This somehow went unnoticed so had to address it before I let you go…
No, my argument is: Get off my lawn because I own it and you don’t.
As for what makes it mine and “not the people who grow crops and harvest them” on it? Perhaps the fact that it was I who bought it, and not them. They voluntarily agreed to work on my property in return for a paycheck, and I voluntarily agreed to pay them for their work – pay that they can use to buy a property of their own and work on it themselves or voluntarily hire others who also voluntarily would work there in return for a paycheck so they can buy a lawn of their own…
Most importantly, how are any of these voluntary human interactions any of your business since presumably you had neither bought my lawn nor done any work on it? Remember the two concepts about which you were completely clueless (Not-My Property and None-Of-My Business)?
It’s mine because I have to bear the cost of not recieving the comfort of a regularly scheduled salary, unlike the workers who have voluntarily chosen to join me in contract and tend to my land. Those whom I agree to pay on a weekly schedule.
If my employers on the other hand choose to withold their regularly scheduled wages. I might be convinced, as a capitalist, to share in some of the interest(profit) once whatever investments we produce has matured. In that case the employer doesn’t become owner, but he becomes a capitalist, and shares in all of the benefits of capital ownership. The employer would stop recieving a regularly scheduled wage, and he would have to wait untill the investment has matured to get paid, which could take months to a year.
Exploitation theory was exploded in the larte 19th century. It’s a telling story that syndicalists, marxists, and various follows of socialism are not aware of by whom, and are not aware of how to even attempt a proper rebuttal.
Actually, I think the proper measures need to be in place before the state gets abolished; syndicalism is a means by which the producers (or “those groups of individual producers”) can educate themselves. Again though, our disagreement may be about property rights but what about those state-like structures protecting property rights called private protection agencies?
But I never described it as a democracy or plurality; participatory politics was the term. I imagine that (individual) citizens would voluntarily participate in councils and co-operate with the (individual) producers operating the syndicates to ensure everyone gets what they need.
This is true, to be fair; but I don’t think it alone would cause the system to collapse - every system has its imperfections.
I think “state” is a funny word to use here.
I won’t deal with the “capitalism” is a hierarchy because we both probably know how roundabout these discussions can become but what I mean is that the hierarchical structure of the capitalist firm along side market structures is what causes the externalities and subsequent distortion of the price mechanism (which you say you will deal with in my blog post) and distorts. I mean by hierarchy its normative sense that capitalists and entrepeneurs have positions of authority and that authority is power concentrated into the hands by the consent of the governed. This can lead to further discussion, of course but again, semantics.
By requests, I mean specific levels of consumption which can be objectively calculated by syndicates who include that in part of a “business plan” (don’t like that word when dealing with communism) when they request investment funds (or that word) from the community bank (or that word); but the community bank can actually quite easily provide this information to syndicates simply by displaying the number of transactions made for specific goods and services, perhaps openly displaying the information on a web page or so forth. In fact, under current society it is not always easy for businesses to get hold of these statistics.
To the bold - I don’t see why; with individual units like syndicates managing their own affairs but effectively coordinated through a bank of the exchange and a system of labour vouchers, it would be far easier for them to calculate their goods and services. As far as international coordination goes, I will have to put my hands up and say I don’t know, for now ;).
So, umm, do you not necessarily believe in the idea then?
I will need to look more into the specific details of private law courts before I comment further but I still find it hard to believe that they can remain objective in the face of supply and demand, that is the customers with the largest wallet plus the issues of more money = better lawyers = better representation, even assuming courts can stay neutral in the face of customers with more money.
Cool, let me know.
Again, simplicity, am I supposed to talk about specific individuals every time I mention more than one person in the plural sense? Lol.
I have to be honest; I’m going to have to wrap it up here because I’ve exhausted my knowledge as far as economic calculation goes.
Epicurus our conversation is getting drawn out and far too long. I’ve pointed out that your entire argument rests on a series of logical fallacies. Primarily, appeals to tradition, fallacy of composition, and a series of rather disjointed non-sequiturs. Even after pointing them out you pretend that I ahve not, and just continue repeating yourself. So it’s not realy worth my time and energy continuing a discussion with you. I won’t entertain the idea that an argument built on fallacy is one that needs refutation. If pointing out that it’s a fallacy is not enough, nothing else ever will. It becomes a nonesensical and/or a dishonest debate.
Your second post to me was just a regurgitation of the first. There is no need for you to repeat yourself. Especially when your posts are getting upwards to 300-500 words long. It becomes extremely tedious to respond.
I’ve already pointed out the flaws in your reasoning so here is my TLDR response.
Can you create a reasonable argument against Voluntary Exchange(Since you’ve agreed to that term) that:
Does not appeal to Tradition
Is not a fallacy of composition
Is deduced correctly, IE things follow accordingly(No non-sequiturs)
Does not commit any logical fallacy whatsoever.
Secondly How do you differentiate between
State Capitalism(Fascism)
And simply Capitalism
Perhaps you don’t. But be honest with people here about you not making a distinction. I also do not differentiate between State
Finally did you read that link I sent you from Human Action? History does NOT tell you any more about today’s reality then anything else. You keep asserting that we must use history to get a realistic idea of reality, but thats a fallacy. History does not tell us about reality, instead history tells us about a specific historic event, that is all. It cannot suggest the same state of affairs will repeat into the future.
Finally I will end with this. Earlier you were critiquing everyone acusing them of using a “Loaded Question”. It was rather clear that you didn’t know what one was. SO I am going to give you an example.
THis question assumes that the most powerful business’s are capitalistic entities, and not fascistic ones. Consider the following
Monsanto → FDA
Pfizer → FDA
British Petrol → EPA
AIG → Goldman Sachs → Federal Reserve
None of these institutions meet the criteria of being called capitalistic, as far as our understanding on this website is concerned.
Your asking for evidecne how a business gains purchasing power. I asked you on 3 seperate occasions. Who gives business’s(Outside of crooked fascistic companies) purchasing power. Who gave STeve Jobs his purchasing power? Who gave Apple it’s purchasing power? Could apple have recieved that purchasing power if it sold hunks of garbage medal instead?
So far you’ve succesfully ignored these questions, among others.
One other point, since you repeated it several times.
A few more points
You’ve said this several times now. I have said this before. I do not understand what you mean by “Absolute Property Laws”. I have also already answered you once that such laws will be established dynamically on the market.
Furthermore I feel as if I am being strawmanned, as you haven’t explained to any of us here what you mean by “Absolute Property Rights”. At a glace it doesn’t sound like it would pass as acceptance here any ways.
Honestly Epicurus it really does feel like your arguing to us over concepts that many of us don’t agree with any ways. If you could just get past the semantics of it all, you might find that you agree with a vast majority of people here.
Your critiqueing consumer preference, as a flaw of Capitalism now? People don’t want brown apples. This isn’t a sign of waste, but a sign of a level of abundance. It cannot be called wasted if people did not want to employ those apples in the first place. It’s no more waste then discarded rocks on the ground at this point. IT’s only wasteful if those apples would have been consumed by individuals in the market.
Stores don’t discard a vendible good. Grocer’s cannot sell brown apples. Consumers know that they can just go to the store across the street, and at the same price, get fresh apples.
So to call it wasted, who were the apples wasted for? Or did you have in mind that we should force consumers to consume these brown apples?
This is an odd statement, that leads me to beieve your confused. State capitalism Does exist. Right now. We’re living in it. Where on earth did you get the idea that we pretend it doesn’t exist?
If EvilSocialist can’t agree to disagree and let our ideas coexist without government, then he’s a statist pure and simple.
Again, I would not be hostile to someone starting up a capitalist commune under socialism; I just don’t personally think it would survive very long in isolation.
The key difference here between libertarian socialism and anarcho-capitalism is that libsocs want to remove all structures defending property; ancaps don’t.
Based on that, its up to you whether you want to call me a statist or not but again, we’d be playing the semantics game.
yes. It’s called methodological individualism. veering away from this is to hypothesize over a state of affairs thats not based on reality.
Syndaclism entirely revolves around “Exploitation theorry”. Which was exploded in the late 19th century. It fails not just because it doesn’t comprehend economic calculation, it fails because the very concept of labor exploitation was wrong to begin with.
The only way you can solve economic calculation, is by making a note of every individuals personal desires, at every second, of every day, at all times. You have to be in this sense, omniscient. Since thats impossible, we observe these individual preferences when participation occurs in the market.
All you’ve stated here EvilSocialist, is a system that attempts to mimic money. Just like all socialists of the past who admited that EConomic Calculation was a problem, all they ever did was try to mimic a system of money. And thats exactly what your doing. ;p
To deny that capitalism could not survive very long, is to deny that a farmer could not tend his land and feed himself for very long. IT’s not something you can deny.
If you accept that a farmer is likely capable of caring for himself in isolation, then it’s reasonable to assume that he might have a neighbor. It’s also reasonable that those two individuals might decide to exchange with each other. If thats the case, capitalism is born.
Worse, for you, is when other people, who are attracted by this state of affairs, builds their farms next to these farmers. Further expanding the division of labor, fostering a more complex environment of exchange. Perhaps people of other trade will also come to trade with the farmers, like blacksmiths, tailorers, ect…
Capitalism is deduced logically from a single man. Pretending that it couldn’t last is to deny it’s creation in the first place.
OK so you’ve eliminated the state, but there’s still this guy with a gun who claims his house is his property. But you want to use his house. So you fight it out, or what? See this is kind of ridiculous. Without a state, customary law prevails. If local customs support property, you probably won’t win the fight. If local customs reject property, you probably will win the fight. The question then becomes which localities will be successful, and which will result in mass starvation. That is where a debate - about crystal balls - can start (though a look at history seems to end that debate pretty quickly).
Epicurus our conversation is getting drawn out and far too long. I’ve pointed out that your entire argument rests on a series of logical fallacies. Primarily, appeals to tradition, fallacy of composition, and a series of rather disjointed non-sequiturs. Even after pointing them out you pretend that I ahve not, and just continue repeating yourself. So it’s not realy worth my time and energy continuing a discussion with you. I won’t entertain the idea that an argument built on fallacy is one that needs refutation. If pointing out that it’s a fallacy is not enough, nothing else ever will. It becomes a nonesensical and/or a dishonest debate.
Your second post to me was just a regurgitation of the first. There is no need for you to repeat yourself. Especially when your posts are getting upwards to 300-500 words long. It becomes extremely tedious to respond.
I’ve already pointed out the flaws in your reasoning so here is my TLDR response.
Can you create a reasonable argument against Voluntary Exchange(Since you’ve agreed to that term) that:
Does not appeal to Tradition
Is not a fallacy of composition
Is deduced correctly, IE things follow accordingly(No non-sequiturs)
Does not commit any logical fallacy whatsoever.
Secondly How do you differentiate between
State Capitalism(Fascism)
And simply Capitalism
Perhaps you don’t. But be honest with people here about you not making a distinction. I also do not differentiate between State
Finally did you read that link I sent you from Human Action? History does NOT tell you any more about today’s reality then anything else. You keep asserting that we must use history to get a realistic idea of reality, but thats a fallacy. History does not tell us about reality, instead history tells us about a specific historic event, that is all. It cannot suggest the same state of affairs will repeat into the future.
Finally I will end with this. Earlier you were critiquing everyone acusing them of using a “Loaded Question”. It was rather clear that you didn’t know what one was. SO I am going to give you an example.
Epicurus:
Do you have any evidence that the most powerful businesses are the one’s with the highest consumer satisfaction? Or did you just make it up in theory? This is what I’m talking about.. it’s more than just a semantical argument. It’s the whole nature of the way you develop your theories.
THis question assumes that the most powerful business’s are capitalistic entities, and not fascistic ones. Consider the following
Monsanto → FDA
Pfizer → FDA
British Petrol → EPA
AIG → Goldman Sachs → Federal Reserve
None of these institutions meet the criteria of being called capitalistic, as far as our understanding on this website is concerned.
Your asking for evidecne how a business gains purchasing power. I asked you on 3 seperate occasions. Who gives business’s(Outside of crooked fascistic companies) purchasing power. Who gave STeve Jobs his purchasing power? Who gave Apple it’s purchasing power? Could apple have recieved that purchasing power if it sold hunks of garbage medal instead?
So far you’ve succesfully ignored these questions, among others.
One other point, since you repeated it several times.
A few more points
Epicurus: The problem I have w capitalism is in the establishemnt of absolutes in property laws, and the system being weighted in favor of investors.
You’ve said this several times now. I have said this before. I do not understand what you mean by “Absolute Property Laws”. I have also already answered you once that such laws will be established dynamically on the market.
Furthermore I feel as if I am being strawmanned, as you haven’t explained to any of us here what you mean by “Absolute Property Rights”. At a glace it doesn’t sound like it would pass as acceptance here any ways.
Honestly Epicurus it really does feel like your arguing to us over concepts that many of us don’t agree with any ways. If you could just get past the semantics of it all, you might find that you agree with a vast majority of people here.
Epicurus:
Actually, you do. Not on the street (that would be just giving things away lol). But they do sit around, for years until they are eventually sent back to the company and destroyed or donated to some charity or school. It is estimated that some 40% grocery store waste is products thrown away because they are cutting into profitability (perfectly good apples that started browning), regardless of how many people are starving right outside the door.
Your critiqueing consumer preference, as a flaw of Capitalism now? People don’t want brown apples. This isn’t a sign of waste, but a sign of a level of abundance. It cannot be called wasted if people did not want to employ those apples in the first place. It’s no more waste then discarded rocks on the ground at this point. IT’s only wasteful if those apples would have been consumed by individuals in the market.
Stores don’t discard a vendible good. Grocer’s cannot sell brown apples. Consumers know that they can just go to the store across the street, and at the same price, get fresh apples.
So to call it wasted, who were the apples wasted for? Or did you have in mind that we should force consumers to consume these brown apples?
Epicurus:
I’m not talking about state capitalism (I’m glad you recognize that CAN exist).
This is an odd statement, that leads me to beieve your confused. State capitalism Does exist. Right now. We’re living in it. Where on earth did you get the idea that we pretend it doesn’t exist?
You’r wasting your breath, the best thing to do is argue with mr1001nights youtube user lol.
What I mean is that I only refer to collectives for the sake of simplicity but I will look more into this methodological individualism to see if there is something I’m missing here.
Syndicalism is only a form of trade unionism which is why I described it as I method for workers to educate themselves.
I’ve said enough on calculation so I’m going to wrap it up here but points raised on this thread were interesting.
But his house counts as personal property; again individual producers don’t have a claim to property without it being enhanced in some way by their labour.
I don’t disagree with any of this but the point of anarchism is to change the way individuals view property.
This is an odd statement, that leads me to beieve your confused. State capitalism Does exist. Right now. We’re living in it. Where on earth did you get the idea that we pretend it doesn’t exist?
I’m going to start here to point out the ridiculous of your use of “capitalism.” The way you define capitalism “state capitalism” would be a contriction in terms. How can something be both coercion and voluntary exchange? To define capitalism AS voluntary exchange not only do you take it out of its historical context, this also leads to it’s not being used in any recognizable sense, while staying consistent.
This is the heart of the issue. The question is loaded. You are saying; “What is your problem with capitalism (and by that I mean voluntary exchange).” So, you come up with your own, unrecognizable nor useable definition of capitlaism, and then try to trap me in a corner by being against nature… loaded question.
I am asking you to recognize that voluntary exchange is a poor definition of capitalism, as their are more structures at work that differentiate capitalism from other economic and political systems.
Can you create a reasonable argument against Voluntary Exchange(Since you’ve agreed to that term) that:
Which means that, no. I may be able to, but I would not want to. What would my argument be? “Even if someone offers you something for free you should beat them up and take it!” Once again, you have loaded your question with a false assumption that voluntary exchange is equal to capitalism.
Your asking for evidecne how a business gains purchasing power. I asked you on 3 seperate occasions. Who gives business’s(Outside of crooked fascistic companies) purchasing power. Who gave STeve Jobs his purchasing power? Who gave Apple it’s purchasing power? Could apple have recieved that purchasing power if it sold hunks of garbage medal instead?
So far you’ve succesfully ignored these questions, among others.
Actually no. I have answered it every time. I have even pointed out that i answered it and you failed to notice it. Yet you failed to notice it again…
Investors and consumers (but investors first. If the consumers dont come the business goes under. But it is investors first. The market is only guided by the consumer second) give Apple its purchasing power.
Finally I will end with this. Earlier you were critiquing everyone acusing them of using a “Loaded Question”. It was rather clear that you didn’t know what one was. SO I am going to give you an example.
Actually, no, Once again, you failed to notice that I did indeed point out that it in fact WAS a loaded question, and the point was conceded to me (by a mod, no less ). I implore you to relinquish your selection bias.
You’ve said this several times now. I have said this before. I do not understand what you mean by “Absolute Property Laws”. I have also already answered you once that such laws will be established dynamically on the market.
Furthermore I feel as if I am being strawmanned, as you haven’t explained to any of us here what you mean by “Absolute Property Rights”. At a glace it doesn’t sound like it would pass as acceptance here any ways.
Actually, no. You have failed to notice that I indeed did define “absolute property laws as required under the capitalist system” multiple times. Generally as “this is mine, and not yours.” But more specifically as the establishment as the homesteader as the ultimate decision maker regarding said “property.” Do you deny this is a central tenet of capitalism? I have asked this many times, you have not yet answered it.
Your critiqueing consumer preference, as a flaw of Capitalism now? People don’t want brown apples.
Not exactly. I’m critiqueing consumer preference under capitalism. The correct thing to say, in the capitalist system, would be “people with the money to pay don’t want brown apples.” Businesses aren’t exactly placating consumer preference. They are placating the consumer preference of the monied interests.
(May I just point out a side note, because I think it is important and fits here, that most intellectual socialists aren’t out to get specific rich people, and aspire to be well-off themselves [I’ll say nothing for the riff raff of socialists tho, many of them don’t like richies at all lol]. We are against the power structures that create such conditions. I actually have watched Bill Gates give many speeches on technology, but also on capitlaism and he is a good and respectable fellow.)
This isn’t a sign of waste, but a sign of a level of abundance. It cannot be called wasted if people did not want to employ those apples in the first place. It’s no more waste then discarded rocks on the ground at this point. IT’s only wasteful if those apples would have been consumed by individuals in the market.
I actually agree with this. It is only wasteful if those apples would have been consumed by individuals… And there were individuals who wanted those apples. But once again, the business had to placate the interests of it’s investors, which means it responds to the consumer demands of the monied interests.
Stores don’t discard a vendible good. Grocer’s cannot sell brown apples. Consumers know that they can just go to the store across the street, and at the same price, get fresh apples.
I agree. The bolded parts are the most important.
Finally did you read that link I sent you from Human Action? History does NOT tell you any more about today’s reality then anything else. You keep asserting that we must use history to get a realistic idea of reality, but thats a fallacy. History does not tell us about reality, instead history tells us about a specific historic event, that is all. It cannot suggest the same state of affairs will repeat into the future
I think the advocates of praxeology have pointed out some good things not noticed. But I also feel it is based on some pretty meta-physical assumptions and I hold it as suspect. I especially hold it suspect when i see (and have seen this many times) people say “even if the evidence contradicts it, it cannot disprove praxeology.”
All your arguments are simply a play with words. You never offer any concrete answers. You dodge a lot of questions and answer those you wish to answer in a very vague manner.
You’re probably going to screem “ad hominem” again, since that’s the way you answer most of the time.
All you do is make conversation on your terms and then like a hypocrite you accuse others of doing the same. At some point you even made a racist remark, when I asked you what it meant you yet again offered a vague answer.
Most of your arguments are rooted in your interpretation of history and you fail to even grasp what capitalism is. You yet again, define capitalism on your own terms and choose to continue arguing with wonderfull rhetoric.
Remember the two concepts about which you were completely clueless (Not-My Property and None-Of-My Business)?
Just to address this point; I didn’t (and still don’t) know what you were going on because it makes no grammatical sense, not because I don’t know not to keep my effing nose out of other people’s affairs. Having said that, it would be down to people to seize property themselves; I don’t care if they want to be wage labourers. I’m just stating that it would be a legitimate act to claim property they work on. All I can guess is that you are referring to some book I haven’t read so “Not-My Property” and “None-Of-My Business” whatever the hell that means. The statements would make more sense if you took out the hyphens but I am otherwise lead to believe they mean something else more specific.
You are essentially arguing that capitalism is a system of voluntaryism and free exchange rather than a market based economic system based on private property where private entities are largely responsible for important economic decisions based upon market signals and so forth; the latter definition explains why it is possible to have a fairly despotic system of state capitalism. I don’t think that the act of the farmer combining his labour with land equates to capitalism or any other economic system, though economists do like to bring up the Robinson Crusoe scenario quite a lot, it means no specific economic system.
Epicurus: