NationStates Jolt Archive

Inspired by this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=497474), I was just wondering which members of this forum have ever been/ considered becoming a Communist (in one form or another).

Were you a student radical? A union militant? A distressed teenager wearing a Che Guevara teeshirt? Did you join the SWP and then get spat out as an anarchist? Join the stalinists and then end up becoming a green to avoid the purges? Or did you join Class War Federation before ending up as a die-hard Tory?

I though when the time was right the state would just wither away. You can't force communism or something.

Absolutely never. Communism is based on the theory that millions of people can't be wrong. History says otherwise. :p

Yes, I have, and I largely agree with its tenets, at least combined with anarchism.

I've never worn a Che Guevara shirt in my life, but there's always a first time.

I hate Stalinists, and would never touch one of their parties (of whatever variety.) I don't particularly like any of the Leninist parties, either.

In Soviet Russia, communism considers you!

Did you join the SWP and then get spat out as an anarchist?

Something like that, yeah.

i have considered wat will be said,next
In soviet time bush.will rule you

Something like that, yeah.


Cliffite organisations have a tendency to turn people into anarchists. It's weird.

i have considered wat will be said,next
In soviet time bush.will rule you

:confused:

It relies too much on an optimistic view of human nature.

Cliffite organisations have a tendency to turn people into anarchists. It's weird.

Kinda. I already had anarchist sympathies and the group in particular didn't like me questioning their dogma.

:confused:
who cares if it is easy or not?

It looks good on paper, however...


COMMUNISM DOES NOT WORK!!!

Nah, communism is doomed to fail, just as capitalism is. Human beings are too corrupt to make those systems work.

If I wasn't so cynical about government types, I'd go for socialism over communism, though. Socialism has advantages of both systems, in that it allows a good freedom of enterprise and lets the market play its part, to a point, without letting those who can't compete in the "law of the jungle" capitalism creates die in poverty.

Nah, Communism will never work because people who gain power will never want to let them go and will want more power. Plus I'm a Libertarian. However before becoming a Libertarian I used to be a Democrat. That all changed in the 2004 elections.

It looks good on paper, however...


COMMUNISM DOES NOT WORK!!!

Same could be said of capitalism.

It looks good on paper, however...


COMMUNISM DOES NOT WORK!!!

Theorie should.:fluffle:

Cliffite organisations have a tendency to turn people into anarchists. It's weird.

I didn't know Tony Cliff had been raised to the status of an adjective.

It may be that the notion of state capitalism lends itself easier to a critique of Leninism than the "degenerate workers' state" nonsense does - it was, after all, an anarchist who coined the term in criticizing state socialism even before the Bolshevik Revolution. Bad leadership is something you can blame on the leadership, while excusing the structure, but asserting the existence of a ruling class requires a harsher look at the Leninist methods of organization.

It relies too much on an optimistic view of human nature.

And Capitalism, by contrast, is much more firmly steeped in reality. It tells us that humans are all evil greedy selfish bloodsucking little things but that the holy market can overcome this and fix all of our problems and promise a greater future for all if only we all commit ourselves to being greedy bloodsucking so and so's. Right.

Communism never works, but it doesn't matter since everyone knows that its cockroaches that will one day rule the world

Kinda. I already had anarchist sympathies and the group in particular didn't like me questioning their dogma.

Dogmatism is not reserved for "Cliffites."

Indeed, "Cliffites" should be complimented for their break from some ridiculous Trotskyist dogmas - though, unfortunately, like most Leninists they also tend to repeat all the old Marxist lies about anarchism, like well-trained parrots.

COMMUNISM DOES NOT WORK!!!

Ahhh a baseless statement lacking any supporting evidence. You win the argument against all communists in the universe ever.

[QUOTE=DHomme;11603632]Inspired by this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=497474)/QUOTE]

Awww...I inspired someone! :)

Dogmatism is not reserved for "Cliffites."

Indeed, "Cliffites" should be complimented for their break from some ridiculous Trotskyist dogmas - though, unfortunately, like most Leninists they also tend to repeat all the old Marxist lies about anarchism, like well-trained parrots.

Yeah, true.

And Capitalism, by contrast, is much more firmly steeped in reality. It tells us that humans are all evil greedy selfish bloodsucking little things but that the holy market can overcome this and fix all of our problems and promise a greater future for all if only we all commit ourselves to being greedy bloodsucking so and so's. Right.

I don't think capitalism does say that. I don't think it says much about human nature at all.

I think all it says is that, all else being equal, a free market is the most efficient way of allocating reasources to make the most money.

If you define making the most money as the most desirable end, then capitalism is the best system. If you don't - like most people - then it isn't.

Which is why every OECD nation pretty much has some type of mixed economy.

COMMUNISM DOES NOT WORK!!!

Define "work." Then explain why it does not meet your definition.

Communism never works, but it doesn't matter since everyone knows that its cockroaches that will one day rule the world

cockroachs never cook, but it doesn't matter since everyone knows that its cockroaches that will one day rule the world

Fonny

I thought about it, and still support it as the ideal way to run small groups, but its scope is extremely limited (small towns, at the most).
People just can't be fucked to care what happens outside of their daily lives, and so they'll never voluntarily carry the weight of the man in the next village.

I thought about it, and still support it as the ideal way to run small groups, but its scope is extremely limited (small towns, at the most).
People just can't be fucked to care what happens outside of their daily lives, and so they'll never voluntarily carry the weight of the man in the next village.

Especially if he's a porker. ;)

I thought about it, and still support it as the ideal way to run small groups, but its scope is extremely limited (small towns, at the most).
People just can't be fucked to care what happens outside of their daily lives, and so they'll never voluntarily carry the weight of the man in the next village.

It works well if you share a house with people, provided they aren't douchebags. (Then it can be a disaster).

I didn't know Tony Cliff had been raised to the status of an adjective.

Anyone can be made into an adjective if you try hard enough.

Indeed, "Cliffites" should be complimented for their break from some ridiculous Trotskyist dogmas - though, unfortunately, like most Leninists they also tend to repeat all the old Marxist lies about anarchism, like well-trained parrots.

Why didnt you just shout out "red fascists" instead of post this? Might have been more constructive. And be a little less stereotypically anarchist.

And Capitalism, by contrast, is much more firmly steeped in reality. It tells us that humans are all evil greedy selfish bloodsucking little things but that the holy market can overcome this and fix all of our problems and promise a greater future for all if only we all commit ourselves to being greedy bloodsucking so and so's. Right.

The Market = Jesus?

Anyone can be made into an adjective if you try hard enough.

True. But the practice of doing so to excess - "Pabloite", "Cliffite", etc. - gets absurd at some point.

Why didnt you just shout out "red fascists" instead of post this? Might have been more constructive.

Chiefly because I don't think they're "red fascists." I can read what Trotskyists (of whatever variety, except perhaps the Workers World Party) say, and agree with most of it. I tend to see them as potential allies rather than enemies; we disagree on how best to manage post-revolutionary society, but I'd rather live under Leninist socialism (especially as interpreted by modern Trotskyists) than under capitalism.

I do think they are far too harsh on anarchists, perhaps because they don't understand anarchism.

And be a little less stereotypically anarchist.

Incidentally, I think the same of many anarchists - they unnecessarily sectarianize the radical left by insisting that Leninists are all evil "red fascists" who will bring about a tyrannical Stalinist dictatorship that, if anything, is worse than what we have now.

The Market = Jesus?

That was the allusion I was trying to make in my post, yes. :p

Hear my words of wisdom, everyone:

Capitalism is man's exploitation by man.

Communism is the opposite.

Never been Communist or even remotely Left but I also try to avoid being "stinky". :)

Once upon a time I was communist of the teenage "Look at me! I'm different!" variety.

Then, I finally came to see that competition was the only way for society to technologically advance (the #1 thing that the Cold War really did proove. Capitalism will always have a faster growing economy), and that technology was the most important part of alleviating human suffering (and causing it too). With that came a lot of realizations that rephramed me into a very moderate liberal.

Communism... Is a dead ideology. We've seen where a Communist state resolves to. It isn't pretty.

Sort of. I'm a democratic socialist (not to be confused with a social democrat ;) ) but I recognise the neccessity of government. I also doubt the possibility of true economic equality; I tend towards Rousseau's more pragmatic goal:

"No man should be so rich that he can afford to buy another. No man should be so poor that he is forced to sell himself."

Always been a leftie to some degree. I considered communism but came to the conclusion that it was unworkably utopian.

No, but I do realize it has certain advantages that can be used to rapidly develop a nation's economy and rebuild it from prior mismanagement or underdevelopment. In the long run, it's inherently unsustainable but it can work very well in the short term...in some ways, it's like slash and burn foresting.

However, if you start transitioning from communism to a market system gradually (like China), you can start to repair the damages from Communism while still achieving the economic development and infrastructure expansion that is possible with the system.

That was the allusion I was trying to make in my post, yes. :p

Does that mean that Jesus is, in fact, The Man?

Which is why every OECD nation pretty much has some type of mixed economy.
Indeed, I think that pure communism and pure capitalism are crap. In both extremes almost everyone just ends up destitute.

Hear my words of wisdom, everyone:

Capitalism is man's exploitation by man.

Communism is the opposite.

I assume by opposite you mean man's exploitation by the state.
Actually, I despise Communism in theory as much as in RL.
I am a stinky right-winger.

This is the line of thinking that leads to the failure of communism:

http://images.despair.com/products/demotivators/irresponsibility.jpg

I assume by opposite you mean man's exploitation by the state.
Actually, I despise Communism in theory as much as in RL.
I am a stinky right-winger.
No, it meant man's exploitation by man as well.

My comment was meant to say that both systems look good on paper, but are equally flawed when it comes to actually getting them to work correctly, all because of human corruption and greed.

In the past I have, however, the problem I later ended up seeing was that inequitable money distribution played a role in society in spurring people to make certain choices as it is from those choices that the money comes from and saw that in order to get communism to work it requires a suppression of necessary human freedom, this attitude was furthered when I read the Road To Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek as well as Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman. Ultimately I am of the belief that the economy is relatively self-organizing and that communist attempts to mold it are likely to end problematically because of the disruption of necessary economic freedom. Capitalism isn't the system that only makes money, although money is an important aspect of capitalism, capitalism is a system that gives individuals choices to choose or reject what they want rather than have a central planner make their choices for them. Although, I know that the communists here will reject my opinion on this matter I frankly do not really care.

Yes, and encourage everyone to do the same; at least those people who reject it will reject it on its own merits and not the merits that someone else has assigned it.

We've seen where a Communist state resolves to. When?

Indeed, I think that pure communism and pure capitalism are crap.

What is "pure communism", in your definition?

For a few years, when i was a young teenager, i considered myself a communist. In my later teens, i realised the error of my ways, and turned to socialism.

This is the line of thinking that leads to the failure of communism:

http://images.despair.com/products/demotivators/irresponsibility.jpg



no this is phisics,mix with technologie,
Still you may want to clarify it,:)

Inspired by this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=497474), I was just wondering which members of this forum have ever been/ considered becoming a Communist (in one form or another).

Were you a student radical? A union militant? A distressed teenager wearing a Che Guevara teeshirt? Did you join the SWP and then get spat out as an anarchist? Join the stalinists and then end up becoming a green to avoid the purges? Or did you join Class War Federation before ending up as a die-hard Tory?

I'm a socialist, but to Americans, it's the same thing.

no this is phisics,mix with technologie,
Still you may want to clarify it,:)

The main assumption that causes people to think that communism can work is that every individual in a society accepts personal responsibility for the success or failure of the society. In reality, people assume since the problems of a society are much bigger than they are, then there is no way they can, or should, be held responsible for them. The impact of a single individual may be negligible, but when everybody does or does not do something, then the impact is no longer negligible, but quite significant.

Inspired by this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=497474), I was just wondering which members of this forum have ever been/ considered becoming a Communist (in one form or another).

Were you a student radical? A union militant? A distressed teenager wearing a Che Guevara teeshirt? Did you join the SWP and then get spat out as an anarchist? Join the stalinists and then end up becoming a green to avoid the purges? Or did you join Class War Federation before ending up as a die-hard Tory?

Socialism, maybe. Very lenient at that. But communism? No. A guy who does nothing but flip burgers all day should not be paid the same as a man who invented the microfusion core and is currently selling them.

But, at the same time, no one should starve.

The main assumption that causes people to think that communism can work is that every individual in a society accepts personal responsibility for the success or failure of the society. In reality, people assume since the problems of a society are much bigger than they are, then there is no way they can, or should, be held responsible for them. The impact of a single individual may be negligible, but when everybody does or does not do something, then the impact is no longer negligible, but quite significant.

much better.
wich means your notion of communisn is significant,
notice
i didn't use an image for it

Define communism.

Sorry, I answered your question with another.

Totall communism if it works is a good thing. Communism is not a form of government. It is a form of economy, Sadly, in many nations totalitarian regimes have taken over and used communism.

Total Capitalism in any way is a greedy, selfish, wicked thing. And in the end will destroy itself. If you mix communism and capitalism you get socialism and that is a good thing.

Totall communism if it works is a good thing. Communism is not a form of government. It is a form of economy, Sadly, in many nations totalitarian regimes have taken over and used communism.

Total Capitalism in any way is a greedy, selfish, wicked thing. And in the end will destroy itself. If you mix communism and capitalism you get socialism and that is a good thing.

Totally agreed.

Now you only need to add some Libertarianism to this mix, and you get Libertarian Socialism, which is even better ;)

does any of you ever heard about socialist revolutinaire,or revolutionary socialists ?

I considered communism... once.. Didn't like it.

Now I'm just some leftie with anarchist sympathies..

I thought about it, and still support it as the ideal way to run small groups, but its scope is extremely limited (small towns, at the most).
People just can't be fucked to care what happens outside of their daily lives, and so they'll never voluntarily carry the weight of the man in the next village.

Oh. My. God.

Where have you been all my life!?!

I've missed your funny, sarcastic posts.:p

I considered it some time ago this year. I decided against it as it only cares about monetary equality. It's also rather unlucky with leaders :p

oops

In the past I have, however, the problem I later ended up seeing was that inequitable money distribution played a role in society in spurring people to make certain choices as it is from those choices that the money comes from and saw that in order to get communism to work it requires a suppression of necessary human freedom, this attitude was furthered when I read the Road To Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek as well as Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman. Ultimately I am of the belief that the economy is relatively self-organizing and that communist attempts to mold it are likely to end problematically because of the disruption of necessary economic freedom. Capitalism isn't the system that only makes money, although money is an important aspect of capitalism, capitalism is a system that gives individuals choices to choose or reject what they want rather than have a central planner make their choices for them. Although, I know that the communists here will reject my opinion on this matter I frankly do not really care.

Well Spoken!

Well, Im a staunch communist, and still believe in it. Well, im kinda a communo-fascist ;:sniper:

True. But the practice of doing so to excess - "Pabloite", "Cliffite", etc. - gets absurd at some point.

It depends. The parties Cliff essentially helped to establish can be seen as following a different organisational and political line from other groups of established Trotskyist traditions so in this case I feel that it is a legitimate term as it describes an actual political trend.



Chiefly because I don't think they're "red fascists." I can read what Trotskyists (of whatever variety, except perhaps the Workers World Party) say, and agree with most of it. I tend to see them as potential allies rather than enemies; we disagree on how best to manage post-revolutionary society, but I'd rather live under Leninist socialism (especially as interpreted by modern Trotskyists) than under capitalism.


I look forward to seeing you on the barricades


I do think they are far too harsh on anarchists, perhaps because they don't understand anarchism.


I dont really get what you mean here by being harsh on anarchists- in pamphlets, program, action? what?


Incidentally, I think the same of many anarchists - they unnecessarily sectarianize the radical left by insisting that Leninists are all evil "red fascists" who will bring about a tyrannical Stalinist dictatorship that, if anything, is worse than what we have now.

Didn't you hear the news? Everyone knows commies and nazis are really the same thing.

I used to be a commi. But then I realised the free market is awesome.

Socialism, maybe. Very lenient at that. But communism? No. A guy who does nothing but flip burgers all day should not be paid the same as a man who invented the microfusion core and is currently selling them.


"From each according to his ability to each according to his need".

Why do people think communists just want to take some money from the rich, give that to the poor, pay everyone the same and then make them all wear grey burlap?

My get rich quick schemes don't work in Communism.

"From each according to his ability to each according to his need".

Why do people think communists just want to take some money from the rich, give that to the poor, pay everyone the same and then make them all wear grey burlap?
Because economic equality is the big point of communism and monetary redistribution and economic problems have traditionally marked communist enterprises. The problem within that quote that you mentioned is that it brings the economic lives of individuals into governmental jurisdiction and into the scope of governmental oppression.

"Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation."

"Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rates higher and which lower, in short, what men should believe and strive for."

No.

Notice mainly young people fantasize about the communist pipe dream.

Notice mainly young people fantasize about the communist pipe dream.

An old guy once told me "You young people aren't conservative because you've got nothing to conserve." I'm sure not conservative, but he had a point.

I dont really get what you mean here by being harsh on anarchists- in pamphlets, program, action? what?

Just the general misrepresentation in their propaganda (term used here without pejorative intentions). There is something to be said for the notion that a revolution should have an effective, centralized leadership. I don't think it should, but there's a good argument that can be had there. The problem is that in attacking anarchism, they don't do it on those legitimate grounds. Instead they conflate the Marxist notion of the state - a tool of class rule - with the anarchist notion - closer to a class of leaders who control society through enforcers. When anarchists say they want to abolish the state, they do not mean that they oppose the use of force to expropriate the means of production, or the organized self-defense of the workers councils and associations if the capitalists retaliate; what they object to is centralization, hierarchy, a structure of authority that puts a group of leaders at the top with the power to force everyone else to fall in line.

Again, there's something to be said for centralization. But the problem is that it usually isn't said. Instead we get mindless repetitions of the old straw man that anarchists don't see the need to use force to subdue the capitalists, or minor variations on that general theme.

Far more productive would be to stop seeing this debate through the narrow lens of "the state" (and thus entering into the semantic confusion of two variant conceptions) and begin talking about actual meaningful differences in post-revolutionary organization.

No.

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=2951028

And Communism.

As much as I dislike gov't, I would hate a communist government even more.

The only thing a communist would get from me

armor.kiev.ua/army/hist/m67.gif

Have I considered Communism? Have I considered a system that is based on a flawed understanding of humanity and requires a ruthless hand to have any chance of succeeding, backed by people who are so slippery that the moment something bad happens they say 'but that's not real communism!'

Yes, I have considered it. I've considered it awful since the day I first heard of it.

Because economic equality is the big point of communism and monetary redistribution and economic problems have traditionally marked communist enterprises. The problem within that quote that you mentioned is that it brings the economic lives of individuals into governmental jurisdiction and into the scope of governmental oppression.

"Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation."

"Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rates higher and which lower, in short, what men should believe and strive for."
Ah, so instead of placing that power in the hands of fairly ellected goverments we place it in the hands of unelected buisness execs. Brilliant!

Have I considered Communism? Have I considered a system that is based on a flawed understanding of humanity

Describe this "flawed understanding of humanity" for us, please. What is this "understanding" and how is it flawed?

Notice mainly young people fantasize about the communist pipe dream.

And how it doesn't work...:)

Thankfully.

Describe this "flawed understanding of humanity" for us, please. What is this "understanding" and how is it flawed?
Any person who thinks that every human is willing to share and will never try to get one over on anyone else is fundamentaly flawed.

Any person who thinks that every human is willing to share and will never try to get one over on anyone else is fundamentaly flawed.

Of course, Communists don't actually think that, so I don't see why it is relevant.

Your argument is akin to saying, "I don't believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster causes intelligent falling; thus, I am against capitalism for its flawed perception of metaphysics."

Of course, Communists don't actually think that, so I don't see why it is relevant.


In order for communism to work, people must be that way.

Of course, Communists don't actually think that, so I don't see why it is relevant.

Your argument is akin to saying, "I don't believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster causes intelligent falling; thus, I am against capitalism for its flawed peception of metaphysics."
*Chuckles*

Here comes the inevitable 'that's not real communism' cry. I should write a song about it.

But that's not real communism,
No, that's not real communism,
Stalin may kill,
Castro may watch his people die,
Cos that's not real communism!

In order for communism to work, people must be that way.

Why? Communists don't expect the capitalists to willingly relinquish their wealth; to the contrary, we intend to take it from them.

Why? Communists don't expect the capitalists to willingly relinquish their wealth; to the contrary, we intend to take it from them.
How refreshing. A communist who is willing to admit the surpression of freedoms that must occur under the iron fist rule of a 'socialist republic' state.

*Chuckles*

Here comes the inevitable 'that's not real communism' cry. I should write a song about it.

But that's not real communism,
No, that's not real communism,
Stalin may kill,
Castro may watch his people die,
Cos that's not real communism!

I didn't say a thing about Stalin or Castro. I made an observation regarding your flawed perception of Communist conceptions of human nature.

Quote for me any Communist who has ever stated that "every human is willing to share and will never try to get one over on anyone else." Indeed, most modern Communists explicitly reject this notion by advocating revolution. Why change the current state of things, if we expect the rich to willingly give to the poor and everyone to happily live in harmony?

How refreshing. A communist who is willing to admit the surpression of freedoms that must occur under the iron fist rule of a 'socialist republic' state.

Well, I'll admit everything but the "suppression of freedoms" part, the "iron fist rule" part, and the "state" part.

Please respond to what I actually say. It will make this much easier.

What is "pure communism", in your definition?
The variety of ideologies advocated by you and DHomme. Do you really believe that they're workable on a national level?

I believe that communism is, theoretically, a more moral system than capitalism. But that's not enough for me to support it.

Any person who thinks that every human is willing to share and will never try to get one over on anyone else is fundamentaly flawed.
I'm not a communist, but this point is heavily arguable by anyone. It may be that "self interest über alles" is a capitalist cultural influence. People could easily be trained to work the other way.

*Chuckles*

Here comes the inevitable 'that's not real communism' cry. I should write a song about it.

But that's not real communism,
No, that's not real communism,
Stalin may kill,
Castro may watch his people die,
Cos that's not real communism!
You mean like the inevitable thats not proper capitalism when anyone mentions the Robber Barrons, child labour, sweatshops ect?

Why? Communists don't expect the capitalists to willingly relinquish their wealth; to the contrary, we intend to take it from them.

Well, I'll admit everything but the "suppression of freedoms" part, the "iron fist rule" part, and the "state" part.

Please respond to what I actually say. It will make this much easier.
I believe this falls under the 'slippery' section of my original post.

You intend to take people's possessions and life work, and tell them that they are no longer able to earn or spend as they wish; yet this somehow isn't a surpression of freedoms and it isn't totalitarian rule?

Tell me; is it comfy up there in cloud cuckoo land?

The variety of ideologies advocated by you and DHomme.

A broad range, if you include both me and DHomme. And surely you can be more specific than that? What, precisely, do the ideologies that DHomme and I advocate consist of? If you are so sure that they are flawed, surely you can describe them?

Do you really believe that they're workable on a national level?

Absolutely. In fact, I think they're workable on a global level. Of late, I've been leaning towards a much more decentralized structure, though.

I'm not a communist, but this point is heavily arguable by anyone. It may be that "self interest über alles" is a capitalist cultural influence. People could easily be trained to work the other way.

I, personally, would prefer not to "train" people at all.

I considered communism, but the natural kind, which comes with the slow dissolution of government and is based entirely upon the peoples will. Im more a libertarian now, and Im not entirely convinced people will ever truly outgrow the need for government or property. For the present time, a forced communism will never work. "Who is watching the watchers" indeed. No one can be trusted with being handed the wealth of a nation and be expected to distribute it fairly. Economic royalty is replaced with political loyalty which grants itself whatever it "needs"

I believe this falls under the 'slippery' section of my original post.

You intend to take people's possessions and life work, and tell them that they are no longer able to earn or spend as they wish; yet this somehow isn't a surpression of freedoms and it isn't totalitarian rule?

Not their "possessions" necessarily, if you mean their house and car. I would advocate the expropriation of the major means of production, and put them under democratic control. That is not "totalitarian" and is not a "suppression of freedoms." Property as it exists now is merely a weapon of the rich against the poor; it restricts opportunity and makes the desperate dependent on the wealthy. That is the real "suppression of freedoms."

I am starting to think that many of those who claim to have considered Communism have in fact done no such thing.

Perhaps, before rejecting the ideology, they should do so.

Ah, so instead of placing that power in the hands of fairly ellected goverments we place it in the hands of unelected buisness execs. Brilliant!
There is no 1 single business executive. There are many many different ones all vying for power and it is that which makes life bearable. Seriously, you could go off and be your own boss if you really wanted it is just that you would have to have an idea and be willing to take the risk to implement it. Governments can impose their will on the people, business execs, well, if they try anything we just stop buying their product. They don't get money directly from our income, they only get it if we buy their crap and nobody can force you to make a purchase you don't want to without violating the law.

"What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves."

There is no 1 single business executive. There are many many different ones all vying for power and it is that which makes life bearable. Seriously, you could go off and be your own boss if you really wanted it is just that you would have to have an idea and be willing to take the risk to implement it.



Tell that to the Robber Barrons.

"I am starting to think that many of those who claim to have considered Communism have in fact done no such thing.

Perhaps, before rejecting the ideology, they should do so."---Soheran


why should they? i didn't have to consider becoming a serial killer in order to reject the idea with good cause. when something is clearly a bad idea, 'considering' it just wastes time you could be spending figuring out how best to work on the good ideas

why should they? i didn't have to consider becoming a serial killer in order to reject the idea with good cause.

Do you know what a serial killer is?

[QUOTE=The Psyker;11605461]Tell that to the Robber Barrons.[/QUO

you "Burned!" him good.

yes, soheran, i know what a serial killer is. that is why i don't want to be one.

do you know what liberty and freedom are?

yes, soheran, i know what a serial killer is. that is why i don't want to be one.

Yet I am of the opinion that several people in this thread do not know what Communism is.

It is true that "consider" involves more effort than "know", but since we are talking about political ideologies, far more complex in justification and rejection than serial killing, I think the extra effort is merited.

do you know what liberty and freedom are?

Absolutely. I do not define them as equivalent to capitalist property rights.

Yet I am of the opinion that several people in this thread do not know what Communism is.

It is true that "consider" involves more effort than "know", but since we are talking about political ideologies, far more complex in justification and rejection than serial killing, I think the extra effort is merited.



Absolutely. I do not define them as equivalent to capitalist property rights.

I think he was just saying that communists are serial killers.

I think he was just saying that communists are serial killers.

Then he is merely proving my point.

"Absolutely. I do not define them as equivalent to capitalist property rights."---Soheran


of course not, property rights are only PART of liberty and freedom

of course not, property rights are only PART of liberty and freedom

Certain kinds, maybe. That's why I said "capitalist property rights."

you two have a problem with reading comprehension. nowhere have i said anything about communists being serial killers. they may want to take away the rights and freedoms of others.....but as far as i know, their murder rate isn't any higher than any other economic/political group

you two have a problem with reading comprehension. nowhere have i said anything about communists being serial killers. they may want to take away the rights and freedoms of others.....but as far as i know, their murder rate isn't any higher than any other economic/political group

Ok thats good to know I thought that was what you were hinting at with the serial killer bit, but I was reading to much into.

Tell that to the Robber Barrons.
Yes, and the government was helping them too by giving businesses tariffs in those days, as well, the Robber Barons did act unlawfully, so therefore part of the problem was a government that was refusing to do its job as after all, if they were kidnapping people and using violence and the like then that is the government failing to do it's job, not the capitalist economy failing as many crimes of the robber barons were illegal. "Heilbroner claims that robber barons used deception, violence, kidnappings and extraordinary dishonesty to gain economic power and industrial supremacy." from wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_%28industrialist%29). Despite the negative acts of the robber barons they still did do great things, both in philanthropy(ever heard of the University of Chicago or Carnegie Mellon) and in creating economic infrastructure as part of their success despite their sometimes evil business practices is that they would do things efficiently. "Standard Oil's market position had been established through an emphasis on efficiency and responsibility. While most companies dumped gasoline (this being before the automobile) in rivers, Standard used it to fuel the company's own machines. Where gigantic mountains of heavy waste grew by other companies' refineries, Rockefeller found ways to market and sell these waste products, creating the synthetic first competitor for beeswax, ", "He had the talent of being able to surround himself with able and effective men, while, at the same time, retaining the control and the direction of the enterprise. Carnegie's businesses were uniquely organised in that his belief in "democratic principles" found itself interpreted into these businesses. This did not mean that Carnegie was not in absolute control, however. The businesses incorporated Carnegie's own version of profit sharing. Carnegie wanted his employees to have a stake in the business, for he knew that they would work best if they saw that their own self interest was allied to the firm's. As a result, men who had started as labourers in some cases, eventually ended up millionaires." also from wiki and other robber barons developed their own effective ways of doing things.

you "Burned!" him good.
Dude, are you his bitch? If not then there is no need to comment after every thing he says.

Dude, are you his bitch? If not then there is no need to comment after every thing he says.

Has he done that before? It's the first time I've noticed it. Personaly I thought he was being sarcastic.

As for your other comment the fact that the Robber Barons did some good things doesn't change the bad. Besides they aren't the only people to exploit positions of economic power. While their is of course no one single business exec running the world there are a great many companies the leaders of which command a great deal of power and influence over others peoples lives. And unlike the power of those in goverment no one ever voted to give them it.

Has he done that before? It's the first time I've noticed it. Personaly I thought he was being sarcastic.

As for your other comment the fact that the Robber Barons did some good things doesn't change the bad. Besides they aren't the only people to exploit positions of economic power. While their is of course no one single business exec running the world there are a great many companies the leaders of which command a great deal of power and influence over others peoples lives. And unlike the power of those in goverment no one ever voted to give them it.
I only did that because what he did is just sort of stupid and pointless. It is taking a position but being to pathetic to argue it. I am not a fan of such actions, and do not like them if directed towards me.

Of course, economic power is the thing that people seek to exploit, however, governments helped the robber barons as well by action and inaction, and the positions of the robber barons would not have been sustainable in the long run. Eventually somebody would come along and bring them back down due to technological innovation. Whether or not a government voted anybody in is not a perfect test of whether or not they are a good thing, Hitler was an elected official who legally obtained his government position and he led to the deaths of millions and a system known as "Naziism", which is a variant of fascism. For all of the crimes of the robber barons and of capitalism the crimes of government are by far much greater as its power is by far more enormous, the market changes more than the government and is by far less coercive in nature.

I only did that because what he did is just sort of stupid and pointless. It is taking a position but being to pathetic to argue it. I am not a fan of such actions, and do not like them if directed towards me.

Of course, economic power is the thing that people seek to exploit, however, governments helped the robber barons as well by action and inaction, and the positions of the robber barons would not have been sustainable in the long run. Eventually somebody would come along and bring them back down due to technological innovation. Whether or not a government voted anybody in is not a perfect test of whether or not they are a good thing, Hitler was an elected official who legally obtained his government position and he led to the deaths of millions and a system known as "Naziism", which is a variant of fascism. For all of the crimes of the robber barons and of capitalism the crimes of government are by far much greater as its power is by far more enormous, the market changes more than the government and is by far less coercive in nature.

Ehh, personaly I don't trust either that much so I'm left just grumbling about the whole mess.

Ehh, personaly I don't trust either that much so I'm left just grumbling about the whole mess.
Frankly, you shouldn't really trust either. It is just that politicians can seize power with more ease than businessmen. I just think that at least with a free-market I have more control over how I spend my dollar than I would with how a few million other people spending my dollar, especially given the fact that politicians do give our money to businesses in the form of corporate welfare which means not only do I give money to the guys with the suits but I get nothing in return for it.

Frankly, you shouldn't really trust either. It is just that politicians can seize power with more ease than businessmen. I just think that at least with a free-market I have more control over how I spend my dollar than I would with how a few million other people spending my dollar, especially given the fact that politicians do give our money to businesses in the form of corporate welfare which means not only do I give money to the guys with the suits but I get nothing in return for it.
Personaly I trust corporations a bit less because they seem more insidious when the goverment is opressing you it is a lot more obvious than when its some corporation taking advantage of you and thus, hopefuly, a little easier to try and counter.

Okay, I'm coservative. Buuut, I admire the ideas of Communism. However, it's not practical. "If everyone is equal, everyone is miserable (and poor)." -Me.

Read "Animal Farm"...

Have I considered Communism? Have I considered a system that is based on a flawed understanding of humanity and requires a ruthless hand to have any chance of succeeding, backed by people who are so slippery that the moment something bad happens they say 'but that's not real communism!'

Yes, I have considered it. I've considered it awful since the day I first heard of it.Why is your inability to comprehend the definition of a word the fault of the people who can?

Does that mean that Jesus is, in fact, The Man?

Whether he was himself is perhaps open to debate (much like his very existence), but his image certainly has become representative of it.

I considered it some time ago this year. I decided against it as it only cares about monetary equality.

That's a ridiculous assertation; socialists and communists have been (and still are) on the forefront of gender and racial equality battles the world over.


The only thing a communist would get from me

armor.kiev.ua/army/hist/m67.gif

You're so tough. I wish I was like you.

*Chuckles*

Here comes the inevitable 'that's not real communism' cry. I should write a song about it.

But that's not real communism,
No, that's not real communism,
Stalin may kill,
Castro may watch his people die,
Cos that's not real communism!

Is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea democratic?

Okay, I'm coservative. Buuut, I admire the ideas of Communism. However, it's not practical. "If everyone is equal, everyone is miserable (and poor)." -Me.

Read "Animal Farm"...

Do you realise that Animal Farm was written by someone who served with the Trotskyist POUM in the Spanish Civil War?

Hear my words of wisdom, everyone:

Capitalism is man's exploitation by man.

Communism is the opposite.

Your point being...?

Do you realise that Animal Farm was written by someone who served with the Trotskyist POUM in the Spanish Civil War?

So? It accually seems pro-Communism in the beginning. It doesn't really relate to this argument, just the topic. Fun stuff.

Inspired by this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=497474), I was just wondering which members of this forum have ever been/ considered becoming a Communist (in one form or another).

Were you a student radical? A union militant? A distressed teenager wearing a Che Guevara teeshirt? Did you join the SWP and then get spat out as an anarchist? Join the stalinists and then end up becoming a green to avoid the purges? Or did you join Class War Federation before ending up as a die-hard Tory?

When I was young, I was a Gus Hall supporter. And no, I wasn't holding up his scrotum while he played sports.

I also got the Che poster and Che t-shirt.

I still have a fondness for Stalin, but mostly because he knew how to wield power.

So? It accually seems pro-Communism in the beginning. It doesn't really relate to this argument, just the topic. Fun stuff.

All too often, just as with 1984, it is credited as a work of anti-communist literature. It's merely anti-stalinist.

Nope, as it doesn't work.

The funny thing is that people said Democracy would never work. Did people give up when Rome, Greece or Macedon fell? No. They kept trying. Just because communism so far has failed dosnt mean its always doomed to. People say that human greed will always destroy it. Well guess what, violence is another human instinct, yet in society we have made it unacceptable and thus reduced it to a maintainable level. Its my belief that it can be done with greed as well.

Iam a Leninist communist and plan to be so forever.

The thing about violence though, is that it's been maintained at that low-level by an authority making sure we know what happens if we break the law. If that authority becomes corrupt--which is the danger of communism--then there's not much to stop them from doing what they want. I realize the USSR is not truly representative of the idea of Communism, but as near I as I can tell, I have no reason to believe that there isn't a good chance of it happening again to any other country that tries it.

And Capitalism, by contrast, is much more firmly steeped in reality. It tells us that humans are all evil greedy selfish bloodsucking little things but that the holy market can overcome this and fix all of our problems and promise a greater future for all if only we all commit ourselves to being greedy bloodsucking so and so's. Right.


No, capitalism doesn't promise to "fix all our problems." Unlike communism, it's not a pseudo-panacea philosophy for building utopia. You are correct that capitalism is more steeped in reality though.

No, capitalism doesn't promise to "fix all our problems." Unlike communism, it's not a pseudo-panacea philosophy for building utopia. You are correct that capitalism is more steeped in reality though.

Oh, so it's inherently pessimistic after all? I figured as much, but I keep getting told that the market will fix them there pollution problems and starving children and stuff and there's no need to worry about them. Forgive my confusion.

The funny thing is that people said Democracy would never work. Did people give up when Rome, Greece or Macedon fell? No. They kept trying. Just because communism so far has failed dosnt mean its always doomed to. People say that human greed will always destroy it. Well guess what, violence is another human instinct, yet in society we have made it unacceptable and thus reduced it to a maintainable level. Its my belief that it can be done with greed as well.

Iam a Leninist communist and plan to be so forever.
Greed isn't why communism won't work, it is part of it but it isn't the entire deal. Self-interest is a better way to put it, people have their own beliefs and their own desires and communism has difficulties dealing with that as people do not have the liberty to do what they desire as much as they do in the capitalist system while at the same time accomodating the costs of such acts, as well, communism cannot handle all of the changes of the market, you are trading a flexible system for one that is more rigid and more controlling and for one with a lesser ability to grant freedom and still be efficient.

Personaly I trust corporations a bit less because they seem more insidious when the goverment is opressing you it is a lot more obvious than when its some corporation taking advantage of you and thus, hopefuly, a little easier to try and counter.
It is easier to counter a corporation, but harder to counter a government, with corporations you just avoid dealing with them, if you hate McDonalds then go to Wendy's, however, governments try to make it more difficult to avoid their actions.... unless you are bribing a politician.

Inspired by this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=497474), I was just wondering which members of this forum have ever been/ considered becoming a Communist (in one form or another).

Were you a student radical? A union militant? A distressed teenager wearing a Che Guevara teeshirt? Did you join the SWP and then get spat out as an anarchist? Join the stalinists and then end up becoming a green to avoid the purges? Or did you join Class War Federation before ending up as a die-hard Tory?

Well, it depends on your defintion of a "Communist." I don't consider myself to be a Marxian communist, but to some people, I'm just a dirty Commie. I am, of course, very left-wing, but that doesn't automatically mean communist. IF by communism you mean Bolshevik bureaucratic collectivism, I am most certainly not a communist. If you mean it as an overarching term for someone who is anti-capitalist/pro-socialist, then that's me.

All too often, just as with 1984, it is credited as a work of anti-communist literature. It's merely anti-stalinist.

It is quite clearly a leftist critique of Stalinism. Even ignoring his leftist credentials, the novel itself makes this clear.

What is a principle sign of the Napoleon's corruption? That he collaborates with the other farmers instead of promoting revolutionary agitation, a reference to Stalin's collaboration with the capitalist powers.

What is the ultimate sign of his tyranny? The fact that he has become equivalent to the other farmers - that is, that Stalinism is just the capitalist class structure imitated in a different form.

"If you have your lower animals to contend with, we have our lower classes!"

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

I've never worn a Che Guevara shirt in my life, but there's always a first time.

For the love of all that doesn't suck, please don't. Wearing a Che shirt is for 'edgy' teenagers who don't know their history of the matter at all. It would be more tolerable if they used as their image someone who didn't line random people up against the wall and shot them because he had decided they were "enemies of the revolution", without so much as a shred of evidence. He was also of the belief that "Jury trials are a bourgeousie luxury." He sure sounds like a champion of human rights to me. :rolleyes:

A form of anarchism, perhaps, and I gave philosophical anarchism a serious analysis, but came away rather unchanged. Not much of a shocker, I espescially despise the 'inevitability of history' and 'iron laws of history' that so many Marxists dither on about. There's nothing iron about history or society, which is fundamentally fluid.

For the love of all that doesn't suck, please don't. Wearing a Che shirt is for 'edgy' teenagers who don't know their history of the matter at all.

That is one of my major objections to doing so, yes. Most Che shirt wearers are clueless teenagers, and that's leaving aside the irony of the Che image being a product of modern consumerist global capitalism. I don't think Marx meant it that way when he said that capitalism would create the conditions of its own overthrow.

It would be more tolerable if they used as their image someone who didn't line random people up against the wall and shot them because he had decided they were "enemies of the revolution", without so much as a shred of evidence. He was also of the belief that "Jury trials are a bourgeousie luxury." He sure sounds like a champion of human rights to me. :rolleyes:

He did likely engage in some of the authoritarian excesses of the Cuban Revolution, and while I guess I can understand the logic, there's something inhumane about a call for "two, three, Vietnams" with tens of thousands of people dying.

What is "pure communism", in your definition?

no one has ever had that. nor can it be defined at this point. it's just the post capitalist stage.

'k. here is the thing.

no-one want to hear it, but we are all anarchists. this is what we've done with anarchy. right now, take a look, there is your anarchy for you.

now, no anarchist wants to hear that. they, obviously, know a better way. but this is what people do.

society is not fixed. it changes from time to time, and the next phase can be labelled comunism. but it won't be what people think. and it will probably also be unfair. if fair means anything.

no one has ever had that.

Not in Marx's conception of it, no.

nor can it be defined at this point.

Then how can it be judged?

it's just the post capitalist stage.

A particular manifestation of the "post capitalist" stage, and if we are talking about pure communism, something that a doctrinaire Marxist would maintain would only occur substantially after capitalism is overthrown.

Define "work." Then explain why it does not meet your definition.

Oh! Oh! I know this one

W=(d)(t) is meaured in Joules and the force must be directed in the same direction the object travels.
You cannot measure the distance of communism and something about vectors therefore it could not be represented in Joules therefore no work was done?

No. Communism is even more flawed then socialism. *Hides anarchist button so he's not shot on sight*

A particular manifestation of the "post capitalist" stage, and if we are talking about pure communism, something that a doctrinaire Marxist would maintain would only occur substantially after capitalism is overthrown.

i would say from a marxist perspective, that there is no 'particular' manifestion. post capitalism is communism and is a historical imperative.


ooo ya, and it really can't be judged because we've never seen it.

Personally, I think democratic communism would work up to a point. When tyranny of the majority sets in, I'd be arguing for anarcho-communism or council communism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_communism) - personally, I prefer to call myself an anarcho-syndicalist, but it's just a matter of terminology. The decentralized anti-capitalists have different names but share many similarities.

i would say from a marxist perspective, that there is no 'particular' manifestion. post capitalism is communism and is a historical imperative.

Not exactly. Communism is indeed part of the post-capitalist stage (in the Marxist understanding), but it is not defined as such; that is merely a characteristic. Furthermore, "pure" communism does not follow directly from capitalism.

ooo ya, and it really can't be judged because we've never seen it.

But we can understand the reasoning and analysis behind the ideology, and judge its accuracy.

In order to do so, however, we need to understand what the ideology actually advocates.

Not exactly. Communism is indeed part of the post-capitalist stage (in the Marxist understanding), but it is not defined as such; that is merely a characteristic. Furthermore, "pure" communism does not follow directly from capitalism.

fair enough, i understand that is is not the marxist definition per se. (see I admit when I am wrong). nevertheless, given orthodox marxism, it is a historical inevitabilty because capitalism is naturally unstable.



But we can understand the reasoning and analysis behind the ideology, and judge its accuracy.

In order to do so, however, we need to understand what the ideology actually advocates.

ah, see, that's the thing. to me it's non-ideological. as marx said, ich nicht bin ein marxist or something

fair enough, i understand that is is not the marxist definition per se. (see I admit when I am wrong). nevertheless, given orthodox marxism, it is a historical inevitabilty because capitalism is naturally unstable.

Yes.

ah, see, that's the thing. to me it's non-ideological. as marx said, ich nicht bin ein marxist or something

It's been ideological from the start; Marx not only predicted Communism, but actively advocated it.

I've always been a left-winger, but have never in my wildest mescaline-induced buzzes thought that Communism was a good idea.

The problem with Marx's logic is that capitalism is a system which, once introduced, can arise anywhere. Making a profit is a very human behavior (expressed more simply in the desire to obtain power, whether through social influence or amassed goods), and unless you forcibly repress it (as in communism), it will endure.

Basically, the only thing communism will ever result in is more failed experiments like the Soviet Union. Things like socialized medicine and education, within the context of a capitalist society, are great ideas, but end-stage communism is the most impossible dream in the world.

It's been ideological from the start; Marx not only predicted Communism, but actively advocated it.

it's funnay, because this is where the parting of the ways begins. don't tell me you haven't heard my non-ideological theory before, ' cos you have.

Making a profit is a very human behavior (expressed more simply in the desire to obtain power, whether through social influence or amassed goods), and unless you forcibly repress it (as in communism), it will endure.

Rather than "forcibly repress" the desire for power (which is impossible), the better avenue is to eradicate, to the greatest degree possible, systems that permit the attainment and use of power at the expense of others.

Greed is not a problem if society is organized in a manner that prevents greedy people from exploiting others.

That is what Communism attempts to do, though admittedly plenty of Communists have also held to theories of human nature that have since been discredited (like the idea that our natures are essentially the product of our material conditions.)

Personally, I think democratic communism would work up to a point. When tyranny of the majority sets in, I'd be arguing for anarcho-communism or council communism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_communism) - personally, I prefer to call myself an anarcho-syndicalist, but it's just a matter of terminology. The decentralized anti-capitalists have different names but share many similarities.Are you familiar with the IWW? I ask because it would be interesting to know if it is a fulfillment of council communist wishes or not.

no, i have always known the truth about that evil system and therfore opposed it.

no, i have always known the truth about that evil system and therfore opposed it.
Please enlighten us... :confused:

Are you familiar with the IWW? I ask because it would be interesting to know if it is a fulfillment of council communist wishes or not.

There are probably people who consider themselves council communists in the IWW and see the IWW as having similar goals to themselves, but I wouldn't call establishing a union a fulfillment of council communist goals. It is just a step in that direction. The goal wouldn't be fulfilled until all the major means of production are in the hands of democratic employee-run companies.

Oh, so it's inherently pessimistic after all?

It's not pessimistic or optimistic. It's an economic system.

I believe myself at heart to be a democratic socialist. I believe in a democratic system, ideally built on the Swiss direct democracy system. I believe that more services should be taken on by the public sector, and a diminishment of the private sector, although I don't believe capitalism should be completely destroyed.

I do believe that communism would be the ideal system, but frankly it's impossible right now. The people of the world aren't ready to accept such a system, where everything depends on material possession being distributed more or less equally. People are still in the capitalist mindset where you have to strive to accumulate as much material wealth as possible at the expense of others. We as a species have to change our attitudes a lot before that will happen.

I consider Stalin, Castro and, to a lesser extent, Lenin to (have been/are)traitors to their own cause who (tried/are trying) to implement a system that the people and the country of (Russia/Cuba) (where/are) not ready for. They (were/are) extremists, and ultimately the people suffered for it, especially during the Stalin years. Under Stalin, the idea of communism was subverted and disfigured in order for a megalomaniacal bureaucrat to create his own Fascist empire disguised with a red cape.

For communism to truly work, it has to be at the consent of the people. Forcing a population to accept it isn't truly communist.

I stated in the poll that I am considering communism. However, that is only because it looks good on paper. For the record, I'm a democratic socialist, but if it ever became practical, communism would be the way to go.



Oh yeah. And I'd totally wear a hammer and sickle T-shirt. Actually I'm buying a Soviet uniform off ebay.com. Soviet uniforms are so snazzy. And the Soviet/Russian national anthem rocks.

Communism = tyranny of the masses

Communism = tyranny of the masses

So you prefer tyranny of the wealthy?

Tyranny of the masses implies majority democracy. Would you say "Democracy = tyranny of the masses"?

Anarcho-capitalists prefer decentralization over centralized democracy. So do anarcho-communists. You really can't lump anarcho-communists together with either democratic communists or authoritarian communists.

society is not fixed. it changes from time to time, and the next phase can be labelled comunism. but it won't be what people think. and it will probably also be unfair. if fair means anything.

Of course, it could also easily be something else that isn't communism, for all we know it could be renewed mercantilism, or plenty of other things as well.

Socialism, maybe. Very lenient at that. But communism? No. A guy who does nothing but flip burgers all day should not be paid the same as a man who invented the microfusion core and is currently selling them.

But, at the same time, no one should starve.

By the way, that's not how it works. People often say about the equal distribution of wealth in a socialist society that, "Well what's the point in training to be a doctor when being a garbage man pays the same?!"

Well my dear fellow, let me elaborate.

When we crazy leftists say "equal distribution of wealth" in a society, we equalize levels of income. A garbage man in a socialist state will earn as much as every other garbage man, since they will all be employed by the government, not individual companies. A doctor in a socialist state will earn as much as every other doctor, since they will all be employed by the government, not individual companies, and earns more than the garbage man, since he's a qualified professional.

By the way, that's not how it works. People often say about the equal distribution of wealth in a socialist/communist society that, "Well what's the point in training to be a doctor when being a garbage man pays the same?!"

Well my dear fellow, let me elaborate.

When we crazy leftists say "equal distribution of wealth" in a society, we equalize levels of income. A garbage man in a communist state will earn as much as every other garbage man, since they will all be employed by the government, not individual companies. A doctor in a communist state will earn as much as every other doctor, since they will all be employed by the government, not individual companies, and earns more than the garbage man, since he's a qualified professional.

Start off with the initial problem, in a communist state, there is no government, and there is no income, what you're talking about is total socailism, not communism.

Start off with the initial problem, in a communist state, there is no government, and there is no income, what you're talking about is total socailism, not communism.


Damn it. You are absolutely right. Well I've edited my post. Excuse me.
What the hell was I thinking?

By the way, if anyone's interested, there's this cool rock parody of the Soviet National Anthem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ofDJpqqM74

A broad range, if you include both me and DHomme. And surely you can be more specific than that? What, precisely, do the ideologies that DHomme and I advocate consist of? If you are so sure that they are flawed, surely you can describe them?
Common ownership of everything. The unrealistic idea that a state would ever give up its power.

Absolutely. In fact, I think they're workable on a global level. Of late, I've been leaning towards a much more decentralized structure, though.

Where's your proof and precedent?

I, personally, would prefer not to "train" people at all.
Every culture does it.

The funny thing is that people said Democracy would never work. Did people give up when Rome, Greece or Macedon fell? No. They kept trying.
At least Rome achieved democracy. No idealist has ever achieved communism on a national level.

Common ownership of everything.

Not "everything" necessarily. Just the means of production.

The unrealistic idea that a state would ever give up its power.

I'm not a Marxist. Smash it.

And if you understand the Marxist conception of the state, the notion that it (or more exactly, its political character and repressive capability) will wither away after the post-revolutionary class struggle is complete does make some sense. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" properly constituted is just the organized armed force of the proletariat, acting in defense of the revolutionary achievements; when the institutions of capitalist society have been suppressed, it will no longer have any purpose. Why have a state - in the Marxist concept, a mechanism of class rule - when there is no other class over which to rule?

The error is in the authoritarian Marxist tendencies that seek to turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the vanguard claiming to represent the interests of the proletariat, in which case your objection is perfectly legitimate.

Where's your proof and precedent?

"Precedent" isn't always helpful when you're trying to reform things. It can be a useful guide, but constant reliance on it can not only obscure the specifics of a particular case, but can justify intense conservatism and resistance towards changes that could potentially bring immense benefits. Consider the paranoia about the consequences of ending legal discrimination against gays.

It would probably be more productive if you outlined more precisely your objections (in other words, instead of saying "it wouldn't work on a national scale," actually explain why it wouldn't).

There are probably people who consider themselves council communists in the IWW and see the IWW as having similar goals to themselves, but I wouldn't call establishing a union a fulfillment of council communist goals. It is just a step in that direction. The goal wouldn't be fulfilled until all the major means of production are in the hands of democratic employee-run companies.Oh, of course it wouldn't be a fulfillment of council communist goals, but I wondered if it was structured in such a way to be the first step in the process or not.

Inspired by this thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=497474), I was just wondering which members of this forum have ever been/ considered becoming a Communist (in one form or another).

Were you a student radical? A union militant? A distressed teenager wearing a Che Guevara teeshirt? Did you join the SWP and then get spat out as an anarchist? Join the stalinists and then end up becoming a green to avoid the purges? Or did you join Class War Federation before ending up as a die-hard Tory?

HAHAHA....I guess somebody fell asleep on history class....:D

No. Communism sounds great on paper but human nature will mean that people will always put themselves first. Communism causes misery and spreads sexual disease....because workers share more than company ownership;)

HAHAHA....I guess somebody fell asleep on history class....:D

?

Oh, of course it wouldn't be a fulfillment of council communist goals, but I wondered if it was structured in such a way to be the first step in the process or not.

Good question. I don't know a great deal about the inner workings of the IWW, but I'd say it's probably much more in line with council communist ideals than unions like the AFL-CIO anyway. Whether they meet all the requirements of their council communists is probably doubtful - since theory and practice are rarely identical - but they probably come close.

No. Communism sounds great on paper but human nature will mean that people will always put themselves first. Communism causes misery and spreads sexual disease....because workers share more than company ownership;)
I don't find it nice even on paper, this equalitarianism is just sick.

Some people work more, some less, but both of them would get the same wage, that's fair? No it isn't. Communism is unfair as well as (for some people) capitalism might be. However I find capitalism much better, because the smarter and better you are the more money you get. Isn't it better this way?

I live in post-communistic country, and we make fun of communism and socialism often, we (especially the younger and/or well-educated) hate left-wing. Maybe you find left-wing all nice, but those who live in post-communist country don't. (at least most of the people, not all, I admit that).

Some people work more, some less, but both of them would get the same wage, that's fair?

What do you say to employees deciding democratically how much the different people are paid? They may pay everyone the same or it may be different, but it's up to them. Should a person's value to the company be determined by the CEO or the employees in general?

However I find capitalism much better, because the smarter and better you are the more money you get. Isn't it better this way?

What if someone is born rich and just buys a lot of companies, forcing his employees to work long hours at low pay, thus leaving him with a big profit? Do you consider him smarter and better because he can pull this off? Is it better this way?

Some people work more, some less, but both of them would get the same wage, that's fair? No it isn't.

Yes, it is. If wages are equalized and I choose, of my own accord, to work harder than another, how am I being oppressed? I am free not to do so if I so choose.

Communism is unfair as well as (for some people) capitalism might be. However I find capitalism much better, because the smarter and better you are the more money you get. Isn't it better this way?

No. Why should intelligence be the determinant of the amount of money you get?

Maybe you find left-wing all nice, but those who live in post-communist country don't

Funny. The old communist parties tend to have a fair following in the Ex-bloc. Moldova's president is currently a communist. Guess things may have been better under Stalinism then. Huh, whodathunkit?

Funny. The old communist parties tend to have a fair following in the Ex-bloc. Moldova's president is currently a communist. Guess things may have been better under Stalinism then. Huh, whodathunkit?

Wait...


You're defending Stalinist Russia?


....The Fuck?

Wait...


You're defending Stalinist Russia?


....The Fuck?

Nope Im just saying capitalism hasnt made things great like everyone said it would.

Good question. I don't know a great deal about the inner workings of the IWW, but I'd say it's probably much more in line with council communist ideals than unions like the AFL-CIO anyway. Whether they meet all the requirements of their council communists is probably doubtful - since theory and practice are rarely identical - but they probably come close.Ah, I just wondered if you were familiar with the IWW; you seem to know more about council communism than I do, and the Wikipedia article suggested that the IWW might be council communist. Thank you anyway.

Just the general misrepresentation in their propaganda (term used here without pejorative intentions). There is something to be said for the notion that a revolution should have an effective, centralized leadership. I don't think it should, but there's a good argument that can be had there. The problem is that in attacking anarchism, they don't do it on those legitimate grounds. Instead they conflate the Marxist notion of the state - a tool of class rule - with the anarchist notion - closer to a class of leaders who control society through enforcers. When anarchists say they want to abolish the state, they do not mean that they oppose the use of force to expropriate the means of production, or the organized self-defense of the workers councils and associations if the capitalists retaliate; what they object to is centralization, hierarchy, a structure of authority that puts a group of leaders at the top with the power to force everyone else to fall in line.

Again, there's something to be said for centralization. But the problem is that it usually isn't said. Instead we get mindless repetitions of the old straw man that anarchists don't see the need to use force to subdue the capitalists, or minor variations on that general theme.

Far more productive would be to stop seeing this debate through the narrow lens of "the state" (and thus entering into the semantic confusion of two variant conceptions) and begin talking about actual meaningful differences in post-revolutionary organization.

Sorry I didn't respond to this earlier. The problem is that logical extention of Anarchist political philosophy is pacifism- as Engels said "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannon". How can a political philosophy which defines itself as being against authority support the brutality of killing, even if on a scale of worldwide class defence?

I do agree with you that anarchists have been misrepresented by trotskyists (as indeed, have trotskyists by anarchists) and feel we should attempt to debate more seriously on the topic of centralism, but we still cannot ignore the fact that that your political beliefs' logical conclusion should lead you to signing up with the middle-class pacifists.

Another crucial thing to remember is that, in a Marxist understanding of a resistance movement/ revolutionary movement, is that for workers' instruments of power to be truly effective they must be able to act in unison to prevent the reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries from seizing power, as well as overcome problems arising from the material conditions of the time. For this to happen Centralism is required as otherwise the decision making process will be ineffective, uncoordinated and weakened across the board.

How can a political philosophy which defines itself as being against authority support the brutality of killing, even if on a scale of worldwide class defence?

Some anarchists are more violent of others - after all, propaganda of the deed lost anarchism a lot of support after they started killing various politicians. There are indeed pacifist anarchists as well. I fall somewhere in the middle. I believe in self-defence. Arm everyone, but don't use the weapons unless you're attacked. Anarchists believe in protecting the freedom of others - when someone attempts to deny the freedom of someone else, then force is acceptable to prevent that.

Another crucial thing to remember is that, in a Marxist understanding of a resistance movement/ revolutionary movement, is that for workers' instruments of power to be truly effective they must be able to act in unison to prevent the reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries from seizing power, as well as overcome problems arising from the material conditions of the time. For this to happen Centralism is required as otherwise the decision making process will be ineffective, uncoordinated and weakened across the board.

It's true coordination can be helpful, but anarchists believe coordination can be done freely, without authority. Someone issues a request, the responders decide for themselves whether they feel the request will accomplish the goals, and then act. It's debatable whether networked or command structures are more effective. At least one advantage of networked organization is that there is no head to chop off. You can't stop the organization by killing / capturing the leaders. You don't have to worry about the leaders abandoning the revolution or becoming corrupted.

I once was a Marxist through and through, when I was about sixteen or so. And then I realised that all Marxism had ever brought to the world was authoritarianism and state-capitalism. So I became an anarchist. Anarchist-communist, admittedly, but I am strongly opposed to any party-based form of communism, mainly because the concept of a vanguard party creates an elite (the party) who are over everyone else, and then what's the point of having the revolution if we're just replacing one hiereachy with another?
I don't think that anarchism leads necessarily to complete pacifism, DHomme. Anarchists would direct violence at the institutions of the state and capitalism rather than at politicians or capitalists (we've learned from the "propaganda of the deed" crap that gave us our bad name, I think). And, of course, anarchists aren't going to be imposing anything on anyone. For one, the plan would be to get just about everyone onside (apart from the capitalists, who won't come onside anyways). And secondly, after the revolution, those folk who didn't want it can go off and try to run their communities capitalist-like if they want to - they'll just fail now that there's a choice and no-one to coerce anyone.
And, of course, anarchists would argue against that Marxist interpretation of the revoltionary movement. Centralisation led to the failure of a lot of strikes - against the wishes of the workers, but with the acquiescence of the union leadership.

EDIT: And Seeya beats me to it... And said better stuff too. BALGH.

Some anarchists are more violent of others - after all, propaganda of the deed lost anarchism a lot of support after they started killing various politicians. There are indeed pacifist anarchists as well. I fall somewhere in the middle. I believe in self-defence. Arm everyone, but don't use the weapons unless you're attacked. Anarchists believe in protecting the freedom of others - when someone attempts to deny the freedom of someone else, then force is acceptable to prevent that.

But once again, I have to point out that violence is an authoritarian method to achieve a peaceful ends. Anarchism is a belief system that stands against using any authoritarian modes of operation, be they organisational structures, political actions or economic systems. How can an anarchist therefor be revolutionary? That's the point I'm trying to get across.



It's true coordination can be helpful, but anarchists believe coordination can be done freely, without authority. Someone issues a request, the responders decide for themselves whether they feel the request will accomplish the goals, and then act.

A: "Help! our position's under fire from counter revolutionaries, we need support!"

B: "Nah, we don't feel like it."

A: "That's cool, I won't try and make you change your mind. The important thing was that you made the decision for yourself, not the outcome of it. Hope the rest of the revolution goes well"

B: "Safe"

A: "Well I'll probably just go die now. Inabit"

It's debatable whether networked or command structures are more effective. At least one advantage of networked organization is that there is no head to chop off. You can't stop the organization by killing / capturing the leaders.

I see your point here, but must remind you that it is only with democracy that centralism can be effective. That means even if the leaders are killed off, the democratic structures that chose them have not necessarily been destroyed, and can therefor operate to produce a new leadership.

And secondly, after the revolution, those folk who didn't want it can go off and try to run their communities capitalist-like if they want to - they'll just fail now that there's a choice and no-one to coerce anyone.

Wow. You don't really seem to understand that capitalism is inherently violent and expansionary. Why would you allow the capitalists' the freedom to reproduce a violent wage-slave system? Any chance they have to take power once again will be seized. Simple as.


And, of course, anarchists would argue against that Marxist interpretation of the revoltionary movement. Centralisation led to the failure of a lot of strikes - against the wishes of the workers, but with the acquiescence of the union leadership.


That's the beauty of Democratic Centalism. If the centralism has led to the corruption/political degeneration of individuals they can be removed from power by the people. It's a top-down chain of command but a bottom-up democratic system.

Sorry I didn't respond to this earlier. The problem is that logical extention of Anarchist political philosophy is pacifism- as Engels said "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannon". How can a political philosophy which defines itself as being against authority support the brutality of killing, even if on a scale of worldwide class defence?

Because it is "worldwide class defense." Capitalism deprives the workers of freedom; thus they are entitled to defend their freedom through revolutionary action. If the capitalists seek to maintain the institutions that deprive the workers of freedom, they are aggressing against the workers by attempting to deny them freedom; to defend against this aggression is not to impose authority, but rather to deny it.

A slave revolt is not authoritarian but anti-authoritarian, consisting as it does of a large-scale rejection of authoritarian power.

I do agree with you that anarchists have been misrepresented by trotskyists (as indeed, have trotskyists by anarchists) and feel we should attempt to debate more seriously on the topic of centralism, but we still cannot ignore the fact that that your political beliefs' logical conclusion should lead you to signing up with the middle-class pacifists.

No more than the tenet that we should not murder people precludes a right to self-defense.

Another crucial thing to remember is that, in a Marxist understanding of a resistance movement/ revolutionary movement, is that for workers' instruments of power to be truly effective they must be able to act in unison to prevent the reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries from seizing power, as well as overcome problems arising from the material conditions of the time. For this to happen Centralism is required as otherwise the decision making process will be ineffective, uncoordinated and weakened across the board.

The problem is that you associate the lack of a centralized hierarchy with a lack of coordination. This is not necessarily the case. The workers' councils will know that they can achieve more through cooperation than complete independence. They will be perfectly willing to form coalitions, and perhaps even, on a temporary basis, to set up a leadership - under the condition, though, that obedience remains voluntary. This is not a prevention of coordination; to the contrary, the self-interest of the workers' councils, whether under centralized control or not, will lead them to coordinate with each other. Rather, it is a prevention of abuse; the leadership cannot abuse its power if its power becomes dependent on the willing obedience of those it leads.

Of course I considered it... for about 0.6 seconds.

Communism creates enormous free-rider problems; it's antithetical to personal freedom; and people aren't equal, so society need not treat them as such in all cases.

Because it is "worldwide class defense." Capitalism deprives the workers of freedom; thus they are entitled to defend their freedom through revolutionary action. If the capitalists seek to maintain the institutions that deprive the workers of freedom, they are aggressing against the workers by attempting to deny them freedom; to defend against this aggression is not to impose authority, but rather to deny it.

A slave revolt is not authoritarian but anti-authoritarian, consisting as it does of a large-scale rejection of authoritarian power.

I understand what you're saying. However a slave revolt, no matter which way you wanna cut it, will be anti-authoritarian in its motives, aims, political character, but the actions of the reovlutionaries will be be a far cry from libertarian. Killing somebody, denying them of their life against their will, is the most authoritarian act imaginable. You have taken away somebody's right to be alive. Yes, the context of the act is anti-authoritarian, but the act in and of itself is not.



No more than the tenet that we should not murder people precludes a right to self-defense.


If youre against authority in political organisation, economic systems or social relations than how can you say you have the right to exert your authority over another individual, even if they are attempting to exert theirs over you?


The problem is that you associate the lack of a centralized hierarchy with a lack of coordination. This is not necessarily the case. The workers' councils will know that they can achieve more through cooperation than complete independence. They will be perfectly willing to form coalitions, and perhaps even, on a temporary basis, to set up a leadership - under the condition, though, that obedience remains voluntary. This is not a prevention of coordination; to the contrary, the self-interest of the workers' councils, whether under centralized control or not, will lead them to coordinate with each other. Rather, it is a prevention of abuse; the leadership cannot abuse its power if its power becomes dependent on the willing obedience of those it leads.

No I think there is a possiblity of coordination without centralized hierarchy, but I think that the problem with this is that people disagree with each other. Frequently. You won't be able to get all the different councils to come to a consensus on every issue (or even the majority of issues). If there's no central authority which can implelement the democratic decision of the majority, then there won't be any united action from the working-class, which means that they will be unable to achieve anything near their potential. If the councils that didn't agree with the majority decision take action based on the conclusions they came to then their work will insignificant at the best and disruptive at the worst.

If youre against authority in political organisation, economic systems or social relations than how can you say you have the right to exert your authority over another individual, even if they are attempting to exert theirs over you?

I hope you understand how the principle of self-defence works. You're entitled to use force because the other person first attempted to kill you. If the question you're asking is whether the prohibition against the "use of authority" takes precedence over everything else, then the answer is no.


A: "Help! our position's under fire from counter revolutionaries, we need support!"

B: "Nah, we don't feel like it."

A: "That's cool, I won't try and make you change your mind. The important thing was that you made the decision for yourself, not the outcome of it. Hope the rest of the revolution goes well"

B: "Safe"

A: "Well I'll probably just go die now. Inabit"


You write it as if you're assuming A and B don't have similar goals. If B is a bunch of capitalists, you can't trust them to be helping you anyway. If B has a similar goal to A, then they would have good reason to help.

I could provide this bad counter-example of centralized command as well:

A: "Help! our position's under fire from counter revolutionaries, we need support!"

B: "We'd love to, but the general told us to hold our position."

A: "Screw the general, we need help now!"

B: "Your only option is to contact the general. If he likes your idea, he can talk to us. If he doesn't, that's too bad - we're just following orders."

I understand what you're saying. However a slave revolt, no matter which way you wanna cut it, will be anti-authoritarian in its motives, aims, political character, but the actions of the reovlutionaries will be be a far cry from libertarian. Killing somebody, denying them of their life against their will, is the most authoritarian act imaginable. You have taken away somebody's right to be alive. Yes, the context of the act is anti-authoritarian, but the act in and of itself is not.

They are being deprived of life only because they committed aggression. To do otherwise, to refrain from violence because violence is allegedly authoritarian, would not be "anti-authoritarian" but rather pro-authoritarian, as it amounts to passivity in the face of oppression. Violence may be authoritarian when viewed out of context, but since anarchists would only exercise it to the degree necessary to prevent authoritarianism, its function in this case is not authoritarian but rather anti-authoritarian. In the same way, a philosophy advocating the preservation of life can legitimize self-defense by arguing that life is better preserved by defense against those who would kill people than by a slavish adherence to non-violence when faced by such threats.

If youre against authority in political organisation, economic systems or social relations than how can you say you have the right to exert your authority over another individual, even if they are attempting to exert theirs over you?

For the same reason I can oppose murder without opposing violence in self-defense. The function (and that is the essential characteristic) of violent self-defense in this case is not to suppress freedom but to uphold it.

No I think there is a possiblity of coordination without centralized hierarchy, but I think that the problem with this is that people disagree with each other. Frequently. You won't be able to get all the different councils to come to a consensus on every issue (or even the majority of issues). If there's no central authority which can implelement the democratic decision of the majority, then there won't be any united action from the working-class, which means that they will be unable to achieve anything near their potential. If the councils that didn't agree with the majority decision take action based on the conclusions they came to then their work will insignificant at the best and disruptive at the worst.

I understand the problem. The point, though, is that there is a very strong tendency towards coordination that will offset it.

Let's consider a workers' council that does what you suggest would happen, and disagrees with the opinion of the majority. Since the system operates on a basis of free association, it can do one of two things: it can disassociate itself from the others and go on its own, or it can go with the decision with which it disagrees. The first option is extremely unwise; any activity it undertakes alone will be almost certain of failure, its unwillingness to cooperate with the others will endanger it by reducing its capacity to call on outside aid, and it will be perfectly aware that the revolution, which it knows is its only hope of success, will be threatened by a lack of coordination. The second option also carries a cost, the cost of implementing a decision with which the council disagrees, but compared to the alternative, this cost is minor.

But let's go with your assumption, and assume that the workers' council takes the first option. Now the revolutionary leadership has a choice. It can suppress this disobedience, or it can tolerate it. The costs of choosing to suppress the disobedience are enormous. It weakens working-class solidarity by making the workers fear their leaders; after all, they might think to themselves, if it happened to them, perhaps it can happen to us as well. It wastes resources by using them to fight revolutionary workers instead of reactionary forces. It reduces the appeal of the revolution by letting it be portrayed as authoritarian and brutal. Giving the leadership this power runs the risk that they may become oppressive, and abuse it. Lastly, such suppression is immoral; what right does the leadership have to demand obedience? Did the rebellious workers' council interfere with the right of the other workers to freedom? No, they merely exercised their own.

You might say that permitting the workers' council to disassociate will set a bad precedent. I don't think so. If the workers' council totally fails in its endeavours, as seems likely by its rejection of coordination, that will only show the others the dangers of non-coordination. If it succeeds magnificentally, then there is something wrong with the sort of coordination that is going on, and any precedent set by the workers' council will not be a good one but rather a bad one.

Ultimately the idea that centralization is necessary meets its logical end in the conclusion that the workers are not smart enough to think for themselves. If they indeed are, then they can be trusted to coordinate when necessary, and to not coordinate when it is not necessary. The only reason compulsion would be necessary is if the workers are not capable of making this decision for themselves, and need someone supposedly wiser than them to make the decision for them. That is an elitist notion, one that underestimates the workers and overestimates the capability of leadership.

I put it down as "when I was young", as in eight, and back then I was as naive, idealistic and lefty as Trotsy. Now I'm twelve, and a libertarian conservative who sings the Soviet national anthem or the Panzerlied depending on who I'm trying to outrage.

Wow. You don't really seem to understand that capitalism is inherently violent and expansionary. Why would you allow the capitalists' the freedom to reproduce a violent wage-slave system? Any chance they have to take power once again will be seized. Simple as.
Not really. The only way capitalism survives is by propping itself up using the mechanisms of the state, and the acquiescence of the people. After the revolution, there will be no mechanisms of the state to prop it up, and the vast majority of people won't go along with the state. Any attempt by capitalism to reassert itself by force will be met by opposition from militias. So they have no chance, and gradually these 'anarcho'-capitalists will fade away.

It relies too much on an optimistic view of human nature.

I understand the dream of it, and I could see how it would work. But as someone based in reality I know that with emotions such as greed hatrad and people having to be better than another, I know it would never work.

Yes, it is. If wages are equalized and I choose, of my own accord, to work harder than another, how am I being oppressed? I am free not to do so if I so choose.

We'll you're not exacly oppressed. But you're not keeping the fruits of your labour. There is no direct reward or incentive for inicitive or extra work. In such an economy or society stagnation and inefficency will destroy everything. If poor people are really a concern you'd want to encourage productivity and efficency so everyone can benefit from cheaper goods, ultamatly it doesn't matter if your "poor" in comparisson to some other individual as long as your quality of life is high. And nothing raises the quality of life like access to a wide choice of cheaper goods.


No. Why should intelligence be the determinant of the amount of money you get?

Intelligence is a good quality yes?

Well how can we make people want to aspire to use this good quality...uh by rewarding it?

Because it is "worldwide class defense." Capitalism deprives the workers of freedom; thus they are entitled to defend their freedom through revolutionary action. If the capitalists seek to maintain the institutions that deprive the workers of freedom, they are aggressing against the workers by attempting to deny them freedom; to defend against this aggression is not to impose authority, but rather to deny it.
.

Where is freedom deprived. The individual having the freedom to voluntarily work for whoever they want for whatever price they can get is the only way freedom is guarenteed.


A slave revolt is not authoritarian but anti-authoritarian, consisting as it does of a large-scale rejection of authoritarian power.
.

Hmm you know slaves don't work via consent on a voluntary basis. In fact socialism/communism is more like slavery in which a 3rd party trys to empose who you can work for and for how much with tyranny of the majority instead of individual consent between two individuals.



The problem is that you associate the lack of a centralized hierarchy with a lack of coordination. This is not necessarily the case. The workers' councils will know that they can achieve more through cooperation than complete independence. They will be perfectly willing to form coalitions, and perhaps even, on a temporary basis, to set up a leadership - under the condition, though, that obedience remains voluntary. This is not a prevention of coordination; to the contrary, the self-interest of the workers' councils, whether under centralized control or not, will lead them to coordinate with each other. Rather, it is a prevention of abuse; the leadership cannot abuse its power if its power becomes dependent on the willing obedience of those it leads.

Cannot abuse its power!!? It seeks to destroy all property rights and make every individual entirely dependent on following the community and what they dictate is best for everyone.
Even in theory its an abuse of individual freedoms and choice. Let alone when its actually put into practice.

Not really. The only way capitalism survives is by propping itself up using the mechanisms of the state, and the acquiescence of the people. After the revolution, there will be no mechanisms of the state to prop it up, and the vast majority of people won't go along with the state. Any attempt by capitalism to reassert itself by force will be met by opposition from militias. So they have no chance, and gradually these 'anarcho'-capitalists will fade away.

Are these the same ANARCHO-capitalists who use the state to make sure that capitalism "survives" :headbang:

Try and atleast understand before you criticise. Try watching the first episode mabey.http://miltonfriedman.blogspot.com/

If the workers control the means of production, who decides how those means are used? The workers? What if they disagree? Do they vote? And what happens to the losing wokers? Do they now have no say at all with regard to production?

Isn't that necessarily alienation from production?

Not really. The only way capitalism survives is by propping itself up using the mechanisms of the state, and the acquiescence of the people. After the revolution, there will be no mechanisms of the state to prop it up, and the vast majority of people won't go along with the state. Any attempt by capitalism to reassert itself by force will be met by opposition from militias. So they have no chance, and gradually these 'anarcho'-capitalists will fade away.
But capitalism occurs naturally in the absence of the state. It's just voluntary exchange.

Where is freedom deprived. The individual having the freedom to voluntarily work for whoever they want for whatever price they can get is the only way freedom is guarenteed.

What if the individual doesn't want to work under anyone? If you had a nation where there were two people who owned all the capital, so you had a choice of two companies to work for. Both companies had long hours at starvation wages. A capitalist would call this freedom. I would not. The choice between the lesser of many evils is still evil.

It would only be freedom if the means of production were controlled democratically. If the minority is afraid of the power of the majority, then they're free to take their portion of the capital and start their own independent, democratic company.

If the employees could elect their management, would you say they have more or less freedom than employees who could not elect their management?

Never. Ever. Not even once. Not even while intoxicated. I sort of switched from conservativism to libertarianism, but only because I realized I wasn't the same kind of conservative as a bunch of other people. Obviously, this doesn't count.

That said, I am about as far from communism as one can get. I consider most "capitalists" to be just a bunch of Marxists in varying states of denial, and do not want to be associated in any way shape or form with their crypto-collectivist political leanings. Hopefully one day I will be able to homestead the moon or Mars or somewhere and have my own government with a constitution that will so utterly enshrine private property rights as to be impervious to even the most tortured revision. Until then, I will just have to horrify the unwashed with my far-right economics (which isn't so bad).

If the minority is afraid of the power of the majority, then they're free to take their portion of the capital and start their own independent, democratic company.
You just created capitalism. That's exactly how capitalism works.

We'll you're not exacly oppressed. But you're not keeping the fruits of your labour.

Yes, you are. In that case, the "fruits" of your labor are not higher wages; they are whatever else is motivating you to work harder.

There is no direct reward or incentive for inicitive or extra work.

You mean, there is no additional material incentive, in the form of a higher salary, for extra work.

In such an economy or society stagnation and inefficency will destroy everything.

I'm starting to doubt whether that should stop us. But leaving that question aside, a communist society would consciously attempt to maximize the pleasure of labor to the point where this would not be a problem. In traditional Marxist thought, the communist stage would only be achieved when the economy was developed sufficiently to permit precisely this; until then, rewards would be based on labor.

If poor people are really a concern you'd want to encourage productivity and efficency so everyone can benefit from cheaper goods,

Everyone can benefit from work they actually enjoy, too, rather than work they are pressured to do by economic circumstances.

ultamatly it doesn't matter if your "poor" in comparisson to some other individual as long as your quality of life is high. And nothing raises the quality of life like access to a wide choice of cheaper goods.

"Quality of life" has always been relative to a given society. If I am at the bottom of the social scale, I am oppressed whatever my supposed "quality of life" is; I may have access to a dozen cheap commodities, but because a society takes shape in large part according to its material abundance, I will still be highly deprived.

In a society without refrigerators, the poor can go without refrigerators. In a society where nine-tenths of the population has refrigerators, they cannot do so so easily; society will have adjusted to expect refrigerators, and they will be incapable of fulfilling that expectation.

Intelligence is a good quality yes?

Maybe. Certainly it is not merit-worthy in and of itself.

Well how can we make people want to aspire to use this good quality...uh by rewarding it?

Use of intellect is already rewarded naturally. And the argument advanced was not that we should provide an incentive; rather, it was that we should pay some people more simply because they are smarter.

Where is freedom deprived. The individual having the freedom to voluntarily work for whoever they want for whatever price they can get is the only way freedom is guarenteed.

Hmm you know slaves don't work via consent on a voluntary basis.

The fact that it is "voluntary" merely means, assuming perfect knowledge, that the worker is best off taking that option; it does not mean that she is as well off as she should be. This is hardly a significant feature in terms of freedom; the slave-owner could boast the same for his slaves. They, too, had a choice - attempt to run away, and possibly be punished as a result, or remain enslaved. Their decision to do the latter is perfectly "voluntary," by the capitalist definition; after all, if the worker who works for the capitalist so as not to starve is working voluntarily, so is the slave who works for her owner so as not to be punished.

In fact socialism/communism is more like slavery in which a 3rd party trys to empose who you can work for and for how much with tyranny of the majority instead of individual consent between two individuals.

Except that communism is perfectly consistent with voluntary labor, and that quantities of wealth garnered under capitalism are not somehow the inevitable result of free association, but rather the product of a pre-existing distribution of property. Free exchange is impossible unless there is something to exchange.

Cannot abuse its power!!?

Yes, the leadership of a revolutionary coalition of workers' councils cannot abuse its power when adherence to it is perfectly voluntary. This is not difficult to see; anyone who doesn't like it can leave, and soon there would be no more coalition.

Of course, you really weren't talking about that; you completely ignored the context of what I said in order to make your point.

It seeks to destroy all property rights

Over the means of production, yes.

and make every individual entirely dependent on following the community and what they dictate is best for everyone.

No, they are still allowed the opportunity to make individual choices for themselves. Just as in capitalism, they can work where they want and buy/take what they want. However, instead of the access to and the nature of these choices being controlled by capitalist economic circumstances, they are controlled democratically, thus ensuring that everyone's needs are met instead of merely those of a wealth few.

That said, I am about as far from communism as one can get. I consider most "capitalists" to be just a bunch of Marxists in varying states of denial, and do not want to be associated in any way shape or form with their crypto-collectivist political leanings. Hopefully one day I will be able to homestead the moon or Mars or somewhere and have my own government with a constitution that will so utterly enshrine private property rights as to be impervious to even the most tortured revision. Until then, I will just have to horrify the unwashed with my far-right economics (which isn't so bad).Of course, you'd have to rely on other people's willingness to accept that homesteading the moon gives you the right to it, which is doubtful.

Yes.

"Grrrr....Must....crush..capitalism.....grrrr....."

[/Simpsons]

There's a Simpsons quote for everything!

Are these the same ANARCHO-capitalists who use the state to make sure that capitalism "survives" :headbang:

Try and atleast understand before you criticise. Try watching the first episode mabey.http://miltonfriedman.blogspot.com/

Emmm, 'anarcho'-capitalists are opposed to the state. Regular capitalists use the state... Perhaps I should have been clearer. The 'anarcho'-capitalists are those who would set up capitalist communities after the revolution, when there are no state institutions to protect their coercion - that's why it will fail.

@Llewdor, capitalism isn't the concept of voluntary exchange, but rather the concept of a person having property rights over the means of production - the individualist anarchists believed in a free market (as in free exchange of goods) but were anti-capitalist. I have no problem with voluntary exchange like that (although I prefer a different mode of organisation).

What if the individual doesn't want to work under anyone? If you had a nation where there were two people who owned all the capital, so you had a choice of two companies to work for. Both companies had long hours at starvation wages. A capitalist would call this freedom. I would not. The choice between the lesser of many evils is still evil.


You underestimate the role of competition. Companys need workers in order to create any form of profit. Now you outline a situation where somehow 2 companys seem to control every single imaginable job in the world with no 3rd company to maintain competition (and capitalism works best with more competition). Even in this situation the rival companys will have to keep a standard of wages that is more attractive to the worker than what the company offers (particuarly the most skilled labour who will make more money, therefore be worth paying more to attract them in the first place).

Secoundly two people would never own all the capital. If they did than who could they sell their product to? No one. So prices would fall and wages would have to rise and wealth will naturally redistribute itself.


It would only be freedom if the means of production were controlled democratically. If the minority is afraid of the power of the majority, then they're free to take their portion of the capital and start their own independent, democratic company.


Can they really start their own company or do they have to do so under the conditions that the state/society imposes giving whatever profits they make to less efficient companys (democratic or not).


If the employees could elect their management, would you say they have more or less freedom than employees who could not elect their management?

Do I have less freedom if I can't elect who my garbageman is? As long as the employees can freely choose who they work for including the management they work for, than in essence market democracy will bring workers to the better managers while people will avoid working for bad management.





Yes, you are. In that case, the "fruits" of your labor are not higher wages; they are whatever else is motivating you to work harder.


Okay, but under capitalism you are rewarded for your extra work and heck you can be motivated by social pressure or whatever motivates you to work as well.


You mean, there is no additional material incentive, in the form of a higher salary, for extra work.

Sorry yes, no material incentive.


I'm starting to doubt whether that should stop us. But leaving that question aside, a communist society would consciously attempt to maximize the pleasure of labor to the point where this would not be a problem. In traditional Marxist thought, the communist stage would only be achieved when the economy was developed sufficiently to permit precisely this; until then, rewards would be based on labor.


And now these rewards would be taken away again right? Wouldn't people see through this and work less straight away.

And how do we maximise the pleasure of cleaning sewers or the hundreds of other less than pleasent jobs (post material incentives)


Everyone can benefit from work they actually enjoy, too, rather than work they are pressured to do by economic circumstances.


Of course. This is why in capitalism more people are motivated to use their opportunities in order to gain the skills neccessary to be employed in the market doing a job they enjoy.


"Quality of life" has always been relative to a given society. If I am at the bottom of the social scale, I am oppressed whatever my supposed "quality of life" is; I may have access to a dozen cheap commodities, but because a society takes shape in large part according to its material abundance, I will still be highly deprived.


Person X happens to have food, shelter and a colour TV
Person Y has worse quality food and shelter and couldn't even imagine having a basic TV but perhaps he has a can opener.
However most people in person X's nation are far richer than him infact he's even labled as being in relative poverty having 2 or 3 T.V's is not uncommon. Where as in person Y's country having something as basic as a can opener is a sign of wealth and he has a higher standard of living than most people in his nation.

That said "poor" people today have cars, T.V's, computers and access to a market where they can buy such goods that only the redicliously wealthy had just decades ago.

Not to mention that in capitalism the poor have the opportunity to work and change their circumstances as well.


In a society without refrigerators, the poor can go without refrigerators. In a society where nine-tenths of the population has refrigerators, they cannot do so so easily; society will have adjusted to expect refrigerators, and they will be incapable of fulfilling that expectation.


In a society where few can afford refrigerators we learn to accept that we should function without them. Where a mass market with efficient production makes things like cars, vaccum cleaners and other time saving devices avalible for everyone it becomes silly to clean by hand. Atleast in the society where nine tenths of people have refrigerators than I have more opportunity to become a fridge owner.


Maybe. Certainly it is not merit-worthy in and of itself.


True. Having a the intelligence of Einstein is useless unless you can do something with it that someone else values.


Use of intellect is already rewarded naturally. And the argument advanced was not that we should provide an incentive; rather, it was that we should pay some people more simply because they are smarter.


wow you really need that explained. The smarter someone is at doing something the better or quicker they can do it. If you want a house built you want smart builders. You want a lawyer who knows more about the law. You want to have inventors and designers who can make better products that will cost less to make.

People arn't just born smart or dumb. We have education, we study we revise we do reasearch. The more we work the better we get.

People get smarter by working/studying harder, we want smart people because they do whatever job we need done better. Paying them more is the best way to get smart people do do what we want them to do. In turn this makes more people want to be smart.



The fact that it is "voluntary" merely means, assuming perfect knowledge, that the worker is best off taking that option; it does not mean that she is as well off as she should be. This is hardly a significant feature in terms of freedom; the slave-owner could boast the same for his slaves. They, too, had a choice - attempt to run away, and possibly be punished as a result, or remain enslaved. Their decision to do the latter is perfectly "voluntary," by the capitalist definition; after all, if the worker who works for the capitalist so as not to starve is working voluntarily, so is the slave who works for her owner so as not to be punished.


The slave hasn't got the freedom to work for who they want and doesn't have freedom of movement or association. Those are two pretty big things.

And yes in capitalism sometimes you have to work in jobs you don't particuarly like because you value the money you will get more. But in which case you still have options like looking for better work elsewhere or taking night school classes to try to improve your sitation etc..


Except that communism is perfectly consistent with voluntary labor, and that quantities of wealth garnered under capitalism are not somehow the inevitable result of free association, but rather the product of a pre-existing distribution of property. Free exchange is impossible unless there is something to exchange.


Thats why property rights and currency are so important. The ensure that free exchange is possible and easy. Besides its not voluntary exchange between two individuals under communsim, as whatever agreeded fee both parties decide on will be redistributed/collectivised for everyone else to enjoy.


Yes, the leadership of a revolutionary coalition of workers' councils cannot abuse its power when adherence to it is perfectly voluntary. This is not difficult to see; anyone who doesn't like it can leave, and soon there would be no more coalition.

[QUOTE=Soheran;11622854]
No, they are still allowed the opportunity to make individual choices for themselves. Just as in capitalism, they can work where they want and buy/take what they want. However, instead of the access to and the nature of these choices being controlled by capitalist economic circumstances, they are controlled democratically, .

Firstly can they really work where they want? What if many people decided to be teachers or nurses, more so than whats needed. Will they be allowed to work a job that society doesn't demand right now or will they be told to work a job society that needs more right now.

Secoundly they cannot work where they want for an agreeded fee between two consenting individuals.

And can you really buy/take what you want? I may want a private jet but what if everyone else wants one as well, clearly there will never be enough private jets to cater to everyones needs.


thus ensuring that everyone's needs are met instead of merely those of a wealth few
.

While pure capitalist economys may not do it well even the most right leaning mixed economy ensures that most peoples "needs" are met and the opportunity for their unique wants can be catered for as well.

Emmm, 'anarcho'-capitalists are opposed to the state. Regular capitalists use the state... Perhaps I should have been clearer. The 'anarcho'-capitalists are those who would set up capitalist communities after the revolution, when there are no state institutions to protect their coercion - that's why it will fail.
).
Capitalism doesn't allow force or coercion of any kind only the government can do that. All deals have to be accepted by both parties and assumed to be for mutual benefit.


@Llewdor, capitalism isn't the concept of voluntary exchange, but rather the concept of a person having property rights over the means of production - the individualist anarchists believed in a free market (as in free exchange of goods) but were anti-capitalist. I have no problem with voluntary exchange like that (although I prefer a different mode of organisation).

With property rights comes the right to voluntary exchange goods. The individualist anarchists were Libertarians and Anarcho Capitalists both very capitalist..

Of course, you'd have to rely on other people's willingness to accept that homesteading the moon gives you the right to it, which is doubtful.

Which is why I'd have to get weapons. Lots and lots of weapons. People become a lot less willing to bug you and initiate force against you when you can turn their surroundings into a crater, I've noticed. I guess I'll have a Counter-Revolutionary Guard, too, in order to keep the various governments from moving in and declaring eminent domain on what I've been working on. Then we evil capitalists can enjoy the fruits of our labors unmollested, and the commies can look up every night and see a reminder of free-market prosperity. Perfect. :D

"Grrrr....Must....crush..capitalism.....grrrr....."

[/Simpsons]

There's a Simpsons quote for everything!

"Russian" diplomat: "The Soviet Union will offer amnesty to your wayward vessel."

US diplomat: "Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up."

"Russian" diplomat: "Niet! That's what we wanted you to think!"

*Pushes button. Soviet Union mode.*

"Soviet Union" diplomat: "Mwahahahahaha!"

If the minority is afraid of the power of the majority, then they're free to take their portion of the capital and start their own independent, democratic company.
You just created capitalism. That's exactly how capitalism works.

The difference is that companies under capitalism usually aren't democratic. Well, capitalist companies are "democratic" in the sense that all the shareholders vote, whoever has the most shares get the most votes, and you don't have to be working at the company to get a vote. The democracy anarcho-syndicalists want is one person, one vote, and you have to be an employee at the company to get a vote.

You underestimate the role of competition. Companys need workers in order to create any form of profit. Now you outline a situation where somehow 2 companys seem to control every single imaginable job in the world with no 3rd company to maintain competition (and capitalism works best with more competition). Even in this situation the rival companys will have to keep a standard of wages that is more attractive to the worker than what the company offers (particuarly the most skilled labour who will make more money, therefore be worth paying more to attract them in the first place).

So what if the two (or three or whatever number you want) owners both decide they're happy enough being as rich as they are and continue to offer their current wages and working conditions, without trying to outcompete the other? Nobody is forcing them to compete. In fact, what if one of them one day tries lowering wages in order to try to squeeze extra profit out of the employees. Then the other guy sees this and decides he no longer has to offer the same wages either and decides to lower his as well. The result is a race to the bottom.

Secoundly two people would never own all the capital. If they did than who could they sell their product to?

They just sell to their employees. They pay them some money, then earn it all back. Maybe even driving their employees deeper into debt, so they can keep them working hard for as long as possible.

Can they really start their own company or do they have to do so under the conditions that the state/society imposes giving whatever profits they make to less efficient companys (democratic or not).

Yes, they can really start their own company. Some anti-capitalists would call for redistributing profits to other companies, but I would not. I consider it a sign that this company is doing something right and should grow to hire more employees. The difference between this and capitalism is how the revenues are distributed inside the company - democratically rather than in an authoritarian manner.

Do I have less freedom if I can't elect who my garbageman is? As long as the employees can freely choose who they work for including the management they work for, than in essence market democracy will bring workers to the better managers while people will avoid working for bad management.

Yes, you do have less freedom if you can't elect your garbageman, but the post of garbageman is a lot less able to restrict your freedom than the post of CEO. Let's say all the nations in the world were dictatorships. Would you say it's freedom as long as people were free to move between countries? You could argue that the competition for citizens will "naturally" result in better dictators in all the countries. But why have dictators at all?

Capitalism doesn't allow force or coercion of any kind only the government can do that. All deals have to be accepted by both parties and assumed to be for mutual benefit.
Two problems. One, because the capitalists own everything, the worker has to choose between capitalists who are out to exploit him. As Rousseau said, you can't freely contract yourself into slavery.

With property rights comes the right to voluntary exchange goods. The individualist anarchists were Libertarians and Anarcho Capitalists both very capitalist..
The individualist anarchists were opposed to capitalism, although they supported a market system - only people who worked an asset (like a factory or land) were allowed to profit from it, not absentee landlords or fat-cat capitalists. Anarcho-capitalists aren't anarchists, but rather people who want their own tiny statelets.

Okay, but under capitalism you are rewarded for your extra work and heck you can be motivated by social pressure or whatever motivates you to work as well.

I don't particularly want people to be motivated by social pressure. That is not really any more voluntary. I would rather people work of their own accord, because they desire to do so.

Sorry yes, no material incentive.

In the form of a higher salary.

And now these rewards would be taken away again right? Wouldn't people see through this and work less straight away.

See through what?

And how do we maximise the pleasure of cleaning sewers or the hundreds of other less than pleasent jobs (post material incentives)

We abolish the need for them entirely. Or we robotize them. Or if absolutely necessary, we permit material incentives for the jobs that no one is willing to take voluntarily.

Of course. This is why in capitalism more people are motivated to use their opportunities in order to gain the skills neccessary to be employed in the market doing a job they enjoy.

So if "doing a job they enjoy" is possible under capitalism, why shouldn't it be possible under communism, where unlike under capitalism, social efforts would be focused on securing such benefits?

Person X happens to have food, shelter and a colour TV
Person Y has worse quality food and shelter and couldn't even imagine having a basic TV but perhaps he has a can opener.
However most people in person X's nation are far richer than him infact he's even labled as being in relative poverty having 2 or 3 T.V's is not uncommon. Where as in person Y's country having something as basic as a can opener is a sign of wealth and he has a higher standard of living than most people in his nation.

And Person Y undoubtedly lives in a society that has an economy and culture suitable for living at his living standard, while Person Z does not, and is thus left behind.

Paying attention only to the commodities owned is an awful way of measuring poverty.

That said "poor" people today have cars, T.V's, computers and access to a market where they can buy such goods that only the redicliously wealthy had just decades ago.

Yet a large percentage of them are food insecure, lack health insurance, work overwhelmingly long hours, etc. And they live in a society built around those with more money than them.

Not to mention that in capitalism the poor have the opportunity to work and change their circumstances as well.

That is, they can work even harder and sacrifice even more, and perhaps they will be tossed some more by those who control the means of production.

In a society where few can afford refrigerators we learn to accept that we should function without them.

It isn't a question of "should." We have a society where we can function without them. Food is easily available that does not require refrigeration. Our jobs and lifestyles take into account the fact that we do not possess refrigerators. In a society where almost everyone has refrigerators, that is not the case; refrigerators become a necessity.

Where a mass market with efficient production makes things like cars, vaccum cleaners and other time saving devices avalible for everyone it becomes silly to clean by hand. Atleast in the society where nine tenths of people have refrigerators than I have more opportunity to become a fridge owner.

Yes, but if I lack a refrigerator in a society where almost everyone else has refrigerators, I suffer more from that lack than if I lack a refrigerator in a society where no one has refrigerators. That is why measures of relative poverty are important.

True. Having a the intelligence of Einstein is useless unless you can do something with it that someone else values.

No, that doesn't make it merit-worthy either.

wow you really need that explained. The smarter someone is at doing something the better or quicker they can do it. If you want a house built you want smart builders. You want a lawyer who knows more about the law. You want to have inventors and designers who can make better products that will cost less to make.

Yes, they are more useful. They are not more merit-worthy (necessarily).

People arn't just born smart or dumb. We have education, we study we revise we do reasearch. The more we work the better we get.

Yet there are obvious inequalities in natural talent, in opportunities, etc.

People get smarter by working/studying harder, we want smart people because they do whatever job we need done better. Paying them more is the best way to get smart people do do what we want them to do. In turn this makes more people want to be smart.

I do not believe the aim of a decent society should be getting people to do what we want them to do. Freedom trumps efficiency any day.

The slave hasn't got the freedom to work for who they want and doesn't have freedom of movement or association. Those are two pretty big things.

Those freedoms are worthless unless they are useful - that is, unless they actually allow me to improve my situation. Being able to choose between being exploited in two different ways is hardly a useful choice.

And yes in capitalism sometimes you have to work in jobs you don't particuarly like because you value the money you will get more. But in which case you still have options like looking for better work elsewhere or taking night school classes to try to improve your sitation etc..

Yes, and the slave has the option of running away. But so what? Why should we tolerate it at all? Why does the fact that there are difficult and possibly futile ways out excuse the situation?

Thats why property rights and currency are so important. The ensure that free exchange is possible and easy.

You totally missed the point. I suggest you read it again.

Besides its not voluntary exchange between two individuals under communsim, as whatever agreeded fee both parties decide on will be redistributed/collectivised for everyone else to enjoy.

Again, "free exchange" of property presupposes an already-existing distribution of property. To say that communism suppresses voluntary exchange misses the point; the problem is not with exchange, it is with distribution. If the distribution is not just, the exchange does not make it so. If the distribution is such that my only options are "starve" or "be exploited," the distribution is not just, and the exchange is also not just.

I only have the right to exchange what I own. Communism suppresses ownership of certain kinds of property; it only suppresses exchange as far as it does so.

Firstly can they really work where they want? What if many people decided to be teachers or nurses, more so than whats needed. Will they be allowed to work a job that society doesn't demand right now or will they be told to work a job society that needs more right now.

I said already that they would enjoy voluntary labor.

Secoundly they cannot work where they want for an agreeded fee between two consenting individuals.

A "fee" of what?

And can you really buy/take what you want? I may want a private jet but what if everyone else wants one as well, clearly there will never be enough private jets to cater to everyones needs.

There's no reason there couldn't be a market in scarce commodities.

While pure capitalist economys may not do it well even the most right leaning mixed economy ensures that most peoples "needs" are met and the opportunity for their unique wants can be catered for as well.

I doubt it. In any capitalist society the workers remain dependent on the owners of the means of production, and this dependence, in general, leads to exploitation and a loss of freedom.

Two problems. One, because the capitalists own everything, the worker has to choose between capitalists who are out to exploit him. As Rousseau said, you can't freely contract yourself into slavery.
.

How can they exploit you when they know should your skills be valued more by another individual you would quit and work elsewhere.


The individualist anarchists were opposed to capitalism, although they supported a market system - only people who worked an asset (like a factory or land) were allowed to profit from it, not absentee landlords or fat-cat capitalists. Anarcho-capitalists aren't anarchists, but rather people who want their own tiny statelets.

Anarcho capitalists actually simply want a seperation of the state and the economy it works on large and small scale (not that I am one). Essentially they want maximum economic freedom this would include making money from property.

---

The difference is that companies under capitalism usually aren't democratic. Well, capitalist companies are "democratic" in the sense that all the shareholders vote, whoever has the most shares get the most votes, and you don't have to be working at the company to get a vote. The democracy anarcho-syndicalists want is one person, one vote, and you have to be an employee at the company to get a vote.
?

Consumers also have a vote. Quite a lot of people buy products for a number of reasons, either it does less damage to the enviroment, it doesn't test on animals or is nicer to its workers etc


So what if the two (or three or whatever number you want) owners both decide they're happy enough being as rich as they are and continue to offer their current wages and working conditions, without trying to outcompete the other? Nobody is forcing them to compete. In fact, what if one of them one day tries lowering wages in order to try to squeeze extra profit out of the employees. Then the other guy sees this and decides he no longer has to offer the same wages either and decides to lower his as well. The result is a race to the bottom.


Quite simple, what shareholders will let their company decide hey we've made enough money. And even if such an occurance should happen and 2/3 competators stop competing a new company is very likely to set up (seeing the potential profit) will pay their workers more than the rivals and thus steal away the best workforce. And force the rivals to respond similarly.


Yes, they can really start their own company. Some anti-capitalists would call for redistributing profits to other companies, but I would not. I consider it a sign that this company is doing something right and should grow to hire more employees. The difference between this and capitalism is how the revenues are distributed inside the company - democratically rather than in an authoritarian manner.


I really don't get this. Is it authortarian to hire two maids and tell them which parts of my house I want cleaned? And is it really democratic for the two maids to then decide I'm not a good boss?


Yes, you do have less freedom if you can't elect your garbageman, but the post of garbageman is a lot less able to restrict your freedom than the post of CEO. Let's say all the nations in the world were dictatorships. Would you say it's freedom as long as people were free to move between countries? You could argue that the competition for citizens will "naturally" result in better dictators in all the countries. But why have dictators at all?

The bottom line is simply that shareholders want to make money. If they thought that the regular worker could make decisions for themselves that would make the company the most profit it would be done right now. So why have someone with more experiance and knowledge decide who should do what and when? Well because it provides the market with a better quality good for a cheaper price. And that raises the quality of life for everyone.

---

I don't particularly want people to be motivated by social pressure. That is not really any more voluntary. I would rather people work of their own accord, because they desire to do so.
.

So would I. And I'm sure some would. But you will always get more of a responce with incentive and reward. And harder work leads to better inventions and increased productivity. This is the reason we live in such hi-tech societys and even the poor have access to techknology that the ultra rich even 100 years ago would have marvaled at.


In the form of a higher salary.
.

Higher salary is one of the best ways to get people to want to do/train to do that job.


See through what?
.
What ever material incentive would exist to keep the economy moving inicially would be redistributed once the economy is stable right. Won't people see that its not in their direct interest to amass these material incentives. Thus they wouldn't be very good incentives.


We abolish the need for them entirely. Or we robotize them. Or if absolutely necessary, we permit material incentives for the jobs that no one is willing to take voluntarily.
.

I'm sure its not exacly fun maintaining robots all day you might need to pay people to watch them ;) And what if their is scarcity of resources and people democratically don't want to give extra to others.


So if "doing a job they enjoy" is possible under capitalism, why shouldn't it be possible under communism, where unlike under capitalism, social efforts would be focused on securing such benefits?
.

I'm sure doing a job you enjoy is possible under communism as well. But literally every job contains aspects we don't like but ultimatly the money keep us doing it.
I could say I enjoyed school but quite often I had too much work to do and it was annoying (and if I didn't in the long run benefit from doing the work I wouldn't have done it).
The same is true with a job, you may enjoy the job as a whole but you do the little bits you don't like to get the pay cheack at the end of the month. Under communism where is the drive to work hard throughout, particuarly in the aspects we don't like doing.


And Person Y undoubtedly lives in a society that has an economy and culture suitable for living at his living standard, while Person Z does not, and is thus left behind.

Paying attention only to the commodities owned is an awful way of measuring poverty.

.

Labeling someone with a house a car and a nice T.V as being in povery is also an awful way of measuring poverty. Frankly its an insult to the people who are really poor and can barely afford to live.

Why should other peoples success make you a failure.


Yet a large percentage of them are food insecure, lack health insurance, work overwhelmingly long hours, etc. And they live in a society built around those with more money than them.
.

Perhaps. But if they have access to a local supermarket and they balence their budget they should never go hungry. And I'd hope being in a situation like that would give you determination and drive to want to develop some skills of somekind to inprove your situation.



That is, they can work even harder and sacrifice even more, and perhaps they will be tossed some more by those who control the means of production.
.

Workers, or anyone, are free to own the means of production in a free market the combined total US wages paid to workers is going to be more than that of the capitalization of all the companies - they can purchase the 'means of production' right now... the fact they haven't shows that they have other more valued priorities.


It isn't a question of "should." We have a society where we can function without them. Food is easily available that does not require refrigeration. Our jobs and lifestyles take into account the fact that we do not possess refrigerators. In a society where almost everyone has refrigerators, that is not the case; refrigerators become a necessity.
.

They are a necessity if you desire a slightly higher quality of life that is true. And really what percentage of people in the US or British society don't have refrigerators? Do we really want to destroy an efficient system for the benefit of those 2/3% that feel temporarily left out?


Yes, but if I lack a refrigerator in a society where almost everyone else has refrigerators, I suffer more from that lack than if I lack a refrigerator in a society where no one has refrigerators. That is why measures of relative poverty are important.
.

Do I also suffer from not having a plasma TV, the new dyson vaccum cleaner or a convertable sports car. Or do I benefit more from having a basic tv and vaccum than living in a world without them.


No, that doesn't make it merit-worthy either.
.
It makes it merit worthy enough for an individual to offer me something he ownes in exchange for my time (which no one else can determine as value is subjective)


Yes, they are more useful. They are not more merit-worthy (necessarily).
.

It is merit worthy if someone else decides I'm worth more to them than the less useful person.


Yet there are obvious inequalities in natural talent, in opportunities, etc.
.

To an extent. Education atleast provide some opportunities for people and why not reward the people with more natural tallent.
Would we go up to a maraton winner and say you didn't deserve to win because you had more natural tallent than the person who came secound?



I do not believe the aim of a decent society should be getting people to do what we want them to do. Freedom trumps efficiency any day.
.

Capitalism has both. People respond to wanting to be smarter because they choose to themselves. Clearly many people don't and prefer not to improve their intelligence and guess what, they're free to. They might not have as high of a quality of lifestyle as their neighbour but heck why should they.


Those freedoms are worthless unless they are useful - that is, unless they actually allow me to improve my situation. Being able to choose between being exploited in two different ways is hardly a useful choice.

There are millions of choices for you. You can move to a place where the quality of life is lower and thus you'll relitivly become wealthy ;) or you can find a skill you consider your self good at and try to improve it.


Yes, and the slave has the option of running away. But so what? Why should we tolerate it at all? Why does the fact that there are difficult and possibly futile ways out excuse the situation?


I also don't have the option of choosing not to breath and still living. So what. Part of life is that if you want to have the means to live the life you want and have the things you want you should earn them, just as if you want to have oxygen you should breath. No one else should do it for you.



Again, "free exchange" of property presupposes an already-existing distribution of property. To say that communism suppresses voluntary exchange misses the point; the problem is not with exchange, it is with distribution. If the distribution is not just, the exchange does not make it so. If the distribution is such that my only options are "starve" or "be exploited," the distribution is not just, and the exchange is also not just.

I only have the right to exchange what I own. Communism suppresses ownership of certain kinds of property; it only suppresses exchange as far as it does so.


Your only options may be to work or not have the resources you need to live. Just as your options may be to get changed or stay in your PJ's but that doesn't mean market distribution is bad.



I said already that they would enjoy voluntary labor.

So what if the only job I would want to do "voluntarily" is to make mud pies. Something that has almost no use to anybody and is infact a waste of time. Am I allowed to do that or will I be forced to do a job that will benefit society, because unless I'm forced to the people in society that are contributing will not only have to work hard enough to sustain a good lifestyle for themselves, but a good lifestyle for the less useful or slackers


A "fee" of what?


Money/Gold/Food whatever the individual values.


There's no reason there couldn't be a market in scarce commodities.


So right a market for everything apart from air I guess.


I doubt it. In any capitalist society the workers remain dependent on the owners of the means of production, and this dependence, in general, leads to exploitation and a loss of freedom.

The means of production is also reliant on the consumers. For without them their product is worthless.

Not to mention there is no single means of production they are all run by different companys and individuals who are each competing with eachother to provide the better service to the general consumer. Where as under socialism/communism the individual is reliant on the state/society to provide them with what is ragarded as their "needs", they cannot actively go out and get it themselves.

The difference is that companies under capitalism usually aren't democratic. Well, capitalist companies are "democratic" in the sense that all the shareholders vote, whoever has the most shares get the most votes, and you don't have to be working at the company to get a vote. The democracy anarcho-syndicalists want is one person, one vote, and you have to be an employee at the company to get a vote.
You're creating an illusory distinction between employees and investors. They're both business partners. One invests labour while the other invests capital.

As Rousseau said, you can't freely contract yourself into slavery.
Rousseau was wrong.

I don't particularly want people to be motivated by social pressure. That is not really any more voluntary. I would rather people work of their own accord, because they desire to do so.
But they do. They desire to avoid social pressure. You can't just ignore parts of the world when making your value calculations.

So would I. And I'm sure some would. But you will always get more of a responce with incentive and reward. And harder work leads to better inventions and increased productivity. This is the reason we live in such hi-tech societys and even the poor have access to techknology that the ultra rich even 100 years ago would have marvaled at.

Higher salary is one of the best ways to get people to want to do/train to do that job.

Yes, and I'm sure people would respond even better if you threatened to shoot their children.

I'm not questioning that incentives work. I'm questioning whether that justifies certain varieties of them.

What ever material incentive would exist to keep the economy moving inicially would be redistributed once the economy is stable right. Won't people see that its not in their direct interest to amass these material incentives. Thus they wouldn't be very good incentives.

We're talking about decades (at least) here, not months. And even temporary gain can serve as an incentive.

I'm sure its not exacly fun maintaining robots all day you might need to pay people to watch them ;)

No one would necessarily do it "all day."

And what if their is scarcity of resources and people democratically don't want to give extra to others.

Then that's their democratic decision. Let them.

I'm sure doing a job you enjoy is possible under communism as well. But literally every job contains aspects we don't like but ultimatly the money keep us doing it.
I could say I enjoyed school but quite often I had too much work to do and it was annoying (and if I didn't in the long run benefit from doing the work I wouldn't have done it).
The same is true with a job, you may enjoy the job as a whole but you do the little bits you don't like to get the pay cheack at the end of the month. Under communism where is the drive to work hard throughout, particuarly in the aspects we don't like doing.

I love writing. When I write of my own free accord, I am willing to do the parts that I don't much like in order to complete the full task. In order to attain the internal goods of writing, I need to complete the process. The same can be true of labor.

Labeling someone with a house a car and a nice T.V as being in povery is also an awful way of measuring poverty.

No, it's not. What if the person is working two jobs? What if she can barely afford to afford food? What if she lacks health care or child care? What if she can barely survive in this society with the money she has?

Frankly its an insult to the people who are really poor and can barely afford to live.

To classify them in any other way is to cover up economic oppression.

Why should other peoples success make you a failure.

Because we live in a society.

Perhaps. But if they have access to a local supermarket and they balence their budget they should never go hungry.

Maybe. But you are aware that millions of Americans are food insecure at some point during the year?

And I'd hope being in a situation like that would give you determination and drive to want to develop some skills of somekind to inprove your situation.

Yes, I'm sure it can be an effective method of coercion. However, I tend not to be fond of coerced labor, however effective it is.

Workers, or anyone, are free to own the means of production in a free market the combined total US wages paid to workers is going to be more than that of the capitalization of all the companies - they can purchase the 'means of production' right now... the fact they haven't shows that they have other more valued priorities.

Like food? Health care? Basic housing? Being able to get to work? Of course those are more valued priorities. They are more valued priorities for the capitalists, too. The difference is that the capitalists have excess money once those needs have been met, money they can invest.

They are a necessity if you desire a slightly higher quality of life that is true. And really what percentage of people in the US or British society don't have refrigerators? Do we really want to destroy an efficient system for the benefit of those 2/3% that feel temporarily left out?

You are missing the point. Of course almost everyone in the US and Britain has refrigerators; they have to. This is what the right-wing apologists for capitalist inequality miss when they trot out statistics about how supposedly well off the poor are.

Is the same thing true of color televisions? Much less so. But consider also that televisions are rather cheap; the fact that the poor can afford them does not change the fact that they cannot necessarily afford more important goods.

Do I also suffer from not having a plasma TV, the new dyson vaccum cleaner or a convertable sports car.

Not necessarily, no. But the poor lack much more than that. Just because they can afford cheap luxuries doesn't mean they have the money to afford a decent standard of living as far as more important goods go.

Or do I benefit more from having a basic tv and vaccum than living in a world without them.

I doubt we benefit from living in a world with TVs. Vacuum cleaners, maybe, but the elimination of coercive labor would be worth the sacrifice.

It makes it merit worthy enough for an individual to offer me something he ownes in exchange for my time (which no one else can determine as value is subjective)

It is merit worthy if someone else decides I'm worth more to them than the less useful person.

You are still confusing usefulness with merit. The fact that my skills are useful does not mean that I merit reward.

If my skills are useful because of advantages I received - natural talent, additional opportunities, etc. - that is not merit-worthy. I am luckier than others, not better than them.

To an extent. Education atleast provide some opportunities for people

True. But in a grossly inequitable fashion, something worsened on the college level.

and why not reward the people with more natural tallent.

Would we go up to a maraton winner and say you didn't deserve to win because you had more natural tallent than the person who came secound?

No, because a marathon is a competition of natural talent. Both the loser and the winner consented to enter into it knowing this, and thus we are not obligated to provide them with equal treatment. We are obligated to offer people equal treatment in the economy, because firstly it is far more significant in people's lives than a marathon, and secondly, people are not given a choice on whether or not to enter it.

Capitalism has both. People respond to wanting to be smarter because they choose to themselves. Clearly many people don't and prefer not to improve their intelligence and guess what, they're free to. They might not have as high of a quality of lifestyle as their neighbour but heck why should they.

So let's say I want to improve my intelligence of my own accord, because I enjoy thinking. My neighbor, on the other hand, hates learning, for whatever reason; she will only do it if she is forced to. Why should we have a society that forces her to work as hard as me to improve her intellect, when her labor isn't willing, and mine is?

There are millions of choices for you. You can move to a place where the quality of life is lower and thus you'll relitivly become wealthy ;)

In the process, you will lose many of what you've garnered in this society, and your salary there will likely be much lower.

or you can find a skill you consider your self good at and try to improve it.

Yes, you can. Why should you have to?

I also don't have the option of choosing not to breath and still living. So what. Part of life is that if you want to have the means to live the life you want and have the things you want you should earn them, just as if you want to have oxygen you should breath. No one else should do it for you.

Why should I have to "earn them" in the manner others dictate to me? Is that not an assault on my basic freedom?

Your only options may be to work or not have the resources you need to live. Just as your options may be to get changed or stay in your PJ's but that doesn't mean market distribution is bad.

Yes, it does. The relationship is coercive. It is wrong for the same reasons that slavery is wrong.

So what if the only job I would want to do "voluntarily" is to make mud pies. Something that has almost no use to anybody and is infact a waste of time. Am I allowed to do that or will I be forced to do a job that will benefit society, because unless I'm forced to the people in society that are contributing will not only have to work hard enough to sustain a good lifestyle for themselves, but a good lifestyle for the less useful or slackers

I doubt anyone, given the choice, would dedicate their lives to making mud pies. Most people enjoy feeling useful. In a society where labor is not awful, laziness is not natural.

Money/Gold/Food whatever the individual values.

Again, you assume a prior system of ownership.

So right a market for everything apart from air I guess.

Do we have a market in library books today? Need we have a market in things like public transportation?

The means of production is also reliant on the consumers. For without them their product is worthless.

So? They have to produce something that the consumer values. Does that mean that the worker isn't exploited?

Not to mention there is no single means of production they are all run by different companys and individuals who are each competing with eachother to provide the better service to the general consumer.

And every worker is competing with every other one, too. Competition works both ways, but the balance of power, for the most part, is slanted in only one direction; the workers lose out.

Where as under socialism/communism the individual is reliant on the state/society to provide them with what is ragarded as their "needs", they cannot actively go out and get it themselves.

Why do you say so? Any decent left-anarchist system would leave places for people, if they saw fit, to go out and make their own life away from the others.

But they do. They desire to avoid social pressure. You can't just ignore parts of the world when making your value calculations.

Yes, and they desire not to be beaten brutally, too. Do you believe we should add that as an incentive for labor?

Yes, and I'm sure people would respond even better if you threatened to shoot their children.

I'm not questioning that incentives work. I'm questioning whether that justifies certain varieties of them.


Well offering material incentive I think is quite a fair reward and ensures via supply and demand that people will naturally travel to jobs we need quite efficently. If we need more scientists than the pay for scientists rise, if we need more bankers the same happens.

The crucial difference is only the market can determine the value of such jobs thus the incentives appear only where they are needed. With the example of having the state/society threaten to kill an individuals children if they don't do a job than we have no reward and only blackmail/threat of violence.


No one would necessarily do it "all day."


Would specialisation be of any value? Producing more according to the comparative average. Concentrating on one skill (our best strength)

Because if for example farmers specialised they would make better quality food and more of it. In a society this would feed more people better food and benefit everyone more so, than if everyone did say an hour of farming a day or a week.


Then that's their democratic decision. Let them.


Even if it means that some neccessary but "unpleasent" jobs will not be done.


I love writing. When I write of my own free accord, I am willing to do the parts that I don't much like in order to complete the full task. In order to attain the internal goods of writing, I need to complete the process. The same can be true of labor.


I would suppose this is true. Particuarly because as a writer the parts you enjoyed writing would make less sense without the whole story. But does this work with all jobs?

Lets say as a doctor I enjoy taking care of a patients and helping people. After performing a surgery I dislike filling out all the tedious reports and paper work and with no self imposed incentive or material incentive I either fill them out poorly or not at all, so I can quickly continue with the aspects of the job I enjoy more.


No, it's not. What if the person is working two jobs? What if she can barely afford to afford food? What if she lacks health care or child care? What if she can barely survive in this society with the money she has?


Thats always unfortunate but not everyone can be wealthy by definition. There is the role of the state to provide education opportunities for everyone and job centers for people looking to improve their situation.
Clearly we'd want to limit the number of people in those situations as possible but quite often people in these situations are a result of poor choices in their life and even then some people can and do get themselves out of such circumstances.
Regardless if there wasn't the risk or possibility of being poor there would also be no possibility of being rich.


Because we live in a society.


A society that should blame the rich for success?





Maybe. But you are aware that millions of Americans are food insecure at some point during the year?


So the tens of millions of American's that can spend and save their money well should be punished because millions of Americans can't balance their budgets.



You are missing the point. Of course almost everyone in the US and Britain has refrigerators; they have to. This is what the right-wing apologists for capitalist inequality miss when they trot out statistics about how supposedly well off the poor are.

Is the same thing true of color televisions? Much less so. But consider also that televisions are rather cheap; the fact that the poor can afford them does not change the fact that they cannot necessarily afford more important goods.


If a product is priced higher than what you are willing to pay for that particular product than you're not going to have it, thats how trade works. I'd love to have a sports car but they're rather expencive and I'd rather use the equivilent money to buy other products that would bring my more pleasure. In the same way everyone makes the same choices, the product in question could be a T.V it could be a extension on your house or whatever else you may possible want. Some people may feel T.V's are too expencive for their use and will clearly buy something else they regard as "more important".

Heck some people may not even want a TV's some people may want 4 T.V's its up to them to decide how to spend their limited money themselves. One person might see a life without the internet or a fridge as missing out on "important goods". Another person might have no use for the internet but love ciggarets and regard them as an "important good". Capitalism give people the freedom to spend money on goods they value for the prices they reagard as fair. No you won't get every single thing you want but you do have access to a market that can cater to your every need.



Not necessarily, no. But the poor lack much more than that. Just because they can afford cheap luxuries doesn't mean they have the money to afford a decent standard of living as far as more important goods go.


Please excuse the quotes but I think they fit quite nicely.

"Never mind the low wages and harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism. They were all that the national economies of the time could afford. Capitalism did not create poverty -- it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of pre-capitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof -- the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 percent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 percent per century."—Ayn Rand

"If concern for human poverty and suffering were one's primary motive, one would seek to discover their cause. One would not fail to ask: Why did some nations develop, while others did not? Why have some nations achieved material abundance, while others have remained stagnant in sub-human misery? History and specifically the unprecedented prosperity-explosion of the 19th century would give an immediate answer: capitalism is the only system that enables men to produce abundance - and the key to capitalism is individual freedom." -- Ayn Rand



I doubt we benefit from living in a world with TVs. Vacuum cleaners, maybe, but the elimination of coercive labor would be worth the sacrifice.


Would you be as quick to say we don't benefit from books as well? TV is simply a media to destribute information/entertainment to people just as books and the internet are, and we certainly do benefit in numerous ways from its mass presence.
Vaccum cleaners and the thousands of labour saving devices that exist also help to make unpleasent jobs much quicker and give individuals more time to persue whatever may be in their interest.
Violence and force (other than self defence) is not an acceptable method to use under capitalism only the state will put you in prison for not complying with its agenda. Labour is not coerced you are free to take your labour where ever you wish or even work for yourself if you have the means to do so.




You are still confusing usefulness with merit. The fact that my skills are useful does not mean that I merit reward.

If my skills are useful because of advantages I received - natural talent, additional opportunities, etc. - that is not merit-worthy. I am luckier than others, not better than them.


Okay I agree its not merit worthy in itself. I won't come up to a guy who just won the lottery and say, you're lucky I'll give you more money since he'll have already benefited from his luck. I won't reward David Beckham for living at a time when the ability to kick a football is valued because he's already being rewarded for that.

But at the same time luck should not be punished. I won't punish someone for being lucky enough to meet the girl of his dreams and get married nor will I punish the guy who wins money at a casino. It might be lucky to meet a friend at college who becomes a successful businessman and give you a great job and I agree none of those lucky events should be actively rewarded. But neither should the benefits be taken away or redistributed.



True. But in a grossly inequitable fashion, something worsened on the college level.


Ideally I would love everyone to have exacly the same quality education but I realise this is virtually impossible if not impracticle. As long as public funded school exists where social mobility is possible and those who excell are rewarded we have the right circumstances for a meritocracy that encourages intelligence and hardwork.


No, because a marathon is a competition of natural talent. Both the loser and the winner consented to enter into it knowing this, and thus we are not obligated to provide them with equal treatment. We are obligated to offer people equal treatment in the economy, because firstly it is far more significant in people's lives than a marathon, and secondly, people are not given a choice on whether or not to enter it.


Natural tallent? I'd love to see a marathon runner who doesn't train every day or week and work extremely hard to improve his marathon abilities. But I suppose thats besides the point.
To me equal treatment consists of treating people the same regardless of religon, race or circumstances. If two people build me a chair and one was of good quality and one was of bad I'd say its unfair treatment to value them equally. If I was to sell a product I would also see it as unfair to offer one individual a lower price because he's unlucky or does not know where his tallents lie.


So let's say I want to improve my intelligence of my own accord, because I enjoy thinking. My neighbor, on the other hand, hates learning, for whatever reason; she will only do it if she is forced to. Why should we have a society that forces her to work as hard as me to improve her intellect, when her labor isn't willing, and mine is?


Because a society where people strive to improve their intelligence will have people will more and greater skills. They will produce better producs and services which is for the good of all of mankind. I don't care if Ford enjoyed designing new modles of cars or not as he had some reason to want to continue developing such products that help everyone
.


Yes, you can. Why should you have to?


You don't have to. But if you want someone to give you something you need to give them a reason for them to want to give you something.


Why should I have to "earn them" in the manner others dictate to me? Is that not an assault on my basic freedom?


Not at all, its the only way to guarentee freedom. The "others" have earnt money somehow, and its the basic rule of economic freedom that you should be allowed to form a deal of mutual consent in which he can offer you money for one reason or another.


Yes, it does. The relationship is coercive. It is wrong for the same reasons that slavery is wrong.


Its the relationship all living things have with the world. If the origonal hunters didn't go out and hunt for food they would starve. If a fox didn't look for rabbits and kill them they would starve. Humans have simply evolved via currency to not need to directly hunt any more we can have other people do that for us. If you wish do go to the woods and hunt feel free, but if you prefer to work for money/gold knowing that the payment you recieve can buy food, tables or other items you'd much rather not make yourself than you can. If anything the market provides more choice and less coercion than has ever existed in mankinds history.



Again, you assume a prior system of ownership.


I don't assume it. People DO own things.


Do we have a market in library books today? Need we have a market in things like public transportation?


Sure. I might want the latest Harry Potter book but in my local area has had a huge demand for them and there isn't enough for every body at this current time. And I may require very quick transportation to a specific location, its why we have taxis.


So? They have to produce something that the consumer values. Does that mean that the worker isn't exploited?


I don't see how they would be exploited. If they voluntarily par-take in an exchange for mutual benefit at a value determined by the market who is exploiting who?



Why do you say so? Any decent left-anarchist system would leave places for people, if they saw fit, to go out and make their own life away from the others.

Those who would stay however wouldn't be self sufficient they would need others to fufill their "needs" particuarly if they lack the ability to provide for these needs themselves, thus they will always be dependent. Regardless I wouldn't mind if such a nation existed, I'm sure it would be nice for the people who really valued that kinda of life to try it out.

And these places that are left for people who have different ideas. They could really claim this land as theirs and set up a rival system and reject anarchy all together?
Than the problem remains how many people actually want to live in a left anarchistic society in the first place and how would it get this land to freely distribute to people who dislike such left anarchism.

It looks good on paper, however...


COMMUNISM DOES NOT WORK!!!


CUBA!

CUBA!

ugh.

Nope. I always wanted an Oswald Mosely t-shirt just to prove a point.:p

Nope. I always wanted an Oswald Mosely t-shirt just to prove a point.:p

Haha. Oh my. Racism. Hilarious.

Consumers also have a vote. Quite a lot of people buy products for a number of reasons, either it does less damage to the enviroment, it doesn't test on animals or is nicer to its workers etc


Sure, consumers have a vote and shareholders have a vote, but to anarchists, that's not enough freedom. You forget that rich consumers have a lot more votes than poor consumers. This creates one of the biggest problems with capitalism - resources are distributed in such a way that they are producing the most for those with the most money, ignoring the real needs of everyone else. Poor farmers are asked to grow flowers and coffee, because the rich can pay, instead of food, which all poor people need, but can't afford to pay.

I really don't get this. Is it authortarian to hire two maids and tell them which parts of my house I want cleaned? And is it really democratic for the two maids to then decide I'm not a good boss?

Do the maids own their means of production? If they're independent contractors, then they already do own their means of production. If they belong to a maid service, which includes telephone operators, dispatchers, offices, cleaning equipment, then that's a different story. Let's not confuse the corporation with the customer. In the maid service case, anarcho-syndicalists would argue that the employees of the maid service should assume ownership and control the company.

The bottom line is simply that shareholders want to make money. If they thought that the regular worker could make decisions for themselves that would make the company the most profit it would be done right now.

You're forgetting shareholders and employees take money from the same pie. Shareholders can make more money if they keep wages and salaries low. Employees can make more money if they get rid of the shareholders.

You're creating an illusory distinction between employees and investors. They're both business partners. One invests labour while the other invests capital.

Anarcho-syndicalists believe investors don't have the right to that capital in the first place. Control of the means of production, they believe, should be done democratically.

Haha. Oh my. Racism. Hilarious.


No difference whatsoever. A proponent of the far right as opposed to one of the far left.

"It is legitimate to adopt a critical attitude toward the relatively
large number of Jews who particularly in the first decade after the
Bolshevik revolution collaborated with the Soviet Government in the
persecution of other peoples."

Statement of researcher Michael Mills, an official of the government
of Australia at Canberra. (Source: Forward, March 10, 2000)

Jewish Professor Arno Mayer of Princeton in his important book, Why
Did the Heavens Not Darken? states that the German invasion of Russia
was carried out with the intention to eradicate Bolshevik (Soviet
Communist) ideology. The Germans were hardly the only ones in the West
to believe that, "Soviet Russia is a dictatorship of Jewry."

On Feb. 8, 1920 a young British writer made a similar observation in
the Illustrated Sunday Herald:

"There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of
Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution
by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews."

The writer was Winston Churchill. Though he would later sell his soul
for considerably more than thirty pieces of silver, his analysis of
the authentic nature of Soviet communism remains trenchant.

Churchill expressed the crucial insight that the crimes perpetrated by
Jewish communists against Germans and Russians instilled in those
people a desire for retribution:

"In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more
astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed, the principal, part in
the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for
Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some
notable cases by Jewesses.

"The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of
terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has
been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this
madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the
German people.

"...The fact that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of
worship are excepted by the Bolsheviks from their universal hostility
has tended more and more to associate the Jewish race in Russia with
villainies which are now being perpetrated...Needless to say, the most
intense passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of the
Russian people." (End quote from Churchill).

"...a letter sent to the Vatican by Pius XII in 1919, when he was
Bishop Eugenio Pacelli and papal nuncio in Munich...reports on his
deputy's unpleasant encounter with Bolshevik revolutionaries who were
then terrorizing Catholic priests and the German bourgeoisie. The
letter describes the leader, Max Lieven as a '... Russian and a Jew.'
The letter also describes Mr. Lieven's companions, '...Jews like the
rest of them.'...Bishop Pacelli's description of Jewish
Communists...was hardly uncommon 80 years ago." (N.Y. Times, Nov. 3,
1999).
>
Chaim Bermant, writing in the Jewish Chronicle (Aug. 30, 1991), says:
"It was Communism which toppled the hated Czars, Communism which
removed Jewish disabilities and proscribed anti-Semitism and Communism
which, in its early days at least, opened the doors to Jewish
advancement."

Political analyst Joseph Sobran points out that the revelation of this
"ethnic component" of Communism contests a cherished historical lie:
"...the ethnic history of Communism is likely to complicate the
conventional 'lachrymose version of Jewish history,' according to
which Jews are always and everywhere innocent victims of Gentile
prejudice and persecution."

Lenin, whose maternal grandfather, Israel Blank, was Jewish, said that
Jews made the best revolutionaries: "The clever Russian is almost
always a Jew or has Jewish blood in him." (Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A
New Biography, p. 112). Lenin was both clever and a revolutionary. He
was surely referring to himself.

Researcher Wayne McGuire of Harvard University writes: "Lenin was a
Jew by the standards of Israel's Law of Return: he possessed a Jewish
grandparent. It would seem that not only was Lenin a Jew, but that he
was a Jewish racist and chauvinist, although he kept his ideas on this
volatile subject far in the background, probably because they were in
radical conflict with the supposed universalism of Marxism. ...Lenin
was a Jewish racist who deliberately gave Jews especially, the most
'intellectually demanding tasks.' He admitted that 50% of the
communist terrorist vanguard in the south and west of Russia was
comprised of Jews."

Lenin declared, "We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class." His
partner in crime, Apfelbaum (Zinoviev) stated: "The interests of the
revolution require the physical annihilation of the bourgeoisie
class." Who were these bourgeoisie? Certainly not Jews. Trotsky gave a
clue to their identity in a 1937 interview in the New York Jewish
newspaper, Daily Forward: "The longer the rotten bourgeoisie society
lives, the more and more barbaric will anti-Semitism become
everywhere."

Bourgeoisie was a Bolshevik code-word for Gentile. The first law
passed after the Communists seized power in Russia made anti-semitism
a crime punishable by death. (Izvestia, July 27, 1918).

The top Communist Jewish official Zinoviev stated: "Without mercy,
without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let
them be thousands; let them drown themselves in their own blood. For
the blood of Lenin and Uritzky, Zinoviev and Vólodarsky, let there be
floods of the blood of the bourgeoisie--more blood! As much as
possible!" (Krasnaya Gazeta, Sept. 1, 1918).

The Jewish Bolsheviks regarded politics as a branch of Gentile pest
control. Hatred of Christians, especially the peasant "bourgeoisie"
was their prime motivation. The systematic destruction of the
Christian peasantry of Russia as so many vermin, beginning with
Lenin's attack on them in the summer of 1918 and his forced starvation
in 1921, has been almost completely ignored in Western history.

According to the London, England "Jewish Chronicle" (Literary
Supplement, Sept. 3, 1999, pp. iv and v) Jewish Communist writer Isaac
Babel was present at a Soviet Communist gathering, "A meeting
of...Jews...is being addressed by Commissar Vinogradov who is
enthusiastically telling the...Jews: 'You are in power. Everything is
yours." Babel also wrote of the "unbounded" Jewish "contempt for the
Polish gentry."

According to the "Jewish Chronicle," Babel wrote for the Communist
publication "Red Trooper" and a Soviet commissar related to him how
they intended to deal with Cossacks: "The revolutionary curve has
thrown into the first rank the free Cossacks soaked in many
prejudices, but the Central Committee's maneuvering will rub them down
with a brush of iron.' Babel expresses no opinion on the chances of
successfully rubbing out the Cossacks' 'soaked-in prejudices,' a
euphemistic term for vicious anti-Semitism..." ("Jewish Chronicle,"
Ibid.)

"In the last years of the '20s and the early '30s, Babel was regarded
as one of the most notable talents in Soviet literature. Speaking at
the first writers' congress in 1934...he made the expected avowals of
loyalty and devotion to the revolution, the government and the state.
He even praised Stalin's literary style." ("Jewish Chronicle," Ibid.)

In his story, "The Rabbi's Son," Babel places the portraits of Lenin
and Rabbi Moses Maimonides side by side. He notes that the margins of
Communist leaflets are crowded with "Hebrew verse."

The Siberian novelist Valentin Rasputin wrote in 1990: "I think today
the Jews here in Russia should feel responsible for the sin of having
carried out the revolution and for the shape it took. They should feel
responsible for the terror--for the terror that existed during the
revolution and especially after the revolution...their guilt is great.
They perpetrated the relentless campaign against the peasant class
whose land was brutally expropriated by the state and who themselves
were ruthlessly murdered."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's biographer recounts what it was like to grow
up as a Russian Christian child among the children of the Jewish
communist elite: "By the age of ten he had the cross ripped from his
neck by jeering Pioneers and for over a year was held up to
ridicule... Solzhenitsyn was, as a boy, exposed to students whose
parents had an officially superior status. Most of the members of the
Young Pioneers and Komsomol movements, at least in Rostov, were Jewish
children..." (Michael Scammell, Solzhenitsyn: A Biography, p. 64).

According to the internationally-syndicated RNS wire service
(reprinted in "The Christian News," Jan. 8, 1996, p. 2), "Some 200,000
(Christian) clergy, many crucified, scalped and otherwise tortured,
were killed during the approximately 60 years of communist rule in the
former Soviet Union, a Russian commission reported Monday (Nov. 27,
1995)...40,000 churches (were) destroyed in the period from 1922 to
1980..."

Here is the most genocidal political movement in world history, which
created the largest concentration camps and the most horrendous slave
labor system of the 20th century, in which millions of Christians were
slaughtered (on the size of the Gulag concentration camp system cf. C.
Andrew and O. Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story and N.Y. Times, Oct.
22, 1990, p. 82. None of these camps are being preserved for
posterity. Most were destroyed long ago by special military brigades;
cf. Michael Specter, "Cold Reminder," N.Y. Times, Dec. 3, 1994).

This was a movement staffed in its upper echelons by Jewish Communists
and yet the world is comparatively silent about the holocaust and war
crimes this thoroughly kosher system inflicted and the identity of the
persons who were its architects.

Auschwitz is on the tip of every tongue but who has heard of Kolyma,
Magadan, the Solovetsky islands and the other infernal Soviet centers
of human destruction in eastern Siberia? Who has seen films and books
about the millions of human beings worked, frozen and starved to death
in the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal, over which stood a
triumphant, colossal statue of the Jewish communist mass murderer
Genrikh Yagoda?

The Jewish-communist epoch of mass murder has disappeared into history
in one of the great vanishing acts of all time. Only practiced
deceivers, with all the sleight of hand of the most accomplished stage
magicians, could pull off such a coup against the rest of humanity. To
trick mankind into focusing nearly all expiatory sentiment, monuments
and commemoration on Jewish victims and brand the Mark of Cain--the
very words war crime and holocaust itself--on Germany and upon Germans
alone as their proprietary trademark, must be regarded as one of the
most masterful achievements of psychological warfare in the annals of
illusion.

Jewish power in the West today has expanded commensurate with the
expansion of "Holocaust" propaganda, as noted by the Israeli author
Moshe Leshem: "Israelis and American Jews fully agree that the memory
of the Holocaust is an indispensable weapon--one that must be used
relentlessly against their common enemy...Jewish organizations and
individuals thus labor continuously to remind the world of it. In
America, the perpetuation of the Holocaust memory is now a
$100-million-a-year enterprise, part of which is government-funded." (
Balaam's Curse, p. 228)

This is why Edgar Bronfman, the billionaire Canadian Seagram's whiskey
merchant and chairman of the powerful World Jewish Congress says, "The
growing numbers of revisionist supporters cannot be ignored. We must
use every resource to stop revisionism now, before it's too late."

The reason it must be stopped is because revisionism is the only force
preventing the holy people from finishing the job they started in
Russia and Bavaria, only this time they are using intellectual means
to achieve the same end.

Consider the fact that the people who bear the brunt of contemporary
Jewish racist hatred and invective, the Germans, have among the lowest
birthrates and the highest abortion rates of any nation in the world.
Far more Germans die every year than are born.

The self-hating Germans are not the only targets of corrosive gas
chamber guilt, however. Organized Christianity (more accurately called
Churchianity) nowadays is little more than one huge turkey flock,
truckling, toadying and crawling in search of Jewish sanctification
and approbation. Their savior called the Jewish leadership of his
time, "the children of hell" (Matthew 23:15) but those who presume to
speak in His name today, call them the saints and sages of the cosmos.

Only in such a profoundly falsified world soaked in fraud could the
international media sit by, uninterested, as the great-great grandson
of the blood-drenched Jewish Red Army commander Leon Trotsky, David
Axelrod, shot to death an elderly Palestinian couple in November of
1990, as part of an Israeli, "Kach" terror group raid.

But imagine--if you can--the hubbub if a grandson of a Nazi war
criminal had shot a Turkish couple in Germany. The weeping, wailing
and never-ending references to "Never Forget" and "lessons of history"
would seep out of the collective TV sets of the earth like waste from
a toxic septic tank, because what is clear from such a double standard
is that the true lessons of history are not being learned and
recollection itself is hostage to the diorama of Zionist monomania.

Sixteen million ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from Silesia,
Moravia and the Volga regions of the eastern territories at the end of
the Second World War. On this trail of tears, two million
perished--shot to death, starved, raped and beaten. Ask one in one
thousand, one in ten thousand people on the street today-- "Have you
heard?" The answer will be no.

The Steven Spielberg movie images of cattle cars jammed with human
cargo are reserved for Jewish victims alone. The 800,000 mostly Muslim
Chechens deported by Jewish commissars and savagely stuffed into
railway cars to Kazakhstan, where a quarter of a million died enroute,
do not meet Hollywood's standard of cinematic focus.

The Soviet cattle car deportations afflicted more than a half-million
Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Christians who were shipped to the
Gulag. 12% of the entire Baltic population was either deported to
Siberia or executed by the Jewish Soviet Secret Police. Who knows of
it? Who cares? Who tries to keep this history from repeating? Instead,
in 1995 the president of Lithuania made a pilgrimage to the Israeli
gas chamber shrine at Yad Vashem to grovel and beg "forgiveness" for
his people who were the victims of the Jewish Communist murderers. To
seek forgiveness in all humility is ordained when it is predicated on
the truth. To do so based on false witness in order to idolize the
Pharisees is a mockery of justice.

In the Bolshevik era, 52 percent of the membership of the Soviet
communist party was Jewish, though Jews comprised only 1.8 percent of
the total population (Stuart Kahan, The Wolf of the Kremlin, p. 81)

National Socialism is and always will be the solution for jewish zionism and communism.
It was the communists who allowed people to die in those concentration camps. They took over the camps after the Nazi's fleft to go fight for their country!


WAKE UP WHITE PEOPLE OF AMERICA BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Join the National Socialist Movement
www.nsm88.com

Well offering material incentive I think is quite a fair reward and ensures via supply and demand that people will naturally travel to jobs we need quite efficently. If we need more scientists than the pay for scientists rise, if we need more bankers the same happens.

Not "need." Want. Wanting someone does not entitle you to manipulate people into doing it for you.

The crucial difference is only the market can determine the value of such jobs thus the incentives appear only where they are needed. With the example of having the state/society threaten to kill an individuals children if they don't do a job than we have no reward and only blackmail/threat of violence.

Yes, you do have a reward - your children do not get killed. Similarly, the reward for working at a job you hate in capitalism may be survival, or being able to feed your children, or having access to health care, or being able to attain decent housing, and so on.

Would specialisation be of any value? Producing more according to the comparative average. Concentrating on one skill (our best strength)

Because if for example farmers specialised they would make better quality food and more of it. In a society this would feed more people better food and benefit everyone more so, than if everyone did say an hour of farming a day or a week.

At what cost? If people despise specialization (and many seem to), why should it be imposed on them? At the very least, its most egregious forms should be curtailed, and no one should end up constantly performing the most awful work.

Even if it means that some neccessary but "unpleasent" jobs will not be done.

I don't think most unpleasant jobs are really necessary. They may be important to the current structure of our society, but that structure isn't necessary, either. And if they're really absolutely necessary, no one would democratically vote to eliminate them.

I would suppose this is true. Particuarly because as a writer the parts you enjoyed writing would make less sense without the whole story. But does this work with all jobs?

Lets say as a doctor I enjoy taking care of a patients and helping people. After performing a surgery I dislike filling out all the tedious reports and paper work and with no self imposed incentive or material incentive I either fill them out poorly or not at all, so I can quickly continue with the aspects of the job I enjoy more.

No, that works too. If the "tedious reports and paper work" are truly necessary for the system to work, then doctors who don't do them won't be participating in the system.

Thats always unfortunate but not everyone can be wealthy by definition. There is the role of the state to provide education opportunities for everyone and job centers for people looking to improve their situation.

The state's "help" as it is is highly insufficient, taking into account as it does only certain varieties of opportunity inequalities, and only half-solving those.

Clearly we'd want to limit the number of people in those situations as possible but quite often people in these situations are a result of poor choices in their life and even then some people can and do get themselves out of such circumstances.

Except those "poor choices" wouldn't be so devastating if they weren't already in poor straits.

Regardless if there wasn't the risk or possibility of being poor there would also be no possibility of being rich.

So what?

A society that should blame the rich for success?

No. A society that should acknowledge that when the rich "succeed," it often comes at the expense of others.

So the tens of millions of American's that can spend and save their money well should be punished because millions of Americans can't balance their budgets.

Yes, because everyone knows that the poor are too stupid to want to feed themselves.

If a product is priced higher than what you are willing to pay for that particular product than you're not going to have it, thats how trade works. I'd love to have a sports car but they're rather expencive and I'd rather use the equivilent money to buy other products that would bring my more pleasure. In the same way everyone makes the same choices, the product in question could be a T.V it could be a extension on your house or whatever else you may possible want. Some people may feel T.V's are too expencive for their use and will clearly buy something else they regard as "more important".

Heck some people may not even want a TV's some people may want 4 T.V's its up to them to decide how to spend their limited money themselves. One person might see a life without the internet or a fridge as missing out on "important goods". Another person might have no use for the internet but love ciggarets and regard them as an "important good". Capitalism give people the freedom to spend money on goods they value for the prices they reagard as fair. No you won't get every single thing you want but you do have access to a market that can cater to your every need.

I don't see what it has to do with anything I said.

Please excuse the quotes but I think they fit quite nicely.

"Never mind the low wages and harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism. They were all that the national economies of the time could afford. Capitalism did not create poverty -- it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of pre-capitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof -- the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 percent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 percent per century."—Ayn Rand

"If concern for human poverty and suffering were one's primary motive, one would seek to discover their cause. One would not fail to ask: Why did some nations develop, while others did not? Why have some nations achieved material abundance, while others have remained stagnant in sub-human misery? History and specifically the unprecedented prosperity-explosion of the 19th century would give an immediate answer: capitalism is the only system that enables men to produce abundance - and the key to capitalism is individual freedom." -- Ayn Rand

Material abundance, however, is not and has never been the whole story, especially not when they come at the cost of the economic stability and welfare of millions of people. Showing increases in it does not demonstrate that people are actually better off; firstly, it ignores the costs behind that abundance (in time and unpleasantness of labor, in losses to economic stability, and so on) and secondly, it ignores the increased costs of living that can come with altered lifestlyes. Economic development, furthermore, is not synonymous with capitalism; the Soviet Union developed itself economically in a rather non-capitalist manner, for instance. Even Marx acknowledged that capitalism brought economic development, but the important question is not that, it is whether socialism, as a whole, is preferable.

Would you be as quick to say we don't benefit from books as well? TV is simply a media to destribute information/entertainment to people just as books and the internet are, and we certainly do benefit in numerous ways from its mass presence.

But it's not necessary. And no, books aren't either. I'd prefer to keep both, if people want them, but not at the expense of other people's freedom.

Vaccum cleaners and the thousands of labour saving devices that exist also help to make unpleasent jobs much quicker and give individuals more time to persue whatever may be in their interest.

I'm not denying that they're useful.

Violence and force (other than self defence) is not an acceptable method to use under capitalism only the state will put you in prison for not complying with its agenda. Labour is not coerced you are free to take your labour where ever you wish or even work for yourself if you have the means to do so.

"If you have the means to do so." Right, exactly.

Labor under capitalism is "coerced" in that the alternatives tend to be rather awful; starvation, for instance, or homelessness, or being unable to pay for health care, and so on.

Okay I agree its not merit worthy in itself. I won't come up to a guy who just won the lottery and say, you're lucky I'll give you more money since he'll have already benefited from his luck. I won't reward David Beckham for living at a time when the ability to kick a football is valued because he's already being rewarded for that.

But at the same time luck should not be punished. I won't punish someone for being lucky enough to meet the girl of his dreams and get married nor will I punish the guy who wins money at a casino. It might be lucky to meet a friend at college who becomes a successful businessman and give you a great job and I agree none of those lucky events should be actively rewarded. But neither should the benefits be taken away or redistributed.

What I'm saying is that our economy should not be comparable to a casino. People do not consent to having dice rolled on basic aspects of their lives - whether they will have health care or not, whether they will have decent employment or not, and so on. To make such things random is to grossly violate the principle of equal treatment. Consensual gambling is entered into freely, and is thus legitimate.

Ideally I would love everyone to have exacly the same quality education but I realise this is virtually impossible if not impracticle. As long as public funded school exists where social mobility is possible and those who excell are rewarded we have the right circumstances for a meritocracy that encourages intelligence and hardwork.

No, we don't. Access to capital is still a huge advantage.

Natural tallent? I'd love to see a marathon runner who doesn't train every day or week and work extremely hard to improve his marathon abilities. But I suppose thats besides the point.

Sure, but they are building off natural talent; most people, even if they practiced just as hard as the marathon runners do, would not equal their skill.

To me equal treatment consists of treating people the same regardless of religon, race or circumstances. If two people build me a chair and one was of good quality and one was of bad I'd say its unfair treatment to value them equally. If I was to sell a product I would also see it as unfair to offer one individual a lower price because he's unlucky or does not know where his tallents lie.

Equal treatment is a social obligation, not just an individual one.

Because a society where people strive to improve their intelligence will have people will more and greater skills. They will produce better producs and services which is for the good of all of mankind. I don't care if Ford enjoyed designing new modles of cars or not as he had some reason to want to continue developing such products that help everyone.

If that reason were some variety of coercion, I would indeed be concerned. Freedom is worth more than material abundance.

You don't have to. But if you want someone to give you something you need to give them a reason for them to want to give you something.

As a practical question, yes. But why should we have a society that perpentrates situations where I have to work immensely hard just to secure a decent standard of living - especially when other people started at, or even above, that decent standard of living and will never have to work as hard as I do?

Not at all, its the only way to guarentee freedom.

If I am dependent on the goodwill of another, I am not free.

The "others" have earnt money somehow,

Attained money, yes. "Earned" it as in "merited" it, not necessarily.

and its the basic rule of economic freedom that you should be allowed to form a deal of mutual consent in which he can offer you money for one reason or another.

Capitalist economic freedom, maybe, which prefers to ignore the distribution of property underlying so-called "voluntary exchanges." The problem is not the exchange so much as the inequalities in property in the first place.

Its the relationship all living things have with the world. If the origonal hunters didn't go out and hunt for food they would starve. If a fox didn't look for rabbits and kill them they would starve. Humans have simply evolved via currency to not need to directly hunt any more we can have other people do that for us. If you wish do go to the woods and hunt feel free, but if you prefer to work for money/gold knowing that the payment you recieve can buy food, tables or other items you'd much rather not make yourself than you can. If anything the market provides more choice and less coercion than has ever existed in mankinds history.

Except things we naturally need to do tend to be things that we don't naturally hate doing. Things we artificially need to do, thanks to social structures of oppression, are often things we do naturally hate doing.

I don't assume it. People DO own things.

You are assuming that ownership in general, and that the current structures of ownership in particular, are just. Which is obvious nonsense, considering that a great deal of it is based on centuries of theft and plunder.

Sure. I might want the latest Harry Potter book but in my local area has had a huge demand for them and there isn't enough for every body at this current time.

Then wait a while.

And I may require very quick transportation to a specific location, its why we have taxis.

Public transportation need not be slow.

I don't see how they would be exploited. If they voluntarily par-take in an exchange for mutual benefit at a value determined by the market who is exploiting who?

"Mutual benefit" is a useless indicator. If a thief steals money from me at gunpoint, that is a deal of mutual benefit; I attain the benefit of not getting shot, which is worth more to me than the money, and the thief attains the benefit of the money, which is worth more to her than shooting me. Yet the thief, obviously, is still exploiting me.

An exploitative deal is one where the balance of power between the partners is highly slanted. For instance, if I force someone drowing in a river to pay me a thousand dollars before I will save her, that is exploitation - even though it could be construed as "voluntary" and does indeed involve mutual benefit.

Those who would stay however wouldn't be self sufficient they would need others to fufill their "needs" particuarly if they lack the ability to provide for these needs themselves, thus they will always be dependent.

They would not be dependent, because they would have other options.

And these places that are left for people who have different ideas. They could really claim this land as theirs and set up a rival system and reject anarchy all together?

Not if it meant violating the rights of others, as imposing a state likely would.

Than the problem remains how many people actually want to live in a left anarchistic society in the first place and how would it get this land to freely distribute to people who dislike such left anarchism.

It wouldn't "get" the land. The land would be unowned, because the states and capitalists who would have owned it would have been overthrown.

Not "need." Want. Wanting someone does not entitle you to manipulate people into doing it for you.
.

I hardly see it as manipulation. You're free to choose which you value more, the same applies to most things in life. I like having a healthy diet and being and being physically strong but does this mean I'm manipulated into eating food I don't particuarly like or doing exercise that takes some effort.


Yes, you do have a reward - your children do not get killed. Similarly, the reward for working at a job you hate in capitalism may be survival, or being able to feed your children, or having access to health care, or being able to attain decent housing, and so on.
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Okay but it appears under communism you must also work according to your ability and sometimes do things for the benefit of everyone otherwise your abort yourself from "society". Atleast in capitalism you have the choice and freedom to act as you wish accepting the consequences of your actions, be they good or bad.


At what cost? If people despise specialization (and many seem to), why should it be imposed on them? At the very least, its most egregious forms should be curtailed, and no one should end up constantly performing the most awful work.
.

Its not "imposed" on them specifically. But its true that if you want to run a company you will get more done from workers who specialise in small feilds rather than those who attempt to do a little bit of everything. Its partly responcible for the technological boom of the last 100 years and why we both have computers and the free time to have the discussion we're having. And the reason it may seem like its "imposed" on people because its the most efficient system to produce products that benefit the consumers.



I don't think most unpleasant jobs are really necessary. They may be important to the current structure of our society, but that structure isn't necessary, either. And if they're really absolutely necessary, no one would democratically vote to eliminate them.
.

Perhaps. But then when it comes to a job like cleaning the sewers, you claim that no one person should do it everyday. Would this mean that others are pressued by society to help with these types of jobs, even the smartest who could do much more valuable things with their time?



No, that works too. If the "tedious reports and paper work" are truly necessary for the system to work, then doctors who don't do them won't be participating in the system.
.

And what happens to these individuals who don't "participate in the system" will they ever be denyed essentials/luxuries?


The state's "help" as it is is highly insufficient, taking into account as it does only certain varieties of opportunity inequalities, and only half-solving those.
.

I can agree with that. None the less I think if everyone has a standard of education that allows them to realise their tallents and live in a world where people are judged on what they can offer over any other factors (like race, religion) than opportunitys are high enough for everyone to have a chance at succeeding on their own merits.



Except those "poor choices" wouldn't be so devastating if they weren't already in poor straits.
.

True. But being poor doesn't have to mean they must drop out of school, have kids at a young age, take up smoking etc..



So what?
.

Do you think people would continously try and invent better computers, new video games, better cars and the billions/trillions or products that keep getting better every year, if by inventing them they would not get rich?



No. A society that should acknowledge that when the rich "succeed," it often comes at the expense of others.
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The market isn't a zero sum game. Often someone elses success boosts the economy and provides different areas for others to gain even more in. Just because someone like Bill Gates has $6 billion that doesn't mean there is any less for everyone else.


Yes, because everyone knows that the poor are too stupid to want to feed themselves.
.

I'm sure they do want to feed themselves, I'm not a mind reader but I'm pretty sure thats right. But that doesn't stop many "poor" people buying lottery tickets, ciggaretts and fast/instant food because they don't like cooking. People by all means can throw their money away on whatever they want but with a minimum wage everywhere now and the opportunity to buy noodles and economy value food, obesity seems to be the larger problem over not having enough. Particuarly for the people who don't want to take 30 min to go to a doctor or read a book in a libery about healthy eating.



Material abundance, however, is not and has never been the whole story, especially not when they come at the cost of the economic stability and welfare of millions of people. Showing increases in it does not demonstrate that people are actually better off; firstly, it ignores the costs behind that abundance (in time and unpleasantness of labor, in losses to economic stability, and so on) and secondly, it ignores the increased costs of living that can come with altered lifestlyes. Economic development, furthermore, is not synonymous with capitalism; the Soviet Union developed itself economically in a rather non-capitalist manner, for instance. Even Marx acknowledged that capitalism brought economic development, but the important question is not that, it is whether socialism, as a whole, is preferable.
.

Altered lifestyles? You don't have to conform to the rest of society you can be an individual. Lots of people are buddhist or anti consumerist and choose not to have a house that looks like an Ikea catalogue and thats great.
Do we have such freedom to live the lifestyle we wish in the soviet union, or must we que up to be given something as basic as bread, something we cannot go out and earn ourselves without taking out time and labour to the black market.


But it's not necessary. And no, books aren't either. I'd prefer to keep both, if people want them, but not at the expense of other people's freedom.
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Losing a large range of media that extends free speech, in my opinon hurts freedom.



"If you have the means to do so." Right, exactly.

Labor under capitalism is "coerced" in that the alternatives tend to be rather awful; starvation, for instance, or homelessness, or being unable to pay for health care, and so on.
.

Labour under capitalism is also rewarded. The results tend to be rather good, choice of whatever food you value, personal property often in the form of a secure house, health insurence and so on.

Yes work is part of capitalism its part of life as well. If I didn't do work for my parents in the form of cleaning my room or doing the dishes the result was not pleasent. If I didn't do homework the result was not pleasent. And these were people that cared for me.

Without contributing to society/a company/some individual in some way that is considered valueable (in the form of a salery) why shouldn't the alternative be awful.



What I'm saying is that our economy should not be comparable to a casino. People do not consent to having dice rolled on basic aspects of their lives - whether they will have health care or not, whether they will have decent employment or not, and so on. To make such things random is to grossly violate the principle of equal treatment. Consensual gambling is entered into freely, and is thus legitimate.
.



Sure, but they are building off natural talent; most people, even if they practiced just as hard as the marathon runners do, would not equal their skill.
.

I'm sure they wouldn't. Quite obviously not everyone can be a marathon runner, that just means you have to find something else you either have a "natural tallent" for or pick up quickly, it might be politics, philosophy, science who knows everyones good at different things. We won't all be the best in our feild but everyone can do something atleast.



Equal treatment is a social obligation, not just an individual one.
.

Sure I agree, but this doesn't mean equality of outcome.



As a practical question, yes. But why should we have a society that perpentrates situations where I have to work immensely hard just to secure a decent standard of living - especially when other people started at, or even above, that decent standard of living and will never have to work as hard as I do?
.

Unfortunate yes. But its an essential part of economic freedom. If you make money its yours to spend how you wish, if you want to give it to charity your free to do so, if you want to give it to a company you can and if you want to give it to your children its yours to do so.
Infact it even serves as a good incentive, if you dislike your situation for whatever reason this would make you more inclinded to make sure your children use their opportunities well.
But I agree if you have bad parents you are disadvantaged in more than just material outcome.


If I am dependent on the goodwill of another, I am not free.
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In socialism/communism you will get stuff from the (coerced) good will of others. In capitalism the worker and the employer are only dependent on eachother for mutual benefit, no good will involved.



Attained money, yes. "Earned" it as in "merited" it, not necessarily.
.

Is there any difference than attaining money fairly within the law and earning it? I wouldn't particuarly say footballers "merit" the millions they make, but they provide a serive that people pay money to watch every week so in that view they've earnt it.


Capitalist economic freedom, maybe, which prefers to ignore the distribution of property underlying so-called "voluntary exchanges." The problem is not the exchange so much as the inequalities in property in the first place.
.

Unless you prevent people makeing money and spending it as they wish inequalities in property will exist. Some services like education, roads and the police etc.. need to be provided for. Minimal/no income tax on the poor and a progressive level for the more wealthy is a convienient short term method to bring wealth gaps closer together than what the market natually does on its own.


Except things we naturally need to do tend to be things that we don't naturally hate doing. Things we artificially need to do, thanks to social structures of oppression, are often things we do naturally hate doing.


The only artificial structure says we should do something someone else values (be they a boss or a consumer) if we want something else in return. Some people find it more difficult to tie this into something they enjoy and I do feel some sympathy.
But its nature that tells us we need to find a good balance of food/sleep and exercise and thus repeat the next day regardless of if I enjoy eating healthy food or exercise.


You are assuming that ownership in general, and that the current structures of ownership in particular, are just. Which is obvious nonsense, considering that a great deal of it is based on centuries of theft and plunder.


And a great deal of it has been earnt as well. All we can do is ensure as little threft and violence is used in the future as possible.



Then wait a while.


The point is markets exist in almost every service.



Public transportation need not be slow.


Not slow exacly but compare a taxi to a bus.
I can call a taxi to pick me up, I can guide him to the quickest possible route to my desired location and he will take me to the exact place I want.
I may have to walk to my local bus stop, wait for a bus to come, settle for the route the bus takes and wait longer as it stops and picks up more passangers.


"Mutual benefit" is a useless indicator. If a thief steals money from me at gunpoint, that is a deal of mutual benefit; I attain the benefit of not getting shot, which is worth more to me than the money, and the thief attains the benefit of the money, which is worth more to her than shooting me. Yet the thief, obviously, is still exploiting me.


Such a deal would be illigal under capitalism.
You obey the law for mutual benefit. You accept killing someone (even if its in your interest) should be avoided so that everyone else will avoid trying to kill you. We all accept a loss of our freedom to give police the power to enforce this.
You have not consented to be in the presence of the theif nor would you have consented to him attacking you, therefore he has only "exploited" you by breaking the law.

If I were to steal a priceless item from your house and then sold it to you for a fair price, that individual deal may have been for "mutual benefit" but it doesn't excuse the fact he just stole from you and that is unacceptable.


An exploitative deal is one where the balance of power between the partners is highly slanted. For instance, if I force someone drowing in a river to pay me a thousand dollars before I will save her, that is exploitation - even though it could be construed as "voluntary" and does indeed involve mutual benefit.


I'll agree this is a tricky one. And we can't always guarentee that people will be kind and helpful but we can't blame this on capitalism.
Even in socialism one could see someone drowing and say "I'll only save you if you have sex with me later, or if you give me your first born son etc..."

People can be mean and can take advantage of situations and I'm no more happy with that than I'm sure you are.


They would not be dependent, because they would have other options.


What, they could go to a different society and leech from them instead?



Not if it meant violating the rights of others, as imposing a state likely would.


So people are free to form a society under whatever ideas they like.... as long as they conform to your idea of people "rights" or a "fair" society...



It wouldn't "get" the land. The land would be unowned, because the states and capitalists who would have owned it would have been overthrown.

So you would form an army and take peoples property by force. EEK! :eek:

Asking if I've ever considered communism is about as relevant as asking if I've ever considered stupid, ugly or mental retardation.

Those who think communism works are clearly ignorant of War Communism and the NEP.

Asking if I've ever considered communism is about as relevant as asking if I've ever considered stupid, ugly or mental retardation.

Those who think communism works are clearly ignorant of War Communism and the NEP.

No. Those who think that Leninism is the be all and end all of communist thought are clearly ignorant. ;)

Two problems. One, because the capitalists own everything, the worker has to choose between capitalists who are out to exploit him. As Rousseau said, you can't freely contract yourself into slavery.
Interesting. So you're saying that freedom is slavery. Will you next tell me that we've always been at war with Eastasia?


The individualist anarchists were opposed to capitalism, although they supported a market system - only people who worked an asset (like a factory or land) were allowed to profit from it, not absentee landlords or fat-cat capitalists. Anarcho-capitalists aren't anarchists, but rather people who want their own tiny statelets.
No, we're anarchists, despite your No True Scotsman desires.

CUBA!
If you look at what you're not supposed to see in Cuba, it looks a lot like North Korea.

Two problems. One, because the capitalists own everything, the worker has to choose between capitalists who are out to exploit him. As Rousseau said, you can't freely contract yourself into slavery.
Interesting. So you're saying that freedom is slavery. Will you next tell me that we've always been at war with Eastasia?

Interesting. So you're saying that slavery is freedom.

The economic "freedom" of capitalism just means business owners get freedom, not their employees. If there was economic freedom for employees, then they would work and make money on their own terms and they wouldn't be forced to strike any deals with business owners.

Look at the definition of wage slavery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery and tell me what is so free about it.

Interesting. So you're saying that slavery is freedom.
No, the other person (and probably you) was saying freedom is slavery.


The economic "freedom" of capitalism just means business owners get freedom, not their employees.
So the employees are forced to work there. Right. Sure. Tell me another lie.


If there was economic freedom for employees, then they would work and make money on their own terms and they wouldn't be forced to strike any deals with business owners.
Do you give terms and conditions of sorts if someone wants to borrow your car, like perhaps fill the tank? Isn't that EXACTLY the sort of thing you're railing against? Why yes--yes it is.


Look at the definition of wage slavery
There's no such thing. You need to learn how (http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap21sec3.asp) wages (http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap21sec8.asp) are (http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap21sec6.asp) formed.

No. Those who think that Leninism is the be all and end all of communist thought are clearly ignorant. ;)

What, so going through capitalism, and then to socialism, as opposed to just going from feudalism to socialism? Yes, and let's brush our teeth before we jump off the cliff.

How can they exploit you when they know should your skills be valued more by another individual you would quit and work elsewhere.
Because they are living off your labour. And because no-one is going to pay you a fair wage, because that would mean killing their profit margins.

Anarcho capitalists actually simply want a seperation of the state and the economy it works on large and small scale (not that I am one). Essentially they want maximum economic freedom this would include making money from property.
No they don't. While they claim they do, what they really want is to set up their own privatised states, with law and the like designed so that they, as owner of their companies, can do as they please.

Rousseau was wrong.
Why?

Interesting. So you're saying that freedom is slavery. Will you next tell me that we've always been at war with Eastasia?
So you think that the ability to sell yourself into slavery is freedom? That to be exploited is freedom? Last time I checked, that wasn't freedom...

No, we're anarchists, despite your No True Scotsman desires.
Nope, you're not. Anarchism is, and always has been, anti-capitalist. Even the individualists were anti-capitalist - but you are not. But feel free to call yourself whatever you want - doesn't make it so.
(Also, I'm well aware that I'm not going to change your mind, and you're probably not gonna change mine, so we might as well just agree to disagree on this point...)

Which is why I'd have to get weapons. Lots and lots of weapons. People become a lot less willing to bug you and initiate force against you when you can turn their surroundings into a crater, I've noticed. I guess I'll have a Counter-Revolutionary Guard, too, in order to keep the various governments from moving in and declaring eminent domain on what I've been working on. Then we evil capitalists can enjoy the fruits of our labors unmollested, and the commies can look up every night and see a reminder of free-market prosperity. Perfect. :DThen why not just take your weapons and take over parts of the Earth? It's not as though your weapons will fly through space, anyway, at least not yet.

Because they are living off your labour.
And the workers are living off the labor of the capitalist. Yes, the capitalist did labor. No, labor doesn't mean solely and only manual labor. I don't know why you idiot marxists think that it does.


And because no-one is going to pay you a fair wage,
Fair according to whom? According to you, O Great Dictator?


No they don't.
Anarchocapitalists certainly do want a separation of state and economy, and in fact, to eliminate the state. It is the left-anarchists (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one) who want to strengthen the state, since there cannot be any wide scale (that is, larger than about 10 people) implementation of communism without a state/government.


While they claim they do, what they really want is to set up their own privatised states, with law and the like designed so that they, as owner of their companies, can do as they please.
Only if you want to create a strawman.


So you think that the ability to sell yourself into slavery is freedom?
Last I checked, you hadn't demonstrated that what you're talking about is "sell[ing] yourself into slavery". And, the last I checked, what you're talking about relies on the utterly refuted to death labor theory of value. You might want to base your ideas on something that hasn't been shot down.


That to be exploited is freedom?
Last I checked, exploitation only happens in communism.


Nope, you're not. Anarchism is, and always has been, anti-capitalist.
No, it's not. Anarchism is, and always has been, against the state/government/rulers. It has nothing to do with anti-capitalism, and only tosswad idiots who not only want to use a No True Scotsman fallacy, but want to advance an agenda that is actually counter to anarchism (that is to say: advance communism) believe that adding something to the definition of anarchism which isn't actually there will make their case stronger.


Even the individualists were anti-capitalist - but you are not. But feel free to call yourself whatever you want - doesn't make it so.
So what you're saying if a person does not believe in god, the person is not an atheist, correct? That IS what you're saying if we extend your idea, since clearly, if a person thinks that the state should not exist, that person can't be an anarchist, right?


(Also, I'm well aware that I'm not going to change your mind, and you're probably not gonna change mine, so we might as well just agree to disagree on this point...)
Given the fact that I demonstrated that I'm correct, whereas all you have are hysterics, it's quite clear that you're simply wrong. I'm not going to agree to disagree with you. You were demonstrated to be incorrect. That's a fact.

Last I checked, exploitation only happens in communism.


Then, either your research is very lax, or you feel no need to abide by truth.

Then, either your research is very lax, or you feel no need to abide by truth.

Correct, he forgot that any economic system that requires you to cooperate, or suffer direct action from society, is exploitative. So communism is closely akin to it's bretheren feudalism and fascism.

Correct, he forgot that any economic system that requires you to cooperate, or suffer direct action from society, is exploitative. So communism is closely akin to it's bretheren feudalism and fascism.Feudalism is the antecedent of (and in many ways indistinguishable from) capitalism.

Feudalism is the antecedent of (and in many ways indistinguishable from) capitalism.

Only if you're wearing blinders.

Only if you're wearing blinders.I'm not sure how being aware of what feudalism was and capitalism is means that I'm wearing blinders.

Correct, he forgot that any economic system that requires you to cooperate, or suffer direct action from society, is exploitative. So communism is closely akin to it's bretheren feudalism and fascism.

And slavery was what?

Then, either your research is very lax, or you feel no need to abide by truth.
Or my research is tight as a virgin's pussy and I'm telling the truth.

And that's the case.

Feudalism is the antecedent of (and in many ways indistinguishable from) capitalism.
I do expect that from you, given your utter lack of knowledge of economics.

I'm now going to go off and have a hearty laugh at the fact that you honestly believe that marxist nonsense.

I do expect that from you, given your utter lack of knowledge of economics.

I'm now going to go off and have a hearty laugh at the fact that you honestly believe that marxist nonsense.You poor thing, actually believing that economics is a science. Feel free to revel in your ignorance.

You poor thing, actually believing that economics is a science.
It is, you poor thing. Feel free to revel in your ignorance, where you believe that the amount of labor put into something determines its worth (as if digging a hole and/or filling it up in 2 hours has the same value/worth as making a sweater. Try wearing the hole in winter). Where you believe that value is objective. Where you believe that letting someone use something with conditions is "exploitation".

And you wonder why I look down on you.

It is, you poor thing. Feel free to revel in your ignorance, where you believe that the amount of labor put into something determines its worth (as if digging a hole and filling it up in 2 hours has the same value/worth as making a sweater. Try wearing the hole in winter). Where you believe that value is objective. Where you believe that letting someone use something with conditions is "exploitation".

And you wonder why I look down on you.Well, considering that I don't recall ever having advocated the Labor Theory of Value, I'm not sure why you've brought this up.

Because they are living off your labour. And because no-one is going to pay you a fair wage, because that would mean killing their profit margins.


True they want to make a profit off you. Otherwise they'd have no reason to offer you money in the first place. But they create the building/office/market to sell to, without them the employer would still have nothing. Both groups of individuals do an important job. If the worker felt he could create a company or market for his own product better he could attempt to try it, but its hard work and risky business.



No they don't. While they claim they do, what they really want is to set up their own privatised states, with law and the like designed so that they, as owner of their companies, can do as they please.


You realise not every capitalist owns a company... It'd be like me saying every communist is lazy, working class, uneducated and wants society to provide for him.


Nope, you're not. Anarchism is, and always has been, anti-capitalist. Even the individualists were anti-capitalist - but you are not. But feel free to call yourself whatever you want - doesn't make it so.
(Also, I'm well aware that I'm not going to change your mind, and you're probably not gonna change mine, so we might as well just agree to disagree on this point...)

This point isn't a subjective point. There ARE people who are capitalists and anarchists. You can pretend there isn't because you like anarchism being considered left wing but if you still claim all anarchists are anti capitalist than you are plain ignorant of a large sector of anarchist beliefs.

Look up Max Stirner, Rothbard or most of the Austrian school of economics.

Well, considering that I don't recall ever having advocated the Labor Theory of Value, I'm not sure why you've brought this up.
Because in the end, that's what your ideas are based on.

Because in the end, that's what your ideas are based on.Not really; it is, however, the natural extension of the concept of homesteading - the idea that somebody adding their labor to a piece of land means that they own it.

And the workers are living off the labor of the capitalist. Yes, the capitalist did labor. No, labor doesn't mean solely and only manual labor. I don't know why you idiot marxists think that it does.
Funniest ad hominem attack ever, because it makes you look like a fool. I am not a marxist, and I even specifically stated that when I came in here. So, next time you want to call someone and idiot, make sure you know what you're talking about first.
Also, what work does the capitalist do? Why, he provides capital! And that's capital which, in the beginning, was stolen. So the capitalist does no legitimate work.

Fair according to whom? According to you, O Great Dictator?
Let's try the dictionary, shall we? "Free from discrimination or dishonesty". How does that suit you?

Anarchocapitalists certainly do want a separation of state and economy, and in fact, to eliminate the state. It is the left-anarchists (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one) who want to strengthen the state, since there cannot be any wide scale (that is, larger than about 10 people) implementation of communism without a state/government.
That is true, if you ignore all the examples which go against your claim - anarchists in Spain,

Only if you want to create a strawman.
No, not really. Capitalism CANNOT survive without the state. Take the police - necessary for enforcing property rights. Get rid of them, and your employees will take your land. Keep them, and you're merely making a smaller state. Because that's what you want - private companies performing the services of the state.

Last I checked, you hadn't demonstrated that what you're talking about is "sell[ing] yourself into slavery". And, the last I checked, what you're talking about relies on the utterly refuted to death labor theory of value. You might want to base your ideas on something that hasn't been shot down.
Hmm... What does that have to do with the labour theory of value, exactly? I never said anything about it. As for the slavery thing, when you are employed
the employer has TOTAL control over what you do. It's a case of like it or lump it. That's not freedom. Once you decide to take a job, you're hardly more free than a slave.

Last I checked, exploitation only happens in communism.
You have either got to be joking, or utterly utterly blind to the real world. What about the people in Thailand or wherever making 5c for every $200 Nike shoe they sew? You've GOT to admit there's exploitation in capitalism. As for communism, exploitation happens under all the communist regimes we've seen so far, true, but that's because those are nothing more than state-capitalist societies.

No, it's not. Anarchism is, and always has been, against the state/government/rulers. It has nothing to do with anti-capitalism, and only tosswad idiots who not only want to use a No True Scotsman fallacy, but want to advance an agenda that is actually counter to anarchism (that is to say: advance communism) believe that adding something to the definition of anarchism which isn't actually there will make their case stronger.
Name one (non-'anarcho'-capitalist) anarchist who wasn't anti-capitalist, and explicitly so. Name one (non-'anarcho'-capitalist) anarchist who didn't expressly oppose both state and business. Please. I'd love to read them.


So what you're saying if a person does not believe in god, the person is not an atheist, correct? That IS what you're saying if we extend your idea, since clearly, if a person thinks that the state should not exist, that person can't be an anarchist, right?
No. What I'm saying is that if a person says that they are an atheist, but they believe in God, then they aren't an atheist.

Given the fact that I demonstrated that I'm correct, whereas all you have are hysterics, it's quite clear that you're simply wrong. I'm not going to agree to disagree with you. You were demonstrated to be incorrect. That's a fact.
Not one thing you've said has been correct - half the time you haven't even been arguing with me, but with some fictitious authoritarian that has never been on this thread, and the other half you've either been very confused or wilfully blind. So, while you may have proved that someone who holds the beliefs you want me to hold (so as to make your job easy and so as not to have to argue with someone who has a clue what they're talking about) is wrong, you'll have to try a little harder to do it to me.

Or my research is tight as a virgin's pussy and I'm telling the truth.


Interesting choice of metaphor. Or perhaps appropriate. I'll draw my conclusions later.

Your research is nothing. If you have managed to research so extensively the economic and production models of the world, and have never encountered the concepts of 'slave-trade', 'wage-slave', 'salary-man' or 'immigrant worker', then your 'research' wouldn't be worth pissing on, if it were on fire.


And that's the case.

Not in any 'real' sense.

And you wonder why I look down on you.

If I were much more witty than I truly am, I would concoct some elaborate construction about how your head was so firmly buried in the sand that you were almost upside down, and that you were looking 'down' on people, because your own twisted angle of perception was inverted, and those people actually stood above you....

Or something.

But, it would be too time consuming to spend the time honing it, so - there's the rough outline, you can make your own put-down out of my raw materials. No charge, either. I'm so sweet.

Not one thing you've said has been correct - half the time you haven't even been arguing with me, but with some fictitious authoritarian that has never been on this thread, and the other half you've either been very confused or wilfully blind. So, while you may have proved that someone who holds the beliefs you want me to hold (so as to make your job easy and so as not to have to argue with someone who has a clue what they're talking about) is wrong, you'll have to try a little harder to do it to me.

The fool must think he's talking to Stalin. Or Castro from his hospital bed.

True they want to make a profit off you. Otherwise they'd have no reason to offer you money in the first place. But they create the building/office/market to sell to, without them the employer would still have nothing. Both groups of individuals do an important job. If the worker felt he could create a company or market for his own product better he could attempt to try it, but its hard work and risky business.
The capitalists are unnecessary - what they got was originally taken by theft, and they can be replaced - by cooperatives, say.


You realise not every capitalist owns a company... It'd be like me saying every communist is lazy, working class, uneducated and wants society to provide for him.
Emmm, that's the definition of capitalist - one who owns capital. Unless you mean people in favour of capitalism, in which case I'd use pro-capitalists.

This point isn't a subjective point. There ARE people who are capitalists and anarchists. You can pretend there isn't because you like anarchism being considered left wing but if you still claim all anarchists are anti capitalist than you are plain ignorant of a large sector of anarchist beliefs.

Look up Max Stirner, Rothbard or most of the Austrian school of economics.
I'm well aware of these beliefs. And I know that there are people who claim to be anarchist and capitalist. But, they're not. They're not opposed to capitalism, which is one of only two things all anarchists agree on.

Oh, and BAAWAKnights, even ECONOMISTS don't claim economics is a science. It is a model of society which vaguely approximates the current system, not a set of laws like a real science.

Funniest ad hominem attack ever, because it makes you look like a fool.
But it doesn't.


I am not a marxist,
Then stop advocating marxism.


Also, what work does the capitalist do?
Why does work solely and only have to be manual labor? Why did you just prove me correct?


Why, he provides capital! And that's capital which, in the beginning, was stolen.
Blatant question begging.


So the capitalist does no legitimate work.
Non sequitur.


Let's try the dictionary, shall we? "Free from discrimination or dishonesty". How does that suit you?
Ok, now how does that mean that the wages paid aren't fair?


That is true, if you ignore all the examples which go against your claim - anarchists in Spain,
Nope, I ignore none.


No, not really. Capitalism CANNOT survive without the state.
No, communism/socialism/all collectivist nonsense cannot survive without the state.

Hint: if you want to play this game, we can. However, since it is true that all forms of collectivism require the state for distribution of items (can't say goods, because goods requires a market), I don't see how you're going to get anywhere.


Take the police
Please.

Oh c'mon--you don't get the Henny Youngman reference?


- necessary for enforcing property rights.
So police can't be private? What sort of idiotic bullshit is that?


Get rid of them, and your employees will take your land.
Happens with or without police sometimes. In fact, sometimes the police will take your land because the government flunkies believe you didn't pay enough rent to the government or the government needs the land for some bullshit.

So yeah--the police really enforce property rights, alright.


Keep them, and you're merely making a smaller state.
So you would have no police at all. Everyone would be all nicey-nice. No rapes. Nothing.


Because that's what you want - private companies performing the services of the state.
No, the state has usurped those services. Don't confuse the two.


Hmm... What does that have to do with the labour theory of value, exactly?
The slavery thing stems from the LTV.


I never said anything about it. As for the slavery thing, when you are employed
the employer has TOTAL control over what you do.
No.


It's a case of like it or lump it.
And when you're in someone's house, you shouldn't go around cutting up the person's furniture, should you?

But wait--if you act how the person who owns the furniture wants you to, then you're a slave.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You just fucked yourself over.


You have either got to be joking, or utterly utterly blind to the real world.
No, I'm neither. I just know that you believe that there is an objective worth to work, and I know that there isn't.


What about the people in Thailand or wherever making 5c for every $200 Nike shoe they sew?
What about them? They aren't being exploited; they are making what each considers to be what the job is worth.

Look, if I think my house should be painted for $100, and you offer to paint it for $75, am I exploiting you by paying you $75 when I think it should be done for $100?


You've GOT to admit there's exploitation in capitalism.
No I don't.


As for communism, exploitation happens under all the communist regimes we've seen so far, true, but that's because those are nothing more than state-capitalist societies.
No True Scotsman fallacy.


Name one (non-'anarcho'-capitalist) anarchist
You can't selectively pick your hits. Doesn't work that way in reality.


No. What I'm saying is that if a person says that they are an atheist, but they believe in God, then they aren't an atheist.
Then someone who is against the state is not an anarchist.


Not one thing you've said has been correct
Except that everything I've said has been correct.

Now please educate yourself as to economics. Stop believing the marxist lies.