Your question are off topic. What is the purpose of your visit on this topic?
Slavery is also formally a trade. Slave trades himself, and the slaveownes trades money or whatever. I was using it in the sense of trade of goods, not slavery or employment, and his example was about trade of goods.
Slavery suggests that workers are the owners. There would be no feudalist or capitalist that is an owner.
Yes.
This makes no sense. Bourgeoise are capitalists, socialism is for abolishing the capitalist class.
You and a painter, and whatever worker is needed for making of widgets form a widget making workers’ cooperative.
Service jobs are not employment. If you hire me to fix something for you, you are my customer, not my employer. You pay the money I want, and that it. If I work for someone and I come to fix something for you, you don’t pay me, you pay my boss, and then the boss gives me a part of what you payed for my service, and he takes a part, even though he’s only the owner of the firm and didn’t labor at all.
Must you ask idiotic questions?
Capitalist is someone who has private ownership of means of production (any kind of bussiness). State can be a capitalist by owning bussiness firms, like the post office in USA, or everything like in the former USSR. Capitalism can be market capitalism (where the capitalists are private), and state capitalism (where the capitalist is the state), or in most cases (or all cases today) a mix between those two types.
Slavery is also formally a trade. Slave trades himself, and the slaveownes trades money or whatever. I was using it in the sense of trade of goods, not slavery or employment, and his example was about trade of goods.
When does the slave trade himself and to whom?
Slavery suggests that workers are the owners. There would be no feudalist or capitalist that is an owner.
Is english your second language? I’m not really understanding these sentences.
Yes.
How about making commissions? If you pay a sculptor to make you a bust, you are employing him.
You and a painter, and whatever worker is needed for making of widgets form a widget making workers’ cooperative.
How will you know who is entitled to the full value of the product created?
Service jobs are not employment. If you hire me to fix something for you, you are my customer, not my employer. You pay the money I want, and that it. If I work for someone and I come to fix something for you, you don’t pay me, you pay my boss, and then the boss gives me a part of what you payed for my service, and he takes a part, even though he’s only the owner of the firm and didn’t labor at all.
I agree, your boss did nothing except find you a customer, guarantee you pay even if he was unable to find a customer one day, supply you with hardware required to fix your customers stuff, keep inventory, manage customer information and marketing…
How is your boss different from your direct client? In fact, how is your boss different from a merchant who purchases cabbages, ships them into town and then resells them?
Must you ask idiotic questions?
So plumbers do not have the right to ownership of the stuff they mix their labor with?
When selling himself into slavery. To the slaveowner.
My third, actually, but doesn’t matter. I lost the connection between my chain of thought and typing and typed “slavery” in stead or “socialism”, sorry for the confusion. “Slavery suggest that the workers are the owners” was what I wanted to say.
You are using his services, you become his customer, not his employer.
You work toghether to make widgets, you share the earning that is made by selling the widgets, and you democratically agree how big a share each one gets. There is no owner that takes a part of the earnings but doesn’t labor with you; so you all get the full product of your labor.
First thing, the owner does all that only in small local firms; otherwise he just hires other workers to do it for him.
Second thing, renting means of production is illegitimate because it contradicts to the right to property (right to the full product of one’s labor).
Thirdly, if the owner contributes labor to the business, if he works and can be called a worker, and that is his justification for taking some of the earning for himself, there is still no justification for him taking all the earnings for himself and then by himself decideing how much of it he will give to all other workers. If they all contribute to the business and they all work, then they should all decide how much of earnings should each one get.
And fourthly, just to mention it even though it’s not the topic here, there is no ethical justification for the existence of the workers’ subordination to the boss, and there cannot be, because lack of hierarchy is an a priori ethical axiom.
stsoc, what do you think are (1) the topic of this forum and (2) the topic of my questions?
Since you seem to be obsessed by eradicating employment, in your socialist society, couldn’t all full-time jobs be simply renamed into contracts between independent counter-parties by which Party A (former “worker”) offers a service (nailing a board, giving massage, fixing lunch, pushing a button, writing computer code, cleaning, fixing a machine, fixing plumbing, driving a machine, operating a machine, managing people, etc.) to Party B (formerly “capitalist”)? Would a proper socialist allow all such service contracts to be implemented, or would he have to approve them on a case by case basis?
Finally, what would be the philosophical basis for your demand that society submits to your specific fetish (no “employment”, no “wages”) as opposed to someone elses obsession against, say, eating sugary cup-cakes or having anal sex? I mean, if you don’t like X, then don’t do X. How does this translate into a basis for your demand (order?) that two people, completely unrelated to you, must or must not voluntarily do something with their own bodies and property? Who do you think you are? Tito?
No imposition of harm and no power ineqality (which means no hierarchy and no economic ineqality, but the latter is achieved by the former) are a priori norms of discourse (or as you call it here- argumentation ), and Proudhonian consistent aplication of the Labor theory of property is also an ethical principle. These constitute existential, or public ethics, which should be enfrorced by law. Other views concerning ethics are in the sphere of essential, or personal ethics, and cannot be legitimately promoted by law but by advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance.
Maybe I misunderstand what constitutes economic inequality, but I just don’t see how this is a true statement.
Imagine you and I both start out with the same amount of resources, with equal freedom of how to use those resources (for example, we both have access to the tools required if we want to transform them in some way). So at the start of this first day, we are equal in every possible way. But depending on how we use our resources, we may or may not be equal on day two. If I choose to consume my resources and you choose to save yours, suddenly we wake up tomorrow with a level of economic inequaltiy. You have more than I do. And if you transform your resources in such a way that they allow you to gain more than you started with, then that inequality could be even greater.
It seems to me, that at any given moment, redistribution (and hence, hierarchy) would be necesary in order to level the playing field again.
No one ever advocated nor advocates absolute equality in all details. Minor discrepancies in wealth would exist even in communism, let alone in mutualism, but would be negligible in the sense that they could not be used to establish power ineqality. If someone would try to do that, he would be treated as a criminal, so I don’t think anyone in socialism would go about to save on an insane level so he could have much more then he needs, knowing that he could only use it to consume it, sell or give it way, being that there would be no such thing as rent or investments, and loans would be interest-free.
So you admit your theory is self-contradictory and utopian (as in ‘unachievable’) in practice.
Whereas, equality of opportunity and perfect freedom are completely implementable in reality, ala libertarianism and freedom philosophy.
What action constitutes trying to ‘establish power inequality’? Hiring someone? So, if A wants to hire B, and B wants A to hire him, you’re going to step in and have A arrested, even though this is a free trade between them? You’ve decided you know better than B what’s good for him, that he must be under some capitalist illusion or some low-power inequality if he’s willing to trade labor services for money? How patronizing and fascist.
But if he did, you will have him arrested. For ‘saving.’
Rent, investments, loans–these are all forms of trade. You said previously trades were fine.
The idea that land cannot be owned is silly. There’s nothing innately special about land that makes it different than any other kind of property. You said it’s fine to own an apple, but people can’t own land. That’s dumb. Why, because an apple can be produced by labor and land cannot be produced by labor?
But is that even true? Let me ask you, suppose I go into the ocean and dump many tons of rock and dirt into the ocean and build an artificial island. Do I own that island? Why, or why not?
Capitalist is someone who has private ownership of means of production (any kind of bussiness). State can be a capitalist by owning bussiness firms, like the post office in USA, or everything like in the former USSR. Capitalism can be market capitalism (where the capitalists are private), and state capitalism (where the capitalist is the state), or in most cases (or all cases today) a mix between those two types.
However, the State is not fully subject to the price system, the linchpin of the market. That which operates outside the bounds of profit and loss cannot be called a market. Essentially State-Capitalism amounts to: a non-market market, in other words an oxymoron. Interesting that you pass over in silence the fact that Post Office used to provice a better service(delivering twice a day) at a lower cost to consumers, and is now essentialy operating at a loss, it only survives because it is subsidized by taxes(how long will this last is uncertain). UPS could not operate at a loss in the same way, lest it is also subsidized by the coercion of taxes.
Using more electric or horse power than someone else. When you start talking normally with me, that is stop with stupid statements like the one I quoted in the begining of this message, I’ll answer your questions.
Market doesn’t imply capitalism. Markets existed in slavery, and will also exist in socialism (see mutualism). Capitalism is defined by notion of private property over means of production.
You are using his services, you become his customer, not his employer.
How do you determine the difference?
First thing, the owner does all that only in small local firms; otherwise he just hires other workers to do it for him.
My understanding of your position was that all employment was inappropriate, regardless of the size of the firm.
But even hiring other workers to do other things that they are specialized in doing related to your field is an even further thing that the boss did for you.
Second thing, renting means of production is illegitimate because it contradicts to the right to property (right to the full product of one’s labor).
So renting a steam-shovel is an illegitimate way of landscaping, for example? There can be no such things as rental services if the objects rented should be at some point be used for the purpose of something productive?
Thirdly, if the owner contributes labor to the business, if he works and can be called a worker, and that is his justification for taking some of the earning for himself, there is still no justification for him taking all the earnings for himself and then by himself decideing how much of it he will give to all other workers. If they all contribute to the business and they all work, then they should all decide how much of earnings should each one get.
They do decide how much ‘earnings’ they should get when they apply for their position. However, they are not entitled to any earnings or losses made by the products they contract to produce, much as the sculptor is not entitled to anything related to your enjoyment of the bust he makes for you, but instead only to the amount specified in the contract he makes with you.
And fourthly, just to mention it even though it’s not the topic here, there is no ethical justification for the existence of the workers’ subordination to the boss, and there cannot be, because lack of hierarchy is an a priori ethical axiom.
Then there is no ethical justification for the existence of subordination to one’s customer, and therefore the sculptor you hire should be able to make whatever he likes, or nothing at all, and still receive payment for his services. Anything else would suggest a hiearchical subordination to his customer which by your definition here is unethical.
Thats gonna hurt. This one is the best: “They do decide how much ‘earnings’ they should get when they apply for their position.” this is very true, and employees actually have the best of it, because the business owner doesnt know how much he is going to make from year to year or quarter to quarter. Hourly employees write their own paycheck. Salesmen too, even moreso.
You mean like executing infidels, stoning adulterers, or shooting gays? Or something entirely different?
Wait, so there is “existential” and “essential” ethics each of which must be implemented via different means? Says who? Tito? The Ten Commandments? Thor? Why couldn’t you simply try to advise or persuade someone that “employment”, “wages”, or sugary cup-cakes are not good for them? Must you shoot them, as commanded by Prudhonian existential ethics? Is it really existentially important to a wage-receiving “employee” that he gets shot by you or by whomever gets appointed to enforce the “no work for wages allowed” law?
Btw, you keep avoiding to answer 90% of my questions and you’re gettting your a** handed to you by the other posters in this thread. You’re a mess. Is this all you’ve got? If so, you won’t be a socalist for much longer.
Buyer and seller are equals that trade goods or services, and employee alienates his labor to the superior who takes a part of product of his subordinate’s labor.
Yes. But it was mentioned that the owner does all those things, while as a rule- he doesn’t, the owner doing anything is an exepcion to the rule.
Renting is illegitimate.
Yes.
No they don’t. The slave doesn’t determine how much and what work will he do, and what he will receive from his owner when he sell himself into slavery. The only way that workers exert any control over they work and earnings is to organize and strike in order to push the state to make laws that appease them.
Because there can be no ethical justification for something that doesn’t exist.
There are tears in my eyes.
Under state capitalism the state has private property over, well, everything. Private property is a concept, it can be contrasted with socialistic notion of property, or communistic notion of possessions.
You mean like, being an idiot and asking stupid question that have nothing to do with the topic?
Why couldn’y you try to advise or persuade that murder or robbery or fraud are not good? Why should they be banned by law?
I should ask you that. Not ever readin what I write, let alone trying to understand it, mockery, idiotic questions? Are you really under the delusion that anyone with a fraction of rational capacity will regard that as arguments against my positions?
Buyer and seller are equals that trade goods or services, and employee alienates his labor to the superior who takes a part of product of his subordinate’s labor.
But how do you DETERMINE which is which? I haven’t yet heard you define laborer and service provider in a way that distinguishes them.
Yes. But it was mentioned that the owner does all those things, while as a rule- he doesn’t, the owner doing anything is an exepcion to the rule.
According to http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html (2008 statistics of the US) there are approx. 3.5 million firms with 1-4 employees, versus approx. 2.5 million (6 million total firms) that employ more than 4 people. I don’t buy that someone who hires a maximum of 4 people can live off the profits of those 4 people, which means that the occurence of owners doing anything is in fact an approximate 60% of occurances. Which suggests that it is in fact not an exception to the rule, but rather, the rule.
In fact, it is unlikely that owners of businesses that employ 5-9 people do nothing either, which puts us at 4.5 million out of 6 million firms where the owners ‘do something’, putting us at a 75% occurence.
Furthermore, you have completely failed to show how an owner of a business who employs even 5000 people ‘does nothing’.
The slave doesn’t determine how much and what work will he do, and what he will receive from his owner when he sell himself into slavery.
But a laborer does. A laborer seeks out employers and chooses to work or not work based on whatever criteria he desires.
The only way that workers exert any control over they work and earnings is to organize and strike in order to push the state to make laws that appease them.
The most fundamental way that workers exert control over their work and earnings is in choosing what job to apply for and accept, and whether to quit their job if they are unhappy with it or if they have found a better job elsewhere.
Because there can be no ethical justification for something that doesn’t exist.
The existence of subordination to one’s customer is as real as the existence of subordination to one’s employer.
I don’t have to, it’s pretty clear to anyone who is not trolling. All who have ever worked in capitalist system know the difference between a customer and an employer.
As I mentioned, I worked in a firm with about 200 employess, and managed one of it’s stores that had about two dozen workers. The owner of the firm did absolutely no labor, everything was done by employees, and yet he has more money then pretty much all of use that store toghether. Even without going into any detail of practice or theory, just knowing that, and knowing that labor is central to creating property suggests something there is not legitimate.
A slave who sells himself into slavery would surely carefully choose his future slaveowner, too. Doesn’t mean he has any contol over his life as a slave.
Slave choosing his slaveowner is in no way exerting control over his work.
I don’t have to, it’s pretty clear to anyone who is not trolling. All who have ever worked in capitalist system know the difference between a customer and an employer.
You do if you want to be taken seriously. Otherwise you obviously ARE trolling.
As I mentioned, I worked in a firm with about 200 employess, and managed one of it’s stores that had about two dozen workers. The owner of the firm did absolutely no labor, everything was done by employees, and yet he has more money then pretty much all of use that store toghether. Even without going into any detail of practice or theory, just knowing that, and knowing that labor is central to creating property suggests something there is not legitimate.
So you’ve based your position on an anecdote and a non sequitur?
A slave who sells himself into slavery would surely carefully choose his future slaveowner, too. Doesn’t mean he has any contol over his life as a slave.
But a laborer does. Thanks for proving my point.
Slave choosing his slaveowner is in no way exerting control over his work.