i hear mutualists say that they are against capital. isnt property capital? im confused??[:^)]
I’m guessing they mean the concentration of the means of production (as in capital goods) in the hands of capitalists.
-Jon
so mutualists’ self-described label as socialist is almost completely wrong. they dont want to socialize the means of production but just contend that in a free market it will be more evenly distributed(?)
I guess. I don’t know much about their positive programme.
-Jon
I believe they don’t believe that Capital can be personal property. All capital would be owned by “the workers,” in the form of some sort of insane self owning corporation I suppose(but without the no-no word attached, obviously).
They don’t want the state to own all the capital, true. But they seem to have arrived at an even more inane system.
They basically believe in the labor theory of value but consider themselves anarchists. They believe that in a totally free market the income capital receives would be equal to “cost.” Loans of money would only charge administrration cost and no interest. Apparently they don’t know or accept the subjective theory of value and/or the idea of time preference.
Here is a wikipedia article on mutualism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mutualism
I think they do know it. From what I’ve heard Carson’s theory on value amounts to a reformulation of sorts of the STV. A lot of their economics does sound odd to me though and until I’ve read it myself I’m not jumping to conclusions. At least in the case of people like Carson they’re very sympathetic to the Austrian school, something one cannot say of a lot of anarcho-collectivists, and they also all under individualist forms of anarchism.
-Jon