What’s the non-ideal and “historically accurate” definition of capitalism?
It’s implied in the rest of that very post. It is the economic and political system that arose in many areas of the west over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries during the industrial revolution, with a shift in the legal property system from a fuedal and monarchical context to a more large-scale industry-based and democratic-republican context in which economic organization is based heavily on wage labor and legally concentrated capital. “Socialism” arose partly as a reaction to the painful aspects of such a process of industrialization accompanied by political centralization, and Marxism was a confused and contradictary attempt to diagnose capitalism’s fate and present its alternative.
How is number 1. a problem?
OK, so no definition. What’s wrong with wikipedia’s entry:
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Or just plain: capitalism = system of voluntary exchanges of private property (goods and services). It’s very hard to leave such a basic system nameless. If not “capitalism”, what would be a more historically accurate name for it?
Z.
I would hardly consider the three decent-sized paragraphs I have written, which you have addressed none of the content of, as amounting to “no definition”.
Even based on the wikipedia definition you just provided, you still aren’t right here because you’re reading into it. An economy based primarily or solely on “private ownership of the means of production”, for-profit methods, and wage labor (and this isn’t even getting into the begged question of the legal mechanisms in the background in relation to these things) is not the same thing as “voluntary exchange” in a general and broad sense. Those are very specific methods within a market, but not what is constitutive of them per se. In short, what I’m rejecting is the equation of “capitalism” with “markets” in general. “Capitalism” has always been more specific than “market exchange”. Even your own sources confirm this.
What are the other respects?
Being asked to explain yourself when you cannot surely is irritating.
Let’s try this a different way. What methodology are you using to reach your conclusions? What framework for human action?
So you’re arguing morality with me, without a definition of morality. Irritated I brought that up? Want to call me a monkey again?
What are “proper relations” between humans? Proper as decided by who? You? The Church? My dad?
I am a human being, and yet if I pay someone to hit me with a stick, you claim I am incapable of caring about morality.
So am I a human being or not? Do I stop being a human being when I engage in particular activities, ones you do not like? Do you get to decide who is and is not human? By what authority?
What case? You claim it is complex, but how can you make claims about it, if it is complex and you can’t explain your method?
If I want to be tied up, or have rough sex what business is it of yours?
So you’re not making moral claims, you’re just expressing a subjective preference. In other words, things you don’t like, aren’t actually “wrong” they are just distasteful to you. Left-libertarianism is a perspective about what is aesthetically acceptable. Correct?
But I am not talking about legality. I am only talking about morality, and your introducing it creates a false dichotomy.
What are you talking about? You just claimed I can be immoral with my own body, and now you claim its ethics? Which is it?
Are you seriously saying that I can commit a crime against myself?
Yes, a bunch of sloganeering. So complicated, you can’t articulate it, it is so complicated.
You can tell us all about what is right and wrong, you just can’t tell us how you drew any of those conclusions. Which makes your “philosophy” nothing more than an expression of your own values (or those you copy from other people) rather than some systematic way of determining moral action.
Guess what Scott. There is no such thing as “thin libertarianism’”. My thin libertarianism is much thicker than yours, because it incorporates what I believe to be the highest value necessary for voluntarism.
Tolerance.
Historically, the goal of the right has been social order.
How does the above differ from voluntary exchange of privately owned goods and services (of which labor is just a subset)?
OK, so we agree that “capitalism” is at least a sub-set of the “market exchange” set, i.e. there can hardly be any “capitalism” without “market exchange”. Let’s focus on the “non-capitalist” remainder of the “market exchange” set. What would you say comprises it?
Z.
Thanks for making this post.
**“**The State has throughout history to present day acted to artificially privilege the rich,corporations, landlords and employers(The political class) at the expense of everyone else particularly the poor, employees,women, black people,foreigners, tenants,small businesses,the self employed, unions and the like(the exploited class).Following from this left-libertarians are on the side of the downtrodden and the marginalized.”
The only thing I woul object to there is saying unions are downtrodden and marginalized. Big unions are often aided by the state as much as big businesses. Although it seems the times that unions would be the most benificial to the workers the state will supress them, but I think this is covered by saying the state opresses the working class.
"there may be social practices or outcomes that libertarians should (in some sense) be committed to opposing, even though they are not themselves coercive, because (1) background acts of government coercion are a causal precondition for them to be carried out or sustained over time; and (2) there are independent reasons for regarding them as social evils.“Examples of this are sweatshops,'contract feudalism or authoritarianism arising from land ownership”
If this meens boycotts and charities then I am all for this, on the other hand if this meens violently “liberating” sweatshops count me out.
“Reduced bargaining power means that employees can do little when employers extend their authority into the private lifes of workers such as preventing criticism of the company on social networking sites”
Do you mean that without state intervention these things will become a rarity and we should boycott companies who engage in this behavior, or that this is some kind crime? again I have no problem with the first option but the second option I see as impractical and unethical.
"Authoritarianism due to land ownership. At minimal concern about how land ownership might be used to mistreat or control others.At most ,outright opposition to land ownership for this very reason"
Could you give me some examples?
Other than that those I don’t think I have alot of problems with anything you said.
Nothing like this even remotely exists for me to do so.If it did,I’d have saved my time and posted that with a link.But nope,this is all mine.I’ve wrote it exactly because nothing like it exists and there’s demand so to speak because some do not understand.
Good, that is probably better than most people. You have been under a lot of fire, and you tried to make a clear concise statement of things, that is a very good thing.
Scott, I read your post on bargaining power. While I see what you’re saying about statist measures making employment more difficult, what do you think of the statist measures that force employers to give certain pay and privileges to employees? As Adrian implied, the employee is not always thwarted by the state, but rather in many cases the employee is given a coercive advantage (first and foremost strikes). Are you saying that these uses of coercion would not be necessary if the state did not exist?
The bigger question I have is: how is the ‘bargaining’ between employer and employee different to any other kind of bargaining?
I don’t think a strike is a good example. The ability to strike is not a advantage for people who labor in general, but it is an advantage for specific workers vis a vis other workers. The ability to strike isn’t really employee vis a vis employer, as far as I see it.
I agree with Scott that the welfare state, in general, creates dependence with a specific amount of people. Yes, they get benefits, but as a general rule, I think the regulatory welfare state negatively effects the ‘poor and weak’ disproportional. But more general: the regulatory welfare state affects everyone negatively, so a fortiori also the ‘poor and weak’.
Minimumwages cause unemployment. Regulations cause lower real wages and inflexible labor markets. Subsidies create independence. High taxes are harder to succumb if you are poor. And so on and so forth.
“I don’t think a strike is a good example. The ability to strike is not a advantage for people who labor in general, but it is an advantage for specific workers vis a vis other workers. The ability to strike isn’t really employee vis a vis employer, as far as I see it.”
I wasn’t really talking about all employers vs. all employees, as statist policies are not necessarily detrimental to all individuals, i.e. individuals (e.g. academics) can gain hugely from the state. Scott was saying that the state harms employees’ bargaining power - but it can also give them greater power. Striking (backed by the threat of violence) can greatly inhibit employers’ freedom, and give greater ‘bargaining power’ to those striking.
Minimum wages create unemployment, but for those employed it may result in a higher income. The actions of the state result in less production and greater misallocation of resources, which results in a generally less wealthy citizenry. This doesn’t mean that large amounts of individuals don’t benefit from state coercion, at least in the short term. The problem is in seeing everything as poor vs. rich, employees vs. employers, proletariat vs. bourgeoisie, and then attributing to the state the problems of one group and the ‘power’ of the other.
Thank you.I respect your honesty and decency.