Howard Olson
It's interesting that you would bring this up. Profit based capitalism
demands that the worker sell his labor, which is the one thing that is
truly ours, to a capitalist boss in order to obtain the money that is
necessary for a capitalist economy to function. But the worker recieves
back in wages only a fraction of what his labor is truly worth to the
capitalist, thus making the worker into a form of slave, sometimes
called a "wage slave". Any economy that is truly just must be based on
the concept that the worker recieve the full benefit of his labor.
Any society in which the value which one individual recieves from another
individual in exchange for his labor is determined by anything other
than a free agreement by the two individuals involved is by definition
a tyranny.
--
Those who would trade their essential Liberty for a perceived temporary
Security deserve neither Liberty nor Security.
- Benjamin Franklin
The idea that all capitalists must be under paying all workers is flawed.
Running a business has various costs besides raw materials and labour -
research, marketing, administration, interest payments, etc... mean that you
cannot take the final retail price of something, and directly calculate a
fair wage.
The biggest problem for employees today, is that many states protect local
business by forcing various practices in favour of business, eg
borders, the workers can't simply move to where they would earn more
laws against union activities
unfair tax regimes
plain old fashioned brutality and corruption
Most of these inequitable practices are due to the interference of
government.
If I own myself, can I sell myself?
Alex.
Yes, but what does "self-ownership" mean? Can you sell yourself,
or give yourself away? Who owns the incompetent? What are the
boundaries of the self -- does a slave or someone in prison still
own himself? If someone disagrees with another's definition of the
boundaries of the self or the definition of ownership, who has the
power to determine the resolution?
> All this debate over the existence of human rights or individual
> rights can be reduced to self-ownership. It is literally a reductio ad
> absurdum for somene to deny the existence of self-ownership.
No.
The axiom "self-ownership" requires a concept "ownership". The question
whether one own's himself does not have a meaning without that concept.
You can replace the concept with "souvereignity" and thus
"self-souvereignity" and replace "labour" with "ability to defend" and
you'd have yourself a system which would explain the world.
> "Revolutionaries" who deny the reality of self-ownership have no moral
> standing for their ideologies right or left.
I'm not so sure on what basic you make that claim. The argument that
ownership can be replaced by other concepts is not new. Have you ever
heard of it before? (If no, please modify your statement. If yes, tell
me where you heard of it.)
> Such denial makes a claim
> for the justice of their ideology a vicious fraud. If a worker does
> not own herself or himself there can be no justification for rebellion
> except a mindless whim. The same goes for anyone else. ANYBODY who
> demands that we surrender our indvidual sovereignty is completely and
> totally untrustworthy in any context, "revolutionary" or otherwise.
Souvereignity is not ownership.
I might own the land my house stands on, but my country has
souvereignity over it.
Also, and this might be a more important point, most people do not argue
self-ownership, they simply have different definitions of ownership and
what exactly it means and how it can be transfered to other things (like
a rock, or land, or whatever).
Contrary to popular "libertarian" thinking the discussion is not
"individual rights" against some other dogma, but "individual rights of
set A" vs "individual rights of set B".
--
Fan of Woody Allen
PowerPC User
Supporter of Pepperoni Pizza
Sure, what would you like to sell and to whom? can i conduct experiments on
you?
:-)
>
>
Ron Allen answers:
I've asked this very question, and I have never received
an intelligent reply from any of our right-libertarian
propagandists.
If you own your own labor, then who owns your labor if
or when you sell your labor for a wage?
If you sell your labor, then were/are you truly free?
Does a truly free person sell his or her labor to another
person? Or is the act of selling one's labor a symptom of
abated freedom?
<><><><><><><><><>
"Be content to remember that those who can make omelettes
properly can do nothing else."
-- Hilaire Belloc
>
> > The idea that all capitalists must be under paying all workers is
flawed.
> > Running a business has various costs besides raw materials and labour -
> > research, marketing, administration, interest payments, etc... mean that
> you
> > cannot take the final retail price of something, and directly calculate
a
> > fair wage.
>
> Net Profit you can go by, after all the deductions, workers do get a bad
> deal.
> Not all are under paying workers but a lot do.
> No one can deny it
True, and it is often government enforcing these bad deals.
>
>
> > The biggest problem for employees today, is that many states protect
local
> > business by forcing various practices in favour of business, eg
> > borders, the workers can't simply move to where they would earn more
> > laws against union activities
> > unfair tax regimes
> > plain old fashioned brutality and corruption
>
> Getting rid of every law and have the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
> should help the workers LOL
MAI seems to be being pushed by big bussiness, and on the surface it is
quite scary.
It will generally help the poorest workers, and hinder richer workers by
shifting jobs to poorer parts of the globe. Many oppourtunities for abuse,
but in the long run it should improve many peoples standard of living.
I'm more worried about lawsuits by business to circumvent local
envirenmental laws.
>
> you need a balanced law between the "haves and have not's" if not the rich
> will get richer and the poor get poorer
> the bad thing is some people think fuck the poor me me me.
> sad really.
>
Depends on how you define 'poor', and what part of the world you are talking
about.
Charity is not a long term solution to poverty.
>
> >
> > Most of these inequitable practices are due to the interference of
> > government.
> >
>
> I thought Business Bought the government or is it just here in UK.
> Next the minimum wage would be a thing to get rid of by business. LOL
>
Bussiness DOES buy government. They wouldn't be able to buy the government
if there was no government.
Alex.
I didn't mean selling the result of my labour, I meant selling myself, body
and soul, so to speak. Basicly, can I voluntarily become a slave? Should I
be prevented from exercising my right to self ownership, to sell this final
right? I don't mean to ask if this is a stupid thing to do, just if I
should be able to it at all.
I don't see a problem with selling my labour as long as it is a voluntary
contract, and there is a way to end the contract.
>
> If you sell your labor, then were/are you truly free?
>
Labour isn't a problem, I would still be free. I am getting something I feel
is fair in exchange.
> Does a truly free person sell his or her labor to another
> person? Or is the act of selling one's labor a symptom of
> abated freedom?
>
If I can't sell my labour, I'm not free. I don't want to give away my
labour, and I can't personally produce everything I want, so some sort of
trade will be required.
Other may want to give away their labour, and trust that others will do the
same.
Ron Allen answers:
When shareholder dividend income is reduced, it is very
likely that some employees/staff will be laid off, in
order to reduce cost. A large corporation will lay off
some thousands of employees, and then hire new employees.
What companies will often do is lay off wage workers, in
order to hire new wage workers at a lower wage. The
shareholder may take a dividend income reduction before
the wage earners are laid off, but every decision the
company makes is geared to making shareholders happy.
Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as
a factor of production, and the wage employees directly
contribute labor as an input, as a factor of production.
Why are the shareholders privileged over the workers?
Why does the benefit of shareholders have precedency over
the benefit of producers? Both factors of production are
vital to the activity of production. Why then aren't
both the shareholders and the workers equally benefited
by a productive undertaking? The dividend income of the
shareholders depends upon the direct and productive
contribution of the wage workers, and the wage income of
the employees depends upon the direct and subsidizing
contribution of the shareholders. Why can't both
shareholders and the workers equally benefit from a
business enterprise? And if both make very important
contributions to a productive enterprise, why can't the
operation of an enterprise be democratic, so that the
benefits of an enterprise are equalized?
All socialism asks -- all that it proposes -- can be
boiled down to this: from each according to ability; to
each according to need. And so, if the capitalists are
able to contribute capital as an input, then let them
benefit from this donation to the process of production.
And if the workers are able to contribute labor as an
input, then let them benefit from their donation to the
process of production. One can say that neither of the
factors of production can do without the other, but it is
very clear that capital cannot do without labor, and that
labor precedes capital, and so labor has some importance
that comes first and that is superior to capital. And
yet every decision making process is conducted as if the
wage employees have nothing at all to do with the purpose
of production, or with the advantages of production.
In capitalism, to each according to need is replaced with
to each according to contribution -- i.e., to the
contributors of capital first and foremost, and to the
contributors of labor next after the first. It is natural
that things work out in favor of the shareholders first
since every decision made is a decision made with a view
to directly benefiting the shareholders, and with the
view that wage workers are primarily and essentially a
business cost. Why are wage incomes seen as a cost, while
dividend incomes are not?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Justice is truth in action."
-- Benjamin Disraeli
True. And this does happen, but many a company that makes changes like this
for short-term gain has found it self in difficulty a few years down the
road. I'm not saying this is an ideal situation, just that it isn't the
intrinsicly bad situation socialists believe it is.
> Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as
> a factor of production, and the wage employees directly
> contribute labor as an input, as a factor of production.
> Why are the shareholders privileged over the workers?
They are risking their capital, previously earned. They are the owners, so
they get to decide how their holdings are used.
> Why does the benefit of shareholders have precedency over
> the benefit of producers? Both factors of production are
> vital to the activity of production. Why then aren't
> both the shareholders and the workers equally benefited
> by a productive undertaking?
If the workers feel they are not getting a fair wage, they should work
elsewhere, or try to negotiate a better wage. Another option is to train
yourself for a higher paying job. I know "getting a different" job can be
difficult in the real world, but its the only fair way.
As long as the workers have voluntarily entered into the contract to work
for wages, its a fair wage. If it wasn't fair they wouldn't have taken the
job.
I know that due to government interference, and property rights that are
skewed in favour of existing owners that labourers are often at a
disadvantage when negotiating.
>The dividend income of the
> shareholders depends upon the direct and productive
> contribution of the wage workers, and the wage income of
> the employees depends upon the direct and subsidizing
> contribution of the shareholders. Why can't both
> shareholders and the workers equally benefit from a
> business enterprise?
Who decides what is equal? Voluntary negotiations are the only way to decide
these things. Without the owners input, there would be NO factory to work
at. Management is a more difficult job than labour generally.
> And if both make very important
> contributions to a productive enterprise, why can't the
> operation of an enterprise be democratic, so that the
> benefits of an enterprise are equalized?
Workers 'vote' on their wages by taking, or not taking the jobs and wages
offered. If you want collective 'voting' you require 'collective' ownership.
So if the workers want to collectively vote on how the profit is shared out,
they should pool their resources and fund their own 'factory'.
Anarcho-capitalists think this is a great idea for anyone so inclineded.
>
> All socialism asks -- all that it proposes -- can be
> boiled down to this: from each according to ability; to
> each according to need.
Which in the real world means: I pretend to work, and you pretend to pay me.
Who decides what my needs are? Who decides what Bob's needs are? Why should
I work as hard as I can if it will not result in a better standard of
living? How do you deal with free-loaders?
Personally, I want to decide these things for myself. If I decide a small
apartment, but money for travel is what is important, thats how I'll spend
it. If I want 20 exoctic sports car, then I'll have to work very hard to get
these 'needs'. But no else has any obligation to make sure I get these
'needs'.
The main problem I see with socialism is that I am only fairly compensated
if I am average, or below average at my job. There is no incentive to
improve my skills or work hard, as neither of these acts change my 'needs'.
The problem with pure capitalism is that it can be short-sighted, working
towards a short term profit that results in long term troubles.
>And so, if the capitalists are
> able to contribute capital as an input, then let them
> benefit from this donation to the process of production.
Donation? If I fund building some sort of factory it isn't a 'donation'.
> And if the workers are able to contribute labor as an
> input, then let them benefit from their donation to the
> process of production. One can say that neither of the
> factors of production can do without the other, but it is
> very clear that capital cannot do without labor, and that
> labor precedes capital, and so labor has some importance
> that comes first and that is superior to capital.
If labour is superiour to capital, then the workers will have no trouble
generating the capital required to start their own enterprises, and the
nasty existing capitalists can be ignored.
>And
> yet every decision making process is conducted as if the
> wage employees have nothing at all to do with the purpose
> of production, or with the advantages of production.
Decisions are made the minimise the cost of production, including labour, by
the owners.
Decisons are made to maximise wages, by the labourers.
> In capitalism, to each according to need is replaced with
> to each according to contribution
As it should be.
-- i.e., to the
> contributors of capital first and foremost, and to the
> contributors of labor next after the first. It is natural
> that things work out in favor of the shareholders first
> since every decision made is a decision made with a view
> to directly benefiting the shareholders, and with the
> view that wage workers are primarily and essentially a
> business cost. Why are wage incomes seen as a cost, while
> dividend incomes are not?
Because wages ARE a cost, and divedends ARE a profit. A good business will
realize that a skilled and productive work force is more important than a
new milling-machine, and act to retain good workers.
>
>
> <><><><><><><><><><>
>
> "Justice is truth in action."
> -- Benjamin Disraeli
Anarcho-capitalists are not against socialists setting up voluntary communes
or collective by pooling their capital. If socialism IS a better system it
will flourish, and eventualy capitalism will wither and die.
Events over the last few hundred years indicate that capitalsim will the
remain the best way to allocate resources and labour for a few years yet.
Alex.
Certainly the rights to life, liberty and property are not inalienable
in this sense.
I suggest that if there are any such rights, they are inalienable
because their transfer or loss cannot be coherently described, and the
only candidate I have is the right to pursue happiness, the right to
pursue one's own individual interests, within conditions and restraints
that are themselves subject to contractual or other determination.
I can sell my life, but as long as I live, I think I cannot - logically
cannot - sell or have taken from me the right to exercise whatever
choice may be yet open. That may be the inalienable core of
self-ownership.
Ron Allen wrote:
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > If I own myself, can I sell myself?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I've asked this very question, and I have never received
> an intelligent reply from any of our right-libertarian
> propagandists. [...]
--
Best wishes,
Robert Allen Leeper
Reason Is Not a Perfect Guide
But There Is No Other
I agree with you generally, but why should I not be free to make an
irrevocable contract [one there is no way to end]?
>Alexander Russell wrote:
>[...]
>> I don't see a problem with selling my labour as long as it is a voluntary
>> contract, and there is a way to end the contract. [...]
>
>I agree with you generally, but why should I not be free to make an
>irrevocable contract [one there is no way to end]?
You can, but be grateful that you can now get out of a agreement if
circumstances change. Many people stay with one employer or one spouse
for all their lives. I have, I remained with my first employer until
he died, worked for his son until the son sold the business. I married
in 64 still love my wife have no desire indeed my worst fear is losing
my wife.
A irrevocable labor contract would not be a good idea, what happens
if your employer screws up and loses his ass?
That is pretty much the key question. Obviously, if I own myself, I can sell
my self - BUT this is also such a bad idea in most circumstances that I have
heard many people argue it should not be allowed. They want to violate my
right to self ownership to preserved my right to self-ownership. Bit of a
paradox.
Alex.
I doubt mean to be dense, but could you explain the difference between
ownership and sovereignity? Both in the contex of indivuals and states.
>
> I'm not so sure on what basic you make that claim. The argument that
> ownership can be replaced by other concepts is not new. Have you ever
> heard of it before? (If no, please modify your statement. If yes, tell
> me where you heard of it.)
>
> > Such denial makes a claim
> > for the justice of their ideology a vicious fraud. If a worker does
> > not own herself or himself there can be no justification for rebellion
> > except a mindless whim. The same goes for anyone else. ANYBODY who
> > demands that we surrender our indvidual sovereignty is completely and
> > totally untrustworthy in any context, "revolutionary" or otherwise.
>
> Souvereignity is not ownership.
>
> I might own the land my house stands on, but my country has
> souvereignity over it.
Actually, I thought your country still owned the land, and when you buy it
'fee simple' you aren't really buying the land, but only getting a pereptual
lease that the government can revoke when it wishes via appropriation and
other methods. Anyways, that is how it works where I live.
>
> Also, and this might be a more important point, most people do not argue
> self-ownership, they simply have different definitions of ownership and
> what exactly it means and how it can be transfered to other things (like
> a rock, or land, or whatever).
>
> Contrary to popular "libertarian" thinking the discussion is not
> "individual rights" against some other dogma, but "individual rights of
> set A" vs "individual rights of set B".
>
Or what these individual rights lead to.
Alex.
> You can replace the concept with "souvereignity" and thus
> "self-souvereignity" and replace "labour" with "ability to defend" and
> you'd have yourself a system which would explain the world.
>
[snip]
> Also, and this might be a more important point, most people do not argue
> self-ownership, they simply have different definitions of ownership and
> what exactly it means and how it can be transfered to other things (like
> a rock, or land, or whatever).
>
> Contrary to popular "libertarian" thinking the discussion is not
> "individual rights" against some other dogma, but "individual rights of
> set A" vs "individual rights of set B".
You have presented an alternative to "self-ownership". Could you flesh out
the terms you are using and why it is different from simple "ownership".
Alex.
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> [...]
> > I don't see a problem with selling my labour as long as it is a
voluntary
> > contract, and there is a way to end the contract. [...]
>
> I agree with you generally, but why should I not be free to make an
> irrevocable contract [one there is no way to end]?
It's not that you are not free to (try to) make such a contract. It's
rather that the use of force to command its (eternal) performance is not
justifiable.
--
Victor Levis
Freedom of Choice......Responsibility for Actions......Respect for Others
"I can see you crying for the children of the flame;
I can feel you comforting their fears from the dread, unspeakable name;
I can hear you screaming out the truth saying, "Children, come, be free."
I can hear tears in the wind." -- from a song by Julie Cochrane
Ron Allen wrote:
> When shareholder dividend income is reduced, it is very likely that some
> employees/staff will be laid off, in order to reduce cost. A large
> corporation will lay off some thousands of employees, and then hire new
> employees. What companies will often do is lay off wage workers, in order
> to hire new wage workers at a lower wage. The shareholder may take a
> dividend income reduction before the wage earners are laid off, but every
> decision the company makes is geared to making shareholders happy.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> True. And this does happen, but many a company that makes changes like
> this for short-term gain has found itself in difficulty a few years down
> the road. I'm not saying this is an ideal situation, just that it isn't
> the intrinsicly bad situation socialists believe it is.
Ron Allen answers:
If the situation is less than ideal, then the situation
is questionable per se -- it is distressing, disastrous,
and detestable.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as a factor of
> production, and the wage employees directly contribute labor as an input,
> as a factor of production. Why are the shareholders privileged over the
> workers?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> They are risking their capital, previously earned.
Ron Allen answers:
That is an unwarranted assumption. Enormous wealth is
never earned by solitary labor. No wealthy capitalist
can be honestly said to have earned his or her private
wealth by his or her solo labor.
The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is
precisely the commodity market which makes the risk
intrinsic to a for-profit mode of economy.
Besides, it is the direct producers who turn investments
into profitable risks. The wage workers not only produce
the commodities, they are also the consumers of those
commodities they produce.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> They are the owners, so they get to decide how their holdings are used.
Ron Allen answers:
In capitalism, the capitalists are the owners. But I am
advocating a socialist arrangement, in which all who make
a contribution to a productive venture are equal co-owners
of that enterprise.
Ron Allen answers:
> Why does the benefit of shareholders have precedency over the benefit of
> producers? Both factors of production are vital to the activity of
> production. Why then aren't both the shareholders and the workers
> equally benefited by a productive undertaking?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If the workers feel they are not getting a fair wage, they should work
> elsewhere, or try to negotiate a better wage.
Ron Allen answers:
I'm not advocating a better wage. I am advocating the
abolition of the wage system itself. I am advocating the
abolition of workplace autocracy, or workplace plutocracy.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Another option is to train yourself for a higher paying job.
Ron Allen answers:
Computer programmers who went to school in order to train
for a higher paying job are beginning to discover that a
lot of other people have also trained for the very same
higher paying job, and the competition is driving down the
wage pay for doing computer programming work.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> I know "getting a different" job can be difficult in the real world, but
> its the only fair way.
Ron Allen answers:
I disagree. Job creation is not my idea of true economic
prudence. There are a lot of good paying jobs in the
field of management, but a lot of these positions are
unproductive careers. People want management jobs, not
because they are productive, but only because they are
prestigious and high-income jobs.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> As long as the workers have voluntarily entered into the contract to work
> for wages, its a fair wage.
Ron Allen answers:
This is a very questionable assertion/assumption.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If it wasn't fair they wouldn't have taken the job.
Ron Allen answers:
I have no doubt that you believe this swill. I can only
hope that you will in time get more awareness, and more
sensitivity. These things must be learned from your own
day-to-day experiences.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> I know that due to government interference, and property rights that are
> skewed in favour of existing owners that labourers are often at a
> disadvantage when negotiating.
Ron Allen answers:
If workers are at a disadvantage for any reason that you
can come up with, still it is you who says that they have
taken the jobs, and that alone means the terms of labor
are fair.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The dividend income of the shareholders depends upon the direct and
> productive contribution of the wage workers, and the wage income of
> the employees depends upon the direct and subsidizing contribution of
> the shareholders. Why can't both shareholders and the workers equally
> benefit from a business enterprise?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Who decides what is equal?
Ron Allen answers:
The word "equal" defines itself. If every person has an
equal voice in making public decisions -- political and
production decisions -- then I am very sure what is equal
will be easily known to all.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Voluntary negotiations are the only way to decide these things.
Ron Allen answers:
If workers need collective bargaining to improve their
working conditions and their wage incomes, just how
voluntary are negotiations between a solitary job
applicant and a potential employer?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Without the owner's input, there would be NO factory to work at.
Ron Allen answers:
And without the input of the workers, there would also be
no factory for them to work in. The factory owner does
not build the factory. Labor does. The factory owner
does not operate the factory. Labor does. The owner
would not own a factory without labor.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Management is a more difficult job than labour generally.
Ron Allen answers:
Even if this is true, socialists believe that the direct
producers ought to be empowered and enfranchised to elect
their managers from among their own ranks.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And if both make very important contributions to a productive enterprise,
> why can't the operation of an enterprise be democratic, so that the
> benefits of an enterprise are equalized?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Workers 'vote' on their wages by taking, or not taking the jobs and
> wages offered.
Ron Allen answers:
If the only alternative is poverty, workers will take a
minimal wage job. To take a minimal wage job is not a
vote commending the employer for a gracious and honorable
wage offer; but rather, it is a vote against the other
alternative of pauperism.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If you want collective 'voting' you require 'collective' ownership.
Ron Allen answers:
Yes; and I advocate collective ownership of the means of
production, and collective workplace democracy.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> So if the workers want to collectively vote on how the profit is shared
> out, they should pool their resources and fund their own 'factory'.
> Anarcho-capitalists think this is a great idea for anyone so inclineded.
Ron Allen answers:
Of course, they think such a thing. They are ideological
capitalists.
Ron Allen wrote:
> All socialism asks -- all that it proposes -- can be boiled down to
> this: from each according to ability; to each according to need.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Which in the real world means: I pretend to work, and you pretend to pay
> me.
Ron Allen answers:
The real world is capitalist, not socialist, at this time.
And, yes, there is now a lot of pretense when it comes to
actually doing productive work.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Who decides what my needs are?
Ron Allen answers:
Who ought to decide what your needs are? You.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Who decides what Bob's needs are?
Ron Allen answers:
Bob knows best what his true needs are.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Why should I work as hard as I can if it will not result in a better
> standard of living?
Ron Allen answers:
We can actually work less, and all of us would still be
able to enjoy an unpretentious and unostentatious standard
of living, free from vanity and waste, and devoid of
egotism and destruction.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> How do you deal with free-loaders?
Ron Allen answers:
Assuming freeloading would be a big problem in socialism,
how does capitalism deal with freeloaders?
If freeloading is tolerable in capitalism, can't it be
tolerable in socialism?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Personally, I want to decide these things for myself.
Ron Allen answers:
You asked: "Who decides what my needs are?" And you say
that you want to decide this thing for yourself. You say
this as if socialism argues otherwise. I think each and
every person is capable of determining what his or her
true needs are. Of course, if there is some natural
disaster, when there is not plenty of something, then the
community will need to ration whatever has been made
scarce by the disaster. When there is not an abundant
supply, rationing is rational, distribution by restricted
allotments is both reasonable and responsible. Also, our
needs as individuals must be balanced with the necessities
of the planet. If we demand more than we need, then we
will put an unnecessary strain on the limited resources of
our planet, and we will also put a harmful strain on our
own bodies. Being overweight is not healthy, and there is
a lot of that around. We do not now live in a socialist
system, and the question of what we truly need is a very
relevant question now. Pollution, waste, and obesity are
prominent problems now. These are not problems that will
somehow arise in a possible future socialist milieu.
You ask: "Who decides what Bob's needs are?" I think Bob
knows full well what his needs are. In a direct democracy
Bob will be free to speak his mind, to voice his needs.
In capitalism Bob's needs are not communicated. All that
is disclosed in a capitalist commodity market economy is
pecuniary demand. Supply responds to monetary demand, and
not to human need. When we seek employment, no one asks
us what we need. When we try to provide for ourselves and
our families, no one asks us what we need.
In a capitalist economy, need is both extraneous and
irrelevant. If you have little spending money, then you
will be unable to afford to provide for some of your
needs.
You asked: "Why should I work as hard as I can if it will
not result in a better standard of living? That question
is not confined to a socialist economy. Wage workers in
our capitalist economy are often known to ask just that
very question. Wage workers have been known to work very
hard, even though they know that hard work does not often
result in a better standard of living. Most workers know
full well that the rewards of hard work are subsistence
and survival.
You also asked: "How do you deal with free-loaders?" I
do not believe freeloading is as much a problem when the
people work less, and when the people do truly productive
work when they work. There are a lot of wage jobs which
produce nothing anybody really needs. We do a lot of
unproductive work in capitalism because the system is all
about producing profits, and as machines eliminate the
jobs that produce value, new and unproductive jobs must be
created in order to employ workers. If workers are not
employed, they get no wage; and if they get no wage, they
cannot demand goods and services. If workers do not
consume, the merchant capitalists cannot sell their wares
at a profit. And so, workers are working very hard at a
lot of jobs that produce nothing of value, and with their
wages they will go out to buy shoddy goods and inferior
services, and when they do this shopping ritual they
finally get to produce value for the sellers.
<><><><><><><><>
"Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our
instincts imperious."
-- George Bernard Shaw
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If I decide a small apartment, but money for travel is what is important,
> that's how I'll spend it. If I want 20 exoctic sports car, then I'll have
> to work very hard to get these 'needs'. But no else has any obligation to
> make sure I get these 'needs'.
Ron Allen answers:
Although I will not dictate what your needs are, I do
think that 20 exotic cars is not an authentic or rational
need. Given the need to practice prudence, I believe
there is a morality problem here, and not just an economic
problem. We must learn moderation, or we will destroy our
planet even more than we have already. If we destroy the
planet, we will also destroy our own species. We have
come to confuse quantity of stuff with quality of life.
Moderation is not a capitalist virtue, but it is a virtue
which socialism assumes. Consumerism is a capitalist
virtue, a free-market value, because this serves to
produce more private profits for the sellers.
Moderation is a moral verity which has been endorsed by
philosophers and poets for centuries.
Claudianus, a Latin poet, wrote these wise words:
"Men live better on little."
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, another Latin poet, wrote:
"Let him who has enough ask for nothing more."
and
"He will always be a slave who does not know how to live
upon a little."
and
"What, and how great, the virtue and the art to live on
little with a cheerful heart!"
and
"Whoso cultivates the golden mean, avoids the poverty of
a hovel and the envy of a palace."
and
"There is measure in all things; certain limits, beyond
and short of which right cannot be found."
and
"This is what I prayed for: a piece of land not very
large, where there would be a garden, and near the house
a spring of everflowing water, and above these a bit of
woodland. More and better than this have the gods done
for me. I am content."
Titus Maccius Plautus, another Roman poet, wrote:
"In everything the middle course is best. All excess
brings trouble to mankind."
and
"If you have a contented mind, you have enough to enjoy
life with."
Marcus Valerius Martialis, a Latin poet, wrote:
"Short is the duration of things which are immoderate."
and
"That spot of ground pleases me in which small possession
makes me happy, and where slight resources are abundant."
Publilius Syrus, a Latin writer, wrote:
"The too constant use even of good things is hurtful."
Lucius AnnÄus Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher,
wrote: "Things that are moderate last a long while."
and
"It is the quality of a great soul to despise great
things, and to prefer moderation to excess."
and
"A thatched roof once covered free men; under marble and
gold dwells slavery."
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the Roman emperor and Stoic
philosopher, wrote:
"You see how few be the things, the which if a man has at
his command his life flows gently on and is divine."
and
Remember this, - that very little is needed to make a
happy life."
and
"Let not your thoughts run on what you lack as much as on
what you already have."
Titus Lucretius Carus, a Roman poet and philosopher,
wrote: "It is great riches to a man to live sparingly
with an even mind."
Caius Cornelius Tacitus, a Latin historian, wrote:
"Moderation: a virtue not to be despised by the most
exalted among men, and prized also by the gods."
and
"In modesty of fortune there are the fewer dangers."
Publius Terentius Afer, another Roman poet, wrote:
"The golden rule in life is moderation in all things."
Anacharsis, a Scythian philosopher, wrote:
"Nothing to excess. That is enough, or precept too will
run to excess."
Cleobulus, a Greek poet, wrote:
"Moderation is best."
Lucian, a Greek satirist, wrote:
"Enjoy your possessions as if about to die, and use them
sparingly, as if about to live. That man is wise who
understands both these commandments, and has applied a
measure both to thrift and unthrift."
Phocylides, another Greek poet, wrote:
"In many things the middle have the best; be mine a middle
station."
Hippocrates, the Greek physician, wrote:
"Everything in excess is opposed to nature."
Euripides, a Greek poet, wrote:
"Moderation, the noblest gift of heaven."
and
"Enough suffices for the wise."
and
"Nothing in excess."
Theognis, another Greek poet, wrote:
"Be not too zealous; moderation is best in all things."
Hesiod, another Greek poet, wrote:
"Observe moderation: proportion is best in all things."
Solon, an Athenian legislator, also wrote:
"Nothing in excess."
When Socrates, the Athenian philosopher, was walking
through a market, he was heard to say, "How many things
I can do without!"
It is no wonder that Immanuel Kant said, "The ancient
moral philosophers nearly exhausted all that can be said
about virtue." It is clear that they said a lot about
the virtue of moderation.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> The main problem I see with socialism is that I am only fairly
> compensated if I am average, or below average at my job.
Ron Allen answers:
People do not have to work all that hard -- especially
given modern machinery, technology, and robotics -- in
order to provide what we need in order to live a full
and free life.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> There is no incentive to improve my skills or work hard, as neither of
> these acts change my 'needs'.
Ron Allen answers:
I'm not so sure that capitalism can be credited with
giving workers an incentive to improve their skills, or
to work hard. But we can't test your thesis that job
skill improvement, or hard work, is actuated by a
capitalist system, because before capitalism there were
no jobs as careers requiring specialized skills. Most
people were engaged in artisan and manual labor -- e.g.,
farming, building, etc. I can see no compelling reason to
believe that, in a socialist system, people would have no
cause or motive to improve their skills, and to work hard.
But, it must be pointed out that socialists do believe
that productive and creative labor is itself fulfilling,
especially if people are not overworked, or if people are
not compartmentalized in narrow little repetitious wage
jobs.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> The problem with pure capitalism is that it can be short-sighted, working
> towards a short term profit that results in long term troubles.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And so, if the capitalists are able to contribute capital as an input,
> then let them benefit from this donation to the process of production.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Donation? If I fund building some sort of factory it isn't a 'donation'.
Ron Allen answers:
OK. It's merely a semantic dispute. We can use the word
"contribution", if you wish. The capitalist contributes
capital, and the worker contributes labor.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And if the workers are able to contribute labor as an input, then let
> them benefit from their donation to the process of production. One can
> say that neither of the factors of production can do without the other,
> but it is very clear that capital cannot do without labor, and that
> labor precedes capital, and so labor has some importance that comes
> first and that is superior to capital.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If labour is superiour to capital, then the workers will have no trouble
> generating the capital required to start their own enterprises, . . .
ron Allen answers:
Labor does produce/generate capital, but labor does not
own the capital they produce/generate. That is a big
part of the problem socialists have with capitalism.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> . . . and the nasty existing capitalists can be ignored.
Ron Allen answers:
Capitalists cannot be ignored because they privately
own the means of production, the material factors of
production, i.e., land and capital, without which the
workers cannot produce the little value they are paid as
a result of their value-producing labor.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And yet every decision making process is conducted as if the wage
> employees have nothing at all to do with the purpose of production, or
> with the advantages of production.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Decisions are made the minimise the cost of production, including labour,
> by the owners. Decisons are made to maximise wages, by the labourers.
Ron Allen answers:
Who makes the final business decisions? Capital or labor?
Ron Allen answers:
> In capitalism, to each according to need is replaced with to each
> according to contribution . . .
Alexander Russell wrote:
> As it should be.
Ron Allen answers:
So, you believe that those who contribute capital ought to
profit more from productive activities than do those who
contribute labor?
According to Joan Robinson: "Owning capital is not a
productive activity."
So, in your opinion, those who own capital should get more
benefit from productive activities than do those who are
actually engaged in productive activities?
Ron Allen answers:
> . . . -- i.e., to the contributors of capital first and foremost, and
> to the contributors of labor next after the first. It is natural that
> things work out in favor of the shareholders first since every decision
> made is a decision made with a view to directly benefiting the
> shareholders, and with the view that wage workers are primarily and
> essentially a business cost. Why are wage incomes seen as a cost,
> while dividend incomes are not?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Because wages ARE a cost, and dividends ARE a profit.
Ron Allen answers:
I know this. But why are wages a cost, and profits are
not a cost? Why is this considered OK? After all, the
dividend payment does not all go back into the business.
Why is not the dividend income that is not invested back
into the business not considered as a cost of doing
business? I know the answer. But is the arrangement an
equitable and honorable organization of production?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> A good business will realize that a skilled and productive work force
> is more important than a new milling-machine, and act to retain good
> workers.
and
> Anarcho-capitalists are not against socialists setting up voluntary
> communes or collective by pooling their capital.
Ron Allen answers:
As long as the large-scale society is capitalist, it's
OK with you for socialists to form small-scale communal
cooperatives and operate these within a capitalist
environment. Never mind the question of whether or not
the majority of humanity prefers one or the other system.
Rather than putting the question to the people for a vote,
we are to just assume that capitalism is the best of all
possible systems only because capitalism happens to exist,
and we are to assume that whatever is is right.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If socialism IS a better system it will flourish, and eventualy
> capitalism will wither and die.
Ron Allen answers:
Capitalism did not flourish until it became the dominant
system on the large-scale. I assume socialism will not
flower unless or until it becomes the dominant system on
a large-scale. And authentic democratic socialists want
socialism to become the major mode of economy in the
world based only upon a majority choice in favor of
socialism.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Events over the last few hundred years indicate that capitalism will
> the remain the best way to allocate resources and labour for a few
> years yet.
Ron Allen answers:
Who knows for certain?
<><><><><><><><><>
"Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always
Paradise: so say the most ancient and the most modern
serpents."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Ron Allen wrote:
> I've asked this very question, and I have never received an intelligent
> reply from any of our right-libertarian propagandists.
Robert Allen Leeper wrote:
> This is actually an interesting question. The obvious answer is yes [to
> 'If I own myself, can I sell myself?']. The question is whether there
> are or can be any truly 'inalienable' rights - rights that cannot be
> waived, transferred, or lost through action.
Ron Allen answers:
Then the next question becomes: If I own myself, why will
I sell myself? If I own my labor, then why will I sell my
labor?
Robert Allen Leeper wrote:
> Certainly the rights to life, liberty and property are not inalienable
> in this sense.
> I suggest that if there are any such rights, they are inalienable because
> their transfer or loss cannot be coherently described, and the only
> candidate I have is the right to pursue happiness, the right to pursue
> one's own individual interests, within conditions and restraints that are
> themselves subject to contractual or other determination.
> I can sell my life, but as long as I live, I think I cannot - logically
> cannot - sell or have taken from me the right to exercise whatever choice
> may be yet open. That may be the inalienable core of self-ownership.
and
> Reason Is Not a Perfect Guide But There Is No Other
Ron Allen answers:
True. And democracy is not a perfect polity, but there
is no better polity.
<><><><><><><><>
"Modesty in human beings is praised because it is not a
matter of nature, but of will."
-- Lactantius
Ron Allen answers:
I think the more fundamental question is: Why would a
sovereign and autonomous individual actually decide to
sell himself or herself, or decide to sell his or her
labor? Can such a decision be a truly free decision?
<><><><><><><><>
"The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character-
building value of privation for the poor."
-- John K. Galbraith
> If you own your own labor, then who owns your labor if
> or when you sell your labor for a wage?
Your labour no longer exists after it is expended. There is nothing to own.
By agreement, the tangible property, transformed as it is by any labour,
belongs to the employer, and the wage or agreed compensation belongs to the
employee.
By the way, nothing makes the class of employees and employers permanent.
When I agree to paint my friend's house for three beers, the beers are mine,
the house is his, and the pleasure is ours. We both profit.
If and when my friend fixes my stereo system's wiring, the wiring remains
mine, and yet his dignity is still intact afterwards. He still 'owns
himself'. I might give him orange juice, or tickets to the Montreal
Canadiens' hockey game, or I might take him with me to the store and ask him
to pick out what he wants sometime, or I could just give him some money and
he can make the decision what to do with it later.
All of these things are simplay a matter of agreement, and mutual profit.
I think you probably can agree with all this, but will claim that agreements
relating to 'the means of production' are not legitimate, or 'coerced' in
some way by the overall structure of the system.
If so, then the problem is NOT labour agreements per se, but possible
injustice in the 'initial' holdings of assets that we each have (by
'initial' I mean the point at which we begin looking at it).
Comments, Ron?
> If you sell your labor, then were/are you truly free?
>
> Does a truly free person sell his or her labor to another
> person? Or is the act of selling one's labor a symptom of
> abated freedom?
The act of making agreements to work in exchange for a fixed reward is a
manifestation of freedom and is not a symptom of abated freedom.
[posting from alt.philosophy.debate, therefore taking a more philosophical
angle]
The "right" of self ownership is a problem for anyone with a pretence at some
system of higher values. For the Christian, you are meant to serve God; for
the utilitarian, you have already defined a metric by which you act, and you
never sell yourself, because at any time, you can judge it worthwhile to break
your contract; generally you are first bound to your higher values. In one
important sense, you do not own yourself, so cannot sell yourself. Rather you
are "owned" by your values, as if they were sitting at the board of a charity
or other not-(just-)for-profit concern.
--
Tim Wesson
Recent convert to the Church of Virus: http://virus.lucifer.com/
> but I think that idea is alien to the capitalist system in practice
That idea is the foundation of the free enterprise system. That we have
some corporate types who aren't always supportive of the idea simply
indicates that we have statists on the right as well as on the left.
--
The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old
parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam in the
whole volume of human nature by the hand of Divinity itself, and can
never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
- Alexander Hamilton
But less detestable than the conditions in many coutries that tried out
'pure' socialism.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as a factor of
> > production, and the wage employees directly contribute labor as an
input,
> > as a factor of production. Why are the shareholders privileged over the
> > workers?
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > They are risking their capital, previously earned.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> That is an unwarranted assumption. Enormous wealth is
> never earned by solitary labor. No wealthy capitalist
> can be honestly said to have earned his or her private
> wealth by his or her solo labor.
Are you speaking of inheritance? I'd be willing to admit that certain
property rights currently in force in capitalism could be modified to make
things more fair, eg use it or lose it. If property sits idle, squatting
would make you the owner after a certain period.
So if a factory is closed down, and no one buys it, after a year it would
revert to the 'public domain' and whoever was at the top of the 'list' would
get a go at using it.
>
> The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is
> precisely the commodity market which makes the risk
> intrinsic to a for-profit mode of economy.
>
> Besides, it is the direct producers who turn investments
> into profitable risks. The wage workers not only produce
> the commodities, they are also the consumers of those
> commodities they produce.
>
There would bo no jobs at all for the labourer without the capitalist
willing to risk their capital. Just where do you think capital comes from?
How is everyone to be paid when starting a new venture if there is no
capital to get things going?
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > They are the owners, so they get to decide how their holdings are used.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> In capitalism, the capitalists are the owners. But I am
> advocating a socialist arrangement, in which all who make
> a contribution to a productive venture are equal co-owners
> of that enterprise.
The supplying of the capital is a very productive part of the whole
enterprise. So important, that the supplier of capital is the 'owner', and
gets to decide how their capital is used.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> > Why does the benefit of shareholders have precedency over the benefit of
> > producers? Both factors of production are vital to the activity of
> > production. Why then aren't both the shareholders and the workers
> > equally benefited by a productive undertaking?
>
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > If the workers feel they are not getting a fair wage, they should work
> > elsewhere, or try to negotiate a better wage.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I'm not advocating a better wage. I am advocating the
> abolition of the wage system itself. I am advocating the
> abolition of workplace autocracy, or workplace plutocracy.
>
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > Another option is to train yourself for a higher paying job.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Computer programmers who went to school in order to train
> for a higher paying job are beginning to discover that a
> lot of other people have also trained for the very same
> higher paying job, and the competition is driving down the
> wage pay for doing computer programming work.
>
Then try again. In general, if you train for a higher skilled job, you make
more money. It has worked for me.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > I know "getting a different" job can be difficult in the real world, but
> > its the only fair way.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I disagree. Job creation is not my idea of true economic
> prudence. There are a lot of good paying jobs in the
> field of management, but a lot of these positions are
> unproductive careers. People want management jobs, not
> because they are productive, but only because they are
> prestigious and high-income jobs.
>
They are high income because it is difficult to do them well. Just as there
can be poorly skilled labourers, there can be poorly skilled managers.
Personally, I've never been willing to take a management job because the
hours of work expected from you are not made up by the extra income. I
highly value my free time. Other people like the cash - so be it.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > As long as the workers have voluntarily entered into the contract to
work
> > for wages, its a fair wage.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> This is a very questionable assertion/assumption.
>
Because of government interference, yes, this is a problem.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > If it wasn't fair they wouldn't have taken the job.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I have no doubt that you believe this swill. I can only
> hope that you will in time get more awareness, and more
> sensitivity. These things must be learned from your own
> day-to-day experiences.
>
I'm aware that people who work hard generally do well, and people who do not
work hard, do less well.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > I know that due to government interference, and property rights that are
> > skewed in favour of existing owners that labourers are often at a
> > disadvantage when negotiating.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> If workers are at a disadvantage for any reason that you
> can come up with, still it is you who says that they have
> taken the jobs, and that alone means the terms of labor
> are fair.
>
I've already admitted there is room for improvement, particulary by removing
government interference. Would it not be better if workers were free to move
to what ever part of the globe they wished in an effort to get a better
deal?
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > The dividend income of the shareholders depends upon the direct and
> > productive contribution of the wage workers, and the wage income of
> > the employees depends upon the direct and subsidizing contribution of
> > the shareholders. Why can't both shareholders and the workers equally
> > benefit from a business enterprise?
It isn't fair to simply divide the profit by the number of workers and
managers, because the value of everyones work is NOT equal.
Difficult, more highly skilled work pays better.
>
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > Who decides what is equal?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> The word "equal" defines itself. If every person has an
> equal voice in making public decisions -- political and
> production decisions -- then I am very sure what is equal
> will be easily known to all.
>
I have noticed that some people feel they are more equal than other people.
i'm sure that under your system these 'more equal' people would have no
trouble claiming to need a great deal of material things while also needing
to work only one day a week.
If education can fix this little problem, education can wise up the
capitalists to treating workers more fairly.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > Voluntary negotiations are the only way to decide these things.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> If workers need collective bargaining to improve their
> working conditions and their wage incomes, just how
> voluntary are negotiations between a solitary job
> applicant and a potential employer?
>
Depends on the skills of the worker, the current job market, and the workers
freedom to pursue jobs at various locations.
Highly skilled workers fair better at these negotiations.
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > Without the owner's input, there would be NO factory to work at.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> And without the input of the workers, there would also be
> no factory for them to work in. The factory owner does
> not build the factory. Labor does. The factory owner
> does not operate the factory. Labor does. The owner
> would not own a factory without labor.
>
Which is why the owner has to pay wages to the workers.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > Management is a more difficult job than labour generally.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Even if this is true, socialists believe that the direct
> producers ought to be empowered and enfranchised to elect
> their managers from among their own ranks.
>
The capitalists who provides the means to even have a factory in the first
place ARE direct producers. There is nothing special about human labour -
its just another ingredient of a succesful business.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > And if both make very important contributions to a productive
enterprise,
> > why can't the operation of an enterprise be democratic, so that the
> > benefits of an enterprise are equalized?
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > Workers 'vote' on their wages by taking, or not taking the jobs and
> > wages offered.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> If the only alternative is poverty, workers will take a
> minimal wage job. To take a minimal wage job is not a
> vote commending the employer for a gracious and honorable
> wage offer; but rather, it is a vote against the other
> alternative of pauperism.
>
I agree that government interfernece and property rights that favour owners
have skewed this process in favour of the capitalists in many parts of the
world. The answer is to, via education, change some of these conditions:
allow people to cross borders in search of work, alter property rights so
that idle property cannot be held indefinitely.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > If you want collective 'voting' you require 'collective' ownership.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Yes; and I advocate collective ownership of the means of
> production, and collective workplace democracy.
>
The only way to get collective onwership is to collectively BUY the assets.
You can't start a new 'just' endeavour by stealing!
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > So if the workers want to collectively vote on how the profit is shared
> > out, they should pool their resources and fund their own 'factory'.
> > Anarcho-capitalists think this is a great idea for anyone so inclineded.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Of course, they think such a thing. They are ideological
> capitalists.
>
So how should the workers get possesion and control of the 'factory'?
Human nature being what it is, I would expect a lot of people to think that
they can slack off, and still get what they want.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > How do you deal with free-loaders?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Assuming freeloading would be a big problem in socialism,
> how does capitalism deal with freeloaders?
We fire them.
>
> If freeloading is tolerable in capitalism, can't it be
> tolerable in socialism?
>
It isn't tolerable - you get fired. I know, the big bad capitalist that
merley provides the capital isn't actually working. They aren't doing manual
labour, but they are providing a key part of whole venture.
>
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > Personally, I want to decide these things for myself.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> You asked: "Who decides what my needs are?" And you say
> that you want to decide this thing for yourself. You say
> this as if socialism argues otherwise. I think each and
> every person is capable of determining what his or her
> true needs are. Of course, if there is some natural
> disaster, when there is not plenty of something, then the
> community will need to ration whatever has been made
> scarce by the disaster. When there is not an abundant
> supply, rationing is rational, distribution by restricted
> allotments is both reasonable and responsible. Also, our
> needs as individuals must be balanced with the necessities
> of the planet. If we demand more than we need, then we
> will put an unnecessary strain on the limited resources of
> our planet, and we will also put a harmful strain on our
> own bodies. Being overweight is not healthy, and there is
> a lot of that around. We do not now live in a socialist
> system, and the question of what we truly need is a very
> relevant question now. Pollution, waste, and obesity are
> prominent problems now. These are not problems that will
> somehow arise in a possible future socialist milieu.
>
If you could get a large number of people to agree to work together for your
socialist utopia (as opposed to my capitalist utopia), I do not think the
fact that they are working under a different economic system will make
people magically give up all their bad habits, and become far seeing,
rational being with only their neighbors best interests in their hearts.
> You ask: "Who decides what Bob's needs are?" I think Bob
> knows full well what his needs are. In a direct democracy
> Bob will be free to speak his mind, to voice his needs.
> In capitalism Bob's needs are not communicated.
Bobs needs and wants are voiced each time bob makes a purchase.
>All that
> is disclosed in a capitalist commodity market economy is
> pecuniary demand.
Some poeple do spend money on food and shelter.
>Supply responds to monetary demand, and
> not to human need. When we seek employment, no one asks
> us what we need. When we try to provide for ourselves and
> our families, no one asks us what we need.
You are hired for what you can provide to the enterprise - not because you
are needy. Of course there are cases where people in need are chosen over
others with lesser needs and equal skills (because they make more compliant
workers, and even some capitalists are nice).
>
> In a capitalist economy, need is both extraneous and
> irrelevant. If you have little spending money, then you
> will be unable to afford to provide for some of your
> needs.
As it should be.
>
> You asked: "Why should I work as hard as I can if it will
> not result in a better standard of living? That question
> is not confined to a socialist economy. Wage workers in
> our capitalist economy are often known to ask just that
> very question. Wage workers have been known to work very
> hard, even though they know that hard work does not often
> result in a better standard of living. Most workers know
> full well that the rewards of hard work are subsistence
> and survival.
>
If hard work at the 'factory' is not being rewared, then I agree - do the
minimum, and put in the work at improving your skills to be able to move on
to some place where you will be valued.
> You also asked: "How do you deal with free-loaders?" I
> do not believe freeloading is as much a problem when the
> people work less, and when the people do truly productive
> work when they work.
And how do we know its productive work? Command economies have a dismal
track record at making even basic needs like food and soap.
> There are a lot of wage jobs which
> produce nothing anybody really needs.
Here I agree. There is no production problem. People are brainwashed into
wanting all these useless consumer goods just to keep the wheels rolling. No
needs a 4 ton SUV to commute 10 Km to work! No one needs a new stero every 3
years. No one needs designer clothes.
But education is the only just way to change peoples mids about these
things.
> We do a lot of
> unproductive work in capitalism because the system is all
> about producing profits, and as machines eliminate the
> jobs that produce value, new and unproductive jobs must be
> created in order to employ workers.
I fully expect that one day technology will cause capitalism to be radically
different. But that day is not now.
>If workers are not
> employed, they get no wage; and if they get no wage, they
> cannot demand goods and services. If workers do not
> consume, the merchant capitalists cannot sell their wares
> at a profit. And so, workers are working very hard at a
> lot of jobs that produce nothing of value, and with their
> wages they will go out to buy shoddy goods and inferior
> services, and when they do this shopping ritual they
> finally get to produce value for the sellers.
I agree with you here, that there is no production problem, and a lot of
effort does go into unnecessary luxuries. But this is a much better state of
affairs than wide spread want and suffering due nothing being produced at
all.
You argue that people will magically stop being selfish under socialism. I
disagree. Making capitalism more humane is a much more realistic goal than
making socialism work at all.
If you want socialism for a factory, how can the workers justly obtain the
'means of production' whithout buying out the current owner?
Alex.
Simply because they ARE free to make that choice.
Would you be willing to use force to stop someone from voluntarly selling
themselve into slavery? given that the person, for whatever reason, is
convinced this is the right thing for them, should they still be stopped?
I'd certainly try to talk them out of it, but I'm not sure I should force
them out of it.
Alex.
That is in fact the current law in the english speaking world.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
YRb+9P3AnuYVlahQ1lj2IQxLia0z8xsKPWUB7kn2
4gzoFtsneeandtd/+GzBw1RItCRgNePC+eMST1ogk
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
>"Ron Allen" <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>news:3B9C326B...@bellsouth.net...
>> Alexander Russell wrote:
>> > Obviously, if I own myself, I can sell my self - BUT this is also such
>> > a bad idea in most circumstances that I have heard many people argue it
>> > should not be allowed. They want to violate my right to self ownership
>> > to preserve my right to self-ownership. Bit of a paradox.
>>
>> Ron Allen answers:
>> I think the more fundamental question is: Why would a
>> sovereign and autonomous individual actually decide to
>> sell himself or herself, or decide to sell his or her
>> labor? Can such a decision be a truly free decision?
>>
>
>Simply because they ARE free to make that choice.
>
>Would you be willing to use force to stop someone from voluntarly selling
>themselve into slavery? given that the person, for whatever reason, is
>convinced this is the right thing for them, should they still be stopped?
>
>I'd certainly try to talk them out of it, but I'm not sure I should force
>them out of it.
>
>Alex.
A free person can in fact "sell" him/herself to another person.
Caveat, such a contract would not be enforceable. Their is nothing to
prevent people from being very loyal to another. Example look at the
long term partnership, that exist between people, both in and out of
marriages.
I sold myself to the woman I love in 1963, I am very happy with the
arrangement. Even though either of us could end the bargain at any
time. A free person can indeed "sell" himself to another. no american
court would enforce the contract.
Ron Allen wrote:
> When shareholder dividend income is reduced, it is very likely that some
> employees/staff will be laid off, in order to reduce cost. A large
> corporation will lay off some thousands of employees, and then hire new
> employees. What companies will often do is lay off wage workers, in
> order to hire new wage workers at a lower wage. The shareholder may
> take a dividend income reduction before the wage earners are laid off,
> but every decision the company makes is geared to making shareholders
> happy.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> True. And this does happen, but many a company that makes changes like
> this for short-term gain has found itself in difficulty a few years down
> the road. I'm not saying this is an ideal situation, just that it isn't
> the intrinsicly bad situation socialists believe it is.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If the situation is less than ideal, then the situation is questionable
> per se -- it is distressing, disastrous, and detestable.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> But less detestable than the conditions in many coutries that tried out
> 'pure' socialism.
Ron Allen answers:
But those nations which are accused of having tried out
pure socialism did not try out authentic socialism, which
humanistic, pluralistic, democratic, voluntaristic,
pacifistic, and libertarian.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as a factor of
> production, and the wage employees directly contribute labor as an
> input, as a factor of production.
> Why are the shareholders privileged over the workers?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> They are risking their capital, previously earned.
Ron Allen wrote:
> That is an unwarranted assumption. Enormous wealth is never earned by
> solitary labor. No wealthy capitalist can be honestly said to have
> earned his or her private wealth by his or her solo labor.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> Are you speaking of inheritance?
Ron Allen answers:
Inheritance is obviously included within my statement.
But my assertion is that even the newly rich, even the
first generation super-rich, did not earn their enormous
wealth by their own labor. Bill Gates, for example, did
not earn his immense wealth by his own labor.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> I'd be willing to admit that certain property rights currently in
> force in capitalism could be modified to make things more fair, eg
> use it or lose it. If property sits idle, squatting would make you
> the owner after a certain period.
Ron Allen answers:
Just like the word "earn", the word "use" is prejudiced
in favor of the capitalist class. If, for example, I am
holding on to land property, in order to sell it at a
considerable profit in the future, then I am using the
land even when it sits idle. This is because the primary
purpose of capitalism is the production of profits, and
so whatever action or inaction produces private profits
is a uniquely capitalist use of land, and also a uniquely
capitalist method of earning income.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> So if a factory is closed down, and no one buys it, after a year it
> would revert to the 'public domain' and whoever was at the top of the
> 'list' would get a go at using it.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is precisely the
> commodity market which makes the risk intrinsic to a for-profit mode
> of economy.
> Besides, it is the direct producers who turn investments into profitable
> risks. The wage workers not only produce the commodities, they are also
> the [majority] consumers of those commodities they produce.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> There would bo no jobs at all for the labourer without the capitalist
> willing to risk their capital.
Ron Allen answers:
There would be no profits for the proprietary capitalists
if the productive workers did not take those wage jobs.
As far as capitalists taking risks, the very risks the
capitalists take are created by capitalism. When you
talk about such risks as are endemic to capitalism, you
are talking about what is prevalent within capitalism,
what is peculiar to capitalism. If you happen to endorse
capitalism, then you also must back the risks which are a
characteristic of capitalism. And those risks favor the
capitalists who have made it to the upper part of the
socio-economic pyramid. Those who want to be members of
the super-rich Ć©lite will also favor the capitalist model.
The risks involved in capitalism will not exist in a
socialist model, where production will be for utility and
not for profit.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> Just where do you think capital comes from?
Ron Allen answers:
Capital comes from labor. Capitalism does not come from
proprietarians, but from producers. Those who champion
capitalism have a very confused and obscure notion that
those who own capital are also those who make capital.
A capitalist organizes capital; but then so can a society,
if the mode of economy were socialist rather than
capitalist.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> How is everyone to be paid when starting a new venture if there is no
> capital to get things going?
Ron Allen answers:
Your question assumes capitalism, and so the problem is
expunged when you replace capitalism with communism.
<><><><><><><><><>
"It can be said with full justification that we ought to
love our neighbor."
-- Immanuel Kant
Ron Allen wrote:
> In capitalism, the capitalists are the owners. But I am advocating a
> socialist arrangement, in which all who make a contribution to a
> productive venture are equal co-owners of that enterprise.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> The supplying of the capital is a very productive part of the whole
> enterprise.
Ron Allen answers:
But the capital supplied by the capitalists cannot be said
to have been produced by the capitalists.
And if we lived in a socialist economy, there would still
be the production, organization, and supplying of capital.
There would be no capitalist class in a socialist model.
I'm not sure that I can agree with your assertion that
to contribute capital is itself a productive action.
I would say that the allocation and provisioning of
capital facilitates and capacitates production. Capital
supplies support industrial production, but these supplies
do not actually produce. Only labor can actually be said
to produce. Capital equipment enables large-scale methods
of production, but the equipment does not itself produce.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> So important, that the supplier of capital is the 'owner', and gets to
> decide how their capital is used.
Ron Allen answers:
That is the way things are in capitalism, but I am not
advocating capitalism.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Why does the benefit of shareholders have precedency over the benefit of
> producers? Both factors of production are vital to the activity of
> production. Why then aren't both the shareholders and the workers
> equally benefited by a productive undertaking?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If the workers feel they are not getting a fair wage, they should work
> elsewhere, or try to negotiate a better wage.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I'm not advocating a better wage. I am advocating the abolition of the
> wage system itself. I am advocating the abolition of workplace autocracy,
> or workplace plutocracy.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Another option is to train yourself for a higher paying job.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Computer programmers who went to school in order to train for a higher
> paying job are beginning to discover that a lot of other people have
> also trained for the very same higher paying job, and the competition
> is driving down the wage pay for doing computer programming work.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> Then try again. In general, if you train for a higher skilled job, you
> make more money. It has worked for me.
Ron Allen answers:
Making more money is a bourgeois yearning, and apparently
most of humanity is not motivated by a sufficient desire
to make more and more money. The vast majority of human
beings simply desire to provide for their needs and for
the needs of those they provide for.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> I know "getting a different" job can be difficult in the real world, but
> it's the only fair way.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I disagree. Job creation is not my idea of true economic prudence.
> There are a lot of good paying jobs in the field of management, but a
> lot of these positions are unproductive careers. People want management
> jobs, not because they are productive, but only because they are
> prestigious and high-income jobs.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> They are high income because it is difficult to do them well.
Ron Allen answers:
Every job worth doing is difficult, especially when the
job is done well.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> Just as there can be poorly skilled labourers, there can be poorly
> skilled managers. Personally, I've never been willing to take a
> management job because the hours of work expected from you are not
> made up by the extra income. I highly value my free time. Other people
> like the cash - so be it.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> As long as the workers have voluntarily entered into the contract to
> work for wages, its a fair wage.
Ron Allen wrote:
> This is a very questionable assertion/assumption.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> Because of government interference, yes, this is a problem.
Ron Allen answers:
I was wondering when some anti-government flak was going
to make its way into your writing.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If it wasn't fair they wouldn't have taken the job.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I have no doubt that you believe this swill. I can only hope that you
> will in time get more awareness, and more sensitivity. These things
> must be learned from your own day-to-day experiences.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> I'm aware that people who work hard generally do well, and people who
> do not work hard, do less well.
Ron Allen answers:
What you are aware of is what you've been told to believe.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> I know that due to government interference, and property rights that are
> skewed in favour of existing owners that labourers are often at a
> disadvantage when negotiating.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If workers are at a disadvantage for any reason that you can come up with,
> still it is you who says that they have taken the jobs, and that alone
> means the terms of labor are fair.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> I've already admitted there is room for improvement, particulary by
> removing government interference.
Ron Allen answers:
There is government interference precisely because the
wealthy and the powerful demand it, as a means to equalize
the costs of doing business. Government interference is
favored and furthered by business, especially by big
business.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> Would it not be better if workers were free to move to what ever part
> of the globe they wished in an effort to get a better deal?
Ron Allen answers:
Most people are not really all that gung-ho about moving.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The dividend income of the shareholders depends upon the direct and
> productive contribution of the wage workers, and the wage income of
> the employees depends upon the direct and subsidizing contribution of
> the shareholders.
> Why can't both shareholders and the workers equally benefit from a
> business enterprise?
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> It isn't fair to simply divide the profit by the number of workers
> and managers, because the value of everyone's work is NOT equal.
Ron Allen answers:
I am not advocating a for-profit model of doing economics.
As for the value of labor, there is labor's exchange value
and labor's utility value, and these two sorts of value do
not always or necessarily square. Labor that is done to
eliminate disease has more exchange value than labor that
is done to prevent and preclude disease. There is an old
saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".
This is about exchange value. And yet, prevention has far
more benefit value, far more advantage value, than does a
curative treatment.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> Difficult, more highly skilled work pays better.
Ron Allen answers:
I'm not sure that the more highly skilled work is also
the more difficult work.
<><><><><><><>
"From a little spark may burst a mighty flame."
-- Dante Alighieri
Correction:
> Capital comes from labor. Capital does not come from
Alexander Russell wrote:
>
> "Robert Allen Leeper" wrote [...] why should I not be free to make an
> > irrevocable contract [one there is no way to end]?
>
> That is pretty much the key question. Obviously, if I own myself, I can sell
> my self - BUT this is also such a bad idea in most circumstances that I have
> heard many people argue it should not be allowed. They want to violate my
> right to self ownership to preserved my right to self-ownership. Bit of a
> paradox.
--
Best wishes,
Robert Allen Leeper
Government can give you nothing that it
Has not first taken from you,
Or from someone else.
But the issue is the right of an individual to make any deal he wants,
not the advisability of doing so. If A sells himself to B on terms both
judge advantageous, who has a right to override the will of both?
Ron Allen wrote:
> I think the more fundamental question is: Why would a
> sovereign and autonomous individual actually decide to
> sell himself or herself, or decide to sell his or her
> labor? Can such a decision be a truly free decision?
--
Best wishes,
Robert Allen Leeper
Government can give you nothing that it
The ethical principle is that the use of force against an individual is
justified if he has freely consented in advance, even if he later
changes his mind. You have given no reason for creating an exception to
that principle [where the deal is the sale of the individual].
Victor Levis wrote:
> > "Robert Allen Leeper": [...] why should I not be free to make an
> > irrevocable contract [one there is no way to end]?
>
> It's not that you are not free to (try to) make such a contract. It's
> rather that the use of force to command its (eternal) performance is not
> justifiable.
--
Best wishes,
Robert Allen Leeper
Government can give you nothing that it
Ron Allen wrote:
> The word "equal" defines itself. If every person has an equal voice
> in making public decisions -- political and production decisions --
> then I am very sure what is equal will be easily known to all.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> I have noticed that some people feel they are more equal than other
> people.
Ron Allen answers:
Yes, indeed, this is true. Such people are playing the
fool, They are beguiled, and they will flimflam all who
are easily bamboozled by words -- namely, those who do
not criticize and analyze the way words are used.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> I'm sure that under your system these 'more equal' people would have
> no trouble claiming to need a great deal of material things while also
> needing to work only one day a week.
Ron Allen answers:
Under an egalitarian system this ought not happen; and,
even if it did happen, it would be wholly contrary to
the very principles and practices of egalitarian humanism
and libertarian democracy.
Now, on the other hand, we live at present in a bourgeois
polity which professes to believe in the principles and
practices of liberty, while it vilifies every principle
and practice of equality.
Which system will be more conducive, more instrumental,
in giving birth to a process or routine in which some
believe they are more equal than others, in which some
behave as if they are better than others, and so are
entitled to more than others? Which system will be the
more favorable, more promotive, of such an attitude on
the part of some Ć©lite class of superior types? An anti-
egalitarian system of practice, based upon an anti-
egalitarian ideology; or, a pro-egalitarian system of
practice, based upon a pro-egalitarian ideology?
You are criticizing a false practice of egalitarianism,
and that is praiseworthy. But what about principle?
A more radical critique does not just critique a false
practice. Such a critique must also be a critique of
ideology, a critique of principle. If you do not
believe in egalitarianism in principle, then how can
you honestly or consistently critique a routine conduct
of anti-egalitarianism? If you do believe that some
are more equal than others, either in principle or in
practice, then why do you care if such an anti-socialist
attitude or behavior were to develop within a professed
socialist arrangement? In other words, if every attempt
at establishing an authentic and principled practice of
egalitarian and libertarian socialism will only result
in re-establishing capitalism, then why do those who favor
capitalism care? If every honest attempt to establish a
classless society will always result in the re-institution
of another class society, then who do those who favor a
class society care?
There has never been a democratic and libertarian attempt
to establish a democratic and libertarian socialism, and
I believe this is the key reason for why the bolshevik
attempts in Russia, China, Cuba, et al. failed to produce
an authentic social democratic polity in their various
countries. There simply cannot be an anti-democratic, or
pseudo-democratic, or semi-democratic, path to socialism.
This is very important; and this is overlooked and ignored
by every conservative and pro-capitalist critique of
socialism.
I do not advocate or recommend a socialism that is false,
a socialism in which some Ć©lite class of people regards
itself as more equal than other people. It seems almost
hypocritical for one to take offense at a faithless and
false practice of egalitarian socialism, when and if one
does not take a positive stand in favor of egalitarian
socialism in principle and in precept. If you do not
believe in equality in creed, then by what virtue, or by
what logic, can you proscribe inequality in deed.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If education can fix this little problem, education can wise up the
> capitalists to treating workers more fairly.
Ron Allen answers:
What does this mean? What can it mean? Capitalism is an
ideology. Capitalism is a philosophy. It does not teach
egalitarian democracy in both the realm of politics and
the realm of production. It is all about private profits.
Public utility is outranked by private profits, and so
also the producers are outranked by the proprietors.
The feudalists tried to make the monarchs treat their
subjects more fairly, in order to preserve and conserve
the feudal system, and so they established constitutional
monarchies, in order to preclude the evolution of/towards
absolute monarchy in the various nation-states.
In the United States, our revolutionary bourgeois founding
fathers elected to emancipate themselves from monarchism
completely, and so was established a bourgeois democratic
republic. Our founding fathers knew that monarchs come
and go, that some are more equitable and reasonable than
others; but they also knew that it is far better to just
do away with monarchism completely and conclusively,
because monarchism itself will always have and hold a
real possibility and a present potential for the abuse of
power. The bourgeois revolutions were a positive move in
the direction of liberty and equality for all, but it was
not radical enough. And revolutionary socialism is only
the necessary follow-up movement -- i.e., socialism is a
subversive measure which is intended to add to the
previous revolutionary actions and achievements of the
rebellious bourgeoisie. Just as the anti-feudalists were
fundamentally novel in what they created, so also will
the anti-capitalists create a radically innovative social
arrangement. The overthrow of political monarchism and
economic feudalism was a truly positive move in a more
democratic direction, and the overthrow of political
capitalism and industrial plutocracy (workplace autocracy)
will also be a truly progressive move into an integral and
comprehensive democratic commonwealth. Socialists wish
only to complete and finish the revolution begun by the
dissenting bourgeoisie, who overthrew the monarchism and
the papism of feudalism.
Education can fix most problems, if not every problem.
But capitalism is an ideology which educates people to
believe in the capitalist system, just as feudalism was
an ideology which educated people to believe in the feudal
system. Constitutional monarchs believed monarchs could
be made to treat their subjects more fairly. But there
was still the persistent and ever-present, implicit and
latent, potentiality for an unfair use of royal powers and
an unjust use of sometimes violent force, but more often
disguised force.
Feudalism was a class system, with the Ć©lite class in
control of land. It was an agricultural organization
of society. Mobility from one estate to another was
strictly regulated. Within feudalism a fourth estate
evolved, and in time it was this estate which emerged
victorious over the nobility and the clergy. The
bourgeois revolutions overthrew the feudal order, and
the bourgeoisie emerged from its marginal and minority
class position to become the dominant and hegemonic
estate within a capitalist social order.
Capitalism is also a class system, with the Ć©lite classes
in explicit control of land and capital, and therefore in
implicit control of judicial, political, and production
decisions. It is an agricultural and industrial order
of society. Mobility from the proletarian class to the
proprietarian class is fixed, sometimes by lawful means,
and sometimes by unlawful means. There is still some
vestigial evidence of the observance of the practice of
feudal consanguinity, and even of the practice of legal
primogeniture. There is clearly and obviously the legal
practice of inheritance. But even when an individual
does manage to move upward from rags to riches, the
change of position is fixed and rooted in no verifiable
virtues, no corroborated merit, but is defined and
determined by only one factor -- namely, the possession
of more and more wealth, especially by the possession of
more and more money. The more wealth/money you possess,
the more stable and settled your upper socio-economic
position becomes. The more resources you own, the more
riches you will be able to procure, not by your own value-
producing labor, but by other people's value-producing
labor. The more private wealth resources you hold, the
more unearned income you can acquire -- even if you do
elect to continue doing some work, and thereby actually
earning some of your income, perhaps as a chief executive
officer doing the work of overall management, or perhaps
as the chairman of a board of directors of a large
corporation. Chairmanship is work, and no socialist will
deny this. But what socialist do deny is that current
chairmanships are always earned or merited. Money, rather
than merit, is the touchstone of chairmanships under the
rule of capital. Socialists believe merit, rather than
money, ought to be the cornerstone of every management
position in a productive enterprise. Socialists believe
that a system of workplace democracy, of worker self-
management, will clear the way for management based upon
recognized and appreciated merit, and will do away with
management that is based upon wealth proprietorship and
the private possession of substantial assets in money.
<><><><><><><><><>
"The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."
-- Andrew Carnegie
The above statement clearly indicates you don't have a clue about what
freedom is all about.
You can't have liberty and equality at the same time.
It's possible to have neither, but you can't have both.
--
In truth, one who believes it wrong to arm himself against criminal
violence shows contempt of God's gift of life (or, in modern parlance,
does not properly value himself), does not live up to his responsibilities
to his family and community, and proclaims himself mentally and morally
deficient, because he does not trust himself to behave responsibly. In
truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means
to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but barbarous,
becoming an accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs and revealing
its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the disorganized,
random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than are men and
women who believe themselves free and independent, and act accordingly.
- Jeffrey Snyder, "Nation of Cowards"
Ron Allen wrote:
> If workers need collective bargaining to improve their working
> conditions and their wage incomes, just how voluntary are negotiations
> between a solitary job applicant and a potential employer?
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Depends on the skills of the worker, the current job market, and the
> workers freedom to pursue jobs at various locations.
Ron Allen answers:
Depends upon this, depends upon that. When the freedom
and dignity of workers depends upon exterior forces and
uncontrollable factors, then workers have less/no control
over their conditions and circumstances, little/no command
of their own decision and the outcomes of their choices.
I do not want human beings subject to market forces. I
want human beings in command and in control, and not just
an Ć©lite class in command/control. I want democratic
command and collectivist control over every important
political and production activity.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Highly skilled workers fair better at these negotiations.
Ron Allen answers:
Better negotiation skills is not good enough. A better
wage income is not good enough. I want the complete
abolition of the wage system. A better wage is only a
better slavery. What I want is not a better slavery for
the better educated, but the abolition of slavery itself,
and free and full access to education for all people.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Without the owner's input, there would be NO factory to work at.
Ron Allen wrote:
> And without the input of the workers, there would also be no factory
> for them to work in. The factory owner does not build the factory.
> Labor does. The factory owner does not operate the factory. Labor
> does. The owner would not own a factory without labor.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Which is why the owner has to pay wages to the workers.
Ron Allen answers:
Yes, indeed. And for equivalent reasons, masters had to
compensate their chattel slaves in some minimal way just
in order to keep them healthy, happy, and productive. A
happy wage slave is one who is made to believe that he/she
has some evenhanded control, some average command, over
his/her circumstances and conditions. I do not expect
ideological capitalists to advocate a capitalism which
they know to be a prejudiced system. Every ideological
capitalist believes that the capitalist system is an
impartial arrangement. I just happen to see capitalism
in a very different way. I observe the some of the very
same facts, and I come to a conclusion that differs from
those who adore and admire capitalism as being the best
of all possible worlds.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Management is a more difficult job than labour generally.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Even if this is true, socialists believe that the direct producers
> ought to be empowered and enfranchised to elect their managers from
> among their own ranks.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> The capitalists who provide the means to even have a factory in the
> first place ARE direct producers.
Ron Allen answers:
I disagree. I can own capital resources, and without ever
having been engaged in productive labor. There are many
capitalists who did labor before they made it to the upper
ranks of the socio-economic pyramid, some worked much more
than others, some worked much less than others, but it is
not a stipulated or mandatory prerequisite that to possess
large capital assets one must have first earned these huge
assets by his/her own personal labor.
Joan Violet Robinson, an English economist, wrote:
"Owning capital is not a productive activity." I suppose
we can add to that dictum another assertion, that to
contribute capital is not a productive activity, just as
accumulating capital is not a productive activity. The
only truly productive activity is labor. Labor produces
capital, and labor employs/utilizes capital in production.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> There is nothing special about human labour - it's just another
> ingredient of a succesful business.
Ron Allen answers:
I disagree. Labor precedes capital, labor produces
capital, and labor uses capital when engaged in capital-
intensive (i.e., large-scale industrial) production.
<><><><><><><>
"Knowledge without conscience is the ruination of the
soul."
-- FranƧois Rabelais
Correction:
If every honest attempt to establish a classless society
will always result in the re-institution of another class
society, then WHY do those who favor a class society care?
Well, I do not want human beings subject to gravity. But it's more likely
that we'll be able do to something about that, than about the market.
--
"It is not Microsoft's monopoly that I object to, it is the mediocrity
of their products."
-- Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle
What you just said doesn't make any sense. Socialism, by its very
definition, involves government ownership. Government and pacifism can never
coexist, since pacifism is the abscence of coercian and government is based on
force. Pacifism requires complete libertarianism and total respect for
morality on the part of everyone involved (which is unacheivable in practice).
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as a factor of
> > production,
More accurately, they become shareholders by buying pieces of theoretical
ownership from people who bought pieces of theoretical ownership and so on and
so on all the way back to the original founders of the company, who
contributed enormous amounts of capital resources to what later became the
corporation that the shareholders have stock in.
> and the wage employees directly contribute labor as an
> > input, as a factor of production.
>
> > Why are the shareholders privileged over the workers?
> At least workers have the right to paychecks for work they've already
> done. Shareholders have to rely on board members to use the company's
> profits on dividends instead of putting it in the corporate treasury or
> using it for business expansion.
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > They are risking their capital, previously earned.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > That is an unwarranted assumption. Enormous wealth is never earned by
> > solitary labor. No wealthy capitalist can be honestly said to have
> arned his or her private wealth by his or her solo labor.
That's baloney.
>
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > Are you speaking of inheritance?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Inheritance is obviously included within my statement.
> But my assertion is that even the newly rich, even the
> first generation super-rich, did not earn their enormous
> wealth by their own labor. Bill Gates, for example, did
> not earn his immense wealth by his own labor.
>
Sure he did. How else do you think a person becomes a billionaire?
>
> Just like the word "earn", the word "use" is prejudiced
> in favor of the capitalist class.
We don't have a "capitalist" class. This is a classless society.
> If, for example, I am
> holding on to land property, in order to sell it at a
> considerable profit in the future, then I am using the
> land even when it sits idle. This is because the primary
> purpose of capitalism is the production of profits, and
> so whatever action or inaction produces private profits
> is a uniquely capitalist use of land, and also a uniquely
> capitalist method of earning income.
There'd be a lot less unused land if it weren't for zoning, environmental
impact statements, easements, and other legal loopholes that allow the
government to own land that a private citizen holds title to.
>
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > So if a factory is closed down, and no one buys it, after a year it
> > would revert to the 'public domain' and whoever was at the top of the
> > 'list' would get a go at using it.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is precisely the
> > commodity market which makes the risk intrinsic to a for-profit mode
> > of economy.
>
> > Besides, it is the direct producers who turn investments into profitable
> > risks. The wage workers not only produce the commodities, they are also
> > the [majority] consumers of those commodities they produce.
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > There would bo no jobs at all for the labourer without the capitalist
> > willing to risk their capital.
>
That's one of the central flaws in class warfare rhetoric.
> Ron Allen answers:
> There would be no profits for the proprietary capitalists
> if the productive workers did not take those wage jobs.
>
> As far as capitalists taking risks, the very risks the
> capitalists take are created by capitalism. When you
> talk about such risks as are endemic to capitalism, you
> are talking about what is prevalent within capitalism,
> what is peculiar to capitalism. If you happen to endorse
> capitalism, then you also must back the risks which are a
> characteristic of capitalism. And those risks favor the
> capitalists who have made it to the upper part of the
> socio-economic pyramid. Those who want to be members of
> the super-rich Ć©lite will also favor the capitalist model.
>
> The risks involved in capitalism will not exist in a
> socialist model, where production will be for utility and
> not for profit.
>
That's a lie. In socialism, production is for neither utility nor profit.
In socialism, production occurs in order to avoid being thrown in jail,
tortured, or killed.
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > Just where do you think capital comes from?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Capital comes from labor. Capitalism does not come from
> proprietarians, but from producers.
Capitalism comes from liberty.
> Those who champion
> capitalism have a very confused and obscure notion that
> those who own capital are also those who make capital.
> A capitalist organizes capital; but then so can a society,
> if the mode of economy were socialist rather than
> capitalist.
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > How is everyone to be paid when starting a new venture if there is no
> > capital to get things going?
>
By the creation of wealth. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
Socialism, by its very definition, involves social ownership (read: the
public). Whether or not the society has a government is variable. Most
people believe what you're saying about socialism due to its
misrepresentation as Marxism (even so, Marx himself stated that as classes
dissolved so would the necessity for a government).
Other people do not employ your concepts, so it is at best humorous
when you describe their views in terms of your own obsessions. I for
one don't care whether a society has the property classified-as-
classless-by-Ron.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> Workers 'vote' on their wages by taking, or not taking the jobs and wages
> offered.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If the only alternative is poverty, workers will take a minimal wage job.
> To take a minimal wage job is not a vote commending the employer for a
> gracious and honorable wage offer; but rather, it is a vote against the
> other alternative of pauperism.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> I agree that government interfernece and property rights that favour
> owners have skewed this process in favour of the capitalists in many
> parts of the world.
Ron Allen answers:
You are responding to what I wrote, and you say that you
agree. What did I write that you agree with? I made no
statement about government interference. And as per the
matter of property rights, can there be such a thing as
private property rights which does not favor the private
property owners?
Besides, as I see things, everything about capitalism will
tend to favor the capitalists, which is one of the reasons
why the system is called capitalism.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> The answer is to, via education, change some of these conditions: allow
> people to cross borders in search of work, . . .
Ron Allen answers:
I am not opposed to a more liberal, more casual, mode of
immigration management, but I am very opposed to the wage
system and the wage slavery these immigrants are forced
to subject themselves to both in their home countries and
in the United States.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> . . . alter property rights so that idle property cannot be held
> indefinitely.
Ron Allen answers:
A for-profit capitalist arrangement cannot in principle,
or in practice, commandeer/confiscate idle property. It
is simply very proper in a for-profit system to hold on to
property until its sell can realize a maximum profit. In
a for-profit commodity economy, land that is used for
future profit may be idle, but it is still being used as
an investment, as an asset to be liquidated (converted
into cash) at some future time. For example, a parent
may pass away leaving some real estate property to a young
son, who decides to leave the property alone and idle in
order to minimize maintenance costs and in the hope that
when retirement comes he can sell the property at a very
profitable rate. The land is idle, but it is being used
nonetheless.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> If you want collective 'voting' you require 'collective' ownership.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Yes; and I advocate collective ownership of the means of production,
> and collective workplace democracy.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> The only way to get collective onwership is to collectively BUY the
> assets.
Ron Allen answers:
I have advocated precisely this measure as a peaceful and
permissible path from capitalism to socialism. I have
advocated the abolition of socialist political parties,
and the creation of informal socialist associations, for
the purpose of uniting and organizing the proletariat so
that at some auspicious and propitious moment they can
pull together and act jointly in a general strike and
general boycott action. We the people can collectively
offer to compensate the proprietarians for their eager
cooperation in transferring capital property from private
to public ownership. And any capitalist that refuses to
cooperate will eventually go broke/bankrupt thanks to the
combined strike and boycott action. I think that the
proletariat, when and if united, will be victorious.
And when I talk about transferring capital from private
to public ownership I am not talking about transferring
capital from private to state ownership. I'm talking
about deeding capital property -- and only capital
property -- from private ownership to social ownership.
As far as I'm concerned the political state has no place
in a true revolution, and the state ought to wither away
sooner or later after the voluntarist and pacifist
revolution has facilitated the transfer of capital assets
from private ownership to community ownership.
Alexander Russell wrote:
> You can't start a new 'just' endeavour by stealing!
Ron Allen answers:
True; and I do not recommend theft. I believe we can
expropriate the expropriators without resorting to theft.
<><><><><><><><>
"All experience is an arch, to build upon."
-- Henry Adams
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> Well, I do not want human beings subject to gravity. But it's more
> likely that we'll be able do to something about that, than about the
> market.
Ron Allen answers:
Nothing can be done about gravity. It is a natural law.
The market is a human creation which most of us obey out
of custom, convention, habit, etc. Capitalism is not a
natural system, but an artificial system, and the rules
of the market only apply to a market system.
Baseball has rules; but baseball is a human creation,
and the rules of baseball are created to govern a
system that was itself created.
Capitalism also has rules; but capitalism is a human
creation, and the rules of the market are created to
govern a system that was itself created.
<><><><><><><><><>
"By perseverance the snail reached the ark."
-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> The above statement clearly indicates you don't have a clue about what
> freedom is all about.
Ron Allen answers:
And I am perfectly willing to read whatever message you
wish to post which will educate me as to what true freedom
is all about.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> You can't have liberty and equality at the same time.
Ron Allen answers:
I disagree with this very typical and representative
conservative and capitalist opinion. I believe we can
enjoy both liberty and equality coexisting and concurrent.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> It's possible to have neither, but you can't have both.
Ron Allen answers:
I believe that authentic libertarianism must also and
always be aligned with egalitarianism. I believe these
are compatible ideals, harmonious ideas, and that they
can and should coexist.
<><><><><><><><><>
"Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before
anything will be done?"
-- John Steinbeck
Constantinople wrote:
> Other people do not employ your concepts, so it is at best humorous
> when you describe their views in terms of your own obsessions. I for
> one don't care whether a society has the property classified-as-
> classless-by-Ron.
Ron Allen answers:
If you do not care, then perhaps you will not mind if the
workers unite at last and take action to change the world.
<><><><><><><>
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and
astonish the rest."
-- Mark Twain
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> What you just said doesn't make any sense. Socialism, by its very
> definition, involves government ownership. Government and pacifism can
> never coexist, since pacifism is the abscence of coercian and government
> is based on force. Pacifism requires complete libertarianism and total
> respect for morality on the part of everyone involved (which is
> unacheivable in practice).
Mike wrote:
> Socialism, by its very definition, involves social ownership (read: the
> public). Whether or not the society has a government is variable. Most
> people believe what you're saying about socialism due to its
> misrepresentation as Marxism (even so, Marx himself stated that as
> classes dissolved so would the necessity for a government).
Ron Allen answers:
Mark, thank you for promptly answering Mr. Dunn's post.
I have saved it for a future reply, when I can take some
sufficient time to give a worthwhile answer.
<><><><><><><>
"All life is meeting."
Martin Buber
The market is a direct consequence of people having different values
and the ability to enter into voluntary agreements.
The only way to eliminate it is to force all people to have the same
values and to forbid voluntary agreements.
--
The 1 & only place that a design is conceived is in the mind
of the designer. As this design un-folds over time, it is
often captured on such high-tech media as white boards, napkins,
& scraps of paper. -- Grady Booch
Equality under the law, certainly.
Equality of outcome? Not a chance.
People have different abilities, desires, and luck.
You can keep them equal only by making them all slaves.
--
Windows2000 - from the people who brought you edlin.
Anything they do that is done with the voluntary consent of all involved
is perfectly alright with me.
> You can't have liberty and equality at the same time.
> It's possible to have neither, but you can't have both.
It depends what sort of equality you mean. You can have liberty and
still have legal equality and even equality of oppurtunity. What you
can't have is liberty and equal results. Chance and unequal starting
abilities and situations cause liberty to ensure unequal results.
DS
>Ron Allen wrote:
>> If every honest attempt to establish a classless society will always
>> result in the re-institution of another class society, then why do
>> those who favor a class society care?
>
>Constantinople wrote:
>> Other people do not employ your concepts, so it is at best humorous
>> when you describe their views in terms of your own obsessions. I for
>> one don't care whether a society has the property classified-as-
>> classless-by-Ron.
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>If you do not care, then perhaps you will not mind if the
>workers unite at last and take action to change the world.
Your mind is trapped in Marxist rhetoric.
>On Sun, 16 Sep 2001 19:16:00 -0400, Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>Ron Allen wrote:
>>> I do not want human beings subject to market forces.
>>
>>Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>>> Well, I do not want human beings subject to gravity. But it's more
>>> likely that we'll be able do to something about that, than about the
>>> market.
>>
>>Ron Allen answers:
>>Nothing can be done about gravity. It is a natural law.
>>The market is a human creation which most of us obey out
>>of custom, convention, habit, etc.
>
>The market is a direct consequence of people having different values
>and the ability to enter into voluntary agreements.
>
>The only way to eliminate it is to force all people to have the same
>values and to forbid voluntary agreements.
Ron wants the market to go away, so he has to believe it's the sort of
thing that can go away, like a habit. His beliefs are generated by his
desires rather than by observation and reason.
>Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>> You can't have liberty and equality at the same time.
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>I disagree with this very typical and representative
>conservative and capitalist opinion.
I agree with Jeff's statement, and consider it an observation rather
than an opinion. It also stands to reason: free people will make
different choices and will experience different outcomes, leading to
inequality.
>I believe we can
>enjoy both liberty and equality coexisting and concurrent.
It's clear that you wish people could enjoy both liberty and equality.
But a wish is not enough to make it true.
It is impossible to create equality, where it does not naturally occur,
without destroying liberty.
"Jeffrey C. Dege" wrote:[...]
> You can't have liberty and equality at the same time.
--
Best wishes,
Robert Allen Leeper
A slave is yet a slave if his master
Allows him to make any decision as to which
He, the master, is utterly indifferent
After Nozick
That isn't clear to me. Based upon pasts posts that I've read, his
conception of liberty is more akin to the liberty of the rulers to do
what they want--so long as they meet his standards of democratic
participation.
To illustrate, in Ron's system, blacks could be forcibly segregated,
shot for talking to a white women, etc., etc., but as long as black
suffrage continued, they would be "free."
Ron Allen wrote:
> I disagree with this very typical and representative conservative and
> capitalist opinion. I believe we can enjoy both liberty and equality
> coexisting and concurrent.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> Equality under the law, certainly.
Ron Allen answers:
That is pretty much what egalitarians mean by the equality
they advocate. Legal equality, political equality, and
economic equality, etc.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> Equality of outcome? Not a chance.
Ron Allen answers:
But egalitarians do not believe every outcome will be
equal. Anti-egalitarians like to impute this belief to
egalitarians.
One the other hand, there are scenarios and situations
in which an equal start, and a level playing field, can
have equivalent results, even if the outcomes are not
equal. In capitalism, the outcomes for each individual
are not according to the productive labor they contribute.
You can be super-rich and super-idle, while others are
super-poor and over-worked.
"From each according to ability; to each according to
need." This is not an social covenant promising equal
results. Abilities are not equal, are not identical.
And needs are not uniform.
One of the points where socialism differs from capitalism
is that socialism simply does not favor punishing people
with less abilities. Every person's needs ought to be
met, no matter what their different abilities.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> People have different abilities, desires, and luck.
Ron Allen answers:
Egalitarianism does not disagree with this truth.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> You can keep them equal only by making them all slaves.
Ron Allen answers:
I do not agree with you on this.
Besides, you have already stated your agreement with a
core egalitarian principle, i.e., equality under the law.
Will this equality make people into slaves? If not, then
which equality/equalities do you think egalitarians
advocate and believe in, and which you think will make
all people into slaves?
<><><><><><><><>
"The only stable state is the one in which all men are
equal before the law."
-- Aristotle
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> Well, I do not want human beings subject to gravity. But it's more
> likely that we'll be able do to something about that, than about the
> market.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Nothing can be done about gravity. It is a natural law. The market
> is a human creation which most of us obey out of custom, convention,
> habit, etc.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> The market is a direct consequence of people having different values
> and the ability to enter into voluntary agreements.
Ron Allen answers:
Speaking as a libertarian and democratic socialist, I see
no reason why socialism ought to be interpreted as if it
were anti-pluralist. I am a perspectivist, and so I favor
pluralism. There is nothing whatsoever in the philosophy
of anarcho-libertarianism which contradicts the reality
and actuality of people having different values. But it
is just as important to recall that people also have some
uniform values.
Also, there is nothing at all in the principles and in the
practices of a libertarian and democratic socialism which
is opposed to people being free to enter into voluntary
agreements. Authentic socialism is voluntaristic, and
confederalist, which means people and communities can
establish agreements between themselves.
The problem with so many of the right-wing criticisms of
socialism is that the socialism they find fault with is
an anti-socialistic version of socialism.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> The only way to eliminate it is to force all people to have the same
> values and to forbid voluntary agreements.
Ron Allen answers:
Authentic socialism does not recommend forcing all people
to have the same values. Authentic socialism is both
democratic and pluralistic. Socialism is also voluntarist
as well as libertarian, and so there is nothing in the
principles of socialism which would forbid voluntary
agreements.
<><><><><><><><><>
"Selfishness is the only real atheism."
-- Israel Zangwill
Ron Allen wrote:
> If you do not care, then perhaps you will not mind if the workers
> unite at last and take action to change the world.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> Anything they do that is done with the voluntary consent of all involved
> is perfectly alright with me.
Ron Allen answers:
That is precisely and exactly all that I have ever
advocated in my every posted message.
Do you think that I have not advocated socialism via
voluntary consent?
<><><><><><><><>
"Patient endurance is the perfection of charity."
-- St. Ambrose
Constantinople wrote:
> Other people do not employ your concepts, so it is at best humorous
> when you describe their views in terms of your own obsessions. I for
> one don't care whether a society has the property classified-as-
> classless-by-Ron.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If you do not care, then perhaps you will not mind if the workers
> unite at last and take action to change the world.
Constantinople wrote:
> Your mind is trapped in Marxist rhetoric.
Ron Allen answers:
I bet I have read more books opposed to Marxism and to
communism than you have ever read favoring Marxism and
communism.
<><><><><><><><>
"The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten
gold."
-- G. K. Chesterton
>Ron Allen wrote:
I don't doubt you have, because of your obsession with it. I pay no
special attention to Marxism, either pro or con.
Even if everyone was equally talented, etc., they'd still make different
choices, have different preferences, etc.
--
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr.
Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers
come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of
ideas that could provoke such a question.
-- Babbage, Charles (1792-1871)
Which, of course, exposes the first of the socialist lies - that there
is such a thing as economic rights, and that economic equality is an
issue of law.
>"From each according to ability; to each according to
>need." This is not an social covenant promising equal
>results.
No, it's a social covenent guaranteeing tyranny.
>One of the points where socialism differs from capitalism
>is that socialism simply does not favor punishing people
>with less abilities. Every person's needs ought to be
>met, no matter what their different abilities.
The above would be a meaningful statement only if there was the
possibility of there being an objective determination of "need".
There isn't.
>Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>> You can keep them equal only by making them all slaves.
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>I do not agree with you on this.
>
>Besides, you have already stated your agreement with a
>core egalitarian principle, i.e., equality under the law.
Which you immediately warped into supporting the idea of ecomonic
equality, which flat-out cannot be achieved without violating the Rule
of Law.
>Will this equality make people into slaves?
Yes. Because you cannot establish economic equality using an objective
and impartial legal system. The only way to establish economic equality
is to allow the government to engage in arbitrary action.
You really don't get it, do you?
You allow some voluntary associations, therefore you are not a tyrant?
Sorry, it works the other way. So long as you support even _one_
non-voluntary association, you are a tyrant.
--
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of
a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit
by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders
in those who would gain by the new ones.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513
Revokable consent? By every individual?
One man, one veto?
> Besides, you have already stated your agreement with a
> core egalitarian principle, i.e., equality under the law.
> Will this equality make people into slaves? If not, then
> which equality/equalities do you think egalitarians
> advocate and believe in, and which you think will make
> all people into slaves?
>
> "The only stable state is the one in which all men are
> equal before the law."
> -- Aristotle
Except Aristotle was anti-egalitarian and believed in slavery...
"The justice of giving equal protection to the rights of all [equality
before the law], is maintained by those who support the most outrageous
inequality in the rights
themselves. Even in slave countries it is theoretically admitted that the
rights of the slave, such as they are, ought to be as sacred as those of the
master; and that a tribunal which fails to enforce them with strictness is
wanting in justice" (J.S. Mill 'Utilitarianism')
Whatever ideology you espouse is a con, whether or not the word 'marxism' is
mentioned in any of the texts you read. The properties are still mutually
exclusive. So apparently, you don't pay special attention to any particular
ideology at all and have no real interest in learning. Which wouldn't
surprise me considering the stand you have taken.
It's not Marxism that is evil, or Socialism, or Communism.
It's _all_ 'isms.
The very idea that you have some philisophical framework that determines
how the world _should_ work is inherently evil.
Regardless of the specific details.
--
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that worked ...A complex system designed from scratch never
works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over,
beginning with a working simple system.
-- Grady Booch
Considering "primitive" societies were communal, wouldn't you say communism
is more of an observation of a natural way of living than a philosophy?
Primitive societies were only communal on the scale of large
families. For a more realistic account of primitive people's
I recommend "The last days of Eden."
Many primitive societies have less respect for property
rights than the west, but this does not take the form of
giving and sharing, but either of feudal oppression, or a
propensity to grab stuff and run, and most commonly both.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
twUVuUT85LIHTL0z9BAbx7vz8YY4OFYLFh0JLvB+
4X8GeQXaDt0WTuk8F0jsEU24qAPWuB8Cor8xzgT6v
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
> > . . .
> > "The only stable state is the one in which all men are
> > equal before the law."
> > -- Aristotle
>
> Except Aristotle was anti-egalitarian and believed in slavery...
>
> "The justice of giving equal protection to the rights of all [equality before
>
> the law], is maintained by those who support the most outrageous inequality
> in the rights themselves. Even in slave countries it is theoretically
> admitted
> that the rights of the slave, such as they are, ought to be as sacred as
> those
> of the master; and that a tribunal which fails to enforce them with
> strictness is wanting in justice" (J.S. Mill 'Utilitarianism')
There are no sharp divisions in history. There are only transitions. During
those transitions, whether they last for years or generations, contradictory
sets of ideas fight each other for dominance. We try to develop a system that
allows for the acceptance of all the ideas, but this is transitory at best.
Finally, we end up rejecting one set of ideas over the other and the transition
is complete.
Judging the past with today's hindsight is just as futile for history as it is
for our individual lives. "If only we had known then what we know now." This
is an exercise in frustration and misplaced guilt. History is a tool for us to
use to learn from our mistakes so we can better blaze our path into the future,
not a burden to drag us down and block our journey.
Tomm
--
History, n. An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant,
which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers,
mostly fools. - Ambrose Bierce
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to
entertain a thought without accepting it. - Aristotle
Actually Chagnon's (the author of the book you suggested) research has
basically been evidence that is lent in support of statism, a fact that he
blatantly points out. The Yanomamƶ (the only tribe his research really even
focuses on, which doesn't give him a very authoritative view on the subject
in my opinion) supposedly back up the theory that without a government
society is extremely violent and self-serving. I'm not sure where exactly
you stand on statism, but if you're going to support Chagnon's work then I
take it you aren't an anarchist. Here are some some interesting 'facts'
from his response to the book Darkness in El Dorado:
Cross-cultural evidence on violence in non-state societies
----------------------------------------------------------
Yanomamƶ mortality rates due to warfare are quite typical for a non-state
society:
Percentage of male deaths due to warfare
Jivaro ~60%
Yanomamo (Shamatari) ~40%
Mae Enga ~40%
Dugum Dani ~30%
Murngin ~30%
Yanomamo (Namowei) ~25%
Huli ~20%
Gebusi ~10%
US and Europe in the 20th Century ~2%
Percentage of all deaths due to warfare
Jivaro ~35%
Yanomamo (Shamatari) ~23%
Mae Enga ~20%
Dugum Dani ~15%
Yanomamo (Namowei) ~15%
Huli ~14%
Anggor ~12%
Gebusi ~8%
Ancient Mexico (state) ~5%
France 19th century (state) ~4%
Western Europe 17th century (state) ~3%
Here is a paragraph for further research done on the subject of high
violence in the Yanomamo from the Dept. of Anthropology at the Univ. of
California Santa Barbara, where Chagnon is the Professor Emeritus:
"Many people misconstrue Chagnon's work to mean that the Yanomamƶ are
exceptionally violent, unlike other groups. Nothing could be further from
the truth. In fact, we now know that most non-state societies have (or had)
high rates of violence compared to state societies. Chagnon was one of the
first to document in detail the profound impact of intergroup violence on a
non-state society. Subsequent research has shown that the Yanomamƶ are quite
typical in this regard."
So, what I want to know is, are you supporting ALL if Chagnon's
work--including his official position that the violent nature of stateless
people is due to their not having a government--or do you think he only
partially knows what he is talking about?
There is nothing wrong with "isms". Certain people share certain ways of
thinking, mannerisms, or customs, and it's convenient to have names for
those things.
>The very idea that you have some philisophical framework that determines
>how the world _should_ work is inherently evil.
>
I guess everybody is inherently evil then in your opinion. Nobody with a
fully functioning brain doesn't have some kind of idea as to how they think
the world should work. You seem to be implying that through philosophical
frameworks ("isms") people impose their arbitrary ideas on others rather
than allowing a natural, free flowing development of society. That's
totally meaningless though, because you have to define what is natural and
what isn't. It isn't a constant.
Didn't Soren Kierkegaard once attack Hans Christian Andersen as being an
idiot because his autobiography showed that his life had a lack of any
philosophical architecture? Anyway, you CANNOT escape ism's, ist's, or
ian's. Look at nondenominationalists. I understand that this wasn't your
point. However, how can you decry philosophy then make determinations as to
what is evil or good? Aren't those two terms nothing but philosophical
concepts? Obviously if you want a society devoid of any specific plan
because you consider that 'evil' then you live by some sort of morality
restriction, hence all of your choices are made by this code. The only
possible way to have a society not being governed by philosophical framework
would be to throw out morals as well and just let everyone do whatever they
want, which would only last until they realised it was in their best
interest to adopt some form of common morality, thereby creating a
philosophical framework.
> It's not Marxism that is evil, or Socialism, or Communism.
>
> It's _all_ 'isms.
A clear example of Absolutism.
> The very idea that you have some philisophical framework that determines
> how the world _should_ work is inherently evil.
A clear example of extreme Pessimism.
Your philosophy is how you look at the world. Let's say it is unique enough to
warrant a name all to itself.
Let's call it Jeffreyism.
Clearly inherently evil.
Actually, sweeping all "isms" into a pile and labeling them all evil is no
different from the moral relativism which labels them all good.
I'm afraid it is not so easy to escape your responsibility to make moral
distinctions.
Nice try, though.
Tomm
--
Well, I didn't want any of your yucky, ol' ice cream
anyway! So nyah! - anonymous modern-day philosopher
Antonio wrote in message ...
Ron Allen answers:
No intelligent egalitarian will disagree with this true
statement.
Speaking as an egalitarian, I am very much aware that
people are not equally talented, and that people have
different preferences, and make different decisions.
None of these verities contradict egalitarianism. If you
believe these facts are contrary to egalitarianism as you
happen to understand the philosophy, then it is your
understanding which is dubious.
<><><><><><><>
"It is the mark of the cultured man that he is aware of
the fact that equality is an ethical and not a biological
principle."
-- Ashley Montagu
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> You really don't get it, do you?
> You allow some voluntary associations, therefore you are not a tyrant?
Ron Allen answers:
Who said only some voluntary associations are allowed in
a socialist polity?
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> Sorry, it works the other way. So long as you support even _one_
> non-voluntary association, you are a tyrant.
Ron Allen answers:
I cannot understand why you believe that I support any
non-voluntary associations.
<><><><><><><>
"Eroticism is assenting to life even in death."
-- Georges Bataille
Ron Allen wrote:
> That is precisely and exactly all that I have ever advocated in my every
> posted message.
> Do you think that I have not advocated socialism via voluntary consent?
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> Revokable consent?
Ron Allen answers:
Of course. What principle have I prescribed which would
disallow a revokable consent?
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> By every individual?
Ron Allen answers:
If by this you mean minority rights, I have reiterated
it over and over. Every individual and every minority
has the right to dissent, to disagree with the majority,
to withhold participation or contribution if there is an
incompatibility with the majority community, and even a
right to drop out of the majority society in order to
form a minority, dissident community -- a free and self-
governing counter-cultural association, independent and
autonomous.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> One man, one veto?
Ron Allen answers:
Of course. "One person, one vote" intimates "one person,
one veto".
I believe in both majority rule and minority rights.
<><><><><><><><><>
"Where there is money, there is fighting."
-- Marian Anderson
None of these verities contradict equality before the law, but as soon
as you start talking about economic equality, you very much _do_ start
talking about principles that contradict these basic truths.
--
Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom
which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent
posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy
and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which
inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.
- Thomas Jefferson, A Declaration setting forth the Causes and Necessity
of taking up Arms, 1775.
Some non-voluntary associations would be required.
>Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
>> Sorry, it works the other way. So long as you support even _one_
>> non-voluntary association, you are a tyrant.
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>I cannot understand why you believe that I support any
>non-voluntary associations.
You support economic equality. That cannot be established without force
and arbitrary government action.
--
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think
things out for himself without regard to the prevailing superstitions
and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the
government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so,
if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic
personally he is apt to spread discontent among those who are.
- H.L. Mencken
Constantinople wrote:
> Other people do not employ your concepts, so it is at best humorous
> when you describe their views in terms of your own obsessions. I for
> one don't care whether a society has the property classified-as-
> classless-by-Ron.
Ron Allen wrote:
> If you do not care, then perhaps you will not mind if the workers
> unite at last and take action to change the world.
Constantinople wrote:
> Your mind is trapped in Marxist rhetoric.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I bet I have read more books opposed to Marxism and to communism than
> you have ever read favoring Marxism and communism.
Constantinople wrote:
> I don't doubt you have, because of your obsession with it. I pay no
> special attention to Marxism, either pro or con.
Ron Allen answers:
From your malapropos reply, I gather that you also pay no
special attention to anything you read.
I have my obsessions. And I'm sure you have yours.
What of it?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"Short of genius, a rich man can't imagine poverty."
-- Charles PĆ©guy
> It's _all_ 'isms.
Ron Allen answers:
Anarchism is evil? Libertarianism is evil? Atheism is
evil? Existentialism is evil? Capitalism is evil?
Perspectivism is evil? Environmentalism is evil?
Evolutionism is evil? Humanism is evil? Voluntarism is
evil? Materialism is evil? Pacifism is evil? Pluralism
is evil? Optimism is evil?
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> The very idea that you have some philosophical framework that
> determines how the world _should_ work is inherently evil.
> Regardless of the specific details.
<><><><><><><><><>
"Modesty is ruin to a harlot."
-- Anonymous
Any attempt to impose some sort of artificial order on the world and on
human interaction is evil.
--
It is impossible to address the problem of rampant crime without talking
about the moral responsibility of the intended victim. Crime is rampant
because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it,
submit to it. We permit and encourage it because we do not fight back,
immediately, then and there, where it happens. Crime is not rampant
because we do not have enough prisons, because judges and prosecutors are
too soft, because the police are hamstrung with absurd technicalities. The
defect is there, in our character. We are a nation of coward and shirkers.
- Jeffrey R. Snyder, "A Nation of Cowards"
I don't know precisely what Ron's views are, but what I consider socialism
is supplementing political democracy with economic democracy. That is,
allowing power to flow upward from those who contribute to the productive
process rather than down through tyranical hierarchies. I don't see why
this would need to be established with force or arbitrary government action.
It's liberation.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote in message ...
Ron Allen wrote:
> No intelligent egalitarian will disagree with this true statement.
> Speaking as an egalitarian, I am very much aware that people are not
> equally talented, and that people have different preferences, and make
> different decisions.
> None of these verities contradict egalitarianism. If you believe these
> facts are contrary to egalitarianism, as you happen to understand the
> philosophy, then it is your understanding which is dubious.
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> None of these verities contradict equality before the law, but as soon
> as you start talking about economic equality, you very much _do_ start
> talking about principles that contradict these basic truths.
Ron Allen answers:
What does economic equality mean to you? And what are
the principles of economic equality which contradict
"these basic truths"? And what basic truths are you
talking about?
<><><><><><><><>
"Hungry bellies have no ears."
-- English proverb
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> You support economic equality. That cannot be established without
> force and arbitrary government action.
Ron Allen answers:
I suppose that depends upon what economic equality means
to you.
Justin The Great wrote:
> I don't know precisely what Ron's views are, but what I consider
> socialism is supplementing political democracy with economic democracy.
> That is, allowing power to flow upward from those who contribute to
> the productive process rather than down through tyranical hierarchies.
> I don't see why this would need to be established with force or
> arbitrary government action. It's liberation.
Ron Allen answers:
Right on!!!
<><><><><><><><><><>
"To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality
impossible."
-- James A. Froude
> It's _all_ 'isms.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Anarchism is evil? Libertarianism is evil? Atheism is evil?
> Existentialism is evil? Capitalism is evil? Perspectivism is evil?
> Environmentalism is evil? Evolutionism is evil? Humanism is evil?
> Voluntarism is evil? Materialism is evil? Pacifism is evil?
> Pluralism is evil? Optimism is evil?
Jeffrey C. Dege wrote:
> Any attempt to impose some sort of artificial order on the world and on
> human interaction is evil.
Ron Allen wrote:
Above you said all isms are evil. Now you've altered
your blanket assertion, and you're saying that an
imposed ism is evil.
I agree with your assertion that imposing an ism is evil,
but I do not believe anarcho-libertarian democratic
socialism ought to be, or needs to be, imposed.
<><><><><><><>
"Manners make the man."
-- English proverb
>>>Ron Allen answers:
>>>I cannot understand why you believe that I support any
>>>non-voluntary associations.
>>
>>You support economic equality. That cannot be established without force
>>and arbitrary government action.
>>
>
>I don't know precisely what Ron's views are, but what I consider socialism
>is supplementing political democracy with economic democracy. That is,
>allowing power to flow upward from those who contribute to the productive
>process rather than down through tyranical hierarchies. I don't see why
>this would need to be established with force or arbitrary government action.
That's probably because you avoid thinking about it concretely. Your
mind stays at the level of pleasant rhetoric.
What about employee hierarchies and submitting to the authority of those you
are subordinate to, and the restrictions on informality, criticism and
independent thought in the workplace? People are punished for deviating
from the cookie-cutter. Aren't these impositions of artificial order on the
world and human interaction? Perhaps I should ask another question directed
at the majority of this group: have you ever held a blue-collar job? I
have been working industrial and low-rung corporate jobs since I was 12 (as
a janitor for an attorney's office), and after awhile you see how truly
skewed things are. Most of the lower class doesn't understand politics or
economics, but they do have a natural resistance to giving the wealthy any
more power or freedom. They are primarily concerned with making ends meet
and being with their family and friends. If anything I see a free market as
an artificial order imposed on the world involuntarily because there is no
way in hell the lower class is ever going to support it.
Of course I think about it concretely. It's obvious to any passive observer
that the current system of state capitalism can't be held in place without
force or arbitrary government action, as well as state socialism. I can't
say for certain if the system I espouse would work; or how it would come
about; or how it would be implemented. The same doubts exist about the
system you espouse. We can't say these things for certain. They're
entirely theoretical. These kind of debates are pointless though. If you
want a more free society, then you go out and make it more free. Find
injustices and systems of coercion and domination, and band together with
others to challenge them. You won't make society any more free by sitting
here debating who has the better conjecture. It's not productive at all.
While I think there is a time and place for these kind of debates and
conversation, the amount of stuff like this produced by the anarchist
community in relation to meaningful and productive action and material is
sadly disproportionate. Even so, I feel compelled to ask you. What do you
think is the problem with economic democracy? What sort of gross injustice
is it to allow power to flow upward from those who actually contribute to
the productive process, rather than down from despotic owners? If you get
to the level of multinationals, we're talking about institutions that employ
millions of people--that's about the size of a small nation. An
institution, which the well-being of millions of people is dependent on, in
which the power structure is completely top-down. That sounds rather
totalitarian to me. How can you deny that such large institutions of power
wouldn't be able to exert an overwhelming influence on the other
institutions of the society, thus limiting the rights of the general
population?
I agree wholeheartedly that markets are human institutions, created by
humans, and maintained by humans. Whether or not they are legitimate is a
matter of debate. People who defend them tend to suggest that this is
somehow the natural order of things, and that any other system would be the
imposition of an alternative system would somehow be against human nature.
That is, of course, ideological claptrap. Capitalism is just as much an
invention of humans as any other social order.