marxism is the big one, they consider gainful employment to be exploitative because "the worker doesnt get his fair (or full) share of the product of his labor." this is why Marx invented the labor theory of value, in order to equivocate on the term "value" and also dismiss the contributions of capitalists. He knew what he was doing, engels worked in a factory and both were doubtless at least superficially familiar with the production process. So the two main arguments there are:
1)"value" is a verb, everyone does it differently
2)it takes work to accumulate the means of production, that man (the capitalist) necessarily deserves compensation for his efforts.
Traditionally the beneficiaries of a marxist ideology are the higher ranking people in the movement that implement it, as the practice of communism is all about murder & rapine, and rhetorical pseudo-justification. Marxism provides ammunition for the latter.
This is a good idea. Though no argument is going to convince a socialist employment is legitimate.
"cost the limit of price" basically they think its immoral to charge more than it cost to produce something. This fails for four economic reasons. So, they neglect the importance of a functioning price system at allocating scarce resources, they dont understand the role of profits in stimulating production, they neglect the accumulation of capital that made it possible to produce things at a lower subsequent cost, and they neglect to account for the depreciation of aforementioned capital, as those machines will need to be replaced one day. I'm not sure who benefits, unless its a group of bandits who steal capital goods and then depreciate them.
I'd like someone to write a book someone called 'The Philosophy of Profit' which would examine profit in theory.
From Isabel Patterson's God of the Machine:
Production is profit ; and profit is production. They are not merely related; they are the same thing. When a man plants potatoes, if he does not get back more than he put in, he has produced nothing. This would be obvious if he put a potato in the ground today and dug up the same potato tomorrow, but it is all the same if he plants one potato and gets only one potato as a crop. His labor if wasted; then he must starve, or someone else must feed him if he has no reserve from previous production. The objection to profit is as if a bystander, observing the planter digging his crop, should say: "You put in only one potato and you are taking out a dozen. You must have taken them away from someone else; those extra potatoes cannot be yours by right." If profit is denounced, it must be assumed that running at a loss is admirable. On the contrary, that is what requires justification. Profit is self-justifying. When any institution is not run for profit, it is necessarily at the cost of the producers. One way the non-producers go about destroying a free production system by degrees is to persuade men of wealth to endow foundations for "social work" or for economic or political "research." The arguments sought by such research will generally be in justification of parasitism, favoring the creation of more sinecures by extension of the political power.
Production is profit ; and profit is production. They are not merely related; they are the same thing. When a man plants potatoes, if he does not get back more than he put in, he has produced nothing. This would be obvious if he put a potato in the ground today and dug up the same potato tomorrow, but it is all the same if he plants one potato and gets only one potato as a crop. His labor if wasted; then he must starve, or someone else must feed him if he has no reserve from previous production. The objection to profit is as if a bystander, observing the planter digging his crop, should say: "You put in only one potato and you are taking out a dozen. You must have taken them away from someone else; those extra potatoes cannot be yours by right." If profit is denounced, it must be assumed that running at a loss is admirable. On the contrary, that is what requires justification. Profit is self-justifying.
When any institution is not run for profit, it is necessarily at the cost of the producers. One way the non-producers go about destroying a free production system by degrees is to persuade men of wealth to endow foundations for "social work" or for economic or political "research." The arguments sought by such research will generally be in justification of parasitism, favoring the creation of more sinecures by extension of the political power.
When you labor to produce something, you must get back a larger return than your labor put in, or else you have produced nothing. The labor theory of value is simply incorrect. Similarly, the basis of earning a profit price is that X can produce something cheaper than Y could produce it for himself--typically because X has the advantage of specialization and of a good amount of productive capital as well.
This is the reason that Y is perfectly happy to buy X's product, because Y is actually saving money and time by buying X's product, because if Y had to do it for himself he'd both spend more money to make it (no economies of scale in buying materials), achieve a poorer result (lacking productive capital), and lose a lot of time as well (have to learn the trade, in part specializing himself to it).
In every voluntary transaction then, both parties benefit. X because he doesn't actually want the product he produces, he has way too much of it. He's just got a comparative advantage in prooducing it because he has specialized in its production. And Y because X's product satisfies a want and does so far cheaper than he could do it for himself.
or you appeal to utilitarian/consequentialist grounds, why your counterpart should accept the libertarian notion of ownership. Neither of these rebuttals is wholly satisfactory, because in essence you are arguing with a potential criminal about why he shouldnt rob you. Hence argumentation ethics, and exposing weaknesses in your opponents position.
theres also the appeal to animal kingdom examples of territoriality inside a species, where continuous occupation is not necessary, but willingness to defend it is. From acceptance of these examples as instances of "well functioning communities" one can extrapolate that, homo sapiens, being a social animal and possessing of a social order that includes structural engineering and division of labor, may create, enforce, and maintain and recognize territorial propertarian claims in a well-functioning social order without continuous occupation. This would lead to the utilitarian argument.
I've never accepted that property norms are only a social relation. They are also necessary simply to live. If one has a right to live then surely one has a right to the corollaries that produce life.
One of these corollaries is property. Because property means the right to make sole decisions about and dispose of an item as you alone decide and to section it off for your sole use. This is a more than adequate description of what happens when you eat something.
If you cannot dispose of food for your sole use you cannot live. And if you cannot produce food via sole-ownership of land, then you cannot live either. Thus we walk back the argument to abstract property rights over even land as all corollaries from the right to life.
If you cannot own land then it would be perfectly legitimate for society to kill you by denying you any use of the products of land. And if you look into the history of Ukraine, this is exactly what the communists did to the Ukrainians, killing something like 10 million of them by starvation, using troops to ship all of the food produced in the Ukraine out of that land, as a form of political murder.
Similarly, Mao's Great Leap Forward communized the land and farms and resulting in the deaths of some 30 million people.
Communism has always screeched to a bloody halt the world round at trying to actually implement the theory on food production where, if things go wrong, people starve. The recovery from Mao's Great Leap occurred when one village secretly agreed to pretend they had communized everything in front of authorities but to go back to owningand working their own plots amongst each other.
Get this, the way they were finally caught is that their village was so productive the authorities finally noticed the lack of privation and asked what the hell was going on :P
After that, their village was used as a model to de-communize the rest of the country.
And if you cannot produce food via sole-ownership of land, then you cannot live either.
I find that labour theory of value is routed in a few misconceptions.
1) That individuals are victims of their circumstances.
Individuals have the opportunity and choice available to them that negates this argument. Observably I have seen people that were born in to poverty and grew up to be successful and prosperous and I have seen individuals born in to wealth that grew up to be bums and drug addicts.
2) That individuals are forced to work out of necessity to survive and thus slaves to labour itself.
Individuals are not forced to work, individuals are forced to survive however as a consequence of life itself. Labour is the result of the application of the action that facilitates survival.
3) That the value of labour should be proportionate to the profit achieved as a result of that labour, regardless of the input that labour required in proportion to the overall input that was required.
Value of labour could never be dictated by the labourer because the labourer would always value his labour at a higher rate than that would make the individuals labour possible. ie the labourer would always value his job at a rate that would make his job not viable to the employer.
Well the best way to refute labor theory of value is to introduce marxists to marginal utility.
That things are really valued due to their marginal utility and not what inputs are required to make it.
So for example, i could use very little labor to produce 1 cup of water, but it is highly valuable in africa. And i could use a lot of labor to produce a cell phone but its worth nothing compared to a gallon of water in africa.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
Malachi:this is why Marx invented the labor theory of value
Marx didn't invent the labor theory of value. It's been around since at least the Middle Ages, and in the modern period Ricardo (1772-1823) popularized it long before Marx came along.
Anyway, the idea that employment is illegitimate cannot stand without some theory of objective value for labor; i.e. if the value of labor is not objective, then there is no basis for saying that the market price for labor falls short of the labor's "true value." Theories of objective value are pretty easily refuted, so I'd say that's the best route to attack this anti-employment nonsense.
EDIT: And, I'd say it's also fairly easy to demonstrate that employment does not involve "alienation of labor" at all, and the argument against employment from a criticism of the alienation of labor is altogether a strawman.
Anenome: From Isabel Patterson's God of the Machine: Production is profit ; and profit is production. .....
Production is profit ; and profit is production. .....
Well, Isabel would have a pretty good argument if she simply replaced the term "Production" with "Gain", but I'm afraid that the eqivocation renders her argumet fallacious., ..unfortunately. Production is NOT profit. Production is Production.
Ok, mutualism. For the sake of expediency I used wiki as my reference. They also believe in a labor theory of value. See above "cost the limit of price" basically they think its immoral to charge more than it cost to produce something. This fails for four economic reasons. So, they neglect the importance of a functioning price system at allocating scarce resources, they dont understand the role of profits in stimulating production, they neglect the accumulation of capital that made it possible to produce things at a lower subsequent cost, and they neglect to account for the depreciation of aforementioned capital, as those machines will need to be replaced one day. I'm not sure who benefits, unless its a group of bandits who steal capital goods and then depreciate them.
Mutualism is not based on labor theory of value, but on Roussauan (not Lockean) labor theory of propety, and can perfectly function on the subjective theory of labor. Best perspective of the mutualist perpective on value is: http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
I think the best explanation from a general socialist perspective of why is capitalism exploitative is this: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html
Here'a a take by David Ellerman on why is employment unjustified: http://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/inalienable-rights/consent/
"“Inalienable” Means Inalienable Even With Consent"
No, inalienable means it cannot in fact be taken away, as a function of reality. That is certainly not true for the products of labor which can quite easily be sold and separated from your person.
Inalienability always has to do with inhering rights in the person of an individual. Not their products.
That is certainly not true for the products of labor which can quite easily be sold and separated from your person.
Which I don't know who spoke against, and the topic is not about transferability of the product of labor, which is sale, but the alienation of labor, which is employment.
I wonder how repair work could ever get done in a socialist utopia. I mean, you can obviously repair something you own, but what if it's something you don't know how to fix?
would it be permissible to pay someone to fix it?
Wouldn't that mean it must be permissible for someone to accept money for fixing it?
Wouldn't this be an employer-employee relationship?
No.
As I explained multiple times, doing a service job is not employment.
This is obvious from examples of service providers that have bosses.
The service provider provides the service (e.g. fixing something) to the customer (and not to the employer) and the customer payes the employer (not the employee). Again the employee does not provide service to the employer (but to the third party- customer) but alienates (/transferes the title over) his labor to the employer, and then the employer gets payed for the service, as if he did it, which he didn't.
So if you need something fixed, you would call a self-employed handyman, or would call a fixing things coop and use their services.
stsoc:tthe topic is not about transferability of the product of labor, which is sale, but the alienation of labor, which is employment.
Suppose A produces a wiget and sells it to B. This is legitiimate in your view.
Suppose A produces a widget, which upon being produced is the property of C (A's employer), who then sells it to B. This you say is illegitimate.
But I fail to see the difference. It seems to me that in both cases A is selling the product of his labor (as opposed to alienating his labor - whatever that may mean), the only difference being that in the first case A sells the product to B post-production, whereas in the second case A sells it to C pre-production (i.e. by labor contract).
Now, if you're going to attack the legitimacy of A selling the product of his labor in advance to C, on what grounds would you do so that would not also challenge the legitimacy of all contracts involving not-yet-existent property? For example, loan contracts, where a borrower transfers ownership of his future property to a creditor? Is that illegitmate too? And if so, how are the workers in a cooperative supposed to obtain their capital in the first place: since they can't be employed by someone with the capital, and also can't borrow it?
N.B. Note well that the employer-employee relationship can be fully described by saying that one person sells the product of his labor in advance by contact to another person, without any reference to selling/alienating labor.. The entire concept of labor alienation is superfluous ontological baggage inserted into the employer-employee relationship for the sole purpose of (fallaciously) arguing against its validity. As I said elsewhere, it is a strawman argument.
Suppose A produces a widget, which upon being produced is the property of C
Impossible in socialism. Rent of means of production is in direct contradiction with right to property (which can be according to strict interprentation of Labor theory of property called right to the full product of labor).
(as opposed to alienating his labor - whatever that may mean)
When I make something, it is mine, that's the basics of property. It is illegitimate that tools that I use to make that do not belong to me because then that what I make doesn't belong to me, but is taken by the owner of the means of production, even though he didn' exert labor, which is central to property.
and also can't borrow it?
Who said they can't borrow money?
Read the links I gave. The section from Anarchist FAQ gives anwers to many question that arise when talking about legitimacy of employment:
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secC2.html
The entire concept of labor alienation is superfluous ontological baggage inserted into the employer-employee relationship for the sole purpose of (fallaciously) arguing against its validity. As I said elsewhere, it is a strawman argument.
That case would have a totally different application in practive then alienation of labor that we have today. In the case where the workers sell their product in advance, who then sells it to someone else is ennacted in cases where worker cooperatives make products, sell them to retailers, who then sells it to other people.
Alienation of labor is the essential difference between that and employment, and not it any way superfluous, unlike for the vain attempts to picture employment as a service provision, which it is not.
Again, read the links. Or better, read some chapters of Ellerman's book Property and Contract in Economics, which can be found here:
http://www.ellerman.org/Davids-Stuff/Books/P&C-Book.pdf
I don't think you really answered my question, so let me ask again:
Is it legitimate for A to sell the product of his labor by contract in advance to B?
Why wouldn't it be?
Indeed.
Now, suppose B buys a widget-producing machine on Monday. He meets with A on Tuesday, and they sign a contract whereby A sells to B in advance the product of his labor resulting from use of this machine (i.e. whatever widgets he might produce), in exchange for an hourly wage for every hour he spends producing widgets. On Wednesday, A comes to the factory and starts using the machine, producing widgets. Per their contract, these widgets are the property of B. As the widgets roll out, B sells them to other people. B then pays to A the wages he is bound to pay by the terms of the contract.
Is this legitimate?
No. As Spooner says:
It is an obvious principle of natural justice, that each man should have the fruits of his own labour. [p.7]
In order that each man may have the fruits of his own labour, it is important, as a general rule, that each man should be his own employer, or work directly for himself, and not for another for wages; because, in the latter case, a part of the fruits of his labour go to his employer, instead of coming to himself . That each man may be his own employer, it is necessary that he have materials, or capital, upon which to bestow his labour." [Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cure,p. 8]
By the vary fact that A uses B's machines to make products, that makes it exploatation (on which employment is based), being that A doesn't receive the full product of his labor.
Rent of means of production is illegitimate.
In my example, A does own the full product of his labor; that's why he was able to sell it in advance to B.
And you already conceded that it is legitimate to sell the product of one's labor in advance.
Absolute ownership and the right to contract mean that a person can sell their labor service for whatever they want and under whatever conditions they want. This makes employment legitimate.
The actual trade going on in an employer / employee is a transfer of risk. The employee prefers the guaranteed wage, the employer prefers the risk of selling the product on an open market.
If both parties didn't benefit by employment the situation would not occur, as it is an entirely voluntary relationship.
Stsoc's claims rest on a denial of these other praxeologic factors in favor of a dubious moral argument predicated on a misunderstanding of economics, contract, and ownership, and a stubborn refusal to admit that people own themselves and can sell their labor whatever they want and under whatever terms they want. He's already admitted he would inject himself into victimless situations, and by that admitted he is an aggressor. There's really nothing left to discuss. In a free society he would be anathema.
Once you admit you would inject yourself into victimless situations, that logic can be extended indefinitely until total dictatorship. Don't think gays should marry? Think they're doing something wrong even though neither of them are complaining of harm? Stop them against their will. Don't think abortion should be done? Stop that.
The line must be drawn at victimlessness or else you open the entire can of worms. All sorts of reasons can be invented by governments for injecting themselves if only you give ground on that one problem of needing a victim in order to inject coercion.
I interpreted Spooner differently,
It's and obvious principle of natural justice, that each man should have the fruits of his labor; and all arbitrary enactmants by governments, interfering with this result, are nothing better than robbery. p7
is this not an argument against taxation and not labour?
p8
Then he went on to explain that it would be preferable for a man to have the full fruits of his labour and by working for himself he can have the full fruits of his labour. He then went on to make the basic economic point that working for someone else, a part of the fruits of his labour is going to his employer.
This raises a valid point in that an employee could just register his own business and then contract to his employer as a sub contractor. Are you saying that sub contracting is illegitimate? A welding coop could not contract with a building coop?
In my example, A does own the full product of his labor
It is impossible for A to own the full product of his labor if he has to pay for the use of the means of production that he uses to labor.
The actual trade going on in an employer / employee is a transfer of risk
Do profits reflect a reward for risk?
The employee prefers the guaranteed wage, the employer prefers the risk of selling the product on an open market.
Personal preferences don't prove anything.
If both parties didn't benefit by employment the situation would not occur
Likewise with voluntary slavery, which is fortunately banned by law even in the current system.
as it is an entirely voluntary relationship.
Why voluntaryism is not enough?
misunderstanding of economics, contract, and ownership
Property and Contract in Economics
a stubborn refusal to admit that people own themselves
You stubbornly refuse to admit that people's person and actions are inalienable.
Read the short chapter "Employees Versus Independent Contractors" from here: http://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/inalienable-rights/consent/
stsoc:It is impossible for A to own the full product of his labor if he has to pay for the use of the means of production that he uses to labor.
1. The worker pays for capital goods that he needs in the process of production whether be buys them or rents them. If true that he can't get the "full product of his labor" if he has to pay for capital goods needed in production, well then it follows that the only time the worker gets the full product of his labor is when someone gives him the capital goods for free, which is obviously absurd.
2. If A owns the products which he produces (as in my example), how is that not the "full product of his labor"? What else is there?
I'm going to move on to another issue...
Until now, I've granted arguendo your claim that a worker is necessarily the owner of the product of his labor. My example demonstrated that even granting this claim, employment is still legitimate. Now, I would like to show why that claim is actually false.
The crux of the error is the assumption that the use of things confers ownership thereof, when rather only use of unowned things confers ownership thereof. The proof of my claim is a reductio ad absurdum; namely, if it is true that a person acquires ownership over X by using X, even though X is already owned, then it follows that a thief acquires ownership over a car that he steals, in the same way that a hiker acquires ownership over an unowned apple that he picks - but this is absurd. The thief does not become owner of the car precisely because the car was already owned.
Production is a process of transforming one thing into another. For a person to "mix his labor" with something is for him to use it, the terms are synonymous. Production involves workers using or mixing their labor with one thing for the purpose of turning it into another thing. Now, the worker is no more the owner of what he produces than the car-thief is owner of the car. The worker's use of (or mixing of his labor with) some property (i.e. capital goods) does not make him the owner of that property precisely because that property was already owned by someone else.
stsoc:You stubbornly refuse to admit that people's person and actions are inalienable.
Employment does not involve alienation of persons/actions. See my example above, which shows an instant of employment where the worker is not alienating himself or his actions, but rather he is alienating the product of his labor in advance, which you conceded is legitimate.
1. The worker pays for capital goods that he needs in the process of production whether be buys them or rents them.
If he buys them, he has made a self-investment, and can proceed to be as a self-employed worker make something of which he will be the exclusive owner. If he rents them, he never recieves the full product of his labor being that whenever he makes something there is a part he will never receive because he has to pay the rent of the means of production that he uses to labor. As I already quoted:
The crux of the error is the assumption that the use of things confers ownership thereof
I have not said that. I have just said that being that labor is central to gaining of property, it is a necessity not to rent someone else's means of production to labor because then one never recieves the full product of one's labor; and the rentier acquires property without laboring by merit of ownership over something that would without labor not give any such property to that owner.
Employment does not involve alienation of persons/actions.
I have illustrated that it by the example of service jobs that I posted a dozen times, here it is again:
The service provider provides the service (e.g. fixing something) to the customer (and not to the employer) and the customer payes the employer (not the employee) and that money belongs to the employer, not the employee who is the service provider.
Again- the employee does not provide service to the employer (but to the third party- customer) but alienates (/transferes the title over) his labor to the employer, and then the employer gets payed for the service, as if he did it, which he didn't.
instant of employment where the worker is not alienating himself or his actions, but rather he is alienating the product of his labor in advance, which you conceded is legitimate.
In that example the worker doesn't own the means of production he labors on, but rents it from another, making that example an example of an illegitimate action.
1)Thus voluntary charity =slavery
Helping someone is illegitimate, it is alienating the helper from the product of their labor without paying them, labor is inalienable, thus you cannot choose to give it away.
Do you think charity is ok?
2)Well ok then I choose to help you if you pay me lunch.
Is that ok?
3)I choose to help you if you pay me $10 an hour
What is the difference whether I'm paid in good will, goods, or a wage? This makes no sense.
stsoc: In my example, A does own the full product of his labor It is impossible for A to own the full product of his labor if he has to pay for the use of the means of production that he uses to labor.
This is simply false, because the product of A's labor is not a static quantity. Without productive capital A's labor is lets say quantity X, and with the employer's productive capital the product of A's labor is X+Y. The reason A is willing to work for the employer is because the wage he can earn by himself without productive capital X is lower than than the wage the employer is offering him to sell the employer X+Y.
Nothing stops A from buying his own productive capital, but he will have to earn the capital to invest on the market first. And to do so, he will try to work in his most productive capacity in order to earn the most money. And if the most money is coming from employers offering work, which it surely is, he is not wrong to take it!
stsoc:If he buys them, he has made a self-investment, and can proceed to be as a self-employed worker make something of which he will be the exclusive owner. If he rents them, he never recieves the full product of his labor being that whenever he makes something there is a part he will never receive because he has to pay the rent of the means of production that he uses to labor
I repeat: either way the worker pays for the capital. I fail to see why paying for it up front (buying) is ethical while paying for it over time (renting) is not. That seems like an entirely arbitrary distinction. Moreover, for capital of any significance, the worker probably cannot afford to buy it outright, and has to take out a loan to buy it, in which case he is once again paying for it over time. But this is just and renting isn't?
Again, so what? What's wrong with renting?
I have not said that.
No, but it's implied by your argument. One of the reasons you say employment is illegitimate is because the worker does not receive the full product of his labor. If we take "the full product of his labor" to mean the product he actually produces, then what you're complaining about is that the worker doesn't own the products he produces. Hence my rebuttal: he is not entitled to ownership over those products. They are the property of the capitalist. And thus the fact that a worker does not receive the "full product of his labor" (defined as the products he produces) does not show that employment is illegitimate.
is ethical while paying for it over time (renting) is not.
Renting is not paying over time, paying over time is buying and paying in installments.
Moreover, for capital of any significance, the worker probably cannot afford to buy it outright, and has to take out a loan to buy it, in which case he is once again paying for it over time. But this is just and renting isn't?
No. In socialism that retains money (mutualism) that is precisely how workers would start businesses, by interest-free loans (mutual credit).
Contadictory with labor theory of property (which when consistently applied identifies right to property with right to the full product of one's labor). The contadiction is directly seen in renting of means of production, being that labor is central to property and that only labor is productive, and the laborer is denied the full product of his labor in favor of the rentier, even though he has not labored.
No, but it's implied by your argument.
It is not.
Hence my rebuttal: he is not entitled to ownership over those products. They are the property of the capitalist.
Which contradicts the labor theory of property. Everyone is entitled to the fruits of one's labor. And that means that everyone is entitled to the fruits of the labor he performs, not the labor he owns, because labor is inalienable and one cannot own other people's labor.
The point is not in selling of products in advance, but in alienating labor, which is a correlate to the rent of means of production, and those two correlates constitute the core of employment.
Employer is not buying the products of labor in advance from his employees, you can see that from an example of a factory selling in advace it's products to a buyer. The employees make the products, they go to the buyer, and the buyer gives money not to employees, but to the employer. The products were bought by the buyer in advance, not by the employer, the employer has earlier bought the labor of his employees for some time.
stsoc:Renting is not paying over time, paying over time is buying and paying in installments.
You've stated several times that a worker does not receive the full product of his labor if he has to pay for the means of production. I appreciate that there is a distinction between renting and borrowing to buy, but there is not a distinction between them with respect to the question of whether or not the worker has to pay for the means of production; i.e. he pays whether he rents or buys. Hence, you cannot be claiming that renting the means of production is illegitimate because it involves the worker paying for the means of production, because by that logic, it would also be illegitimate for the worker to buy the means of production. So, I ask you again, what is the reason that renting the means of production is illegitimate?
the laborer is denied the full product of his labor in favor of the rentier, even though he has not labored.
1. The capitalist has labored, that's how he obtained the capital in the first place.
2. The laborer is only "denied the full product of his labor" in the sense that he does not receive 100% of the market value of the product, because the capitalist gets a share for his ownership of the capital. However, to beat a dead horse, the exact same thing can be said for when the worker buys his own capital; i.e. he doesn't get 100% of the value of the product because he has to pay someone else for the capital. Let's say in both cases the worker ultimately gets 20% of the market value of what he produces (with the rest going to the capitalist in the case of an employee, and to the purchase of capital goods in the case of a self-employed worker); the only difference is that the employee gets his 20% straight up as a wage, whereas the self-employed worker has to put money for capital goods, then sell the product, and his net profit is the 20%. So, I repeat for the Nth time, the worker pays for the means of production, and in that sense does not receive the full product of his labor, regardless of whether he rents or buys the capital.
They were sold by the workers to the capitalist, who in turn sold them to the customers. Employment can be accurately characterized the way I characterized it: i.e. as workers selling their product in advance to the capitalist. If you disagree, provide a specific example of what you consider employment, and I will characterize it as an instant of workers selling their product in advance to the capitalist, and we can decide if my characterization makes sense. I'm convinced that any example of employment one could imagine could be characterized as such.
Can you please explain why the labor theory of property would justify the interference of a third party in the affairs of mutually consenting adults who do not subscribe to the labor theory of property?
Because the labor theory of property is the only justification for property. Similarly why theory of individual autonomy (or of inalienable self-ownership) would justify a third party interfering in the affaris of consenting adults signing a contract of self-sale. The fact that those people do not subscribe to the theory of individual autonomy (or the idea of inalienable self-ownership) doesn't make their actions valid.
this is another fallacy, stsoc is ignoring the contribution of the laborers who created the means of production.
Such contribution is irrelevant to the question who should get the product. Two things are here important- "marginal product of capital" is not produced by capital, but by labor, a tool laying on the ground will not produce anything, labor produces products, including means of production; and- labor is not an imput, being that production is not a techonological or a chemical process that "just happens", but real people labor during production, and people are not property to be put in the same category as capital or land.
The current laborer's fruits would not be so great if he did not habe those means of production to work with, the person who created the capital needs tonbe compensated.
That does not entitle the owner of means of production to (a part of) all future products made using them, but to a recompensation for that labor. In order to be entitled to continuous income, he would have to exert continous labor that contributes to the process of production. That argument "fruits of labor would not be so great if there were no previous work by someone else" has been used by collectivists to claim that all labor is collective, and that all products have in themselves a marginar product that bellongs to community both current, and in history. I find that kind reasoning dangerous because it can be used to deny the labor theory of property and confiscation of all property by the community, as some marxist do espouse.
You've stated several times that a worker does not receive the full product of his labor if he has to pay for the means of production.
If he has to pay rent for the means of production.
Hence, you cannot be claiming that renting the means of production is illegitimate because it involves the worker paying for the means of production
That is not what I claim. I'm saying that in order to get the full product of one's labor, one must own the means of production that he uses in his laboring.
The capitalist has labored, that's how he obtained the capital in the first place.
Exactly. He is entitled to the capital (machines) he owns because he labored for them. Likewise, in order to be entitled to a part of the product of labor of some group of people, he has to labor for it with those people.
Do you see the discrepancy? His ownership over capital is justified by the fact that he labor for it, but when wokers make products they are not entitled to them, but the capitalist is, even though the workers labored to make those products, and the capitalist did not.
because the capitalist gets a share for his ownership of the capital
Exactly. And socialists see that as illegitimate.
However, to beat a dead horse, the exact same thing can be said for when the worker buys his own capital
I think it cannot. We both agree that the owner of the machine has earned it, so I don't see anything wrong with buying / selling it. But when the owner of the machine rents it, he takes a part of the product of someone else's labor, without laboring. Labor is central to property (that's why it's justification is called Labor theory of property), and the owner of the machine cannot do "proxy labor" trough his machine, he has to labor himself in order to get a part of the product of labor.
So, I repeat for the Nth time, the worker pays for the means of production, and in that sense does not receive the full product of his labor, regardless of whether he rents or buys the capital.
If he buys the means of production he makes a one-time payment, and is then the owner of the means of production. If he rents the means of production, he makes continuous payments and does not own the means of production. I don't see how those two cases can be called the same.
They were sold by the workers to the capitalist, who in turn sold them to the customers.
If you would to tome to a widget producer, and order 10 widgets to be made, and then go on to sell to some people those 10 widgets before also in advance, before he made them, what is the difference between a situation where you would be the buyer and the widget producer the seller, and the one where you would be the employer and the the widget producer the employee. I'd say the hierarchical relation. If the widget producer is just a seller, he then can make the widgets when, where and how he wants, he only has to meet the buying conditions of what the buyer wanted and when he wanted it done. So, the wigdet producer sold in advance the product of his labor, which were then (before they were complete) sold by that first buyer to multiple people. That's not employment. The employer-employee relationship would be the widget producer being told exactly at what times, where and how he should make the widgets.
Even though this doesn't concern the legitimacy of rent of means of production, I think that the notion of rent could be useful here to illustrate the difference, and to say that rent of means of production can happen without employment. A worker' self-managed firm could rent a factory from a capitalist in the same way someone would rent a car, that someone rents it and uses it the way he wants to, he is not being told where, when and how he must use the car, in that case the capitalist would be just the rentier taking whatever the price was agreed to for the rent of his capital, and he would not have anything to do with how the workers use that capital, they would self-manage.
So, just like employment is not rent of means of production, and when just renting of means production happens it is not emploment, because it mises something crucial to make it employment, likewise, buying the producer's product in advance is not emplyoment, and when buying producer's product in advance happens is is not employment because it lacks something crucial to make it employment. That crucial component is the hierarchial relation.
Because the labor theory of property is the only justification for property.
Similarly why theory of individual autonomy (or of inalienable self-ownership) would justify a third party interfering in the affaris of consenting adults signing a contract of self-sale.
The fact that those people do not subscribe to the theory of individual autonomy (or the idea of inalienable self-ownership) doesn't make their actions valid.
Such contribution is irrelevant to the question who should get the product.
Two things are here important- "marginal product of capital" is not produced by capital, but by labor, a tool laying on the ground will not produce anything,
I also submit that you seem unaware of how much work the capital does, as compared to the labor, in many instances. Consider a cnc mill, where the laborer puts raw material in a vise, closes the door, and pushes a button. When the machine is fnished, he opens the door and removes the product from the vise. Are you telling me that the piece of steel with all its intricate machining is solely the product of a person who doesnt know how to machine anything, doesnt know what the product is for, and doesnt play any part in design? How does an unskilled laborer make highly skilled products and suddenly become entitled to those products? What if he waives any claim to the title, are waivers allowed in your system?
labor produces products, including means of production; and- labor is not an imput, being that production is not a techonological or a chemical process that "just happens", but real people labor during production, and people are not property to be put in the same category as capital or land.
That does not entitle the owner of means of production to (a part of) all future products made using them, but to a recompensation for that labor.
In order to be entitled to continuous income, he would have to exert continous labor that contributes to the process of production.
That argument "fruits of labor would not be so great if there were no previous work by someone else" has been used by collectivists to claim that all labor is collective