Isn't Communism a little.. Purposeless?

[Questionable]

The solution isn't for everyone to start their own business, because as I said before, not everyone wants to do that. They would rather go work for someone else and earn a steady paycheck.

Aside from the problematic America-only context you're speaking in, you still haven't proven that capitalism can function with everyone starting their own business. You're only saying that it won't happen because people don't wish it to. If you admit that there needs to exist a certain number of workers, your whole argument falls apart.

Those that do want to start their own small business can easily do so. If they don't have a product or service they can sell themselves, they can sell someone else's products as an affiliate and earn a commission. That would effectively make them their own boss.

Workers already sell themselves. It's called the Labor Theory of Value (I highly suggest you look it up as it would go a long way to explaining the problematic nature of what you're saying here).

That said, everything needs workers to produce it. We're not just talking about making money here, we're talking about actual production. What about the corporate giants that produce the commodities that we use everyday? Workers cannot cease to exist as a class.

So in reality, anyone that does want to start their own business can. What would happen if everyone did it? I don't know.

Saying this won't make it true.

I'd assume business owners wouldn't have any employees and would have to start doing the work themselves. Which would be catastrophic for large corporations with various locations/stores, ect..

This would become problematic once the business expands to a certain point. Sooner or later you'd need workers. Not to mention what I said earlier that there needs to be a class of people actually producing things and not just playing with numbers like business men.

No I didn't. I said it would never happen.

I already said: Some people want to be CEOs, others want to be employees.

You said it would never happen simply because some people would choose to be wage-slaves. Hypothetically speaking, you're saying it could hapepn if everyone decided to do it at the same time, right? What would happen then? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN? I'm sorry if this seems ridiculous, but you either don't understand what I'm asking or you don't want to admit that without workers capitalism becomes nonexistent.

It balances out. Just look at how many people are going to school. How many are going to learn how to open up their own business? In reality, the vast majority of people are going to school to get a job working for someone else.

So no, capitalism isn't about everyone having their own business. It's about people doing what they want.

Prove it. How have you come across this godlike knowledge that people don't act within the context of the social conditions that are forced upon them, and are actually operating on freewill?

Ditto.

You're far worse because your arguments don't even work from the standpoint of a capitalist. At least bourgeois economists aren't stupid enough to say that we don't need workers producing commodities.

[tooAlive]

They would stop working to expand capital. I sincerely doubt people would let their own needs go unattended.

What needs would go unattended? I was under the impression that under communism, basic needs are a birth right?

But at least you're fortunate, right?

*Sigh* What do you want me to tell you? I would at least say that it's better for only some to starve than for everyone to starve.

Can you give me some studies that prove a link between taxes and wages?

I don't have any, nor I have I looked for any. I didn't state that as a fact, I stated it as an opinion. Everything I've said in this thread is my opinion.

You mentioned exploitation of immigrants in California. I mentioned California has some of the highest taxes in the US. Lets use some common sense now;

Which business has more money to pay their employees, one that has 70% of their income taxed, or one that has 30% of their income taxed?

I don't think you need many studies to explain the simple math evident there.

Also, your pretty much said once again that you don't give a fuck about people who suffer under capitalism, because it's illegal to be an immigrant. Arguing with you is becoming pointless because in your world everyone gets exactly what they deserve. It's exactly what Tim Cornelis accused you of (and you subsequently ignored).

I said it's illegal for undocumented workers to be employed here in the US.

If they are, that means that the company exploiting them is breaking the law. If they were here legally, they wouldn't be exploited as they are.

And given the fact that they're allowing themselves to be exploited here means that being exploited in the US is still better than living in a 3rd world country.

Again, it doesn't make it right. I'm just stating the reality.

So the massive shrinkage in small business is because everyone is afraid?

Well, socialism definitely does not promote small businesses, so I would attribute it to the increase in socialism in the US. Given that we're much more socialist now than we were 100 years ago.[/QUOTE]

[Questionable]

What needs would go unattended? I was under the impression that under communism, basic needs are a birth right?

Well profit wouldn't act as a barrier against needs. People would be producing for themselves.

*Sigh* What do you want me to tell you? I would at least say that it's better for only some to starve than for everyone to starve.

It's just tiresome that every time someone brings up a failure of capitalism to provide for people, you just shrug it off and say "Well at least it works for me!"

Good for you, but that tells us nothing.

I don't have any, nor I have I looked for any. I didn't state that as a fact, I stated it as an opinion. Everything I've said in this thread is my opinion.

That explains why most of it is wrong.

You mentioned exploitation of immigrants in California. I mentioned California has some of the highest taxes in the US. Lets use some common sense now;

Which business has more money to pay their employees, one that has 70% of their income taxed, or one that has 30% of their income taxed?

I don't think you need many studies to explain the simple math evident there.

Read this: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...-price-profit/

But let's assume your argument is true. If a business exists in order to reap the most profit from its commodities, why would it start paying its workers any higher wages if taxes were lower? The reason we have high wages nowadays is because of the strength of organized labors and these evil "socialist" laws in place that protect workers from harm. If a company has low taxes, it should be very happy because now it can make even more money by pushing down wages and having to pay less taxes for the final result.

And given the fact that they're allowing themselves to be exploited here means that being exploited in the US is still better than living in a 3rd world country.

Again, it doesn't make it right. I'm just stating the reality.

It's very, very hard to take you seriously when you keep saying that people need only make a choice to live like gods, and you continue to insult these people by saying "Well, they should stop ALLOWING themselves to be treated like shit!"

I'm banging my head against the wall because, as Tim Cornelis said (and you ignored), you suffer from just-world hypothesis. Every bad thing that happens is actually morally right.

Well, socialism definitely does not promote small businesses, so I would attribute it to the increase in socialism in the US. Given that we're much more socialist now than we were 100 years ago.

That is not socialism. It is capitalist-monopolism.

BUT WAIT, WHAT IS THIS? YOU'RE ADMITTING THAT PEOPLE ARE BEING BARRED FROM STARTING A SMALL BUSINESS? SWEET JESUS, WE MAY BE MAKING PROGRESS HERE!

[Fourth Internationalist]

BUT WAIT, WHAT IS THIS? YOU'RE ADMITTING THAT PEOPLE ARE BEING BARRED FROM STARTING A SMALL BUSINESS? SWEET JESUS, WE MAY BE MAKING PROGRESS HERE!

LOL

[tooAlive]

You're making it very difficult to take you seriously because you insist on maintaing this stupid notion that there is a considerable amount of people that would prefer to be submissive and subservient "employees", doing their masters bidding for shitty pay, under shitty conditions, instead of being millionaire CEOs with multiple mansions and yachts, buddy.

Of course everyone want to be a millionaire! That's a no brainer.

Here's the kicker.

Not everyone is willing to nor wants to deal with the responsibility and risk associated with owning their own business. They'd much rather have the security of a steady paycheck.

Under that circumstance, yes, they'd rather not be rich. As crazy as it may sound to you.

That's what the left fails to understand. Owning a business isn't a walk in the park, and many aren't up to it. Starting a business requires a significant amount of dedication and time, which honestly, most people would rather spend partying with friends or having fun.

[tooAlive]

But let's assume your argument is true. If a business exists in order to reap the most profit from its commodities, why would it start paying its workers any higher wages if taxes were lower? The reason we have high wages nowadays is because of the strength of organized labors and these evil "socialist" laws in place that protect workers from harm. If a company has low taxes, it should be very happy because now it can make even more money by pushing down wages and having to pay less taxes for the final result.

Because they will start losing their employees to companies offering to pay them more.

No matter how much they want to exploit the workers, they can't because of competition in the workforce. That's an even bigger factor now that workers have access to the internet and can talk to other workers, and easily find out what others are getting paid for the same work.

That is not socialism. It is capitalist-monopolism.

BUT WAIT, WHAT IS THIS? YOU'RE ADMITTING THAT PEOPLE ARE BEING BARRED FROM STARTING A SMALL BUSINESS? SWEET JESUS, WE MAY BE MAKING PROGRESS HERE!

I would argue that it's crony-capitalism, and I'm just as against that as you are. Large corporations essentially "buying" the government in order to get unfair benefits. I.E, bailouts, ect..

And it happens because the government has the power to do all those things.

You said it would never happen simply because some people would choose to be wage-slaves. Hypothetically speaking, you're saying it could hapepn if everyone decided to do it at the same time, right? What would happen then? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN? I'm sorry if this seems ridiculous, but you either don't understand what I'm asking or you don't want to admit that without workers capitalism becomes nonexistent.

lol, Please show me the post where I said that capitalism doesn't require workers so I can go edit it.

And I already answered that, but here it is again in case you missed it:

What would happen if all the workers decided to start a business at the same time?

Maybe the world would come to a standstill? Because all the businesses that require the labor of employees would suddenly find themselves unable to operate. That's what would happen. Nobody would show up to work the next day and businesses wouldn't open. In other words, major chaos.

What would that prove anyways? That businesses that employ people need people to operate? Yes, they do. But like I've said many, many times before, the purpose of capitalism is not that everyone will own a business; it's so that they have the freedom to open one if they want to.

[Questionable]

Of course everyone want to be a millionaire! That's a no brainer.

Here's the kicker.

Not everyone is willing to nor wants to deal with the responsibility and risk associated with owning their own business. They'd much rather have the security of a steady paycheck.

Under that circumstance, yes, they'd rather not be rich. As crazy as it may sound to you.

That's what the left fails to understand. Owning a business isn't a walk in the park, and many aren't up to it. Starting a business requires a significant amount of dedication and time, which honestly, most people would rather spend partying with friends or having fun.

Again, prove that it's easy. The statistics and trends within the economy say otherwise. All you're doing is telling us what you think happens. Make it correspond with reality.

Because they will start losing their employees to companies offering to pay them more.

No matter how much they want to exploit the workers, they can't because of competition in the workforce. That's an even bigger factor now that workers have access to the internet and can talk to other workers, and easily find out what others are getting paid for the same work.

It never works like that except in the abstract.

I would argue that it's crony-capitalism, and I'm just as against that as you are. Large corporations essentially "buying" the government in order to get unfair benefits. I.E, bailouts, ect..

And it happens because the government has the power to do all those things.

Yes, capitalism does this once it reaches this stage of development. Competition dies out and monopolies take place.

[Let's Get Free]

Of course everyone want to be a millionaire! That's a no brainer.

Here's the kicker.

Not everyone is willing to nor wants to deal with the responsibility and risk associated with owning their own business. They'd much rather have the security of a steady paycheck.

The idea that risk per se should be rewarded seems a little strange. When I risk my money betting on the horses I dont demand repayment when my horse comes in last. Besides, ever since the institution of limited liability was introduced, entrepreneurs have been considerably cushioned from the adverse consequences of their mad gamblings; if anything, it is is the workers themselves who bear brunt of such consequences like losing their jobs and possibly their homes if they cant pay rent -but of course they dont get a look-in the decision making process despite doing the work and enriching the entrepreneur in the process.
Also, for a lot of rich people, mommy and daddy gave little Joe/Jane the cash to start up their cute little business selling chic merchandise to their bourgeois clientele. But a socialist society would relieve the suffering of those poor entrepreneurs by making their private property the common property of everyone.

[Fourth Internationalist]

But a socialist society would relieve the suffering of those poor entrepreneurs by making their private property the common property of everyone.

Just for our little capitalist friend, private property is considered the means of production and personal property is like your toothbrush, TV, house, etc. Unlike capitalism, socialism sees these two as different.

[Fourth Internationalist]

No matter how much they want to exploit the workers, they can't because of competition in the workforce. That's an even bigger factor now that workers have access to the internet and can talk to other workers, and easily find out what others are getting paid for the same work.

But yet we still see massive exploitation (especially in the third world) by the capitalists?

What would that prove anyways? That businesses that employ people need people to operate? Yes, they do. But like I've said many, many times before, the purpose of capitalism is not that everyone will own a business; it's so that they have the freedom to open one if they want to.

Only those with money have that freedom. In capitalism, money equals freedom, and it shouldn't be that way.

[tooAlive]

Again, prove that it's easy. The statistics and trends within the economy say otherwise. All you're doing is telling us what you think happens. Make it correspond with reality.

I think you misread my post again.

Where did I say it was easy? I'm actually saying the opposite..

Here, let me quote myself:

That's what the left fails to understand. Owning a business isn't a walk in the park, and many aren't up to it. Starting a business requires a significant amount of dedication and time, which honestly, most people would rather spend partying with friends or having fun.

[Conscript]

You don't need to own a business to accumulate capital. Actually, you don't even need to be involved in production at all.

[Questionable]

I think you misread my post again.

Where did I say it was easy? I'm actually saying the opposite..

Here, let me quote myself:

No, I understand your point better than you even do, because I'm able to place it in greater social context of capitalism.

I'm growing a bit tired of this debate. If I bring up a flaw of capitalism, you're just going to tell me that people aren't actually confined with their social conditions, but something as massive and complex as the economy is actually the plaything of mere individual wills, and if people are living in shitty conditions, it's because they're too stupid or (even worse) simply don't want to succeed. You may as well be telling me that God made it that way. No matter what I say, you're just going to ignore actual economics (Like the conditions of the market that must be taken into account when starting a small business) and tell me that everything in the world is exactly as it should be. If I bring up statistics relating to the fall of small business, you're just going to say something along the lines of "No, people just like it that way."

Tim Cornelis's post really summed up your entire argument, but you never gave it the respond it deserved. You respond to one sentence out of the whole post. I'm going to re-post it and highlight the most important bits. If you don't respond to those highlighted, then feel free to consider yourself the victor, because I'm tired of trying to prove to you that the status of the economy matters when starting a small business and that it's not simply a matter of believing yourself hard enough (And hell, you still haven't proven to me that you don't need workers for capitalism, you just said "That will never happen" and blew me off).

We need to make a FAQ that tackles these arguments so we don't have to reiterate the same old arguments again and against

tooAlive suffers from a condition known as "just-world hypothetiseritus."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Quote:
The just-world hypothesis (or just-world fallacy) is the cognitive bias that human actions eventually yield morally fair and fitting consequences, so that, ultimately, noble actions are duly rewarded and evil actions are duly punished. In other words, the just-world hypothesis is the tendency to attribute consequences to, or expect consequences as the result of, an unspecified power that restores moral balance; the fallacy is that this implies (often unintentionally) the existence of such a power in terms of some cosmic force of justice, desert, stability, or order in the universe.
Look up what it means there ^. This is reflected not only by justifying famines and starvation (of which in India alone 10 million people befall victim to) for supposedly not wanting to produce rather than market forces disallowing them to subtract enough value from the market to sustain their own lives; but also by his belief in the supernatural force of reincarnation.

Believe in the just world hypothesis is perhaps a psychological mechanism to cope with a world so riddled with exploitation and oppression.

Reward Hard Work
tooAlive assumes that markets happen to coincide with what is morally just--how convenient (see again just world hypothesis). If you work hard, you are rewarded, if you are a lazy you starve.

Let's look at the Somali famine. It was caused by drought but amplified by food speculation. Rich food speculators bought food, driving up prices, making food unavailable to the starving people. Irrespective of the willingness to produce and work, the food was unavailable due to market forces.

Rich people do not necessarily work harder than poor people. How much money would Heineken have made if he had hired zero employees? Exactly, zero €. Most work that is done is socially valuable (needed in society), from factory work, to cleaning, to administration. Work that is not needed is of course financial speculation, etc.

We simply cannot rely on markets to dictate who works hard and who doesn't and reward accordingly, that's simply not how markets function. Bargaining power, capital gains, etc. all influence it, additionally we have the genetic lottery: not everyone is smart enough to become rich.

How can you manage to get rich under capitalism?

1. Appropriate a position of undemocratic authority within an enterprise.
2. Inherit money--requires no contribution to society.
3. Corruption, nepotism, etc.
4. Win the lottery--requires no contribution to society.
5. Have the physical or mental superiority that allows you to specialise in a certain field and thus create an immense bargaining power (e.g. become a professional football player). Is only for those few who won the genetic lottery.

All of this is unfair. (1 is dealt with bellow).

Innovation
Research funded by the Federal Reserve, done by MIT, has shown that the more money you throw at innovative work, the less innovative people become. Instead there are three factors that lead to innovation.
1. Mastery: desire to master a certain skill (e.g. understand how a machine works).
2. Purpose: desire to have a certain goal (e.g. cure cancer).
3. Autonomy: desire to be self-directed.

+YouTube Video


Wage-Labour is voluntary
Only if you drop context, as Ayn Rand might have called it--ironically.

Quote:
The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately deStalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. A worker is a par-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation.. The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately deStalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. A worker is a par-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation.
But, you will insist, they are free to leave, free to start their own corporation.

Remember, when we enter this world all wealth is already divided. All means of production already owned. This is either in our favour or not, but it's fundamentally unjust since there is no equality.

All productive resources -- financial assets, land, means of production, workplaces, natural resources -- are already owned, appropriated, dispossessed when we are just born. We enter this world in a complete dependence on those who own those productive resources. From this dependency (since we need access to means of life), we are compelled by circumstance (not physical coercion) to subjugate ourselves to an employer. This is not a free arrangement since there is no equality. Equality and freedom are complementary, not contradictory. The absence of equality implies one person rules over another, which implies a loss of autonomy of the ruled, and thus a loss of freedom.

Wage-labour and debt-bondage is force by circumstance (in contrast to chattle slavery which is force by physical coercion).

Quote:
Originally Posted by tooAlive

That's not capitalism.
It may not be the capitalism you desire, but it's the real world capitalism.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The idea of a classless, stateless, moneyless society where everyone merely exists to meet each others basic necessities seems a little meaningless to me.

I mean, what would the purpose of it be? Nobody would aspire to do anything great, as everyone would be simply content with existing and meeting needs.

As opposed to contemporary capitalism where the vast majoirty of people never get much of a chance to do anything but stay afloat, stay ahead of rent or mortgague - where 40% of the US population controls .2% of the wealth in the country. That's nearly 1/2 of the country just making enough to get by. So who has times for dreams or self-development between work, commutes, raising kids, etc? Oh yeah, rich people do.

Yeah, it sounds very noble. Nobody would starve, nobody would envy anyone, and everyone will be an equal.

People would be equal in that one person could not exploit another, tastes and skils and whatnot would varry.

But isn't the beauty of life the fact that we're all uniquely different, and each one of us with our own unique purpose?

Yes, and so why do you think that a system which demands the supression of that unique induviduality for the sake of turning people into profit-making cogs for the rich is benificial again?

I think freeing people from having to work or not having acess to resources and free-time stiffles induviduality; being forced to confom your life around making rent and bills stiffles mobility and freedom; having to sell your labor to someone who then controlls the conditions of most of your waking day, does not allow for indviduality.

That would all cease to exist under a communist system, as everyone would be confined to this created belief of "equality," when individuals are actually far from equals.

Again, equality in terms of relations, no masters and no slaves - not everyone wearing a Mao-suit.

I don't know, but I can't see how a life without personal goals or achievements has any purpose at all. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

I think that your conception of the world doesn't accurately reflect the experience of the world. Anyone who has ever held a job knows it is not "freedom" and yet you claim that if we are lucky, having 40 hours a week not to our own efforts for most of the best years of our lives is not the kinds of conditions that allow people to have the freedom and time to develop their interests and skills and unique abilities; capitalism as a rule breaks us down into our profitable parts, making labor more uniform and laborers more interchangeable. Capitalism destroys any indivuduality or any innovation that does not fit into the logic of the profit-system.

You go on about small business, but small business is not the driving force of the economy. Not only that but in the more "free-market" countries like the US it has a horrible failure rate. This is not due to lack of "will" by the small shop-owners, it's often due to larger market forces and competion from larger firms.

Your vision of capitalism doesn't reflect capitalist reality.

[tooAlive]

I'm growing a bit tired of this debate. If I bring up a flaw of capitalism, you're just going to tell me that people aren't actually confined with their social conditions, but something as massive and complex as the economy is actually the plaything of mere individual wills, and if people are living in shitty conditions, it's because they're too stupid or (even worse) simply don't want to succeed. You may as well be telling me that God made it that way. No matter what I say, you're just going to ignore actual economics (Like the conditions of the market that must be taken into account when starting a small business) and tell me that everything in the world is exactly as it should be. If I bring up statistics relating to the fall of small business, you're just going to say something along the lines of "No, people just like it that way."

The difference between me and you is that you believe people have a predetermined destiny under capitalism based on the resources they're given at the start.

I don't believe that's correct. If someone wants something, they can get it. If they don't, whether by lack of knowledge, will-power, capital, or plain stupidity, they are ultimately responsible for that.

Obviously if someone is going to start a business they need to research the market beforehand. If a business fails, then it's likely the owner didn't do his or her homework before getting started. For the sake of the argument we were having, I didn't feel the need to go into detail about what it takes to start a business, as I thought you educated folks would have known already.

Do little fish get eaten by the big fish? They sure do, sometimes. But that is not always the case.

And yes, I happen to believe everything happens for a reason. Aren't we all allowed to have our own beliefs? That's one of mine. Is everything in the world as it should be? No, I don't think so. But like I said, I believe everything has a purpose.

Tim Cornelis's post really summed up your entire argument, but you never gave it the respond it deserved. You respond to one sentence out of the whole post. I'm going to re-post it and highlight the most important bits. If you don't respond to those highlighted, then feel free to consider yourself the victor, because I'm tired of trying to prove to you that the status of the economy matters when starting a small business and that it's not simply a matter of believing yourself hard enough (And hell, you still haven't proven to me that you don't need workers for capitalism, you just said "That will never happen" and blew me off).

I don't have to prove to you that capitalism doesn't require workers because I never said that it didn't.

Again, show me the post where I said that so I can go fix it.

tooAlive suffers from a condition known as "just-world hypothetiseritus."

Quote:
The just-world hypothesis (or just-world fallacy) is the cognitive bias that human actions eventually yield morally fair and fitting consequences, so that, ultimately, noble actions are duly rewarded and evil actions are duly punished. In other words, the just-world hypothesis is the tendency to attribute consequences to, or expect consequences as the result of, an unspecified power that restores moral balance; the fallacy is that this implies (often unintentionally) the existence of such a power in terms of some cosmic force of justice, desert, stability, or order in the universe.
Look up what it means there ^. This is reflected not only by justifying famines and starvation (of which in India alone 10 million people befall victim to) for supposedly not wanting to produce rather than market forces disallowing them to subtract enough value from the market to sustain their own lives; but also by his belief in the supernatural force of reincarnation.

I already know you think I (as well as all other right-wingers) "suffer" from this condition.

During my lifetime I've had experiences with these "cosmic forces" you speak of, which has ultimately led me to believe the things I do. So yes, I do believe in "something greater" and that ultimately, everything has a purpose.

It isn't something I concocted to make myself feel better about children starving in other countries; it's simply what I've been able to understand by looking at the world.

Believe in the just world hypothesis is perhaps a psychological mechanism to cope with a world so riddled with exploitation and oppression.

Yes, in a way making sense of things that otherwise would serve no purpose.

Reward Hard Work
tooAlive assumes that markets happen to coincide with what is morally just--how convenient (see again just world hypothesis). If you work hard, you are rewarded, if you are a lazy you starve.

I never said markets coincide with what is morally just. Again, find me that post so I can fix it.

But yes, I am a firm believer that if you work hard enough at something, you will eventually get it. Obviously you have to be smart and learn from your failures, otherwise you won't get anywhere. I assumed that was a given; perhaps I should have made it clearer.

Let's look at the Somali famine. It was caused by drought but amplified by food speculation. Rich food speculators bought food, driving up prices, making food unavailable to the starving people. Irrespective of the willingness to produce and work, the food was unavailable due to market forces.

Are you asking me to find a positive side to the story?

I can't.

Rich people do not necessarily work harder than poor people. How much money would Heineken have made if he had hired zero employees? Exactly, zero €. Most work that is done is socially valuable (needed in society), from factory work, to cleaning, to administration. Work that is not needed is of course financial speculation, etc.

You're right. Rich people work smarter. And there's nothing stopping a poor person from learning from the rich person and doing the same.

We simply cannot rely on markets to dictate who works hard and who doesn't and reward accordingly, that's simply not how markets function. Bargaining power, capital gains, etc. all influence it, additionally we have the genetic lottery: not everyone is smart enough to become rich.

I totally agree with you. So what's the solution? Preventing everyone from becoming rich so the poor person doesn't feel bad? That to me is even more immoral and unjust.

Nature isn't fair. The slowest animals get eaten. It's not pretty but that's the reality of life. You can try, but you can't try to make things "fair" when they naturally aren't.

How can you manage to get rich under capitalism?

1. Appropriate a position of undemocratic authority within an enterprise.
2. Inherit money--requires no contribution to society.
3. Corruption, nepotism, etc.
4. Win the lottery--requires no contribution to society.
5. Have the physical or mental superiority that allows you to specialise in a certain field and thus create an immense bargaining power (e.g. become a professional football player). Is only for those few who won the genetic lottery.

All of this is unfair. (1 is dealt with bellow).

Out of all those, the only ones that I would be inclined to label "unfair" would be inheritance and corruption. And corruption would exist in any economic system.

1. The person had to work to get that position of authority.
4. Lotteries aren't unfair. Everyone that buys into them do it knowing that the chances of winning are astronomical. Yet, they buy into it anyways,
5. Yes, those athletes that make it into the pros worked much harder than the ones that didn't. You can't do it on talent alone. That's not unfair.

Wage-Labour is voluntary
Only if you drop context, as Ayn Rand might have called it--ironically.

Quote:
The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately deStalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. A worker is a par-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation.. The liberals and conservatives and libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately deStalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. A worker is a par-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation.
But, you will insist, they are free to leave, free to start their own corporation.

Yes, I already know you believe CEOs are like prison guards.

That's your opinion. There are millions of people that love their jobs and have great relationships with their bosses. Your definition (although exists in some places) is far from the reality of the real world.

Remember, when we enter this world all wealth is already divided. All means of production already owned. This is either in our favour or not, but it's fundamentally unjust since there is no equality.

All productive resources -- financial assets, land, means of production, workplaces, natural resources -- are already owned, appropriated, dispossessed when we are just born. We enter this world in a complete dependence on those who own those productive resources. From this dependency (since we need access to means of life), we are compelled by circumstance (not physical coercion) to subjugate ourselves to an employer. This is not a free arrangement since there is no equality. Equality and freedom are complementary, not contradictory. The absence of equality implies one person rules over another, which implies a loss of autonomy of the ruled, and thus a loss of freedom.

Again, you're under the impression that what you're given at the start is what you'll end up with at the end.

That could not be further from the truth, and it's a left-wing talking point made to get the workers revolt. History has proven time and time again how a person that started with nothing went on to have immense power.

John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Steve Jobs, ect. I can list more if you want me to.

[Thirsty Crow]

I also see you have capitalism associated with wage slavery. Why?

Why is a person a wage slave, if not by his or her own choice? For example; I've worked a job where I busted my behind and felt exploited. So I quit. I was only a wage slave if I chose to be. Everyone has that choice. In fact, I know many people that choose to be wage slaves, and don't mind it at all. But nobody is forced to continue that "slavery."

What would workers do when they quit their job or get sacked? Fall unto poverty and destitution, rely on meager state provisions for the unemployed, or on charity?

Once you get rid of that icing of "it's all a choice" the cake is notably unpleasant: the range of choices left for the working class is very limited with consequences which are detrimental for us, on many levels.

But the point to the concept of wage slavery is not that people cease to be wage workers once they get canned from a job. Indeed, they still will necessarily depend on capital as its labourers who exclusively enable its accumulation, but at some point in the future if they are part of the reserve army of labour (the unemployed taken as a group). And it is true that nobody is directly forced to remain a wage worker - but we are not talking about feudalism here, a mode of social oganization where direct force was used in securing labour power. This coercion in capitalism works in a different way, not as a set of personal relations of force and coercion (lord-serf for instance) but producing similar results - a class of exploited and oppressed labourers. What if every worker on the planet decided not to continue this wage slavery? Would production continue as well? Could a whole mass of ex-wage workers become small business owners?

Another point is that exploitation is not a term denoting how one feels about her job. It is geared towards an explanation of the phenomena and process driving economic life in capitalism, those being surplus value and profit.

[tooAlive]

As opposed to contemporary capitalism where the vast majoirty of people never get much of a chance to do anything but stay afloat, stay ahead of rent or mortgague - where 40% of the US population controls .2% of the wealth in the country. That's nearly 1/2 of the country just making enough to get by. So who has times for dreams or self-development between work, commutes, raising kids, etc? Oh yeah, rich people do.

One of you guys brought up a great point about Bill Gates having an unfair advantage by attending private school, and he was totally right.

A big reason we have so many people struggling to get by is our piss-poor public education system. Kids aren't taught anything about money, and get into the real world set up for failure.

They get into massive school loans, many times not knowing what they really want to study, and most of them never even work in their chosen field.

And the government is largely responsible for that.

People would be equal in that one person could not exploit another, tastes and skils and whatnot would varry.

People are not equal to begin with.

Yes, and so why do you think that a system which demands the supression of that unique induviduality for the sake of turning people into profit-making cogs for the rich is benificial again?

That's how the left sees capitalism.

In reality, it's just a way for people to choose what they want to do, and not be limited by others around them that may not want to work as hard, or have the same aspirations. Really simple actually.

I think freeing people from having to work or not having acess to resources and free-time stiffles induviduality; being forced to confom your life around making rent and bills stiffles mobility and freedom; having to sell your labor to someone who then controlls the conditions of most of your waking day, does not allow for indviduality.

Yes, in a perfect world nobody would have to work and we could all just sit home and weave baskets or go swimming. And surprisingly, there are many people genuinely love what they do for a living.

If our public education system wasn't broken, perhaps more people would be able to profit from their own natural abilities.

Did you ever thing of that?

I think that your conception of the world doesn't accurately reflect the experience of the world. Anyone who has ever held a job knows it is not "freedom" and yet you claim that if we are lucky, having 40 hours a week not to our own efforts for most of the best years of our lives is not the kinds of conditions that allow people to have the freedom and time to develop their interests and skills and unique abilities; capitalism as a rule breaks us down into our profitable parts, making labor more uniform and laborers more interchangeable. Capitalism destroys any indivuduality or any innovation that does not fit into the logic of the profit-system.

Not true. See my above post. You seem to be under the impression that everyone that has a job is miserable.

That's not the case.

And capitalism destroys individuality? I thought you just said we should strive to make everyone equal? I think you have it the other way around..

You go on about small business, but small business is not the driving force of the economy. Not only that but in the more "free-market" countries like the US it has a horrible failure rate. This is not due to lack of "will" by the small shop-owners, it's often due to larger market forces and competion from larger firms.

While it may not be from lack of will, it could likely be from lack of knowledge or experience. Would you happen to know how many of those business owners that had a business fail went on to start a successful one shortly after?

Your vision of capitalism doesn't reflect capitalist reality.

That would actually prove more truthful in regards to communism.

The vision you all seem to be striving for has never, ever been successfully implemented in the world. Because simply put, your vision of communism does not reflect reality. Because human beings have natural tendencies and desires that your "perfect world" doesn't take into consideration.

And while capitalism may not be perfect, even under our lowest standard of living people are still better off than in most third world countries.

If that were not true, why do people keep crossing the border or the ocean to reach the United States? Why don't we ever hear about people immigrating to Mexico, to Cuba, or to Venezuela?

Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?

[tooAlive]

What would workers do when they quit their job or get sacked? Fall unto poverty and destitution, rely on meager state provisions for the unemployed, or on charity?

Once you get rid of that icing of "it's all a choice" the cake is notably unpleasant: the range of choices left for the working class is very limited with consequences which are detrimental for us, on many levels.

But the point to the concept of wage slavery is not that people cease to be wage workers once they get canned from a job. Indeed, they still will necessarily depend on capital as its labourers who exclusively enable its accumulation, but at some point in the future if they are part of the reserve army of labour (the unemployed taken as a group). And it is true that nobody is directly forced to remain a wage worker - but we are not talking about feudalism here, a mode of social oganization where direct force was used in securing labour power. This coercion in capitalism works in a different way, not as a set of personal relations of force and coercion (lord-serf for instance) but producing similar results - a class of exploited and oppressed labourers. What if every worker on the planet decided not to continue this wage slavery? Would production continue as well? Could a whole mass of ex-wage workers become small business owners?

Another point is that exploitation is not a term denoting how one feels about her job. It is geared towards an explanation of the phenomena and process driving economic life in capitalism, those being surplus value and profit.

Nowadays it's entirely possible for people to start their own businesses on the side while they're working, without the need for capital or physical resources.

The idea that workers are eternally confined to an imposed existence is simply not true. At least here in the US.

And this is ultimately where our views will clash, as you see profiting from labor as immoral, unjust ect.

I don't.

[Fourth Internationalist]

@tooAlive If your idea that if people worked very hard they would eventually become rich, how come that does not happen? A person who lives in the third world starves yet works like a slave, but the son of a billionaire does not work at all, yet has a life of ease.

[Jimmie Higgins]

A big reason we have so many people struggling to get by is our piss-poor public education system. Kids aren't taught anything about money, and get into the real world set up for failure.

They get into massive school loans, many times not knowing what they really want to study, and most of them never even work in their chosen field.

And the government is largely responsible for that.

Yes, in a way the government is responcible for setting up this situation - of course this situation is due to an attempt to shift government spending away from social programs and towards "business incentives".

The situation you describe subjectivly for students is no different than in the post-war era: many students didn't know what they wanted to do, didn't learn marketable skills etc. But did they end up in debt? No, because the situation was different, more jobs were available at better relative pay and benifits for less work, public education was a priority of the capitalists so they opened it up (this was also due from social movements that fought for equal eduction and and end to segregated eduction etc) and a whole generation of workers went to college unlike their parents. It's a systemic problem, it's due to the interests of the people who run the system (like bill gates, for example, who gave millions to promote the privitization of public education) - they still need skilled workers, they just want us to subsidize it and go into debt which will then make us more willing to work for less and settle for less when we get out of school with massive debts. Would all those students working unpaid internships do that by "choice"? They rarely did in the 60s when you got paid for entry-level jobs!

So student indecisiveness didn't change the laws on student loans making it more appatizing for vulture creditors, Liberal Arts majors didn't cause tuitions to double in California public schools in less than a decade.

People are not equal to begin with.

Nor should they be, but that's not a justification of slavery or feudalism or capitalism which are not inherent systems, but ways of organizing production and society. So again, this has nothing to do with induvidual differences, this has to do with relations in a particular system which maintain some as masters with lots of social power and others as powerless and dependant on the masters in order to secure a living.

In reality, it's just a way for people to choose what they want to do, and not be limited by others around them that may not want to work as hard, or have the same aspirations. Really simple actually.

No it's not - that's like saying an atom bomb is a wonderful mode of transportation for B-52 pilots in cowboy hats. Capitalism has never been about "choice" for much of anybody (though the rich and powerful do get some more choice than the rest of us) it's mearly a way of accumulating profits. When capitalism was established and people still had a choice of living off the land or earning a wage, what did people choose: living off the commons or on the frontiers. In England and other places they had to close off the land and close off acess to wild animals (now "poaching") and gathering berries and firewood. They raised armed men to prevent people from gathering food, errected fenses and the tasks that people had done on the same land for thousands and thousands of years were now considered "stealing".

So, objectivly, when people actually had a choice, they did not choose wage-labor without cooersion - ironically from your perspective, cooersion by state power in the interests of the merchants and wealthy owners. Besides if people just really liked their job, then our culture would be different (no hating of Mondays, no chain-resturants called TGIF, no office comedy, no workplace shootings, no demoralization, no rude customer service, no absenteeism, no strikes ever, no theft on the job, and a million other little examples of daily frustration and alienation).

2nd, capitalism is based on competion which means, yes, people hold eachother back and sucess for one means not having a job for another, or among capitalists the big fish eat the little. Even for the big capitalists "choice" comes into it very little - they can choose this or that way to increase profits or they personally or the company altogether are out.

3rd, workers get the least amount of choice at all in this process. Rent's due: find any job or husstle you can.

Yes, in a perfect world nobody would have to work and we could all just sit home and weave baskets or go swimming. And surprisingly, there are many people genuinely love what they do for a living.

If I was magically transported back to the 1940s, I'm sure without rock and roll or hip hop I could grow to find some jazz I enjoy - however, given the option of other forms of popular music, I don't listen to it at all. The point being that if you have to work for a living, it's only natural to try your best to find an interesting one if you can. If you can't then most people try and make their peace with it - I myself try and find interesting ways to entertain myself and make tasks at work as interesting as I can - I even get a sense of accomplishment from it. But it's not actually fufilling, it's not economically sustainable long term for me as I age, and so on. I make due only knowing that this is my option at the moment.

Work is a necissity, many people like to work on things, be productive and whatnot. The goal isn't to get rid of "work" in the abstract since most of us would still like food and manufactured things and entertainment and so on - our goal is to change the relationship for us as workers to the work we do. Work isn't "bad" because it's hard, it's often hard because that's how someone can squeeze money out of you. It's the squeezing of money and lack of control by workers over what they have to do that's the problem. When people organize production cooperatively and democratically, then I think they will probably be motivated by how to accomplish the necissary tasks in a way that produces quality (since there would be no motive for planned obsolessence) without breaking our own backs.

People do "work" for themselves on hobbies or their home or cars all the time and they figure out a pace that works for them, they do it in a way that please: either fast so they can have more free-time or steadily so they don't strain themselves.

If our public education system wasn't broken, perhaps more people would be able to profit from their own natural abilities.

No because hireing isn't based on personal skill and aptatude. Did skill-levels just suddenly drop across the board and that's why jobs are scarse in the recession? Or is it that there is no economic incentive to invest and so the way to make money is to sit on what you have until it becomes profitable again and in the meantime, restructure, close-down sections, lay people off, hire new people at less wages for the same jobs since the economy is tough and people will take it.

Not true. See my above post. You seem to be under the impression that everyone that has a job is miserable.

No, everyone who has a job is exploited and so their efforts and skills no longer belong to them - their efforts and skills go to enrich others while they just maintain.

And capitalism destroys individuality? I thought you just said we should strive to make everyone equal? I think you have it the other way around..

Yes we should strive to make everyone equal in terms of social power: no aristocrats with god-given rights above us, no capitalists who monopolize the means to survive and force us to beg them hat-in-hand for a job so we can pay our rent to some other capitalist. This is not the negation of induviduality, it is the liberation of all induviduals. The "induvidualism" so often touted in capitalism is nothing but a sick joke: it's mearly the induvidual freedom of the powerful to control the lives of many other induviduals. Go watch some rush-hour traffic or look at all the people who have to wear uniforms or wear their hair in particualr ways and then tell me about the wonders of capitalist "induvidual freedom".

While it may not be from lack of will, it could likely be from lack of knowledge or experience. Would you happen to know how many of those business owners that had a business fail went on to start a successful one shortly after?

It could be, but even if someone did everything perfectly, most would still fail: why? Because this is how capitalism works - the big fish eat the little fish. Do you want capital to stop circulating? That's what it's all about? How can their be capitalism without constant competition among firms and attempts to control various markets?

The vision you all seem to be striving for has never, ever been successfully implemented in the world. Because simply put, your vision of communism does not reflect reality. Because human beings have natural tendencies and desires that your "perfect world" doesn't take into consideration.

No, there are many brief examples as well as many more examples of large strikes and movements by workers.

And while capitalism may not be perfect, even under our lowest standard of living people are still better off than in most third world countries.

?? Capitalism is good because even in the lowest standard of living in some capitalist countries is higher than in most poor capitalist countries?

If that were not true, why do people keep crossing the border or the ocean to reach the United States? Why don't we ever hear about people immigrating to Mexico, to Cuba, or to Venezuela?

Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?

First, none of these countries are socialist - all three have keynsian policies and two use socialist rehtoric though neither leader of these countries claimed to be a socialist until the US attempted coups against their regimes. I don't know much about Venezuela, but many people do come to Mexico - there's also internal migration within Mexico to the cities. They go to the cities or the border towns or the US for jobs - it's that simple.