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    • Capitalism is Opposed to Human Happiness Debate, Volume 2

    A Debate with
    the community of PoliticsForum.org
    Part #16

    Posts #076-#080

    By Cathrine Idsøe
    Image: By Cathrine Idsøe, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

    Post #76

    Arie...
    Date: Sun 01 Aug 2010
    Arie wrote:
    That takes away from the generality of the principle that we all have a right to the means of production -- the exception being that we don't have a right to each other, even though we are also a means of production. So it is not a universal principle.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    A person is a laborer, and the tools they work are the means of production. They are separate and distinct things. Air is equally necessary, but we don't find oxygen listed under capital or capital. For instance, you could argue you believe in freedom of religion, but Charles Manson's religion is murder, so, one could theoretically argue, there is no such thing as freedom of religion. This can only be done by a poetic rephrasing, as I pointed out: it is to redefine religion to include such a vicious act. You could, theoretically, continue this type of rephrasing for anything.

    You don't have freedom of speech, because you can't order someone to kill someone else. And you don't have freedom of religion, because you can't adopt the religion of murdering other people. Likewise, possession of capital does not mean possession of human beings. Sure, I guess every principle of justice is only accepted on the condition that it does not harm other people.

    Of course there are limitations to freedom of religion and to freedom of speech, and similarly, as you suggest, there are limitations on the right to productive property for everyone, and I was specifying one example of that limit. I think you are rejecting my example as a limitation because you insist that there is a clear distinction between capital property and human labor, so that human labor is not to be considered property.

    However, if we consider the worker's time, talent, and ability to work as his capital (often his only capital), which he rents out for a return, we have a common ground and terminology for describing workers and capitalists: They are both simply renting out or lending the property they own, for a return. Then any principles pertaining to owning and lending capital apply to both workers and capitalist, and thus are more general. In these terms, your view is that people (workers) who own and lend a specific type of capital (labor) have rights that supersede those who own other types of capital. And your rationalization is that all capital ownership is a result of labor and should belong to the laborer, even if that labor consists of nothing more than simply taking: But isn't that what the "capitalists" did? Didn't they become owners by taking ownership of what they could? If labor is simply taking, capitalists are workers too. I think what needs to be addressed is not whether someone is a worker or a capitalist, but rather how should the capital be distributed. Nor do I agree that capital is a result of labor.

    Arie wrote:
    A right to productive property for everyone is most effectively and elegantly implemented by everyone having an equal share of this property.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Do you mean "this property" as people having a right to own other people?

    No. I mean they have a right to own an equal share of the property, partly by owning themselves -- as they are equals: When you own your self, you own a share of the capital (which includes you).

    Arie wrote:
    But these raw materials are not the product of their labor. Why should they receive complete right to do what they want with these raw materials?

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Yes, these raw materials were gathered and made useful by labor, so they are the product of labor. Even gathering accorns is work.

    It could be, but it's a stretch to consider simple acts of taking as labor -- I don't subscribe to that philosophy.

    Arie wrote:
    And what about babies, children, the elderly, the feeble, infirm, and the sick, who cannot work? They have no right to any produce?

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    You mean all of those people who have no right to the produce of society today?

    Yes. And in my opinion, they should have a right to the produce, and this right can be derived much more simply from the principle that they own a share of the capital, than from the principle that they worked for it.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Either the workers will control the terms of their work directly, or someone on top of them will do it. I do not see any other feasible alternative.

    I do: hardly any one needs to work in the first place. Not today, from a technological perspective. What makes work necessary today is the system, social structure and culture of values and beliefs that we should work for a living; not our actual physical needs.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Now, who do you think is going to make more socially conscious decisions with the means of production? The workers or the Capitalist? Clearly the people, as a king has not benefited them in making decisions over them, so why would a king of economics benefit them?

    I agree, I believe in some economic democracy. I just don't define "capitalist" as a "king of economics" -- a capitalist is anyone who makes a living by renting out his capital, however small.

    Arie wrote:
    There are rules and restrictions on trading shares, and sometimes contractual restrictions on trading shares of a specific corporation. The untradable inherent rights of humanity to own a share of the capital can be simply represented by providing untradable shares.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Yes, you can call them "shares" and define them as inherent, human rights. It would be irrelevent or ambiguous.

    Shares represent a claim to a share of the yield of the capital (dividends), whether you can trade them or not: Human rights are not all represented by shares, but the human right to own a share of the capital is (represented by shares). There's nothing ambiguous about it, and the relevance is the right to a share of the capital: why then would I not call them shares?

    Arie wrote:
    I empathize with your concern about the few exploiting the many, but you seem to define capitalists as the "exploiting few", in whatever system, from upper Caste Hindus to feudalism, etc. This definition can fly in an anti-capitalist environment, but it is not a suitable definition for discussion of the fundamental ideology of capitalism as I understand it: Capitalism is simply the right to earn interest or rent income on the property you own. You can be a capitalist and be the poorest of your working class friends. A tenant can be richer than a landlord. Distribution of wealth is more critical than whether you are an employer or an employee.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Yes, but in terms of Capitalist, the phrase I'm using is someone who has so much capital that it grants them excessive bargaining power. For instance, silverware is capital when it's wrapped up for sale, but it's a consumer good when it's unwrapped at home. Or, it could be used in a restaurant, as capital goods. Either way, it's not really a matter of defining this or that as capital, but to look at the really situation of the vast majority of people -- and ask yourself the question of what or whom they are dependent upon to earn their right to life.

    Not the workers, I hope :) Nor should we need to "earn" a right to life.

    Arie wrote:
    He is contributing something: the use of the property he owns.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    This property, that he owns, was not made by him; it was made the workers. And, considering the history of the globe, there's a strong chance that the property only ended up in his hands through slavery, oppression, or government intervention on behalf of the Capitalists.

    Not all owned property was make by the workers. And why "on behalf of the Capitalists"? You call every power "capitalist". That's just a biased use of the word "capitalist".

    Arie wrote:
    The "raw materials" were not made by the Capitalist -- nor were they produced by other workers!

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    A gigantic mound of coal is worthless if it just sits inside the earth unmined. It was not "produced" by the workers. It was made valuable by the workers.

    No, it was made valuable by being coal: If the workers did exactly the same thing and expended the same amount of labor but only got sand, it would not be valuable at all

    Arie wrote:
    I agree, and my approach would be to distribute capitalism, so that we are all capitalists, rather than none. The following quote suggests you might agree:

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Yes, but there should be no Capitalist who is not a worker, and no worker who is not a Capitalist.

    There should be no workers: Only capitalists.

    Arie wrote:
    I would not trust that it would equalize bargaining power -- it would change the balance, but not necessarily democratize it: It provides opportunities for union leaders to take advantages and we'd be back to square one: They would become the new "capitalists", to use your definition. It's much simpler, more transparent and direct to simply distribute ownership of equal shares.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    There are no union leaders within a system of delegation, particularly within Libertarian Communism. I'm familiar with the phrase "union leaders," but the system I introduced, of direct worker-management, does not create them.

    So your system is immune to biologically entrenched social dynamics that naturally result in leaders and followers?

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    They are the product of unions being bought out by the Capitalist so that they can subdue and pacify the workers. Abolishing Capitalism means abolishing all economic rulers, whether called the state, the capitalist, or the "union president."

    That's a cynical view of much of the labor movement and is simply biased. No doubt there are collusions between capitalists and unions, as there are between capitalists, and between unions, but it is not fair to ignore the many sincere people who led successful efforts to improve worker conditions.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Shares in one gigantic corporation that owns everything, or various corporations that own monopolies, is far more complicated than each business being managed and operated by those who labor their.

    How so?

    Post #77

    Suska...
    Date: Mon 02 Aug 2010
    Michaeluj wrote:
    I feel like I'm talking with someone with poor reading skills.

    From where I'm sitting it looks like you're getting thrashed by a juggernaut of extensive and well cited information patiently deflecting every volley with surprising accuracy. Our friend Radical came here well prepared and looking for this fight. Quite impressive really.

    Post #078

    Michaeluj...
    Date: Mon 02 Aug 2010

    You're talking about a guy who's arguments are solely "Go read a book", "PROFIT$!", and points regarding pointless issues that are often pure strawmen. He's well-versed on his home turf, but he can't debate at all.

    Post #079

    Punkerslut (using the alias CNT-FAI Radical)...
    Date: Mon 02 Aug 2010

    Hello, Arie,

    Arie wrote:
    Of course there are limitations to freedom of religion and to freedom of speech, and similarly, as you suggest, there are limitations on the right to productive property for everyone, and I was specifying one example of that limit. I think you are rejecting my example as a limitation because you insist that there is a clear distinction between capital property and human labor, so that human labor is not to be considered property.

    However, if we consider the worker's time, talent, and ability to work as his capital (often his only capital), which he rents out for a return, we have a common ground and terminology for describing workers and capitalists: They are both simply renting out or lending the property they own, for a return. Then any principles pertaining to owning and lending capital apply to both workers and capitalist, and thus are more general. In these terms, your view is that people (workers) who own and lend a specific type of capital (labor) have rights that supersede those who own other types of capital.


    Yes, it is possible to change the meaning of everything by use of euphemism. "Belief in a better world is the religion of humanity," therefore defining idealism as a religion -- but, it's not a religion. Just like saying that labor is productive, and therefore a form of capital -- yes, it's productive, but this does not mean that it is capital, especially in the sense used by classical economics. Either way, the argument here is redundant. I have argued for equalizing bargaining positions of all by equalizing possession of productive property -- analysis of who is technically a capitalist and who is technically a worker, today, is irrelevant according to my suggested solution. It is only enough to know that the great vast majority of people today are dependent upon a very few for their livelihood and right to life. It doesn't matter if you can redefine the worker as "a capitalist who sells the commodity of their labor power." The problem, and the solution, remain unaffected.

    Arie wrote:
    And your rationalization is that all capital ownership is a result of labor and should belong to the laborer, even if that labor consists of nothing more than simply taking: But isn't that what the "capitalists" did? Didn't they become owners by taking ownership of what they could? If labor is simply taking, capitalists are workers too. I think what needs to be addressed is not whether someone is a worker or a capitalist, but rather how should the capital be distributed. Nor do I agree that capital is a result of labor.

    Arie wrote:
    It could be, but it's a stretch to consider simple acts of taking as labor -- I don't subscribe to that philosophy.

    Arie wrote:
    There should be no workers: Only capitalists.

    Working twelve hours a day to make land usable for irrigation and agriculture, living only to thirty and spending almost every year in hard toil, is not the same as signing a deed to that property. One is work, the other is possession. Or, more specifically, as Bakunin wrote, "Speculation and exploitation no doubt also constitute a sort of labor, but altogether non-productive labor." ("The Capitalist System," ~1870's.)

    I'm firmly convinced that labor produces all wealth. "...all that is necessary or useful to Men, is the Produce of their Labour..." to quote Isaac Gervaise. ("The System or Theory of the Trade of the World," 1720.) Or, to quote Thomas Hodgskin, "...those vast improvements in the condition of the human race, which have been in general attributed to capital, are caused in fact by labour..." ("Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital," 1825.) David Hume makes it well known: "Every thing in the world is purchased by labour..." ("Of Commerce.") Or, as Tolstoy puts it, "... the strongest and most industrious majority, which supports the whole society." ("To the Tsar and His Assistants," 1901.) Voltaire's pretty accurate, too, "You have a right to the products of the soil that you have cultivated with your own hands." ("A Treatise on Toleration.") James Steuart, the 'other' economist of the late 1700's, "...food cannot, in general, be found, but by labour..." ("An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy," 1767, chapter 7.) Eugene V. Debs: "I have already reminded you that you workingmen have made all the machinery there is in operation everywhere; that only you can use it." ("Class Unionism," 1905.) Errico Malatesta: "Workers produce everything and without them life would be impossible..." ("Anarchist Propaganda.") Thomas Malthus: "...the labouring classes of society, as the foundation on which the whole fabric rests..." ("The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn," 1815.) William Stanley Jevons, "It is, of course, perfectly true that buildings, tools, materials, &c.... are already the product of labor..." ("General Theory of Political Economy," 1866.) Finally, I fall back upon the work of Sir Thomas More..

    Thomas More wrote:
    ...for what justice is there in this, that a nobleman, a goldsmith, a banker, or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or at best is employed in things that are of no use to the public, should live in great luxury and splendor, upon what is so ill acquired; and a mean man, a carter, a smith, or a ploughman, that works harder even than the beasts themselves, and is employed in labors so necessary, that no commonwealth could hold out a year without them, can only earn so poor a livelihood, and must lead so miserable a life, that the condition of the beasts is much better than theirs? ("Utopia," 1516, Book 2, Section: Of the Religions of the Utopians.)

    Everything that exists is because someone made it. The placement of climate, weather, and resources made this work easier or harder, but it was still always work, and without it, there would be nothing.

    Arie wrote:
    No. I mean they have a right to own an equal share of the property, partly by owning themselves -- as they are equals: When you own your self, you own a share of the capital (which includes you).

    You brought up this share-system as an easily-implemented system of equalizing property. But when you suggest that people should own each other, it seems the other way around -- you're introducing the most obscure, abstract, authoritarian concepts that have no place whatsoever. Do unequal bargaining positions in society lead toward the maximization of happiness for all of society's participants? No, so get rid of it. And does every person owning every other person is society contribute likewise towards this happiness? No, so get rid of it. Unless you're making a case for it.

    But rather, it just seems you're trying to jut it into the system be redefining the words labor and capital. I could say, for instance, that bombs are "the bread of war." So, when I speak of "bread for all," actually I mean "bombs for all." See, that's why we don't have literal interpretations of euphemisms in the words we use. And, when I say labor and capital, yes, you can redefine them. Go ahead -- your redefinitions don't fit within the idea that I have proposed, at all.

    Arie wrote:
    And in my opinion, they should have a right to the produce, and this right can be derived much more simply from the principle that they own a share of the capital, than from the principle that they worked for it.

    The joint-stock system and the corporation have only existed for a few centuries. Communal and collective existence has existed for hundreds of thousands of years. The latter system seems to me far more inherently natural and acceptable to humanity's characteristics.

    Arie wrote:
    hardly any one needs to work in the first place. Not today, from a technological perspective. What makes work necessary today is the system, social structure and culture of values and beliefs that we should work for a living; not our actual physical needs.

    No, people don't work today for "social structure." As I've tried to point out in the original post, people work because they have to, because they would starve if they didn't. Besides, struggles for the four-hour day and the two-hour day have been waged by revolutionary Socialist organizations like the I.W.W. and the C.N.T.-F.A.I.. If there's going to be a reduction of work and an easier existence, it's going to be because the masses demand it -- not because it'll be generously handed down by rulers and masters.

    Arie wrote:
    I just don't define "capitalist" as a "king of economics" -- a capitalist is anyone who makes a living by renting out his capital, however small.

    The serf and wage-slave, according to Bakunin, "...are none the less forced by hunger as well as by the political and social institutions, to maintain by very hard work the absolute or relative idleness of others. Consequently, they are slaves." ("The Capitalist System.") So, someone who owns $2 of stock is technically a Capitalist. But I'm not talking technically, but meaningfully, as the phrase has been used over the past few centuries.

    Arie wrote:
    Shares represent a claim to a share of the yield of the capital (dividends), whether you can trade them or not: Human rights are not all represented by shares, but the human right to own a share of the capital is (represented by shares). There's nothing ambiguous about it, and the relevance is the right to a share of the capital: why then would I not call them shares?

    Because a dividend to capital is profit, and there are no profits where each person is awarded according to their contribution of labor.

    Arie wrote:
    No, it was made valuable by being coal: If the workers did exactly the same thing and expended the same amount of labor but only got sand, it would not be valuable at all.

    I have not asserted, by any means, that it was made valuable according to the amount of work they did to extract it. I simply said it was made valuable by being worked upon, and without that work, it could not be valuable. How could you expect to have any value in coal while it sat in the earth, unmined? After all, there is no real utility in it without the labor in it.

    Arie wrote:
    So your system is immune to biologically entrenched social dynamics that naturally result in leaders and followers?

    It's possible for people to have ideas, to make suggestions, and to offer thoughts to influence others, without necessarily being their absolute rulers and masters. This is the principle of political Democracy; I find no reason why it does not equally translate to economic Democracy.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    They are the product of unions being bought out by the Capitalist so that they can subdue and pacify the workers. Abolishing Capitalism means abolishing all economic rulers, whether called the state, the capitalist, or the "union president."

    Arie wrote:
    That's a cynical view of much of the labor movement and is simply biased. No doubt there are collusions between capitalists and unions, as there are between capitalists, and between unions, but it is not fair to ignore the many sincere people who led successful efforts to improve worker conditions.

    I was making a reference to the particular corruptive activities of unions and definitely not passing a generalization on the entire movement. Eugene V. Debs sat in prison, while the American Federation of Labor was used as strike-breakers against his union. In the 1930's and 1940's, when industrial unionism became the primary current, the entrenched craft unionism fought it bitterly, leading to the CIO split. They have always complied by forcing no-strike clauses on the workers, agreeing with laws that have prohibited quitting your job, complicity in world wars for imperialism and conquest, contributing to the economic and political situation that led to World War 2, spending millions on political candidates and union leaders instead of strike funds, etc., etc.. As "Business Unionism" becomes dominant within the labor movement, strikes almost cease entirely, and there is almost a perfect harmony between capital and so-called labor -- because the latter has ceased to represent the interests of the workers, or at least, doesn't believe that they are distinct and separate from the interests of the Capitalists. Chester A. Morgan, in "Labor Economics," thoroughly covers this trend of "the maturation of the union movement," which began in 1950 and has reached its zenith today. The labor movement has ceased to be a genuine threat to Capitalism.

    CNT-FAI Radical wrote:
    Shares in one gigantic corporation that owns everything, or various corporations that own monopolies, is far more complicated than each business being managed and operated by those who labor their.

    Arie wrote:
    How so?

    In one case, you make decisions on everything in your immediate area. In the other case, a Parisian baker is going to be making a democratic vote with five hundred million other people on the work conditions and activities of oil-rig laborers off the coast of Scandinavia. Which seems easier?

    Hello, Suska,

    Suska wrote:
    Quite impressive really.

    Thanks, mate. I'm usually outnumbered, but I try to make some kind of impact.

    Post #80

    Punkerslut (using the alias CNT-FAI Radical)...
    Date: Mon 02 Aug 2010

    Michaeluj wrote:
    You're talking about a guy who's arguments are solely "Go read a book"...

    And yet, only very early in this debate you defended Monetarism and Austrian Theory with...

    Michaeluj wrote:
    I was hoping that you would do your own research into alternative ideas that you seem so apparently fond of doing.

    Shocking...



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