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On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
"Anarcho-capitalism" could obviously not work, because the state authority is required for the capitalists to properly hold on to their privilege. The state as we know it came to exist together with capitalism; it is a political mode that goes hand in hand. True alternative could never be seen until both capitalism and its state is gone.
My god, so many communists.
Capitalism is about the ownership of capital, and yes if you want to consider labor the only type of capital that exists, be my guest, but that's not the case.
The "profit from labor" type of deal is an incomplete equation. You're not considering how the laborer is working; how the laborer is getting paid; and how the capitalist is getting paid even more. The capitalist is not stealing from the laborer in two counts:
1- Catallactics proves he can't be. The worker is being paid. If he felt he's not being paid enough he can leave his job and go work for someone else. But that he evaluates his own job over the market price is his own fault. There is nothing saying that his work is worth more than he's paid, because there are no objective values in reality. All values are subjective.
2- The salary < salary+profit type of deal completely ignores what the profit means, what the profit is paying for. The profit is coming from the customer - the customer has evaluated that price Y is good enough for the product he's getting. He's not paying the worker, he's paying everyone that helped put that product on the shelves. That includes the entrepreneur. To say that only the worker helped not just make THAT product, but also organize the business model in which the customer can retrieve it at the convenience of a store close by, is to ignore part of the deal. The customer is not paying for the product PERIOD, he's paying for the whole structure.
A simple proof of #2 is electronic equipment. Silicon and plastics is dirty cheap. If you were to think about the price of the materials that compose the electronic, and add only the cost of assembly, you'd be forgetting a ton, a ton of other work that went into making that product not only exist, but be transported to every other factory it's been to, and then to you. It's complete ignorance to say the product is only worth what it costs to make it at the production stage, period; and it's complete ignorance to say that the consumer is paying the workers for the product; No, the consumer is paying for the ability to put that product in his shopping cart, and that includes everything, everything, that went into making that business model financially sustainable.
I'd go on but that should be enough to make you think, I HOPE.
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On August 30 2010 07:28 Kishkumen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 05:32 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 18:35 Kishkumen wrote:On August 29 2010 18:21 Yurebis wrote:On August 29 2010 17:25 Kishkumen wrote:On August 29 2010 17:02 dvide wrote:On August 29 2010 16:51 Kishkumen wrote:
Go talk to a non-crazy economist about your "theories" and report back with your findings. Even the Austrian school thinks you need some sort of government supporting an economy. Any actual arguments or just empty appeals to authority and sanity? You caught me being lazy. I just didn't want to write a long post arguing with something that few people who know much about economics would support. There are so many problems with not having a government to regulate an economy. Lack of information, collusion, externalities, public goods, human irrationality, fraud, lack of a judicial system to arbitrate disputes, intellectual property, etc. are all major issues that non-regulated economies do a terrible job of compensating for. Any one of those is reason enough to relegate anarcho-capitalism to the intellectual garbage bin. - Lack of information, check, the government is the BEST at that no problem. - Collusion, check, government facilitates it by raising barriers of entry and punishing "cut-throat competition", brought to you by the more inefficient competitors' lobby - Externalities, check, taxation, subsidies, monopolies of his own, leases, environmental hazards on their property, tragedy of the commons on every public property... - Public goods, check, the shittiest public goods you can ever get, the worst roads you can ever find, hospitals people will die on, and schools that children will spend twelve years and not learn a single thing that's useful. That's the service that I like. Yep. - Human irrationality, check, at it's best, courtesy of Washington D.C. - Fraud, check, trillions of dollars in debt, unfunded liabilities, social security a clear ponzy scheme, coercing the population for their own good, lies in foreign policy and internal policy as well, no transparency at all, federal reserve. Pretty good at fraud I'd say. - Lack of a judicial system, check, shit is so useless that firms and business don't even rely on it anymore; people that are threatened to go to court are more worried about the costs than the actual lawsuit. - IP, check, it's a great thing to force people to pay you tribute for something you created ten years ago. Coercively controlling their material private property on the claim of infinitely reproducible patterns, yep, artificial scarcity is a pretty nifty idea. Any one of those is enough of a reason to be infuriated against the state I'd say, let alone debating the prospect of having a working system in place otherwise. Evidence that government contributes to market inefficiency does not mean that it is worse than a purely free market. Sure, the government creates its fair share of market inefficiencies. The point is that the government can fix all of those problems I listed much more efficiently and easily than the free market can. If the free market is so perfect, why were things like collusion and externalities a much bigger problem during the gilded age when there were far less laws regulating business? Why were workers essentially enslaved to their employers? Do you really think that the market back then was so much more efficient without all the regulation we have now preventing these problems? Certainly not, and as I said, I'm no empiricist, because deeply into empiricism, lies a-priori motives to reject or accept the theories anyway. That is why I prefer talking a-priori. If there's any agreement with a set of premises, something can always be built. The problem is with the people that have absurd premises like "man is stupid so it needs another man to rule it", or "man has incomplete knowledge so it needs another man with even more incomplete knowledge to rule it". I mean... such failure... at least argue something that makes sense. I'd prefer an appeal to tradition anytime TBH. Or empiricist claims... The government can't fix your problems without creating more, because for anything the government does, it is already being paid for by coercive measures. It's not a solution. It's like saying, "I can make your pain go away by killing you", or "I can make your sadness go away by giving you this pill that inhibits all emotions". There's always more externalities when the government interrupts a natural process. It's always better if you don't shoot people. I hope you don't disagree. I've addressed collusion repeatedly, and externalities too. Guilded age...? Lol, I wikipedia'd it and it says " n American history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States" LOL empiricist fail? Workers can't logically be said to be enslaved if they chose to work for the employer he chose; it means he values that work better than any other work available to him at the time. Not something bad at all. Catallactics please. The market back them was as efficient as people could manage it to be. I'm sure of that. You ask if it's more efficient than it could have been if the magical all-knowing central planner had even better ideas and forced people into complying for their own good? Well, I don't believe in miracles, so no. See, this is the entire problem with your position. You say you're not an empiricist, and so there's no way that I can argue that your perfect world isn't perfect. If you set all the terms for how people will act in your perfect world, I really can't argue with that. All I can argue with is what I can observe will likely happen if you try to implement your perfect world.
You can certainly argue empirically, and I will do my best to answer, but I'm just saying that I prefer a-priori discussions, so I might not be the best person to argue that with.
On August 30 2010 07:28 Kishkumen wrote:
It's also such a stupid tactic to blame all problems on the government. Since no anarcho-capitalist economies currently exist (thankfully) there's nothing to compare it to. So whenever I bring up a problem with a market system, you can blame it on the government. It's just a cheap cop out for actually addressing any of these actual problems with a free market.
Yeah well, you should easily be able to point out it's not the government's fault then, if it isn't.
I think this says more about the problems of empiricism than anything. You can prove anything empirically, heh.
On August 30 2010 07:28 Kishkumen wrote:
I don't think you have a good understanding of what is meant by a government fixing externalities. If a large company is poisoning a small town with pollution, the government can easily correct this externality by limiting the pollution. Now, the market is balanced, with all effects of a transaction being accounted for, including externalities. The free market does not correct easily for externalities, if it did, we would not have problems with things like pollution or systemic risk. This is basic economics.
Oh, so I suppose restricting the company's use of their own capital isn't an externality? What do you think the company will do if it's restricted from producing as much as it wants? You'll raise prices for that product, you'll restrict other companies' abilities to enter the market (barriers of entry) as they'll have to comply with those regulations, and that's added bureaucracy, added cost...
Seriously, you can't coerce and pretend nothing bad has happened. Nothing goes for free.
The right way to go about that is public pressure, and lawsuits as needed. Or buy the factory. Or buy the river. I don't know. Be creative. There's tons of ways to deal with that.
At any rate, the river IS the state's as is, so, sure, the state should be able to regulate it's own property. The externality being that, probably no one can own their own rivers because the state won't allow them, so everyone everywhere has to deal with the state's one-size-fits-all regulations, not maximizing people's preferences as much as it would be possible to.
On August 30 2010 07:28 Kishkumen wrote:Your understanding of the gilded age is incredibly flawed. While it was a time of extreme economic growth, much of the lower class were effectively enslaved by their employers. That's part of the reason why the economy grew so fast. It's a lot easier to turn a profit if you don't have to pay a fair wage to your workers. You can read more about the system they used to effectively enslave their workers here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store
Well, why don't you put yourself in the mind of a factory worker in the industrial revolution to imagine what went on? The worker was previously either farming, or working at some small town in some type of manufacturing. It wasn't a pretty deal either, people hard to work really hard to have just clothing and food. That they chose to go to cities (well, thats a lie, some of them were forced to by the central planners of the era) and work for factories, shows an investment on their part on something that they believe it was better, it had more prospects.
And it did have better prospects, because in a few decades the standards of living were raised significantly thanks to the machines. It was not a bad time at all. I don't know why people make such a big deal of "poverty". Poverty is always relative, and even when man is considerably richer today, it still considers himself to be poor of other things that they see they could have. Okay, it's human nature, but it's not enough to call out a company or any individual for not giving everyone free cakes and strawberries. There will always be someone with more, and there will always be people jealous of him, and then blaming him for not giving what they want. But that's complete ignorance of private property and how things come about. Capital accumulation doesn't come out of jealousy, out of coercion, it comes out of voluntary, efficient action, among cooperative individuals. Anything other than that has to detract from someone else to give you what you want, and create moral hazards wherein cooperation is riskier, less profitable, or impossible.
Again I wish people would just listen to these series, it has some empiricism as well... although non-english speakers may have issues listening to the old voice and old recording of robert lefevre...
http://mises.org/media/1160
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On August 30 2010 07:34 Sultan.P wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
Y'know, after reading these types of statements I really do understand why Marxism failed. You say things are going to be said briefly and they end up being extremely congested, incoherent and just plain out wrong. No wonder communists have to use violence to force their opinions on others; there's no way in hell any layman is going to understand what you're trying to say.
Don't be mean. Statists can say the same about libertarianism. Ad-hominem.
On August 30 2010 07:49 adrenaline.CA wrote:
lol you labelled me a communist, lol
i dont think you know what communism is
Okay sorry, but that's an argument that usually comes from communists.
I'm really sorry, I retract it, and will reread your post... though everything else I said probably stays
Okay, you're not a communist, but you don't believe private property is a legitimate right, so everything I said concerning communism is indeed relevant to you. I'd like to know what else do you believe in or else what would you label yourself at just to know where you're coming from. It helps be make better comparisons and analogies addressing your concerns.
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It's the first time I've reached the end of the thread. I've answered every post I found relevant. I hope I was of use so far for either the repliers themselves or third parties reading them.
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The question is why isn't it working already. One can only hope that competitive gaming awakens people's critical reasoning. Compare how many read Mises' works or at least memorize build orders and how many watch tv. If men strive for what's best for them, why is capitalism so unpopular? Are men sheep and what they really need is a king to lead them, preatorian guard to fear and elite to aspire to? How come Mises advocated democracy? How come democracy lead to socialism? Can zerg counter reapers? So many questions, so little time. I guess there's only so much a man can hope to figure out in a lifetime. You're mind is above average? Win MSL, play poker, get the girl, land on mars, be happy. Maybe optimal resource allocation ain't so important after all, especially that these days, in the west production exceeds demand many many times and every halfwit can make a decent living if he/she wishes to. Power corrupts. Power feeds starving kids and saves lives. Heck, power can do whatever it pleases, thats why its called power. By the way, I only wish Yu Re Bis (once would be enough) to my first question.
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On August 30 2010 08:28 Keyon!!! wrote:
The question is why isn't it working already. One can only hope that competitive gaming awakens people's critical reasoning. Compare how many read Mises' works or at least memorize build orders and how many watch tv. If men strive for what's best for them, why is capitalism so unpopular? Are men sheep and what they really need is a king to lead them, preatorian guard to fear and elite to aspire to? How come Mises advocated democracy? How come democracy lead to socialism? Can zerg counter reapers? So many questions, so little time. I guess there's only so much a man can hope to figure out in a lifetime. You're mind is above average? Win MSL, play poker, get the girl, land on mars, be happy. Maybe optimal resource allocation ain't so important after all, especially that these days, in the west production exceeds demand many many times and every halfwit can make a decent living if he/she wishes to. Power corrupts. Power feeds starving kids and saves lives. Heck, power can do whatever it pleases, thats why its called power. By the way, I only wish Yu Re Bis (once would be enough) to my first question.
I heard that Mises was more of a panarchist, which I don't remember what it means, but it's either having as many competing governments as possible, or being able to subscribe into governments independently of your geographical location.
And yes, I think not necessarily due to capitalism, but, living standards are rising so much that people feel more satisfied and don't try too hard at life past their work and all. Which is completely compatible with praxeology by the way - if man doesn't want anything more, then he doesn't do anything more. But I don't blame the satisfied man for not going with me where I want to go, and I have to admit, I'm quite the satisfied man myself, so... I don't see it's fair to blame the population for not doing what you want; it would be equivalent to communists blaming capitalists for not giving them more money, or statists blaming citizens for not giving them more power. If you're a consistent individualist, you ultimately only have yourself to blame for your state. Well, besides blaming nature, but that's as silly.
edit: the whole blame game is silly anyway. I shouldn't have went there.
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On August 30 2010 08:00 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
"Anarcho-capitalism" could obviously not work, because the state authority is required for the capitalists to properly hold on to their privilege. The state as we know it came to exist together with capitalism; it is a political mode that goes hand in hand. True alternative could never be seen until both capitalism and its state is gone. My god, so many communists. Capitalism is about the ownership of capital, and yes if you want to consider labor the only type of capital that exists, be my guest, but that's not the case. The "profit from labor" type of deal is an incomplete equation. You're not considering how the laborer is working; how the laborer is getting paid; and how the capitalist is getting paid even more. The capitalist is not stealing from the laborer in two counts: 1- Catallactics proves he can't be. The worker is being paid. If he felt he's not being paid enough he can leave his job and go work for someone else. But that he evaluates his own job over the market price is his own fault. There is nothing saying that his work is worth more than he's paid, because there are no objective values in reality. All values are subjective. 2- The salary < salary+profit type of deal completely ignores what the profit means, what the profit is paying for. The profit is coming from the customer - the customer has evaluated that price Y is good enough for the product he's getting. He's not paying the worker, he's paying everyone that helped put that product on the shelves. That includes the entrepreneur. To say that only the worker helped not just make THAT product, but also organize the business model in which the customer can retrieve it at the convenience of a store close by, is to ignore part of the deal. The customer is not paying for the product PERIOD, he's paying for the whole structure. A simple proof of #2 is electronic equipment. Silicon and plastics is dirty cheap. If you were to think about the price of the materials that compose the electronic, and add only the cost of assembly, you'd be forgetting a ton, a ton of other work that went into making that product not only exist, but be transported to every other factory it's been to, and then to you. It's complete ignorance to say the product is only worth what it costs to make it at the production stage, period; and it's complete ignorance to say that the consumer is paying the workers for the product; No, the consumer is paying for the ability to put that product in his shopping cart, and that includes everything, everything, that went into making that business model financially sustainable. I'd go on but that should be enough to make you think, I HOPE.
Bolded one particular statement to point out a fallacy. There will always be more potential employees and job seekers than there are jobs. Also an employer has more power to hire you than you have to "become hired" by them. Yes, you have all the potential in the world to become as qualified as desired but that doesn't change the fact that if an employer doesn't want to hire you, for absolutely any reason they want, they don't have to. It's called employment at will and in my state, probably about 90% of the jobs here abide by that law. They don't have to give you a reason to let you go. The only catch is if they don't give you a reason you get unemployment.
No matter how "strong" you think unions are, or how "powerful" you think the liberal grasp is on the economy, they are not what run things in our country. Just take a look at share holders and lobbyists and you can see that the true "state" is actually the corporate state. You may find it hard to believe but no matter how desperately the people in charge try to control corporations, they are truly the ones who dictate your lives, in every way shape and form. It's called exploitation, and it's the reason why we need to government to coerce companies and business into ethical business practices.
Fact: Corporations have more power than the government state does.
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On August 30 2010 07:34 Sultan.P wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
Y'know, after reading these types of statements I really do understand why Marxism failed. You say things are going to be said briefly and they end up being extremely congested, incoherent and just plain out wrong. No wonder communists have to use violence to force their opinions on others; there's no way in hell any layman is going to understand what you're trying to say.
I am sorry your skill at reading comprehension is so lacking. English is not my first language, but I do believe what I wrote should be understandable. If there is anything in particular you would like help with, feel free to point it out. I did put things "extremely briefly", and as such had to simplify things. ((For example, of course, labor is not the only form of capital.))
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On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 08:00 Yurebis wrote:On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
"Anarcho-capitalism" could obviously not work, because the state authority is required for the capitalists to properly hold on to their privilege. The state as we know it came to exist together with capitalism; it is a political mode that goes hand in hand. True alternative could never be seen until both capitalism and its state is gone. My god, so many communists. Capitalism is about the ownership of capital, and yes if you want to consider labor the only type of capital that exists, be my guest, but that's not the case. The "profit from labor" type of deal is an incomplete equation. You're not considering how the laborer is working; how the laborer is getting paid; and how the capitalist is getting paid even more. The capitalist is not stealing from the laborer in two counts: 1- Catallactics proves he can't be. The worker is being paid. If he felt he's not being paid enough he can leave his job and go work for someone else. But that he evaluates his own job over the market price is his own fault. There is nothing saying that his work is worth more than he's paid, because there are no objective values in reality. All values are subjective. 2- The salary < salary+profit type of deal completely ignores what the profit means, what the profit is paying for. The profit is coming from the customer - the customer has evaluated that price Y is good enough for the product he's getting. He's not paying the worker, he's paying everyone that helped put that product on the shelves. That includes the entrepreneur. To say that only the worker helped not just make THAT product, but also organize the business model in which the customer can retrieve it at the convenience of a store close by, is to ignore part of the deal. The customer is not paying for the product PERIOD, he's paying for the whole structure. A simple proof of #2 is electronic equipment. Silicon and plastics is dirty cheap. If you were to think about the price of the materials that compose the electronic, and add only the cost of assembly, you'd be forgetting a ton, a ton of other work that went into making that product not only exist, but be transported to every other factory it's been to, and then to you. It's complete ignorance to say the product is only worth what it costs to make it at the production stage, period; and it's complete ignorance to say that the consumer is paying the workers for the product; No, the consumer is paying for the ability to put that product in his shopping cart, and that includes everything, everything, that went into making that business model financially sustainable. I'd go on but that should be enough to make you think, I HOPE. Bolded one particular statement to point out a fallacy. There will always be more potential employees and job seekers than there are jobs.
I'm not sure there will always be; technology could come to a stage where people aren't willing to work anymore and would rather have their auto-recharging machines feed them and entertain them. But that's irrelevant on my part, yeah.
On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote: Also an employer has more power to hire you than you have to "become hired" by them. Yes, you have all the potential in the world to become as qualified as desired but that doesn't change the fact that if an employer doesn't want to hire you, for absolutely any reason they want, they don't have to. It's called employment at will and in my state, probably about 90% of the jobs here abide by that law. They don't have to give you a reason to let you go. The only catch is if they don't give you a reason you get unemployment.
Okay, and you think that's bad, because the entrepreneur is exploiting the unemployed by not letting them work with its capital?
A few questions arise:
Why do you find it fair for the employee to be able to use whatever capital he wishes; to work wherever he wants, when he has not helped build the factory, he has not helped design the business model which bridges the business' customer to himself, and allows him to be paid?
Why do you find it fair for the entrepreneur to be forced into allowing in whoever wanted to work in his facility, that facility which he paid to be built, he organized, he made the contacts and established it as a financially viable enterprise? He has worked already.
Why is it not fair for the entrepreneur that already worked to collect a return from his investment?
How do you think any more factories, facilities, buildings will be erected, if the people who build them aren't allowed to gain anything from it, besides using them themselves? What would be the incentive for engineers, architects, miners, construction workers, if they're not going to use the building? A pat in the back?
Can a group of construction workers and engineers collectively sell or trade a building as if it were a "personal possession" that they've made? Probably not, right? Can they agree with someone to barter goods with in advance? Then use those goods as money? But then it would be capitalism all over again, so guess not. Welp. I guess no buildings will be erected that require an extensive chain of exchange, since they can barely buy food with it unless it's a barter deal with someone who needs a shack or small house?
I think anarcho-communism is lacking a market structure for higher order capital to be built. People can't build that which they aren't recognized as the exclusive owners of. Well, I mean, they can, but it's going to be built way less frequently.
On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote:
No matter how "strong" you think unions are, or how "powerful" you think the liberal grasp is on the economy, they are not what run things in our country. Just take a look at share holders and lobbyists and you can see that the true "state" is actually the corporate state. You may find it hard to believe but no matter how desperately the people in charge try to control corporations, they are truly the ones who dictate your lives, in every way shape and form. It's called exploitation, and it's the reason why we need to government to coerce companies and business into ethical business practices.
Fact: Corporations have more power than the government state does.
They don't dictate your life, you should just learn to respect that people are entitled to exclusively control that which they built, or paid to be built. It's not an unfair concept at all. You build a house, it's yours. And by "it's yours", I mean people respect your claim to it. They respect the decisions you have about it's use. Because if it wasn't for you, it wouldn't exist.
You and your house is analogous to the corporation and it's investors and stockholders. They paid it to be built. They put their time, money, labor in a sense, on the line. They have the best claim over the corporation, because if it weren't for them, the corporation wouldn't exist, and the facilities wouldn't exist, the products which it sells wouldn't exist, it's employers would be working somewhere else, and their salaries and jobs would probably be sub-par as to what they are; because if there were better jobs, they wouldn't be this corporations employees in the first place. So yeah. The kind of power they exercise is only over that which wouldn't exist if it weren't for their efforts in the first place.
The type of power the state exercises is different, because it goes beyond what they built. They claim they own the entire land, they own a piece of your labor, they own your house if they deem it necessary (to build a highway on top for example). They own your retirement funds, they own your education, they own your streets. They own your pipes, poles, lights and electric lines (though leased, yeah). And by 'your', I mean the taxpayer - because it's the taxpayer afterall that paid it all to be build (when it wasn't taken over at least). The government played the middleman, and got their checks on the deal. Not bad, if it wasn't for the fact that the deal shouldn't have been made in the first place. Because it is no deal, they just took it. They take it, and say it's for your own good. Completely different types of power.
You have power over yourself and what you create. That is fair. You can trade all you want and can, voluntarily. Corporations are not any different. Political power however, is the power over other's creations and labor. That, is true power.
Learn to recognize entrepreneurship as work, because it is hard work. The hardest mental work there is, I would argue. Harder than being a chess player, harder than a scientist, a mathematician. Perhaps not as complex from day-to-day activity, but at least as tough. It's constant competition over other brilliant minds, and it's the type of game with the most people playing in the world. Like starcraft, with millions of people. Entrepreneurship is life! Oh yeah. Ok enough rhetoric.
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On August 30 2010 09:36 Dystisis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 07:34 Sultan.P wrote:On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
Y'know, after reading these types of statements I really do understand why Marxism failed. You say things are going to be said briefly and they end up being extremely congested, incoherent and just plain out wrong. No wonder communists have to use violence to force their opinions on others; there's no way in hell any layman is going to understand what you're trying to say. I am sorry your skill at reading comprehension is so lacking. English is not my first language, but I do believe what I wrote should be understandable. If there is anything in particular you would like help with, feel free to point it out. I did put things "extremely briefly", and as such had to simplify things. ((For example, of course, labor is not the only form of capital.))
It was not bad at all, ignore the ad-hominems. I only address them if it's to ad-hominem myself, tee hee. Well thats a lie, sometimes I cry too. 
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+ Show Spoiler +On August 30 2010 11:02 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote:On August 30 2010 08:00 Yurebis wrote:On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
"Anarcho-capitalism" could obviously not work, because the state authority is required for the capitalists to properly hold on to their privilege. The state as we know it came to exist together with capitalism; it is a political mode that goes hand in hand. True alternative could never be seen until both capitalism and its state is gone. My god, so many communists. Capitalism is about the ownership of capital, and yes if you want to consider labor the only type of capital that exists, be my guest, but that's not the case. The "profit from labor" type of deal is an incomplete equation. You're not considering how the laborer is working; how the laborer is getting paid; and how the capitalist is getting paid even more. The capitalist is not stealing from the laborer in two counts: 1- Catallactics proves he can't be. The worker is being paid. If he felt he's not being paid enough he can leave his job and go work for someone else. But that he evaluates his own job over the market price is his own fault. There is nothing saying that his work is worth more than he's paid, because there are no objective values in reality. All values are subjective. 2- The salary < salary+profit type of deal completely ignores what the profit means, what the profit is paying for. The profit is coming from the customer - the customer has evaluated that price Y is good enough for the product he's getting. He's not paying the worker, he's paying everyone that helped put that product on the shelves. That includes the entrepreneur. To say that only the worker helped not just make THAT product, but also organize the business model in which the customer can retrieve it at the convenience of a store close by, is to ignore part of the deal. The customer is not paying for the product PERIOD, he's paying for the whole structure. A simple proof of #2 is electronic equipment. Silicon and plastics is dirty cheap. If you were to think about the price of the materials that compose the electronic, and add only the cost of assembly, you'd be forgetting a ton, a ton of other work that went into making that product not only exist, but be transported to every other factory it's been to, and then to you. It's complete ignorance to say the product is only worth what it costs to make it at the production stage, period; and it's complete ignorance to say that the consumer is paying the workers for the product; No, the consumer is paying for the ability to put that product in his shopping cart, and that includes everything, everything, that went into making that business model financially sustainable. I'd go on but that should be enough to make you think, I HOPE. + Show Spoiler +Bolded one particular statement to point out a fallacy. There will always be more potential employees and job seekers than there are jobs. I'm not sure there will always be; technology could come to a stage where people aren't willing to work anymore and would rather have their auto-recharging machines feed them and entertain them. But that's irrelevant on my part, yeah. Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote: Also an employer has more power to hire you than you have to "become hired" by them. Yes, you have all the potential in the world to become as qualified as desired but that doesn't change the fact that if an employer doesn't want to hire you, for absolutely any reason they want, they don't have to. It's called employment at will and in my state, probably about 90% of the jobs here abide by that law. They don't have to give you a reason to let you go. The only catch is if they don't give you a reason you get unemployment. Okay, and you think that's bad, because the entrepreneur is exploiting the unemployed by not letting them work with its capital? A few questions arise: Why do you find it fair for the employee to be able to use whatever capital he wishes; to work wherever he wants, when he has not helped build the factory, he has not helped design the business model which bridges the business' customer to himself, and allows him to be paid? Why do you find it fair for the entrepreneur to be forced into allowing in whoever wanted to work in his facility, that facility which he paid to be built, he organized, he made the contacts and established it as a financially viable enterprise? He has worked already. Why is it not fair for the entrepreneur that already worked to collect a return from his investment? How do you think any more factories, facilities, buildings will be erected, if the people who build them aren't allowed to gain anything from it, besides using them themselves? What would be the incentive for engineers, architects, miners, construction workers, if they're not going to use the building? A pat in the back? Can a group of construction workers and engineers collectively sell or trade a building as if it were a "personal possession" that they've made? Probably not, right? Can they agree with someone to barter goods with in advance? Then use those goods as money? But then it would be capitalism all over again, so guess not. Welp. I guess no buildings will be erected that require an extensive chain of exchange, since they can barely buy food with it unless it's a barter deal with someone who needs a shack or small house? I think anarcho-communism is lacking a market structure for higher order capital to be built. People can't build that which they aren't recognized as the exclusive owners of. Well, I mean, they can, but it's going to be built way less frequently. Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote:
No matter how "strong" you think unions are, or how "powerful" you think the liberal grasp is on the economy, they are not what run things in our country. Just take a look at share holders and lobbyists and you can see that the true "state" is actually the corporate state. You may find it hard to believe but no matter how desperately the people in charge try to control corporations, they are truly the ones who dictate your lives, in every way shape and form. It's called exploitation, and it's the reason why we need to government to coerce companies and business into ethical business practices.
Fact: Corporations have more power than the government state does. They don't dictate your life, you should just learn to respect that people are entitled to exclusively control that which they built, or paid to be built. It's not an unfair concept at all. You build a house, it's yours. And by "it's yours", I mean people respect your claim to it. They respect the decisions you have about it's use. Because if it wasn't for you, it wouldn't exist. You and your house is analogous to the corporation and it's investors and stockholders. They paid it to be built. They put their time, money, labor in a sense, on the line. They have the best claim over the corporation, because if it weren't for them, the corporation wouldn't exist, and the facilities wouldn't exist, the products which it sells wouldn't exist, it's employers would be working somewhere else, and their salaries and jobs would probably be sub-par as to what they are; because if there were better jobs, they wouldn't be this corporations employees in the first place. So yeah. The kind of power they exercise is only over that which wouldn't exist if it weren't for their efforts in the first place. The type of power the state exercises is different, because it goes beyond what they built. They claim they own the entire land, they own a piece of your labor, they own your house if they deem it necessary (to build a highway on top for example). They own your retirement funds, they own your education, they own your streets. They own your pipes, poles, lights and electric lines (though leased, yeah). And by 'your', I mean the taxpayer - because it's the taxpayer afterall that paid it all to be build (when it wasn't taken over at least). The government played the middleman, and got their checks on the deal. Not bad, if it wasn't for the fact that the deal shouldn't have been made in the first place. Because it is no deal, they just took it. They take it, and say it's for your own good. Completely different types of power. You have power over yourself and what you create. That is fair. You can trade all you want and can, voluntarily. Corporations are not any different. Political power however, is the power over other's creations and labor. That, is true power. Learn to recognize entrepreneurship as work, because it is hard work. The hardest mental work there is, I would argue. Harder than being a chess player, harder than a scientist, a mathematician. Perhaps not as complex from day-to-day activity, but at least as tough. It's constant competition over other brilliant minds, and it's the type of game with the most people playing in the world. Like starcraft, with millions of people. Entrepreneurship is life! Oh yeah. Ok enough rhetoric.
I'm sorry, but despite all your words, I don't believe you have answered the fallacy he posed. Which is, in your version of AC, you say that people can leave their job and find a new employer if they don't believe they're being paid enough. I, too, believe this is false because simply put, that's not how it works. Most people have families to support, and there is often friction in the market place between unemployment and employment. There's a lag time where if one quits their job, they get NO income, zero. Most people can't simply quit because of this friction, and I doubt it'd be any different in AC.
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OMG what a thread - anarchy is the absence of "Law", and capitalism requires a number of laws and regulations to even exist. It's like so selv-evident that I'm thinking "wtf?!!" /facepalm.
Congrats on a highly successful troll, OP. (With the pretense that I only read your title and not the wall of text, a bit sleepy right now). In any case - 10/10 for just bringing it up :D
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On August 30 2010 11:33 Zoroth wrote:
OMG what a thread - anarchy is the absence of "Law", and capitalism requires a number of laws and regulations to even exist. It's like so selv-evident that I'm thinking "wtf?!!" /facepalm.
Congrats on a highly successful troll, OP. (With the pretense that I only read your title and not the wall of text, a bit sleepy right now). In any case - 10/10 for just bringing it up :D
thats not what anarchy means.
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On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 08:00 Yurebis wrote:On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
"Anarcho-capitalism" could obviously not work, because the state authority is required for the capitalists to properly hold on to their privilege. The state as we know it came to exist together with capitalism; it is a political mode that goes hand in hand. True alternative could never be seen until both capitalism and its state is gone. My god, so many communists. Capitalism is about the ownership of capital, and yes if you want to consider labor the only type of capital that exists, be my guest, but that's not the case. The "profit from labor" type of deal is an incomplete equation. You're not considering how the laborer is working; how the laborer is getting paid; and how the capitalist is getting paid even more. The capitalist is not stealing from the laborer in two counts: 1- Catallactics proves he can't be. The worker is being paid. If he felt he's not being paid enough he can leave his job and go work for someone else. But that he evaluates his own job over the market price is his own fault. There is nothing saying that his work is worth more than he's paid, because there are no objective values in reality. All values are subjective. 2- The salary < salary+profit type of deal completely ignores what the profit means, what the profit is paying for. The profit is coming from the customer - the customer has evaluated that price Y is good enough for the product he's getting. He's not paying the worker, he's paying everyone that helped put that product on the shelves. That includes the entrepreneur. To say that only the worker helped not just make THAT product, but also organize the business model in which the customer can retrieve it at the convenience of a store close by, is to ignore part of the deal. The customer is not paying for the product PERIOD, he's paying for the whole structure. A simple proof of #2 is electronic equipment. Silicon and plastics is dirty cheap. If you were to think about the price of the materials that compose the electronic, and add only the cost of assembly, you'd be forgetting a ton, a ton of other work that went into making that product not only exist, but be transported to every other factory it's been to, and then to you. It's complete ignorance to say the product is only worth what it costs to make it at the production stage, period; and it's complete ignorance to say that the consumer is paying the workers for the product; No, the consumer is paying for the ability to put that product in his shopping cart, and that includes everything, everything, that went into making that business model financially sustainable. I'd go on but that should be enough to make you think, I HOPE. Bolded one particular statement to point out a fallacy. There will always be more potential employees and job seekers than there are jobs. Also an employer has more power to hire you than you have to "become hired" by them. Yes, you have all the potential in the world to become as qualified as desired but that doesn't change the fact that if an employer doesn't want to hire you, for absolutely any reason they want, they don't have to. It's called employment at will and in my state, probably about 90% of the jobs here abide by that law. They don't have to give you a reason to let you go. The only catch is if they don't give you a reason you get unemployment. No matter how "strong" you think unions are, or how "powerful" you think the liberal grasp is on the economy, they are not what run things in our country. Just take a look at share holders and lobbyists and you can see that the true "state" is actually the corporate state. You may find it hard to believe but no matter how desperately the people in charge try to control corporations, they are truly the ones who dictate your lives, in every way shape and form. It's called exploitation, and it's the reason why we need to government to coerce companies and business into ethical business practices. Fact: Corporations have more power than the government state does.
In arguments like these, you can always pick out the people who understand economics from those who don't.
Fact: Left-wing governments, minimum wages, labour movements and unions fix the wages in certain industries at levels higher than "the going wage," which is what corporations would offer baesd on traditional supply and demand style economics.
Fact: When there is a wage floor above the going wage, companies that are interested in profit-maximization and who experience diminishing returns on labour will opt to hire less labour, because labour is less efficient.
The result is that the more power labourers have over wage bargaining and the higher the minumum wage, the higher the unemployment rate. If the minimum wage lowers, the power of unions decreases, or the productivity of labour increases, it becomes profitable for firms to hire more labour and reduce unemployment.
What you're doing is viewing a natural process in economics as exploitation. No matter how up-in-arms anyone chooses to get, the power to employ rests with the owners of capital. When the price of labour is fixed at a level that makes it impossible for the profits generated by a unit of labour to "rent" the capital used to attain those profits, labour will not be hired, and in addition to this, the accumulation of capital will be discouraged, which simply works to perpetuate the situation. EG: Factory for one worker costs $1000 to rent every year, one worker at the factory generates $2000 yearly, then that worker should be paid $1000 yearly. If minimum wage is $1500 yearly or if the union in charge of that sector is able to force $1500 yearly, that worker will go unemployed because the corporation would lose money by hiring them.
Either way, I won't disagree that corporations have a lot of political power, but you're disagreeing with a simple economic principle and providing no backing for it.
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Re: anarcho-capitalism
How is fraud punished in such a system?
How are contracts enforced?
How is a currency created and maintained?
What entity creates and maintains peace so that market operations can happen with relative frequency and low risk?
How does such a system guarantee the reproduction of labor?
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On August 29 2010 18:04 Yurebis wrote:
Well of course you can't prevent everyone from doing what is deemed as undesirable activities (coercion!), but I think you're being a tad too demanding and a bit too pessimistic. When I say it has overcome, I mean it has overcome to the extent I'm fine with it. 1% of sociopaths doesn't hurt all that much by themselves. What hurts more is the system in place enabling those sociopaths to get the most power, IMO.
You're correct in that the problem is not the 1% of utter basket cases that fit through the cracks. We can deal with that. The real problem is that we're all just a little bit sociopathic. Given a choice between us and them, we pick us, and in so many cases 'us' boils down to 'me'. Very few people can make the leap of considering themselves as part of a greater structure and measuring their own health by the health of that structure when it comes to making decisions- they understand the concept, but they don't apply it. Subjective rationality is a very powerful concept that you should understand, as it's vital to working with Acap. Formal, traditional rationality does not factor in a whole weave of things as economic values. Subjective rationality does. Once you understand subjective rationality, you can begin to construct a model that does not 'hope for the best' as far as human nature and society goes. It can hold every variable, from mad irrational hatred to cold mathematical logic, and give you valid output data
On August 29 2010 18:04 Yurebis wrote:
Well it is relevant, I'm just saying, I'm not going to be answering "how we get there" before most people are like "wtf is that place". I'd rather answer them first.
But basically, you don't pay the state tribute, state goes bankrupt. That entails morally bankrupt concurrently too of course. Hm in fact I have not much else to say besides that, so consider it the full response LOL. Was it practical enough for you? I hope so, and sorry for not having THE MEANING OF LIFE figured out for you... I tried my best.
What I want is for people to get along ;_;
I read you dude, same here. But we have to be careful not to believe in something because we want it to be true. If we want something to be, and it is not, we have to figure out why it isn't properly, and the 'oh woe government' argument doesn't do that very well. The state exists because people made it, and we have a tendency to make states and collectives, which naturally vest in authorities and become the great nation-states we have today. If you destroy one state, another will arise unless there are deliberate and organised steps taken to prevent it- which in itself is a state of sorts. The economics are simple and, like the dilemma, so long as the assumptions hold true (division of labour increases efficiency, human problem solving is synergistic etc) it's not something we can fight- people will form states, and those states will involve many people delegating authority to fewer people so they can produce more efficiently without having to worry about it. We can look to make a better system, assuredly, but we can't just say it's horrible and bad and it shouldn't exist. That don't help any.
The trouble with the way you're arguing is exactly that you're trying to explain a perfect place FIRST without considering and lining up how to get there- and so people will always question your assumptions, since you haven't outlined them all. Historically, the most effect method of convincing a group or person of a novel argument is as follows
advocate: I have this great idea, what if XYZ?
critic: it won't work.
advocate: I see. Very well, do you agree that If A is true, B is true and C is true, then XYZ is plausible?
critic: but A B and C *aren't* true
advocate: I know, but if they *were* true, do you agree it would work?
critic: I guess so...
advocate: My challenge, then, is to demonstrate that A B and C are possible to make true simultaneously.
critic:: B will never happen
advocate: very well, again we must make some assumptions. If D E and F are true, we agree B could follow?
critic: ugh, ok, yes.
advocate: Right, then, my challenge becomes to make A, D, E, F and C simultaneously true.
And so on. Now, this might sound a little arcane, but it's quite elegant. It rests on the principle of getting your critic to agree with you each step of the way. You work your way down through the abstract, proving elements as you go using unestablished assumptions. Then, once you have reached a point where once these unestablished assumptions can no longer be challenged, you can begin working from the point closest to reality that your critic understands, instead of trying to sell them something ten, fifty or a hundred steps down the line- each one of which they can challenge out of any semblance of order or coherency.
So instead of trying to convince people of things they will never accept, don't try and convince them yet. Simply convince them of things that make sense. State that you are assuming in abstract that X and Y and Z. If someone challenges one, think about what would have to be true for their argument to be false, and break it down again.
I must add, of course, that if you fail, you must man up and change your scenario or abandon it. If you cannot establish that you truly could make an assumption, then you've based your reasoning on false premises and have to modify it. Sometimes this can be easy enough (I assumed that humans natively do X. It has been established that this is not the case, but I *can* assume that in Y scenario, they will do X, so Y scenario must be true for this assumption to hold). Sometimes it can be impossible ( I have discovered that I can never assume that reapers will *always* be OP).
This is a formulation of argument that is easy to do structurally, but puts a lot of intellectual work back in your camp. However, if you DO pull it off, you will be the next Darwin or Newton, concepts proved in such a manner are almost impossible to argue with.
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On August 30 2010 11:29 ghrur wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 30 2010 11:02 Yurebis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote:On August 30 2010 08:00 Yurebis wrote:On August 30 2010 06:36 Dystisis wrote:
To put it briefly:
Capitalism is about the ownership of labor, profit is the capitalist's extracted value from that labor, wages is the payment to the laborer. Profit will always surpass the payment. So, if what the laborer creates monthly is worth X, and what the capitalist pays to the laborer each month is Y, then X > Y. This is necessarily so, or else the capitalist would cease to make profit. In other words, capitalism is an arrangement of a capitalist effectively stealing from a laborer. If you look at it from the perspective of a whole society, this is what leads value upwards into the hands of a capitalist class -- it is why roughly 95% of the worlds resources are in the hands of 5% of the population.
Freedom, per the capitalist misuse of the word, is the limited ability to choose who shall exploit you. If you fail to make the choice, you do not receive the means to life. This is why capitalism is inherently negative, and all amount of capitalist policy leads to an increase in poverty which is necessary for the capitalist system to survive. Capitalism necessitates poverty, which leads to rebellion, which leads to control. Capitalism leads to the state itself: The state is a mechanism for capitalists to regulate the masses. Through it, the masses have over the years managed to fight and claim some rights. But these rights were not granted because the state is on the side of workers and ordinary people, they were granted out of the capitalist's necessity.
"Anarcho-capitalism" could obviously not work, because the state authority is required for the capitalists to properly hold on to their privilege. The state as we know it came to exist together with capitalism; it is a political mode that goes hand in hand. True alternative could never be seen until both capitalism and its state is gone. My god, so many communists. Capitalism is about the ownership of capital, and yes if you want to consider labor the only type of capital that exists, be my guest, but that's not the case. The "profit from labor" type of deal is an incomplete equation. You're not considering how the laborer is working; how the laborer is getting paid; and how the capitalist is getting paid even more. The capitalist is not stealing from the laborer in two counts: 1- Catallactics proves he can't be. The worker is being paid. If he felt he's not being paid enough he can leave his job and go work for someone else. But that he evaluates his own job over the market price is his own fault. There is nothing saying that his work is worth more than he's paid, because there are no objective values in reality. All values are subjective. 2- The salary < salary+profit type of deal completely ignores what the profit means, what the profit is paying for. The profit is coming from the customer - the customer has evaluated that price Y is good enough for the product he's getting. He's not paying the worker, he's paying everyone that helped put that product on the shelves. That includes the entrepreneur. To say that only the worker helped not just make THAT product, but also organize the business model in which the customer can retrieve it at the convenience of a store close by, is to ignore part of the deal. The customer is not paying for the product PERIOD, he's paying for the whole structure. A simple proof of #2 is electronic equipment. Silicon and plastics is dirty cheap. If you were to think about the price of the materials that compose the electronic, and add only the cost of assembly, you'd be forgetting a ton, a ton of other work that went into making that product not only exist, but be transported to every other factory it's been to, and then to you. It's complete ignorance to say the product is only worth what it costs to make it at the production stage, period; and it's complete ignorance to say that the consumer is paying the workers for the product; No, the consumer is paying for the ability to put that product in his shopping cart, and that includes everything, everything, that went into making that business model financially sustainable. I'd go on but that should be enough to make you think, I HOPE. + Show Spoiler +Bolded one particular statement to point out a fallacy. There will always be more potential employees and job seekers than there are jobs. I'm not sure there will always be; technology could come to a stage where people aren't willing to work anymore and would rather have their auto-recharging machines feed them and entertain them. But that's irrelevant on my part, yeah. Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote: Also an employer has more power to hire you than you have to "become hired" by them. Yes, you have all the potential in the world to become as qualified as desired but that doesn't change the fact that if an employer doesn't want to hire you, for absolutely any reason they want, they don't have to. It's called employment at will and in my state, probably about 90% of the jobs here abide by that law. They don't have to give you a reason to let you go. The only catch is if they don't give you a reason you get unemployment. Okay, and you think that's bad, because the entrepreneur is exploiting the unemployed by not letting them work with its capital? A few questions arise: Why do you find it fair for the employee to be able to use whatever capital he wishes; to work wherever he wants, when he has not helped build the factory, he has not helped design the business model which bridges the business' customer to himself, and allows him to be paid? Why do you find it fair for the entrepreneur to be forced into allowing in whoever wanted to work in his facility, that facility which he paid to be built, he organized, he made the contacts and established it as a financially viable enterprise? He has worked already. Why is it not fair for the entrepreneur that already worked to collect a return from his investment? How do you think any more factories, facilities, buildings will be erected, if the people who build them aren't allowed to gain anything from it, besides using them themselves? What would be the incentive for engineers, architects, miners, construction workers, if they're not going to use the building? A pat in the back? Can a group of construction workers and engineers collectively sell or trade a building as if it were a "personal possession" that they've made? Probably not, right? Can they agree with someone to barter goods with in advance? Then use those goods as money? But then it would be capitalism all over again, so guess not. Welp. I guess no buildings will be erected that require an extensive chain of exchange, since they can barely buy food with it unless it's a barter deal with someone who needs a shack or small house? I think anarcho-communism is lacking a market structure for higher order capital to be built. People can't build that which they aren't recognized as the exclusive owners of. Well, I mean, they can, but it's going to be built way less frequently. Show nested quote +On August 30 2010 09:26 kidcrash wrote:
No matter how "strong" you think unions are, or how "powerful" you think the liberal grasp is on the economy, they are not what run things in our country. Just take a look at share holders and lobbyists and you can see that the true "state" is actually the corporate state. You may find it hard to believe but no matter how desperately the people in charge try to control corporations, they are truly the ones who dictate your lives, in every way shape and form. It's called exploitation, and it's the reason why we need to government to coerce companies and business into ethical business practices.
Fact: Corporations have more power than the government state does. They don't dictate your life, you should just learn to respect that people are entitled to exclusively control that which they built, or paid to be built. It's not an unfair concept at all. You build a house, it's yours. And by "it's yours", I mean people respect your claim to it. They respect the decisions you have about it's use. Because if it wasn't for you, it wouldn't exist. You and your house is analogous to the corporation and it's investors and stockholders. They paid it to be built. They put their time, money, labor in a sense, on the line. They have the best claim over the corporation, because if it weren't for them, the corporation wouldn't exist, and the facilities wouldn't exist, the products which it sells wouldn't exist, it's employers would be working somewhere else, and their salaries and jobs would probably be sub-par as to what they are; because if there were better jobs, they wouldn't be this corporations employees in the first place. So yeah. The kind of power they exercise is only over that which wouldn't exist if it weren't for their efforts in the first place. The type of power the state exercises is different, because it goes beyond what they built. They claim they own the entire land, they own a piece of your labor, they own your house if they deem it necessary (to build a highway on top for example). They own your retirement funds, they own your education, they own your streets. They own your pipes, poles, lights and electric lines (though leased, yeah). And by 'your', I mean the taxpayer - because it's the taxpayer afterall that paid it all to be build (when it wasn't taken over at least). The government played the middleman, and got their checks on the deal. Not bad, if it wasn't for the fact that the deal shouldn't have been made in the first place. Because it is no deal, they just took it. They take it, and say it's for your own good. Completely different types of power. You have power over yourself and what you create. That is fair. You can trade all you want and can, voluntarily. Corporations are not any different. Political power however, is the power over other's creations and labor. That, is true power. Learn to recognize entrepreneurship as work, because it is hard work. The hardest mental work there is, I would argue. Harder than being a chess player, harder than a scientist, a mathematician. Perhaps not as complex from day-to-day activity, but at least as tough. It's constant competition over other brilliant minds, and it's the type of game with the most people playing in the world. Like starcraft, with millions of people. Entrepreneurship is life! Oh yeah. Ok enough rhetoric. I'm sorry, but despite all your words, I don't believe you have answered the fallacy he posed. Which is, in your version of AC, you say that people can leave their job and find a new employer if they don't believe they're being paid enough. I, too, believe this is false because simply put, that's not how it works. Most people have families to support, and there is often friction in the market place between unemployment and employment. There's a lag time where if one quits their job, they get NO income, zero. Most people can't simply quit because of this friction, and I doubt it'd be any different in AC.
It's not false, man always choose the best option to achieve his ends. To say otherwise is to imply that either man has no control over what he does, or that man does retarded things on purpose, this second option being contradictory, for if something was done with the intent of being retarded, then it's not really retarded, or even, it was exactly that choice which he wanted anyway.
When you say "most people can't quit", I'm pretty sure you mean "most people could leave but they choose not to because the dead time would hurt them more than another job would compensate". Regardless, consider an even worse scenario; when there IS no other employer. Say an exploited worker is living in the city. Water pipes are old and rusty, sewage is non-existant, there is no electricity, etc. etc. The only way he can stay in town with his family is to work in the only factory that will take him. The pay is horrible, he can barely pay for food and water alone. Is he being exploited, because he has no where else to go? Absolutely not, I refuse such an idea.
I would even go ahead and say the worker should be THANKFUL that such entrepreneur decided to open a factory where he could work at, because if it wasn't for him, then there would be NO job, and he'd have to look for charity, or move and try his luck elsewhere.
The worker has no claim to the factory, he didn't help to build it. He didn't assemble those water pipes, even if they're awful. We can assume he bought the small apartment he lives with his wife and two kids, but besides that, he doesn't own anything but his clothes. It would absolutely be wrong of him to take over the factory, an object to wish he contributed 0 in its creation. It would be extremely unfair to the factory owner, who paid for it all, and organized it all.
If you expect people to respect your claims to the things you buy, you necessarily have to respect people's claims over their bought stuff (as long as the capital chain is voluntary, of course. Buying a stolen car doesn't make it yours). If you claim that the factory owner shouldn't be respected in the exclusive use of the factory that he bought, you are estopped from claiming that you have the exclusive control over your bought clothes, bed, house, whatever else you may have.
And I've asked twice what is the explicit difference between a possession and property. I am still waiting for an answer. Because I don't think there is any. It's your own arbitrary notions that a house on sale is property, yet the house you live in is your possession. It's completely ridiculous and disregarding of the people who built or paid for the house to be built. A factory is property, unless it's occupied by the kind of organization that you approve of - then it's a possession. Clothing on a stand is property, and clothing that you're wearing is a possession. Ridiculous double standards.
Now, on the transition of jobs. It is not the employer's fault that you have to spend time looking for another willing employer, but rather the market conditions of the era the person is in. It would be great if we could quit and find a job the very next day, the very next hour, minute, second. But there are restraints to human interaction that don't allow such contracts to even mutually be made.
There needs to be time for the employee to find the right employer through adds and word of mouth, and there needs time for the employer to find the right employee through an interview meeting. Contracts have to be signed to formalize the position, for the benefit of both. would be great if such a thing could be made faster and easier, and to the extend that it's cost-beneficial, they do try to make it as fast and painless as possible. But anymore faster isn't mutually feasible. It isn't the employer's fault that such process exists, as much as it isn't his fault that his factory can only produce so much before marginal utility by the part of consumers determine he's making more products than people want to buy; or that nature has provided man a limited amount of ores, trees, oil.
There are however things that make this process worse and that should be gotten rid of - it is government regulation. Government regulation always adds a layer of action necessary for employers to hire workers, adding the cost and time it takes for him to hire someone new, aside from the costs added to the business in general. Think of how many forms does the entrepreneur has to submit to government, for every new employee. Think of how many added lines in other forms owed to the government does the employer have to add the new employee's name to. It's horrible, and it helps no one. The government says it's to keep an eye on business practice, and protect both the employee and consumer. But who's to decide such practice is cost efficient to do so? I'd say it would be much more cost efficient for unions to be made, for example, or each employee can pay for their own legal representatives in case of "exploitation". Surely the government who already supervise the companies now are being paid either by the entrepreneur or the general taxpayer, creating more externalities should I add, then it can't possibly be such an expensive service that people themselves could afford to pay for voluntarily.
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On August 29 2010 07:38 Yurebis wrote:
I'll start saying that whatever you have against "human nature", cannot apply to anarcho-capitalism and not the state at the same time. If people cannot be trusted to behave non-violently the majority of the time, then the state cannot be trusted to behave just the same. A man with a badge is still a man. And I would argue, even more so, that an institution that gives full, monopolistic, coercive power to a man over the course of an election, is much more prone to lure the worst of man to office.
I think this paragraph shows one of the major weak points in your stance. Let's say I start by saying that human nature is pretty bad, overall, but I accept that it applies to anarcho-capitalism and any democratic state at the same time. I might then argue that there is no state that exists in an entirely democratic sense. Constitutions are written by particular people, who may be above-average in terms of how "good" they are. These constitutions provide a bulwark against democracy and anyone appointed by democratic means. So, if I argue that a perfect democracy with no laws that cannot be overturned by a majority does not form a "good" society, then the same arguments could apply to anarcho-capitalism without necessarily applying to any state. This could be extended to argue that a state founded on "good" principles would persist while one founded on "not good" principles would fall, leading to a sort of "survival of the fittest" among constitutions. For a current example of how the use of constitutional laws can (maybe) prevent the inherently evil majority from making bad decisions, take a look at California. Here's an example of a majority attempting to remove a constitutional right from a minority. (If you disagree with me about this particular case, you'll have to forgive me, because I'd imagine it would be impossible to find a case in which a constitution has opposed a majority that isn't politically charged.) If you prefer theoretical examples, consider a theoretical country that has 101 male residents and 99 female residents. In anarcho-capitalism or pure democracy, 101 males, if "evil" enough, could vote that females no longer retain the right to vote, but a constitution may prevent this by guaranteeing all males and females the right to vote.
Either way, I think that this provides a sufficient challenge to your assumption that all arguments concerning human nature that would apply to anarcho-capitalism apply equally to states.
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On August 30 2010 11:33 Zoroth wrote:
OMG what a thread - anarchy is the absence of "Law", and capitalism requires a number of laws and regulations to even exist. It's like so selv-evident that I'm thinking "wtf?!!" /facepalm.
Congrats on a highly successful troll, OP. (With the pretense that I only read your title and not the wall of text, a bit sleepy right now). In any case - 10/10 for just bringing it up :D
I would recommend not throwing around the word troll so much, and even if it was a troll, I spent four times the amount of typing more than any single replier. Not the most efficient troll I'd say.
On August 30 2010 11:46 SharkSpider wrote:
[Facts]
ty.
Point being, corporations would have near 0 coercive power without a subsidized, monopoly of coercion, to pay off and externalize the risks of ostracism, retaliation.
More simply said, corporations Use the government because it's a cheap way to coerce people into doing or not doing the stuff they want. I.e. giving them money (subsidies), killing competition (monopoly laws, yes, monopoly laws, you read it right. Monopoly laws give rise to oligarchies), denying competition (coercive monopoly aka legal monopoly also exclusive leases of stolen aka tax-funded infrastructure), preventing competition (regulatory barriers of entry)
For a corporation to take up arms and do all that shit by itself would cost hundreds of millions in lawsuits against it alone. To lobby the government to do it for them costs less than a million at the very very most. So you see, government is the enabler of violence, not the disabler.
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because government and law is unavoidable. A business is just a mini-government or government is just a really big business.
you can see the obvious parallels between a business' organizational structure and the governments'. A company decides within itself the rules regarding how to divide resources, relationships with co-workers, security measures, how to handle the buildings and property.
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EPT
