I’m sick of mutualists coming on to market anarchist websites to “convert” anarcho-capitalists to mutualism. What are some reasons mutualism would suck and capitalism is the only moral and efficient system?
What kind of sites? I don’t think I’ve ever met a mutualist online before.
I mainly do not like mutualism because they hold on to the labor theory of value…
It’s all semantics.
Wikipedia has this definition:
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought that originates in the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who envisioned a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market.[1
So if you believe in the Labor Theory of Value, which I do not, then you would believe in this Mutualist concept. I think that the Labor Theory of Value is just crap that Karl Marx made up to prove parts of his theories that he knew are just wrong.
I think it would be more accurate to state: Karl Marx’s theories are just crap he made up around the LTV which he knew was wrong.
How is mutualism connected to labor theory of value?
Perhaps it’s this:
Under capitalism you can have pockets of mutualism, but under mutualism you cannot have capitalism.
I dont think it is accurate to state that Marx made up the LVT… this was a theory that most classical economists held on to before the marginalist revolution.
what do you mean how are they connected? that is what they believe in…
I just wrote a post about this on my blog:
It mainly says that mutualist banks cannot create a coherent monetary system because of their “subjective disutility of labor theory” (as far as I’ve been able to grasp), that entrepeneurs play a central role in the economy that collectives of workers cannot provide–market foresight, risk taking, seriously deferred consumption (lots of people have pretty high time preferences so an economy of groups trying to start businesses will probably shorten the production process, which generally is not a good thing), and collective ownership of things, including capital goods, is messy and transgressive.
They also don’t believe in absentee ownership of land. There’s a really good paper by Roderick Long about why their theories regarding only occupancy/use rights is against self-ownership. The main gist of that is that is that if property rights are only acquired by homesteading (which the mutualists believe) then there is no way that people have a “common right” in land. Block also wrote some critique of mutualism which I haven’t read.
Kevin Carson who is a big writer in mutualist theory thinks capitalists should be able to exist, but I don’t know about the rest of them.
I thought mutualism is when you can own something only for the period in which you actively use it. What this has to do with LTV?
Occupancy/use property rights are one part of mutualist theory. Because of these beliefs, they don’t believe in capitalists because they’re “absentee owners.” They give an economic justification for why capitalists are bad, which is that they are stealing the surplus value of laborers, which only works under the LTV.
But a free market is one in which disputes are settled through arbitration between parties in conflict, not through recourse to political means (state courts). If an “absentee owner” can resolve property disputes through free market arbitration and maintain claims of ownership, then the free market shows the Mutualist interpretation to be incorrect.
If you don’t know the answer, it isn’t or never was. Besides all that you were essentially preaching anarcho primitivism on one of your earlier threads and calling it “capitalism”
Amelia,
Your post is actually quite good. Although I don’t know much about the economics of mutual banking, so I can’t really address those concerns, your posts on entreprenuers and collective ownership are things I think I can speak to.
Everything entreprenuers do in your posts would still most likely occur in a Mutualist society: creativity, foresight, etc. I guess I simply don’t see where you draw the conclusion that Mutualism as it has been laid out discourages those things.
On collective ownership you said: "In collective ownership, you have different self-interested actors all laying claim on the same good. Not as in joint ownership, where the lines of how much you own and what control you can exercise is clearly delineated; but instead that all actors own 100% of the same property...In workers collectives, this problem is solved in one of two ways. One is through direct democracy, which is always and everywhere the tyranny of the majority."
I don’t see how this is truly different from joint ownership. While one person may control 60% of a firm and another 40%, I don’t see how joint ownership is immune to the problem presented by direct democracy in instances where all parties hold a minority share. Imagine a firm in which each worker owns the same percentage, how does this escape the problem you have presented? The problem as I see it extends beyond simply collective ownership, but working in with people in general on a joint project.
Anyway, I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on that.
Imagine a firm in which each worker owns the same percentage, how does this escape the problem you have presented?
Obviously, I cannot speak for Amelia, but my take is that in joint ownership case each worker is free to exchange his share with any willing party. In collective case, he either likes it or leaves (familiar, isn’t it?).
" each worker is free to exchange his share with any willing party."
This is true of corporate ownership or a company in which the workers are shareholders, which isn’t joint ownership but yes, that does have a benefit to it that I don’t see in collective ownership.
Thanks, BP.
I wouldn’t necessarily advocate for joint ownership because I think you do run into one of the same problems, namely, an inability to alienate your own property. The distinction that I do see is clear lines of who has the right to do what with what. If two people buy a house, 50%/50% they mark out the lines of who can do what with it. Both parties can be in all parts of the house. Person 1 can make any changes to the property while they live on it; Person 2 can decide when to sell; and the proceeds are split down the middle. In this situation, neither of parties interfere on the others rights in the property, because they have agreed to what exact rights they have in regards to it. If in collective ownership, we all have 100% rights then it would seem that nobody has the right to sell goods or do anything unless all members agree.
As far as the entrepeneur goes, it seems unlikely to me that a group of people or a person birthing an idea can then get other people to collectively take the loan out with them in order to start a process which is highly risky and could take a long time for it to pay off. One thing, which isn’t praxeological in any case, it is that the majority of people have loss aversion much higher than an ability to take risks to make a gain. People become wage earners not only because they do not have the necessary capital to start their own businesses but because of the relative safety and pay-stability of being employed. As far as people investing in the co-op to begin with, they aren’t promised any particular goods which I think makes it an even higher risk than for entrepeneurs who can sell off any non-specific capital goods to recoup losses.
I also do not quite understand how the monetary system would work, which makes the idea of somebody trying to fill market gaps hard to grasp.
But I certainly don’t think creativity would die in even the worst of circumstances.
“As far as the entrepeneur goes, it seems unlikely to me that a group of people or a person birthing an idea can then get other people to collectively take the loan out with them in order to start a process which is highly risky and could take a long time for it to pay off.”
The “pay off” that most entreprenuers wait for is profit. However, wages are still paid during the years in which a business is not profitable. This means that a business will actually have a chance of being more successful since each individual is still getting something for their work, instead of the alternative, unemployment. Collectively run firms are able to function without profit.
“The distinction that I do see is clear lines of who has the right to do what with what.”
I suppose I don’t see how this couldn’t be done in a collective situation either. You have raised a good question, though, about whether collective ownership means 100% ownership for all or simply a splitting of the percentage equally. I have never actually seen it put in these terms, and I don’t know.
“If in collective ownership, we all have 100% rights then it would seem that nobody has the right to sell goods or do anything unless all members agree.”
Funnily enough, I was just rereading a part of An Anarchist FAQ that addresses this concern:
“To use an appropriate example, public libraries are open to all local residents and they are free to borrow books from the stock available. When the book is borrowed, others cannot come along and take the books from a person’s home. Similarly, an individual in a communist society can take what they like from the common stocks and use it as they see fit. They do not need permission from others to do so, just as people freely go to public parks without requiring a vote by the local community on whether to allow access or not. Communism, in other words, does not imply community control of personal consumption nor the denial of individuals to appropriate and use the common stock of available goods. Socialised consumption does not mean “society” telling people what to consume but rather ensuring that all individuals have free access to the goods produced by all.”
Given, this particular passage is about anarcho-communism, but I think it illustrates a point I would have made about Mutualism better than I could have. In a workplace used by more than one individual, you may do as you wish, but it’s just ignorant not to consider that others may be affected by what you do. So you meet beforehand as a precaution, but not as a requirement.