Bitcoin Forum

Do you like making money and having extra bitcoin in your wallet?

...who exactly are you expecting to say "no" to this?

Somebody voted no.

It's like asking if you like to breathe and eat.

Somebody hated the idea of profit enough to vote no.

Its proof that communists use bitcoin too

There's nothing inherently capitalist about money, or Bitcoin. I rarely understand anarcho-socialists (or as they call themselves, anarchists), but we still share a common enemy - the state - even if they consider themselves in a position to criticize agreements between two parties as exploitative when both parties are happy with the arrangement.

So, where is the 'it depends' option? I like having money, I even like making it (which with bitcoins it is not just a figurative thing), but I wouldn't trade anything for profit... it really depends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_the_limit_of_price
Cost the limit of price was a maxim coined by Josiah Warren, indicating a (prescriptive) version of the labor theory of value. Warren maintained that the just compensation for labor (or for its product) could only be an equivalent amount of labor (or a product embodying an equivalent amount).[1] Thus, profit, rent, and interest were considered unjust economic arrangements. As Samuel Edward Konkin III put it, "the labor theory of value recognizes no distinction between profit and plunder."[2] In keeping with the tradition of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations,[3] the "cost" of labor is considered to be the subjective cost; i.e., the amount of suffering involved in it.[1]

1 ^ a b In Equitable Commerce, Warren writes, "If a priest is required to get a soul out of purgatory, he sets his price according to the value which the relatives set upon his prayers, instead of their cost to the priest. This, again, is cannibalism. The same amount of labor equally disagreeable, with equal wear and tear, performed by his customers, would be a just remuneration
2 ^ a b Wendy McElroy, "Individualist Anarchism vs. "Libertarianism" and Anarchocommunism," in the New Libertarian, issue #12, October, 1984.
3 ^ Smith writes: "The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it." Note, also, the sense of "labor" meaning "suffering."

Or someone did it as a joke. Do you really think five people here are over 100 years old, as shown in genjix's age poll?

Thats probably a good point nelisky.

You, like many other capitalists, do not realize that the employer, renter, and lender (who charges interest), are also states.

Then you and I do not share the same definition of a state, that of an entity with a monopoly on the use of force in a given geographical area. How do you define a state?

An Anarchist FAQ, least the Infoshop edition (http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionB2) (I'll have to check my dead tree version (http://www.akpress.org/2007/items/ananarchistfaqakpress) when I get home), provides a good definition (http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionB2):

So, employers, landlords, and usurers currently enjoy relatively comfortable hierarchical positions at the mercy of the larger state in whose jurisdiction (territory) they exist. In the absence of a larger state, they will each (re)gain the monopoly of violence over whatever territory they can control. They will have to use their own violence or threats of violence, instead of relying on that of a larger state, to maintain or elevate their hierarchical statuses.

edit.

"The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it."

This is very difficult to measure. It's a game of whims and desires in the end. The best measurement is, frankly, the market at hand; whatever anyone is willing to pay and accept. This whole game of defining what people are truly owed is silly. It only reminds me of today's absurd concept of a "living wage".

I can't imagine living a life without profit. I wouldn't have any saving.

I'm just trying to explain that government and capitalism are inseparable. I will concede that some forms of hierarchy make sense, like when it has to do with expertise on a particular subject. There's no coercion when it comes to deciding to follow the direction of someone who knows their stuff. I don't know if you could even call that hierarchy though as long as experts don't get any special entitlements.

I rather liked that quote from Warren about the priest. I also like this one (http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/chomsky-on-ac.txt) supposedly from Noam Chomsky: I say "supposedly" because its source website doesn't look very nice and that tends to indicate unreliability.

I see some problems with it though when it comes to scarce things. For example, if I build a few widgets, but many people want them, I think that after excluding people who don't really need the widgets, to the best of my ability, I don't see anything wrong with selling them to the highest bidders. How do you feel about that?

EDIT: I thought about that some more and I have to qualify it. If the scarce product is baseball cards, and nobody really needs them, just sell them to the highest bidder. If you have food or water that's scarce, which people do need, you feed yourself and ration the excess. Don't hoard, especially if the food will go bad before you can possibly eat it. Importantly, you have no right to preclude others from making whatever it is themselves. So, don't hold unused land for ransom, for example.

Thought experiment:
I'm a painter. I paint a piece, and sell it to a gallery owner. The gallery owner says, great, here's your 100 bucks. I go and buy some paint, brushes, etc. Rinse, repeat.

Some time later, a friend points me to a website. Huh? I think, that's my name, and those are my paintings. And, wholly-shit! they are being sold for $5000 a piece!

I confront the gallery owner, who says, that they are in fact selling my works for a massive, massive markup. And that there's nothing wrong with that. I voluntarily sold the paintings to the gallery owner. I accepted the price paid for my work. I should be happy that I got what I thought was a fair price for my work, and the gallery owner was happy to have paid that fair price. The fact that the gallery owner can turn around and sell each piece for a huge profit is nothing to do with me.

Is this immoral?


(Scenario taken from a very good fiction book I read once. I can neither remember the name of the author, nor the title of the book.)

I believe that you are the only one who is morally outraged.

Certainly not. Everyone made a deal they were happy with.

At that time, it was a deal that everyone was happy with. However, the artist somehow underestimate his own popularity or how good his artwork is. That's just business.

More likely the artist didn't have the necessary contacts or sales skills. In any case, the middle-man served a valuable purpose, since the art would have never reached its eventual destination without him.

You should of negotiated your artwork better or there's the possibility the middleman adds value to the art you could never add. I see nothing wrong.

Yes. The gallery owner abused the fact that she owns a gallery and has access to a special market to steal as much as $4900 from the artist. However, capitalists believe that she has the rightful authority to do so. Now, the gallery owner probably did some work and had some expenses, but not 98% of that which both parties contributed to the production and sale of of the painting. Therefore, she does not deserve as much as 98% of the earnings associated with producing and selling a painting. The gallery owner has no right to take advantage of the fact that the artist, because he lacks capital, does not have access to a market that will support as high price as the the one she has access to via her greater capital. However, if the gallery owner indicates that she wants to share the earnings fairly and the artists opts for a smaller share, he will have freely gifted some of his fair share to her.

Of course some folks might not agree that theft is morally wrong. Then we have to use another argument.

You assume that the artist could have freely chosen not to sell the painting.

Sure he could of chosen but he would be without pay. If he doesn't like it, he should better his skills or find a new career.

What if he spent all of his time painting instead of producing food from his labor (farming, foraging, hunting...)? What if he had no place to do so? Now he must trade his painting for food or the means to get food. He has no capital with which to access a market that pays as highly as that which the gallery owners have access to. Now a gallery owner can pay him less than the fair value of the painting and be his boss. With her capital, she puts herself in a position of authority over him.

Obviously, if no one will pay anything for his paintings because they suck, we have a different situation.

There's room to disagree about that, but let's agree, for the sake of argument, that this is "wrong". Now what?

There's no point in talking about the rights and wrongs of something if you don't talk about what you propose to do to discourage behaviour deemed wrong. I think trying to force people to behave more fairly in free market situations is likely to lead to much more harm than just accepting that sometimes people get screwed.

Well, you educate people. They will either remain complacent, start trying to avoid capitalism, or revolt. I hope that most people will choose the second option.

I'm not sure I see the difference between "start trying to avoid capitalism" and "start behaving smarter in their business dealings".

Because that might imply propagating capitalism, which is wrong.

FatherMcGruder:
I don't think I really see what you're proposing. To help me understand could you:

-define "capitalism"
-give an example of how one would go about avoiding it.

By sacrificing your time and effort to others.

Altruistic sacrifice is extremely rare. Also I don't expect this to be FatherMcGruder's answer. Perhaps it's best to let people speak for themselves.

Some of you on here are rand zealots. Just because you think one way, doesn't mean everybody thinks the same. If you could find one motivator for human actions then you would win a nobel prize and be hailed the world over as famous.

It's like some of you are consigned to being selfish bastards so to ease that cognitive dissonance you assume everybody is the same and make these contrived arguments about how it's done to "make yourself feel good" or some other bullshit reason.

- Why do people vote? It's -EV
- Why do people make anonymous posts on 4chan? I sometimes make posts there, then instantly leave the thread.
- Or help people out on IRC? Doesn't feel good at all, but I recognise that people help me out a lot and I have an obligation to do the same. Even when I join new channels + with unknown users I've never been to before.

Not everyone is blind profit maximisers. Even the evolutionary science says that humans are altruists to some degree as a result of group level selection (altruist groups are more likely to survive in the wild and therefore are selected for).

A better theory for human behaviour (incidentally that is accepted by mainstream psychology) is to say that each person has a self image. All actions we take are to try and stay congruent with this self image to minimise cognitive dissonance. If you're a cutthroat salesman ripping off customers with junk, then you're going to reason that you're doing nothing wrong in this competitive world. If you're religious, you might reason that all non-religious people are deliberately denying God/trying to ignore him. If you're atheist, you reason that religious people are in self-denial. If you're an artist, you may reason that everything is about feeling. A scientist reasons that it's about hard facts & evidence.

Here's an email snippet for your amusement, showing at least one example (me) that not everyone is profit oriented and can in fact have other goals in life (horror!)

I like profit.

I am a profit.

No its not inmoral.

The painter gained two things:

1) Exposure thanks to the previous work of the art merchant who worked his ass to gain a costumer base and a reputation.
2) Exerience. Next time he wont sell so cheap and will bargain more. This is actually the biggest benefit the painter got, but this is just my (obviously subjective) opinion.

I agree. Profit in the monetary sense is not the only motivator (although it is a motivator), it might not even be the most powerful one (its all about sex... :D ). And this is a problem I often find in the freedom movement. Saying that people are profit maximaxers is a simplification and its a wrong simplifications. In economics even austrian economists does not assume people are pfofit maximazers.

For me profit and loses are important, but not mainly as a motivator, but more as a signal for resource allocation. Without a system of profit and loses there would be no economic coordination and there would be no progress. From a society point of view that is the value of profits and loses.

Capitalism is a system wherein one, as a capitalist, tries to gain as much as he can, however he can, from someone else, or some group of people, while giving back as little as possible. The only way to reliably do so is by charging others for the privilege of using, but not owning, your capital. This one-way exchange necessitates an authoritarian relationship. One cannot take the product of someone's labor without giving back something of equal value absent the authority to do so. As such, if a capitalist will, via his own government or with the backing of an external one, take ownership of everything produced in the factories or on the land he has the power to rule over, even that which he did not work to produce.

Capitalists who wish to abolish government do not understand that doing so will eliminate their ability to reliably gain at the expense of others. I think they are really trying to say that they want to replace large governments with small ones that they each expect to control. Therefore, they should either stop hating government or stop loving capitalism.

We can avoid capitalism by not renting our surplus. In other words, don't be an employer, a landlord, or a usurer. Expect workers to own the product of their labor. Wherever and whenever you can, join or support cooperative associations instead of non-worker owned ones.

I happen to think that a market for goods, one to which everyone has access, makes sense. But that's a market for goods, not people or privileges.

This is the most ridiculous definition of capitalism I have yet read. Come on, you are using all type of subjective concepts as if they were objective. It does not make sense at all.

Most people do not know how to manage themselves and each other within a group. Employers allow people to specialize.

/I'm done

FatherMcGruder: Interestingly, your solution revolves around the party with power refraining from using it, not so much around the party with less power trying to avoid being taken advantage of. Anyone who refrains from getting the greatest profit from their property on moral grounds puts themselves at a disadvantage in comparison to less scrupulous competitors. In the long run, altruism loses out, unless it is somehow supported. There are many such supports in place in society now, most of them coercive in some way.

What's your stand on coercion? Socialism (I don't use this as a pejorative BTW, your ideas sound pretty socialist in a very classical sense.) requires co-operation which very easily leads to coercion. Much like with Anarchism in general, for things to work out you have to be willing and somehow able to break society down into units small enough for small-group psychology to hold sway - in a larger society, you need guns to keep people altruistic. I'm interested in any counterexamples, of course.

I do think any remotely free society requires its residents to behave altruistically at times. There must be a willingness to make personal compromises in the interest of the society as a whole, otherwise you lose the sense of belonging that is one of the greatest protections against abuses of power. One thing I've never understood about Anarcho-Capitalism is how it wouldn't simply lead to anyone with enough wealth hiring a private army and forming a new government, probably rather less friendly than the ones we have now in some places.

As Chairman Mao said, power grows from the barrel of a gun. You can take that as an endorsement of guns or as a condemnation of power...

I never said achieving proper anarchy would be easy or fast. And it certainly won't happen if the majority of people continue to support capitalism. But I don't think it's too much to suggest that people with access to capital engage in ventures that use cooperative models instead of authoritarian ones. If enough people start to value cooperative relationships and hate authoritarian ones, and raise their children accordingly, an anarchist society will eventually emerge and thrive. A minority of capitalists won't be a problem because they'll have trouble finding employees. Such societies emerged in Spain, but the fascists and the communists, with greater numbers and firepower arrived and killed enough of the anarchists to put an end to that. As such, I don't support violent revolution. The anarchists will probably get beaten again without having changed enough minds. I think anarchism can spread peacefully by setting examples and educating people. Power disseminating technology, like Bitcoin, will help. Currently, the people with the most capital take a lot of it from workers. If enough workers can find cooperative alternatives, they will eventually weaken the large capital holders enough that they will have to start working themselves, or at least make room for more cooperative associations.

If you need to force people to be altruistic, are they really being altruistic?

The capitalists on this forum are shown to be indifferent to the form of organization and relationship other than the question of voluntary/coercion. They happily form the needed association and organizations to meet the tasks at hand.

We can assimilate you and your ideas but you could never assimilate us.

Reply to everyone who said that nothing immoral occurred in my thought experiment.

What do you think about the idea that a free market requires knowledge/information? I, as a consumer, can buy what I want. But I really only want to buy products that aren't made by slave labor. Difficult, because there is no label on goods that explains whether or not it was made with slave labor or not.* I also only want to buy food that isn't going to poison me, that don't have too much fat or sugar, etc. Now, if it were up to the corporations, I wouldn't be able to know any thing about the food they produce. Why? Because they benefit from consumers only being able to compare products based on price, advertising, and later, after the product is consumed/used the experience. So, that's why governments step in and force corporations to label their goods.

* For the purposes of this post, slave labor has two meanings. One: where someone is forced to work for a certain person/organization. Two: where people are paid a pittance for their labor, compared to the price the product of their labor is sold for.

Now, in this case, the person with the imperfect knowledge is the original producer. They didn't realize that their paintings were "valued" at such a high price compared to what they were selling them for. After finding out, of course, they could now refuse to deal with the original gallery owner without much higher compensation. If they could afford to that is. But before hand, the market failed the painter.

(I would also argue that capitalist free markets will generally, if not always, fail, because it is in the interest of the capitalists to without information so that they can increase their profit, and thus capital. In a non-capitalist market, where resources are not accumulated beyond what can be used, there is less incentive to do this. Where there is no profit motive at all, such as in an anarchist free market, there is more incentive to actually educate consumers about the product.)

Now, as this thread is about profit, I would like to state two things. First, that in the original example, the gallery owner exploited, immorally, the painter. But, that actually, if the paintings only costs the painter $100 to produce (labor, paint, etc.), it would also be immoral for the painter to sell those paintings at $5000. That's because, as I posted earlier, "cost [should be] the limit of price". I.e. it's immoral to sell something for more than what it cost to produce it.

Now, that doesn't work in this capitalist world we live in. But, damn it, I'm allowed to dream about a better world!

(Also, I'm bowing out of the thread now, unless someone offers a detailed response that actually addresses a point I've made.)

So, I as a free market capitalist see a market for "No Slave Labour" products. Since I'm printing lables for my products anyway it costs me next to nothing to add that to the lable.
Now people could always lie, but if the market finds out that my lable is false I lose any advantage my clever little marketing ploy had as they all move to another product.
Just like the painter has the option to raise the price of his work or go somewhere else (or open his own gallery) the gallery that was exploiting him losses in the long term.
Thats how voluntary austracism punishes unscrupulous behaviour

you mean the painter failed in the market :P

The incentive to educate consumers about the product is competitive advantage. If I'm the only guy with "Slave Free" chocolate bars I have 100% market share.
Witholding information maximises profits in the short term, true, but building trust and providing what the customer wants maximises profits over the long term.

"cost [should be] the limit of price"
If I spend all day painting a picture and it costs me $100 to paint and I go to the market and sell it for $100 I will literaly will die of starvation
now lets say I factor food into this equation and that $100 covers food and waste (paint washed off the brush is lost) let's also say that instead of painting a picture I could have been performing brain surgery. do I value my time as a lowly painter or a highly skilled surgeon? by making a painting I have foregone the pay of a surgeon which is a lost oppertunity cost.
Is my time painting worth exactly the same as a surgeon? how about a master painter?
No, my time cost is compleatly subjective so if I was to sell a painting worth $5000 in materials it would include $4900 worth of labour
how is that any different from profit or do you plan to force people to value their time equaly in which case how is that different from the state?

<insert "value added is not profit" rant here>

<insert "None of this matters anyway the state is evil" rant here>

I am the Tak tse Profit.  It is not a misspelling.  I am here to remind everyone of forgotten or ignored truths of the ancients.  I wish to express my Philosophy via a blog here or in another Bit Coin related publication.

Love All

No, you have it backwards.

If there was a free market consumer presure would force food companies to label their products with the information, and probably there would appear other companies with higher standards hiring employees.

But the governments appears and regulates so companies can avoid competition and dont have to listen to consumer demands. Then politicians go and promote the idea that regulations help you, and its easy since very few voters read and understand the regulations.

You have example after example of this. For example, I remember a one man beer production company that started to get famous locally and started to take a big part of the market. The beer companies came quickly and made the government regulated sending the guy out of business.

It is really naive to believe that government regulations are there to protect you.

I dont see how the market failed the painter. You just have repeated the history, not addressing any argument. Knowledge will always be imperfect, this is something free marketeers have assumed since always. It was only neoclassicals and keynesians that assumed that information was perfect until recently.

Btw, the art trader also suffers from imperfect information. He is also taking a risk. For example, what if the artist is a pedophile, gets famous thanks to his support and when the news gets out the art traders career gets ruined and all his efforts building a consumer base goes to nothing? Is that the market failing to the art trader?


You are assuming that people will be completely different depending on the name you asign to them. It makes no sense. I have discovered that people that define themselves as austro-free-marketeers tend to be very moral and very consumer driven producers.


No its not. Just because you repeat something again and again without justification, it does not become true.


We dont live in a free market world. We live in a social-democrat system. If by capitalism you mean the present system, then yes, we should live in a better world. The problem is that people is very selfish and prefer to believe in fantasies that make their ego feel good and not real solutions.

As long as those associations and organizations tolerate their brand of extortion, the state.

I'm not your Borg, bro.

Let's say the painters material costs (paint, canvas, brush wear) amounted to $25. That means the gallery owner paid the painter $75 for his labor, while the market, if the painter has access to it, would have paid him $4925. Which value correctly represents the painter's labor? I believe that the market, assuming that there is only one for the society and that everyone has access to it, democratically assigns the most correct value. However, exclusive markets, a product of capitalism, give too much power to the gate-keeping middlemen who then take advantage of the workers.

The 2 parties came to a volantary arrangement in both cases. The artist assumed the gallery would try to profit from his work going into the arrangement. He took his profits and was happy.
later he finds out that the profit the gallery made was quite large.
in the future the artist knows that the market values his work much higher than he does and can increase his prices to the gallery owner or take his work to another gallery.

wait, why am I arguing about property rights with a communist.... :D in fact why are you even here. this place is the epitomy of free market capitalism  :P

There is no profit to be had arguing with a commie.  ;)

But not as happy as he deserves.

Yes, he realizes that he has been robbed.

He may be wiser, but he cannot take back what the gallery owner because he would face punishment from the state for doing so. How can he petition any gallery owner for a fairer deal if they will simply reject him for a more obedient painter?

If you take the time to read more of my posts, you will realize that I am not a communist.

Because I think bitcoin might help to eliminate the state and therefore capitalism. It's funny that you should refer to the "epitomy[sic] of free market capitalism" on the one hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

There is no profit to any intellectual debate. Why were you one of the first to engage me in it?

FatherMcGruder is onto something there: "government" or "the state" is simply any group of individuals with the ability to subjugate others to their will. Removing government altogether is likely to just lead to someone establishing  a new one, with force perhaps. I still don't see how a truly free market would actually arise, let alone stay free for any significant time.

Wrong. There's profit in a fruitful intellectual debate. I gained knowledge, insight, and enlightenment. That is the product when somebody debate each other.

I actually did gain something from you, but the energy spent on it outweigh the gain. So it is an unprofitable debate.

There are interesting opposition that I can gain so much because they are actually smart and intelligent. Even if they are not that smart and intelligent, they have wisdom. I may disagree with them, but I can understand the justification for their arguments.

However, you are nothing more than just a crazy fool. I learned nothing and understand nothing. That is the "gain".

oh, in that case you are just compleatly wrong.  He alienated himself from his property for a fair sum. If the gallery instead burned the paintings for heat would they be entitled to a refund. less the heat generated of course ::)

How so? he sold his property to the gallery. The gallery then sold it's justly aquired property for a profit.
This isn't a zero sum game pal. and if it was there would be no point playing.

Sorry, I was working under the assumptions of a free market. If the state is involved all bets are off. The painter would probably sue and I don't care to get into a legal (blegh) disscussion

Intellectual debate is nothing but profit. but kiba said it better while I was posting, lol

This part is the hardest, convincing most people that they're better off without government, even small ones of their own creation. The more invested in capitalism they are, intellectually and materially, the harder it is.

Well, good, but that stuff is free. You can find it while pooping, after all.

I don't recall ever calling anyone in these discussions names. I refrain because I want my readers to take me seriously. Don't you want the same?

Abstractly, we everything about us is a zero sum game. We each don't exist, exist, and then cease existing. No one gets out alive. But since we're all in this together, why not seek cooperative relationships where everyone gains equally according to the work they do?

Ah, but the gallery owner is also the state! Otherwise, she couldn't possibly take the product of the painter's labor without giving something back of equal value.