It can be said that from a socialist perpective employment is attacked of the grounds that hierarchy is wrong and that renting (means of production) is wrong.
I'd like to post about the thirds ground that was formulated by David Ellerman, who accepts both renting (of means of production) and hierharchy (as a delegation of authority), and is about alienation of labor.
I hope that, for start, everybody recognizes that science fiction is only that- fiction, and that human actions are de facto inalienable. These are two short chapters from Ellerman about employment being fraud:
“Voluntary Acts Between Knowledgeable Consenting Adults”
Liberalism, and particularly libertarianism, argues that at least a prima facie case can be made for allowing any voluntary acts between knowledgeable consenting adults. Does the de facto inalienability argument rule out any such voluntary acts between consenting adults? The (surprising) answer is “No” [at least not at the underlying noninstitutional level].
Understanding this answer requires a keen appreciation of the difference between the institutional (de jure) overlay and the underlying non-institutional (de facto) realities. The de facto inalienability argument does not rule out the de facto transfer of labor since it takes that to be impossible in the first place. What it rules out is the institutional overlay of the employment contract superimposed on the reality where labor has in fact not been transferred. What the argument excludes is at the institutional level, not at the underlying non-institutional level. It forbids the legal validation of an inherently unfulfillable contract. It does not forbid any non-institutionally described voluntary acts between knowledge consenting adults.
Nozick pointedly uses the expression “capitalist acts between consenting adults” [1974, 163]. The adjective “capitalist” is institutional so Nozick is not simply arguing for allowing voluntary acts between knowledgeable consenting adults. He is arguing for certain institutional superstructures to be laid over those voluntary acts. Nozick, with admirable consistency, argues not only for “capitalist acts” but also for the slavish acts involved in the voluntary self-enslavement contract [331]–as if there were no problem for a person to de facto fit the legal role of a non-person. The abolition of the employment contract, like the abolition of the self-sale contract, does not infringe on the freedom to make (non-fraudulent) contracts; it only restricts the “freedom” to make inherently unfulfillable and naturally invalid contracts.
The employment contract is, like the self-sale contract was, a subtle fraud vouchsafed by the legal system itself. Yet the point about “voluntary acts” can be illustrated by considering a simple fraud. There are widgets and cheap pseudo-widgets, and it is difficult to tell them apart. A buyer B legally buys a widget from the seller S and pays its price, but S transfers a pseudo-widget to B to “fulfill” the contract. There is a mismatch between the legal transfers and the factual transfers. In this case, there are two ways to restore a transfer matching:
The point is that there is no fraud involved if B knowingly agrees to the rewritten contract to buy the pseudo-widget for the same money (the price of a real widget).
If the same de facto transfers could be carried out with no fraud involved, then what is the point of a fraud? The point is that–without the fraud–the defrauded party would very likely not agree to the same de facto transfers. For example in a democratic firm, Labor might not want to make a gift of the profits to Capital.
What in fact is ruled out by the prohibition against frauds? No voluntary acts between knowledgeable consenting adults are prohibited. It is the mismatch between the legal transfers and the factual transfers to fulfill the contract that is prohibited. In the example, the voluntary act of knowingly exchanging the price of a genuine widget for a pseudo-widget was not prohibited.
While the de facto inalienability argument does not rule out any voluntary acts between knowledgeable adults, it does rule out “capitalist acts between consenting adults.” The employment contract involves a transfer mismatch. But, since labor is de facto non-transferable, there is only one way to remedy the mismatch, namely rewrite the legal transfers in some fulfillable form.
Consider the simple model of the employment firm involving the parties Labor and Capital. In the non-institutional factual description of the transfers, the non-labor inputs K and a sum of money M (e.g., the wages wL) are factually transferred from Capital to Labor, and Labor produces the outputs Q and factually transfers them away (say) to Capital.
Let us now rewrite the contracts to fit these realities of “capitalist production,” and let us further suppose that both parties knowingly agree to these new contracts. Then there would be no fraud. What do we have? Not an employment firm, but an example of worker-managed production possibly with transactions at non-market prices. The non-labor inputs K have been legally purchased by Labor from Capital, and the outputs Q have been legally appropriated by Labor and sold to Capital. The net payment $M goes from Capital to Labor. If the transfers were at market prices then $M = $pQ – rK, but parties may knowingly agree to exchanges at non-market prices. Or such non-market transactions can be interpreted as a market transaction followed by a voluntary gift.
For instance, Labor could knowingly agree to buy K and sell Q all for the net payment of the money $M = $wL. That, in effect, is the market transaction with the net payment $M = $pQ – rK followed by the voluntary gift of the profits pQ-rK-wL = p from Labor to Capital. And that, in effect, is what the fraudulent employment contract induces Labor to do in conventional production. In a democratic firm, if the workers want to knowingly donate their profits to Capital or any worthy cause, they are free to do so.
These points serve to mark the non-consequentialist nature of the de facto inalienability critique of the employment contract. With a different legal overlay, the same de facto transfers could knowingly and voluntarily take place without involving any fraud. This also serves to emphasize that there is no inherent conflict between the de facto inalienability argument and allocative efficiency or Pareto optimality (applied to non-institutionally specified states of affairs).
In a simple garden-variety fraud, it is presumably always possible to ascertain that the de facto transfer does not correspond to the agreed-to legal transfer, e.g., to tell the difference between a pseudo-widget and the genuine article. The “beauty” of an institutionalized fraud like the employment contract is that there is no de facto transfer that fulfills the contract; in effect, there is no genuine widget to contrast with the pseudo-widget. The pseudotransfer of labor (i.e., voluntary co-operation with the employer) has been accepted for centuries by the legal authorities themselves as fulfilling the contract. The “discovery” of the fraud thus requires extensive analysis together with heavy use of intuition pumps like the case of the criminious employee to see that labor is not de facto transferable after all. And any responsible scholar and respected businessperson–being embedded in the institutions of the employment system–has every incentive not to make that discovery.
Voluntarily Following Orders
The analysis has emphasized the property structure of production, but the same remarks can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the parallel governance structure of production. In the employment relation, the worker W decides to do X because the employer or boss B says to do X. Here again, the problem does not lie in the factual reality of W choosing to do what B says; the problem lies in the legal overlay.
In the employment relation, the reality, namely a rather one-sided form of voluntary co-operation between autonomous decision-making individuals, is legally interpreted as B “employing” W with B as the sole decision maker. B is the “head,” W is the “hand.” The head makes the decision and then employs the hand to carry out the decision. The hired hand is the conductor of B’s intentions, the instrument of B’s will; it has no “head” of its own.
In terms of the legal transfers between W and B, the employment contract transfers the use-rights over W’s time, the direct control rights over W’s services, to the employer B. It is a transfer, not a delegation, of decision-making authority. But the factual transfers cannot match that legal transfer. Short of some part-time robot concoction, W remains the de facto decision-maker over W’s actions. All W can do is to voluntarily co-operate with B by deciding to do as B says.
The facts cannot be changed to eliminate the mismatch (science fiction aside); human decision-making capacity is not de facto transferable. The legal contract should be rewritten in a non-fraudulent form to fit the facts. The legal relationship between W and B is then one of delegation, not an alienation or transfer of decision-making capacity. W and all of W’s colleagues in the work process (including B) are the decision-makers; B acts as their delegate or representative. B’s decision initiatives are taken in the name of the whole group, in the name of the governed. When the workers decide to do X because the boss B says to do X, that would legally as well as factually be their decision–even when X is not a crime.
Similar remarks apply to vote selling. The inalienability critique argued against W being permitted to sell his or her vote to B so that it became B’s vote. There was no inalienability critique of W casting W’s vote as B says. That may indicate what Hutcheson called a “weak mind” but it would not pretend to alienate the de facto inalienable capacity for decision-making.
Would the abolition of the employment contract impair workers’ freedom? Workers would not be prevented from performing the same (non-institutionally described) voluntary acts as before, namely deciding to do what B says. But criminals are today denied the “contractual freedom” to voluntarily contract into the legal role of an instrument, the de jure role of a non-decision-making non-responsible tool employed by the employer. With the abolition of the employment contract, that “contractual freedom” would also be denied to all de facto responsible decision-making persons.
Ellerman's complete position can be found in his book Property and Contract in Economics
Let us now rewrite the contracts to fit these realities
This misses at least two "nuances": in the former case the Labor does not have to take risk (the entrepreneur's role) nor to advance payment for inputs (the capitalist's role). Thus, rewriting the contract does not fit the realities at all.
n the former case the Labor does not have to take risk (the entrepreneur's role)
Which doesn't justify alienation of labor, because it's de facto inalienable.
or to advance payment for inputs (the capitalist's role)
Which is irrelevant to the question of alienation of labor, being that payments for the inputs of capital can be payed without employment, if a worker managed firm would to just rent capital, like someone rents a car.
The employment contract involves a transfer mismatch. But, since labor is de facto non-transferable, there is only one way to remedy the mismatch, namely rewrite the legal transfers in some fulfillable form.
I'm glad we agree that labor is de facto inalienable.
if a worker managed firm would to just rent capital
And if pigs had wings they would fly. By engaging in employment relationship without being coerced, the worker clearly demonstrated his preference for this kinf of relationship, as opposed to rental of capital.
Perhaps labor prefers employment to unemployment.
Which is irrelevant. Even if someone would prefer to sell himself, but it is still impossible to make a valid self-sale contract because it is impossible to make control over one's body transferable. Same with self-rental.
Employment contracts contain no such transfer mismatch. I believe Minarchist has tried to convey this concept to you.
As I have explained to him, to remove the alienation of labor contract and to leave only the rent of means of production contract would not result in employment, but in a worker managed firm that rents capital from someone who has no say in how will the workers use it, or even if they will at all use it.
By engaging in employment relationship without being coerced, the worker clearly demonstrated his preference for this kinf of relationship, as opposed to rental of capital.
Interesting.
Is any kind of services (as opposed to material exchange) possible in your world-view?
Yes. Service jobs are ok, employer-employee relation is no-k.
Basically his world view comes down to forcing his moral conclusions on others.
In essence this is moral imperialism. He will not allow the worker and employer to associate in peace; he insists on forcing his moral conclusions on them, even without complaint of a victim.
He is evil.
Perhaps. I would still like to understand the reasoning behind his moral conclusions.
Great, so we narrowed this discussion to the (perceived) difference between obtaining a service for a fee and employing a person.
Where exactly lies this difference? Where do you draw the line?
Can you please tell, which of these contracts are "possible" and which "impossible" from your point of view?
Yes. Murder is bad. Imposing any physical harm is bad. Robbery is bad. Destruction of property (defined according to a consistent application of labor theory of property) is bad. Unearned incomes are bad. Hierarchy is bad.
All those my world views would be enforces in socialism.
3. A contracts with B for B to cut C's hair in exchange for $10, using A's premises, tools, and materials.
Here it becomes illegitimate. In order for people to recieve the full product of their labor, they must own the instruments of labor that they to labor.
In order for people to recieve the full product of their labor, they must own the instruments of labor that they to labor.
So, in effect, you are against rental of not only labor, but also of capital. Given that practically anything can be seen as capital, you are banning rental totally.
What would you do when witnessing B borrowing scissors from A? Would you arrest both of them? Would you agitate B to arise against oppression, until both you and B just divide A's stuff?
Anenome: Basically his world view comes down to forcing his moral conclusions on others. In essence this is moral imperialism. He will not allow the worker and employer to associate in peace; he insists on forcing his moral conclusions on them, even without complaint of a victim. He is evil.
I don't think he's evil. As many have shown over the last week, you could drive trucks (back and forth) through the holes in his logical constructs. He is either (1) mentally retarded, or (2) trolling. My bet is on (1).
I knew this before but I seem to have forgotten: You can't fight socialists with logic. They are simply immune to it. It's like trying to kill a zombie with a gun.
I think anyone who rationalizes a way to make aggression seem a good thing to themselves is evil. It's the same logic that fed the Holocaust. It's evil.
The root of his flaw is not taking a propertarian view of ethics. When you don't view ethics through a propertarian lens, all manner of confusion results, and he's a prime case. All rights are property rights, it's the only way you can discover the bright line of invasion which marks the liminal edge where ethical and unethical behavior meet.
If A owns some capital, and B owns himself, and B offers to produce something using A's capital for a set fee, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, because B by virtue of owning himself can set the price for his labor service and no one, no one can say he's wrong to do so. His body is his and his alone and he can give it away for free if he wants.
Any attempt to stop that transaction would be an aggression.
stsoc:Which is irrelevant to the question of alienation of labor, being that payments for the inputs of capital can be payed without employment, if a worker managed firm would to just rent capital, like someone rents a car...to remove the alienation of labor contract and to leave only the rent of means of production contract would not result in employment, but in a worker managed firm that rents capital from someone who has no say in how will the workers use it, or even if they will at all use it.
1. Are you saying it is legitimate for a workers' cooperative (or an individual worker) to rent capital, provided the rentier "has no say in how the workers will use it, or even if they will at all use it"?
2. I want to challenge the idea that employees are in any sense "renting" their capital from the capitalist. Firstly, I'll define rent as a property exchange whereby A grants B permission to use his property on certain conditions (one of which will be temporal) and B transfers ownership over some of his property to A (i.e. payment for the rental). Now, is this what occurs in employment? I don't think so. The employer does indeed grant the employee permission to use the capital, but the employee does not pay for this permission.* You can argue that in an ultimate sense he pays for it, in the form of the profits retained by the owner of the capital, but he does not enter into a rental contract. Saying that the employee pays the capitalist for a rental is like saying that a consumer pays the wages of the worker who produced the product: true in an ultimate sense, but not in a legally relevant sense. The employer granting permission to the employee to use the capital is like Jones granting permission to Smith to use his beach house, or his lawnmower, etc. This is not a rental agreement, it is simply Jones exercising his property rights. After all, to own property means to have the right to exclude others from its use, which of course entails the right to allow others to use it for free.
*A contract is whatever the parties concerned understood it to be at the time it was created. Hence, in those cases (which are most if not all cases of employment) where employers and employees did not consider themselves to be entering into a rentier-renter relationship at the time the employment contract was created, then they are not in a rentier-renter relationship. To argue otherwise is to make the meaning of contracts contingent on the interpretation of a third party, which is absurd.
Note: I assume you're not arguing that it is illegitimate for A to allow B to use his property for free?
So, in effect, you are against rental of not only labor, but also of capital.
Yes. Rent of labor is impossible, being that human actions are inalienable, and renting of means of production is in direct contradiction with the right to recieve the full product of one' labor (and by extension, all rent is in the same contradiction).
What would you do when witnessing B borrowing scissors from A?
If there's not payment, nothing wrong with that.
I think anyone who rationalizes a way to make aggression seem a good thing to themselves is evil.
You rationalize exploatation that capitalism is based upos. It's not aggression if you take illegitimate property.
The root of his flaw is not taking a propertarian view of ethics.
The root of your flaws is not taking a view of ethics. People are not property, to call them such is a category error.
His body is his and his alone and he can give it away for free if he wants.
You support slavery, and thus have no right to call yourself libertarian. People should know you as a slavetarian, so they know to avoid you in a wide arc
No. I'm just mentioned that it is possible for a capitalist to rent means of production to workers without employment happening, but I find it that illegitimate, too.
Now, is this what occurs in employment?
It does. It can happen without employment, but the capitalist taking a part of his employee's part of labor is justified by capitalists by the rent of means of production the capitalist owns. But socialist also reject rent (of means of production) as illegitimate.
The employer does indeed grant the employee permission to use the capital, but the employee does not pay for this permission.
Then under what exuse does the capitalist take any part of the product of his employees' labor?
I assume you're not arguing that it is illegitimate for A to allow B to use his property for free?
No one opposes that.
stsoc:Then under what exuse does the capitalist take any part of the product of his employees' labor?
He doesn't.
What you identify as "part of the product of [the] employee's labor" is not the employee's property at all; the capitalist isn't "taking" it, he already owns it. That is, he owns the widgets, and he owns whatever he might trade them for on the market, such as money. Why does he own the widgets? Because he owned the materials which were transformed into the widgets. The fact that other people (i.e. the workers) mixed their labor with those materials makes no difference, as mixing one's labor with some object only confers ownership thereof if the object was not already owned. As I said earlier, otherwise, it would follow that a thief becomes the owner of whatever he steals, because he mixes his labor with it. And this is absurd (it would mean no property whatsoever), and therefore the principle (that the worker owns the widget he produces even though he capitalist owned the materials from which they were made) that leads to this absurd conclusion is also absurd.
It can happen without employment, but the capitalist taking a part of his employee's part of labor is justified by capitalists by the rent of means of production the capitalist owns.
No, it isn't. That is a justification which socialists put in the mouths of capitalists, which the socialists then criticize: i.e. a strawman. The reality is that the capitalist owns the means of the production, and he owns the product, regardless of who mixed his labor with the input materials to produce the product, as I explained above. And the employee is ultimately no different than a service-worker, he is paid to perform a service.
Whatever, Stsoc. Nice trolling with you. You simply define your own terms and apply your justifications that way.
I admit that your conclusions are logical if one accept the premises you accept.
But consistency is not a replacement for correlation with reality.
There is no truth in your premises. To call employment slavery is an insult to actual slaves.
Have fun in your silly socialist co-op. But leave me alone in my capitalist society where I'll be happily working for an employer.
It should be noted that a lot of Stsoc's claims would in fact be perfectly valid if applied to a feudal society, and this is what largely existed when Marx and them wrote.
It was completely illegitimate for a feudal lord to take the product of the serf's labor because the serf lived on land that was supposedly owned by the lord. Of course this claim to property was in fact illegitimate, it was politically determined and maintained by military force. That land rather should have been considered long ago homesteaded by their occupiers.
The lord took payment as rent on land he never legitimately owned. This was how the society of privilege operated.
But to apply feudal logic to a capitalist society is simply wrong. When someone does legitimately own capital, you cannot simply take it from them or declare employment wrong, as if the serf had been employed by the landlord.
Unfortunately stsoc doesn't realize he'd be replacing the feudal lord with a fuedal government, as has happened in all socialist societies.
Look at that recent article about North Korea, where they were taking all produce from farmer peasants above subsistence survival. This is exactly what the feudal lords did, only perhaps worse.
Meanwhile it's in capitalist countries where respect for private property has translated into real wealth on a broad basis, including for the poor.
The fact that outcomes mean nothing to stsoc should say a lot. Capitalism has brought the poor in developed countries to heights of wealth that would make medieval kings green and angry with envy. Even the most fabulous king of the old days never had the comforts and luxuries of America's poor.
And we've done it via freedom from government intervention, not some ridiculous theory of laborers not getting the full product of their labor.
Anyone who understand the role of investment in a society should cringe at his attacks on investment and wealth generally. His preferred society would in short order be a hunter-gatherer society, absent investment and investment capital which in his society only the guy who creates it can use. Lol.
Enjoy your ignorance bro. It is its own punishment.
Anenome:The fact that outcomes mean nothing to stsoc should say a lot.
Yea, I'm always suspicious of people (of whatever ideological bent) who disregard the consequences of their ethics. It's one thing to realize that the adoption of certain ethical principles yields the best outcomes universally and to apply those principles absolutely rigidly without taking the circumstances of individual cases into account (this is analogous to rigidly applying the laws of physics in an R&D department once those laws have been demonstrated to be valid with a very high degree of certainty), but its quite another thing to pretend (or actually believe) that your ethical principles are "good" in themselves, without feeling the need to demonstrate their grounding in empirical reality (this is analogous to Moses receiving his principles on Mount Sinai).
If he feels certain ethical basises are wrong, he should simply live by that conclusion, and live with others whom similarly conclude.
This is what freedom means, the corollary of free association means he should group together with like-minded people and live in the fashion that seems right to them.
This would not give him the right however to impose on a group that does not agree with his ethical precepts, to force his ethical conclusions on them. Especially if there is no victim.
In libertarianism, in conjunction with the NAP, we would recognize the right for someone to jump into any situaiton where aggression is patently taking place and to investigate the circumstances. But we also recognize the fact that if the supposed victim decides not to press charges so to speak, not to pursue a tort against their attacker, that the guy who stepped in gets to walk away. He doesn't get to prosecute the claim as if he were a district attorney, as if there were some crime against a non-existant society.
Thus, it's illegitimate for him to stop any employment contracts being freely entered into. Whether he feels it's slavery or not. He's free to evangelize for that theory of labor, I don't think he'll find many converts, but he's certainly free to make a nuisance of himself that way.
I also think it legitimate for a libertarian society to invade another country IF they are invited to do so by someone being aggressed against. If they witness actual use of coercion on slaves, they should feel free to step in, but they're gonna have to deal with the fallout too. And they'd better be right lest they become guilty of aggression themselves (they might misinterpret prisoners in jail being forced to work as illegitimate slave-holding).
Thus every attempt at third-party justice requires due process to bridge the gap between perception and judgment.
Since employment and capital-renting or w/e would be illegal in his society, he would not attract investment, and economic growth generally would be void in any regions governed by these theories.
This is exactly what a lot of green revolutionaries want, zero economic growth and zero population growth. Actually negative growth in both. These are the leftists that say we need a new plague to reduce the size of human population, or who like war for reducing population sizes, or who smile at malaria-kill numbers. Cynical anti-human bastards.
I'll bet stsoc falls somewhere in that range. I'll bet environmentalism is a partial motivator for him. He hates modern capitalism in his green zeal.
Anenome:This would not give him the right however to impose on a group that does not agree with his ethical precepts, to force his ethical conclusions on them.
To be fair, that it is wrong to force your ethics on other people is itself a normative ethical claim. For someone like stsoc, that doesn't hold any water, because he's not concerned with aggression in the same sense that we are. And it's this normativity of ethics that makes it so important to pay attentiont to the real consequences of your ethics. It's a lot easier for people to say "Well I'm entitled to my opinion same as you" with respect to ethical abstraction than it is for people to do the same with respect to real situations. Would stsoc feel the same way if he spent a year living in a libertarian society, and then spent a year living in his socialist society? Methinks not. Which is why (contra Molyneux) I think we really need to focus on consequentialism. The debate about principles should bemostly reserved for people who are already basically libertarians; it's an effort to codify our knowledge (like codifying our knowldge of physics in the form of laws), not to prove anything.
Yep, they stepped out from behind the Iron Curtain and into the "environmental" movement. For instance:
Since his resignation, Gorbachev has remained involved in world affairs. He founded the Gorbachev Foundation in 1992, headquartered in San Francisco. He later founded Green Cross International, with which he was one of three major sponsors of the Earth Charter. He also became a member of the Club of Rome and the Club of Madrid,[41] an independent non-profit organization composed of 81 democratic former presidents and Prime Ministers from 57 different countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev
....For anyone who's been living on the moon for the last 20 years, that's Mikhail Gorbachev, former premier of the Soviet Union. LOL, you couldn't make this stuff up. But go tell somebody on the street that the goal of the Green Movement is to create an international socialist dictatorship on the model of the Soviet Union and they'll look at you like you're nuts.
What you identify as "part of the product of [the] employee's labor" is not the employee's property at all
It is, being that the employee made it.
The fact that other people (i.e. the workers) mixed their labor with those materials makes no difference, as mixing one's labor with some object only confers ownership thereof if the object was not already owned.
Then the only way that the employee is said to be entitled to something is renting his labor, which is illegitimate being that labor is inalienable, people are not tools.
As I said earlier, otherwise, it would follow that a thief becomes the owner of whatever he steals, because he mixes his labor with it.
It does not follow. Thief does not exert any productive labor.
And the employee is ultimately no different than a service-worker, he is paid to perform a service.
I have explained multiple times that employment is not he same as performing a service, being that the
To call employment slavery is an insult to actual slaves.
I don't see why. Slaveowners defended slavery by saying that slaves were better off then employees, and they were pretty much right untill workers pressured the state into providing pensions, healthcare, and similar welfare.
It was completely illegitimate for a feudal lord to take the product of the serf's labor because the serf lived on land that was supposedly owned by the lord.
Ownership of land is intself illegitimate, land can be only occupied-and-used.
State was abolished in both socialist societies that were established in Europe.
Capitalism has brought the poor in developed countries to heights of wealth that would make medieval kings green and angry with envy.
Industrial revolution did that, capitalism has kept people poorer then they should be by an entire class living off other people's labor.
Even the most fabulous king of the old days never had the comforts and luxuries of America's poor.
Yes, no king was homeless.
His preferred society would in short order be a hunter-gatherer society
http://libcom.org/files/images/Transporte.jpg http://libcom.org/files/images/phoca_thumb_l_spanischer-buergerkrieg-88%5B1%5D.jpg
Yes, hunter-gatherer.
And we will exercise our freedom by taking illegitimate property of swindlers.
Dude stop, you lost in 1991.
Poor people have the best living conditions in capitalist countries. Why don't you move to Venezuela, that sounds like your type of country.
What happened in 1991?
Venezuela isn't socialist, it's state capitalist.
State capitalism isn't pure capitalism, you still lost.
Poor people love us. Capitalism slam dunked all over you.
It's pure capitalism, it's just not laissez faire capitalism.
Yeah, the workers love capitalism. In some imaginary world maybe.
No he didn't. By this definition gardeners own every lawn they cut, plumbers every drain they unclog. They don't. Because they don't make it, they work on it. The employee does not differ here.
He's not entitled to anything. A serviceprovider is not entitled to the hair he cuts, or the wall he paints or the brick he lays, he is only entitled to the sum his customer agreed to pay him for the labor he provided. The same is true of an employee. You've failed again and again to show any difference between these situations.
He repaints the car he steals, thus he is as entitled to the car as the employee at the workshop who painted the car after it was built, according to your own logic. In fact, every time you have your car repainted, the person repainting it for you must be as entitled to the product of his labor (the car) as the employee at the factory was entitled to the product of his labor (the car). This is either true, or we must deal with the idea that an employee is not in fact entitled to the finished product that he takes part in producing, but only the wages given for his specific part in the production (the service rendered to his employer).
No, you've claimed it is not the same, and then failed to demonstrate it.
How is it that it is illegitimate for an employer to pay his employee for painting cars on the assembly line, but it is legitimate for a car-owner to pay a carshop-owner to paint his car?
How is it that it is illegitimate for an employer to pay his employee to pick apples off the ground on his farm and put them in baskets, but it is legitimate for an apple-tree owner to pay a gardener to do the same thing?
Non sequitur. Slavery and employment have two very definite differences. To pretend that these differences do not exist is what makes the insult.
The same can be said for anything. Either ownership of land is legitimate, or ownership of everything else, including one's labor and one's body is illegitimate.
Yes and replaced with 'commitees', 'councils' or 'unions' who dictated the rules to everyone else and expropriated resources and this is totally different, guys, totally.
He was if he wanted to be. Much like the poor of America.
Nice paintings. I've one of a spaceship, therefore intergalactic space travel is real.
By this definition gardeners own every lawn they cut, plumbers every drain they unclog.
This reminded me of http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/Jasaydog.html:
Did you know that your dog owns your house, or rather some portion of it? If this is not immediately obvious to you, you will find it helpful to consider some aspects of the ethics and economics of redistribution.
No he didn't. By this definition gardeners own every lawn they cut, plumbers every drain they unclog. They don't.
They don't because they are provides of services. As opposed to employees that are wage-slaves. You continously confuse those two even though I have explained they are not the same multiple times.
He's not entitled to anything.
The who does all the work is not entitled to anyting. Spoken like a true parasite.
A serviceprovider is not entitled to the hair he cuts, or the wall he paints or the brick he lays, he is only entitled to the sum his customer agreed to pay him for the labor he provided.
Which has nothing to do with employment.
I have demonstrated it by simply pointing out the basic functining of the two, and the radical differences are clear to anyone with a half a gram of brain. When you by a potato from a farmer, that farmer is not your employee, you are his customer. Likewise, when you buy a service from a service provider, he is not your employee, but you are his customer.
My magic of being able to use your reason and not be blinded by bias towards capitalism.
Slavery and employment have two very definite differences.
Yes, one is selling oneself, and the other is renting onself. A difference that doesn't in any way justify the latter.
To pretend that these differences do not exist is what makes the insult.
Then don't pretend that providing a service and being a wage-slave is the same.
Ownership of one's labor and one's body is illegitimate, because people are not property and to consider them as such is to commit a category error. I have reffered to those as such only for the sake of argument, so you slavetarians would know what I'm talking about. Areas of land, not being products of labor cannot be owned. Only products of labor can be owned.
Yes and replaced with 'commitees', 'councils' or 'unions' who dictated the rules to everyone else
And replaces with 'commitees', 'councils' or 'unions' that were constituded by everyone (who is not a murderer or thief).
Much like the poor of America.
People do not become homeless by choice, but because of the thieveng system that they live in.
I've one of a spaceship, therefore intergalactic space travel is real.
After all other idiotic claims you made that would not come as a suprise if you claimed that.
http://libcom.org/gallery/spanish-civil-war-revolution-photo-gallery-1936-39
This...
Anenome: Basically his world view comes down to forcing his moral conclusions on others. In essence this is moral imperialism. He will not allow the worker and employer to associate in peace; he insists on forcing his moral conclusions on them, even without complaint of a victim. He is evil. Was just confirmed here... stsoc: And we will exercise our freedom by taking illegitimate property of swindlers. | Post Points: 5
stsoc: And we will exercise our freedom by taking illegitimate property of swindlers.
stsoc,
Please respond to the claim that the thief who repaints a car or changes the tire either is or is not the new owner of the car. I'm interested in your explanation.
I can predict the answer depends on whether the thief is a worker or not.
I have a quick question. (I have no background in economics, so if this is trivial, forgive me in advance)
When you use the term "labor", what exactly do you mean? When I use the term, I am referring to productive activity. I can see how labor, in that sense, would be inaliable. However, stsoc seems to be using the term "labor" to denote the actual product of one's labor, i.e. what is produced. For me, this is a major distinction, as I don't see how the product of my labor is inalienable.
I believe, the usual meaning of the term is to be one of three factors of production, the other two being land (or nature) and capital (tools, machines, materials). The factors are the input to the process of production, and the product is the output of the process. The product of one process can be a factor (capital) for another process (or even for a future iteration of the same process), but I cannot see how this can apply to labor.
What explanation is necessary? Service provider that provides a service (repaints a car) for a customer doesn't get to own the car, only an idiot would say that a thief does. And I said no such thing, but it was said.
When you use the term "labor", what exactly do you mean? When I use the term, I am referring to productive activity. I can see how labor, in that sense, would be inaliable. However, stsoc seems to be using the term "labor" to denote the actual product of one's labor, i.e. what is produced.
You could get such an idea only but not really trying even to read what I write, which wouldn't be supristing, being that some here are interested in nothing but trolling, they don't read or they don't undestand what I write, but just reply with nonsense.
stsoc, would this contract fulfill your requirements?
1)Capitalists (C) agrees to rent equipment to labor (L) for 1 penny/day.
2) L agrees to build, according to however he sees fit, 10 widgets/day.
3) C agrees to puchase 10 widgets from L at a price of $X each day.
Please respond to the claim that the thief who repaints a car or changes the tire either is or is not the new owner of the car. I'm interested in your explanation. What explanation is necessary? Service provider that provides a service (repaints a car) for a customer doesn't get to own the car, only an idiot would say that a thief does. And I said no such thing, but it was said.
1)Capitalists (C) agrees to rent equipment to labor (L) for 1 penny/day. 2) L agrees to build, according to however he sees fit, 10 widgets/day. 3) C agrees to puchase 10 widgets from L at a price of $X each day.
A system where C rents equipment to L for some amount of money/day without having any say in how will L use it, or whether he will use it at all, like someone renting a car (of course C could later, like anyone else, come to L and buy he's product or service) would eliminate employment, but almost no socialists want to abolish just employment (I literally know only one thinker that is for this kind of society), but to abolish hierarchy (even without employment, e.g. a worker managed firm [that rents equipment from a capitalist] electing a boss who then decides about things instead of them), and also to abolish unearned income (all rent).
if I take the car away from the previous occupant
Car is product of labor, that is- property, so it is under ownership, not under "occupancy-and-use". And even it were under occupancy-and-use, it's still not legitimate to steal it.
And if I mix my labor with it by painting it, doing a valve job, and changing the tires, then I have made it my property according to the labor theory of property.
Maybe after the "idiotic theory of property", I wouldn't be supprice if you espouse such a theory.