Political Theory

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

h.k. — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 19:03:23 GMT

And China increases production artificially, face it you're screwed. Also show me a source before you claim nonsense that is easily disproven.

You support the death penalty for people that use money? I think that exposes what a creep you are if anything. You certainly sound like a tyrant.

http://mises.org/daily/2197

Also where are you posting from? I'm guessing unless you live in a Capitalist society, the lower class has a lower standard of living. You don't have any ground to stand on.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

stsoc — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 13:17:36 GMT

Do you understand suffixes? Which is closer?

It's irrelevant because they are nowhere near close.

Spain was a disaster

Production was increased by half in all branches of industry, a bunch of Barcelona infrastructure (such as tramway network) are from that time.

Anarcho-communists took over and imposed the death penalty against profit. Sounds like Castro to me buddy.

You're an ignoramus.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

h.k. — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:49:45 GMT

stsoc:

That's not the question, the question is in a world where you are a slave which country is closest to your ideal?

None is close.

Also anarcho-communists have existed, and they scared all successful businessmen away.

To scare of parasites is a rightfull thing to do, so that the workers can organize by themselves and produce things for themselves and reap the entierty of the fruits of their labor. Revolutionary Spain proved that leands to increace of production in all branches of industry and to the dissaprearance of poverty.

There is minimal difference between you and Castro.

A plain ignorant statement.

Do you understand suffixes? Which is closer?

Spain was a disaster, show me otherwise. Anarcho-communists took over and imposed the death penalty against profit. Sounds like Castro to me buddy.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

stsoc — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 11:22:03 GMT

In no way does someone working for a wage make them "property" or make them involuntarily "commanded" by thier employer.

Nonetheless, emplomeyment means treating people as property it the sense of them not being considered responsible for their actions (and products of those), and the employer commanding them.

If the employee objects, then they're free to walk off the job, refuse and negotiate with the employer, or take some other kind of action (strike, slow downs, etc.)

I suggest revolution.

No, no no he doesn't produce "Product X"

You are denying reality, the workers make the entierty of the product. Capital is inanimate it cannot be imputed any responsability for consequences of people's acts.

However he is not meeting the expenses of the CAPITAL, which is the whole point.

Which again shows that he is treated like property by capitalist positive law. He is not imputed the responsibility neither for the positive fruits of his labor (the product that he, and no one else, made) nor the negative the negative fruits of his labor- the expenses of the production, and yet during production of the product and using up recourses (including wear and tear of capital) was all the consequences of his actions. No one else's.

One cannot "rent labor".

You are again denying reality, because that what employment is- buying someone's labor-hours, that is- renting someone's labor.

However, I would like you to back up your position as to why the capitalist's cut of the product must be set in stone like some kind of interest rate.

Capitalist should in no possible way recieve any cut of the product. The product, being the product of workers' actions can legitimetely only be workers' responsibility (ownership).

I'm of the opinion that there should be some signifigant redistrubtion when/if we move to a stateless society.

Which doesn't at all solve the problems that anarchists adress as central to capitalism- employment and it's notion of property.

I do think, however, that your assumptions of how socialism would actually operate are a bit naive.

In what way?

Instead of asking the individual property owner if you can till some soil, you'll do what? Go to the local democratic collective?

There will be no ownership of areas of land, being that things that are not products of labor cannot be property. Land would have to be occupied-and-used in order for one to have exclusive use of it. If there is no continous occupancy-and-use, but the area is abandoned, it becomes free for anyone else to be use.

If you're counting on democratic control to lead to egalatarian conditions, I have some bad news for you.

There have allready been direct democratic control in established socialistic societies, and it did lead to egalitarianism.

My point is that you have no right to take away another individual's RIGHT to sell thier labor how they see fit.

There is no such right, it one's body and actions are non-transerable, and all contract that de jure transfer the title over them and automatically null and void.

Your second point about how slavery is bad because it treats people like property has already been addressed. In order for a person to be treated like property, it must be an involuntary relationship.

Not true. Self-sale contractc make peole ownership of other people- voluntarily.

I think you need to stop thinking about employment as it exists in the status quo, and start considering how it would actually operate in a free market without primitive accumulation problems.

Anarchism is not looking for a better type of capitalism or a better type of emloyment, but their abolishment.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

LogisticEarth — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:09:06 GMT

stoc, you're leaping to positions that I'm not arguing for here. In no way does someone working for a wage make them "property" or make them involuntarily "commanded" by thier employer. People act as agents of an employer because they have agreed to for compensation.

Currently in our society, a cow is treated as property. It has no legal rights, can be confined, forced to go wherever it's owner wants it to, is "robbed" of all the products of it's body (e.g. milk), and can be killed at any point for food or just because. Any employee, hopefully you can see, is in no way in a position of being "property". An employer agrees to pay an employee certain compensation for performing the tasks asked of them. If the employee objects, then they're free to walk off the job, refuse and negotiate with the employer, or take some other kind of action (strike, slow downs, etc.). The fact that people are expected to act as voluntary agents within an organization is in no way similar to a property right. That's really just an absurd position.

Produces the product X, and should get the X, being that he made it. This the point that I have put forward over and over again- one's actions are inalienable. Because of that laborers cannot be legitmately denied the imputation of the responsibility for their labor- they should manage their own labor, own the product of their labor, and meet the expences of the labor; accepting for the sake of argument that renting property is legitimate- including rent payment to the owner of the capitalist.

No, no no he doesn't produce "Product X", Product X is whatever he would do without the available capital. Joe's labor (X), plus Steve's capital (Y) produces Product (Z). Joe IS directing he own labor, he is deciding to work for Steve, and working within the parameters laid out under the agreement. Steve is not downloading into Joe's brain and controling him. Furthermore, Joes labor is applied to Steve's capital, and whatever Joe's share of the product is is decided between them. Meeting the expenses of the labor? Well, Joe's already doing that presumably by staying alive. However he is not meeting the expenses of the CAPITAL, which is the whole point.

So, even if we say that renting of property is legitimate, renting one's labor still remains illegitimate, and the capitalist does not have any right to any part of the workers' products, if he rents them the capital, the rent he should get in that case is totally unrelated to the product of the workers' labor, he should get it even if the workers don't even use the capital. Just like it would be in the case where I rent a car from you- you are not entitled to tell me how, exactly where and in what times I should drive it, and you entitled to the rent even if I don't use the car.

One cannot "rent labor" as it's immediately consumed and not able to be returned, that's like "renting bread". The employer is essentially purchasing a direct-use consumer's good from the employer, although in this case it's a producer's good. However, I would like you to back up your position as to why the capitalist's cut of the product must be set in stone like some kind of interest rate. It strikes me as completely arbitrary. There are places like this where property-owners charge a flat fee to use certain equipment. Art studios, craft fairs, community workshops, etc. However, most people don't make thier living this way because generally these activities are very inefficient and better suited for hobbies or specialty products. It takes a workplace with division of labor and management to compete.

With the abolition of the state but the survival of capitalism, your options would not expand much, you'd still have to choose a master to serve in order to survive. You couldn't go to any unused land and start tilling it without asking for anyone's permission, you couldn't take an interest-free loan and buy instruments of labor for yourself. You'd still have to enrich people who do not labor, so that they would grant you the possibility to labor at all. The opposite of all that would be the case in socialism.

If you take our current status-quo and just hit the big red button that abolishes the state, you might be onto something. However, the current distribution of ownership across our society has vast injustices baked into it from past accumulation. I'm of the opinion that there should be some signifigant redistrubtion when/if we move to a stateless society. Going into detail for the methods of this redistribution are a bit off topic for this discussion, so I'll leave it at that. I do think, however, that your assumptions of how socialism would actually operate are a bit naive. Instead of asking the individual property owner if you can till some soil, you'll do what? Go to the local democratic collective? Or just let people run roughshod over the work of others? If you're counting on democratic control to lead to egalatarian conditions, I have some bad news for you.

Which is your value judgement, that is irrelevant. Slavery is not bad because of involuntaryness, but because it treats people as property, likewise employment does the same thing and should be abolished just like slavery was.

Your first point about my statement being a value judgement is absolutely correct, and that is how I was presenting it. My point is that you have no right to take away another individual's RIGHT to sell thier labor how they see fit.

Your second point about how slavery is bad because it treats people like property has already been addressed. In order for a person to be treated like property, it must be an involuntary relationship. The involuntary nature of the master-slave relationship is PRECISELY what makes it a property relationship, and the voluntary nature of employment is precisely what makes it a non-property relationship. Slavery IS bad because it is involuntary.

Final thought for this post: I think you need to stop thinking about employment as it exists in the status quo, and start considering how it would actually operate in a free market without primitive accumulation problems.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

stsoc — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:48:55 GMT

And what is the value of this difference?

Most probably the market price of the half the instruments of labor, I doubt Joe would agree to a higher price to pay (for joining the coop without bringing capital).

What about ongoing costs and replacement of equipment?

They bear them toghether as a democratic collective.

Steve, by owning capital that he justly aquired, doesn't have the right to anyone else's labor.

And thereby should not have the right either to command him how, where and at what times to labor, nor to take the product of his labor.

What he DOES have is the right to is control over that capital.

By granting or denying it's rental. There is no right to command people who use the capital.

Joe working on his own produces value X.

Produces the product X, and should get the X, being that he made it. This the point that I have put forward over and over again- one's actions are inalienable. Because of that laborers cannot be legitmately denied the imputation of the responsibility for their labor- they should manage their own labor, own the product of their labor, and meet the expences of the labor; accepting for the sake of argument that renting property is legitimate- including rent payment to the owner of the capitalist.

So, even if we say that renting of property is legitimate, renting one's labor still remains illegitimate, and the capitalist does not have any right to any part of the workers' products, if he rents them the capital, the rent he should get in that case is totally unrelated to the product of the workers' labor, he should get it even if the workers don't even use the capital. Just like it would be in the case where I rent a car from you- you are not entitled to tell me how, exactly where and in what times I should drive it, and you entitled to the rent even if I don't use the car.

This goes beyond your argument that labor is exploitative due to payments for labor

It's not labor that's exploitative, but employment.

We don't know what is good for society.

What we can know is that no imposition of harm and absense of hierarchies are a priori axioms of ethics, and that the socialist labor theory of property is the only consistent justification of property.

The hierarchical division of labor allows for great increases in efficiency.

Not suprisingly, we disagree, not only on the definition of efficiency (being that the bulk of libertarians don't see eradication of poverty and economic equality as good things, and that pollution and indirect harm are considered "externalities"). But, even if hierarchies are more efficient, efficiency cannot justify unjustified things.

it is the State that does the heavy lifing when it comes to keeping me from persuing other options.

With the abolition of the state but the survival of capitalism, your options would not expand much, you'd still have to choose a master to serve in order to survive. You couldn't go to any unused land and start tilling it without asking for anyone's permission, you couldn't take an interest-free loan and buy instruments of labor for yourself. You'd still have to enrich people who do not labor, so that they would grant you the possibility to labor at all. The opposite of all that would be the case in socialism.

The very act of employment is NOT undesirable to me.

Which is your value judgement, that is irrelevant. Slavery is not bad because of involuntaryness, but because it treats people as property, likewise employment does the same thing and should be abolished just like slavery was.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

LogisticEarth — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:47:50 GMT

(regarding splitting wages while only using one party's capital) After the initial difference to make up Joe's joining in the business without contributing capital, yes.

And what is the value of this difference? I posited an answer to that question and you seemed to have ignored it. What about ongoing costs and replacement of equipment? Simply having capital doesn't mean that someone is able to continue to use it for employement indefinitely into the future, as it degrades and needs to be replaced. It can only be preserved with proper management, which is a vital form of labor in itself.

And saying that Steve is entitled in renting the equipment is to say Steve, merely by the ownership of the equipment, has the right to another's labor. That's why the scenario I just mentioned would play out in socialism.

Simply false. Steve, by owning capital that he justly aquired, doesn't have the right to anyone else's labor. What he DOES have is the right to is control over that capital. Joe working on his own produces value X. Joe working with Steve's equipment produces value X+Y. The question is who gets what amount of Y? Since Steve justly owns the material that makes Y possible, this can only be known after negotiation between Steve and Joe is worked out.

As Bob Black said: The place where [adults] pass the most time and submit to the closest control is at work. Thus it's apparent that the source of the greatest direct duress experienced by the ordinary adult is not the state but rather the business that employs him. Your foreman or supervisor gives you more or-else orders in a week than the police do in a decade.
Anarchism means being not just anti-goverment, but anti-governance, and anarchists not only don't see the state as the main enemy, but a lesser enemy then an established hierarchical economic system, which just uses the state as it's tool.

This goes beyond your argument that labor is exploitative due to payments for labor, and into value judgements about what is "good" for society. We don't know what is good for society. While I'm sure we can agree that generally it is a good thing if people are in charge of as much of their own lives as possible, it's useless to me to be "free" in a world that consists of dirt and disease. The hierarchical division of labor allows for great increases in efficiency. As I said, management, accounting, research, etc. are specialized types of labor, and specialized workers in those fields directing people specialized in physical production will likely yield much more "stuff" than a situation where you have day laborers voting on what to build and do.

The challenge lies in balancing the two, and this is best done with market processes. While I won't disagree with you that my employers direct far more of my current life than the State does, it is the State that does the heavy lifing when it comes to keeping me from persuing other options. My employer can't and won't shoot or imprison me for walking out of the office, but the State is fine with doing so if I try and make my living in certain ways that they deem undesirable. The very act of employment is NOT undesirable to me. What is undesirable is the privilege of the employers to force employees into exploitative situations.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

Autolykos — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:40:34 GMT

Lol, oh man. Apparently you've been willfully blind to where I said that I'm willing to adopt your semantics for the sake of argument. Why am I not surprised? You're just using this forum as a sounding board for your own point of view. That is, you're doing your part to simply try to "out-shout" people like me. And where better to do that than in our "home territory", eh? Let me know just how well that's going for you. In the meantime, I'll step up my responses to you, which you'll ignore, which could well imply to other people that you're afraid of responding to me, which could well weaken your own standing around here.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

stsoc — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:36:02 GMT

Stsoc, why are you so afraid of responding to me? Hmm?

Under (a totally baseless) assumption that this sentance you wrote has the meaning that normal people would infer it has, I will answer that I am not afraid of anything, emotions are irrational, and further that it can be said that I am just following your remark (if it really was one) that by engaging in conversation with you I accept that there is intersubjuctive meaning to the words we use that we share, and being that there isn't, because you see think it's ok to define words as one whims (if you do in fact think so), I am no responding to you, and because, as I mentioned, I have no base for desyphering what you mean by the characters you type, I will write this message which is an answer to your message, or monologue, I don't know, and past this massage will not direct any messages to you whatsoever.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

Autolykos — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:15:46 GMT

Stsoc, why are you so afraid of responding to me? Hmm?

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

stsoc — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:12:03 GMT

Probably first and formost is the hassle/cost of business and professional licensing drives

Existence of which doesn't justify employment, I pressume you see that.

what further reasons would the plumber have for working for a larger firm? 2.) Beneficial aspects of the division of labor.

Which can exist in socialism in the form of workers' cooperatives.

This is the whole point, right? An employee is being exploited because they have no access to capital, and are being charged an unjust rent to use the equipment.

Exactly.

Except is it really unjust to have an exchange where a person is allowed to use part of capital's productive value?

Yes.

In comes Joe. Joe has no tools of his own but has lots of experience working on odd jobs around his house and for family and friends. Since Steve has a variety of tools available, and many customers, Joe asks Steve if he can work with him and use his tools. Steve and Joe can now get jobs done twice and quickly, and charge twice as much. But should this be 50/50 split?

After the initial difference to make up Joe's joining in the business without contributing capital, yes.

Saying that Joe is entitled to use Steve's equipment free of cost is to say that Joe, merely from the act of using an object, has the right to another's labor.

And saying that Steve is entitled in renting the equipment is to say Steve, merely by the ownership of the equipment, has the right to another's labor. That's why the scenario I just mentioned would play out in socialism.

unjust rents

A pleonasm.

The problem is not with employment

For an anarchist, it is, and, as I said, for multiple reasons.

it is with political privilege and unjust state intervention.

As Bob Black said: The place where [adults] pass the most time and submit to the closest control is at work. Thus it's apparent that the source of the greatest direct duress experienced by the ordinary adult is not the state but rather the business that employs him. Your foreman or supervisor gives you more or-else orders in a week than the police do in a decade.

Anarchism means being not just anti-goverment, but anti-governance, and anarchists not only don't see the state as the main enemy, but a lesser enemy then an established hierarchical economic system, which just uses the state as it's tool.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

LogisticEarth — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 16:50:23 GMT

The plumber that has an employer comes and fixes your plumbing. He, the employee, provides the service. He provides it to you, and not to the employer. You, the customer, pay for the service. You don't pay it to the service provider, but his employer, becase the service provider has alienated his labor to the employer, who is not the service provider.
Employment means alienation (rent) of labor, and provision of service does not.

If the plumber isn't working for themselves (and many of them do), then they are working for a company for a variety of reasons:

1.) Probably first and formost is the hassle/cost of business and professional licensing drives many marginal producers out of self-employment. This represents two major injustices. Firstly, the marginalized workers are being oppressed by the state from freely participating in the marketplace, and thus find it either more convienent, if not a matter of neccessity, to sell their labor to an employer. Secondly, it allows the holders of the business licenses to extract an economic rent from the consumers in the form of higher prices and lessened supply. These barriers to market entry are probably the biggest source of ecomonic exploitation in the market of the developed world today. We cannot seriously consider the question of just labor relations without acknowleging that there are huge interventions present. As such, virtually every employee in the country is placed in an exploitative situation from day one, not because of market processes, but because of state intervention.

Removing or reducing the exploitation caused by state regulation/licenses, what further reasons would the plumber have for working for a larger firm?

2.) Beneficial aspects of the division of labor. Working with a company of employees allows people to specialize in tasks. A plumbing service, rather than just an individual plumber, could potentially provide much more value. A receptionist deals with directing customers and answering rudimentary questions, the operations manager organizes the field crews so as to efficiently allocate their time, an accountant handles the flow of revenue and costs, and the field plumbers can spend more time working/worrying about fixing pipes rather than answering phone calls, allocating time, and balancing the books. In this case, when you call the plumbing service, they send out a plumber to your house. He fixes the pipes, but, as you said, you send the check to the employer, not the field laborer. Why is this? Well, precisely because the individual plumber that came to your home did not do all the work that it took to get him there. In this case, has the plumber really alienated his or her labor, simply because as the person providing the service on location, he should get the check? Wouldn't this then mean that the rest of the workers at the company have alienated thier labor to the plumber? Either way I don't see how you can show that employment in this fashion is really exploitative.

3.) Use of and access to capital and the means of production. Aha! This is the whole point, right? An employee is being exploited because they have no access to capital, and are being charged an unjust rent to use the equipment. Except is it really unjust to have an exchange where a person is allowed to use part of capital's productive value? In the case of primitive accumulation as Marx describes it, then maybe, as the capital is illegitimately owned. But is it really a problem of ownership/employment then, or unjust accumulation? Continuing with the plumber example, lets consider the case of one plumber, call him Steve, with a van and some tools. How did he get these tools and van? He has accumulated the previous fruits of his labor, and exchanged them with others to aquire his capital. This allows him to serve his customers much more efficiently, and increases his labor power. In fact, he has enough tools that they're more than he can use at any one moment.

In comes Joe. Joe has no tools of his own but has lots of experience working on odd jobs around his house and for family and friends. Since Steve has a variety of tools available, and many customers, Joe asks Steve if he can work with him and use his tools. Steve and Joe can now get jobs done twice and quickly, and charge twice as much. But should this be 50/50 split? After all, Joe, while providing the labor, has no tools and no van. These are Steve's materials, and represent his past labor. Saying that Joe is entitled to use Steve's equipment free of cost is to say that Joe, merely from the act of using an object, has the right to another's labor. Surely there must be some compensation paid from Joe to Steve to account for this cost, even outside of regular maintenance. And what is the just cost? Well, as it is the "congealed labor" of Steve that accounts for the existence of the capital, then it should be Steve's perogative to set a price. Steve is essentially trading labor (of a specific type) from the past for labor (of a specific type) in the present.

So, to recap, I've talked about three reasons someone might seek out employment from a company rather than self-employment: 1.) Economic oppression. 2.) Reaping the benefits of the division of labor, and 3.) Access to capital in the present without the need to accumulate it for one's self. I think we can agree that #1 is an unjust situation. #2 and #3 are more complicated. Lets talk about RENT. The word generally has two meanings, and I think you've been using them interchangabley, which is sloppy and can lead to all kinds of misconceptions. Here's the two common definintions:

Paying for the temporary use of an object or space, e.g. renting a car
The premium someone is able to charge over and above the just operating and opportunity costs

The first definition is irrelevent to what we're talking about. The second one is important. In scenerios 2 and 3 above, it's the difference between a worker being exploited, and a worker getting his "just due". In a competitive market, employers bidding for workers (and vis-versa) will tend to drive any unjust rents out of existence. This does not mean that no rents will exist, just that they will be minimized depending on how efficient the market is. As people become more mobile, tasks require more or less skill, and generally society becomes richer, the rents should tend to dissappear.

But instead we often see the opposite. Why? Because of scenerio #1. There are huge controls in our society that benefit large capital holders, the politically connected, and the holders of state-issued licenses and privleges. If you want to go with Marxist definitiosn, then yes, this is Captialism. However, what libertarians advocate is better defined as a market anarchist, rather than capitalist system. In market anarchy, the "benefit" of the system, the privileges, are equal between those with capital and those without. The problem is not with employment, it is with political privilege and unjust state intervention.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

stsoc — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:45:41 GMT

That's not the question, the question is in a world where you are a slave which country is closest to your ideal?

None is close.

Also anarcho-communists have existed, and they scared all successful businessmen away.

To scare of parasites is a rightfull thing to do, so that the workers can organize by themselves and produce things for themselves and reap the entierty of the fruits of their labor. Revolutionary Spain proved that leands to increace of production in all branches of industry and to the dissaprearance of poverty.

There is minimal difference between you and Castro.

A plain ignorant statement.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

h.k. — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:55:47 GMT

That's not the question, the question is in a world where you are a slave which country is closest to your ideal?

Also anarcho-communists have existed, and they scared all successful businessmen away. There is minimal difference between you and Castro.

Re: Inalienability of labor and employment

stsoc — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:15:26 GMT

Which countries in the world are closest to your style of governance?

Firstly, I do not advocate any style of governance, I advocate no governance. There are no societies today that are organized by socialism.

BTW anarcho-communism has already existed, in Spain during the 1930's

As I have mentioned multiple times on this forum.