SertraOD wrote:
All things are not collective effort. Building a series of cars is a collective effort, but building an old car from near scratch is an individual effort because the original creators have already been compensated.
Building a series of cars is a bunch of organized individual efforts. To assert a collective is to assert common purpose, and that does not exist.
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That is why we end the capital provider. The capital provider gained that capital through the efforts of previous workers anyways, so why should the proletariat work for what could already be theirs? They may be compensated, but it is not compensation decided through an equal bidding process or contract. The capital only belongs to the provider because capitalism allowed it.
How can one gain capital through the efforts of previous workers if the entire relationship is established by capital??? The idea does not make sense. X + C --> +C, but X + 0 --> +C? Does that mean that X = X + C, and thus that capital exploitation is independent of capital? You simply aren't making sense. The proletariat work due to game theory, if they fought, they would likely only lose, if they work together all parties win. Nothing is equal, it is decided by supply and demand though, and that is efficient. Capital must belong to somebody.
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The issue is that coordination does not entail ownership unless the law defines it that way. Coordination is merely another form of work, but coordination is the only sort of work that allows extreme exploitation. This entire system of investment merely complicates what is quite simple. All industry requires is materials and workers to produce something. In capitalism, you need investment. The investment came from other workers producing something. Why not cut out all the nonsense and distribute these goods amongst the public? There is a reason there is all this unnecessary trading; it allows people to accumulate without explaining exactly what's going on.
Coordination means some level of effective ownership, especially if one seeks effective ownership. If there is no reward for good coordination, then why coordinate at all? The investment came from past labor, you are obfuscating the issue by denying that labor was necessary for the first capital and I can only take that as intentional and ignorant. Something cannot come from nothing, and exploitation cannot be done without the capital relationship, therefore the original capital must have been from labor of some form and then perhaps grown. There is no nonsense going at all, only a fundamental failure to understand the system. The reason is that it is not unnecessary at all, in fact, the capitalist system is extremely simple, just very counter-intuitive. It logically follows though. The investors originally had the capital, they got it from somewhere originally, and this original place must be labor for nothing else can create capital without capital. Because they already have saved labor, they possess it rightfully(as rightfully as rightful can be, for if they did not, then no saved labor could be respected and a war against all would occur, so it is a matter of the game theoretical thing that society really is).
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This is simply not true. The public relations industry was literally created by Freud's nephew; he used psychological theory to manipulate people through our information networks. Industries hire psychiatrists all the time.
Ok???? Um.... that proves absolutely nothing. You can't control people that easily, the environment is not that controlled. Industries are just being smart because psychology is useful to them, as psychology is useful to others as well.
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Contracts after the collectivizing of industry exist as contracts with society, rather than contracts with the bourgeoisie.
And a unified society is a false idea. Individuals, as they are heterogenous and filled with different interests are all that mean anything. Frankly, the collectivization of industry will end up with the inflexibility of industry.
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Publishing Chomsky is part of their control method. The public today is concerned with freedom, thus the powers that be cannot be seen as censors. Instead, they overwork and barely educate the people so that all they see and hear comes from blow-hards like Bill O'Reilly. They don't need to control a minority of truth-seekers, they just need to control the masses. Therefore, they publish Chomsky, but they would never promote him, and they will put a spin on him as well.
Umm.... yeah.... Look, I don't think much of counter-intuitive conspiracy theories, especially since they could do a better job of reducing these things and even choose different spokesmen than Bill O'Reilly. I mean, censorship can be done very surreptitiously so this still just sounds like a Christian apologist arguing that his God ordained the best of all possible worlds. I mean, it is just post-hoc rationalization for an already accepted conclusion. Heck, what would you even accept as proof that corporations had less control than you say? I mean, if they were in control, they could manipulate the heck out of the current ideology to the point where you couldn't even think of anarchism.
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Individual effort does characterize collective effort, which is why individuals are compensated. They are merely not compensated unevenly. Capitalism is individualism for a spoiled minority.
Capitalism is individualism, plain and simple. Unevenness of compensation is natural for a system where talent, drive, and all sorts of other traits are uneven.
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Production of drugs and pornography are not necessarily under collective control (at least not in my ideal). For example, industries could be started regardless of what the collective thinks. If we design the collective to always allow new efforts, then a "business" could be started. The difference is that each person working in this industry has a vote directly to that industry, and expansion will only occur when demand increases. So, it is not necessarily the collective as a whole that votes on the pornography industry, but only the collective involved. Everyone can vote on community-wide issues such as plan setting, but not everyone can vote on the very inner workings of the porn industry. Only the workers.
Where does the industry get the capital other than the collective? Not only that, but a collective that always allows new efforts would be a seriously impaired idea as well, what about ideas that flat out suck? Not only that, but what if demand is *expected* to increase? How can such a rigid algorithm account for such an instance? Finally, how do we handle the individual capital pools? Like, we have 2 very productive industries, but one has a *ton* more growth potential than the other, and could be the biggest thing ever if given the investment capital needed now. Not only that, but if the capital *is* collective, then what if the porn industry workers want something that a lot of people dislike. How do they get contrained?
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Or, something like drug production could be done privately. It's easy to grow marijuana and mushrooms on your own, for example. We need a system that allows people to do whatever they want, but are accountable to all involved. So, you can start a business, but it doesn't follow an exploitive model. Expansion is determined by demand, like capitalism, and if a business fails the people involved will be expected to try something else.
The entire division of exploitation and non-exploitation is false from my view, and that is why I say your system is unfree. The issue is that all parties are always somewhat accountable to each other under the capitalist system, at least, in so far as the contracts between all parties exist.
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Involvement should define power. The individual is empowered by having a say in whatever his work is put towards.
Involvement will always mean some power, but ideally industry is the servant of demand and demand alone(otherwise, why can't the workers simply say they hate black people and refuse to have anything to do with them?), and thus growth needs to be incentivized, and capital needs a good reason to go to areas where growth will occur. Individuals have a say in capitalism, even if the say is quitting.
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Maybe in anarcho-communism or something of that sort. In the unnamed system I propose, people only have a say in what others do within that industry or specific collective. People only have a say in what the direction of the industry is, but not necessarily the detailed rules that govern people.
The issue is that the rules that govern people will necessarily follow from this control. Now, your decentralization if pressed will either end up being communistic or capitalistic with pointless regulations.
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Society and the collective are really nothing but a collection of individuals. Society's "choice" is really nothing more than weighing the desires of each individual. It is literally impossible to work together and still be able to do whatever you wish within it, no matter what the economics are.
Well, the issue is just that my desires need to be separate from those of my fellows. That is the reason I establish points like this. The individual is ultimately what is important, and the economics allow for individuals to work to their own ends through working together, the focus being on the former and not the latter.
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I propose a society which allows individuals to work wherever they wish, yet are still expected to produce goods that others will use and consume. As long as they can distribute what is produced, they can continue to do whatever they wish. It follows models of supply and demand, and it allows people to create industry and business, like capitalism.
Well, the issue is that how will you get individuals to pick the right places to work. You cannot guarantee spots everywhere, and not all people are suited for all jobs. If you want to maintain that freedom then you may need a market for jobs, so that way the people who want the jobs more can give up more for them, otherwise you will have people take all of the good jobs and never give them up, even if other people want or need them more.
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Unlike capitalism, all involved have ownership, there is no money, and the interests of society are collectivized rather than distributed amongst contrary institutions.
The problem I have is that ownership is a special privilege, and should belong to those who have earned it. Capital ownership is a good way of showing that, as it shows past savings towards this control. A moneyless society is just a plain stupid idea, I don't even think I need to discuss that in depth, as the notion only deserves laughing and scorn, for money is simply a label for the productive efforts of individuals and the amount of society's goods they deserve, and is simply a limiting factor on greed. Finally, interests should be divided in society, divided interests mean competition and further pursuit of the good of others, for the sake of increasing the welfare of all.
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This is not a socialistic system as much as it is an even individualistic system.
It does not seem like a good system for promoting the public good.
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It keeps the concept of individual freedom in the economy while not allowing the flawed property conception that capitalism has.
Property is freedom, I don't mean to own it, but to be able to own it. Property is the right to own your own labor, and a society that denies people their own labor is hardly a free society. You may bring up the issue of "capital!!" but, once again, I state that capital does not arise ex nihilo, it originally arose from something, that something must then originally be labor, and if capital is derived from labor, there is nothing illegitimate about it no matter what it does. We can say that this capital power should be constrained by other interests, and it probably will, if the law itself is privatized, then any liberty can theoretically be denied, but competition of powers is the best way to freedom in a world full of bastards.
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It allows society as a whole to govern, but not any say in individual and consensual matters. The individual has say wherever he or she may be, but not a say where they are not. Society is not in your home, therefore only you and your family have a say. Society is not in your industry, thus only you and your colleagues have a say. Industry has a say in society, not the other way around.
Would you allow child abuse? How about murder in the home? Both are purely domestic issues. The issue is that easy divisions are nice, but ultimately false. Few societies would allow you to murder your children and get away with it, and to assert that children should not be murdered is a violation of the sanctity of the home. Therefore there is a difficult trade-off that law would have to make.
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What I'm explaining is individual freedom through political power at all levels relevant to the individual. Not collective freedom through political powers at all levels relevant to society.
I can understand your idea somewhat better now. I still think it contradicts itself, and that anarcho-capitalism is the fullest expression of individuality, simply because it has the ability to recognize the relationship of the individual to society in a very complex manner depending upon a number of subjective factors. It is still individualist, simply because an efficient system would give individuals freedom, however, it is freed enough to pursue any path if individuals demand for it stands, for even if you consider other constructs to be false, that is an ideological construct in and of itself. No system escapes constructs at all, but at least anarcho-capitalism allows freedom to pursue one's path through all constructs.
28 Jul 2008, 1:32 am
