# Start Here > Guest Forum >  The Ask A Communist Thread

## donnie darko

I registered here because I want to challenge the viewpoints of the people here, 95% at least I imagine are die-hard capitalists. 

I think capitalism is a threat to our liberties and freedom as Americans and as human beings around the globe and will lead to the vast majority of people suffering _de facto_ slavery within a few generations' time.

Neoliberal globalized capitalism has been the main form of development since the 80s/90s and aside from the heavily state controlled variant of it in China, it's proven ineffective at reducing poverty. Many people have also been forced to give up their land, culture and communities and move to the metropolises because of global capitalism. 

I would rather production and capital be owned by the people who work it, not by indifferent shareholders and speculators.

Does anyone have any questions for me, an admitted Marxist?

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## Jovan Galtic

I don't. I lived in a communist country 30+ years and was lucky to get out alive. 

No thanks.

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## JK/SEA

> I registered here because I want to challenge the viewpoints of the people here, 95% at least I imagine are die-hard capitalists. 
> 
> I think capitalism is a threat to our liberties and freedom as Americans and as human beings around the globe and will lead to the vast majority of people suffering _de facto_ slavery within a few generations' time.
> 
> Neoliberal globalized capitalism has been the main form of development since the 80s/90s and aside from the heavily state controlled variant of it in China, it's proven ineffective at reducing poverty. Many people have also been forced to give up their land, culture and communities and move to the metropolises because of global capitalism. 
> 
> I would rather production and capital be owned by the people who work it, not by indifferent shareholders and speculators.
> 
> Does anyone have any questions for me, an admitted Marxist?


Do you, or have you ever, owned a business?...ever sell lemonade on a street corner?..

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## cajuncocoa

Nope, I don't have any questions for you....but if you would like to learn why capitalism > Marxism, perhaps it is YOU who would do well to ask some questions.

BTW & FYI...the system we now have in the U.S. is not free-market capitalism.  It is crony corporatism.  There's your problem.

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## donnie darko

> Do you, or have you ever, owned a business?...ever sell lemonade on a street corner?..


Yes actually. I used to have a business selling coins. Not incorporated or anything, just on Ebay/CL.

I don't have an issue with that kind of business since the profit one makes doing such a thing is compensation for the labor of procuring and selling the product.

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## donnie darko

> I don't. I lived in a communist country 30+ years and was lucky to get out alive. 
> 
> No thanks.


Why do you think your country was a bad place to live in?

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## donnie darko

> BTW & FYI...the system we now have in the U.S. is not free-market capitalism.  It is crony corporatism.  There's your problem.


Capitalism _is_ cronyism.

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## Jovan Galtic

Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis by Ludwig von Mises.

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## Jovan Galtic

> Why do you think your country was a bad place to live in?


Yes, it was a very bad place and it will take a century to rebuild what communists have destroyed. If at all possible...

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## cajuncocoa

> Capitalism _is_ cronyism.


No, it most certainly is NOT.

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## otherone

> Capitalism _is_ cronyism.


explain how please.

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## JK/SEA

> Yes actually. I used to have a business selling coins. Not incorporated or anything, just on Ebay/CL.
> 
> I don't have an issue with that kind of business since the profit one makes doing such a thing is compensation for the labor of procuring and selling the product.


you're a capitalist then.

next question.

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## cajuncocoa

Seen on Facebook....a good lesson as to why Marxism is doomed to failure




> An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he  had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an  entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and  that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. 
> 
>  The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class  on Obama's plan".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive  the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A....  (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more  readily understood by all).
> 
>  After the first test, the grades  were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were  upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test  rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less  and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so  they studied little. 
> 
>  The second test average was a D! No one was happy. 
>  When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. 
> 
> ...

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## donnie darko

> explain how please.


When everything is a commodity for sale, eventually the most powerful corporations will become so influential on the government that they will merge together with them, rendering the government undemocratic and the people powerless in their influence on it (aside from the people with money and connections).

Corporatism is an inevitable result of capitalism. If the state disappeared tomorrow, the world's largest corporations would become the de facto state since they would be the only entities large enough to supply people with transportation, healthcare, defense and all the other things needed to live in a modern society.

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## pcosmar

> Yes actually. I used to have a business selling coins. Not incorporated or anything, just on Ebay/CL.
> 
> I don't have an issue with that kind of business since the profit one makes doing such a thing is compensation for the labor of procuring and selling the product.


You obviously have no understanding of Capitalism then.

perhaps you are confusing Corporatism with capitalism,, as is a common mistake.
Corporatism is not Capitalism,, or it is at best a bastardization of capitalism and socialism (closely related to communism)

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## erowe1

I don't care if you're a communist, as long as you don't force anyone else to participate in your commune.

If you do, then you have no business complaining about anything else as a threat to freedom.

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## Tywysog Cymru

What type of Communist are you?

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## donnie darko

> Seen on Facebook....a good lesson as to why Marxism is doomed to failure


Communism doesn't mean that everyone would make the same amount of money. All it means is that the workers own the means to their production, as opposed to outside shareholders (ie capitalists).

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## CaptUSA

> Capitalism _is_ cronyism.


Incorrect.  In a free market, the State doesn't control it.  Therefore, there is no way for corporations to craft laws that benefit themselves.  The same laws that create barriers to entry that keep new ideas from the marketplace which would cause competition that corporations don't like.

I've always found that the best way to reduce poverty is to work harder.  But I suppose if you only see people as part of a collective rather than all of them individuals, it would be hard to see that.  In a free market, the more value you provide to your fellow man, the more value you receive in return.  If you want to have more, you have to give more.  

You don't try to get the State to steal it for you.  Whether you are a rich businessman or a pauper.

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## pcosmar

> Corporatism is an inevitable result of capitalism.


*No* it is not. It is the deliberate result of Government involvement in the Market.

Corporations are a Government creation.. not a market creation.

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## pcosmar

> What type of Communist are you?


My guess,, a confused "communist".

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## donnie darko

> What type of Communist are you?


I'd say I support cooperative economics, with the support of a state that provides a safety net. Basically the same as a typical social democratic system except that the stock market and capitalism would gradually be made obsolete in favor of enterprises that are worker owned.

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## fr33

Do you support voluntary collectivism or do you support the initiation of force to accomplish your commune?

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## matt0611

Why should people who work in a factory OWN that factory? They were just hired to work their by the owners. 

Makes no sense to me. I work as an engineer, I rather just get paid with money and then if I want I can always buy shares of stock in the company with the salary I'm paid.

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## donnie darko

> *No* it is not. It is the deliberate result of Government involvement in the Market.
> 
> Corporations are a Government creation.. not a market creation.


So you think if the US government was overthrown, multinationals would suddenly poof and disappear out of existence?

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## donnie darko

> Why should people who work in a factory OWN that factory? They were just hired to work their by the owners. 
> 
> Makes no sense to me. I work as an engineer, I rather just get paid with money and then if I want I can always buy shares of stock in the company with the salary I'm paid.


I bet if you were paid the value of what your work created, you would get paid more than you do now.

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## donnie darko

> Do you support voluntary collectivism or do you support the initiation of force to accomplish your commune?


I support voluntary collectivism to an extent, but I would like to see stock trading and ownership of land rendered illegal. 

This isn't as radical as it seems. A property tax is in effect abolition of land ownership.

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## erowe1

> So you think if the US government was overthrown, multinationals would suddenly poof and disappear out of existence?


No. And that's a ridiculous impossible hypothetical anyway.

But the less powerful the government is, the less those corporations can do with it.

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## matt0611

> I bet if you were paid the value of what your work created, you would get paid more than you do now.


Nah, I'm actually probably overpaid right now to be honest, it will be a year at least until I'm even worth my salary.

Even if I did actually feel that way, I can always leave and start my own firm with other people.

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## donnie darko

> Incorrect.  In a free market, the State doesn't control it.  Therefore, there is no way for corporations to craft laws that benefit themselves.  The same laws that create barriers to entry that keep new ideas from the marketplace which would cause competition that corporations don't like.
> 
> I've always found that the best way to reduce poverty is to work harder.  But I suppose if you only see people as part of a collective rather than all of them individuals, it would be hard to see that.  In a free market, the more value you provide to your fellow man, the more value you receive in return.  If you want to have more, you have to give more.  
> 
> You don't try to get the State to steal it for you.  Whether you are a rich businessman or a pauper.


Don't you think if the state was as small and powerless as ancaps and right-libertarians would like to see it, the corporations would essentially assume its power and be able to write the law to their own will?

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## erowe1

> I support voluntary collectivism to an extent, but I would like to see stock trading and ownership of land rendered illegal.


Define stock ownership.

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## otherone

> When everything is a commodity for sale, eventually the most powerful corporations will become so influential on the government that they will merge together with them, rendering the government undemocratic and the people powerless in their influence on it (aside from the people with money and connections).
> 
> Corporatism is an inevitable result of capitalism.


You seem to have a basic understanding of corporatism, what you fail to see is the real problem is not the capitalists, it's the government.
Do you believe in individual Rights?

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## donnie darko

> Define stock ownership.


It should be illegal (and seen as ridiculous) to sell a hypothetical part of your company to someone who has nothing to do with that company. Also the people who work there deserve to bank the value of what they produce. The wage system simply pays people enough that they consent to work there even though most of what they make is taken from them and given to the shareholders in the company.

Wage paid labor is not that much different from slavery in many ways.

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## donnie darko

> You seem to have a basic understanding of corporatism, what you fail to see is the real problem is not the capitalists, it's the government.
> Do you believe in individual Rights?


Yes I do. But I also believe that the powerful shouldn't have the unconditional right to exploit the weak.

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## awake

Communism and Capitalism ... question to the communist: Are you in favor of a society where any and every individual is allowed to exchange peacefully for anything he chooses so long as it does not harm another persons body in any way?

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## Todd

I don't have a problem with people being communists.  I think every body should be one.  Volontarily.

 Just you be a communist over there on your property and I'll be a capitalist over here on mine.  Peace.

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## erowe1

> It should be illegal (and seen as ridiculous) to sell a hypothetical part of your company to someone who has nothing to do with that company. Also the people who work there deserve to bank the value of what they produce. The wage system simply pays people enough that they consent to work there even though most of what they make is taken from them and given to the shareholders in the company.
> 
> Wage paid labor is not that much different from slavery in many ways.


Why should this be up to you to impose on other people against their will?

If you and another person came to an agreement where he would own 49% of your coin company in exchange for a sum of money to invest in it, where does anyone else get the right to come up to you two with guns and prevent you from making that agreement under threat of death?

Same thing with wage labor. If I want to offer my labor in exchange for an amount of money per hour worked, who are you you or anyone else to tell me I can't?

You and others who agree with you should be free to live the way you want. Just keep it to yourselves.

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## otherone

> Yes I do. But I also believe that the powerful shouldn't have the unconditional right to exploit the weak.


So it should be against the law to enter into an agreement with a neighbor or friend?   If you have a buddy who has a cool idea for an invention, for instance, and just needs some seed money to launch his invention, and he promises you a piece of the action in compensation....that should be illegal?

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## matt0611

> I don't have a problem with people being communists.  I think every body should be one.  Volontarily.
> 
>  Just you be a communist over there on your property and I'll be a capitalist over here on mine.  Peace.


Exactly, if people wanna buy a big plot of land and live in a commune voluntarily I'm not gonna stop em. I'm not gonna live there though...

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## donnie darko

> Communism and Capitalism ... question to the communist: Are you in favor of a society where any and every individual is allowed to exchange peacefully for anything he chooses so long as it does not harm another persons body in any way?


Realistically, no. There has to be protections. Not everyone is equal in power; equal in how much they are capable of consenting. This is why it's wrong for a 45 year old to have sex with a 12 year old even if the 12 year old says "yes". 

The same principle can be applied to people who own capital vs those who only have labor to give.

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## erowe1

> Yes I do. But I also believe that the powerful shouldn't have the unconditional right to exploit the weak.


Yes you do.

Thats how you would go about banning wage labor. Your super-powerful government would stamp out any weaker individuals who would compete with its businesses.

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## awake

> I don't have a problem with people being communists.  I think every body should be one.  Volontarily.
> 
>  Just you be a communist over there on your property and I'll be a capitalist over here on mine.  Peace.


That's the problem with communists: they don't want you having any property that they can't make use of whenever they please. Since they don't want property as a concept then you must be forced (threatened) not to have any either. Their doctrine is pure violence to ensure the concept of property never naturally develops as reason and intellect can deduct.

I too wish communists the best on their own time and property, but they assume that my property is always theirs.

The commie should be happy with governments world wide, they are the vanguard for the abolishment of private property everywhere.

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## otherone

> The same principle can be applied to people who own capital vs those who only have labor to give.


I'm 5'9".  I don't expect anyone to lower the basketball hoop for me anytime soon.

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## Philhelm

> When everything is a commodity for sale, eventually the most powerful corporations will become so influential on the government that they will merge together with them, rendering the government undemocratic and the people powerless in their influence on it (aside from the people with money and connections).
> 
> Corporatism is an inevitable result of capitalism. If the state disappeared tomorrow, the world's largest corporations would become the de facto state since they would be the only entities large enough to supply people with transportation, healthcare, defense and all the other things needed to live in a modern society.


Corporations would not exist in a purely free market.

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## donnie darko

> Why should this be up to you to impose on other people against their will?
> 
> If you and another person came to an agreement where he would own 49% of your coin company in exchange for a sum of money to invest in it, where does anyone else get the right to come up to you two with guns and prevent you from making that agreement under threat of death?
> 
> Same thing with wage labor. If I want to offer my labor in exchange for an amount of money per hour worked, who are you you or anyone else to tell me I can't?
> 
> You and others who agree with you should be free to live the way you want. Just keep it to yourselves.


I never said anything about the threat of death. If they want to give me a sum of money, they should be required by law to work with me.

The problem with a capital based economic system is that it funnels wealth in the hands of gamblers at the expense of people who produce the wealth. Is it consensual? Yes but so is bribery.

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## Todd

> When everything is collectivized, eventually the most powerful collective groups will become so influential on the government that they will merge together with them, rendering the government undemocratic and the people powerless in their influence on it (aside from the people with positions of influence and connections).
> 
> Fascism is an inevitable result of Collectivism. If the state disappeared tomorrow, the world's largest Communist Collective group would become the de facto state since they would be the only entities large enough to supply people with transportation, healthcare, defense and all the other things needed to live in a modern society.


Fixed.

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## donnie darko

> Exactly, if people wanna buy a big plot of land and live in a commune voluntarily I'm not gonna stop em. I'm not gonna live there though...


If those people were thriving and a peril to the capitalist system, you would likely declare war on us (ala Vietnam).

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## awake

> Realistically, no. There has to be protections. Not everyone is equal in power; equal in how much they are capable of consenting. This is why it's wrong for a 45 year old to have sex with a 12 year old even if the 12 year old says "yes". 
> 
> The same principle can be applied to people who own capital vs those who only have labor to give.



Is it the parents right to enforce the age of consent or the communist state?

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## Tywysog Cymru

> I'd say I support cooperative economics, with the support of a state that provides a safety net. Basically the same as a typical social democratic system except that the stock market and capitalism would gradually be made obsolete in favor of enterprises that are worker owned.


Ah, so you don't believe in a stateless society that Marx thought his ideology would bring.

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## donnie darko

> That's the problem with communists: they don't want you having any property that they can't make use of whenever they please. Since they don't want property as a concept then you must be forced (threatened) not to have any either. Their doctrine is pure violence to ensure the concept of property never naturally develops as reason and intellect can deduct.
> 
> I too wish communists the best on their own time and property, but they assume that my property is always theirs.
> 
> The commie should be happy with governments world wide, they are the vanguard for the abolishment of private property everywhere.


Why does private land ownership make any sense? Why should one family get to own a piece of dirt _for all eternity_ no matter what, even if they don't give _anything_ back to society?

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## donnie darko

> Ah, so you don't believe in a stateless society that Marx thought his ideology would bring.


Maybe someday in the future the state will no longer be necessary, once the Third Industrial Revolution really kicks in, but for now no I think a democratic state is essential to keep our standard of living the way it is.

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## donnie darko

> Corporations would not exist in a purely free market.


I would agree with you, but some of the corporations today are so powerful, we're talking GDPs that exceed a lot of nation-states that I don't think they even need the backing of a state anymore. If need be they could just hire their own private armies, write their own laws, and function as their own sovereign entity.

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## JK/SEA

Would a barter system be met with resistance from Communists?

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## JK/SEA

> Why does private land ownership make any sense? Why should one family get to own a piece of dirt _for all eternity_ no matter what, even if they don't give _anything_ back to society?


why not?...eternity is a long time btw....

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## erowe1

> I never said anything about the threat of death. If they want to give me a sum of money, they should be required by law to work with me.


How do you require something by law without the guys with guns? How do you deal with the people who choose not to follow your law?

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## awake

> Maybe someday in the future the state will no longer be necessary, once the Third Industrial Revolution really kicks in, but for now no I think a democratic state is essential to keep our standard of living the way it is.


A democratic state is necessary to usher in a communist state. Intervention upon encroachment, a snowball effect is under way. Democracy is simply a means to an end. That end is not liberty, that's for damn sure. I will say it again and again, the accumulative crises that democracy brings lead to the adoption of a bigger and bigger state.

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## tod evans

> Why does private land ownership make any sense? Why should one family get to own a piece of dirt _for all eternity_ no matter what, even if they don't give _anything_ back to society?


Dude you _owe_ me some of your dirt.

I want it now!

If you don't give it to me I'll squeal to the government because I deserve it..



Pay up!

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## pcosmar

> Why does private land ownership make any sense? Why should one family get to own a piece of dirt _for all eternity_ no matter what, even if they don't give _anything_ back to society?


Why should they be required to *GIVE* anything to anyone?

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## awake

> How do you require something by law without the guys with guns? How do you deal with the people who choose not to follow your law?


"Require by law to work with me"...define slavery?

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## erowe1

> Maybe someday in the future the state will no longer be necessary, once the Third Industrial Revolution really kicks in, but for now no I think a democratic state is essential to keep our standard of living the way it is.


In the OP you mentioned threats to freedom. But in fact you're perfectly fine with taking away others' freedoms.

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## donnie darko

> why not?...eternity is a long time btw....


Why should people have the right to exclude everyone else from walking on a piece of land, just because of some deal that was made ages ago? Doesn't sound like freedom to me.

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## donnie darko

> How do you require something by law without the guys with guns? How do you deal with the people who choose not to follow your law?


Some countries' police forces do not carry guns.

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## matt0611

> Why should people have the right to exclude everyone else from walking on a piece of land, just because of some deal that was made ages ago? Doesn't sound like freedom to me.


Because its their land?

The same reason someone can't just come up and use my car. Its my car...I paid for it.

You can always get your own land or ask me permission to come on mine.

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## erowe1

> Why should people have the right to exclude everyone else from walking on a piece of land, just because of some deal that was made ages ago? Doesn't sound like freedom to me.


Isn't that a perfect description of the state?

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## tod evans

> Why should people have the right to exclude everyone else from walking on a piece of land, just because of some deal that was made ages ago? Doesn't sound like freedom to me.


I've already told you, you owe me land and I want it!

12 acres will be fine.

Pay up or off to jail bucko.

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## donnie darko

> Why should they be required to *GIVE* anything to anyone?


Well okay, if they're not using any public services, and are totally self sufficient on their land, yes, they shouldn't be required to contribute anything to society.

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## otherone

> Some countries' police forces do not carry guns.


Seems dangerous, considering people have the Right to bear arms.

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## Todd

> Why does private land ownership make any sense? Why should one family get to own a piece of dirt _for all eternity_ no matter what, even if they don't give _anything_ back to society?


because someone always owns the property de facto.   Either one individual does or those in collective power who make the decisions for the use of that property.  It's a myth that Communism means no ownership.  Ownership is just limited to a small group of deciders who decide for all humanity.

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## donnie darko

> Isn't that a perfect description of the state?


I support unlimited, unconditional immigration.

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## erowe1

> Some countries' police forces do not carry guns.


You're dodging the question.

How would you deal with people who choose not to obey your law? Just let them do it? Is what you called a "law" based on voluntary participation? Because if it is, I'm fine with it. Try out your way with whoever else wants to participate voluntarily.

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## pcosmar

> I would agree with you, but* some of the corporations today are so powerful,* .


That is your Flaw in understanding.
You are looking at the present state of things and blaming it on capitalism.. 

What we have now is not free market capitalism.. it is corporatism. That is a Socialist construct.. The State controlling the means of production.

This country has been a socialist (communist) country for a hundred years.. That is the problem.

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## donnie darko

> Because its their land?
> 
> The same reason someone can't just come up and use my car. Its my car...I paid for it.
> 
> You can always get your own land or ask me permission to come on mine.


So, do you think Nestle should be able to buy up all our water?
If some corporation claims they own the atmosphere, they should be able to force people to pay them to breathe?

I'm against land ownership because land should be a commons. Not only that but since land in the Land of the Free was stolen from the original inhabitants, all ownership of it is illegitimate anyways.

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## erowe1

> I support unlimited, unconditional immigration.


Really?

So I can come into the borders of your commune without meeting the condition of living according to your rules?

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## Todd

> I support unlimited, unconditional immigration.


so do many anarcho capitalists

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## CaptUSA

Wow, this feels like the old days, amiright?!!!



> Well okay, if they're not using any public services, and are totally self sufficient on their land, yes, they shouldn't be required to contribute anything to society.


You do understand that the most successful businesses got that way because they have contributed WAY more to society than anyone who merely consumes.  (again you need to separate, if you are able, businesses who provide a valuable service to people and those that use the State to provide them wealth.)

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## donnie darko

> You're dodging the question.
> 
> How would you deal with people who choose not to obey your law? Just let them do it? Is what you called a "law" based on voluntary participation? Because if it is, I'm fine with it. Try out your way with whoever else wants to participate voluntarily.


Look if someone makes a small deal like that, I don't really care. I wouldn't want the government to get on their case about something that small beans. What I would rather like to see is the establishment of stock markets like the NYSE be closed.

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## CaptUSA

> I'm against land ownership because land should be a commons.


Ever read up on the tragedy of the commons?

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## donnie darko

> Really?
> 
> So I can come into the borders of your commune without meeting the condition of living according to your rules?


Sure, but if you aren't respecting the rules and are being a rude a**shole, don't be upset if you get thrown out the door.

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## erowe1

> Well okay, if they're not using any public services, and are totally self sufficient on their land, yes, they shouldn't be required to contribute anything to society.


You keep throwing around words like "require" and "illegal."

What do these things mean to you? You seem not want to get into specifics about them. You implied earlier that no guns would be involved, but even that you put pretty ambiguously, so I'm not sure.

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## erowe1

> Sure, but if you aren't respecting the rules and are being a rude a**shole, don't be upset if you get thrown out the door.


Then you do not believe in unconditional immigration.

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## donnie darko

> Then you do not believe in unconditional immigration.


Yes I do. But I think that if people are not being respectful in a community, the inhabitants have a right to express their discontent.

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## otherone

> so do many anarcho capitalists






> I'd say I support cooperative economics, with the support of_ a state that provides a safety net_.





> I support _unlimited_, unconditional_ immigration_.


LOL
Donnie isn't a commie, he's a DEMOCRAT!

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## donnie darko

> You keep throwing around words like "require" and "illegal."
> 
> What do these things mean to you? You seem not want to get into specifics about them. You implied earlier that no guns would be involved, but even that you put pretty ambiguously, so I'm not sure.


Guns aren't the only way to enforce laws. You can also enforce laws by refusing services to people. There are more sanctions than just violence.

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## matt0611

> So, do you think Nestle should be able to buy up all our water?
> If some corporation claims they own the atmosphere, they should be able to force people to pay them to breathe?
> 
> I'm against land ownership because land should be a commons. Not only that but since land in the Land of the Free was stolen from the original inhabitants, all ownership of it is illegitimate anyways.


Sure. But why would someone want to do that? What's stopping them from doing it right now? What are they gonna do with all the water?

I don't believe air is something that's possible to own (though you sort of own the air that's on your property). 

Its like trying to own "sunlight". Its not really a substance that's conducive to that type of ownership.

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## donnie darko

> Sure. But why would someone want to do that? What's stopping them from doing it right now? What are they gonna do with all the water?
> 
> I don't believe air is something that's possible to own (though you sort of own the air that's on your property). 
> 
> Its like trying to own "sunlight". *Its not really a substance that's conducive to that type of ownership.*


Which is exactly how I feel about land.

BTW Nestle IS trying to buy out the water supply and bottle it.

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## erowe1

> Look if someone makes a small deal like that, I don't really care. I wouldn't want the government to get on their case about something that small beans. What I would rather like to see is the establishment of stock markets like the NYSE be closed.


Closed how? By whom?

And when lots and lots of people start making these small deals that you're fine with, at what point do you stop them from doing it in a larger scale, and how do you stop it?

At some point do you depend on violence to force people to live your way? Or is it all voluntary?

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## erowe1

> Guns aren't the only way to enforce laws. You can also enforce laws by refusing services to people. There are more sanctions than just violence.


How do you have these services in the first place without taxes? And how do you make them pay taxes without violence.

All those lesser sanctions rely on the existence of violent coercion to make them work.

----------


## matt0611

> Which is exactly how I feel about land.
> 
> BTW Nestle IS trying to buy out the water supply and bottle it.


No, land is clearly conducive to private ownership because we have shown how it works. I don't even know how "owning air" would work.

Nestle is buying water and then selling it (which means someone else is buying it). And other firms are doing that as well. I don't see the problem...

----------


## otherone

> At some point do you depend on violence to force people to live your way? Or is it all voluntary?


What he's saying is that I'm allowed to amass a fortune off the backs of the proletarians and all he can do to stop me is to withhold some government services.

----------


## donnie darko

> Closed how? By whom?
> 
> And when lots and lots of people start making these small deals that you're fine with, at what point do you stop them from doing it in a larger scale, and how do you stop it?
> 
> At some point do you depend on violence to force people to live your way? Or is it all voluntary?


I would say small deals should be technically illegal but "non-priority", a bit like how cops tend to not care much about small time drug deals. After they get to a certain size they should be stopped.

The stock market would be closed though not right away, basically it would be scaled back gradually until it no longer existed. The trading accounts would be given to the people who owned them as cash and then frozen, though they might be able to keep them if they chose to work for the company.

I don't think violence would be necessary - just freezing someone's bank account is just as effective as any gun in this day and age.

----------


## Barrex

If I dont want to live in your commune and I take my family and we inhabit small poart of land in Sahara desert. We dig deep and find water; we plant vegetables and fruit; we have some chicken, cows and other animals... We create little estate in middle of Sahara desert.
One day criminal band comes and takes everything we got cages us and sends us in a factory to work. We are given food and other goods as long as we work there. We are not allowed to run away to our little farm because it does not give back to society.

Now replace criminal band with communists.


Is that how you would treat people if they dont want to participate in your little commune?


What country are you from?

----------


## erowe1

> Yes I do. But I think that if people are not being respectful in a community, the inhabitants have a right to express their discontent.


So, if someone doesn't participate in your commune, the people who do participate just express their discontent? That's their final recourse? I'm fine with that.

----------


## donnie darko

> What he's saying is that I'm allowed to amass a fortune off the backs of the proletarians and all he can do to stop me is to withhold some government services.


They should be stripped of their citizenship if they do not accept what the law punishes them with (in my view it should be to pay back to the proletarians what they stole). This would mean all the digital records of who they are, including their money would disappear and they would essentially have no choice but to move to another country.

----------


## CaptUSA

> Which is exactly how I feel about land.
> 
> BTW Nestle IS trying to buy out the water supply and bottle it.


Thought experiment for you, Donnie...

Let's say there's a pond with 12 fish in it.  The fish swim freely throughout the pond but they are easily seen from the surface.  There are 4 people with fishing nets around the pond.  Since the pond is free property, they all have to chance to get the fish.  How long til the fish are gone???

Now, the same scenario where 1 person owns the pond and can sell the fish he catches to people for a trade in value.  Not only will he receive more value in return from people, but he will also feed them for a much longer time since he has an incentive to keep his fish breeding.  

You may be right that the first scenario feeds more people faster, but soon the resources are expired and then EVERYONE is out.  The second scenario provides a bigger incentive for everyone to create value since they want more fish.

This is a simplified example of the tragedy of the commons that plagues your worldview.

----------


## donnie darko

> So, if someone doesn't participate in your commune, the people who do participate just express their discontent? That's their final recourse? I'm fine with that.


Yes, which could mean ostracizing them, refusing to let them buy food, and so on. Yes.

----------


## erowe1

> I would say small deals should be technically illegal but "non-priority", a bit like how cops tend to not care much about small time drug deals. After they get to a certain size they should be stopped.
> 
> The stock market would be closed though not right away, basically it would be scaled back gradually until it no longer existed. The trading accounts would be given to the people who owned them as cash and then frozen, though they might be able to keep them if they chose to work for the company.
> 
> I don't think violence would be necessary - just freezing someone's bank account is just as effective as any gun in this day and age.


How do you freeze a bank account without recourse to violence for those people and banks who refuse to participate?

Here again you just casually throw out the word "illegal," and I'm still not sure what you even mean by the word.

----------


## otherone

> I don't think violence would be necessary - just freezing someone's bank account is just as effective as any gun in this day and age.


LOL!!!!!!!
Does Marx know you're allowing BANKS in your communist paradise?

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## erowe1

> Yes, which could mean ostracizing them, refusing to let them buy food, and so on. Yes.


Sure. You and the people who want to live like you can refuse to do business with the rest of us.

And we'll just do business with one another without you. And then you'll do what? Live and let live?

If so, you're not a Marxist, you're a Rothbardian.

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## tod evans

> Yes, which could mean ostracizing them, refusing to let them buy food, and so on. Yes.


No more food for you until I get my 12 acres you _owe_ me!

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## cajuncocoa

> Communism doesn't mean that everyone would make the same amount of money. All it means is that the workers own the means to their production, as opposed to outside shareholders (ie capitalists).


Shareholders provide the capital ($$) to keep the business/running, which provides resources for those workers to produce the widgets that get sold to the public to make a profit, out of which the workers get paid. Get it?

----------


## otherone

> They should be stripped of their citizenship


Citizenship? What happened to your "unlimited, unconditional immigration"?

----------


## JK/SEA

well, i think donnie has left enough 'blood' on the floor. 

time to move on.

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## donnie darko

> How do you have these services in the first place without taxes? And how do you make them pay taxes without violence.
> 
> All those lesser sanctions rely on the existence of violent coercion to make them work.


The institution of private property requires violent coercion since without your magnum, how are you gonna prevent people from living, mining and farming on your land?

Did you know that most people who evade taxes get away with it? You don't need a gun to encourage somebody to pay their taxes. Taking their digital records away would be more than enough.

----------


## donnie darko

> Citizenship? What happened to your "unlimited, unconditional immigration"?


Anyone who makes it to our shores should automatically become a citizen. However if you declare war against the state by engaging in capitalism, you should be free to be a "sovereign citizen". Meaning you have no right to use the roads, attend public education, vote, or do anything citizenship entails.

----------


## donnie darko

> If I dont want to live in your commune and I take my family and we inhabit small poart of land in Sahara desert. We dig deep and find water; we plant vegetables and fruit; we have some chicken, cows and other animals... We create little estate in middle of Sahara desert.
> One day criminal band comes and takes everything we got cages us and sends us in a factory to work. We are given food and other goods as long as we work there. We are not allowed to run away to our little farm because it does not give back to society.
> 
> Now replace criminal band with communists.
> 
> 
> Is that how you would treat people if they dont want to participate in your little commune?
> 
> 
> What country are you from?


I told you, that if you are self sufficient on your own land and aren't using any public resources outside of your bubble, you should be left alone.

----------


## cajuncocoa

> Anyone who makes it to our shores should automatically become a citizen. *However if you declare war against the state by engaging in capitalism*, you should be free to be a "sovereign citizen". Meaning you have no right to use the roads, attend public education, vote, or do anything citizenship entails.


LOL

----------


## erowe1

> The institution of private property requires violent coercion since without your magnum, how are you gonna prevent people from living, mining and farming on your land?


Defending oneself and the fruit of one's own labor is not violent coercion. 




> Did you know that most people who evade taxes get away with it? You don't need a gun to encourage somebody to pay their taxes. Taking their digital records away would be more than enough.


You may not have been aware of this, but this system in which people do this is a system that includes a government that has guns. The guns are essential. People pay taxes and follow financial regulations because behind those threats are other threats, and at some point, in back of all the other threats is the threat of death.

----------


## otherone

> Anyone who makes it to our shores should automatically become a citizen. However if you declare war against the state by engaging in capitalism, you should be free to be a "sovereign citizen". Meaning you have no right to use the roads, attend public education, vote, or do anything citizenship entails.


Visiting foreigners can't use the roads?

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## donnie darko

> Shareholders provide the capital ($$) to keep the business/running, which provides resources for those workers to produce the widgets that get sold to the public to make a profit, out of which the workers get paid. Get it?


Yes I understand how it works. I think crowdfunding (basically voluntary donation, such as on Kickstarter.com) and public grants is a better way of funding innovation than the shareholder/consumer model.

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## otherone

> I told you, that if you are self sufficient on your own land and aren't using any public resources outside of your bubble, you should be left alone.


You're allowing private ownership of land now?  I'm confused...

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## donnie darko

> Visiting foreigners can't use the roads?


No they should be able to since the visa they obtain to visit in my view entitles them to it.

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## erowe1

> Anyone who makes it to our shores should automatically become a citizen. However if you declare war against the state by engaging in capitalism, you should be free to be a "sovereign citizen". Meaning you have no right to use the roads, attend public education, vote, or do anything citizenship entails.


Sounds good.

You and all the other voluntary participants who join you in this state with its roads and public education and voting should be able to have at it. As long as you leave the rest of us sovereign citizens out of it, so that we can have our own roads and education, go right ahead.

But I have a question about how this works on your end. How can you have roads without some entity that owns the land the roads are built on?

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## donnie darko

> You're allowing private ownership of land now?  I'm confused...


The scenario you suggested is public ownership since everyone in the desert tribe or whatever has a right to roam wherever they wish. There aren't any fences and rednecks with guns saying "get aff mah laynd!"

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## Todd

> Guns aren't the only way to enforce laws. You can also enforce laws by refusing services to people. There are more sanctions than just violence.


This is called "starving" people to death who don't comply for those of you "Violent" gun nuts out there.

----------


## otherone

> No they should be able to since the visa they obtain to visit in my view entitles them to it.


So immigration is unconditional, but tourism isn't?

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## donnie darko

> Sounds good.
> 
> You and all the other voluntary participants who join you in this state with its roads and public education and voting should be able to have at it. As long as you leave the rest of us sovereign citizens out of it, so that we can have our own roads and education, go right ahead.
> 
> But I have a question about how this works on your end. How can you have roads without some entity that owns the land the roads are built on?


Zoning.

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## erowe1

> Zoning.


Zoning by whom?

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## donnie darko

> So immigration is unconditional, but tourism isn't?


After a while they should be expected to get a domestic license. I don't know exactly how long their foreign license would be permissible, but after a while it would need to be replaced.

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## erowe1

> After a while they should be expected to get a domestic license. I don't know exactly how long their foreign license would be permissible, but after a while it would need to be replaced.


Or else they could just stay here without the burdens of citizenship, and freely do business with the rest of us sovereign citizens, while being excluded from your voluntary club.

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## Lucille

Oh FFS.

So when are you moving to glorious North Korea?

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## donnie darko

> Defending oneself and the fruit of one's own labor is not violent coercion. 
> You may not have been aware of this, but this system in which people do this is a system that includes a government that has guns. The guns are essential. People pay taxes and follow financial regulations because behind those threats are other threats, and at some point, in back of all the other threats is the threat of death.


If all land was privately owned, eventually everywhere on Earth would be claimed and the world would be divided into two classes: land owners and tenants. IE lords and serfs. This is actually how things were throughout much of history. Ever noticed how "estate" is just state with an "e" tacked on to the front of it?

I won't be naive. A state is in theory backed by lethal force. But this is due to the consent of the broader society. The democratic state is the product of many generations' labor and most people wish to live in the stable society such an enterprise creates. And a state is much less likely to use lethal force than a private lord is, especially against the people who live inside of it.

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## Todd

This thread reminds me of this.   Donnie seems to think that everyone is bound to his construct by virtue of being born into it.

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## donnie darko

> Or else they could just stay here without the burdens of citizenship, and freely do business with the rest of us sovereign citizens, while being excluded from your voluntary club.


They could be my guest. I actually support the idea of libertarian "reservations". I think they would be absolute dumps, but it would be an interesting experiment and a good compromise for the people who want them.

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## Scrapmo

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to  permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these  organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed  agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they  themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”-Frederic Bastiat

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## donnie darko

> Zoning by whom?


The city or county probably.

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## tod evans

> If all land was privately owned, eventually everywhere on Earth would be claimed and the world would be divided into two classes: land owners and tenants. IE lords and serfs. This is actually how things were throughout much of history. Ever noticed how "estate" is just state with an "e" tacked on to the front of it?
> 
> I won't be naive. A state is in theory backed by lethal force. But this is due to the consent of the broader society. The democratic state is the product of many generations' labor and most people wish to live in the stable society such an enterprise creates. And a state is much less likely to use lethal force than a private lord is, especially against the people who live inside of it.


Obviously spoken by a person who doesn't own land.

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## Barrex

> I told you, that if you are self sufficient on your own land and aren't using any public resources outside of your bubble, you should be left alone.





> Anyone who makes it to our shores should automatically become a citizen. However if you declare war against the state by engaging in capitalism, you should be free to be a "sovereign citizen". Meaning you have no right to use the roads, attend public education, vote, or do anything citizenship entails.



So lets say there is 50 of us libertarians  and 50 of you communists on 1 island. There is already built road. You assume that road is property of 50 communists and only their collective can decide who travels on them? How did you gain ownership of that road (or anything else)?
If libertarians build ship and get rich do you have the right to initiate force because you didnt build ship and dont have any fish?

----------


## donnie darko

> “If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to  permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these  organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed  agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they  themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”-Frederic Bastiat


I don't think that at all. I just think that the modern standard of living couldn't be upheld by a society that was ruled by market forces and fire power, as opposed to consensus and law.

----------


## donnie darko

> So lets say there is 50 of us libertarians  and 50 of you communists on 1 island. There is already built road. You assume that road is property of 50 communists and only their collective can decide who travels on them? How did you gain ownership of that road (or anything else)?
> If libertarians build ship and get rich do you have the right to initiate force because you didnt build ship and dont have any fish?


If that state democratically decided to become communist, yes the shareholding libertarians should not have a right to use the road. Should their cars be shot off the road? Of course not. But they should be held accountable for breaking the law of the land and if not, should be asked to leave the island and go somewhere else.

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## LibertyEagle

> And a state is much less likely to use lethal force than a private lord is, especially against the people who live inside of it.


Donnie, I think you need to read a little history, because it is government that has always been the greatest mass murderers.  Consider, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, ...

----------


## donnie darko

> Donnie, I think you need to read a little history, because it is government that has always been the greatest mass murderers.  Consider, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, ...


Modern hunter gather societies have much greater _per capita_ rates of violence than 20th century modern societies did.

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## otherone

> If that state democratically decided to become communist, yes the shareholding libertarians should not have a right to use the road.


That's called tyranny of the masses.  51% has no right to dictate what 49% does.  In addition, how often is this contract voted on?   As Spooner says above, "I didn't sign $#@!."

----------


## Danan

> I'd say I support cooperative economics, with the support of a state that provides a safety net. Basically the same as a typical social democratic system except that the stock market and capitalism would gradually be made obsolete in favor of enterprises that are worker owned.


Even if we assume that all people are equally capable entrepreneurs (which is obviously not true) and that thus all enterprises would continue to work just as well as they do now - why do you believe that workers would even *want* to own their company?

Do you honestly believe that if you would give all workers the option to not recieve a fixed salary any more, but rather be paid in stocks of their company, that most of them would choose this option? That would mean no salary in advance, but only at the end of the production process (which could be years). No fixed salary, but a proportion of the operating results (which could be positive or negative). Being liable with all their invested assets. The life of an entrepreneur is very unstable and risky. Not everybody wants to live such a life (evidently). It's a high risk / high reward lifestyle and requires a certain kind of exceptional personality.

And as mentioned above that doesn't even take into account that the overall product would be vastly smaller, since these kind of worker-owned businesses don't work very well (just look at post-Tito-Yugoslavia for instance). Why would the average worker have the skills necessary to make business decisions on a level he has no experience with or proper education? And these decisions include finding the right person to manage everything, if that is your way to get out of this dilemma. At some level these workers would have to have real control over the company, or else they are hardly real owners.

There are literally hundreds of reasons why this won't "work" in practice. "Working" as in producing a higher amount of material wealth, even for the workers themselves. There are also hundreds of books and essays and papers on the weakness of this kind of business structure. There is a reason why every branch of economics - however how much they hate each other - has come to the same conclusion, namely that private ownership of the means of production is essential for material well-being. The more socialist economists accept this fact and want to redistribute what has been produced prior with the most effective method (capitalism) by state force. But even they are not foolish enough to call for an end of this kind of private property.

But more important than any of these issues is that it's plain immoral to enforce communism forcefully. You have no right to take away my pen if I'm an author, earning my living writing books - nor taking away my earnings (even partly). They are my rightful property and there is nothing wrong about this. You also have no right to take away my work bench if I'm a small carpenter. Nor does it suddenly become rightful to take away my business if my woodworking is successful and I decide to expand and build a factory and hire workers - people who voluntarily, contractually agree to work for me in order to recieve a salary, which evidently they prefer over all the possibilities they have to produce goods or services using their own rightful property.

Capitalists are not exploiting their workers. That's "Marxist" stupidity that has been refuted long before Marx himself started to write about it and ever since. "Value" has *nothing* to do with labor hours. Nothing has intrinsic or objective value. Marxism as an economic theory is not only impoverishing the masses if tried to be implemented, it is simply *wrong* in it's intellectual basics.

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## donnie darko

> That's called tyranny of the masses.  51% has no right to dictate what 49% does.  In addition, how often is this contract voted on?   As Spooner says above, "I didn't sign $#@!."


To be fair I'm very sympathetic to secessionist movements. I think that if the majority of the population in a certain area of a communist country wants shareholding and wage labor they should have a right to secede.

----------


## Barrex

> I told you, that if you are self sufficient on your own land and aren't using any public resources outside of your bubble, you should be left alone.





> Anyone who makes it to our shores should automatically become a citizen. However if you declare war against the state by engaging in capitalism, you should be free to be a "sovereign citizen". Meaning you have no right to use the roads, attend public education, vote, or do anything citizenship entails.



So lets say there is 50 of us libertarians  and 50 of you communists on 1 island. There is already built road. You assume that road is property of 50 communists and only their collective can decide who travels on them? How did you gain ownership of that road (or anything else)?
If libertarians build ship and get rich do you have the right to initiate force because you didnt build ship and dont have any fish?


If you had powers (like Superman), how many people would you be ready to kill, starve to death, put in concentration camps in order to create your utopian society? How many people would have to die (directly or indirectly)? What would be acceptable number for you?

Interesting fact is that ideology that puts workers (people) first communist regimes have killed more people than any other regime type.

65 million in the People's Republic of China20 million in the Soviet Union2 million in Cambodia2 million in North Korea


*What is your number?
*

----------


## Scrapmo

> I don't think that at all. I just think that the modern standard of living couldn't be upheld by a society that was ruled by market forces and fire power, as opposed to consensus and law.


But you do believe yourself to be made of finer clay. You have set yourself as king and have dictated to the rest of us how this society is going to function. We do as you say or we starve to death or end up in an internment camp.

You should look at some of the death tolls from your utopian societies to see exactly what "consensus" means in a "communist" society.

----------


## cajuncocoa

> Yes I understand how it works. I think crowdfunding (basically voluntary donation, such as on Kickstarter.com) and public grants is a better way of funding innovation than the shareholder/consumer model.


That would never raise enough capital to finance the resources required for mass production.

----------


## otherone

> To be fair I'm very sympathetic to secessionist movements. I think that if the majority of the population in a certain area of a communist country wants shareholding and wage labor they should have a right to secede.


Secession?  You commies "democratically" decide to steal the land for your own use, and now you're "allowing" me to leave?

----------


## cajuncocoa

> Donnie, I think you need to read a little history, because it is government that has always been the greatest mass murderers.  Consider, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, ...


Econ 101 wouldn't hurt either....and a basic understanding of human nature.

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## Scrapmo

How was your first semester in college? I can see you really enjoyed your Sociology 101 class with that hip, trendy professor with the Che Guevara shirt.

----------


## pcosmar

> So you think if the US government was overthrown, multinationals would suddenly poof and disappear out of existence?


Who said anything about US Government?

I said Government.. ANY and ALL.. Corporations would not exist without the Laws that created them..

Otherwise it would be just a partnership between individuals. Courts (Government) created Corporations to shield individuals from liability.

Remove that immunity,, and the ability to create laws that stifle competition and corporations would cease to have any purpose.

----------


## donnie darko

> Even if we assume that all people are equally capable entrepreneurs (which is obviously not true) and that thus all enterprises would continue to work just as well as they do now - why do you believe that workers would even *want* to own their company?
> 
> Do you honestly believe that if you would give all workers the option to not recieve a fixed salary any more, but rather be paid in stocks of their company, that most of them would choose this option? That would mean no salary in advance, but only at the end of the production process (which could be years). No fixed salary, but a proportion of the operating results (which could be positive or negative). Being liable with all their invested assets. The life of an entrepreneur is very unstable and risky. Not everybody wants to live such a life (evidently). It's a high risk / high reward lifestyle and requires a certain kind of exceptional personality.


That's why I think there should be a collective pool of wealth people can draw from if they are in dire straits financially. If their company isn't producing more, or is losing money the employees should be able to get a small but livable fixed amount of money from the state. Only to a point though, if the company is not making decent profit it should be disbanded and the employees should be free to join a new co-op.

There are other solutions to this as well. Some co-ops might offer a new employee a pre-agreed pool of money as part of the deal to work with them. I think the vast majority of workers in these sorts of businesses would make far more than they do now since their earnings would not be siphoned off to CEOs and private shareholders.

As far as every worker being part of the company management and bookkeeping, I don't see that as being necessary. Anyone who contributes to the running of the company including the bookkeepers would get to keep their share of what the company makes.

----------


## cajuncocoa

> That's why I think there should be a collective pool of wealth people can draw from if they are in dire straits financially. If their company isn't producing more, or is losing money the employees should be able to get a small but livable fixed amount of money from the state. Only to a point though, if the company is not making decent profit it should be disbanded and the employees should be free to join a new co-op.
> 
> There are other solutions to this as well. Some co-ops might offer a new employee a pre-agreed pool of money as part of the deal to work with them. I think the vast majority of workers in these sorts of businesses would make far more than they do now since their earnings would not be siphoned off to CEOs and private shareholders.
> 
> As far as every worker being part of the company management and bookkeeping, I don't see that as being necessary. Anyone who contributes to the running of the company including the bookkeepers would get to keep their share of what the company makes.


Who decides what "their share" is?

----------


## donnie darko

> Who decides what "their share" is?


Everyone would get a previous agreed upon share. There may or may not be some spread in the shares, but the top position wouldn't make 400x more than the bottom one.

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## cajuncocoa

> Everyone would get a previous agreed upon share. There may or may not be some spread in the shares, but the top position wouldn't make 400x more than the bottom one.


What if everyone doesn't agree? Like maybe the guy who invented the widget...who had to struggle for years maybe, trying to get people to learn about and buy his product? He spent maybe millions on r&d, advertising, etc...now someone comes in who can type on a computer to manage his database gets to make as much money as he does?? That's messed up, dude.

----------


## Danan

> That's why I think there should be a collective pool of wealth people can draw from if they are in dire straits financially. If their company isn't producing more, or is losing money the employees should be able to get a small but livable fixed amount of money from the state. Only to a point though, if the company is not making decent profit it should be disbanded and the employees should be free to join a new co-op.
> 
> There are other solutions to this as well. Some co-ops might offer a new employee a pre-agreed pool of money as part of the deal to work with them. I think the vast majority of workers in these sorts of businesses would make far more than they do now since their earnings would not be siphoned off to CEOs and private shareholders.
> 
> As far as every worker being part of the company management and bookkeeping, I don't see that as being necessary. Anyone who contributes to the running of the company including the bookkeepers would get to keep their share of what the company makes.


That "collective pool of wealth" doesn't materialize out of thin air though. Large scale wealth creation in the free market rests entirely on private property, non-interference in the pricing mechanism and the profits/losses mechanism. You can't circumvent this in a society based on your ideas.

Nobody has even closely enough wisdom to *know* what enterprise will be successful tomorrow. And without prices and profits we wouldn't even remotely know which ones are successful today, in any meaningful sense. We already established that you aren't a consistent communist, since there are no profits and no market prices in an absolut communist society. Value creation in the free market is an evolutionary process. Interference in the mechanisms that define success within this system will cause it to collapse.

But back to what you wrote. Workers "should be free to join a new co-op". Which ever one they wish? How would that work out? Your plan either rests on a ridiculous level of central planning which is doomed to fail (see Hayek's theories to knowledge in society) or there is no planning involved at all and it would be pure chaos without the mechanisms of a truly free market causing seemingly unintentional and not-interconnected decisions and actions to come together and create real value.

----------


## donnie darko

> What if everyone doesn't agree? Like maybe the guy who invented the widget...who had to struggle for years maybe, trying to get people to learn about and buy his product? He spent maybe millions on r&d, advertising, etc...now someone comes in who can type on a computer to manage his database gets to make as much money as he does?? That's messed up, dude.


Where did he get all those millions to advertise in the first place?

----------


## JK/SEA

> Where did he get all those millions to advertise in the first place?


investors?.....i dunno, i'm just guessing here.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Modern hunter gather societies have much greater _per capita_ rates of violence than 20th century modern societies did.


"Violence" (and I suspect you're playing fast and loose with the word, as you don't define it clearly) is not brutal assault, oppression, murder, and genocide-all inherent characteristics of serious communist societies in history.  There's going to be "violence" in every society of significant scale everywhere, no matter how egalitarian or communist.  Notice also that you've been using "capitalist" and "capitalism" in the Marxian sense the whole thread.  That's how you managed to troll for so long-straw-manning.  On these forums, we use "capitalism" in the laissez-faire sense.  So please use terms correctly and clearly to avoid another dozen pages of aimless, fruitless debate.  Thanks
ETA: also remember that economics is a value-free science.  Do not confuse is/ought or subjective value statements when you debate/discuss economics.  Stick to the objective aspects of the "dismal science" that is economics.

----------


## cajuncocoa

> Where did he get all those millions to advertise in the first place?





> investors?.....i dunno, i'm just guessing here.


Yes, the shareholders that donnie keeps trashing.  Or maybe he borrowed it in the early going, having to use his own credit to get the loan and his own money to pay it back until his business started to make a profit.

----------


## donnie darko

> That "collective pool of wealth" doesn't materialize out of thin air though. Large scale wealth creation in the free market rests entirely on private property, non-interference in the pricing mechanism and the profits/losses mechanism. You can't circumvent this in a society based on your ideas.


Why couldn't wealth be created in cooperative enterprises? Why would it be predicated on a third party funding it?




> Nobody has even closely enough wisdom to *know what enterprise will be successful tomorrow. And without prices and profits we wouldn't even remotely know which ones are successful today, in any meaningful sense. We already established that you aren't a consistent communist, since there are no profits and no market prices in an absolut communist society. Value creation in the free market is an evolutionary process. Interference in the mechanisms that define success within this system will cause it to collapse.*


No, I'm probably not 100% in line with Marx (for example I think abolition of money is foolish, at least while there is still scarcity. I also feel the same way about the state) but there could still be a pricing mechanism in a system that abolished land ownership (which property tax like I said essentially already does) and the stock market. While companies themselves could not be traded as commodities, the products they create would be.




> But back to what you wrote. Workers "should be free to join a new co-op". Which ever one they wish? How would that work out? Your plan either rests on a ridiculous level of central planning which is doomed to fail (see Hayek's theories to knowledge in society) or there is no planning involved at all and it would be pure chaos without the mechanisms of a truly free market causing seemingly unintentional and not-interconnected decisions and actions to come together and create real value.


As long as a worker is willing to contribute to their co-op, and has the skills to do so, they can apply to become part of one. The deal would probably begin with them earning a wage at the beginning until they had worked there a certain amount of time and from that point on would take home their share of what the company made. They would also get insured from a given number of company losses.

----------


## kcchiefs6465

No, thank you.

If I have the capital backing to start a business, some random person who just happens to arrive, and doesn't risk anything personally, will not be paid as if he risked what he worked for in creating the endeavor.

I've seen the bread company that pays everyone the same and that is noble of the owner to be so generous. No one should be in any way coerced into the system.

In any case, assuming you aren't from here, the Red Scare was bull$#@!. The governments overthrown and elections rigged is an outrageous moment in US history. If the country you are from was harassed and destroyed by the country I am from then I apologize for the generation's past ignorance and arrogance. I somewhat suspect that that is what you hate capitalism. Because corporate welfare subsidized crony corporate whores raped your country for why it was worth. There would be recourse in a free market system. Taking money from me, to give to sugar barons, is not capitalism. War criminals should be tried for what they are.

----------


## donnie darko

> Yes, the shareholders that donnie keeps trashing.  Or maybe he borrowed it in the early going, having to use his own credit to get the loan and his own money to pay it back until his business started to make a profit.


I think crowdfunding is a better way of funding people's crazy ideas than venture capital or loans. It's much more democratic.

----------


## cajuncocoa

Donnie, the problem with your way of thinking is that you assume everyone who works in a certain business bring the same skills and resources to the table.  Everyone certainly does not.  When you finally realize how human nature works, then you will understand why your way of thinking is doomed to fail.

----------


## cajuncocoa

> I think crowdfunding is a better way of funding people's crazy ideas than venture capital or loans. It's much more democratic.


Oh, I'm sure it's wonderfully democratic.  It just wouldn't ever raise enough capital to keep the business going, but hey...at least you'll still feel good about yourself when your business fails, right?

----------


## donnie darko

> Donnie, the problem with your way of thinking is that you assume everyone who works in a certain business bring the same skills and resources to the table.  Everyone certainly does not.  When you finally realize how human nature works, then you will understand why your way of thinking is doomed to fail.


I understand that not everyone puts the exact same amount of value in. Still, you think a CEO deserves to be paid 400x more than a secretary?

----------


## donnie darko

> Oh, I'm sure it's wonderfully democratic.  It just wouldn't ever raise enough capital to keep the business going, but hey...at least you'll still feel good about yourself when your business fails, right?


If a million people like an idea, and each of them gives $4 to the concept, you have just raised $400 million.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Where did he get all those millions to advertise in the first place?


 He sold coins on eBay.

----------


## cajuncocoa

> I understand that not everyone puts the exact same amount of value in. Still, you think a CEO deserves to be paid 400x more than a secretary?


I didn't say that, and I'm not making excuses for why the average CEO makes the money he/she does.  But that's not the result of free market capitalism; again, that's more the result of crony corporatism.  My argument was for the entrepreneur ... how much more money he/she makes than his/her secretary should/would be determined by their comparative worth to the business.

----------


## CaptUSA

> I understand that not everyone puts the exact same amount of value in. Still, you think a CEO deserves to be paid 400x more than a secretary?


It's not up to ME to decide.  It's up to the CEO and the secretary.  If the secretary values her labor more than the CEO is willing to pay for it, she will leave.  If she values her labor more than anyone is willing to pay for it, she either lowers her price or she makes it more attractive to the buyer.

----------


## Barrex

HA HAAAAAAAAAA good one Helmuth.


Notice how he avoids and skips to answer comments about how many deaths would be acceptable to achieve his goal.

----------


## donnie darko

> I didn't say that, and I'm not making excuses for why the average CEO makes the money he/she does.  But that's not the result of free market capitalism; again, that's more the result of crony corporatism.  My argument was for the entrepreneur ... how much more money he/she makes than his/her secretary should/would be determined by their comparative worth to the business.


How could you even measure that, though?

----------


## cajuncocoa

> If a million people like an idea, and each of them gives $4 to the concept, you have just raised $400 million.


But under your system they would also have to help finance the advertising for other ideas they like...plus, they may already be spending money to buy your product.  It's not likely to generate the amount of money you envision.

----------


## cajuncocoa

> How could you even measure that, though?


EXACTLY!  How could you?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Thank you for stopping by, Donnie Darko!  Always nice to have some new faces.

Here is my question:

How can socialism calculate? (By way of explanation: if all the factors of production are owned collectively, then there can be no prices in factors of production, because prices for things only come about when there are different parties buying and selling them.  Without a price system, I think there is no way to calculate.  No way to know what to make, how much to make, etc.  How many factories in our communist land should be nail factories and how many shoe factories?  What kind of nails should we make and how many?  Etc., Etc.  There's no rational way to know any of these things.  With a price system and profit and loss, there _is_ such a way.  Profit = do more of this.  Loss = stop doing this.)

----------


## donnie darko

> EXACTLY!  How could you?


You couldn't measure how much an innovator deserves of the profit of the company they spearheaded since that's highly subjective (indeed you could validly argue they deserve all of it, though I would disagree), but you can measure how much the value of the goods and services their company makes are.

----------


## donnie darko

> Thank you for stopping by, Donnie Darko!  Always nice to have some new faces.
> 
> Here is my question:
> 
> How can socialism calculate? (By way of explanation: if all the factors of production are owned collectively, then there can be no prices in factors of production, because prices for things only come about when there are different parties buying and selling them.  Without a price system, I think there is no way to calculate.  No way to know what to make, how much to make, etc.  How many factories in our communist land should be nail factories and how many shoe factories?  What kind of nails should we make and how many?  Etc., Etc.  There's no rational way to know any of these things.  With a price system and profit and loss, there _is_ such a way.  Profit = do more of this.  Loss = stop doing this.)


That's not true. If a co-op for example made chairs, they would have to buy the components of their factory from another co-op, and they would have to purchase the power to operate the factory from the power co-op. You could still calculate their profits even though the business itself couldn't be sold to an outsider.

----------


## cajuncocoa

> You couldn't measure how much an innovator deserves of the profit of the company they spearheaded since that's highly subjective (indeed you could validly argue they deserve all of it, though I would disagree), but you can measure how much the value of the goods and services their company makes are.


Let's start here: if he hires no one, he deserves it all.

If he decides to hire a secretary, he puts an ad in the help-wanted section of the local paper and takes applications.  He offers applicants $40,000 per year for a 40/hr work week.  Someone comes in and says "that's not enough".  They leave to seek employment elsewhere.  Another applicant comes in and says "I'll take the job!"  Poof, they're hired at $40K/yr.  

What is there to complain about?

----------


## tod evans

> That's not true. If a co-op for example made chairs, they would have to buy the components of their factory from another co-op, and they would have to purchase the power to operate the factory from the power co-op. You could still calculate their profits even though the business itself couldn't be sold to an outsider.


There's a beautiful little mecca nestled in the Ozark mountains that has the business/social model you claim to covet it's called the Eastwind Community.

Try it out, it might work for you...

----------


## LibertyEagle

> No, thank you.
> 
> If I have the capital backing to start a business, some random person who just happens to arrive, and doesn't risk anything personally, will not be paid as if he risked what he worked for in creating the endeavor.
> 
> I've seen the bread company that pays everyone the same and that is noble of the owner to be so generous. No one should be in any way coerced into the system.
> 
> *In any case, assuming you aren't from here, the Red Scare was bull$#@!. The governments overthrown and elections rigged is an outrageous moment in US history.* If the country you are from was harassed and destroyed by the country I am from then I apologize for the generation's past ignorance and arrogance. I somewhat suspect that that is what you hate capitalism. Because corporate welfare subsidized crony corporate whores raped your country for why it was worth. There would be recourse in a free market system. Taking money from me, to give to sugar barons, is not capitalism. War criminals should be tried for what they are.


Oh really?  You are apologizing for the countries that the USSR overthrew?  Sorry, you are on your own.

----------


## Philhelm

> If a million people like an idea, and each of them gives $4 to the concept, you have just raised $400 million.


That would be $4 million...

----------


## Scrapmo

> That would be $4 million...


Math is an evil capitalist construct, designed to keep the proletariat oppressed.

----------


## VIDEODROME

I have been intrigued by this proposal and wonder if a thread challenging Libertarianism might be a good spot to introduce it.  I would be curious to see what Donnie Darko thinks of this idea.  


Robert Frank draws a basic analogy from Darwinian Natural Selection to present his idea.  He notes that competition leads to new traits in nature or innovation in the economy. However, extreme competitiveness also leads to really stupid things that put individual interests at odds with group interests.  

Frank also finds Libertarianism interesting but feels the way it addresses economics is incomplete.  I really should read his book to get the details of this, but I actually find the premise very interesting. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/bu...anted=all&_r=0




> What’s a progressive consumption tax? First of all, it’s not a sales or value-added tax, neither of which takes individual income into account. Those taxes are imposed on the spot when someone buys a good or a service.
> 
> Under a progressive consumption tax, taxpayers would report their incomes, much as they do now. They’d also report their annual savings, much as they do for tax-exempt retirement accounts. The tax would be based on “taxable consumption” — the difference between their income and annual savings, less a standard deduction of, say, $30,000 for a family of four. Rates on additional expenditures would start low and rise gradually with taxable consumption.
> 
> Because savings would be tax-exempt, the biggest spenders would save more and spend less on luxury goods, leading to greater investment and economic growth, without any need for government to micromanage anyone’s behavior. Consumers in the tier just below, influenced by those at the top, would also spend less, and so on, all the way down the income ladder. In short, such a tax would attenuate the expenditure cascade that has made life for middle-income families so expensive.





> In 1997, shortly after publishing an article advocating this kind of tax, I received a warm letter from Milton Friedman, widely hailed as the patron saint of small-government conservatism.
> 
> He questioned my claim that additional tax revenue could be put to productive uses in the public sphere. But he added that if the government did need additional revenue, the progressive consumption tax would be by far the best way to raise it. Attached to his letter was a reprint of his article published in the 1943 American Economic Review in which he advocated the progressive consumption tax as the best way to pay for the World War II effort.

----------


## kcchiefs6465

> Oh really?  You are apologizing for the countries that the USSR overthrew?  Sorry, you are on your own.


I am apologizing for past generations (though I shouldn't have to) and my generation. (though I shouldn't have to)

Many of these countries, around a third of them, were harassed, invaded, overthrown and progression impeded because of the perceived threats of communism. You want to know why most of the world hates capitalism? Because a country that labeled itself capitalist overthrew their democracies. Funded death squads. Tortured people.

The red scare was bull$#@!.

A partial list:
Greece
The Phillipines,
Korea,
Albania,
Germany,
Iran,
Guatemala,
Costa Rica,
Indonesia,
Haiti,
British Guiana,
Iraq,
Vietnam,
Cambodia,
Laos,
Thailand,
Ecuador,
Congo,
Algeria,
Brazil,
Peru,
Dominican Republic,
Cuba,
Ghana,
Uruguay,
Chile,
Bolivia,
Portugal,
East Timor,
Jamaica,
Honduras,
Nicaragua,
Seychelles,
Diego Garcia,
Yemen,
Chad,
Grenada,
Suriname,
Libya,
Fiji,
Panama,
Afghanistan,
El Salvador,
Bulgaria,
Somalia,
Colombia,
Yugoslavia,
Venezuela

----------


## Philhelm

> I don't think violence would be necessary - just freezing someone's bank account is just as effective as any gun in this day and age.


Who will make decisions on whose bank accounts will be frozen, and what sort of oversight would there be to prevent corruption, theft, or political oppression?




> They should be stripped of their citizenship if they do not accept what the law punishes them with (in my view it should be to pay back to the proletarians what they stole). This would mean all the digital records of who they are, including their money would disappear and they would essentially have no choice but to move to another country.


So, citizenship _is_ conditional then?




> Anyone who makes it to our shores should automatically become a citizen. However if you declare war against the state by engaging in capitalism, you should be free to be a "sovereign citizen". Meaning you have no right to use the roads, attend public education, vote, or do anything citizenship entails.


That's when the men with guns come in order to enforce your rules, right?




> No they should be able to since the visa they obtain to visit in my view entitles them to it.


Wait...why would anyone need a visa if "Anyone who makes it to our shores should automatically become a citizen?"




> I won't be naive. A state is in theory backed by lethal force. But this is due to the consent of the broader society.


A contract relying on coercion is invalid.




> They could be my guest. I actually support the idea of libertarian "reservations". I think they would be absolute dumps, but it would be an interesting experiment and a good compromise for the people who want them.


Of course they would be dumps, since your men with guns would limit the resources available to the "reservations."




> If that state democratically decided to become communist, yes the shareholding libertarians should not have a right to use the road. Should their cars be shot off the road? Of course not. But they should be held accountable for breaking the law of the land and if not, should be asked to leave the island and go somewhere else.


So citizenship isn't unconditional?




> To be fair I'm very sympathetic to secessionist movements. I think that if the majority of the population in a certain area of a communist country wants shareholding and wage labor they should have a right to secede.


Can I secede yet still claim citizenship (in order to get my fair share of your pool of resources) or is citizenship conditional?




> Everyone would get a previous agreed upon share. There may or may not be some spread in the shares, but the top position wouldn't make 400x more than the bottom one.


So, as soon as I reach your shores I would get a share in the action, since I would immediately be a citizen?  And then I'm free to secede?  Sounds great!

----------


## Philhelm

> Math is an evil capitalist construct, designed to keep the proletariat oppressed.


Or maybe they have a Federal Reserve and "money" comes from nowhere...?

----------


## Paulbot99

Donnie, you're free to start up a business/society that works exactly like you said it would. You just need the capital. There's no gurantee it will prosper, however...

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> No, I'm probably not 100% in line with Marx (for example I think abolition of money is foolish, at least while there is still scarcity. I also feel the same way about the state) but there could still be a pricing mechanism in a system that abolished land ownership (which property tax like I said essentially already does) and the stock market. While companies themselves could not be traded as commodities, the products they create would be.


Scarcity is fundamental to the physical nature of this universe. It's not going to go away. Physical material is scarce, ie the matter that makes up an apple is not the same matter in another apple. Goods are subjective concepts that classify objects according to subjective goals.

(On earth) Air may be economically abundant and therefore not require property rights, but try taking it into outer space and see what happens.

You do homestead air every time you breathe though. When it's in your lungs it excludes all others from gaining fuel from the air your body is now appropriating for it's private use.

The purpose of property is to delineate use-rights in scarce physical material. You can't gain nutrients from an apple I just ate, so we need to determine who has the most legitimate use-rights for these scarce objects.





> So, do you think Nestle should be able to buy up all our water?
> If some corporation claims they own the atmosphere, they should be able to force people to pay them to breathe?
> 
> I'm against land ownership because land should be a commons. Not only that but since land in the Land of the Free was stolen from the original inhabitants, all ownership of it is illegitimate anyways.


You don't legitimately own property by simply claiming it's yours. Property is (initially) obtained by mixing labor with (previously unowned) physical material to transform the material into something new.

Who is Nestle going to "buy up all our water" from? It doesn't work that way. 

If a corporation claims to own the atmosphere, it's an illegitimate claim. They certainly can homestead some oxygen and sell it to deep sea divers and astronauts if they choose.

You're right that a lot of land was stolen, and that does complicate things practically, but it doesn't negate the concept.





> Why should people have the right to exclude everyone else from walking on a piece of land, just because of some deal that was made ages ago? Doesn't sound like freedom to me.



The root of it is homesteading. It's not the deal that gives them the right to exclude, it's homesteading the land. Once it's homesteaded, someone has a claim to it as their property and from there they can voluntarily trade it with someone else.





> Why does private land ownership make any sense? Why should one family get to own a piece of dirt _for all eternity_ no matter what, even if they don't give _anything_ back to society?



If a family has mixed their labor with the land then they have the most legitimate claim to use it.

If they legitimately abandon it, it's up for grabs. Ownership isn't necessarily "for all eternity".

Society is just a pattern of individuals interacting. They are society.





> I bet if you were paid the value of what your work created, you would get paid more than you do now.


Value is subjective.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I understand that not everyone puts the exact same amount of value in. Still, you think a CEO deserves to be paid 400x more than a secretary?


Repeat after me: value is subjective.  This is economic fact, not the philosophical waxing of an academic.  When a secretary produces as much value to the market as a CEO does to shareholders, he will be paid accordingly.  (I've been a secretary, and can tell you for a fact that secretarial skills do not have the value of a CEO's skills)

----------


## thoughtomator

> Repeat after me: value is subjective.  This is economic fact, not the philosophical waxing of an academic.  When a secretary produces as much value to the market as a CEO does to shareholders, he will be paid accordingly.  (I've been a secretary, and can tell you for a fact that secretarial skills do not have the value of a CEO's skills)


Not to feed the troll, but there is a demonstrable indifference of CEO pay to CEO performance these days. Of course the system we have isn't capitalist, it's Fascist.

----------


## donnie darko

> That would be $4 million...


Oh sorry, muh bad  Still that's plenty for a lot of start up ventures.

----------


## heavenlyboy34



----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Not to feed the troll, but there is a demonstrable indifference of CEO pay to CEO performance these days. Of course the system we have isn't capitalist, it's Fascist.


Truth.  My post assumed a laissez-faire system.  Thanks for clarifying.

----------


## donnie darko

> Repeat after me: value is subjective.  This is economic fact, not the philosophical waxing of an academic.  When a secretary produces as much value to the market as a CEO does to shareholders, he will be paid accordingly.  (I've been a secretary, and can tell you for a fact that secretarial skills do not have the value of a CEO's skills)


In some cases yes. In a cooperative though, the value an employee/co-owner would get would be like this:

Revenue - operating cost / number of employees in co-op * rate of the position of the employee * number of hours worked that session

----------


## Cleaner44

> I registered here because I want to challenge the viewpoints of the people here, 95% at least I imagine are die-hard capitalists. 
> 
> I think capitalism is a threat to our liberties and freedom as Americans and as human beings around the globe and will lead to the vast majority of people suffering _de facto_ slavery within a few generations' time.
> 
> Neoliberal globalized capitalism has been the main form of development since the 80s/90s and aside from the heavily state controlled variant of it in China, it's proven ineffective at reducing poverty. Many people have also been forced to give up their land, culture and communities and move to the metropolises because of global capitalism. 
> 
> I would rather production and capital be owned by the people who work it, not by indifferent shareholders and speculators.
> 
> Does anyone have any questions for me, an admitted Marxist?


I applaude you for recognizing that you have a problem and your willingness to face it full on.  The fact that you have come to us for help is humbling and we will do our best to help you learn.  Just open your mind and allow others to untangle the web of deceit that the Marxists have confused you with.  Its not your fault, the communists are very good at making their immoral system of violence seem attractive and utopian.

There is no doubt that there is a problem of crony corporatists in our society.  My question to you is, do you recognize that it is the government, the state, that empowers the corporations to dominate the markets and thus the markets are not in fact free at all?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> That's not true. If a co-op for example made chairs, they would have to buy the components of their factory from another co-op, and they would have to purchase the power to operate the factory from the power co-op. You could still calculate their profits even though the business itself couldn't be sold to an outsider.


 Oh good!  You understood my question!!

This is a very good answer.  An astonishingly good answer, in fact.

An intelligent person!  I love intelligent people.  And an intelligent communist, no less!  Who knew?

OK, so you have addressed the calculation problem by making the proposed communism very, very small.  Namely, the size of a chair-building firm.

Now, within that firm, the calculation problem is still there.  Intra-firm commerce still has no prices.  No one in the firm knows how much an unpainted chair leg is worth, because the guy in the assembly line making unpainted chair legs isn't _selling_ them to the next guy who paints them.  He just passes them to him.  So they don't really know "should we paint one coat or two?  Should we devote a larger percentage of the factory to painting vs. to nailing, or vise versa?"  Because internally, there's no market.

Now this is true of _every_ firm, by the way, co-op or not!  They can't calculate internally.

This is a problem, but it's not a very big problem because the firm is such a small part of a much bigger economy outside that market prices for various things are known, and so the people in the firm can make rough estimates and be pretty accurate.  For example, maybe there is someone out there selling chair legs and so the firm can look and see the price of that and say "OK, the price of chair legs is $2 per leg.  We're paying this guy a living wage of $20 per hour and he's only making a chair leg per day, so we are probably losing money on that guy, we should fire him."  They can cheat, see?  They can peek at other people's prices.  If they take paint production in-house, so they no longer really know the price of paint internally, that's OK because tons of other people are making the same kind of paint and so they know exactly how much paint costs.

The problem becomes larger the larger the firm becomes.  The more things are taken "in-house," the bigger the realm of your socialism/communism.  What if you're no longer making 1% of the paint in the world, now you're making 90% of the paint, and "selling" it all to yourself?  Now things are getting really iffy.  Only 10% of the paint is being sold for any kind of price.  Your guesses as to what your 90% would cost were you to buy it from elsewhere are going to get worse and worse.

Now what if you have the entire economy of an entire region controlled by one firm?  _This_, by the way, is what we assume you want by wanting communism.  If you just want to be able to form lots of little co-ops, or even somewhat big co-ops, that will not cause any calculation problem, nor any other problem in my opinion.  But if you want to have a "communist nation," that is, to have an entire economy of an entire geographical region completely under the umbrella of one firm, then you will have an insoluble calculation problem.  The chair firm and the component firm and the power firm are no more.  They are all merged into one firm.  And so the chair firm isn't making any profit nor loss.  They're just a division in the larger all-encompassing firm.  Nobody knows if they're making too many chairs or too few, any more than anyone knows whether IBM is spending too much in their R&D division or too little.

That's where you get the calculation problem.  And that's why, in the Soviet Union, you'd get situations like a surplus of toothpaste but no toothbrushes.  Or tons of shoes but no shoe laces.  Or millions of bushels of wheat, in fact millions of acres of unharvested wheat........ 
*
and no bread.*

----------


## awake

Why libertarianism is better than communism: Liberty allows communism and any other system of voluntarism to exist. Communism allows for none other than itself to exist, for itself, by itself. One system that no man can deviate from lest he be killed or caged for it. Liberty, simply put, is much more interesting and fun.

----------


## donnie darko

> Oh good!  You understood my question!!
> 
> This is a very good answer.  An astonishingly good answer, in fact.
> 
> An intelligent person!  I love intelligent people.  And an intelligent communist, no less!  Who knew?
> 
> OK, so you have addressed the calculation problem by making the proposed communism very, very small.  Namely, the size of a chair-building firm.
> 
> Now, within that firm, the calculation problem is still there.  Intra-firm commerce still has no prices.  No one in the firm knows how much an unpainted chair leg is worth, because the guy in the assembly line making unpainted chair legs isn't _selling_ them to the next guy who paints them.  He just passes them to him.  So they don't really know "should we paint one coat or two?  Should we devote a larger percentage of the factory to painting vs. to nailing, or vise versa?"  Because internally, there's no market.
> ...


Oh I actually agree with you. I'm not a proponent of the state being a giant firm that produces everything. I'd say I'm more of a fan of market communism. Which would have a pricing mechanism, but would consider things like a stock market a form of fraud.

Perhaps my ideal economy/state would even permit outside shareholding for a limited number of industries that cannot be efficiently ran cooperatively. I would make some leeway. Still though, I think that capitalism is inhumane and unstable without a state that's powerful and respected enough to bridle it. In the digital globalized era I don't think the state has enough power to do that anymore, so that power of protection should be compensated for by empowering cooperative enterprise as opposed to just selling off all our commons to corporations and shareholders.

See, I'm not _that_ bad.

----------


## donnie darko

> Why libertarianism is better than communism: Liberty allows communism and any other system of voluntarism to exist. Communism allows for none other than itself to exist, for itself, by itself. One system that no man can deviate from lest he be killed or caged for it. Liberty, simply put, is much more interesting and fun.


Yeah because capitalist societies really tolerated the existence of us commies in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. :P

----------


## thoughtomator

> Yeah because capitalist societies really tolerated the existence of us commies in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. :P


Stalin + Mao account for 250 million dead human beings. That's just the top two. What you got that compares?

----------


## angelatc

> You couldn't measure how much an innovator deserves of the profit of the company they spearheaded since that's highly subjective (indeed you could validly argue they deserve all of it, though I would disagree), but you can measure how much the value of the goods and services their company makes are.


That's what we call profit.

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> Yeah because capitalist societies really tolerated the existence of us commies in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. :P


He was referring to voluntarism (ie the logical conclusion of consistent application of the Non Aggression Principle, which is the core of libertarianism). The societies you're referring to weren't voluntarist (and neither is ours, clearly).

----------


## angelatc

> Oh I actually agree with you. I'm not a proponent of the state being a giant firm that produces everything. I'd say I'm more of a fan of market communism. Which would have a pricing mechanism, but would consider things like a stock market a form of fraud.
> 
> Perhaps my ideal economy/state would even permit outside shareholding for a limited number of industries that cannot be efficiently ran cooperatively. I would make some leeway. Still though, I think that capitalism is inhumane and unstable without a state that's powerful and respected enough to bridle it. In the digital globalized era I don't think the state has enough power to do that anymore, so that power of protection should be compensated for by empowering cooperative enterprise as opposed to just selling off all our commons to corporations and shareholders.
> 
> See, I'm not _that_ bad.



Yes, you are.  You are a horrible person that wants to enslave workers to pursue your personal vision of some greater good.

----------


## otherone

> Still though, I think that capitalism is inhumane and unstable without a state that's powerful and respected enough to bridle it.


This is the same mistake the liberals make....believing that government is the only way to regulate business.  The only way to actually "bridle" corporatism is to allow competition in a free market.
As far as being "inhumane", Communists force proletarians into a life of wage labor with no opportunities to create a better life for himself and his family through investment or business creation.

----------


## purplechoe

> Yeah because capitalist societies really tolerated the existence of us commies in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. :P


Just like the commies (Russians) tolerated Poland after WWII? First they came as liberators from the Nazis and just stayed... Your ignorance of history and cherry picking events is astounding. I lived in communist Poland of the 70's and 80's by the way...

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> Still though, I think that capitalism is inhumane and unstable without a state that's powerful and respected enough to bridle it.


The state is nothing but a monopoly on power. It doesn't bridle it at all, it simply provides an avenue for those who are politically connected to abuse the monopoly in their favor (and that goes for any system, and is why state-communism resulted in what it did). Monopoly as a term originated as a description of state-sanctioned privilege.

----------


## purplechoe

> The state is nothing but a monopoly on power. It doesn't bridle it at all, it simply provides an avenue for those who are politically connected to abuse the monopoly in their favor. Monopoly as a term originated as a description of state-sanctioned privilege.


Yup, it only makes the problems worse. The standard of living we enjoy today has more to do with innovation than it does because some government decided that we should debase the currency, steal by taxation with the threat of force, etc., etc..

----------


## VIDEODROME

> Still though, I think that capitalism is inhumane and unstable without a state that's powerful and respected enough to bridle it.


I think to an extent this is true.  

I would disagree with a standard communist approach though.  I think micro-managing the economy makes everyone's lives more miserable and creates more bureaucracy.

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> I think to an extent this is true.  
> 
> I would disagree with a standard communist approach though.  I think micro-managing the economy makes everyone's lives more miserable and creates more bureaucracy.


It's not true. Voluntarist regulation (ie Underwriters Labs) is superior to a regulatory monopoly that exists through exhibiting political force at the whims of whoever can influence the monopoly on power (ie FDA).

----------


## cajuncocoa

> You couldn't measure how much an innovator deserves of the profit of the company they spearheaded since that's highly subjective (indeed you could validly argue they deserve all of it, though I would disagree), but you can measure how much the value of the goods and services their company makes are.


Yes you can.  His value is based on the total income received from the goods and services he provides, minus whatever costs he incurs.  That's called profit.  If he employs no other workers but himself, he gets to keep all of it.  And that's the way it *should* be.

The value of the goods and services is determined by the market.  If he charges too much, he won't sell many.  If he charges too little, he won't be able to keep up with demand.  Econ 101.

----------


## VIDEODROME

I'm just admitting to the instability in free capitalism. I think this a point worth discussion.  


I do disagree with micromanaging bureaucracies.  I think there must be a smarter way.  I'd wonder if Donnie Darko saw my post on Robert Frank's idea and what he thinks of that approach.

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> I'm just admitting to the instability in free capitalism. I think this a point worth discussion.


This really depends on how you're defining the word _capitalism_.

----------


## awake

> Yeah because capitalist societies really tolerated the existence of us commies in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. :P


Correction: the people who lived under communism in the 60's, 70's and 80's got sick of it and cast it off. You think capitalists exploit the workers...what the hell do you think the communist dictators and their minions did to their populations? I guess that was cooperation and consent?

So why aren't you in your North Korean paradise, seems to be working well for the "leaders".

----------


## donnie darko

> Correction: the people who lived under communism in the 60's, 70's and 80's got sick of it and cast it off. You think capitalists exploit the workers...what the hell do you think the communist dictators and their minions did to their populations? I guess that was cooperation and consent?


I was referring to Vietnam, mostly.

----------


## BSWPaulsen

> Don't you think if the state was as small and powerless as ancaps and right-libertarians would like to see it, the corporations would essentially assume its power and be able to write the law to their own will?


Absent a monopoly on force the corporations can't do _$#@!_, because their supposed _rights_ (ie: limited liability) do not exist. Corporations are the embodiment of the abrogation of the rule of law via the very existence of the State. The rule of law is reflective of the moral condition of the people, and the gross extravagance of the State inevitably leads to excesses in the people to such an extent as they lose all moral compass. This is the classic decline of the Roman Empire, and the current decline in the United States.

Marxism is another in a long line of failures that, instead of recognizing the great impediment the State is to human prosperity, insists on proclaiming that what it would do with the monopoly is _best_, when anyone with a functioning brain can tell you a whole hell of a lot of people would be just as miserable, if not more so than the situation we have on our hands now.

And your idea that land ownership should be illegal is pants-on-head retarded. If a man can't own the land he has his shelter on, and the land he works, then there's not a damn thing worth living for. _You_ do not own what _I_ work for. This is both eminently logical, and obvious. The so-called means of production is your body and mind, and asserting ownership of the bodies and minds of other individuals, and the claim to the fruits of their labor is both morally repugnant, and worthy of scorn of the highest degree.

Good day, sir.

----------


## donnie darko

> Stalin + Mao account for 250 million dead human beings. That's just the top two. What you got that compares?


Those numbers are vastly inflated. It's nowhere close to a quarter billion. A lot of the crimes committed under socialist regimes were done in the name of nationalism anyways.

As far as Mao's famine goes, keep in mind famines were a regular occurrence in China and don't happen there anymore.

And well, Pinochet, Columbus, Johnson, Nixon, Bush, Obama? Just about every European monarch between 1600-1900?

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> I was referring to Vietnam, mostly.


You may have been, but it was in response to something someone said about libertarianism.

Vietnam was clearly not an exercise in libertarianism.

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> Those numbers are vastly inflated. It's nowhere close to a quarter billion. A lot of the crimes committed under socialist regimes were done in the name of nationalism anyways.
> 
> As far as Mao's famine goes, keep in mind famines were a regular occurrence in China and don't happen there anymore.
> 
> And well, Pinochet, Columbus, Johnson, Nixon, Bush, Obama? Just about every European monarch between 1600-1900?


Yeah they all were terrible, welcome to statism.

 As far as Mao and famines:







> The root of famine lies not in the gods or in the stars but in the actions of man. Climate is not the reason that Russia before Communism was a heavy exporter of grain, while now the Soviet Union is a grain importer. Nature is not responsible for the fact that, of all the countries of East Africa, the Marxist- Leninist nations of Ethiopia and Mozambique are now the major sufferers from mass famine and starvation. Given causes yield given effects, and it is an ineluctable law of nature and of man that if agriculture is systematically crippled and exploited, food production will collapse, and famine will be the result.





> *Socialism and Famine*
> 
> India is suffering from high prices and a food shortage. Both have been brought about by the government's own policies. For years it has indulged in monetary inflation, controls, state planning, socialism, and a forced industrialization that diverts capital and labor away from farming.
> 
> Alarmed by the food riots, the government is taking drastic measures. Most of them are exactly the wrong measures. It has put ceilings on the price of rice and announced price controls on matches, oil, kerosene, sugar, and vegetable oils. This is precisely the step that will do most to discourage production of these necessities. When there is a shortage of any product the cure is high prices, not low prices. In a free market, without inflation, relatively high prices for any product signal a shortage of that product and give maximum incentives to producers and importers to relieve the shortage.
> 
> The Indian government, looking for scapegoats, has blamed "speculators" and "hoarders" and announced the imposition of strict controls on the purchase, sale, storage, and transportation of grains. But speculators and hoarders, when they really act intelligently in their own interest, perform a public service. If they are right in thinking that if they hold back now they will get a higher price later, this means that they are conserving supplies now to relieve an even-greater future scarcity. Unless they sell at the point of maximum scarcity, they miss their best market and merely defeat themselves.
> 
> Russia vs. India
> ...

----------


## jbauer

> I told you, that if you are self sufficient on your own land and aren't using any public resources outside of your bubble, you should be left alone.


What if me and ten friends own our own land and only trade with one another and are self sufficient

----------


## Czolgosz

> Why libertarianism is better than communism: Liberty allows communism and any other system of voluntarism to exist. Communism allows for none other than itself to exist, for itself, by itself. One system that no man can deviate from lest he be killed or caged for it. Liberty, simply put, is much more interesting and fun.



This.

----------


## jbauer

> If that state democratically decided to become communist, yes the shareholding libertarians should not have a right to use the road. Should their cars be shot off the road? Of course not. But they should be held accountable for breaking the law of the land and if not, should be asked to leave the island and go somewhere else.


So this society has chosen corporatism.  You are choosing to not play along. When are you voluntarily leaving.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Account Restricted. Admin to review account standing


 I for one vote for his quick re-instatement.  He came here upfront about being a communist, and has been a fine poster and not broken any rules that I noticed.  His views are almost universally unpopular, but that's no surprise, everyone knew that going in.

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> I for one vote for his quick re-instatement.  He came here upfront about being a communist, and has been a fine poster and not broken any rules that I noticed.  His views are almost universally unpopular, but that's no surprise, everyone knew that going in.


His other thread about aesthetics was useless flame-bait, but this one hasn't been too bad so far. There's some interesting discussions going on here.

If he sticks to his conduct as displayed in this thread, I'd second that. I wouldn't care if the aesthetics one got locked though.


The thread about free markets could have resulted in some decent discussion too if there was a different approach taken.

----------


## purplechoe

I -reped him for starting the other thread where he called libertarians teenyboppers. I have no problem with the discussion in this thread though...

----------


## Bryan

> I for one vote for his quick re-instatement.  He came here upfront about being a communist, and has been a fine poster and not broken any rules that I noticed.  His views are almost universally unpopular, but that's no surprise, everyone knew that going in.


I agree, we will give some latitude. I move this one to the Guest forum.

----------


## jbauer

> He sold coins on eBay.


Coins he didn't mint so he couldn't own. Sold on an Internet site he didn't invent. Transferred through a fee for service organization he doesn't believe in.  Sold assumingly for a profit one which couldn't be known without competition something he's opposed to.  Paid for by profits from someone else who has no business connection with thus couldn't purchase his product even if they wanted to do so.

----------


## pcosmar

> Yeah because capitalist societies really tolerated the existence of us commies in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. :P


There were no Capitalist societies in the 60s. They were Corporate societies.

And the US has been socialist since the early 1900s. And that began even before that, but was full entrenched then.

----------


## jbauer

> I for one vote for his quick re-instatement.  He came here upfront about being a communist, and has been a fine poster and not broken any rules that I noticed.  His views are almost universally unpopular, but that's no surprise, everyone knew that going in.


Agree. Isn't allowing one to think and act as they see fit as long as they don't intrude on another's rights all part if this great libertarian experience

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> Agree. Isn't allowing one to think and act as they see fit as long as they don't intrude on another's rights all part if this great libertarian experience


 Don't worry, I think it was just an automatic trigger that happens when someone's rep gets too low, or maybe when they get too many -reps in a short period of time.  Which is not a bad idea.

----------


## noneedtoaggress

> Agree. Isn't allowing one to think and act as they see fit as long as they don't intrude on another's rights all part if this great libertarian experience


True, but someone owns this forum and they have the right to include or exclude as they see fit. If they believe this poster is degrading the experience of the other users when starting multiple threads with flame-bait and making a mess of their forum, then it's at their discretion whether to continue to allow the poster to behave they way they want. We're in someone's house, and it's best not to do something they might perceive as making a mess. The poster is free to either find another forum to participate in where such behavior is more tolerated or even become an entrepreneur and start their own.

There's your free market in forums and libertarian experience right there.

----------


## FSP-Rebel

Donnie, Dick Cheney would love to be your ruler, everything would be grand!

----------


## Philhelm

> I for one vote for his quick re-instatement.  He came here upfront about being a communist, and has been a fine poster and not broken any rules that I noticed.  His views are almost universally unpopular, but that's no surprise, everyone knew that going in.


Generally, I don't think people should be banned from a forum promoting liberty as it makes us more like _them_.  And by them I mean _they_.

There are, of course, certain exceptions.

----------


## donnie darko

> So this society has chosen corporatism.  You are choosing to not play along. When are you voluntarily leaving.


As soon as that happens, I'm out the door. Just hope their troops don't come and Agent Orange me!

----------


## donnie darko

BTW, thank you for un-banning me. Maybe you guys really do believe in freedom, even if your ideology is unrealistic.

----------


## MichaelDavis

> I registered here because I want to challenge the viewpoints of the people here, 95% at least I imagine are die-hard capitalists. 
> 
> I think capitalism is a threat to our liberties and freedom as Americans and as human beings around the globe and will lead to the vast majority of people suffering _de facto_ slavery within a few generations' time.
> 
> Neoliberal globalized capitalism has been the main form of development since the 80s/90s and aside from the heavily state controlled variant of it in China, it's proven ineffective at reducing poverty. Many people have also been forced to give up their land, culture and communities and move to the metropolises because of global capitalism. 
> 
> I would rather production and capital be owned by the people who work it, not by indifferent shareholders and speculators.
> 
> Does anyone have any questions for me, an admitted Marxist?


Can you name ONE country that has prospered under Communism? I can name many that failed: USSR, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. Communism does not work and never will. There is no motivation to work when you know you will recieve the same salary either way.

----------


## fr33

> I support voluntary collectivism to an extent, but I would like to see stock trading and ownership of land rendered illegal. 
> 
> This isn't as radical as it seems. A property tax is in effect abolition of land ownership.


It actually is as radical as it seems. Are you or the people you hired prepared to die when you/they come to take my property away? I am not your slave and my property is not yours. You are a thief though.

----------


## bolil

So why the need for coercion, if your philosophy is so pure?  Why the need for subversion if the truth you pander is so pure.  Nah, sorry pal, pinko, commie, or comrade I would rather take dissent.  Your foul brand of humanity will kill more innocence (200 million now) before your foul brand is spent.  Liberty, the very notion of, leaves room for all to live as they would; why are you afraid of competition.  If "Socialism" is the proper course then it will be VOLUNTARILY (I know, you kind takes issue with free will, being tyrants and what not) chosen.  Can't have that, though, can you comrade, for if you did your life's work might fail.  The illusion under which you've labored, ironically, isn't unlike the holy grail.

Liberty, or death.

----------


## awake

> Generally, I don't think people should be banned from a forum promoting liberty as it makes us more like _them_.  And by them I mean _they_.
> 
> There are, of course, certain exceptions.


I too wish that this person was not banned. Even if he was a troll, the case for liberty must be made each and every time it is challenged. Ron Paul does this even when he knows there is no chance of converting other people.

----------


## 69360

> Yes actually. I used to have a business selling coins. Not incorporated or anything, just on Ebay/CL.
> 
> I don't have an issue with that kind of business since the profit one makes doing such a thing is compensation for the labor of procuring and selling the product.


You're a capitalist then. Anything you post after this is pointless.  Hand over your Che t-shirt.

----------


## Todd

> I -reped him for starting the other thread where he called libertarians teenyboppers. I have no problem with the discussion in this thread though...


I neg repped him for suggesting that people should be starved if they didn't comply with his great social fantasy.  That was the key thought process from Stalin to Mao.

----------


## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> Does anyone have any questions for me, an admitted Marxist?


Did you just get one of those free government laptops?  You know, the ones provided for activities like job seeking, but instead used for screwing around.

----------


## guest

> Yes actually. I used to have a business selling coins. Not incorporated or anything, just on Ebay/CL.


Do you have any friends or people that you trust that you would rather assoicate with as opposed to strangers? If so, would you extend this to those you would (rather) do business with?  Have you ever called up friends or family and told them about any products that you are selling?

----------


## Antischism

I think this is essentially the case that the OP is trying to make, though in much better detail/with better research. [Link]

F.4 What is the right-libertarian position on private property?

Right libertarians are not interested in eliminating capitalist private property and thus the authority, oppression and exploitation which goes with it. It is true that they call for an end to the state, but this is not because they are concerned about workers being exploited or oppressed but because they don't want the state to impede capitalists' "freedom" to exploit and oppress workers even more than is the case now!

They make an idol of private property and claim to defend absolute, "unrestricted" property rights (i.e. that property owners can do anything they like with their property, as long as it does not damage the property of others. In particular, taxation and theft are among the greatest evils possible as they involve coercion against "justly held" property). They agree with John Adams that "[t]he moment that idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the Laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be sacred or liberty cannot exist."

But in their celebration of property as the source of liberty they ignore the fact that private property is a source of "tyranny" in itself (see sections B.1 and B.4, for example -- and please note that anarchists only object to private property, not individual possession, see section B.3.1). However, as much anarchists may disagree about other matters, they are united in condemning private property. Thus Proudhon argued that property was "theft" and "despotism" while Stirner indicated the religious and statist nature of private property and its impact on individual liberty when he wrote :

"Property in the civic sense means sacred property, such that I must respect your property... Be it ever so little, if one only has somewhat of his own - to wit, a respected property: The more such owners... the more 'free people and good patriots' has the State.

"Political liberalism, like everything religious, counts on respect, humaneness, the virtues of love. . . . For in practice people respect nothing, and everyday the small possessions are bought up again by greater proprietors, and the 'free people' change into day labourers." [The Ego and Its Own, p. 248]

Thus "anarcho"-capitalists reject totally one of the common (and so defining) features of all anarchist traditions -- the opposition to capitalist property. From Individualist Anarchists like Tucker to Communist-Anarchists like Bookchin, anarchists have been opposed to what Godwin termed "accumulated property." This was because it was in "direct contradiction" to property in the form of "the produce of his [the worker's] own industry" and so it allows "one man. . . [to] dispos[e] of the produce of another man's industry." [The Anarchist Reader, pp. 129-131] Thus, for anarchists, capitalist property is a source exploitation and domination, not freedom (it undermines the freedom associated with possession by created relations of domination between owner and employee).

Hardly surprising then the fact that, according to Murray Bookchin, Murray Rothbard "attacked me [Bookchin] as an anarchist with vigour because, as he put it, I am opposed to private property." [The Raven, no. 29, p. 343]

We will discuss Rothbard's "homesteading" justification of property in the next section. However, we will note here one aspect of right-libertarian defence of "unrestricted" property rights, namely that it easily generates evil side effects such as hierarchy and starvation. As famine expert Amartya Sen notes:

"Take a theory of entitlements based on a set of rights of 'ownership, transfer and rectification.' In this system a set of holdings of different people are judged to be just (or unjust) by looking at past history, and not by checking the consequences of that set of holdings. But what if the consequences are recognisably terrible? . . .[R]efer[ing] to some empirical findings in a work on famines . . . evidence [is presented] to indicate that in many large famines in the recent past, in which millions of people have died, there was no over-all decline in food availability at all, and the famines occurred precisely because of shifts in entitlement resulting from exercises of rights that are perfectly legitimate. . . . [Can] famines . . . occur with a system of rights of the kind morally defended in various ethical theories, including Nozick's. I believe the answer is straightforwardly yes, since for many people the only resource that they legitimately possess, viz. their labour-power, may well turn out to be unsaleable in the market, giving the person no command over food . . . [i]f results such as starvations and famines were to occur, would the distribution of holdings still be morally acceptable despite their disastrous consequences? There is something deeply implausible in the affirmative answer." [Resources, Values and Development, pp. 311-2]

Thus "unrestricted" property rights can have seriously bad consequences and so the existence of "justly held" property need not imply a just or free society -- far from it. The inequalities property can generate can have a serious on individual freedom (see section F.3.1). Indeed, Murray Rothbard argued that the state was evil not because it restricted individual freedom but because the resources it claimed to own were not "justly" acquired. Thus right-libertarian theory judges property not on its impact on current freedom but by looking at past history. This has the interesting side effect of allowing its supporters to look at capitalist and statist hierarchies, acknowledge their similar negative effects on the liberty of those subjected to them but argue that one is legitimate and the other is not simply because of their history! As if this changed the domination and unfreedom that both inflict on people living today (see section F.2.3 for further discussion and sections F.2.8 and F.4.2 for other examples of "justly acquired" property producing terrible consequences).

The defence of capitalist property does have one interesting side effect, namely the need arises to defend inequality and the authoritarian relationships inequality creates. In order to protect the private property needed by capitalists in order to continue exploiting the working class, "anarcho"-capitalists propose private security forces rather than state security forces (police and military) -- a proposal that is equivalent to bringing back the state under another name.

Due to (capitalist) private property, wage labour would still exist under "anarcho"-capitalism (it is capitalism after all). This means that "defensive" force, a state, is required to "defend" exploitation, oppression, hierarchy and authority from those who suffer them. Inequality makes a mockery of free agreement and "consent" (see section F.3.1). As Peter Kropotkin pointed out long ago:

"When a workman sells his labour to an employer . . . it is a mockery to call that a free contract. Modern economists may call it free, but the father of political economy -- Adam Smith -- was never guilty of such a misrepresentation. As long as three-quarters of humanity are compelled to enter into agreements of that description, force is, of course, necessary, both to enforce the supposed agreements and to maintain such a state of things. Force -- and a good deal of force -- is necessary to prevent the labourers from taking possession of what they consider unjustly appropriated by the few. . . . The Spencerian party [proto-right-libertarians] perfectly well understand that; and while they advocate no force for changing the existing conditions, they advocate still more force than is now used for maintaining them. As to Anarchy, it is obviously as incompatible with plutocracy as with any other kind of -cracy." [Anarchism and Anarchist Communism, pp. 52-53]

Because of this need to defend privilege and power, "anarcho"-capitalism is best called "private-state" capitalism. This will be discussed in more detail in section F.6.

By advocating private property, right libertarians contradict many of their other claims. For example, they say that they support the right of individuals to travel where they like. They make this claim because they assume that only the state limits free travel. But this is a false assumption. Owners must agree to let you on their land or property ("people only have the right to move to those properties and lands where the owners desire to rent or sell to them." [Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, p. 119]. There is no "freedom of travel" onto private property (including private roads). Therefore immigration may be just as hard under "anarcho"-capitalism as it is under statism (after all, the state, like the property owner, only lets people in whom it wants to let in). People will still have to get another property owner to agree to let them in before they can travel -- exactly as now (and, of course, they also have to get the owners of the road to let them in as well). Private property, as can be seen from this simple example, is the state writ small.

One last point, this ignoring of ("politically incorrect") economic and other views of dead political thinkers and activists while claiming them as "libertarians" seems to be commonplace in right-Libertarian circles. For example, Aristotle (beloved by Ayn Rand) "thought that only living things could bear fruit. Money, not a living thing, was by its nature barren, and any attempt to make it bear fruit (tokos, in Greek, the same word used for interest) was a crime against nature." [Marcello de Cecco, quoted by Doug Henwood, Wall Street, p. 41] Such opposition to interest hardly fits well into capitalism, and so either goes unmentioned or gets classed as an "error" (although we could ask why Aristotle is in error while Rand is not). Similarly, individualist anarchist opposition to capitalist property and rent, interest and profits is ignored or dismissed as "bad economics" without realising that these ideas played a key role in their politics and in ensuring that an anarchy would not see freedom corrupted by inequality. To ignore such an important concept in a person's ideas is to distort the remainder into something it is not.


F.4.1 What is wrong with a "homesteading" theory of property?

So how do "anarcho"-capitalists justify property? Looking at Murray Rothbard, we find that he proposes a "homesteading theory of property". In this theory it is argued that property comes from occupancy and mixing labour with natural resources (which are assumed to be unowned). Thus the world is transformed into private property, for "title to an unowned resource (such as land) comes properly only from the expenditure of labour to transform that resource into use." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 63]

Rothbard paints a conceptual history of individuals and families forging a home in the wilderness by the sweat of their labour (its tempting to rename his theory the "immaculate conception of property" as his conceptual theory is somewhat at odds with actual historical fact).

Sadly for Murray Rothbard, his "homesteading" theory was refuted by Proudhon in What is Property? in 1840 (along with many other justifications of property). Proudhon rightly argues that "if the liberty of man is sacred, it is equally sacred in all individuals; that, if it needs property for its objective action, that is, for its life, the appropriation of material is equally necessary for all . . . Does it not follow that if one individual cannot prevent another . . . from appropriating an amount of material equal to his own, no more can he prevent individuals to come." And if all the available resources are appropriated, and the owner "draws boundaries, fences himself in . . . Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends . . . Let [this]. . . multiply, and soon the people . . . will have nowhere to rest, no place to shelter, no ground to till. They will die at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright." [What is Property?, pp. 84-85, p. 118]

As Rothbard himself noted in respect to the aftermath of slavery (see section F.2.2), not having access to the means of life places one the position of unjust dependency on those who do. Rothbard's theory fails because for "[w]e who belong to the proletaire class, property excommunicates us!" [P-J Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 105] and so the vast majority of the population experience property as theft and despotism rather than as a source of liberty and empowerment (which possession gives). Thus, Rothbard's account fails to take into account the Lockean Proviso (see section B.3.4) and so, for all its intuitive appeal, ends up justifying capitalist and landlord domination (see next section on why the Lockean Proviso is important).

It also seems strange that while (correctly) attacking social contract theories of the state as invalid (because "no past generation can bind later generations" [Op. Cit., p. 145]) he fails to see he is doing exactly that with his support of private property (similarly, Ayn Rand argued that "[a]ny alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates the violation of the right of another, is not and cannot be a right" [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 325] but obviously appropriating land does violate the rights of others to walk, use or appropriate that land). Due to his support for appropriation and inheritance, he is clearly ensuring that future generations are not born as free as the first settlers were (after all, they cannot appropriate any land, it is all taken!). If future generations cannot be bound by past ones, this applies equally to resources and property rights. Something anarchists have long realised -- there is no defensible reason why those who first acquired property should control its use by future generations.

However, if we take Rothbard's theory at face value we find numerous problems with it. If title to unowned resources comes via the "expenditure of labour" on it, how can rivers, lakes and the oceans be appropriated? The banks of the rivers can be transformed, but can the river itself? How can you mix your labour with water? "Anarcho"-capitalists usually blame pollution on the fact that rivers, oceans, and so forth are unowned, but how can an individual "transform" water by their labour? Also, does fencing in land mean you have "mixed labour" with it? If so then transnational corporations can pay workers to fence in vast tracks of virgin land (such as rainforest) and so come to "own" it. Rothbard argues that this is not the case (he expresses opposition to "arbitrary claims"). He notes that it is not the case that "the first discoverer . . . could properly lay claim to [a piece of land] . . . [by] laying out a boundary for the area. He thinks that "their claim would still be no more than the boundary itself, and not to any of the land within, for only the boundary will have been transformed and used by men" [Op. Cit., p. 50f]

However, if the boundary is private property and the owner refuses others permission to cross it, then the enclosed land is inaccessible to others! If an "enterprising" right-libertarian builds a fence around the only oasis in a desert and refuses permission to cross it to travellers unless they pay his price (which is everything they own) then the person has appropriated the oasis without "transforming" it by his labour. The travellers have the choice of paying the price or dying (and the oasis owner is well within his rights letting them die). Given Rothbard's comments, it is probable that he will claim that such a boundary is null and void as it allows "arbitrary" claims -- although this position is not at all clear. After all, the fence builder has transformed the boundary and "unrestricted" property rights is what right-libertarianism is all about.

And, of course, Rothbard ignores the fact of economic power -- a transnational corporation can "transform" far more virgin resources in a day than a family could in a year. Transnational's "mixing their labour" with the land does not spring into mind reading Rothbard's account of property growth, but in the real world that is what will happen.

If we take the question of wilderness (a topic close to many eco-anarchists' and deep ecologists' hearts) we run into similar problems. Rothbard states clearly that "libertarian theory must invalidate [any] claim to ownership" of land that has "never been transformed from its natural state" (he presents an example of an owner who has left a piece of his "legally owned" land untouched). If another person appears who does transform the land, it becomes "justly owned by another" and the original owner cannot stop her (and should the original owner "use violence to prevent another settler from entering this never-used land and transforming it into use" they also become a "criminal aggressor"). Rothbard also stresses that he is not saying that land must continually be in use to be valid property [Op. Cit., pp. 63-64] (after all, that would justify landless workers seizing the land from landowners during a depression and working it themselves).

Now, where does that leave wilderness? In response to ecologists who oppose the destruction of the rainforest, "anarcho"-capitalists suggest that they put their money where their mouth is and buy rainforest land. In this way, it is claimed, rainforest will be protected (see section B.5 for why such arguments are nonsense). As ecologists desire the rainforest because it is wilderness they are unlikely to "transform" it by human labour (its precisely that they want to stop). From Rothbard's arguments it is fair to ask whether logging companies have a right to "transform" the virgin wilderness owned by ecologists, after all it meets Rothbard's criteria (it is still wilderness). Perhaps it will be claimed that fencing off land "transforms" it (hardly what you imagine "mixing labour" with to mean, but nevermind) -- but that allows large companies and rich individuals to hire workers to fence in vast tracks of land (and recreate the land monopoly by a "libertarian" route). But as we noted above, fencing off land does not seem to imply that it becomes property in Rothbard's theory. And, of course, fencing in areas of rainforest disrupts the local eco-system -- animals cannot freely travel, for example -- which, again, is what ecologists desire to stop. Would Rothbard accept a piece of paper as "transforming" land? We doubt it (after all, in his example the wilderness owner did legally own it) -- and so most ecologists will have a hard time in "anarcho"-capitalism (wilderness is just not an option).

As an aside, we must note that Rothbard fails to realise -- and this comes from his worship of the market and his "Austrian economics" -- is that people value many things which do not appear on the market. He claims that wilderness is "valueless unused natural objects" (for it people valued them, they would use -- i.e. appropriate -- them). But unused things may be of considerable value to people, wilderness being a classic example. And if something cannot be transformed into private property, does that mean people do not value it? For example, people value community, stress free working environments, meaningful work -- if the market cannot provide these, does that mean they do not value them? Of course not (see Juliet Schor's The Overworked American on how working people's desire for shorter working hours was not transformed into options on the market).

Moreover, Rothbard's "homesteading" theory actually violates his support for unrestricted property rights. What if a property owner wants part of her land to remain wilderness? Their desires are violated by the "homesteading" theory (unless, of course, fencing things off equals "transforming" them, which it apparently does not). How can companies provide wilderness holidays to people if they have no right to stop settlers (including large companies) "homesteading" that wilderness? And, of course, where does Rothbard's theory leave hunter-gather or nomad societies. They use the resources of the wilderness, but they do not "transform" them (in this case you cannot easily tell if virgin land is empty or being used as a resource). If a troop of nomads find its traditionally used, but natural, oasis appropriated by a homesteader what are they to do? If they ignore the homesteaders claims he can call upon his "defence" firm to stop them -- and then, in true Rothbardian fashion, the homesteader can refuse to supply water to them unless they hand over all their possessions (see section F.4.2 on this). And if the history of the United States (which is obviously the model for Rothbard's theory) is anything to go by, such people will become "criminal aggressors" and removed from the picture.

Which is another problem with Rothbard's account. It is completely ahistoric (and so, as we noted above, is more like an "immaculate conception of property"). He has transported "capitalist man" into the dawn of time and constructed a history of property based upon what he is trying to justify (not surprising, as he does this with his "Natural Law" theory too - see section F.7). What is interesting to note, though, is that the actual experience of life on the US frontier (the historic example Rothbard seems to want to claim) was far from the individualistic framework he builds upon it and (ironically enough) it was destroyed by the development of capitalism.

As Murray Bookchin notes, "the independence that the New England yeomanry enjoyed was itself a function of the co-operative social base from which it emerged. To barter home-grown goods and objects, to share tools and implements, to engage in common labour during harvesting time in a system of mutual aid, indeed, to help new-comers in barn-raising, corn-husking, log-rolling, and the like, was the indispensable cement that bound scattered farmsteads into a united community." [The Third Revolution, vol. 1, p. 233] Bookchin quotes David P. Szatmary (author of a book on Shay' Rebellion) stating that it was a society based upon "co-operative, community orientated interchanges" and not a "basically competitive society." [Ibid.]

Into this non-capitalist society came capitalist elements. Market forces and economic power soon resulted in the transformation of this society. Merchants asked for payment in specie which (and along with taxes) soon resulted in indebtedness and the dispossession of the homesteaders from their land and goods. In response Shay's rebellion started, a rebellion which was an important factor in the centralisation of state power in America to ensure that popular input and control over government were marginalised and that the wealthy elite and their property rights were protected against the many (see Bookchin, Op. Cit., for details). Thus the homestead system was undermined, essentially, by the need to pay for services in specie (as demanded by merchants).

So while Rothbard's theory as a certain appeal (reinforced by watching too many Westerns, we imagine) it fails to justify the "unrestricted" property rights theory (and the theory of freedom Rothbard derives from it). All it does is to end up justifying capitalist and landlord domination (which is probably what it was intended to do).


F.4.2 Why is the "Lockean Proviso" important?

Robert Nozick, in his work Anarchy, State, and Utopia presented a case for private property rights that was based on what he termed the "Lockean Proviso" -- namely that common (or unowned) land and resources could be appropriated by individuals as long as the position of others is not worsen by so doing. However, if we do take this Proviso seriously private property rights cannot be defined (see section B.3.4 for details). Thus Nozick's arguments in favour of property rights fail.

Some right-libertarians, particularly those associated with the Austrian school of economics argue that we must reject the Lockean Proviso (probably due to the fact it can be used to undermine the case for absolute property rights). Their argument goes as follows: if an individual appropriates and uses a previously unused resource, it is because it has value to him/her, as an individual, to engage in such action. The individual has stolen nothing because it was previously unowned and we cannot know if other people are better or worse off, all we know is that, for whatever reason, they did not appropriate the resource ("If latecomers are worse off, well then that is their proper assumption of risk in this free and uncertain world. There is no longer a vast frontier in the United States, and there is no point crying over the fact." [Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, p. 240]).

Hence the appropriation of resources is an essentially individualistic, asocial act -- the requirements of others are either irrelevant or unknown. However, such an argument fails to take into account why the Lockean Proviso has such an appeal. When we do this we see that rejecting it leads to massive injustice, even slavery.

However, let us start with a defence of rejecting the Proviso from a leading Austrian economist:

"Consider . . . the case . . . of the unheld sole water hole in the desert (which everyone in a group of travellers knows about), which one of the travellers, by racing ahead of the others, succeeds in appropriating . . . [This] clearly and unjustly violates the Lockean proviso. . . For use, however, this view is by no means the only one possible. We notice that the energetic traveller who appropriated all the water was not doing anything which (always ignoring, of course, prohibitions resting on the Lockean proviso itself) the other travellers were not equally free to do. The other travellers, too, could have raced ahead . . . [they] did not bother to race for the water . . . It does not seem obvious that these other travellers can claim that they were hurt by an action which they could themselves have easily taken" [Israel M. Kirzner, "Entrepreneurship, Entitlement, and Economic Justice", pp. 385-413, in Reading Nozick, p. 406]

Murray Rothbard, we should note, takes a similar position in a similar example, arguing that "the owner [of the sole oasis] is scarcely being 'coercive'; in fact he is supplying a vital service, and should have the right to refuse a sale or charge whatever the customers will pay. The situation may be unfortunate for the customers, as are many situations in life." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 221] (Rothbard, we should note, is relying to the right-libertarian von Hayek who -- to his credit -- does maintain that this is a coercive situation; but as others, including other right-libertarians, point out, he has to change his definition of coercion/freedom to do so -- see Stephan L. Newman's Liberalism at Wit's End, pp. 130-134 for an excellent summary of this debate).

Now, we could be tempted just to rant about the evils of the right libertarian mind-frame but we will try to present a clam analysis of this position. Now, what Kirzner (and Rothbard et al) fails to note is that without the water the other travellers will die in a matter of days. The monopolist has the power of life and death over his fellow travellers. Perhaps he hates one of them and so raced ahead to ensure their death. Perhaps he just recognised the vast power that his appropriation would give him and so, correctly, sees that the other travellers would give up all their possessions and property to him in return for enough water to survive.

Either way, its clear that perhaps the other travellers did not "race ahead" because they were ethical people -- they would not desire to inflict such tyranny on others because they would not like it inflicted upon them.

Thus we can answer Kirzner's question -- "What . . . is so obviously acceptable about the Lockean proviso. . . ?" [Ibid.]

It is the means by which human actions are held accountable to social standards and ethics. It is the means by which the greediest, most evil and debased humans are stopped from dragging the rest of humanity down to their level (via a "race to the bottom") and inflicting untold tyranny and domination on their fellow humans. An ideology that could consider the oppression which could result from such an appropriation as "supplying a vital service" and any act to remove this tyranny as "coercion" is obviously a very sick ideology. And we may note that the right-libertarian position on this example is a good illustration of the dangers of deductive logic from assumptions (see section F.1.3 for more on this right-libertarian methodology) -- after all W. Duncan Reekie, in his introduction to Austrian Economics, states that "[t]o be intellectually consistent one must concede his absolute right to the oasis." [Markets, Entrepreneurs and Liberty, p. 181] To place ideology before people is to ensure humanity is placed on a Procrustean bed.

Which brings us to another point. Often right-libertarians say that anarchists and other socialists are "lazy" or "do not want to work". You could interpret Kirzner's example as saying that the other travellers are "lazy" for not rushing ahead and appropriating the oasis. But this is false. For under capitalism you can only get rich by exploiting the labour of others via wage slavery or, within a company, get better pay by taking "positions of responsibility" (i.e. management positions). If you have an ethical objection to treating others as objects ("means to an end") then these options are unavailable to you. Thus anarchists and other socialists are not "lazy" because they are not rich -- they just have no desire to get rich off the labour and liberty of others (as expressed in their opposition to private property and the relations of domination it creates). In other words, Anarchism is not the "politics of envy"; it is the politics of liberty and the desire to treat others as "ends in themselves".

Rothbard is aware of what is involved in accepting the Lockean Proviso -- namely the existence of private property ("Locke's proviso may lead to the outlawry of all private property of land, since one can always say that the reduction of available land leaves everyone else . . . worse off", The Ethics of Liberty, p. 240 -- see section B.3.4 for a discussion on why the Proviso does imply the end of capitalist property rights). Which is why he, and other right-libertarians, reject it. Its simple. Either you reject the Proviso and embrace capitalist property rights (and so allow one class of people to be dispossessed and another empowered at their expense) or you reject private property in favour of possession and liberty. Anarchists, obviously, favour the latter option.

As an aside, we should point out that (following Stirner) the would-be monopolist is doing nothing wrong (as such) in attempting to monopolise the oasis. He is, after all, following his self-interest. However, what is objectionable is the right-libertarian attempt to turn thus act into a "right" which must be respected by the other travellers. Simply put, if the other travellers gang up and dispose of this would be tyrant then they are right to do so -- to argue that this is a violation of the monopolists "rights" is insane and an indication of a slave mentality (or, following Rousseau, that the others are "simple"). Of course, if the would-be monopolist has the necessary force to withstand the other travellers then his property then the matter is closed -- might makes right. But to worship rights, even when they obviously result in despotism, is definitely a case of "spooks in the head" and "man is created for the Sabbath" not "the Sabbath is created for man."


F.4.3 How does private property effect individualism?

Private property is usually associated by "anarcho"-capitalism with individualism. Usually private property is seen as the key way of ensuring individualism and individual freedom (and that private property is the expression of individualism). Therefore it is useful to indicate how private property can have a serious impact on individualism.

Usually right-libertarians contrast the joys of "individualism" with the evils of "collectivism" in which the individual is sub-merged into the group or collective and is made to work for the benefit of the group (see any Ayn Rand book or essay on the evils of collectivism).

But what is ironic is that right-libertarian ideology creates a view of industry which would (perhaps) shame even the most die-hard fan of Stalin. What do we mean? Simply that right-libertarians stress the abilities of the people at the top of the company, the owner, the entrepreneur, and tend to ignore the very real subordination of those lower down the hierarchy (see, again, any Ayn Rand book on the worship of business leaders). In the Austrian school of economics, for example, the entrepreneur is considered the driving force of the market process and tend to abstract away from the organisations they govern. This approach is usually followed by right-libertarians. Often you get the impression that the accomplishments of a firm are the personal triumphs of the capitalists, as though their subordinates are merely tools not unlike the machines on which they labour.

We should not, of course, interpret this to mean that right-libertarians believe that entrepreneurs run their companies single-handedly (although you do get that impression sometimes!). But these abstractions help hide the fact that the economy is overwhelmingly interdependent and organised hierarchically within industry. Even in their primary role as organisers, entrepreneurs depend on the group. A company president can only issue general guidelines to his managers, who must inevitably organise and direct much of their departments on their own. The larger a company gets, the less personal and direct control an entrepreneur has over it. They must delegate out an increasing share of authority and responsibility, and is more dependent than ever on others to help him run things, investigate conditions, inform policy, and make recommendations. Moreover, the authority structures are from the "top-down" -- indeed the firm is essentially a command economy, with all members part of a collective working on a common plan to achieve a common goal (i.e. it is essentially collectivist in nature -- which means it is not too unsurprising that Lenin argued that state socialism could be considered as one big firm or office and why the system he built on that model was so horrific).

So the firm (the key component of the capitalist economy) is marked by a distinct lack of individualism, a lack usually ignored by right libertarians (or, at best, considered as "unavoidable"). As these firms are hierarchical structures and workers are paid to obey, it does make some sense -- in a capitalist environment -- to assume that the entrepreneur is the main actor, but as an individualistic model of activity it fails totally. Perhaps it would not be unfair to say that capitalist individualism celebrates the entrepreneur because this reflects a hierarchical system in which for the one to flourish, the many must obey? (Also see section F.1.1).

Capitalist individualism does not recognise the power structures that exist within capitalism and how they affect individuals. In Brian Morris' words, what they fail "to recognise is that most productive relations under capitalism allow little scope for creativity and self-expression on the part of workers; that such relationships are not equitable; nor are they freely engaged in for the mutual benefit of both parties, for workers have no control over the production process or over the product of their labour. Rand [like other right-libertarians] misleadingly equates trade, artistic production and wage-slavery. . . [but] wage-slavery . . . is quite different from the trade principle" as it is a form of "exploitation." [Ecology & Anarchism, p. 190]

He further notes that "[s]o called trade relations involving human labour are contrary to the egoist values Rand [and other capitalist individualists] espouses - they involve little in the way of independence, freedom, integrity or justice." [Ibid., p. 191]

Moreover, capitalist individualism actually supports authority and hierarchy. As Joshua Chen and Joel Rogers point out, the "achievement of short-run material satisfaction often makes it irrational [from an individualist perspective] to engage in more radical struggle, since that struggle is by definition against those institutions which provide one's current gain." In other words, to rise up the company structure, to "better oneself," (or even get a good reference) you cannot be a pain in the side of management -- obedient workers do well, rebel workers do not.

Thus the hierarchical structures help develop an "individualistic" perspective which actually reinforces those authority structures. This, as Cohn and Rogers notes, means that "the structure in which [workers] find themselves yields less than optimal social results from their isolated but economically rational decisions." [quoted by Alfie Kohn, No Contest, p. 67, p. 260f]

Steve Biko, a black activist murdered by the South African police in the 1970s, argued that "the most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." And this is something capitalists have long recognised. Their investment in "Public Relations" and "education" programmes for their employees shows this clearly, as does the hierarchical nature of the firm. By having a ladder to climb, the firm rewards obedience and penalises rebellion. This aims at creating a mind-set which views hierarchy as good and so helps produce servile people.

This is why anarchists would agree with Alfie Kohn when he argues that "the individualist worldview is a profoundly conservative doctrine: it inherently stifles change." [Ibid., p. 67] So, what is the best way for a boss to maintain his or her power? Create a hierarchical workplace and encourage capitalist individualism (as capitalist individualism actually works against attempts to increase freedom from hierarchy). Needless to say, such a technique cannot work forever -- hierarchy also encourages revolt -- but such divide and conquer can be very effective.

And as anarchist author Michael Moorcock put it, "Rugged individualism also goes hand in hand with a strong faith in paternalism -- albeit a tolerant and somewhat distant paternalism -- and many otherwise sharp-witted libertarians seem to see nothing in the morality of a John Wayne Western to conflict with their views. Heinlein's paternalism is at heart the same as Wayne's. . . To be an anarchist, surely, is to reject authority but to accept self-discipline and community responsibility. To be a rugged individualist a la Heinlein and others is to be forever a child who must obey, charm and cajole to be tolerated by some benign, omniscient father: Rooster Coburn shuffling his feet in front of a judge he respects for his office (but not necessarily himself) in True Grit." [Starship Stormtroopers]

One last thing, don't be fooled into thinking that individualism or concern about individuality -- not quite the same thing -- is restricted to the right, they are not. For example, the "individualist theory of society . . . might be advanced in a capitalist or in an anti-capitalist form . . . the theory as developed by critics of capitalism such as Hodgskin and the anarchist Tucker saw ownership of capital by a few as an obstacle to genuine individualism, and the individualist ideal was realisable only through the free association of labourers (Hodgskin) or independent proprietorship (Tucker)." [David Miller, Social Justice, pp. 290-1]

And the reason why social anarchists oppose capitalism is that it creates a false individualism, an abstract one which crushes the individuality of the many and justifies (and supports) hierarchical and authoritarian social relations. In Kropotkin's words, "what has been called 'individualism' up to now has been only a foolish egoism which belittles the individual. It did not led to what it was established as a goal: that is the complete, broad, and most perfectly attainable development of individuality." The new individualism desired by Kropotkin "will not consist . . . in the oppression of one's neighbour . . . [as this] reduced the [individualist] . . .to the level of an animal in a herd." [Selected Writings, p, 295, p. 296]


F.4.4 How does private property affect relationships?

Obviously, capitalist private property affects relationships between people by creating structures of power. Property, as we have argued all through this FAQ, creates relationships based upon domination -- and this cannot help but produce servile tendencies within those subject to them (it also produces rebellious tendencies as well, the actual ratio between the two tendencies dependent on the individual in question and the community they are in). As anarchists have long recognised, power corrupts -- both those subjected to it and those who exercise it.

While few, if any, anarchists would fail to recognise the importance of possession -- which creates the necessary space all individuals need to be themselves -- they all agree that private property corrupts this liberatory aspect of "property" by allowing relationships of domination and oppression to be built up on top of it. Because of this recognition, all anarchists have tried to equalise property and turn it back into possession.

Also, capitalist individualism actively builds barriers between people. Under capitalism, money rules and individuality is expressed via consumption choices (i.e. money). But money does not encourage an empathy with others. As Frank Stronach (chair of Magna International, a Canadian auto-parts maker that shifted its production to Mexico) put it, "[t]o be in business your first mandate is to make money, and money has no heart, no soul, conscience, homeland." [cited by Doug Henwood, Wall Street, p. 113] And for those who study economics, it seems that this dehumanising effect also strikes them as well:

"Studying economics also seems to make you a nastier person. Psychological studies have shown that economics graduate students are more likely to 'free ride' -- shirk contributions to an experimental 'public goods' account in the pursuit of higher private returns -- than the general public. Economists also are less generous that other academics in charitable giving. Undergraduate economics majors are more likely to defect in the classic prisoner's dilemma game that are other majors. And on other tests, students grow less honest -- expressing less of a tendency, for example, to return found money -- after studying economics, but not studying a control subject like astronomy.

"This is no surprise, really. Mainstream economics is built entirely on a notion of self-interested individuals, rational self-maximisers who can order their wants and spend accordingly. There's little room for sentiment, uncertainty, selflessness, and social institutions. Whether this is an accurate picture of the average human is open to question, but there's no question that capitalism as a system and economics as a discipline both reward people who conform to the model." [Doug Henwood, Op. Cit., p, 143]

Which, of course, highlights the problems within the "trader" model advocated by Ayn Rand. According to her, the trader is the example of moral behaviour -- you have something I want, I have something you want, we trade and we both benefit and so our activity is self-interested and no-one sacrifices themselves for another. While this has some intuitive appeal it fails to note that in the real world it is a pure fantasy. The trader wants to get the best deal possible for themselves and if the bargaining positions are unequal then one person will gain at the expense of the other (if the "commodity" being traded is labour, the seller may not even have the option of not trading at all). The trader is only involved in economic exchange, and has no concern for the welfare of the person they are trading with. They are a bearer of things, not an individual with a wide range of interests, concerns, hopes and dreams. These are irrelevant, unless you can make money out of them of course! Thus the trader is often a manipulator and outside novels it most definitely is a case of "buyer beware!"

If the trader model is taken as the basis of interpersonal relationships, economic gain replaces respect and empathy for others. It replaces human relationships with relationships based on things -- and such a mentality does not encompass how interpersonal relationships affect both you and the society you life in. In the end, it impoverishes society and individuality. Yes, any relationship must be based upon self-interest (mutual aid is, after all, something we do because we benefit from it in some way) but the trader model presents such a narrow self-interest that it is useless and actively impoverishes the very things it should be protecting -- individuality and interpersonal relationships (see section I.7.4 on how capitalism does not protect individuality).

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## Antischism

F.4.5 Does private property co-ordinate without hierarchy?

It is usually to find right-libertarians maintain that private property (i.e. capitalism) allows economic activity to be co-ordinated by non-hierarchical means. In other words, they maintain that capitalism is a system of large scale co-ordination without hierarchy. These claims follow the argument of noted right-wing, "free market" economist Milton Friedman who contrasts "central planning involving the use of coercion - the technique of the army or the modern totalitarian state" with "voluntary co-operation between individuals - the technique of the marketplace" as two distinct ways of co-ordinating the economic activity of large groups ("millions") of people. [Capitalism and Freedom, p. 13].

However, this is just playing with words. As they themselves point out the internal structure of a corporation or capitalist company is not a "market" (i.e. non-hierarchical) structure, it is a "non-market" (hierarchical) structure of a market participant (see section F.2.2). However "market participants" are part of the market. In other words, capitalism is not a system of co-ordination without hierarchy because it does contain hierarchical organisations which are an essential part of the system!

Indeed, the capitalist company is a form of central planning and shares the same "technique" as the army. As the pro-capitalist writer Peter Drucker noted in his history of General Motors, "[t]here is a remarkably close parallel between General Motors' scheme of organisation and those of the two institutions most renowned for administrative efficiency: that of the Catholic Church and that of the modern army . . ." [quoted by David Enger, Apostles of Greed, p. 66]. And so capitalism is marked by a series of totalitarian organisations -- and since when was totalitarianism liberty enhancing? Indeed, many "anarcho"-capitalists actually celebrate the command economy of the capitalist firm as being more "efficient" than self-managed firms (usually because democracy stops action with debate). The same argument is applied by the Fascists to the political sphere. It does not change much -- nor does it become less fascistic -- when applied to economic structures. To state the obvious, such glorification of workplace dictatorship seems somewhat at odds with an ideology calling itself "libertarian" or "anarchist". Is dictatorship more liberty enhancing to those subject to it than democracy? Anarchists doubt it (see section A.2.11 for details).

In order to claim that capitalism co-ordinates individual activity without hierarchy right-libertarians have to abstract from individuals and how they interact within companies and concentrate purely on relationships between companies. This is pure sophistry. Like markets, companies require at least two or more people to work - both are forms of social co-operation. If co-ordination within companies is hierarchical, then the system they work within is based upon hierarchy. To claim that capitalism co-ordinates without hierarchy is simply false - its based on hierarchy and authoritarianism. Capitalist companies are based upon denying workers self-government (i.e. freedom) during work hours. The boss tells workers what to do, when to do, how to do and for how long. This denial of freedom is discussed in greater depth in sections B.1 and B.4.

Because of the relations of power it creates, opposition to capitalist private property (and so wage labour) and the desire to see it ended is an essential aspect of anarchist theory. Due to its ideological blind spot with regards to apparently "voluntary" relations of domination and oppression created by the force of circumstances (see section F.2 for details), "anarcho"-capitalism considers wage labour as a form of freedom and ignore its fascistic aspects (when not celebrating those aspects). Thus "anarcho"-capitalism is not anarchist. By concentrating on the moment the contract is signed, they ignore that freedom is restricted during the contract itself. While denouncing (correctly) the totalitarianism of the army, they ignore it in the workplace. But factory fascism is just as freedom destroying as the army or political fascism.

Due to this basic lack of concern for freedom, "anarcho"-capitalists cannot be considered as anarchists. Their total lack of concern about factory fascism (i.e. wage labour) places them totally outside the anarchist tradition. Real anarchists have always been aware of that private property and wage labour restriction freedom and desired to create a society in which people would be able to avoid it. In other words, where all relations are non-hierarchical and truly co-operative.

To conclude, to claim that private property eliminates hierarchy is false. Nor does capitalism co-ordinate economic activities without hierarchical structures. For this reason anarchists support co-operative forms of production rather than capitalistic forms.

----------


## Neil Desmond

> Generally, I don't think people should be banned from a forum promoting liberty as it makes us more like _them_.  And by them I mean _they_.
> 
> There are, of course, certain exceptions.


Well, is this forum for practicing liberty?  My position on freedom of speech and censorship is that the government should not be allowed to create or enforce any laws that ban or mandate any kind of speech, or censor, fine, imprison, or execute anyone for exercising freedom of speech.  This forum, however, is private; there is no such thing as freedom of speech on this forum, in a manner of speaking.  Banning people from a forum that promotes liberty is not inconsistent with promoting liberty, because part of liberty is the right to privately own an online forum; that includes the owner being able to ban someone if they want.  The individual or individuals who own or operate this forum are not the government, and the people who get banned from this forum for exercising their freedom of speech are not getting thrown in jail.

That's just in general.  Now, as a member and participant on this forum, I don't want to see anyone banned provided they're making a reasonable effort to abide by the forum rules.  Personally, I welcome anyone to engage in dialogue no matter what their political stance is, as long as they come here to have a sincere & legitimate discussion.  I think it's important for learning things, exchanging ideas, and to be able to share or explain why we advocate what we stand for.  Being able to talk to others is better than violence.

----------


## Unregistered

> Well, is this forum for practicing liberty?  My position on freedom of speech and censorship is that the government should not be allowed to create or enforce any laws that ban or mandate any kind of speech, or censor, fine, imprison, or execute anyone for exercising freedom of speech.  This forum, however, is private; there is no such thing as freedom of speech on this forum, in a manner of speaking.  Banning people from a forum that promotes liberty is not inconsistent with promoting liberty, because part of liberty is the right to privately own an online forum; that includes the owner being able to ban someone if they want.  The individual or individuals who own or operate this forum are not the government, and the people who get banned from this forum for exercising their freedom of speech are not getting thrown in jail.
> 
> That's just in general.  Now, as a member and participant on this forum, I don't want to see anyone banned provided they're making a reasonable effort to abide by the forum rules.  Personally, I welcome anyone to engage in dialogue no matter what their political stance is, as long as they come here to have a sincere & legitimate discussion.  I think it's important for learning things, exchanging ideas, and to be able to share or explain why we advocate what we stand for.  Being able to talk to others is better than violence.


as a BANNED member, Correct. I have A LOT of respect for the men and women that make these forums possible and have nothing but respect for them. 
We live in a HORISTICALLY LITIGIOUS society. There MUST be a balance of sorts, not only for THEIR protection, but for OURS, which most do not hear about.

----------


## Theocrat

> I registered here because I want to challenge the viewpoints of the people here, 95% at least I imagine are die-hard capitalists. 
> 
> I think capitalism is a threat to our liberties and freedom as Americans and as human beings around the globe and will lead to the vast majority of people suffering _de facto_ slavery within a few generations' time.
> 
> Neoliberal globalized capitalism has been the main form of development since the 80s/90s and aside from the heavily state controlled variant of it in China, it's proven ineffective at reducing poverty. Many people have also been forced to give up their land, culture and communities and move to the metropolises because of global capitalism. 
> 
> I would rather production and capital be owned by the people who work it, not by indifferent shareholders and speculators.
> 
> Does anyone have any questions for me, an admitted Marxist?


Assuming you own a house, do you believe that the architect(s) and construction workers who designed and built your home should own it, by your own standard? As examples, should they control what kind of interior decorating you place in your home, or tell you what kind of food you're not allowed to bring in and eat therein, or monitor the types of music you listen to and the kinds of movies you watch there?

----------


## Unregistered

> I would agree with you, but some of the corporations today are so powerful, we're talking GDPs that exceed a lot of nation-states that I don't think they even need the backing of a state anymore. If need be they could just hire their own private armies, write their own laws, and function as their own sovereign entity.


So what is stopping them?  On private property: Property exists as a general condition and is thus equally open to all, until a person uses that property to bring forth goods that in and of themselves are a boon to humanity.  Having done so, having taken a general condition and employed it for a purpose that person gains, if not ownership, at least sovereignty over that property.

So how would a modern farm technician and a professor do business, if all as according to need, and capital was shunned?
I'll give you ten bushels for a lecture... what if that professor doesn't need your bushels?

This is basic $#@!, the COINCIDENCE of wants.  If not for that, communism would be in the logical progression of autistic or direct exchange.

----------


## MrGoose

Excuse me for not looking over the entire thread in case this question was answered. 

Is there an example of a nation, city, or community that has ever used the type of communism you endorse successfully?




> Did you just get one of those free government laptops?  You know, the ones provided for activities like job seeking, but instead used for screwing around.


 Seriously?

----------


## donnie darko

> Can you name ONE country that has prospered under Communism? I can name many that failed: USSR, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. Communism does not work and never will. There is no motivation to work when you know you will recieve the same salary either way.


Cuba is not that bad. No worse than most other Latin American countries, much safer than many of them. There isn't starvation there.

Why is money such a great motivator? Do you think if we paid teachers more, they would teach better?

----------


## donnie darko

The kind of communism I endorse was basically what hunter gatherers practiced. Cuba isn't my ideal model (too authoritarian), but they are communist and are doing relatively well.

----------


## pcosmar

> The kind of communism I endorse was basically what hunter gatherers practiced. Cuba isn't my ideal model (too authoritarian), but they are communist and are doing relatively well.


No,, They are not communist. They use that label. They (the rulers) call themselves communist. But they are not.

It is a socialist dictatorship. The people,, and I have known many,, are Capitalists for the most part.

----------


## jbauer

> Cuba is not that bad. No worse than most other Latin American countries, much safer than many of them. There isn't starvation there.
> 
> Why is money such a great motivator? Do you think if we paid teachers more, they would teach better?


Have you ever been to Cuba?  Do you know anyone who has lived there.  I'd love to see you tell a friend of mine who actually lived there that Cuba for most of his adult life under Castro, that Cuba is:  "not that bad"

Some of the stories he told me were amazing.  I remember him telling me that they lived in a city and the water would work at best an hour or two during the day.  They illegally installed a 55 gallon drum in their attic to "catch" water when the water actually turned on.  They could have been executed for doing so by the way.

----------


## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> Seriously?


Yes, it's true.  There is at least one program out of Raleigh where about 100 laptops were distributed to low income families.  To be fair, I don't know if state gov't just facilitated this or if they actually paid for them.  Maybe a private organization got a tax writeoff.  Nevertheless, gov't spent money on this program's administration.  I don't know the extent of the program.  I'd have to guess that more than 100 computers were given away.

----------


## Paulbot99

I got a question. Do I have the right to pass down my own money and possessions that I worked hard to acquire to my own children?

----------


## helmuth_hubener

You answered my first question admirably.  I feel like I learned a lot about your particular position.

Here is my next question for you, Donnie:

*Why do you think communism has become unpopular? * 

In the 60s, 70s, and even 80s, communism was the thing to believe.  All the "cool kids" were communists.  Many people in the mainstream were either communist or very sympathetic to it.  Nowadays, though, nobody is communist any more, outside of many college professors and some counter-cultural youth.  I assume you are probably one or the other?  So, what happened?

----------


## VoluntaryAmerican

> I understand that not everyone puts the exact same amount of value in. Still, you think a CEO deserves to be paid 400x more than a secretary?


Wages are just a price for labor.

Wages are determined by the productivity of the job in a _free market_.

So yes, a CEO is much more productive than a secretary for society. But as others said already you are confusing a lot of the problems with corporatism, not free market capitalism. There is a difference, ya know?

----------


## donnie darko

> I got a question. Do I have the right to pass down my own money and possessions that I worked hard to acquire to my own children?


That depends - did you work hard to acquire them, or did you acquire them in the casino that is Wall Street?

----------


## MrGoose

You say the type of communism that you like is what you'd find in a tribe. How exactly would that work in our modern society? What if someone chooses not to do their fair share of work? I don't expect you to explain every aspect but more of a generalization with maybe one or two specifics.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

> That depends - did you work hard to acquire them, or did you acquire them in the casino that is Wall Street?


 Sounds like you have a Calvinist/Puritan value system -- highly valuing labor and rigor for its own sake and being deeply suspicious of any human ease and enjoyment as almost certainly sinful.

12-hour days working digging ditches, coming home dirty and exhausted?  Good, wholesome, thumbs-up.

4 hour days pushing buttons, managing some stock portfolios for your customers, then come home and chill to Justin Bieber?  Insufferably sinful and decadent.  Must be eradicated.

----------


## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> That depends - did you work hard to acquire them, or did you acquire them in the casino that is Wall Street?


You mean like the lottery winners?

----------


## swissaustrian

> The kind of communism I endorse was basically what hunter gatherers practiced. Cuba isn't my ideal model (too authoritarian), but they are communist and are doing relatively well.


Talking about Cuba, here is a must listen audio to you.

----------


## osan

> The kind of communism I endorse was basically what hunter gatherers practiced.


If you think that hunter-gatherer tribes practiced "communism", then either you are working from a very different definition of the term, know nothing about communism as commonly taken for the past 130 years, know nothing about hunter-gatherer cultures, or some combination of the three.




> Cuba isn't my ideal model (too authoritarian), but they are communist and are doing relatively well.


The communist political model is authoritarian by definition and any epsilon of authoritarianism is that much too much.  As for Cuba - not that bad?  Really?  Then why don't you go live there - they'll take you.  Been there - smoked the cigars, drank the rum, and caroused with the people, none of whom seemed to have styled themselves as "communist" or anything like it.  They were fairly guarded about their manner of speech but made it pretty clear to me that they were not in agreement with their ham-fisted and violent dictatorial government.  That was my impression 20 years ago.  I've known many Cubans here in the USA and they were all hard-core conservative capitalist patriots who love the USA more than most native borns - and they absolutely hate Castro and given the chance would kill him and all his family and minions with their bare hands.  I don't think Cuba is doing "well" at all - unless one's standard is hopelessly low, in which case even then I might balk at the notion.

----------


## Paulbot99

> That depends - did you work hard to acquire them, or did you acquire them in the casino that is Wall Street?


There is no real difference unless there is fraud involved. The way I see it, providing funding for a company is no different than working directly for it. Both are essential, though the stockbroker's or bondsman's cut increases depending on the amount of money and therefore risk that he places with the venture in the same way a worker whose skills and effort are above those of his peers merits him a greater paycheck.

Of course, even if someone won millions of dollars from a lottery ticket, it is still immoral to take his money even if you don't think he or deserves it.

----------


## awake

In the great intellectual struggle of ideas there are only two paths: Liberty and peace (Libertarianism); or slavery and war (Communism) . Only one side is harmonious with mans true nature. Only one side can be logically deduced. Communism's only answer to mans true nature is that it must be violently curbed and controlled lest man will become violent, selfish and controlling. It is contradiction at its very core and of these endless contradictions, violence must be used to mute reason stating otherwise.

Communism is a doctrine of war and violence.

----------


## Jackson

Communism is everywhere in this administration. I think Obama policies are a reason why many young people are adopting communism.

----------


## helmuth_hubener

Donnie Darko, coomme baaaaack!  You are making me sad.  I have questions and I want answers!

----------


## jdmyprez_deo_vindice

You know life is hectic when you miss an epic thread like this! Reading this was like watching a group of Hell's Angels beat up a retarded, hemophiliac, blind 5 year old with a bowel disorder and low self esteem.

----------


## jdmyprez_deo_vindice

> The kind of communism I endorse was basically what hunter gatherers practiced. Cuba isn't my ideal model (too authoritarian), but they are communist and are doing relatively well.


Doing so well in fact that people die everyday trying to swim anywhere but Cuba.... Seriously, some people ride in floats made from trashbags and pallets just to go live in Haiti...... HAITI

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Doing so well in fact that people die everyday trying to swim anywhere but Cuba.... Seriously, some people ride in floats made from trashbags and pallets just to go live in Haiti...... HAITI


REMEMBER ELIAN GONZALEZ!

----------


## osan

> I registered here because I want to challenge the viewpoints of the people here, 95% at least I imagine are die-hard capitalists.


A lamb eager for the slaughter?  Huh...

Firstly, I am not an "ist" of any sort.  My position is that of proper human relations, which by necessity is based in freedom.  You therefore fail immediately.  I can see this is not going to go well for you.




> I think capitalism is a threat to our liberties and freedom


Another monumental FAIL.  You make reference to a term and attribute to it qualities and consequences without doing so much as gracing us with a definition.

Did I mention FAIL?





> as Americans and as human beings around the globe and will lead to the vast majority of people suffering _de facto_ slavery within a few generations' time.


An unsubstantiated prognostication due to your failure to define the term in question.  Zero for three.  Nice.




> Neoliberal globalized capitalism has been the main form of development since the 80s/90s and aside from the heavily state controlled variant of it in China, it's proven ineffective at reducing poverty.


And now you shift the landscape with "neoliberal".  Fail, the fourth.

One thing you assert that holds some water is the bit about not reducing world poverty - but you have not identified the cause, but merely slapped a vague label on the result, blaming "capitalism".

(setq pirate-talk 1)

Aaaar me buckos, the ship's a goin' down quick boy t'bow.  Abahndin ship me scurvy's!

(setq pirate-talk nil)




> Many people have also been forced to give up their land, culture and communities and move to the metropolises because of global capitalism.


Please define the term and then demonstrate how what you have written, above, is true.




> I would rather production and capital be owned by the people who work it, not by indifferent shareholders and speculators.


What does that even _mean_ in real and practical terms?  Your words lead one to think you'd been drinking.  Heavily.




> Does anyone have any questions for me, an admitted Marxist?


Have you?  Been drinking, I mean.

Seems like troll-bait

----------


## osan

> Capitalism _is_ cronyism.



Yeah, _that's_ an intelligent statement.

You apparently don't know $#@! of what you speak.

PLONK

/thread

----------


## tod evans

> Yeah, _that's_ an intelligent statement.
> 
> You apparently don't know $#@! of what you speak.
> 
> PLONK
> 
> /thread


You're still on the first page...........It gets better

----------


## osan

> You're still on the first page...........It gets better


D00d, even _I_ have only so much time to waste.

----------


## Root

> You're still on the first page...........It gets better


I'm disappointed I read this whole thread and you didn't get your 12 acres. Lame.

----------


## Paulbot99

Seriously? Where'd Donnie go?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

When the OP comes back, I have a new question.  Why is it that people from truly communist regions tend to endeavor so hard to _get the hell out_​ if it is so ideal?

----------


## Barrex

> Seriously? Where'd Donnie go?


What kind of stupid question is that? Where would you go when you realize your life was based on tyrannical, murdereous, monstruous ideology?

----------


## bolil

> What kind of stupid question is that? Where would you go when you realize your life was based on tyrannical, murdereous, monstruous ideology?


You think the grasp of hell is fleeting?  Ran to professor quasimarx, no doubt.

----------


## Paulbot99

Or the Professor of Labor History at my university. Believe it or not, he's an admitted Stalinist and sports a Marx beard.

----------


## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> Seriously? Where'd Donnie go?


Donny Osmond was ironically pummeled silly while attending an Occupy rally.  He was beaten by the government while carrying a sign demanding more regulation.

----------


## NorthCarolinaLiberty

Looks like Americans eradicated another communist.  $#@!in' A.

----------


## Todd

I'll just put this right here.......for later.

----------


## Christian Liberty

Does the OP support Ron Paul?

If not, why is he here?

----------


## Tywysog Cymru

> Does the OP support Ron Paul?
> 
> If not, why is he here?


I don't have a problem with him asking questions and engaging in debate.  These are good opportunities to show that our positions are more logically sound.

----------


## buenijo

I was going to comment, but good Osan took care of things for us.

In particular, I applaud Mr. Osan for emphasizing the core of darko's errors. Namely, his arguments have no validity as the very language on which they are based is built on terms without precise and logically consistent definitions._ It is not possible to have a rational argument with this individual._ There was a time when I sought arguments with socialists or marxists in order to better understand their positions, that is, until I had the epiphany during a debate that these individuals had no precise definitions to their terms (and they relish in the benefits this provides during debate - please note I emphasize _debate_ and not argument). I realized that these individuals can and do subtly morph the definitions of their terms during the course of debate _using context_ and thereby evade any accountability for the contradictions that consistent definitions would otherwise cause. ("It depends on what the definition of is is." Bill Clinton). In short, these individuals are not confined by logic, and therefore they cannot be persuaded by argument.

----------


## Anti Federalist

> This isn't as radical as it seems. A property tax is in effect abolition of land ownership.


Well, you got me, there.

----------


## buenijo

> Why is money such a great motivator?


What is "money"? Where did it come from? What is its purpose? If you don't know the answer to these questions, then you should research them before you use the term.

----------


## silverhandorder

> It should be illegal (and seen as ridiculous) to sell a hypothetical part of your company to someone who has nothing to do with that company. Also the people who work there deserve to bank the value of what they produce. The wage system simply pays people enough that they consent to work there even though most of what they make is taken from them and given to the shareholders in the company.
> 
> Wage paid labor is not that much different from slavery in many ways.


So they trade their labor. Nothing wrong with that.




> Realistically, no. There has to be protections. Not everyone is equal in power; equal in how much they are capable of consenting. This is why it's wrong for a 45 year old to have sex with a 12 year old even if the 12 year old says "yes". 
> 
> The same principle can be applied to people who own capital vs those who only have labor to give.


Because using power is not a violation of NAP. Sorry but you will have to tackle NAP head on. 




> Why does private land ownership make any sense? Why should one family get to own a piece of dirt _for all eternity_ no matter what, even if they don't give _anything_ back to society?


Who advocates for that? One there is abandonment. Two why should society have anything given to it? Three let's first run out of land.




> I would agree with you, but some of the corporations today are so powerful, we're talking GDPs that exceed a lot of nation-states that I don't think they even need the backing of a state anymore. If need be they could just hire their own private armies, write their own laws, and function as their own sovereign entity.


Ok let's say they do. Why is that a bad thing?

----------


## mczerone

> I was going to comment, but good Osan took care of things for us.
> 
> In particular, I applaud Mr. Osan for emphasizing the core of darko's errors. Namely, his arguments have no validity as the very language on which they are based is built on terms without precise and logically consistent definitions._ It is not possible to have a rational argument with this individual._ There was a time when I sought arguments with socialists or marxists in order to better understand their positions, that is, until I had the epiphany during a debate that these individuals had no precise definitions to their terms (and they relish in the benefits this provides during debate - please note I emphasize _debate_ and not argument). I realized that these individuals can and do subtly morph the definitions of their terms during the course of debate _using context_ and thereby evade any accountability for the contradictions that consistent definitions would otherwise cause. ("It depends on what the definition of is is." Bill Clinton). *In short, these individuals are not confined by logic, and therefore they cannot be persuaded by argument.*


But here is the great challenge: how do we persuade people who are not swayed by rational argument?

Even in discovering that there is nothing to learn about the rationality of socialism/communism/statism from these people, you have still learned the most important lesson: You are different from them not because of the conclusions you have drawn, but because you've used your capacity to reason to get there.

So, remember that persuasion is not always just argumentation. It's also group-think, feel-good, superstitious, central-plannerist traditionalism.

----------


## Unregistered

well, i live in a capitalist country. i've been to communist countries, and i dont think that capitalist countries are any more "free" than communist ones. i think what is most deceptive is how capitalist regimes claim they are free, so you expect to find this freedom, and the reality is that it does not really exist. communist countries never really claim to be free, so there is no disappointment. there are advantages, and disadvantages to each economic model. i've seen communist countries before and after, and the one thing i notice when they become capitalist is how the corruption, crime rate sky rockets, women all of a sudden dress like prostitutes, scams rise, and people lose trust in each other. then the capitalist answers with "well, people are starving under communism", but they conveniently leave out the role that western capitalist sanctions have on the starvation.

----------


## pathtofreedom

> LOL
> Donnie isn't a commie, he's a DEMOCRAT!


I loled

----------


## pathtofreedom

This thread is filled with so much hilarity!

----------


## buenijo

> But here is the great challenge: how do we persuade people who are not swayed by rational argument?
> 
> Even in discovering that there is nothing to learn about the rationality of socialism/communism/statism from these people, you have still learned the most important lesson: You are different from them not because of the conclusions you have drawn, but because you've used your capacity to reason to get there.
> 
> So, remember that persuasion is not always just argumentation. It's also group-think, feel-good, superstitious, central-plannerist traditionalism.


Allow me to clarify my position. I believe people in general have the capacity for logic and are compelled by logic, and I believe socialists and marxists (statists in general) employ logic. So, these people are confined by logic in an obtuse sort of way. However, logic cannot be a reliable guide toward the determination of truth without precision in language (garbage in => garbage out). The problem with darko and many others who defend statist philosophies is not so much a lack of logic, but a lack of precision in their language. In fact, I consider the general lack of precision in language as the single most destructive force that we face today. The way to persuade these individuals is to hold them accountable for what they say/write (not what they "mean"), and insist that they say what they mean _and_ mean what they say (or write). For example, Bill Clinton should have been lambasted for his comment (see previous quote). Instead, I've witnessed his supporters laud the comment (why? - maybe because they consider him to be so skilled at the very art they themselves employ on a daily basis, namely, obfuscation and deceit). 

Argument is a subset of persuasion, so persuasion is certainly not always just argumentation as you point out. However, one should not desire to persuade others with means other than argument (at the very least, a valid and truthful argument should make up the core of the message). Yes, it is a problem that so many can be persuaded by means other than argument. Yet, I say this is a symptom of the breakdown of language. The solution is to restore the integrity of the language, and not employ irrational means to achieve persuasion. Otherwise, we may as well abandon any principles and join the fold.

"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names." Confucius

----------


## MRK

> Does the OP support Ron Paul?
> 
> If not, why is he here?


For lively interesting discussion. Echo chambers get boring and are dangerous for everyone. RPF has become too much of an echo chamber versus its early years if you ask me, which can hurt critical thinking capabilities among the community.

----------


## bolil

Whats with the penchant for mass murder?

----------


## bolil

> well, i live in a capitalist country. i've been to communist countries, and i dont think that capitalist countries are any more "free" than communist ones. i think what is most deceptive is how capitalist regimes claim they are free, so you expect to find this freedom, and the reality is that it does not really exist. communist countries never really claim to be free, so there is no disappointment. there are advantages, and disadvantages to each economic model. i've seen communist countries before and after, and the one thing i notice when they become capitalist is how the corruption, crime rate sky rockets, women all of a sudden dress like prostitutes, scams rise, and people lose trust in each other. then the capitalist answers with "well, people are starving under communism", but they conveniently leave out the role that western capitalist sanctions have on the starvation.


Really?  You've been in a capitalist country?  Must have been in your dreams, because they do not yet exist on earth.  What passes for capitalism now-a-days is but a watered down brand of communism.  That being said, it is hard to keep a good market down.  Next time you take a $#@! and it rides your building drain to a sewer thank capitalism.

Capitalism, the real deal, the entirely free market is based on utility.  Not so much how can I use you (communism) but how can I be of use to you, and in doing so further my own ends.

Ask a communist?  How is your conscience readily dedicating yourself to a religion that makes the crusades look like charity?

Ask a communist?  Who owns you?  Is it your "community"?  When you raise you hand, draw a breath, make some love is it your community doing those actions?

Ask a communist? How many people must your foul creed murder before you go away?

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## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> well, i live in a capitalist country. i've been to communist countries, and i dont think that capitalist countries are any more "free" than communist ones. i think what is most deceptive is how capitalist regimes claim they are free, so you expect to find this freedom, and the reality is that it does not really exist. communist countries never really claim to be free, so there is no disappointment. there are advantages, and disadvantages to each economic model. i've seen communist countries before and after, and the one thing i notice when they become capitalist is how the corruption, crime rate sky rockets, women all of a sudden dress like prostitutes, scams rise, and people lose trust in each other. then the capitalist answers with "well, people are starving under communism", but they conveniently leave out the role that western capitalist sanctions have on the starvation.


What communist countries have you visited?  When?  What cities did you visit?

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## FSP-Rebel

> What communist countries have you visited?  When?  What cities did you visit?


Tourists don't usually feel the brunt of the horrors anyway. Hell, they treat cash cows in Pyongyang almost like royalty.

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## donnie darko

> I'll just put this right here.......for later.


Scandinavian "capitalism" works well because their workforce is highly organized and unionized. It should be noted that their society has become somewhat less stable since the post-Cold War "reforms" in the Nineties.

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## willwash

> I support voluntary collectivism to an extent, but I would like to see stock trading and ownership of land rendered illegal. 
> 
> This isn't as radical as it seems. *A property tax is in effect abolition of land ownership*.


Hey, he likes you, AF!

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## luctor-et-emergo

> Scandinavian "capitalism" works well because their workforce is highly organized and unionized. It should be noted that their society has become somewhat less stable since the post-Cold War "reforms" in the Nineties.


All of the European countries have mixed economies. Sweden is a little bit more on the high tax side but it's pretty similar all around Europe. The reason Sweden does well is in my opinion because they have a history of being a developed nation, they have minerals and other resources. No trouble with foreign nations, to speak off. So there's peace, and thus prosperity is easier, even with a somewhat socialist system.

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## Anti Federalist

> Hey, he likes you, AF!


LOL, I see.

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## donnie darko

> All of the European countries have mixed economies. Sweden is a little bit more on the high tax side but it's pretty similar all around Europe. The reason Sweden does well is in my opinion because they have a history of being a developed nation, they have minerals and other resources. No trouble with foreign nations, to speak off. So there's peace, and thus prosperity is easier, even with a somewhat socialist system.


So are you saying if Sweden emulated the United States more, they would be even more prosperous?

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## Sola_Fide

> When everything is a commodity for sale, eventually the most powerful corporations will become so influential on the government that they will merge together with them, rendering the government undemocratic and the people powerless in their influence on it (aside from the people with money and connections).
> 
> Corporatism is an inevitable result of capitalism. If the state disappeared tomorrow, the world's largest corporations would become the de facto state since they would be the only entities large enough to supply people with transportation, healthcare, defense and all the other things needed to live in a modern society.


Murray Rothbard destroys the idea that a truly free market creates monopolies in Man, Economy, and State.  I recommend it to you.

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## Ronin Truth

How many times have you read "Das Kapital"?

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