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Private property and workers rights
This is something, that has puzzled me since always. If workers have the right to the full fruit of their labour, doesn't that entail private property?
For example if I produce a field, isn't that field now exclusively mine forever, since somebody else growing something on my field means I can't use the whole field I've produced and am thus unable to enjoy part of the fruits of my labour?
Another pretty similar example is if I build a machine and somebody uses it while I'm asleep to produce goods for himself. Machines are worn down by use, so that means that if someone else is using my machine, I'll be left with less operating time for the machine than if he didn't. Doesn't that mean that person is robbing me of my labour?
The way I see it, people owning the full product of their labour means they have the right to exclude everybody else from what they have created, and that is basically what private property does.
Marxists (and most anarchists, as far as I'm aware) do not think that workers have a "right to the full fruit of their labor". Marx wrote against the notion at length in the "Critique of the Gotha Program". And in any case, trying to base socialism on "rights" is misguided.
Marxists fight for a society in which workers, as a group, will have free access to the full social product, but this does not translate into an individual "right".
Interesting, I always thought that marxists considered workers entitled to what they produce. It's something that I always encountered when debating about the exploitation of workers.
What is the marxist stance on property then? Do people own their body? Their personal property? And what philosophical argument are those beliefs based on?
There is a difference between personal property and private property. In this case, there would be personal property (consumption goods) but no private property (capital).
This post by Blake's Baby explains this beautifully: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...3&postcount=11
☭ “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” - Karl Marx ☭
You have an argument to claim that you should enjoy the specific fruits of your labour on the earth but the existence of the earth (or its resources) isn't itself a result of your labour, so no.
Capitalism? Capitalism is a social and economic system in which the earth, its resources and the productive forces dependent upon them, are coercively monopolised by the capitalist class for their maximised benefit, facilitating the alienation and exploitation of everyone else who must work for the owning class or suffer the consequences.
But what's the difference, really? The apple you harvested from your tree and the tree itself are made of the resources of the earth, so why can you own them? Hell, even "your" body is made of resources from the earth.
To make the distinction even more clear we might speak of private property and personal belongings (like inhereted jewelry, photoalbums and your toothbrush).
About private property and expropriation, i think Kropotkin said it best when he wrote:
"But we anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselfs" - Errico Malatesta ("Anarchism and Organization")
"It is very well imaginable that man can get a communist dictature, which takes care that the needs of the stomach are provided, but that thereby freedom still by far isn't for everyone. That's why the struggle shouldn't just be against private property, but against authority too." - Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis ("Van christen tot anarchist ")
Land isn't reproducible but the fruits of the land are. Moreover the land, and the earth's resources, do not exist as a result of labour, even if fruits derived therefrom are so. So there's a qualitative difference. As soon as you, and your fellow 'owners', put fences around portions of the earth for your exclusive benefit, you are depriving the remainder of opportunity to participate in production from the earth on equitable terms. hence the alienation and exploitation which results.
As an aside I don't think it makes much sense to talk of 'owning' your body, you have rights, or should have rights, but you're not, or should not be, thought of as merely 'goods'.
Capitalism? Capitalism is a social and economic system in which the earth, its resources and the productive forces dependent upon them, are coercively monopolised by the capitalist class for their maximised benefit, facilitating the alienation and exploitation of everyone else who must work for the owning class or suffer the consequences.
Blake's Baby explanation means there is no such thing as personal property; that "trowel" cannot belong anyone either.
Neither can that diamond necklace which somebody else mentioned could be considered personal property.
Not really-- somebody wishes to work there I suppose could apply for a job. But not everyone who wants to work there would be able to do. This is true in the socialist community as well.
Ownership of something doesn't really mean it's a good, it's the right to exclude others from using what you own. So unless other people can do things to you without your consent, you do own your body.
I don't understand what the qualitative difference between a field and an apple is. Aren't they both things you find useful and are produced by mixing labour with natural resources? When you put a fence around a field you're excluding others from using something you made from the earth and when you put that apple in a locked container, you do the same, don't you?
Also I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the fruits of the land are reproducible. You can't grow more than X apples per orchard and you can't mine more than X tons of iron from a mine. Land is limited and its resources are limited.
Yes really, private property is coercive monopolisation which alienates wider society and sets the ground for their consequent exploitation.
Capitalism? Capitalism is a social and economic system in which the earth, its resources and the productive forces dependent upon them, are coercively monopolised by the capitalist class for their maximised benefit, facilitating the alienation and exploitation of everyone else who must work for the owning class or suffer the consequences.
Ownership implies that something can be bought and sold and I don't think it is right that people can be bought and sold.
I appreciate that you 'don't understand' the difference between the land and an apple produced from that land but that's not really my fault, I've used plain language. Land is not reproducable in that if you have an acre you can't grow two acres from it, if you have a tree you have the potential to grow a multiplicity of apples and further trees. This is why monopolisation of land alienates in a substantive way but claiming the fruits of your labour, the apple, doesn't. You could be pedantic and claim that there is, ultimately, only a finite number of apples that can be grown, but I'm not really interested in pedantry, it's only evidence that you've lost your argument.
Capitalism? Capitalism is a social and economic system in which the earth, its resources and the productive forces dependent upon them, are coercively monopolised by the capitalist class for their maximised benefit, facilitating the alienation and exploitation of everyone else who must work for the owning class or suffer the consequences.
Capitalist exploitation entails the appropriation of most of the value produced by the workers by the bourgeoisie. But this does not mean, one, that the value produced by any individual laborer can be calculated (in most cases only the aggregate value produced by an economic operation is tractable, if that), and two, that the workers have a right to "the undiminished proceeds of their labor" (Lassalle's phrase, that Marx ridiculed extensively).
Marxism, in general, doesn't entail a moral evaluation of exploitation - there was a time when capitalism was progressive, after all. Marx aimed to show, not that capitalism was unjust, but that it was unstable.
Again, Marxism doesn't start from a normative theory of property like certain right-"libertarian" philosophies, but from a descriptive account of society.Originally Posted by ThatGuy
i'd pretty much agree with this. It's a red herring.
It is impossible to calculate an individual's share in the production of the world's wealth because not only is production social but it's also based upon the work of millions of workers in the past. Millions of workers have cleared the forests, drained the marches, opened up highways by land and water, improved the soil, selectively bred vegetation to produce succulent fruits and vegetables, have built settlements, made coasts and rivers navigable, have built harbours, dug mines etc etc. That's not even mentioning the thousands upon thousands of inventors, known and unknown, or the generations of unnamed workers who have added these partial improvements to the original invention without which even the most fertile of ideas would remain fruitless. It's more than that though as every new invention is a synthesis: the result of tons of inventions that have preceeded it. The same holds true for all of the productive capabilities of Man.
As obvious a crime that slavery has been historically, I believe people have the right to sell themselves if they wish to do so, even though I don't know why anyone would actually ever do that. On the other hand I also don't understand people who kill themselves(except when terminally ill), but I still think they have the right do do it.
Sorry, but your argument is flawed. If you have an acre, you can't grow another one out of it, but you can homestead another acre. There is, ultimately, only a finite number of acres of land that can be homesteaded, but that doesn't seem to bother you with apples, so I don't see the big deal with land. All material resources are scarce, without exception. Waving that away when it doesn't suit you is not consistent philosophy. If inconsistency doesn't bother you, you just won all the arguments.
As we know from previously existing slave societies such as the more well-known ones that existed in Classical Antiquity people sold themselves into slavery because of poverty. It was generally due to debt. Although usually the first port of call was selling your children into slavery.
Here's a question though, what if the slave no longer wanted to be a slave? I'd imagine you'd side with the slave owner.
The difference is of course that your proclaimations of "liberty" is not liberty at all but a shallow justification for oppression.
I know it happened, but there are so many other options, that I simply can't see why someone would actually choose slavery. If he'd no longer want to be a slave, and he permanently sold himself into slavery, he wouldn't have a say in it according to my beliefs, true. That's why you DON'T want to be a slave, there's no turning back. However from what I know, when people sold themselves into slavery, they usually kept some of their rights and had a limit on the duration of their servitude, or ways out of it. It's just like with any other contract really. If you sign something you regret later, you're usually screwed, so it's a good idea to really think things through and have a way to opt out of it.
That's the main point about contracts though, you choose to enter them. You can always pretend they simply aren't an option and you can ignore that they even exist.
Well, I could say what you're promoting is oppression just as easily. How can you be free when others have the right to take away from you what you devoted your scarce time on earth to make? How can you be free, when you're coerced into relationships you don't wish to be part of?
It was usually buy yourself out of slavery. However, this generally didn't occur.
You keep going on about choice but a choice between being a slave and death is not a meaningful choice.
How can you? I always side with the slave.
This is quite ironic considering we've all been telling you that the product of the workers' labour is taken by the capitalist and that the worker is coerced into it while you've been saying it's not a problem.
I can't comprehend the obvious cognitive dissonance displayed by right-libertarians when they justify slavery in the name of freedom. That should be a pretty big indication that your logic may be flawed.
Saying you don't understand why someone would choose to be a slave ignores that it's a common form of slavery. It also diverts from that you are justifying it.
pew pew pew
