Either way, the thread subject is a dumb argument. I’ve never been rich. But I can damn sure tell you what I wuold do if I was
No longer a hedon?!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
(then what are you now, a Taoist?)
I said incentives, not motives.
Which is?
And establish what?
Strange way to do it.
I’ve always philosophically leaned daoist and zen. I read the Dao de Ching when I was 14… tho I probably couldn’t draw up any of it from memory… practice action without actiing. think without thought. Be happy with what you have. You can only be enslaved if you fear death. Stuff like that.
Most lefty ideologues are upper middle class whites. Conservatism is far more prevalent among the ‘working class’.
“practice action without actiing”
You realise this is mises.org, right?
Which is?
a legal establishment of monopoly over a given item/land/resource.
And establish what?
THe short answer is; use based title to resource, worker democracy, intellectual freedom (anti IP), and strong civil protection for the individual.
(Just to point out, individual freedom does not mean giving the individual the freedom to tyranize other people).
You realise this is mises.org, right?
I dont think it has anything to do with Mises circular definition of “action” and “reason.”
What is worker democracy?
Which I find a bit confusing- lets say a given item is the shirt you’re wearing. So you shouldn’t have complete ownership of that shirt and I should be allowed to take it when I feel like it?
So you reject the right that you can own something perpetually? Does that mean under your ideal system, I would be forced to give up stuff that I own at some point, just to satisfy the requirement not to have perpetual exclusive ownership?
No austro-libertarian I know supports tyranny in any form. Use based title still has to have a first user. Also, who decides what constitutes use?
What is a worker democracy?
Which I find a bit confusing- lets say a given item is the shirt you’re wearing. So you shouldn’t have complete ownership of that shirt and I should be allowed to take it when I feel like it?
No that would mean you have the monopoly over it, and I was merely borrowing it.
So you reject the right that you can own something perpetually? Does that mean under your ideal system, I would be forced to give up stuff that I own at some point, just to satisfy the requirement not to have perpetual exclusive ownership?
Time and circumstance; what property is it? What are you doing with it? Does it benefit or harm the community, or is it neutral (in which case who cares)?
For most situations the system would carry on as it does. But if someone is building a mind control device or hiring a private army…
No austro-libertarian I know supports tyranny in any form. Use based title still has to have a first user. Also, who decides what constitutes use?
And that means we should give him/her a monopoly over it because? The consumer consitutes what is use (check my sig to see how Im defining consumer; ones that may/may not have "corresponding purchasing power).
What is a worker democracy?
Nothing. It is not “a” worker democracy. It is the process of providing democratic workplaces, where ownership doesn’t practice a monopoly over a given resource.
So you’re transferring ownership to a group of workers (the majority voters) and retransferring ownership to the new majority worker group whenever a vote is held?
Isn’t the majority group practicing a monopoly over the resource?
Mista Bloomj31,
Have your friends watch, ‘Reversal of Fortune’ - a documentry about a homeless man who found $100k and becomes homeless again within 6 months.
So ownership is dependent not only on use, but the nature of the use? Whose values are used to determine utility? Who gets my property if I use it “inappropriately”?
Because you have to explain how he loses ownership. We know he is the first user, by what process does the second person own that item? Libertarians say he can vountarily hand off ownership. You seem to be saying that someone else can take it if they think he isn’t using it. You also seem to be arguing against property titles, which obviously makes it impossible to long term plan economically. The system you propose doesn’t allow for capital formation, without which long term projects cannot be undertaken.
I think you are misusing the term monopoly. Also, doesn’t that make the workers owners? And if the workers are owners, isn’t that collective ownership? And how do they organize collective ownership? Majority vote?
What you’re describing is socialism, and it not only leads to conflict, but it cannot calculate economically and leads to mass impoverishment. I am really surprised you’ve been here this long and you believe that such a social system will help the people you think it should. Your means do not match your ends.
Comrade, it’s not tyranny when we all agree to it!
We don’t even all have to agree with it, just a simple majority, apparently. I love this democracy stuff!
Laotzu,
I only see one of two possible positions here and would appreciate it if you could clarity or correct:
-
You don’t care about ‘practicing monopoly’ at all, you just care about how we currently determine who get to do the practicing (ie, owns it).
-
You do care about ‘practicing monopoly’ and don’t want anyone to be able to do so.
In the first case, I’d be interested in hearing your explanation for how a worker democracy would function, including answers to the questions liberty student has posed. Specifically I’m curious as to how it would minimize unconsented transfer of property ownership, thereby minimizing conflict, and how propery won’t change hands on the whim (say, me and my 20 friends decide we’d like to use your small restaurant for an airsoft arena). You mentioned something about consumers determining use, but how would they do so?
In the second case, your proposed system simply shifts who is owning the resource and so gains no ground on achieving its goal. Even ignoring that, I see no way in which any use or concept of ownership could be legitimitely practiced according to the dictates of such a system; it would be propertyless, which is so nonsensical in our scarce, physical universe that it’s impossible to even fathom.
So ownership is dependent not only on use, but the nature of the use? Whose values are used to determine utility? Who gets my property if I use it “inappropriately”?
Because you have to explain how he loses ownership. We know he is the first user, by what process does the second person own that item?
Honestly I relegate the term “ownership” to the same dustbin as God, or the mind.. It is merely a construct of language with no objective means of explaining it, and empty term, a ghost.
Is the homesteader a labor mixer? Than workers own everything and non-working ownership are thieves. Is he a claim establisher? Then the thief has just as much right to it as the homesteader.
Outside of the constructs of society/culture, property is meaningless.
Libertarians say he can voluntarily hand off ownership.
Libertarians say he can voluntarily hand off rickrickpeeeeep; of course someone in the know would realize rickrick… means control of an object. But to the uncivilzed it means nothing. Property is something to be taken.
Socialists say the same thing tho. If you want to sell off the company, that’s fine. Get the rest of the company to agree with you…
You seem to be saying that someone else can take it if they think he isn’t using it.
I am not saying that at all.
You also seem to be arguing against property titles, which obviously makes it impossible to long term plan economically.
Not doing that either.
The system you propose doesn’t allow for capital formation, without which long term projects cannot be undertaken.
This only follows if the above two statements are true, which they are not.
I think you are misusing the term monopoly.
1 entity, or a tending towards ever smaller entities, consolidating control of a given system. That is generally what is meant by monopoly, no?
And if the workers are owners, isn’t that collective ownership?
“workers are rickrick, collective rickrick, organize rickrick” I don’t know what you mean there.
And how do they organize collective ownership? Majority vote?
To step out of the skeptics circle for a second and accept your shaky terms for “collective” “ownerhsip” and “majority”…
It is a common mistake to regard democracy as meaning merely majority vote… or voting in general. Votes are taken in a republic, not all republics are democratic. Not all supposed democracies are democratic.
Generally things would be organized nearly what they are now, with the exception that management and the board cannot make decisions over the company without the consent of the workers, nor the workers over management, nor management over the board, etc. Protections of individual liberties should be established, including the right to organize and speak freely. And information should have open access.
What you’re describing is socialism, and it not only leads to conflict, but it cannot calculate economically and leads to mass impoverishment
The only conflict is between those who want to it all without consequences and evreryone else. It can calculate economically, corporations do it everyday. I challenge you to compare Tsarist Russia with the failed and misguided vangaurdist corporation writ large (which is basically what the soviet model was) and say the USSR “impovershed” Russia in comparison. (I see the USSr, and this is half jokingly, as a system of strong worker empowerment, at the expense of empowering them anywhere else. It’s efforts in providing a vangaurd against supposed counter-revolutionaries was misguided from the get go. It thought it could protect the workers from themselves, which is just plain dumb, right on it’s face.)
[When I speak of revolution, I mean in the “industrial/scientific revolution” sense; tho I do leave a place for violent political revolution if necessary. As abundance and education expand, people will most likely just realize their place in things and begin to exercise control. We already see a proliferation of worker (and other) co-ops, the inclusion of workers in iownership (pension plans, healthcare and the like) and all sorts of other demcoratic expressions. Think of how many shows on tv nowadays glorify the common worker; undercover boss, ice road truckers, ax men, the fishing one, dirty jobs, even extreme home makeover in a sense. Even many citcoms nowadays depict blue collar workers, as opposed to the white collar elites of yonder days. /rant]
I am really surprised you’ve been here this long and you believe that such a social system will help the people you think it should. Your means do not match your ends.
I respectfully disagree. And I think you underestimate the human potential.
Comrade, it’s not tyranny when we all agree to it!
Well…
From Cporter;
Laotzu,
I only see one of two possible positions here and would appreciate it if you could clarity or correct:
You don’t care about ‘practicing monopoly’ at all, you just care about how we currently determine who get to do the practicing (ie, owns it).
You do care about ‘practicing monopoly’ and don’t want anyone to be able to do so.
As stated above, I think ownership is generally a meaningless term, not even propertarians can agree on. How we determine who gets to “own,” tho a better term would be control (far less shaky), something will define wether it is monopolistic or not.
1 is meaningless and contradictory (“who controls the resource” IS what decides monopoly statust or not.) 2 is correct; I don’t feel anyone should practice a monopoly over resource.
Specifically I’m curious as to how it would minimize unconsented transfer of property ownership, thereby minimizing conflict, and how propery won’t change hands on the whim (say, me and my 20 friends decide we’d like to use your small restaurant for an airsoft arena). You mentioned something about consumers determining use, but how would they do so?
We would have to differentiate between a (and I hate these terms, the former is meaningless and the latter is just now) post revolutionary and pre revolutionary system.
Post-rev is easy; just get the controlers of the “business/cooperative” to agree to a transfer of title.
Pre-rev; this is complicated and gets into the nature of how we define property in its modern context. I dont want to get into moral platitudes about the nature of feudal property, the theft of native lands, and the systematic exploitation of the over-exploited (what many call underdeveloped, or 3rd) world. We’ve been there before, and it hasn’t gone anywhere yet.
Suffice it to say, people are already gaining more and more control of the economy, tho because of the nature of capitalist property inversely losing the wealth. Some do all the work and make all the decisions, and >1% gets the fruits.
I think ancap rightly attacks the fruits side of the debate, but works against the work and decision side, and in that respect could or could not be far worse than the status quo. Based on my analysis of history, I’m not hopeful for the propsects of it being nearly as good.
Pre-rev involves a lot of populist struggle, collective organizing, political advocacy, and actual implementation to see if it works. I will source Ansanto as evidence of its efficacy (and there are whole swaths of literature discusiing the economic “efficiency” (another empty term) of coops).