Bingo. And the same applies in reverse. I find JimmyJazz’s views on how anarchy would work hilarious, but he is our ally given that he is fine with our AnCap society and is for anarchy. The only disagreement we have is in how things will turn out and which society will be successful. That said, his Marxist views are based on fallacies that are easy enough to see, and he seems a rather smart fellow, so I reason that he will eventually be disabused of these notions. I only worry that when he drops his Marxist fallacies he may throw out anarchy as well, and then we would lose an ally. In that spirit…
Wow. So you believe that voluntary exploitation is not an oxymoron? In other words, you believe that a contract entered into by a worker and employer on a fully voluntary basis can be exploitative?
And what of Nerditarian’s fecal artwork? Do you believe we should all chip in to buy it based on the time he spent making it? I am trying to understand, and will interpret your responses with charity, so feel free to give even a skeletal response (or reference). I would just like to see how anyone could even possibly start to make a case for the LTV.
Was the Roman Empire capitalistic? How would centralization help a capitalist economy? It seems by all accounts to hurt.
Sure, people will never be equal. As Hayek says [paraphrasing], equality of people and equality under the law are mutually exclusive. You are therefore opposed to equality under the law.
Besides that, by attempting to disallow wealth gain, you destroy the incentive for excellence. You reward mediocrity. Always. Forever. It can’t but be so. Are you saying that’s a reasonable price to pay (assuming everyone would be OK with this)?
What is the significance of the bolded section? What do you mean to imply by it?
So your whole theory is based on “class” conflict? Sure poor people try to use the State to squeeze the rich (voting for welfare and progressive taxation), I agree. But that is hardly the main evil of the State. And say now that the State is gone. Why would violence toward the rich be much higher than it is now? I don’t see the rich worrying much about being bumped off by blue collar workers. Crime statistics don’t appear to agree with your idea that the poor tend to target the rich, at least not the very rich. Obviously the rich have the means to protect themselves. I don’t see this class conflict as a big deal in a modern society where - thanks to capitalism - even people below the “poverty line” live better in many ways than the kings of old.
“Stealing” power over others is not stealing property - this is a dodge. Just mentioning semantics doesn’t give you a free pass to fudge them yourself. Theft is defined as taking another’s property without consent. Do you mean that a capitalist takes surplus value without the workers’ consent? They do have an work agreement, after all, entered into voluntarily. Where is the lack of consent? If I decide to voluntarily give you a $5 pen for $1, will you have stolen $4 from me? Please clarify, and don’t say this is not your main point - you were asked about taxes but you said whether it’s stealing is subjective. How is it subjective? How can something freely exchanged be said to be stolen? How is that ever a matter of perspective, or any normal definition of theft?
So you would leave the rich people with their wealth, but just take their factories, tools, and raw materials? Seriously?
And how is collective ownership managed? Who decides who will administer it? Would it be, by chance, democratically decided? Seems your back to square one, dangerously close to statehood from the very beginning.
Kings were weak, and apparently democracy has been much more oppressive in general if you look at the history. But yes, we are definitely not for monarchy. Are you for democracy?
Ever heard of a union? Ever heard of the Wagner Act? You really need to listen to Tom Woods talk about labor history. On a more practical level, if you’ll suspend the putative history you’ve read for a moment, why would a worker get violent when he or she could just go to a different company? If you say that there is no different company, do you believe that that is not because of government intervention keeping out competitors?
What do you mean by the bolded section? Who are the sides, and how do they steal?
You are aware that the marginal revolution and subjective theory of value have completely annihilated whatever semblance of legitimacy the labor theory of value may have, at some time, had, right? Just curious, since your entire view hinges upon something which has been refuted to death.
It doesn’t bother me that you ignored some of my questions. However this does:
I am not a monarchist. All I said was that nothing justified “the people” stealing the monarchs powers and creating mob rule democracy. Strawman much?
You are equivocating on the meaning of rational. Also, because individuals went on strike to obtain higher renumeration does not at all prove the existence of monolithic Marxian class interests. Hasty generalizations for $400, Alex.
This was an excellent neutrally well thought out post and I thank you for it. I do have a couple of comments and questions for you if you get a second.
A) Labour Theory of value. As others have stated just because you make something it does not necessarily render into a value among others. How do you reconcile this?
B) Not really a question but more of an difference of opinion I’d like to point out. You stated here.
Most of us here believe that the state is not a natural consequence to capitalism. In fact many here believe in the opposite, that the state is just a natural causation to socialist or collectivist ideals. The common slogan of “We’re all in this together” to promote things like socialized health care, medicare, medicaid, social security, ect… My opinions differ from some however. I believe the state IS expanded by men with expletive motives, whether they are capitalists or not. The world is filled with evil men, it just so happens that the state offers then a legal avenue to work in an unjust manner. They known very well that the easiest way to exploit people is through force and the only way to force something without ruining your image is through the state. Thus lobbying is practice. My point on this fact though is that it is evil men who exploit people via the state, not capitalists. Even if capitalism was gone and we followed your philosophical and economic view points I don’t think you would disagree with me that evil men would magically cease to exist. My argument to you on this would be that those evil men would have to find a different way to exploit people. In the absence of the state though it makes that job much harder and encourages them to compete on fair grounds with everyone else.
So I stand firm in the belief that capitalism doesn’t breed greed or evil. You will always have these men. Since the dawn of time we have had these men. You have to remember that many misesians believe that the state is the greatest thief of them all and the largest distorter of the free market. Their agenda is purely collectivist in our opinions and completely opposite of what we argue the Free-Market should be.
I have to agree with the previous poster that surplus value isn’t any form of exploitation at all but a mechanism for keeping business’s afloat. Surplus value signifies an object is being created or serviced that is in great demand. This sends signals to investors and other entrepreneurs to invest in that object or industry. This grows that specific company and industry allows for greater employment. Ultimately as investment enters that industry the object over time will become cheaper and cheaper to manufacture until it is in the homes of every family across the world. This exploitation of technology with capitalism is how economies grow more wealthy. This is how people become more wealthy, by having access to many cheap quality goods.
I’d also like to make a point about exploitation. I believe we live in a free society. If an employer is exploiting or taking advantage of his employee’s it is not only in the employee’s best interest to seek employment else where but he should feel obligated to do so. The employee works at that job voluntarily. He cast a ballot when he chose to work at that company that he perceived the company to be worthwhile. If many people work there and remain there it sends a signal to everyone that this is a good place to work.
Meanwhile, even if the employer isn’t necessarily taking advantage of his employee’s but is just plain abusive or too hard to work for than Employee’s are still encouraged to consider employment elsewhere. Once the abusive employer realizes that labor has become scarce for him he will hopefully learn that being cruel and abusive does not equate to business prosperity. If he does not learn than his company’s success is likely to suffer.
Comments are appreciated. Agreeing to disagree is fine as well. I don’t want to waste your time in getting bogged down on stuff we will clearly disagree with. Thanks for your time and respect Jimmy.
I’m not an anarchist, I just like decentralization. As a non-anarchist, I belong to the vast majority of humanity, and I’d say that the burden proof is on you to show why I should be an anarchist. I am, however, open to your arguments.
I would favor a relatively limited state, whose role is to enforce certain socially worked-out norms of collective property rights, just as I imagine that you (or at least many people on this site) would favor a relatively limited state whose role it is to enforce private property rights.
I have no problem with free trade (why would anyone?), rather, I believe that the subjugation of the labor of many to the control of a propertied minority is the source of many social ills and much inequality. So the main thing for me would be to create a society in which no one (neither capitalist nor bureaucrat) commands the labor of anyone else, but where people work together toward cooperative, productive ends. What about producing things on your own and selling them? No, I can’t imagine a situation in which that could possible infringe on the rights of anyone else. But in my ideal society, people would have agreed that you are not able to hire the labor time of others to produce commodities for a market. I would like to see a society in which you may only trade that which you yourself produced, and anything that requires the labor of more than one person, or the division of labor (which is most things in modern society), would be done cooperatively.
I would not advocate forcing such a society on people. I would advocate convincing people to accept and strive for such a society. However, I realize that there are some people who, because of their social and economic position, are not likely to ever be convinced (there is a conflict of interest when the person in question is personally enriched by commanding the labor of others). So I would consider it sufficient to convince the working class.
I think this constitutes equivocation on what capitalism i**s. Capitalism=the free market.
[/quote]
I disagree. Capitalism is what it’s name implies. From wiki: “Capitalism is an economic and social system in which trade and industry are privately controlled (instead of state-controlled) for profit. The means of production (also known as capital), are owned, operated, and traded for the purpose of generating profits by private individuals, either singly or jointly.”
To call capitalism “free trade” is a gross simplification. In fact, even the definition provide above is not specific enough to be truly accurate in my opinion; the means of production are not “capital” until they are used to employ the labor of at least one person other than their owner. So if I made crafts and sell them at the local fair, I may have used a sewing machine (means of production), but that wouldn’t make me a capitalist.
From what I have read, the word “capitalism” was coined and popularized by the system’s critics, so I feel somewhat comfortable imposing what may seem to be a “left-wing” definition of the word. I’ve actually always found it a bit odd that capitalism’s defenders chose to take up the word; they could have (and imo should have) chosen a more flattering alternative (like “the free market system”). Yet the most hardcore ideological capitalists typically use the word proudly.
This was a bit of a rant on my part, let’s not get caught up on definitions. It will only take a few extra words for each of us to expressexactly what we mean when we otherwise might have just said “capitalism”.
I don’t know enough about the Roman Empire to say what form the utilization of human labor power took. I know that there was some slave labor. I doubt that there was widespread mass commodity production for a market at any point. The factory system in England is the genesis of what I would truly consider “capitalism” (see my earlier remarks about the definition).
I think you should ask your fellow Austrians about this. I’ve heard much more stringent criticisms of the present American system from a capitalist/free market perspective; and I agreed with them. (But I don’t feel like reproducing them!).
I have heard more than one libertarian say that “America is not capitalist”. That is a pretty strong assertion compared with what you’re saying here, and I don’t think you nearly appreciate the extent of government interference on behalf of the ownership classes.
Interference which, I would argue (from common sense), is inevitable in any system that starts out with a “free” market and private ownership of capital.
No, actually that’s only by the libertarian account. By the account of history, by the account of actual capitalists themselves (who scramble for all kinds of government handouts and regulatory decrees), it would seem to help, indeed it would seem to be almost a necessity.
Speaking of equality under the law, this might be a good time to ask your position on immigration, and whether you think that propertyless laborers should be stopped from crossing the same national borders which those rich enough to bring a factory with them are ever-more free (under things like NAFTA, GAFTA, etc) to cross.
[quote=“AJ”]
Besides that, by attempting to disallow wealth gain, you destroy the incentive for excellence. You reward mediocrity. Always. Forever. It can’t but be so[/quote}
Make sweeping generalizations much?
There is some truth to what you say, of course, but it’s not a statement worth arguing over in its present form.
It would seem that under capitalism, wage workers will frequently work quite hard to increase productivity (this is indeed cited by libertarians as one of the main benefits of capitalism, is it not? that under any alternative everyeone would become lazy?), despite the fact that wages are rerely tied to productivity, and when they are, it is only because the employer chose to link them via some kind of work incentive program. But few of the hardest, most physical jobs have any such incentive program. So it is pretty clear that your statement,while containing some truth, is far from rising to the level of axiom.
Of course. If you weren’t citing the importance of excellent individual performance for its aggregate, social benefits, then why were you citing it at all?
If it is a social benefit, then obviously people are free to weigh it against other benefits (like reducing the severity of whatever is prodding them towards this “excellence”).
If it is an individual benefit, then why the hell should I be worried about “incentivizing” it? I’m not going to worry about incentivizing your individual achievements, if that’s all they are!
I thought that was obvious, sorry.
That people are laborers (producers) as well as consumers. That while they reap the social benefits of better aggregate performance/higher aggregate productivity by everyone, everyone must also endure the uncomfortable prodding of whatever it is that drives people in said society to perform well and be productive. Etc.
You’re arguing with a liberal strawman again.
Class struggle is obviously a thing in constant flux. And what is with the obsession that people on this site have with equating class struggle and violence? You’ve never heard of a strike? How bizarre.
I could recommend some books on physical violence as a means of class struggle if you wanted, but then again, I don’t really want to feed the apparent Austrian obsession with this (tiny, incidental) aspect of the larger phenomenon.
That class struggle has significantly declined in the U.S. is indisputable. The first chapter of this book (sorry, I can’t find equivalent info on the web) contains some impressive, and depressing, statistics in this regard. This has been happening since WWII, but especially since the 1970s. Real wages have also declined in this period.
As for class struggle outside of America, I find this site to be a very good source for highlights from the labor struggles of the working class in other nations. The working class in other countries tends to be, not surprisingly, much more militant.
That’s an emphatic “yes” to the bolded section.
That there is a danger here is undeniable. If you are familiar with the history of labor unions (I’m guessing not…), you’ll already be aware of the much-lamented trend within workers’ organizations towards bureacratization and deradicalization. There are a few organizations in the U.S. that exist to promote union democracy. But so far they have made little progress in undoing many decades worth of ossification in the leadership of the labor movement.
Generally speaking, the more radical the labor movement/organization has been in its approach towards confronting their bosses, the more democracy/consensus they have demanded from their leadership–in fact, the less they have relied on leadership at all.
Some of the earliest union movements put three-month term limits on their leaders, who were really delegates (recallable at any time and for any reason),and who were not allowed to have an office (they met at the local pub). The recallability of representatives in national governments has been a common political demand of the radical labor movement throughtout its existence, a demand stemming directly from the experience of workers with the leadership of their own workers’ organizations.
Got it, you are not monarchists. Nerd, perhaps you could be less cryptic–I still don’t have any idea what you could mean when you say that distributing a monarch’s absolute power was not justified although you are not a monarchist. Would have have preferred that monarchists voluntarily abdicate? [^o)]
We can certainly agree on the monstrous crimes of liberal “democracy” (two world wars, and so on).
The “mob rule” phrase, and conception, is obvious elitist bullshit. So much so that I don’t feel much need to elaborate on that point. Who are you to deny people a say in how they want society and the economy run? Weren’t you the one who said I was being authoritarian by mentioning the labor theory of value? [:O]
You have no idea what kind of history I read.
My primary source for Russian history has been Richard Pipes. Contrast that with you, who apparently gets it from “A libertarian gallop through history” on youtube! [*-)] lol. I can honestly say I’ve never sat through anything like a 50-minute “socialist gallup through history”, and the idea makes me laugh. [:D]
As for why a worker would “get violent” (your phrase, not mine, note that without any historical example or context you go from “engage in violent confrontations” to a phrase which puts the blame for initiation of violence on the worker: "gets violent), the question is not why he would but why so many did. I’m not concerned with hypotheticals, though I can understand why a libertarian would be, as your entire belief system is one giant hypothetical with no materialist or historical basis in reality. Just one big “ought”.
And as for why employers would get violent, or would bring in the armed power of the state on their behalf, well that is once again not a question of why they would but of why they so frequently did. Couldn’t they just get other workers?
I’ve no time for, nor interest in, ahistorical hypotheticals that don’t tie back into reality at the end. Do you want me to venture a guess as to why workers have engaged in struggle rather than simply moving employer to employer? Maybe because they perceived that they were part of a class. Maybe because they had families (or didn’t) and didn’t want to submit to a life as a propertyless vagabond journeyman in search of someone willing to use them for work (how rational capitalism is really shines through in its inability to fully employ society’s available labor!). Maybe because they recognized that there would be a general downward pressure on all wages and working conditions everywhere if they did not put up some resistance. But, these are just speculations as to why they did what they did, and why laborers still do it, all around the world, every day.
The subjective theory of value and the labor theory of value are not mutually exclusive. They are not signifying the same thing when they refer to “value”. The subjective theory of value is referring to prices–there is no other thing by which value can be guaged according to this theory. So value = prices in that theory.
In Marxist terms, value refers to something different, and in no way is it meant to explain the fluctuating prices of goods. If some people have tried to use it for that purpose, that’s interesting, but no concern of mine. Here is what “value” means in the Marxian sense, with a few preliminary terms to make sense of it:
Use-value (abstract): utility, usefulness
Use-value (concrete): any thing which possesses utility/usefulness/use-value (abstract)
Wealth: the sum total of all things which have use-value, whether they are naturally occurring OR whether they have human labor incorporated in them
“Labor is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power.”–Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Chapter 1
Value is that which is added to any naturally-occurring substance are article to give it greater utility than it naturally possesses. Hence, almost by definition, value is embodied labor time. Specifically, it is socially necessary labor time, or the amount of labor time required under the technological conditions (level of productivity) which generally prevail in society.
It’s not just that the subjective theory of value has not disproven the Labor ToV, it’s that it never could. They aren’t trying to do the same thing.
If the supply and demand were in equilibrium, then I would imagine that prices could be calculated by the amount of socially necessary labor time in a commodity, at least in a consumable commodity. The labor theory of value is obviously no good for explaining the price of a Jackson Pollock painting, because only Jackson Pollock can produce one. But for all commodities which have no special constraints on their production besides the time required to make them (special constraints such as who must make them), then with supply and equilibrium in demand, the LTOV is quite a good theory for explaining value.
Bear in mind that I have never gotten very into the technical aspects of Marxist political economy (I have not worked up the inspiration to wade through his terminology), but I think I have some of these basics down. It’s totally possible that someone hear will be able to nitpick at what I’ve written and provide more technically accurate definitions.
Let me quote a passage from Ernest Mandel:
A thing cannot have value when there is zero demand.
Do you suppose that any empirical theory can be summed up in a single sentence without any qualifying statements (such as, “a thing cannot have value when there is zero demand”)? Your bar for scientific validity is just a tad high there, too high for any useful empirical theory to clear it (that includes the subjective theory of value).
A couple of points:
Lobbying requires money, does it not? Is that not in fact the whole engine of lobbying? Either individual wealth or collective wealth (an example of the later would be an anti-choice political group pooling small individual donations into one large sum), but lobbying requires wealth. I suppose you could try to blackmail a politician, or publicly smear him, or whatever, but generally it’s money that gets things done when private interests lobby politicians to use public money for their ends.
I don’t use words like “evil”, and I’m not sure what meaning they could possible have in a secular context. That seems unbelievably idealist. Human nature is what it is, and there is no way to change human behavior but to constrain people’s ability to do certain things (put them in jail if they murder or rape or steal, take away their money if they use it to lobby for unjust privileges). Really, I’m at a loss as to why you’re saying this bit about human nature to me, since I am the one who proposed that lobbying and special interests will always prevail as long as the material conditions for it (great stores of personal wealth) exist, whereas you are the one proposing that lobbing is merely a result of moral flaws on the part of both the rich and the government men, and that apparently all we need to do is elect virtuous men who will “just say no” to a big fat wad of cash in exchange for their vote. If I am somehow missing how all of this could be your point and not mine, please explain how so.
We are in agreement that many government functions in a capitalist society exist, not simply because of lobbying by minority or majority interests, but for collectivist reasons (the two biggest ones being: (a) the so-called “national interests”, and (b) to smooth over class conflict and ensure the social stability of the capitalist system). There are no purely socialistic functions of the capitalist state, but always a combination of working class demands and assent from far-sighted representatives of the capitalist class, who realize that to rescue the private property system from threats of social upheaval against it requires certain concessions. You and I are probably equally opposed to these concessions, albeit for different reasons (mine is that I would like the working class to remain independent of the capitalist state, not dependent upon it and seeing it as an ally).
=D
This made me laugh. You have a caricature of the socialist critique of capitalism in your head.
I stand firmly with you in that belief.
I apologize, filc, that I did not reply to the rest of your post, but I am burned out on replying for now. Perhaps I’ll reply to that last part of your post later.
Just so everyone knows, my future replies won’t be this long. I’m just one man.
Yeah, they are. They both deal with the “worth” of something, whether it be in price or the ad hoc “socially necessary labor time” or some other apologia for the LTV.
Which is actually subjective and has nothing to do with labor.
And then he goes on and simply forgets land and such. Very strange.
No it isn’t. I can make a shit sandwich, but my labor doesn’t impute any value to it.
Yet they are, and it has.
And yet we never have that equilbrium save for fantasy.
Both the STV/MUTV and the LTV purport to explain the origin/nature of a thing’s value. Using the former, Austrians deduce price theory, and not the other way round. Prices are explained by way of the subjective theory of value, which itself does not even need to mention them. The STV deals with how an agent relates to a given good as a means of a satiation of one of their ordinally ranked, subjectively weighted wants.
Yeah, if I ever made it sound like the other way around then it was my poor wording.
The LTOV, however, has a significance in Marx totally unrelated to its ability to explain prices. In fact, in Marx it is not used (as far as I have ever seen) to try and explain prices.
This is the last time I’ll respond to this particular objection unless someone states it in a somewhat original way. I’m not going to keep answering the same thing for people who don’t even acknowledge, in their reply, the answer that I already gave (however inadequate they may find it). It’s extremely rude.
Just as there are at a minimum certain “qualifying statements” necessary for any empirical theory worth its salt, there are probably some necessary for the labor theory of value.
The assumption of people as rational economic agents cannot explain, for instance, risk-aversity such as what Kahneman and Tversky studied. Lack of information is an even bigger issue–brand preference makes no sense for identical products, for instance. And so on. Yet this significant issues do not entirely invalidate neoclassical economics.
That you keep zeroing in on an example that shows the limits of the LTOV, rather than acknowledging the overwhelmingly larger number of cases in which is has explanatory value, in my opinion just betrays your ideological motivation. Note that I do not deny the usefulness of subjective utility theory for doing in many cases what it is supposed to do (explain prices).
No matter how many times you’re going to say it, it’s still not going to be true! I assume you are referring to profits. First of all, what about losses. If the capitalist steals the “surplus” from the worker, then who is to account for the losses? Should not the worker then compensate the capitalist for his losses?
Ignoring the economic chaotic consequences of the elimination of profits, you clearly do not understand what determines value.
All labor is voluntarily exchanged on the free market as any other scarce goods and service. Labor is a service. Nothing is stolen. The value of the labor produced by the worker is sold to the entrepreneur. The value of the labor is not arbitrary, but is determined by the consumers. All prices on the market (wages are prices) are determined by the subjective valuations of the consumers. There are no intrinsic values to goods and services. Value of all commodities including labor is determined by supply and demand. This is why the market is so efficient. It utilized the scarce resources and produces what is most urgently demanded by the consumers, and not by some socialist dictator.
Tell that to the consumers who prefer brand names. Diamond jewelery doesn’t make any sense either? So what? Your moral judgments are irrelevant to the science of economics. Economics deals with producing the wealth the people are asking for, and not for the goods according to your own subjective moral code. This is precisely the difference between freedom and tyranny. You are free to express your opinion about brand names, as I am free to express my opinion about diamond jewelery, but I do not have the moral authority to compel everyone to live according to my moral code. The people who do seek such authority, are dictators.
And by the way, Austrian economics is NOT neoclassical economics.
This is the core of your confusion. What you are missing is that a worker trading his or her labor for wages is free trade.
To see this, imagine a man who buys shirts from a shirt factory, tie dyes them using his own secret process (all by his own hands), and then sells them back for a $1 profit on each shirt. The shirt company then sells those shirts for $10 more than the non-tie-dyed ones.
That is free trade, too!
If you believe this is still exploitation, you contradict your statement above.
If you believe it is not exploitation, you contradict your entire theory.
If you define “free trade” in a way that makes the above example not “free trade,” then state your definition explicitly.
Answer this directly, and I will answer the other stuff you wrote - if we cannot agree on this point, there is no point in my replying to the other stuff.
Let me ask it to you. What’s wrong with nation states? What’s wrong with one group having that kind of power? Why is it not OK to have power over a nation but OK to have power over a city?
I favor NO state. How are collective property rights legitimately obtained?
Please read AJ’s comments bellow.
Ahhh “private ownership of the means of production”. Meaning private control right? As opposed to State control? Well, then every action wherein the State regulates nonviolent private control is anti-capitalistic. This ranges from regulations and taxes to zoning codes and socialized roads. Considering the amount of anti-capitalistic interventions we can hardly call this a capitalist country.
If you made crafts and sold them why wouldn’t you be a capitalist?
I don’t agree with the present system at all. I have had every president of the United States during my lifetime on a dartboard. See above. I can’t right essays about the evils of how anti-capitalistic this country is right now, I’m taking some intense summer classes and I’m only checking this site once in awhile.
Hogwash! Why is it at all inherent in the free market system that there won’t be a free market? That makes no sense.
Gov’t giveways come with strings. At the point one accepts one they are no longer a capitalist but a glorified pensioner of the State. When all capitalists do this we move from capitalism to fascism. Keep in mind that when one capitalist gets help from the State it hurts all other capitalists in his field and the other capitalists who have now a less efficient supplier or purchaser and therefore hurts capitalism as a whole.
Anarcho-capitalists don’t believe in national borders. Relevancy? Dodge the question much.
Gonna let AJ et al. handle the rest for time’s sake except your response to me.
The monarch’s absolute power was not justified. However, when the masses took this power and created modern democracies they were not justified either. Coercive powers of all sorts are unjustified. What would I have perferred? Monarchy replaced with anarcho-capitalism not democracy.
Glad we can agree on soemthing.
Mob rule as an expression is elitist? IDRC if that’s how you think it sounds. What else would you call a system that allows the masses and their demagogues to trample the individual so much? You are the one who wants to deny people a say in how they want society and the economy run! It is capitalism and free trade that gives them the freedom of selection.
I don’t think I said LTV was authorititarian qua LTV. Marxian conceptions of it and exploitation theories are.
I wanted to thank you for fielding the questions on this thread. I know it isn’t the most exciting use of your time…
That said, I posted on the “Hilarious Emotion…” thread after reading the RevLeft thread about A-Com/A-Cap coexistence, but before reading this thread. I hope that you can answer some questions from that post, quoted below:
"Does a distinction between capitalism and communism boil down to property rights? Kwisatz Haderach’s keeps bringing his arguments back to the “mix your labor”, homestead principal:
Why does owned (labor, at least) + unowned (natural resources, at least) = owned?
I suppose this comes down to something like a religious conviction (upon which all other arguments are based), but Kwisatz Haderach’s arguments still resort to ownership. He argues that a person can have the right to use a thing without the right to own the thing. Who is giving the person this right? It must be the thing’s owner. It does not matter if the owner is a person or a group of people. In his example, a man may stay in a house which was built by the commune. If that man were to leave, another man may be given permission to live there. Just because the members of the community have entered into a social contract to share ownership of the house does not mean that this situation refutes “owned + unowned = owned”. He is advocating ownership one degree removed from the individual. If another commune claimed that same house for one of its members, how can the original builders of the house claim it without “owned + unowned = owned”?
Am I missing something? Can someone explain another distinction between the anarchic-communists and anarchic-capitalists (and by some mathematical-proof-trickery, “anarchic” removed, communism and capitalism)? Also, is there any argument (other than “why/why not”) against the “owned + unowned = owned” homestead principal?
It almost seems to me, right now, that all of political theory can be distilled down to this issue of property and ownership, and I wonder if it can be argued one way or the other at all.
Of course it is free trade. Labor is a commodity just like anything else in a capitalist economy. But what some people on this board seem to be at pains to deny, or at the very least ignore, is the fact that humans are the one commodity that resists being commodified. They resist having their livelihood depend utterly on the fluctuations of the market. They demand, at the very least, a level of security, a price guarnatee for their labor, which the price of most other commodities is not guaranteed. Hence organized class action (which is a fact of history and of the present).
Marx and other radicals have said that working people should demand more than this bare security. Of course, I will readily admit that Marx did not foresee (or did not publicly admit foreseeing) the possibility that workers could ever be guaranteed such security in a system which retained basically capitalist property relations. But that’s another discussion altogether.
Emphatically no. I’m not going to explain this too much; it’s easy to find libertarian socialist stuff online.
I would say no, but again, this is just a matter of definition. (To anyone thinking of jumping in and arguing at this point: see earlier discussion before commenting).
Understandable.
Because of my previously stated arguments about how wealthy industrialists cannot realistically be prevented from using government for their own ends and privileges.
Perhaps we could be a bit less melodramatic and say corporatism instead of ‘fascism’. (What we would lose in melodrama we would gain in accuracy).
OK. But is this supposed to be some kind of reassurance that it won’t happen?
Obviously, the majority of people disagree with you that this “freedom of selection” is sufficient, or we would live in a society that is moving slowly towards anarcho-capitalism. Instead, the larger historical trends have been towards greater intervention to shape market forces to planned social ends.
I think the reason Austrians see red when they hear the word “exploitation” is because they think it had all the same connotations when Marx used it. Of course, “exploit” merely means “to use”, and is therefore synonymous with “employ”, which is frequently used to describe the capitalist’s relationship toward his hired labor force without any great objections from the Austrian camp.
ursamajor: I’m sorry, I really don’t know what Kwisatz meant.
This is the relentless incoherence of the Austrian position: the shameless bouncing back and forth between justifying capitalism on the basis of either (1) purported “natural rights”, which make capitalism something demanded by simple and eternal principles of justice, or (2) the social benefits of capitalism.
The problem is, they aren’t just different ways of justifying the same thing. They are in conflict. When the “natural rights” argument is being advanced, the person advancing it usually argues (emphatically) that the social benefits of capitalism do not matter, and that to even ask about the social benefits of capitalism is to betray a lack of understanding of what liberty is about.
Then someone else will come along–or the same person will do a 180-degree turn–and say that capitalism is justified because it causes economic growth, abundance, equitable distribution, efficient allocation, or a whole other range of social benefits.