It pretty much does already. The vast majority of human interactions involve voluntary respect for others’ property.
Doesn’t the notion of a prior agreement itself imply a contract?
I don’t know. I’m just confused as to how ancaps think that their system of justice differs from that of statist justice administered on a global scale.
Can you explain what you mean by “skew the deal to his favor”? To me this could mean anything from enslavement to charging a price for food that you think is “unfair”.
How about this: The laborer will spend more of his or her time fulfilling the terms of the contract than the capitialist will.
This presumes two things:
Laborers and capitalists necessarily consider each other to be enemies.
If given the chance, laborers would necessarily expropriate the property of the capitalists.
Can you please support the necessity of these two notions?
- "What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.
It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate." ~ Adam Smith
"The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth." ~ Preamble to the IWW Constitution
- "Although it’s not a pleasant topic to discuss, the fact is that theft by employees of small businesses totals nearly $40 billion in this country each year.
As hard as it is to believe that someone you hire to fill a trusted position in your company would actually take from you, it happens every day in all kinds of businesses and in a variety of ways. And it is estimated that up to 75 percent of all employee theft goes unnoticed.
Some security experts predict that up to 30 percent of the nation’s workers will steal at some time in their career. Difficult economic times, lack of salary increases and the threats of downsizing and cutbacks make it even more tempting for employees to help themselves." ~ MissouriBusiness.net http://www.missouribusiness.net/sbtdc/docs/problem_employee_theft.asp
Since you define “property” as territory (i.e. land), that means you don’t consider buildings, tools, machines, or even human bodies to be property? Why not?
Well, I guess I could have expanded the definition of property beyond territory. The state has ultimate decision making power over how I build and use my car as well.
Because voluntaryists reject socialism in it’s entirety, including Limited Constitutional Socialsim. To give you an idea of how socialized injustice works by overbooking and overcharging people to mitigate the risk of every accused person demanding a jury trial I went ahead and posted my Casey article on the forum:
Justice in a free market does not need to resort to fraudulent accusations or excessive violence to obtain a proper remedy.
I disagree. I consider one to be born with property in his or her own body.
We can squabble over defintion, but regardless, this has nothing to do with the point I was making. I’m sure Andris didn’t think I meant that people are born without bodies.
This seems like a non sequitur to me. Can you please support it?
You mean that if a baby isn’t fed, it won’t have the freedom to do things? You need me to support that?
Again, I’m sorry but I don’t see how this follows. Can you demonstrate how one’s freedom necessarily follows from obligations to others?
If a worker is obligated to help a comrade that is injured, then a worker would have freedom to do things that would be too dangerous otherwise. Note: I mean to imply a cultural sense of obligation not one enforced from above.
How is charity the same as entitlement?
“In a casual sense, the term “entitlement” refers to a notion or belief that one (or oneself) is deserving of some particular reward or benefit.” ~ Wikipedia
If the giver of charity doesn’t think the recipient is deserving, then why are they giving them something? I don’t mean to imply the word entitlement in its externally enforced, legal sense.
Can you please support the notion that “the masses” will necessarily, at any/all times, outnumber property owners, take their property, and run?
I don’t need to prove that everyone will steal at all times. Even if only a small group stole, capitialists would see a need to arm themselves. Besides, one needs capital in order to produce weapons. So it is by necessity that capitalists be the ones to initially control the arms supply.
Also, I think you’re equivocating with the word “property”. Do you consider “property” to mean only territory, or do you consider it to mean more than that?
You’re right. In that paragraph, by property owners I meant owners of land and capital. But the last sentence used a different definition. It should probably read “take his possessions and run.” Sorry for the confusion.
This implies that it’s inevitable that “bigger” landlords (i.e. those who own more land) will acquire land from the “smaller” landlords (i.e. those who own less land). Please support this implication.
You can see this with corporations such as Wal-Mart. A large part of Wal-Mart’s low prices is due to its monopsony power. Because Wal-Mart is the chief customer of its suppliers, the suppliers must offer it considerably lower prices or risk losing a large share of their revenue. By contrast, a mom-and-pop store is nothing to the suppliers, and thus the suppliers can get away with charging them higher prices. Similarly, Wal-Mart has many cashiers and thus is in no hurry to fill a single vacant position. It can wait until a laborer comes along that is willing to accept the low wage. However, a mom-and-pop store might only have a single cashier and thus when that cashier leaves it must find a replacement immediately or risk losing all of its revenue. Thus, applicants to that position are in a considerably better bargaining position. So Wal-Mart can subsume the market share of its rivals merely because it is big. In order to compete with Wal-Mart, I would have to have a roughly equal amount of capital so that I can get the same low prices. The free market favors big business even absent any innovations in technology or “efficiency.” As Proudhon said, “competition kills competition.”
Please support the notion that a company that can get away with violating its contract to its workers will necessarily be more profitable.
Why did slavery exist if not for profit? Why did corporations have horrendous sanitary conditions during the 1800’s if it would have been more profitable to have safer conditions? Why do companies pollute when they can get away with it? Why do products from China have dangerous toxins in them? Why have companies resorted to illicit means in busting unions? Why do so many companies invest in countries known for massive human rights violations?
It pretty much does already. The vast majority of human interactions involve voluntary respect for others’ property.
But the vast majority of human economic interactions are taxed. Thus, other people here might argue that most interactions involve a transgression of others’ property.
Is a person under the age of 16, a person with no driver license, or a person with a suspended driver license exempt from public road fuel tax when filling up a 5 gallon can for a lawn mower?
No… I shouldn’t have even bothered responding to that particular comment. That’s just petty jesting that I’d rather not continue.
How do reconcile the above with the fact that Walmart pays, on average, higher than the average US retail establishment, or that it operates on a profit margin less than half of the average US retail establishment? Just wondering.
- Wal-Mart’s buying power might be so great that it could afford both lower prices and higher wages. 2. People might prefer to work at another store despite a lower wage (maybe it offers them more autonomy or other non-monetary values). 3. They might have more technical efficiency, but I’d argue that they’d still beat their competitors even if they didn’t. My point was that they COULD survive and grow while paying lower wages, not that they necessarily do.
If their profit margins are really lower, then how are they driving their competitors out of business?
(I’m not an expert in economics, so forgive me if I am not using the right terms or understanding things right. These are just my own attempts at trying to reason things out.)
So let me get this straight. Those who can only afford to shop at places like Walmart get lower prices, and those who work for Walmart get higher wages than they would in similar jobs elsewhere, and you are somehow claiming this is a bad thing?
I prefer to work in Hollywood movies. If a producer and/or director isn’t willing to pay me to do so, I’m pretty much out of luck, aren’t I? Let’s be honest, not many dream of working at Walmart, but the longer one is without a job, the better it looks, at least in the short term.
And you don’t think that efficiency has something to do with how they became so big to begin with? After all, they started out as with one store. Also, doesn’t the fact that they pay higher than you claim they could get away with flatly contradict your claim that capitalists will always pay their exploited workers the least possible?
By the way, the last time I checked, the mall down the street was filled with retail stores, which are of course in competition with Walmart, and don’t seem to be on the brink of going out of business. Even other big box stores like Target and Kmart seem to be doing ok these days.
The average profit margin for retail businesses in the US is right around 8%. That means 7 or 8 cents of every dollar in sales is profit. Contrast that with Walmart, whose profit margin is 3% – 3 cents of every dollar in sales is profit.
You have to better understand the objection before you can address it. When some people say this it’s a bit of a public goods assertion; the roads wouldn’t exist without the government… For others they will be equating use of the roads as some one sided exchange in which you benefitted and now are not ‘giving back’ to the community according to some implied agreement. The answers are relatively simple.
One, private industry can and does provide roads. I know Walter Block has done work on this, do NOT use his Disney World example. It may be true, it’s a rhetorical black hole that leads to a dimension full of nothing bu ridicule and hatred.
Two, as other posts have addressed and you can use this to corner statists, the roads were already paid for. What’s more, and here’s the statist prod, if the state truly is voluntary then the roads were provided voluntarily, in which case how is anything owed by you or anyone else for their use? You paid taxes, correct?
For most people I think what they’re getting at is the public goods argument, though they may not, and often don’t in my experience, fully understand what they’re arguing. It was something Jesse Ventura brought up during his run for governor when he was deciding which party to affiliate with, and he said the Libertarians didn’t want the governments building roads, to which he responded, “Well how did you get here today then?” The implication of course is no government, no roads. Which of course begs the question.
So let me get this straight. Those who can only afford to shop at places like Walmart get lower prices, and those who work for Walmart get higher wages than they would in similar jobs elsewhere, and you are somehow claiming this is a bad thing?
First of all, I was making this point in response to the question of why business in free market capitalism would keep growing and growing and land/capital becoming increasingly concentrated in fewer hands. If I get you right, you are only challenging the idea that such centralization and market hegemony is a bad thing? You concede that big business is more efficient than small business and that corporations will dominate the landscape of an anarcho-capitalist world?
Second of all, we have only concluded that prices are higher at other stores in an economy in which Walmart exists. If you live in the United States, you know how expensive it is to get health care without insurance. Why do people with insurance get charged lower rates? It’s largely because the insurance companies represent such a large portion of the provider’s revenue that they are in a better position to bargain for lower rates. An individual by contrast, can’t really negotiate his or her hospital bill very much. Now the question is, Does the existence of insurance companies not only lower the prices of the insured but also drive up the costs of the uninsured? If yes, then it would seem that the prices found at Walmart’s competitors would also be lower if Walmart (and other large retailers) didn’t exist.
I prefer to work in Hollywood movies. If a producer and/or director isn’t willing to pay me to do so, I’m pretty much out of luck, aren’t I? Let’s be honest, not many dream of working at Walmart, but the longer one is without a job, the better it looks, at least in the short term.
Which highlights another point: Businesses prefer an economy with (some) unemployment.
And you don’t think that efficiency has something to do with how they became so big to begin with? After all, they started out as with one store. Also, doesn’t the fact that they pay higher than you claim they could get away with flatly contradict your claim that capitalists will always pay their exploited workers the least possible? By the way, the last time I checked, the mall down the street was filled with retail stores, which are of course in competition with Walmart, and don’t seem to be on the brink of going out of business. Even other big box stores like Target and Kmart seem to be doing ok these days.
Businesses grow because they receive investment. They receive investment because they’re profitable. In the language of capitalism, profitable means efficient. But what profitability really refers to is the proportion of the revenue that the owners receive relative to the proportion that goes to wages and supplies. So in capitalist terms, an efficient business is one in which labor receives a low share of the revenue. So sure, Walmart is efficient. And when I said it was driving smaller stores out of business, I wasn’t thinking of Target and Kmart (the latter actually bought out Sears and thus has destroyed some of its competition!).
The average profit margin for retail businesses in the US is right around 8%. That means 7 or 8 cents of every dollar in sales is profit. Contrast that with Walmart, whose profit margin is 3% – 3 cents of every dollar in sales is profit.
Is this profit measured the same way across the stores? Are they reinvesting revenue before it’s considered profit? Are small retail businesses making 8% profits? Does the average retail store make 8% every year, or is it boom and bust? There is a lot these statistics don’t tell.
How can you not know? An agreement is a contract, isn’t it?
Otherwise, can you expand on your second sentence? It seems rather vague to me.
How do you know?
Even if the above is true, so what? The laborer agreed to it. He must have considered spending more of his time fulfilling the terms of the contract than the capitalist spends to be worth what he gets in return.
Those quotes are entirely irrelevant. Let’s try this again. Can you prove that laborers and capitalists necessarily (i.e. all of them, everywhere, all the time) consider each other to be enemies? Cherry-picking quotes like that does not suffice as proof.
Again, this quote is irrelevant. Can you prove that, if given the chance, laborers would necessarily (i.e. all of them, everywhere, all the time) expropriate the property of capitalists? Once more, cherry-picking quotes like that does not suffice as proof.
Are you going to expand your definition of “property” beyond territory or not? It’s up to you.
You wrote that “One isn’t born with any property”. I indicated my disagreement with that. Now you dismiss my disagreement as “squabbling over definition”. Why is that? If we don’t share common definitions, then we can’t actually communicate. Otherwise, if we are using the same definition, then one of us isn’t thinking logically.
You seem to define “freedom” implicitly as including, if not simply being, “positive ability”. I don’t define “freedom” that way. Under my definition of “freedom”, a person has just as much freedom whether he’s starving or well-fed, all other things being equal.
Anyways, my answer to your last question is: yes, I need you to support that.
If you mean a cultural sense of obligation, then there is no mechanism for enforcing such obligation. You then recognize the possibility, however near or remote, that some people will choose not to follow that cultural sense. Essentially, you’re talking about charity. My question to you is: what if too few people are charitable to your liking? Are you willing to live with that? Or will you take it upon yourself to turn a cultural sense of obligation into one that is enforced from “above” (namely, by you)?
I do. Every time I use the word “entitlement”, I mean it in legal terms. Otherwise, there’s no good way in English to distinguish between externally enforced, or legal, obligations and obligations which are merely social, cultural, and/or ethical in scope.
Yes you do, because that’s what you stated earlier - that everyone (or, at least, all laborers) will steal at all times, if given the chance.
Do you consider stone and wood to be capital? A person could fashion spears, bows and arrows, and axes from stone and wood.
I strongly suggest that you take one or the other definition of “property” and hold to it throughout this thread.
Are you familiar with the concept of “economies of scale”?
Otherwise, what entitles mom-and-pop stores to any given amount of market share, local or otherwise? Besides, this in no way supports, let alone proves, your implicit assertion that “bigger” landlords (i.e. those who own more land) will acquire land from the “smaller” landlords (i.e. those who own less land). Can you support this assertion or not?
Do I need to repeat myself? I guess I do. Please support the notion that a company that can get away with violating its contract to its workers will necessarily (i.e. all companies, at all times and places) be more profitable.
How can you not know? An agreement is a contract, isn’t it?
Otherwise, can you expand on your second sentence? It seems rather vague to me.
OK, let me go through this. Clayton initially claimed that the state was illegitimate because there is no contract between the state and its citizens. I suggested that this objection could be resolved if the state drew up a contract with its citizens. Clayton then backtracked and said the state has signed a contract with its citizens but that it is still illegitimate because it has gotten away with violating the contract. As I now understand it, Rothbard suggests third party “private courts” will function as arbitrators between a business and its employees (as well as between other relations) in an ancap society. If such arbitrators justify the existence of businesses because they safe guard against contract violations, then it seems to me that a similar arbitrator will justify the existence of the state. I initially suggested the UN, but now I think that the United States, France, China, etc. would be more analogous. If a business arbitrates in business/employee disputes, then the equivalent would be a state arbitrating in state/citizen disputes. Clayton asked who would enforce the contract between the arbitrating state and the state/citizen subjugate contracting with it. I agree with you that this agreement to arbitrate is a contract, but I thought Clayton was referring to some other, more general contract. So is the question who will enforce this arbitration contract between the state arbitrator and the state/citizen subjugate in a statist society? I’d turn the question back and ask, Who will enforce the contract between a business arbitrator and the business/employee subjugate in an ancap society? The answer to the second question should imply an equivalent to the first question. Thus, the logic of Clayton’s reasoning cannot justify the abolition of the state without also justifying the abolition of business.
Those quotes are entirely irrelevant. Let’s try this again. Can you prove that laborers and capitalists necessarily (i.e. all of them, everywhere, all the time) consider each other to be enemies? Cherry-picking quotes like that does not suffice as proof.
Again, this quote is irrelevant. Can you prove that, if given the chance, laborers would necessarily (i.e. all of them, everywhere, all the time) expropriate the property of capitalists? Once more, cherry-picking quotes like that does not suffice as proof.
Yes you do, because that’s what you stated earlier - that everyone (or, at least, all laborers) will steal at all times, if given the chance.
This is what I actually said: “Why would capitalists sell weapons to the laboring class (or to a defense agency that protects them)? As you state, the main purpose of this agency would be to guard the laborers against the capitalists. Why would they sell weapons to their enemies, risking both their lives and their power?” Nowhere did I say all laborers would necessarily steal everywhere at all times. I never even used those four words. The US government won’t sell arms to al-Qaeda because it considers them enemies. That doesn’t mean that all al-Qaeda members will necessarily at all times everywhere carry out attacks against the United States.
But that said, I think you could argue that the Adam Smith quote does imply that capitalists and laborers are necessarily enemies. He states that they have opposite goals–one wants to raise wages the other to lower them. People who have opposite goals are by definition enemies. Now you might say they aren’t at all times trying to achieve those goals, but if we’re going to use that definition, then no one could ever be considered enemies.
Again, this quote is irrelevant. Can you prove that, if given the chance, laborers would necessarily (i.e. all of them, everywhere, all the time) expropriate the property of capitalists? Once more, cherry-picking quotes like that does not suffice as proof.
Again, I don’t need to prove that they will do it all the time. It happens enough that businesses must adopt policies against it. That’s the point.
Are you going to expand your definition of “property” beyond territory or not? It’s up to you.
Will it help? Will any of my arguments fall apart when if I use your definition of property? If you want to provide me with a definition, I can use it from this point on. I don’t want to confuse you.
You wrote that “One isn’t born with any property”. I indicated my disagreement with that. Now you dismiss my disagreement as “squabbling over definition”. Why is that? If we don’t share common definitions, then we can’t actually communicate. Otherwise, if we are using the same definition, then one of us isn’t thinking logically.
OK, we’ll use your definition. I’ll adjust the discussion thusly:
Me: It’s not so much intrusion, but that in a pure capitalist society a large segment of the population have no freedom because they are not entitled to anything other than their bodies.
Andris: How comes they are left without any property other than their bodies? Bad luck? What happened to charities?
Me: One isn’t born with any property or possessions other than one’s body.
You seem to define “freedom” implicitly as including, if not simply being, “positive ability”. I don’t define “freedom” that way. Under my definition of “freedom”, a person has just as much freedom whether he’s starving or well-fed, all other things being equal.
Anyways, my answer to your last question is: yes, I need you to support that.
You’re defintion of freedom seems to imply that everyone always has the same amount of freedom. If that’s so, why call yourself a libertarian if there is just as much freedom under an authoritarian society? How can the actions of libertarians increase freedom if freedom is merely nonaction?
I do. Every time I use the word “entitlement”, I mean it in legal terms. Otherwise, there’s no good way in English to distinguish between externally enforced, or legal, obligations and obligations which are merely social, cultural, and/or ethical in scope.
Under your definition, would you say that people are entitled to not have their property infringed upon? I don’t care if we throw out the word enitlement. I just mean to say that the obligation to not interfere with another’s property (or possessions) and the obligation to perform “charitable” works are on the same level.