it.

Oh?

You might want to have a look at this (http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/marx/marx1.html). (It starts off with Adam Smith&#39;s thoughts on the labor theory of value (you know the LTV originated with Adam Smith, right?), so I&#39;m sure you will like it).


What a ridiculous statement. How does the whole of society create a single product?

Well, "the whole society" is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much, especially in this day and age.

Consider what goes into a pair of shoes:
*The labor of the people who helped transport the shoes.
*The labor of the people who assembled the shoes.
*The labor of the people who produced the food to feed the people who made the shoes.
*The labor of the people who made the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of the people who mined the metal to make the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of the people who produced the food for the people who mined the metal to make the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of those who planted/harvested/produced the rubber.
*The labor of those who made the fertilizer which was used on the rubber plant.
*The labor of those who made the bags for the fertilizer which was used on the rubber plant.
*The labor of those who constructed the facilities in which the fertiziler bags are produced.
*The labor of those who pumped/refined/distributed the petroleum products necessary for the manufacture and transporation of the sneakers.

And so on....

The myth of "self-made wealth" is just that--a myth. Almost everything is socially produced now.

Marx explains it rather succinctly here:

"We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of one&#39;s labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity, and independence.

Hard won, self-acquired, self-earned property? Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant? There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population. Its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of the 9/10ths.

Communism deprives no one 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 the means of such appropriation."


That doesn&#39;t follow at all. Every product can be followed back to it&#39;s source with with a list of individuals responsible for it&#39;s production.

Heh, funny, you have just hinted at the labor theory of value--that all inputs into the production process can ultimately be traced back to and converted into human labor. This includes the human labor that went into making the machinery, the labor that went into feeding the people who made the machinery, etc. Mathematically, it plays out as a nearly infinite summation of smaller and smaller and more remote labor components.

[Comrade-Z]

-Why did they not create the jobs they are working at at the moment?

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.


-If it&#39;s so easy to do this job then why isn&#39;t everybody an entrepreneur and why aren&#39;t banks would dishing out business loans left, right and centre?

It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.

Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."

Actually, I wouldn&#39;t mind it one bit if 50% of the workforce followed your advice, quit their jobs, and tried to start their own businesses. What a mess the capitalist mode of production would be in then&#33;


Setting up a business isn&#39;t work?

Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.

However, simply allowing the use of capital is not work. A capitalist does not work. A capitalist who incidentally works as a manager "works," but the vast majority of his pay is due to his position as a capitalist, not his position as a manager.


Because it&#39;s his money and he gets decide how it&#39;s spent or who recieves it.

Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.


The full value of their labour is printed on the bottom of their monthly paycheck.

No. It should be obvious that labor is paid as much as its production (and reproduction) requires.

What does this mean?

First of all, you must realize that, under capitalism, labor is a commodity. Profit-making is a coldly rational process. The capitalist does not value the worker himself (as a human being), but instead the capitalist values the worker&#39;s labor. Somehow, the capitalist needs to get a worker to labor. Additionally, the capitalist needs that labor to be continually reproduced as long as that labor is needed. That means he needs to pay the workers enough so that they come back in and reproduce their labor the next day. But it need not be from the same particular workers. If the capitalist can get the same labor reproduced by a different worker for a lower price, the capitalist will choose the cheaper worker.

How else could you explain a situation where the capitalist says that the worker is getting paid "the full value of the worker&#39;s labor," and then workers go on strike, and the capitalist is forced to pay the worker more. So now it would appear that the workers are getting paid more than the full value of their labor. If labor is consuming more than its production (if inputs are greater than outputs), then this capitalist cannot possibly be making a profit. He must be losing money on these workers. The rational thing to do, then, would be to either try to lower the wage again (and risk losing the reproduction of his workers&#39; labor), or close up the loss-incurring business. And sometimes this happens, but not always (or even very often). This should impossible if workers truly did get paid the full value of their labor.


Of course it&#39;s an argument. There&#39;s far more to the value of something than the amount of labour that&#39;s gone into it.

Oh?

You might want to have a look at this (http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/marx/marx1.html). (It starts off with Adam Smith&#39;s thoughts on the labor theory of value (you know the LTV originated with Adam Smith, right?), so I&#39;m sure you will like it).


What a ridiculous statement. How does the whole of society create a single product?

Well, "the whole society" is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much, especially in this day and age.

Consider what goes into a pair of shoes:
*The labor of the people who helped transport the shoes.
*The labor of the people who assembled the shoes.
*The labor of the people who produced the food to feed the people who made the shoes.
*The labor of the people who made the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of the people who mined the metal to make the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of the people who produced the food for the people who mined the metal to make the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of those who planted/harvested/produced the rubber.
*The labor of those who made the fertilizer which was used on the rubber plant.
*The labor of those who made the bags for the fertilizer which was used on the rubber plant.
*The labor of those who constructed the facilities in which the fertiziler bags are produced.
*The labor of those who pumped/refined/distributed the petroleum products necessary for the manufacture and transporation of the sneakers.

And so on....

The myth of "self-made wealth" is just that--a myth. Almost everything is socially produced now.

Marx explains it rather succinctly here:

"We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of one&#39;s labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity, and independence.

Hard won, self-acquired, self-earned property? Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant? There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population. Its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of the 9/10ths.

Communism deprives no one 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 the means of such appropriation."


That doesn&#39;t follow at all. Every product can be followed back to it&#39;s source with with a list of individuals responsible for it&#39;s production.

Heh, funny, you have just hinted at the labor theory of value--that all inputs into the production process can ultimately be traced back to and converted into human labor. This includes the human labor that went into making the machinery, the labor that went into feeding the people who made the machinery, etc. Mathematically, it plays out as a nearly infinite summation of smaller and smaller and more remote labor components.

[Comrade-Z]

-Why did they not create the jobs they are working at at the moment?

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.


-If it&#39;s so easy to do this job then why isn&#39;t everybody an entrepreneur and why aren&#39;t banks would dishing out business loans left, right and centre?

It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.

Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."

Actually, I wouldn&#39;t mind it one bit if 50% of the workforce followed your advice, quit their jobs, and tried to start their own businesses. What a mess the capitalist mode of production would be in then&#33;


Setting up a business isn&#39;t work?

Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.

However, simply allowing the use of capital is not work. A capitalist does not work. A capitalist who incidentally works as a manager "works," but the vast majority of his pay is due to his position as a capitalist, not his position as a manager.


Because it&#39;s his money and he gets decide how it&#39;s spent or who recieves it.

Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.


The full value of their labour is printed on the bottom of their monthly paycheck.

No. It should be obvious that labor is paid as much as its production (and reproduction) requires.

What does this mean?

First of all, you must realize that, under capitalism, labor is a commodity. Profit-making is a coldly rational process. The capitalist does not value the worker himself (as a human being), but instead the capitalist values the worker&#39;s labor. Somehow, the capitalist needs to get a worker to labor. Additionally, the capitalist needs that labor to be continually reproduced as long as that labor is needed. That means he needs to pay the workers enough so that they come back in and reproduce their labor the next day. But it need not be from the same particular workers. If the capitalist can get the same labor reproduced by a different worker for a lower price, the capitalist will choose the cheaper worker.

How else could you explain a situation where the capitalist says that the worker is getting paid "the full value of the worker&#39;s labor," and then workers go on strike, and the capitalist is forced to pay the worker more. So now it would appear that the workers are getting paid more than the full value of their labor. If labor is consuming more than its production (if inputs are greater than outputs), then this capitalist cannot possibly be making a profit. He must be losing money on these workers. The rational thing to do, then, would be to either try to lower the wage again (and risk losing the reproduction of his workers&#39; labor), or close up the loss-incurring business. And sometimes this happens, but not always (or even very often). This should impossible if workers truly did get paid the full value of their labor.


Of course it&#39;s an argument. There&#39;s far more to the value of something than the amount of labour that&#39;s gone into it.

Oh?

You might want to have a look at this (http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/marx/marx1.html). (It starts off with Adam Smith&#39;s thoughts on the labor theory of value (you know the LTV originated with Adam Smith, right?), so I&#39;m sure you will like it).


What a ridiculous statement. How does the whole of society create a single product?

Well, "the whole society" is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much, especially in this day and age.

Consider what goes into a pair of shoes:
*The labor of the people who helped transport the shoes.
*The labor of the people who assembled the shoes.
*The labor of the people who produced the food to feed the people who made the shoes.
*The labor of the people who made the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of the people who mined the metal to make the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of the people who produced the food for the people who mined the metal to make the machinery used to assemble the shoes.
*The labor of those who planted/harvested/produced the rubber.
*The labor of those who made the fertilizer which was used on the rubber plant.
*The labor of those who made the bags for the fertilizer which was used on the rubber plant.
*The labor of those who constructed the facilities in which the fertiziler bags are produced.
*The labor of those who pumped/refined/distributed the petroleum products necessary for the manufacture and transporation of the sneakers.

And so on....

The myth of "self-made wealth" is just that--a myth. Almost everything is socially produced now.

Marx explains it rather succinctly here:

"We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of one&#39;s labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity, and independence.

Hard won, self-acquired, self-earned property? Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant? There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population. Its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of the 9/10ths.

Communism deprives no one 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 the means of such appropriation."


That doesn&#39;t follow at all. Every product can be followed back to it&#39;s source with with a list of individuals responsible for it&#39;s production.

Heh, funny, you have just hinted at the labor theory of value--that all inputs into the production process can ultimately be traced back to and converted into human labor. This includes the human labor that went into making the machinery, the labor that went into feeding the people who made the machinery, etc. Mathematically, it plays out as a nearly infinite summation of smaller and smaller and more remote labor components.

[Tungsten]

Comrade-Z

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.
So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.
I&#39;m not so sure. All big businesses start small.

Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."
I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom. Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.
Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.
Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.

No. It should be obvious that labor is paid as much as its production (and reproduction) requires.

What does this mean?

First of all, you must realize that, under capitalism, labor is a commodity. Profit-making is a coldly rational process. The capitalist does not value the worker himself (as a human being), but instead the capitalist values the worker&#39;s labor. Somehow, the capitalist needs to get a worker to labor. Additionally, the capitalist needs that labor to be continually reproduced as long as that labor is needed. That means he needs to pay the workers enough so that they come back in and reproduce their labor the next day. But it need not be from the same particular workers. If the capitalist can get the same labor reproduced by a different worker for a lower price, the capitalist will choose the cheaper worker.
Not necessarily. Recently businesses have suffered from trying to oursource, with the resulting work being of poor quality, resulting in loss of trade.

If labor is consuming more than its production (if inputs are greater than outputs), then this capitalist cannot possibly be making a profit. He must be losing money on these workers. The rational thing to do, then, would be to either try to lower the wage again (and risk losing the reproduction of his workers&#39; labor), or close up the loss-incurring business. And sometimes this happens, but not always (or even very often). This should impossible if workers truly did get paid the full value of their labor.
How would it be impossible? Values are subjective, so how can you be paid more than your "full value"?

Oh?

You might want to have a look at this (http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/marx/marx1.html). (It starts off with Adam Smith&#39;s thoughts on the labor theory of value (you know the LTV originated with Adam Smith, right?), so I&#39;m sure you will like it).
Sorry, but when it comes to practice, subjectivity wins the day. How many consumers honestly consider the amount of labour that went into a product before deciding to purchase it or not?

"We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of one&#39;s labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity, and independence.

Hard won, self-acquired, self-earned property? Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant?
No, everything you own and work for- including the work itself.

There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population.
When did they do that? Did you have a revolution and forget to tell us?

Heh, funny, you have just hinted at the labor theory of value--that all inputs into the production process can ultimately be traced back to and converted into human labor.
No I didn&#39;t. The fact that labour is required in the production of certain articles tells you nothing about how people purchasing it will value it.

[Tungsten]

Comrade-Z

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.
So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.
I&#39;m not so sure. All big businesses start small.

Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."
I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom. Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.
Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.
Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.

No. It should be obvious that labor is paid as much as its production (and reproduction) requires.

What does this mean?

First of all, you must realize that, under capitalism, labor is a commodity. Profit-making is a coldly rational process. The capitalist does not value the worker himself (as a human being), but instead the capitalist values the worker&#39;s labor. Somehow, the capitalist needs to get a worker to labor. Additionally, the capitalist needs that labor to be continually reproduced as long as that labor is needed. That means he needs to pay the workers enough so that they come back in and reproduce their labor the next day. But it need not be from the same particular workers. If the capitalist can get the same labor reproduced by a different worker for a lower price, the capitalist will choose the cheaper worker.
Not necessarily. Recently businesses have suffered from trying to oursource, with the resulting work being of poor quality, resulting in loss of trade.

If labor is consuming more than its production (if inputs are greater than outputs), then this capitalist cannot possibly be making a profit. He must be losing money on these workers. The rational thing to do, then, would be to either try to lower the wage again (and risk losing the reproduction of his workers&#39; labor), or close up the loss-incurring business. And sometimes this happens, but not always (or even very often). This should impossible if workers truly did get paid the full value of their labor.
How would it be impossible? Values are subjective, so how can you be paid more than your "full value"?

Oh?

You might want to have a look at this (http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/marx/marx1.html). (It starts off with Adam Smith&#39;s thoughts on the labor theory of value (you know the LTV originated with Adam Smith, right?), so I&#39;m sure you will like it).
Sorry, but when it comes to practice, subjectivity wins the day. How many consumers honestly consider the amount of labour that went into a product before deciding to purchase it or not?

"We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of one&#39;s labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity, and independence.

Hard won, self-acquired, self-earned property? Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant?
No, everything you own and work for- including the work itself.

There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population.
When did they do that? Did you have a revolution and forget to tell us?

Heh, funny, you have just hinted at the labor theory of value--that all inputs into the production process can ultimately be traced back to and converted into human labor.
No I didn&#39;t. The fact that labour is required in the production of certain articles tells you nothing about how people purchasing it will value it.

[Tungsten]

Comrade-Z

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.
So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.
I&#39;m not so sure. All big businesses start small.

Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."
I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom. Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.
Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.
Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.

No. It should be obvious that labor is paid as much as its production (and reproduction) requires.

What does this mean?

First of all, you must realize that, under capitalism, labor is a commodity. Profit-making is a coldly rational process. The capitalist does not value the worker himself (as a human being), but instead the capitalist values the worker&#39;s labor. Somehow, the capitalist needs to get a worker to labor. Additionally, the capitalist needs that labor to be continually reproduced as long as that labor is needed. That means he needs to pay the workers enough so that they come back in and reproduce their labor the next day. But it need not be from the same particular workers. If the capitalist can get the same labor reproduced by a different worker for a lower price, the capitalist will choose the cheaper worker.
Not necessarily. Recently businesses have suffered from trying to oursource, with the resulting work being of poor quality, resulting in loss of trade.

If labor is consuming more than its production (if inputs are greater than outputs), then this capitalist cannot possibly be making a profit. He must be losing money on these workers. The rational thing to do, then, would be to either try to lower the wage again (and risk losing the reproduction of his workers&#39; labor), or close up the loss-incurring business. And sometimes this happens, but not always (or even very often). This should impossible if workers truly did get paid the full value of their labor.
How would it be impossible? Values are subjective, so how can you be paid more than your "full value"?

Oh?

You might want to have a look at this (http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/prin/txt/marx/marx1.html). (It starts off with Adam Smith&#39;s thoughts on the labor theory of value (you know the LTV originated with Adam Smith, right?), so I&#39;m sure you will like it).
Sorry, but when it comes to practice, subjectivity wins the day. How many consumers honestly consider the amount of labour that went into a product before deciding to purchase it or not?

"We communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of one&#39;s labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity, and independence.

Hard won, self-acquired, self-earned property? Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant?
No, everything you own and work for- including the work itself.

There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population.
When did they do that? Did you have a revolution and forget to tell us?

Heh, funny, you have just hinted at the labor theory of value--that all inputs into the production process can ultimately be traced back to and converted into human labor.
No I didn&#39;t. The fact that labour is required in the production of certain articles tells you nothing about how people purchasing it will value it.

[An archist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 06:37 PM

ohh so what do you want? to just chill in your basement eating Dorito&#39;s and playing Halo and expect to survive huh? your just a lazy looser who has nothing better to do than to sit in his ass in front of the computer and complain about how unfair the world is, about how it&#39;s slavery to go out and work to put food in your table :rolleyes: yeah you want the food to come to you from the sky without moving a finger...get real man, it&#39;s not called slavery it&#39;s called responsability something your 15 year old brain doesn&#39;t yet comprehend..


your meaning to tell me that the gap between rich and poor has widened in this country? :lol: keep living in another dimension looser im just wondering where is the proof of this&#33;&#33; lmao 5% of the population actually being poor doesn&#39;t constitute a big gap dude..plus our poverty line can&#39;t be compared to the poverty lines of the rest of the world, a poor bastard here probably has more material posetions than any high middle class in all of Africa..
Wow, I&#39;m astonished.
We learnt about debating this year, there were a few very important rules and mistakes you could make, the most important mistake, one wich completely kills your argument is an ad-hominem: you attack the person, not his argument. That&#39;s your first paragraph.
The second thing we learnt was that if you talk figurs, you need to know your figures and not just make them up. Where did you get the 5% number?

[An archist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 06:37 PM

ohh so what do you want? to just chill in your basement eating Dorito&#39;s and playing Halo and expect to survive huh? your just a lazy looser who has nothing better to do than to sit in his ass in front of the computer and complain about how unfair the world is, about how it&#39;s slavery to go out and work to put food in your table :rolleyes: yeah you want the food to come to you from the sky without moving a finger...get real man, it&#39;s not called slavery it&#39;s called responsability something your 15 year old brain doesn&#39;t yet comprehend..


your meaning to tell me that the gap between rich and poor has widened in this country? :lol: keep living in another dimension looser im just wondering where is the proof of this&#33;&#33; lmao 5% of the population actually being poor doesn&#39;t constitute a big gap dude..plus our poverty line can&#39;t be compared to the poverty lines of the rest of the world, a poor bastard here probably has more material posetions than any high middle class in all of Africa..
Wow, I&#39;m astonished.
We learnt about debating this year, there were a few very important rules and mistakes you could make, the most important mistake, one wich completely kills your argument is an ad-hominem: you attack the person, not his argument. That&#39;s your first paragraph.
The second thing we learnt was that if you talk figurs, you need to know your figures and not just make them up. Where did you get the 5% number?

[An archist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2006, 06:37 PM

ohh so what do you want? to just chill in your basement eating Dorito&#39;s and playing Halo and expect to survive huh? your just a lazy looser who has nothing better to do than to sit in his ass in front of the computer and complain about how unfair the world is, about how it&#39;s slavery to go out and work to put food in your table :rolleyes: yeah you want the food to come to you from the sky without moving a finger...get real man, it&#39;s not called slavery it&#39;s called responsability something your 15 year old brain doesn&#39;t yet comprehend..


your meaning to tell me that the gap between rich and poor has widened in this country? :lol: keep living in another dimension looser im just wondering where is the proof of this&#33;&#33; lmao 5% of the population actually being poor doesn&#39;t constitute a big gap dude..plus our poverty line can&#39;t be compared to the poverty lines of the rest of the world, a poor bastard here probably has more material posetions than any high middle class in all of Africa..
Wow, I&#39;m astonished.
We learnt about debating this year, there were a few very important rules and mistakes you could make, the most important mistake, one wich completely kills your argument is an ad-hominem: you attack the person, not his argument. That&#39;s your first paragraph.
The second thing we learnt was that if you talk figurs, you need to know your figures and not just make them up. Where did you get the 5% number?

[Comrade-Z]

So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

No, in fact they did construct it in the first place. It was stolen/extorted/coerced from them through the appropriation of their surplus value by their capitalist masters.

That&#39;s partly why proletarian revolution and the dispossession of the capitalist class are fundamentally actions taken in self-defense. The capitalist class has clearly been the aggressor. All the proletariat will do is take back what they produced in the first place.


I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom.

Yes, clearly we have different ideas of "freedom" and "democracy." I see democracy as including all spheres of social life, including the workplace, and I see freedom as being able to control your own labor and appropriate products from society as one sees fit.


Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

It&#39;s not just work, but working for someone else and being inferior to that person and being coerced by that person into uncomfortable economic arrangements (such as any wage employment).


Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

But it&#39;s not feasible for the entire proletariat to do this. And they will still be subject to the whims of the bank, the market, and their much more powerful and already established competition. We are looking for better economic security than that. At this point in the game, the system is so heavily rigged against most people that trying to "play the system against itself" is doomed to misery.


Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.

No, he would because he and the capitalist class as a whole, by already having the means of production monopolized, are coercing the proletariat into uncomfortable and exploitative agreements. That is, they are stealing from the proletariat, much as a highway robber puts a gun to a guys head and "convinces" the guy through "rational discourse" that it is a good idea to "freely" come to an "agreement" in which the guy gives up all his money. Replace highway robber with capitalist class, guy with proletariat, and gun with the spectre of economic ruin/misery/death, and the analogy is complete.

And then there are always the real guns (police/military) to come to the aid of the capitalist class if "normal" measures of persuading the proletariat into subjugation fail.


Not necessarily. Recently businesses have suffered from trying to oursource, with the resulting work being of poor quality, resulting in loss of trade.

Clearly those other workers really aren&#39;t any cheaper then, because they are producing shittier products, and hence less productivity and less surplus value.


How would it be impossible? Values are subjective, so how can you be paid more than your "full value"?

Values are subjective, eh? So if all the workers of the world went on strike tomorrow and said that they had all decided that the "full value" of their work was &#036;1000/hour, you think that would be a "legitimate" demand? Who are you to say that they are not worth that much? Value is subjective, after all. Sure, you could reject the demand, but the workers would still be on strike. What, then, would you do? Would you honor their "right" to "freely" bargain? Or would you send them back to work by any means necessary, including violence?


How many consumers honestly consider the amount of labour that went into a product before deciding to purchase it or not?

Value (labor inputs) and utility are, technically, distinct. But value (labor) is constantly adapting itself to maximum utility, with a greater or lesser time-lapse depending on how fast and accurately the utility (price) information travels. So, when customers look at the prices on the shelves, they are indeed looking at the product&#39;s labor inputs.


When did they do that?

You don&#39;t see many small peasants or independent artisans these days, do you? Almost all labor now is social in nature. Even acgriculture is becoming more and more "agribusiness," in which the land of independent farmers is swallowed up by a mega-corporation, and the farmers become wage-slaves, just like everyone else.

And how is the 9/10ths assertion not true, in a sense? Back in feudal times, the vast majority of people controlled a means of production. Now, I would say less than 1/10th of the population controls a means of production (such as a business, for instance). And there are indeed people who don&#39;t own much of anything. Not even a house or car. Just a few petty possessions that hardly give them a stake in the system of private property.

Of course, things were worse in Marx&#39;s time. It seemed back then that the proletariat would continue to be immiserated and have its private property abolished right up to the outbreak of revolution. Capitalism has, since then, bounced back, and now more people have some small amounts of private property. But what if these fortunes change, and the proletariat is once again immiserated to the point that they have little or no private property anyways and have nothing to lose and everything to gain by abolishing the institution?

[Comrade-Z]

So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

No, in fact they did construct it in the first place. It was stolen/extorted/coerced from them through the appropriation of their surplus value by their capitalist masters.

That&#39;s partly why proletarian revolution and the dispossession of the capitalist class are fundamentally actions taken in self-defense. The capitalist class has clearly been the aggressor. All the proletariat will do is take back what they produced in the first place.


I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom.

Yes, clearly we have different ideas of "freedom" and "democracy." I see democracy as including all spheres of social life, including the workplace, and I see freedom as being able to control your own labor and appropriate products from society as one sees fit.


Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

It&#39;s not just work, but working for someone else and being inferior to that person and being coerced by that person into uncomfortable economic arrangements (such as any wage employment).


Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

But it&#39;s not feasible for the entire proletariat to do this. And they will still be subject to the whims of the bank, the market, and their much more powerful and already established competition. We are looking for better economic security than that. At this point in the game, the system is so heavily rigged against most people that trying to "play the system against itself" is doomed to misery.


Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.

No, he would because he and the capitalist class as a whole, by already having the means of production monopolized, are coercing the proletariat into uncomfortable and exploitative agreements. That is, they are stealing from the proletariat, much as a highway robber puts a gun to a guys head and "convinces" the guy through "rational discourse" that it is a good idea to "freely" come to an "agreement" in which the guy gives up all his money. Replace highway robber with capitalist class, guy with proletariat, and gun with the spectre of economic ruin/misery/death, and the analogy is complete.

And then there are always the real guns (police/military) to come to the aid of the capitalist class if "normal" measures of persuading the proletariat into subjugation fail.


Not necessarily. Recently businesses have suffered from trying to oursource, with the resulting work being of poor quality, resulting in loss of trade.

Clearly those other workers really aren&#39;t any cheaper then, because they are producing shittier products, and hence less productivity and less surplus value.


How would it be impossible? Values are subjective, so how can you be paid more than your "full value"?

Values are subjective, eh? So if all the workers of the world went on strike tomorrow and said that they had all decided that the "full value" of their work was &#036;1000/hour, you think that would be a "legitimate" demand? Who are you to say that they are not worth that much? Value is subjective, after all. Sure, you could reject the demand, but the workers would still be on strike. What, then, would you do? Would you honor their "right" to "freely" bargain? Or would you send them back to work by any means necessary, including violence?


How many consumers honestly consider the amount of labour that went into a product before deciding to purchase it or not?

Value (labor inputs) and utility are, technically, distinct. But value (labor) is constantly adapting itself to maximum utility, with a greater or lesser time-lapse depending on how fast and accurately the utility (price) information travels. So, when customers look at the prices on the shelves, they are indeed looking at the product&#39;s labor inputs.


When did they do that?

You don&#39;t see many small peasants or independent artisans these days, do you? Almost all labor now is social in nature. Even acgriculture is becoming more and more "agribusiness," in which the land of independent farmers is swallowed up by a mega-corporation, and the farmers become wage-slaves, just like everyone else.

And how is the 9/10ths assertion not true, in a sense? Back in feudal times, the vast majority of people controlled a means of production. Now, I would say less than 1/10th of the population controls a means of production (such as a business, for instance). And there are indeed people who don&#39;t own much of anything. Not even a house or car. Just a few petty possessions that hardly give them a stake in the system of private property.

Of course, things were worse in Marx&#39;s time. It seemed back then that the proletariat would continue to be immiserated and have its private property abolished right up to the outbreak of revolution. Capitalism has, since then, bounced back, and now more people have some small amounts of private property. But what if these fortunes change, and the proletariat is once again immiserated to the point that they have little or no private property anyways and have nothing to lose and everything to gain by abolishing the institution?

[Comrade-Z]

So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

No, in fact they did construct it in the first place. It was stolen/extorted/coerced from them through the appropriation of their surplus value by their capitalist masters.

That&#39;s partly why proletarian revolution and the dispossession of the capitalist class are fundamentally actions taken in self-defense. The capitalist class has clearly been the aggressor. All the proletariat will do is take back what they produced in the first place.


I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom.

Yes, clearly we have different ideas of "freedom" and "democracy." I see democracy as including all spheres of social life, including the workplace, and I see freedom as being able to control your own labor and appropriate products from society as one sees fit.


Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

It&#39;s not just work, but working for someone else and being inferior to that person and being coerced by that person into uncomfortable economic arrangements (such as any wage employment).


Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

But it&#39;s not feasible for the entire proletariat to do this. And they will still be subject to the whims of the bank, the market, and their much more powerful and already established competition. We are looking for better economic security than that. At this point in the game, the system is so heavily rigged against most people that trying to "play the system against itself" is doomed to misery.


Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.

No, he would because he and the capitalist class as a whole, by already having the means of production monopolized, are coercing the proletariat into uncomfortable and exploitative agreements. That is, they are stealing from the proletariat, much as a highway robber puts a gun to a guys head and "convinces" the guy through "rational discourse" that it is a good idea to "freely" come to an "agreement" in which the guy gives up all his money. Replace highway robber with capitalist class, guy with proletariat, and gun with the spectre of economic ruin/misery/death, and the analogy is complete.

And then there are always the real guns (police/military) to come to the aid of the capitalist class if "normal" measures of persuading the proletariat into subjugation fail.


Not necessarily. Recently businesses have suffered from trying to oursource, with the resulting work being of poor quality, resulting in loss of trade.

Clearly those other workers really aren&#39;t any cheaper then, because they are producing shittier products, and hence less productivity and less surplus value.


How would it be impossible? Values are subjective, so how can you be paid more than your "full value"?

Values are subjective, eh? So if all the workers of the world went on strike tomorrow and said that they had all decided that the "full value" of their work was &#036;1000/hour, you think that would be a "legitimate" demand? Who are you to say that they are not worth that much? Value is subjective, after all. Sure, you could reject the demand, but the workers would still be on strike. What, then, would you do? Would you honor their "right" to "freely" bargain? Or would you send them back to work by any means necessary, including violence?


How many consumers honestly consider the amount of labour that went into a product before deciding to purchase it or not?

Value (labor inputs) and utility are, technically, distinct. But value (labor) is constantly adapting itself to maximum utility, with a greater or lesser time-lapse depending on how fast and accurately the utility (price) information travels. So, when customers look at the prices on the shelves, they are indeed looking at the product&#39;s labor inputs.


When did they do that?

You don&#39;t see many small peasants or independent artisans these days, do you? Almost all labor now is social in nature. Even acgriculture is becoming more and more "agribusiness," in which the land of independent farmers is swallowed up by a mega-corporation, and the farmers become wage-slaves, just like everyone else.

And how is the 9/10ths assertion not true, in a sense? Back in feudal times, the vast majority of people controlled a means of production. Now, I would say less than 1/10th of the population controls a means of production (such as a business, for instance). And there are indeed people who don&#39;t own much of anything. Not even a house or car. Just a few petty possessions that hardly give them a stake in the system of private property.

Of course, things were worse in Marx&#39;s time. It seemed back then that the proletariat would continue to be immiserated and have its private property abolished right up to the outbreak of revolution. Capitalism has, since then, bounced back, and now more people have some small amounts of private property. But what if these fortunes change, and the proletariat is once again immiserated to the point that they have little or no private property anyways and have nothing to lose and everything to gain by abolishing the institution?

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2006, 02:08 PM
Comrade-Z

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.
So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

Comrade-Z was wrong on that count, because it&#39;s not stealing. Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.



It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.
I&#39;m not so sure. All big businesses start small.


This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.



Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."
I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom. Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery, after all what does it mean to &#39;work for a living&#39; does it not mean to work to live meaning that anywyone who works &#39;for a living&#39; is basically doing it to not die.



Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.
Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

If the problem is buisnesses owned by a single individual how could it possibly be solved by a single individual starting and owning a buisness?



Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.
Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.


Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.




There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population.
When did they do that? Did you have a revolution and forget to tell us?

We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2006, 02:08 PM
Comrade-Z

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.
So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

Comrade-Z was wrong on that count, because it&#39;s not stealing. Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.



It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.
I&#39;m not so sure. All big businesses start small.


This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.



Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."
I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom. Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery, after all what does it mean to &#39;work for a living&#39; does it not mean to work to live meaning that anywyone who works &#39;for a living&#39; is basically doing it to not die.



Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.
Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

If the problem is buisnesses owned by a single individual how could it possibly be solved by a single individual starting and owning a buisness?



Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.
Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.


Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.




There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population.
When did they do that? Did you have a revolution and forget to tell us?

We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2006, 02:08 PM
Comrade-Z

They need control of the machines that the job requires. The only feasible way to acquire that machinery and infrastructure would be to steal it from their captialist owner.
So you&#39;re admitting that the workers didn&#39;t construct the means of production because they need to steal it, instead of just making their own. I don&#39;t see what isn&#39;t feasible about it.

Comrade-Z was wrong on that count, because it&#39;s not stealing. Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.



It&#39;s easy to do the job. It&#39;s not easy to acquire the necessary capital to enable oneself to get to do this job in the capitalist system. In fact, well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people.
I&#39;m not so sure. All big businesses start small.


This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.



Even if you start up a business with loans, you replace wage-slavery with debt slavery. Now you don&#39;t answer to a manager, but instead a bank. That&#39;s assuming you could even make it that far. Not my idea of "freedom" or "equality of opportunity."
I don&#39;t think the latter is important and I don&#39;t agree with your definition of freedom. Simply having to work for a living doesn&#39;t make you a slave.

Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery, after all what does it mean to &#39;work for a living&#39; does it not mean to work to live meaning that anywyone who works &#39;for a living&#39; is basically doing it to not die.



Organizing use of the means of production is work. So, in that sense, a manager works. However, this can be done by the workers themselves, or elected worker-managers who have a particular knack/education and liking for that line of work.
Then they can do it themselves- by starting their own business.

If the problem is buisnesses owned by a single individual how could it possibly be solved by a single individual starting and owning a buisness?



Umm, no. The capitalist, as a capitalist, did nothing to create this wealth.
Then he wouldn&#39;t have any.


Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.




There is no need to abolish that. The development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property, but in your existing society private property is already done away with for 9/10ths of the population.
When did they do that? Did you have a revolution and forget to tell us?

We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts? Are they just lazy? Or ignorant? Or maybe, this isn&#39;t happening?

Yeah, you hear about the occasional discrimination lawsuit against a multi-national conglomerate (like Walmart) or workers not being payed for their overtime but where are the cases involving the abolition of wages and private property in general?

Perhaps some of you should become lawyers or legislators and challenge the institution of property rights in this country? Not that I would support your initiatives but I support your right to do it.

That&#39;s one of the benefits of living in a free-society.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts? Are they just lazy? Or ignorant? Or maybe, this isn&#39;t happening?

Yeah, you hear about the occasional discrimination lawsuit against a multi-national conglomerate (like Walmart) or workers not being payed for their overtime but where are the cases involving the abolition of wages and private property in general?

Perhaps some of you should become lawyers or legislators and challenge the institution of property rights in this country? Not that I would support your initiatives but I support your right to do it.

That&#39;s one of the benefits of living in a free-society.

[Capitalist Lawyer]

the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts? Are they just lazy? Or ignorant? Or maybe, this isn&#39;t happening?

Yeah, you hear about the occasional discrimination lawsuit against a multi-national conglomerate (like Walmart) or workers not being payed for their overtime but where are the cases involving the abolition of wages and private property in general?

Perhaps some of you should become lawyers or legislators and challenge the institution of property rights in this country? Not that I would support your initiatives but I support your right to do it.

That&#39;s one of the benefits of living in a free-society.

[Comrade-Z]

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts?

As if the ruling class would permit the courts to rule against the ruling class&#39;s appropriation of surplus value. Going about it the legal way would be a complete exercise in futility.

But this does raise a good question: why don&#39;t more workers recognize wage labor and the extortion of their surplus value for what it is? Why isn&#39;t class consciousness and cognizance of common sense marxist concepts more prevalent than it is? Why have there sometimes been periods in history where more workers realized this stuff? What was special about those historical periods? If we could figure out more ways to help increase this cognizance, boy would that be a big help to our efforts&#33;

Why aren&#39;t there massive numbers of workers who know rationally and feel strongly in their guts that the business that they operate belongs to them, goddammit, and that they are fit to rule that enterprise--and the old owners, owning class, and owning paradigm (capitalism) are no longer fit to rule?

My best guess would be that, right now, most people don&#39;t really think about this kind of stuff a lot. I have a hunch that a lot of people may have a vague awareness that they aren&#39;t getting paid their full due, but they don&#39;t feel compelled to push the issue or investigate further because they are still getting by with what they are getting.

But if the system stops working for them...?

[Comrade-Z]

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts?

As if the ruling class would permit the courts to rule against the ruling class&#39;s appropriation of surplus value. Going about it the legal way would be a complete exercise in futility.

But this does raise a good question: why don&#39;t more workers recognize wage labor and the extortion of their surplus value for what it is? Why isn&#39;t class consciousness and cognizance of common sense marxist concepts more prevalent than it is? Why have there sometimes been periods in history where more workers realized this stuff? What was special about those historical periods? If we could figure out more ways to help increase this cognizance, boy would that be a big help to our efforts&#33;

Why aren&#39;t there massive numbers of workers who know rationally and feel strongly in their guts that the business that they operate belongs to them, goddammit, and that they are fit to rule that enterprise--and the old owners, owning class, and owning paradigm (capitalism) are no longer fit to rule?

My best guess would be that, right now, most people don&#39;t really think about this kind of stuff a lot. I have a hunch that a lot of people may have a vague awareness that they aren&#39;t getting paid their full due, but they don&#39;t feel compelled to push the issue or investigate further because they are still getting by with what they are getting.

But if the system stops working for them...?

[Comrade-Z]

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts?

As if the ruling class would permit the courts to rule against the ruling class&#39;s appropriation of surplus value. Going about it the legal way would be a complete exercise in futility.

But this does raise a good question: why don&#39;t more workers recognize wage labor and the extortion of their surplus value for what it is? Why isn&#39;t class consciousness and cognizance of common sense marxist concepts more prevalent than it is? Why have there sometimes been periods in history where more workers realized this stuff? What was special about those historical periods? If we could figure out more ways to help increase this cognizance, boy would that be a big help to our efforts&#33;

Why aren&#39;t there massive numbers of workers who know rationally and feel strongly in their guts that the business that they operate belongs to them, goddammit, and that they are fit to rule that enterprise--and the old owners, owning class, and owning paradigm (capitalism) are no longer fit to rule?

My best guess would be that, right now, most people don&#39;t really think about this kind of stuff a lot. I have a hunch that a lot of people may have a vague awareness that they aren&#39;t getting paid their full due, but they don&#39;t feel compelled to push the issue or investigate further because they are still getting by with what they are getting.

But if the system stops working for them...?

[KC]

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts?

Hmmmm......that&#39;s actually a really good idea&#33;

[KC]

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts?

Hmmmm......that&#39;s actually a really good idea&#33;

[KC]

Then why haven&#39;t the workers of the world brought their case to the courts?

Hmmmm......that&#39;s actually a really good idea&#33;

[Tungsten]

Comrade-Z

No, in fact they did construct it in the first place. So there&#39;s no problem in building new ones. What are you waiting for?

It was stolen/extorted/coerced from them through the appropriation of their surplus value by their capitalist masters.
You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.

That&#39;s partly why proletarian revolution and the dispossession of the capitalist class are fundamentally actions taken in self-defense. The capitalist class has clearly been the aggressor. All the proletariat will do is take back what they produced in the first place.
Yes, I understand that the whole revolutionary caper rests on the truth of the labour theory of value, but I&#39;m afraid it&#39;s false. Value is subjective, not intrinsic.

Yes, clearly we have different ideas of "freedom" and "democracy." I see democracy as including all spheres of social life, including the workplace, and I see freedom as being able to control your own labor and appropriate products from society as one sees fit.
Your ideas are contradictory. You can&#39;t control your own labour and products if direct democracy rules the roost. You won&#39;t be in control of them if they&#39;re voted off you.

It&#39;s not just work, but working for someone else and being inferior to that person and being coerced by that person into uncomfortable economic arrangements (such as any wage employment).
You&#39;re not being coerced unless you&#39;re actually being forced into work by the employer.

But it&#39;s not feasible for the entire proletariat to do this.
Stealing it is easier.

And they will still be subject to the whims of the bank, the market,
Won&#39;t everyone else be?

and their much more powerful and already established competition.
They&#39;re not going to remain powerful if you can sell your stuff cheaper.

We are looking for better economic security than that.
You won&#39;t get it unless you put a dictatorship in place. Those who believe in giving up freedom in exchange for security etc.

No, he would because he and the capitalist class as a whole, by already having the means of production monopolized,
How can the means of production be monopolised? Is there a limit to the number of factories that can be bulit or businesses opened? Rubbish.

are coercing the proletariat into uncomfortable and exploitative agreements. That is, they are stealing from the proletariat, much as a highway robber puts a gun to a guys head and "convinces" the guy through "rational discourse" that it is a good idea to "freely" come to an "agreement" in which the guy gives up all his money.
Let&#39;s take this one point at a time:
-What exactly are they stealing off you?
-How are they doing the equivalent of putting a gun against your head? Are they putting guns against your head and forcing you to work for them? Were you grabbed off the street and clamped in irons?

Replace highway robber with capitalist class, guy with proletariat, and gun with the spectre of economic ruin/misery/death, and the analogy is complete.
You mean not giving you a job or pandering to your every need on pain of your death is the same as shooting you? What pathetic reasoning skills.

Values are subjective, eh? So if all the workers of the world went on strike tomorrow and said that they had all decided that the "full value" of their work was &#036;1000/hour, you think that would be a "legitimate" demand?
Not really. But then, that&#39;s my subjective opinion.

Who are you to say that they are not worth that much? Value is subjective, after all.
Because values are subjective and I don&#39;t think their labour is worth that much. Subjectivity is a two-way street.

Sure, you could reject the demand, but the workers would still be on strike. What, then, would you do? Would you honor their "right" to "freely" bargain?
I&#39;d have little choice if I wanted to continue trading.

Or would you send them back to work by any means necessary, including violence?
And sink to your level? No thanks.

Value (labor inputs) and utility are, technically, distinct. But value (labor) is constantly adapting itself to maximum utility, with a greater or lesser time-lapse depending on how fast and accurately the utility (price) information travels. So, when customers look at the prices on the shelves, they are indeed looking at the product&#39;s labor inputs.
This is a circular argument and doesn&#39;t prove anything. Where did you copy this from?

You don&#39;t see many small peasants or independent artisans these days, do you? Almost all labor now is social in nature. Even acgriculture is becoming more and more "agribusiness," in which the land of independent farmers is swallowed up by a mega-corporation, and the farmers become wage-slaves, just like everyone else.
:lol: Did you know the average farmer was a milionaire?

And how is the 9/10ths assertion not true, in a sense? Back in feudal times, the vast majority of people controlled a means of production. Now, I would say less than 1/10th of the population controls a means of production (such as a business, for instance).
What&#39;s a "means of production"? It could be anything that can be used to produce a value, from a spade to a computer.

As if the ruling class would permit the courts to rule against the ruling class&#39;s appropriation of surplus value.
But then you&#39;d have to prove the existence of surplus value.

Why isn&#39;t class consciousness and cognizance of common sense marxist concepts more prevalent than it is?
Because they&#39;re easily demonstrated to be false.
Jazzratt

Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.
What gives the current working classes a right to it?

This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.
So you&#39;re admitting that it&#39;s difficult and starting a business therefore requires risk and work.

Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery,
Work=slavery? You mean if I have to cut down a tree to provide wood for myself, which certainly constitutes work, I&#39;m a slave? Who to? Myself?

Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.
Evidently he did so someting, or businesses would not exist.

We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.
Commies now believe in private property rights? Haleluja. I never thought I&#39;d see the day.

[Tungsten]

Comrade-Z

No, in fact they did construct it in the first place. So there&#39;s no problem in building new ones. What are you waiting for?

It was stolen/extorted/coerced from them through the appropriation of their surplus value by their capitalist masters.
You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.

That&#39;s partly why proletarian revolution and the dispossession of the capitalist class are fundamentally actions taken in self-defense. The capitalist class has clearly been the aggressor. All the proletariat will do is take back what they produced in the first place.
Yes, I understand that the whole revolutionary caper rests on the truth of the labour theory of value, but I&#39;m afraid it&#39;s false. Value is subjective, not intrinsic.

Yes, clearly we have different ideas of "freedom" and "democracy." I see democracy as including all spheres of social life, including the workplace, and I see freedom as being able to control your own labor and appropriate products from society as one sees fit.
Your ideas are contradictory. You can&#39;t control your own labour and products if direct democracy rules the roost. You won&#39;t be in control of them if they&#39;re voted off you.

It&#39;s not just work, but working for someone else and being inferior to that person and being coerced by that person into uncomfortable economic arrangements (such as any wage employment).
You&#39;re not being coerced unless you&#39;re actually being forced into work by the employer.

But it&#39;s not feasible for the entire proletariat to do this.
Stealing it is easier.

And they will still be subject to the whims of the bank, the market,
Won&#39;t everyone else be?

and their much more powerful and already established competition.
They&#39;re not going to remain powerful if you can sell your stuff cheaper.

We are looking for better economic security than that.
You won&#39;t get it unless you put a dictatorship in place. Those who believe in giving up freedom in exchange for security etc.

No, he would because he and the capitalist class as a whole, by already having the means of production monopolized,
How can the means of production be monopolised? Is there a limit to the number of factories that can be bulit or businesses opened? Rubbish.

are coercing the proletariat into uncomfortable and exploitative agreements. That is, they are stealing from the proletariat, much as a highway robber puts a gun to a guys head and "convinces" the guy through "rational discourse" that it is a good idea to "freely" come to an "agreement" in which the guy gives up all his money.
Let&#39;s take this one point at a time:
-What exactly are they stealing off you?
-How are they doing the equivalent of putting a gun against your head? Are they putting guns against your head and forcing you to work for them? Were you grabbed off the street and clamped in irons?

Replace highway robber with capitalist class, guy with proletariat, and gun with the spectre of economic ruin/misery/death, and the analogy is complete.
You mean not giving you a job or pandering to your every need on pain of your death is the same as shooting you? What pathetic reasoning skills.

Values are subjective, eh? So if all the workers of the world went on strike tomorrow and said that they had all decided that the "full value" of their work was &#036;1000/hour, you think that would be a "legitimate" demand?
Not really. But then, that&#39;s my subjective opinion.

Who are you to say that they are not worth that much? Value is subjective, after all.
Because values are subjective and I don&#39;t think their labour is worth that much. Subjectivity is a two-way street.

Sure, you could reject the demand, but the workers would still be on strike. What, then, would you do? Would you honor their "right" to "freely" bargain?
I&#39;d have little choice if I wanted to continue trading.

Or would you send them back to work by any means necessary, including violence?
And sink to your level? No thanks.

Value (labor inputs) and utility are, technically, distinct. But value (labor) is constantly adapting itself to maximum utility, with a greater or lesser time-lapse depending on how fast and accurately the utility (price) information travels. So, when customers look at the prices on the shelves, they are indeed looking at the product&#39;s labor inputs.
This is a circular argument and doesn&#39;t prove anything. Where did you copy this from?

You don&#39;t see many small peasants or independent artisans these days, do you? Almost all labor now is social in nature. Even acgriculture is becoming more and more "agribusiness," in which the land of independent farmers is swallowed up by a mega-corporation, and the farmers become wage-slaves, just like everyone else.
:lol: Did you know the average farmer was a milionaire?

And how is the 9/10ths assertion not true, in a sense? Back in feudal times, the vast majority of people controlled a means of production. Now, I would say less than 1/10th of the population controls a means of production (such as a business, for instance).
What&#39;s a "means of production"? It could be anything that can be used to produce a value, from a spade to a computer.

As if the ruling class would permit the courts to rule against the ruling class&#39;s appropriation of surplus value.
But then you&#39;d have to prove the existence of surplus value.

Why isn&#39;t class consciousness and cognizance of common sense marxist concepts more prevalent than it is?
Because they&#39;re easily demonstrated to be false.
Jazzratt

Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.
What gives the current working classes a right to it?

This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.
So you&#39;re admitting that it&#39;s difficult and starting a business therefore requires risk and work.

Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery,
Work=slavery? You mean if I have to cut down a tree to provide wood for myself, which certainly constitutes work, I&#39;m a slave? Who to? Myself?

Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.
Evidently he did so someting, or businesses would not exist.

We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.
Commies now believe in private property rights? Haleluja. I never thought I&#39;d see the day.

[Tungsten]

Comrade-Z

No, in fact they did construct it in the first place. So there&#39;s no problem in building new ones. What are you waiting for?

It was stolen/extorted/coerced from them through the appropriation of their surplus value by their capitalist masters.
You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.

That&#39;s partly why proletarian revolution and the dispossession of the capitalist class are fundamentally actions taken in self-defense. The capitalist class has clearly been the aggressor. All the proletariat will do is take back what they produced in the first place.
Yes, I understand that the whole revolutionary caper rests on the truth of the labour theory of value, but I&#39;m afraid it&#39;s false. Value is subjective, not intrinsic.

Yes, clearly we have different ideas of "freedom" and "democracy." I see democracy as including all spheres of social life, including the workplace, and I see freedom as being able to control your own labor and appropriate products from society as one sees fit.
Your ideas are contradictory. You can&#39;t control your own labour and products if direct democracy rules the roost. You won&#39;t be in control of them if they&#39;re voted off you.

It&#39;s not just work, but working for someone else and being inferior to that person and being coerced by that person into uncomfortable economic arrangements (such as any wage employment).
You&#39;re not being coerced unless you&#39;re actually being forced into work by the employer.

But it&#39;s not feasible for the entire proletariat to do this.
Stealing it is easier.

And they will still be subject to the whims of the bank, the market,
Won&#39;t everyone else be?

and their much more powerful and already established competition.
They&#39;re not going to remain powerful if you can sell your stuff cheaper.

We are looking for better economic security than that.
You won&#39;t get it unless you put a dictatorship in place. Those who believe in giving up freedom in exchange for security etc.

No, he would because he and the capitalist class as a whole, by already having the means of production monopolized,
How can the means of production be monopolised? Is there a limit to the number of factories that can be bulit or businesses opened? Rubbish.

are coercing the proletariat into uncomfortable and exploitative agreements. That is, they are stealing from the proletariat, much as a highway robber puts a gun to a guys head and "convinces" the guy through "rational discourse" that it is a good idea to "freely" come to an "agreement" in which the guy gives up all his money.
Let&#39;s take this one point at a time:
-What exactly are they stealing off you?
-How are they doing the equivalent of putting a gun against your head? Are they putting guns against your head and forcing you to work for them? Were you grabbed off the street and clamped in irons?

Replace highway robber with capitalist class, guy with proletariat, and gun with the spectre of economic ruin/misery/death, and the analogy is complete.
You mean not giving you a job or pandering to your every need on pain of your death is the same as shooting you? What pathetic reasoning skills.

Values are subjective, eh? So if all the workers of the world went on strike tomorrow and said that they had all decided that the "full value" of their work was &#036;1000/hour, you think that would be a "legitimate" demand?
Not really. But then, that&#39;s my subjective opinion.

Who are you to say that they are not worth that much? Value is subjective, after all.
Because values are subjective and I don&#39;t think their labour is worth that much. Subjectivity is a two-way street.

Sure, you could reject the demand, but the workers would still be on strike. What, then, would you do? Would you honor their "right" to "freely" bargain?
I&#39;d have little choice if I wanted to continue trading.

Or would you send them back to work by any means necessary, including violence?
And sink to your level? No thanks.

Value (labor inputs) and utility are, technically, distinct. But value (labor) is constantly adapting itself to maximum utility, with a greater or lesser time-lapse depending on how fast and accurately the utility (price) information travels. So, when customers look at the prices on the shelves, they are indeed looking at the product&#39;s labor inputs.
This is a circular argument and doesn&#39;t prove anything. Where did you copy this from?

You don&#39;t see many small peasants or independent artisans these days, do you? Almost all labor now is social in nature. Even acgriculture is becoming more and more "agribusiness," in which the land of independent farmers is swallowed up by a mega-corporation, and the farmers become wage-slaves, just like everyone else.
:lol: Did you know the average farmer was a milionaire?

And how is the 9/10ths assertion not true, in a sense? Back in feudal times, the vast majority of people controlled a means of production. Now, I would say less than 1/10th of the population controls a means of production (such as a business, for instance).
What&#39;s a "means of production"? It could be anything that can be used to produce a value, from a spade to a computer.

As if the ruling class would permit the courts to rule against the ruling class&#39;s appropriation of surplus value.
But then you&#39;d have to prove the existence of surplus value.

Why isn&#39;t class consciousness and cognizance of common sense marxist concepts more prevalent than it is?
Because they&#39;re easily demonstrated to be false.
Jazzratt

Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.
What gives the current working classes a right to it?

This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.
So you&#39;re admitting that it&#39;s difficult and starting a business therefore requires risk and work.

Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery,
Work=slavery? You mean if I have to cut down a tree to provide wood for myself, which certainly constitutes work, I&#39;m a slave? Who to? Myself?

Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.
Evidently he did so someting, or businesses would not exist.

We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.
Commies now believe in private property rights? Haleluja. I never thought I&#39;d see the day.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 04:13 PM
Jazzratt

Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.
What gives the current working classes a right to it?

What gives the leeching classes the right to it? It should be taken to benefit the mass- the working classes rather than the few - the leeching class.



This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.
So you&#39;re admitting that it&#39;s difficult and starting a business therefore requires risk and work.

Risk, yes. Work? Are you joking? Delegating work to others doesn&#39;t constitue work to me, selling the fruits of somone elses labour does not constitute work to me.




Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery,
Work=slavery? You mean if I have to cut down a tree to provide wood for myself, which certainly constitutes work, I&#39;m a slave? Who to? Myself?

I was talking about work in the sense of a job. The choice presented by capitalism as far as work is concerened is &#39;get a job or starve&#39; and that sounds a lot more like a threat than a choice to me.



Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.
Evidently he did so someting, or businesses would not exist.

Yes he did something, if I spent all day masturbating into a paper bag I would be doing something. I was agreeing that he had done something, all I was saying is that he did nothing of use or that could be defined as work in any meaningful sense.



We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.
Commies now believe in private property rights? Haleluja. I never thought I&#39;d see the day.

Acknowledging that in our current society they exist and are being used to the advantage of the leeching class does not mean &#39;belief&#39;, at least not in the sense you were using it. In the other sense I do believe they exist, because they are there every day depriving society of what is collecteivly deserved.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 04:13 PM
Jazzratt

Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.
What gives the current working classes a right to it?

What gives the leeching classes the right to it? It should be taken to benefit the mass- the working classes rather than the few - the leeching class.



This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.
So you&#39;re admitting that it&#39;s difficult and starting a business therefore requires risk and work.

Risk, yes. Work? Are you joking? Delegating work to others doesn&#39;t constitue work to me, selling the fruits of somone elses labour does not constitute work to me.




Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery,
Work=slavery? You mean if I have to cut down a tree to provide wood for myself, which certainly constitutes work, I&#39;m a slave? Who to? Myself?

I was talking about work in the sense of a job. The choice presented by capitalism as far as work is concerened is &#39;get a job or starve&#39; and that sounds a lot more like a threat than a choice to me.



Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.
Evidently he did so someting, or businesses would not exist.

Yes he did something, if I spent all day masturbating into a paper bag I would be doing something. I was agreeing that he had done something, all I was saying is that he did nothing of use or that could be defined as work in any meaningful sense.



We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.
Commies now believe in private property rights? Haleluja. I never thought I&#39;d see the day.

Acknowledging that in our current society they exist and are being used to the advantage of the leeching class does not mean &#39;belief&#39;, at least not in the sense you were using it. In the other sense I do believe they exist, because they are there every day depriving society of what is collecteivly deserved.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 04:13 PM
Jazzratt

Think of it more as reclaiming (and no, not in a euphamistic sense) the MoP from the leeching classes for the working classes.
What gives the current working classes a right to it?

What gives the leeching classes the right to it? It should be taken to benefit the mass- the working classes rather than the few - the leeching class.



This doesn&#39;t stop it being well-nigh impossible.
So you&#39;re admitting that it&#39;s difficult and starting a business therefore requires risk and work.

Risk, yes. Work? Are you joking? Delegating work to others doesn&#39;t constitue work to me, selling the fruits of somone elses labour does not constitute work to me.




Does it not? I&#39;d call that part of the very definiton of slavery,
Work=slavery? You mean if I have to cut down a tree to provide wood for myself, which certainly constitutes work, I&#39;m a slave? Who to? Myself?

I was talking about work in the sense of a job. The choice presented by capitalism as far as work is concerened is &#39;get a job or starve&#39; and that sounds a lot more like a threat than a choice to me.



Fair point. However consider this: he did no real work for it, he made nothing and he certianly provided nothing that couldn&#39;t have been provided were the workers autonomous therfore it could easily be said that he did, in effect do nothing.
Evidently he did so someting, or businesses would not exist.

Yes he did something, if I spent all day masturbating into a paper bag I would be doing something. I was agreeing that he had done something, all I was saying is that he did nothing of use or that could be defined as work in any meaningful sense.



We did nothing, it was the cappie system tha has done away with that 9/10ths; the property of the worker that has been stolen by the capitalist.
Commies now believe in private property rights? Haleluja. I never thought I&#39;d see the day.

Acknowledging that in our current society they exist and are being used to the advantage of the leeching class does not mean &#39;belief&#39;, at least not in the sense you were using it. In the other sense I do believe they exist, because they are there every day depriving society of what is collecteivly deserved.

[Comrade-Z]

So there&#39;s no problem in building new ones. What are you waiting for?

Capital.


Your ideas are contradictory. You can&#39;t control your own labour and products if direct democracy rules the roost. You won&#39;t be in control of them if they&#39;re voted off you.

Why would people vote away products from me? Products in society will be free. There would be no need for this. In any case, I wasn&#39;t talking about products, but about the operation of the means of production being democratic. And having a democratic say in how my enterprise functions is more than I&#39;ll ever get under the capitalist system.


You&#39;re not being coerced unless you&#39;re actually being forced into work by the employer.

Well, you are being forced to work by the employer, via having your situation exploited in which you need food and housing to survive but don&#39;t control a means of production in order to make your work productive enough to obtain those things. There&#39;s no choice in the matter. You must work for some master or other.


You won&#39;t get it unless you put a dictatorship in place.

So you don&#39;t think it is possible to produce democratically and in amounts according to consumption information relayed by districts, and then distribute these products freely, so that everyone can take whatever they need for satisfaction, and do all this without a dictatorship?

And remember, superabundance of products is a material pre-requisite for this society, so that people really can take all that they need in order to satisfy themselves without supplies running out. I think we have attain or are quickly approaching that point.


Is there a limit to the number of factories that can be bulit or businesses opened?

You know, capital doesn&#39;t just grow on trees. Even capital with strings attached (loans, etc.) is difficult to come by for most people.


-What exactly are they stealing off you?

A portion of my production.


-How are they doing the equivalent of putting a gun against your head?

The threats and consequences are just as dire for me if I don&#39;t comply. That is to say, if I choose not to work for a master, I become unemployed and I and my family either die or become miserable.


You mean not giving you a job or pandering to your every need on pain of your death is the same as shooting you?

The capitalist class, using its pre-existing leverage to coerce me into an unfavorable economic arrangement, is the same as the robber using his pre-existing leverage (the gun) to coerce me into an unfavorable economic arrangement.


And sink to your level? No thanks.

Clearly the capitalist class has not adhered to your views in the past. Whenever workers have threatened the system with massive, crippling strike action (May 1968 in France, for instance, or Poland 1980-82, or Mexico 1911-1917, or the U.S. in 1877, Seattle 1919, Argentina 1976 and ), the policy/military has always been there to forcibly and violently return things to "business as usual." Even when the strike action itself has been physically peaceful. Yes, in these instances, the capitalist class has not hesitated to force people back to work at gunpoint.

Usually, though, they don&#39;t like to resort to such measures. It looks "ugly" and reveals more clearly the true class antagonisms. Any time they can get by with their "normal," more discrete measures of coercion, they prefer that.


This is a circular argument and doesn&#39;t prove anything. Where did you copy this from?

I fail to see how it is circular. Maybe you are getting confused by the fact that the price at any one time may not perfectly correspond with labor input because of the time-lapse of the labor being able to adapt itself to maximum utility?

And I wrote it myself.


It could be anything that can be used to produce a value, from a spade to a computer.

Nowadays? Give me a break. Can you operate a successful enterprise using only a spade?


Commies now believe in private property rights?

We can acknowledge that private property exists at this point in time while being of a mind to abolish it at a future time.

[Comrade-Z]

So there&#39;s no problem in building new ones. What are you waiting for?

Capital.


Your ideas are contradictory. You can&#39;t control your own labour and products if direct democracy rules the roost. You won&#39;t be in control of them if they&#39;re voted off you.

Why would people vote away products from me? Products in society will be free. There would be no need for this. In any case, I wasn&#39;t talking about products, but about the operation of the means of production being democratic. And having a democratic say in how my enterprise functions is more than I&#39;ll ever get under the capitalist system.


You&#39;re not being coerced unless you&#39;re actually being forced into work by the employer.

Well, you are being forced to work by the employer, via having your situation exploited in which you need food and housing to survive but don&#39;t control a means of production in order to make your work productive enough to obtain those things. There&#39;s no choice in the matter. You must work for some master or other.


You won&#39;t get it unless you put a dictatorship in place.

So you don&#39;t think it is possible to produce democratically and in amounts according to consumption information relayed by districts, and then distribute these products freely, so that everyone can take whatever they need for satisfaction, and do all this without a dictatorship?

And remember, superabundance of products is a material pre-requisite for this society, so that people really can take all that they need in order to satisfy themselves without supplies running out. I think we have attain or are quickly approaching that point.


Is there a limit to the number of factories that can be bulit or businesses opened?

You know, capital doesn&#39;t just grow on trees. Even capital with strings attached (loans, etc.) is difficult to come by for most people.


-What exactly are they stealing off you?

A portion of my production.


-How are they doing the equivalent of putting a gun against your head?

The threats and consequences are just as dire for me if I don&#39;t comply. That is to say, if I choose not to work for a master, I become unemployed and I and my family either die or become miserable.


You mean not giving you a job or pandering to your every need on pain of your death is the same as shooting you?

The capitalist class, using its pre-existing leverage to coerce me into an unfavorable economic arrangement, is the same as the robber using his pre-existing leverage (the gun) to coerce me into an unfavorable economic arrangement.


And sink to your level? No thanks.

Clearly the capitalist class has not adhered to your views in the past. Whenever workers have threatened the system with massive, crippling strike action (May 1968 in France, for instance, or Poland 1980-82, or Mexico 1911-1917, or the U.S. in 1877, Seattle 1919, Argentina 1976 and ), the policy/military has always been there to forcibly and violently return things to "business as usual." Even when the strike action itself has been physically peaceful. Yes, in these instances, the capitalist class has not hesitated to force people back to work at gunpoint.

Usually, though, they don&#39;t like to resort to such measures. It looks "ugly" and reveals more clearly the true class antagonisms. Any time they can get by with their "normal," more discrete measures of coercion, they prefer that.


This is a circular argument and doesn&#39;t prove anything. Where did you copy this from?

I fail to see how it is circular. Maybe you are getting confused by the fact that the price at any one time may not perfectly correspond with labor input because of the time-lapse of the labor being able to adapt itself to maximum utility?

And I wrote it myself.


It could be anything that can be used to produce a value, from a spade to a computer.

Nowadays? Give me a break. Can you operate a successful enterprise using only a spade?


Commies now believe in private property rights?

We can acknowledge that private property exists at this point in time while being of a mind to abolish it at a future time.

[Comrade-Z]

So there&#39;s no problem in building new ones. What are you waiting for?

Capital.


Your ideas are contradictory. You can&#39;t control your own labour and products if direct democracy rules the roost. You won&#39;t be in control of them if they&#39;re voted off you.

Why would people vote away products from me? Products in society will be free. There would be no need for this. In any case, I wasn&#39;t talking about products, but about the operation of the means of production being democratic. And having a democratic say in how my enterprise functions is more than I&#39;ll ever get under the capitalist system.


You&#39;re not being coerced unless you&#39;re actually being forced into work by the employer.

Well, you are being forced to work by the employer, via having your situation exploited in which you need food and housing to survive but don&#39;t control a means of production in order to make your work productive enough to obtain those things. There&#39;s no choice in the matter. You must work for some master or other.


You won&#39;t get it unless you put a dictatorship in place.

So you don&#39;t think it is possible to produce democratically and in amounts according to consumption information relayed by districts, and then distribute these products freely, so that everyone can take whatever they need for satisfaction, and do all this without a dictatorship?

And remember, superabundance of products is a material pre-requisite for this society, so that people really can take all that they need in order to satisfy themselves without supplies running out. I think we have attain or are quickly approaching that point.


Is there a limit to the number of factories that can be bulit or businesses opened?

You know, capital doesn&#39;t just grow on trees. Even capital with strings attached (loans, etc.) is difficult to come by for most people.


-What exactly are they stealing off you?

A portion of my production.


-How are they doing the equivalent of putting a gun against your head?

The threats and consequences are just as dire for me if I don&#39;t comply. That is to say, if I choose not to work for a master, I become unemployed and I and my family either die or become miserable.


You mean not giving you a job or pandering to your every need on pain of your death is the same as shooting you?

The capitalist class, using its pre-existing leverage to coerce me into an unfavorable economic arrangement, is the same as the robber using his pre-existing leverage (the gun) to coerce me into an unfavorable economic arrangement.


And sink to your level? No thanks.

Clearly the capitalist class has not adhered to your views in the past. Whenever workers have threatened the system with massive, crippling strike action (May 1968 in France, for instance, or Poland 1980-82, or Mexico 1911-1917, or the U.S. in 1877, Seattle 1919, Argentina 1976 and ), the policy/military has always been there to forcibly and violently return things to "business as usual." Even when the strike action itself has been physically peaceful. Yes, in these instances, the capitalist class has not hesitated to force people back to work at gunpoint.

Usually, though, they don&#39;t like to resort to such measures. It looks "ugly" and reveals more clearly the true class antagonisms. Any time they can get by with their "normal," more discrete measures of coercion, they prefer that.


This is a circular argument and doesn&#39;t prove anything. Where did you copy this from?

I fail to see how it is circular. Maybe you are getting confused by the fact that the price at any one time may not perfectly correspond with labor input because of the time-lapse of the labor being able to adapt itself to maximum utility?

And I wrote it myself.


It could be anything that can be used to produce a value, from a spade to a computer.

Nowadays? Give me a break. Can you operate a successful enterprise using only a spade?


Commies now believe in private property rights?

We can acknowledge that private property exists at this point in time while being of a mind to abolish it at a future time.

[ummProfessional]

I was talking about work in the sense of a job. The choice presented by capitalism as far as work is concerened is &#39;get a job or starve&#39; and that sounds a lot more like a threat than a choice to me.

sooooo? what exactly do you suggest? :huh: "Work if you want, and if you don&#39;t want to it&#39;s fine as well, you will all get the benefits regardless" :rolleyes: thats pretty retarded, thats just a lame excuse for being lazy&#33; :lol: get real&#33;

[ummProfessional]

I was talking about work in the sense of a job. The choice presented by capitalism as far as work is concerened is &#39;get a job or starve&#39; and that sounds a lot more like a threat than a choice to me.

sooooo? what exactly do you suggest? :huh: "Work if you want, and if you don&#39;t want to it&#39;s fine as well, you will all get the benefits regardless" :rolleyes: thats pretty retarded, thats just a lame excuse for being lazy&#33; :lol: get real&#33;

[ummProfessional]

I was talking about work in the sense of a job. The choice presented by capitalism as far as work is concerened is &#39;get a job or starve&#39; and that sounds a lot more like a threat than a choice to me.

sooooo? what exactly do you suggest? :huh: "Work if you want, and if you don&#39;t want to it&#39;s fine as well, you will all get the benefits regardless" :rolleyes: thats pretty retarded, thats just a lame excuse for being lazy&#33; :lol: get real&#33;

[red team]

Great&#33; I would suppose you support throwing away perfectly usable items of utility like food and clothing because people are "lazy" because they refuse to work long hours for a few cents an hour while the workers that are desperate enough to work long hours at a few cents an hour can&#39;t buy back all the goods they&#39;ve produced. It happens all the time. Perfectly usable items produced under super-exploited conditions get dumped in land fills or into the ocean because nobody can afford to buy all of it back. Which leads to the obvious question of why you need to produce them in the first place with wages knowingly paid out that is impossible to purchase what was produced? Insanity perhaps? Greed? I guess it&#39;s a combination of both.

[red team]

Great&#33; I would suppose you support throwing away perfectly usable items of utility like food and clothing because people are "lazy" because they refuse to work long hours for a few cents an hour while the workers that are desperate enough to work long hours at a few cents an hour can&#39;t buy back all the goods they&#39;ve produced. It happens all the time. Perfectly usable items produced under super-exploited conditions get dumped in land fills or into the ocean because nobody can afford to buy all of it back. Which leads to the obvious question of why you need to produce them in the first place with wages knowingly paid out that is impossible to purchase what was produced? Insanity perhaps? Greed? I guess it&#39;s a combination of both.

[red team]

Great&#33; I would suppose you support throwing away perfectly usable items of utility like food and clothing because people are "lazy" because they refuse to work long hours for a few cents an hour while the workers that are desperate enough to work long hours at a few cents an hour can&#39;t buy back all the goods they&#39;ve produced. It happens all the time. Perfectly usable items produced under super-exploited conditions get dumped in land fills or into the ocean because nobody can afford to buy all of it back. Which leads to the obvious question of why you need to produce them in the first place with wages knowingly paid out that is impossible to purchase what was produced? Insanity perhaps? Greed? I guess it&#39;s a combination of both.

[Comrade-Z]

sooooo? what exactly do you suggest? "Work if you want, and if you don&#39;t want to it&#39;s fine as well, you will all get the benefits regardless" thats pretty retarded, thats just a lame excuse for being lazy&#33; get real&#33;

Here we get a glimpse of the bourgeoisie&#39;s true views about their wage-slave inferiors--we&#39;re nothing but lazy dumbfucks in their eyes, apparently. Blame the victim, eh?

Why will people work? For a number of reasons:
*Because they enjoy what they do. :o
*Because they don&#39;t mind spending a little bit of effort to help perpetuate a really awesome social system. For instance, if fending off the return of capitalism meant 35 hours of work (self-directed, and with dignity and respect from my non-elitist co-workers) per week from me, then count me in&#33;
*Because the hard workers will be admired and respected in communist society, as well as the people who don&#39;t mind taking on the really shitty jobs (if there are any remaining after the continuous advance of automation.)


You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.

Let&#39;s put it this way: is there a theoretical wage for a worker at which the employer will no longer make a profit? This is how much the worker is producing. This is how much the worker should be earning. Anything less than this, and surplus value, in the form of profit, is being siphoned off.

And let&#39;s say the employer plays a dual role as manager as well. In this case, how much this role as manager is worth would be decided subjectively, according to your line of thought. That is, the manager would have a subjective idea of how much his work was worth, and the other workers would have their own subjective ideas of how much his work is worth, and they would haggle and come to an agreement over how much to allow the manager to earn. That is, the question would be solved democratically. For this to occur, though, the workers would have to have proportionally equal control over the enterprise so that they would have proportionally equal leverage in the negotiations and thus equal say.

This is all assuming the continued existence of some system of exchange, though, such as money or, I suppose, labor-time-vouchers.

[Comrade-Z]

sooooo? what exactly do you suggest? "Work if you want, and if you don&#39;t want to it&#39;s fine as well, you will all get the benefits regardless" thats pretty retarded, thats just a lame excuse for being lazy&#33; get real&#33;

Here we get a glimpse of the bourgeoisie&#39;s true views about their wage-slave inferiors--we&#39;re nothing but lazy dumbfucks in their eyes, apparently. Blame the victim, eh?

Why will people work? For a number of reasons:
*Because they enjoy what they do. :o
*Because they don&#39;t mind spending a little bit of effort to help perpetuate a really awesome social system. For instance, if fending off the return of capitalism meant 35 hours of work (self-directed, and with dignity and respect from my non-elitist co-workers) per week from me, then count me in&#33;
*Because the hard workers will be admired and respected in communist society, as well as the people who don&#39;t mind taking on the really shitty jobs (if there are any remaining after the continuous advance of automation.)


You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.

Let&#39;s put it this way: is there a theoretical wage for a worker at which the employer will no longer make a profit? This is how much the worker is producing. This is how much the worker should be earning. Anything less than this, and surplus value, in the form of profit, is being siphoned off.

And let&#39;s say the employer plays a dual role as manager as well. In this case, how much this role as manager is worth would be decided subjectively, according to your line of thought. That is, the manager would have a subjective idea of how much his work was worth, and the other workers would have their own subjective ideas of how much his work is worth, and they would haggle and come to an agreement over how much to allow the manager to earn. That is, the question would be solved democratically. For this to occur, though, the workers would have to have proportionally equal control over the enterprise so that they would have proportionally equal leverage in the negotiations and thus equal say.

This is all assuming the continued existence of some system of exchange, though, such as money or, I suppose, labor-time-vouchers.

[Comrade-Z]

sooooo? what exactly do you suggest? "Work if you want, and if you don&#39;t want to it&#39;s fine as well, you will all get the benefits regardless" thats pretty retarded, thats just a lame excuse for being lazy&#33; get real&#33;

Here we get a glimpse of the bourgeoisie&#39;s true views about their wage-slave inferiors--we&#39;re nothing but lazy dumbfucks in their eyes, apparently. Blame the victim, eh?

Why will people work? For a number of reasons:
*Because they enjoy what they do. :o
*Because they don&#39;t mind spending a little bit of effort to help perpetuate a really awesome social system. For instance, if fending off the return of capitalism meant 35 hours of work (self-directed, and with dignity and respect from my non-elitist co-workers) per week from me, then count me in&#33;
*Because the hard workers will be admired and respected in communist society, as well as the people who don&#39;t mind taking on the really shitty jobs (if there are any remaining after the continuous advance of automation.)


You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.

Let&#39;s put it this way: is there a theoretical wage for a worker at which the employer will no longer make a profit? This is how much the worker is producing. This is how much the worker should be earning. Anything less than this, and surplus value, in the form of profit, is being siphoned off.

And let&#39;s say the employer plays a dual role as manager as well. In this case, how much this role as manager is worth would be decided subjectively, according to your line of thought. That is, the manager would have a subjective idea of how much his work was worth, and the other workers would have their own subjective ideas of how much his work is worth, and they would haggle and come to an agreement over how much to allow the manager to earn. That is, the question would be solved democratically. For this to occur, though, the workers would have to have proportionally equal control over the enterprise so that they would have proportionally equal leverage in the negotiations and thus equal say.

This is all assuming the continued existence of some system of exchange, though, such as money or, I suppose, labor-time-vouchers.

[KC]

You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.


Because the labour theory of value is right. How would we know what to trade commodities for if there isn&#39;t something common in both of them, used to compare the two?

When converting measurements, say centimeters to inches, there is something inherent in both of them that we use to compare the two: length. When you exchange two things there must be something common in the two things for them to be exchangeable. Can you convert centimeters to pounds?

[KC]

You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.


Because the labour theory of value is right. How would we know what to trade commodities for if there isn&#39;t something common in both of them, used to compare the two?

When converting measurements, say centimeters to inches, there is something inherent in both of them that we use to compare the two: length. When you exchange two things there must be something common in the two things for them to be exchangeable. Can you convert centimeters to pounds?

[KC]

You&#39;re using the labour theory of value again. No, there&#39;s no surplus value.


Because the labour theory of value is right. How would we know what to trade commodities for if there isn&#39;t something common in both of them, used to compare the two?

When converting measurements, say centimeters to inches, there is something inherent in both of them that we use to compare the two: length. When you exchange two things there must be something common in the two things for them to be exchangeable. Can you convert centimeters to pounds?