Capitalism (continued from How do you deal with the thought about taxes)

[ktttn]

Factory takeover? Riot cops.

You mean the attempted armed robbery, and possible murder of a factory owner?

Attempt to overthrow a slaveowning profiteer? Millitary bloodbath.

People are not property. We're on the same side here.

Strikes? Picket lines? More riot cops or at least arrests and brutality.

Not without a State. I wouldn't try to violently stop any strike-breakers, though.

Protesting company policy? Hundreds of riot cops.

Not without a State.

Your source is biased and wrong imo.

There's no chance in hell you've read Man, Economy, and State in the time since I gave you the link. I read Proudhon, and Marx. Least you could do is give Rothbard a shot.

Ever been on the wrong side of a line of riot cops?

AnCaps don't tend to get violent enough to bring out Riot cops. We do get arrested pretty frequently, though.

Ever talk to the Chief executive officer of exxon or shell, monsanto or any not hypothetical capitalist?

You're talking to one now.

Are you a 'sucessful' capitalist? Have you ever lived on or under the wages capitalists enforce?

In order: moderately, and yes. And they don't enforce those wages, sweetheart. That's the market. The only enforcement is the minimum wage. And that prices people out of the marketplace entirely.

Now, I'm done derailing this thread. If you'd like an explanation of free-market capitalism, I will be glad to answer any questions you have, and explain that capitalism is not your enemy, and in fact, both you and I share the same enemy.

In another thread.

Capital is accumulated wealth.

If you cut my grass and I promise you a meal that weekend as a thank you for a good job, you have just accumulated wealth.

It is mutual consent. If you cut 7 lawns and have a meal each day the next week you have accumulated wealth.

If instead of the promise of a meal, I give you money that is the equivalent of a meal which you then hold onto until you are hungry, you have just accumulated wealth. It is the same thing. The voluntary exchange of goods and services.

If you have accumulated knowledge and are the only person in the city that knows how to fix my car I choose between having no car or rewarding you properly for fixing it. I promise 1 meal a week for a month (or the equivalent monetary value).

If I have a computer system that needs someone to fix the database and you have accumulated enough knowledge to the point where you can fix it, I decide whether or not to have a broken computer system or reward you properly for fixing it. I promise 1 meal a week for a year in exchange for a week of your time dedicated to fixing it. Or more simply, I pay you enough money to afford 1 meal a week for a year. That is accumulated wealth.

All of these instances rely upon consent between the two individuals. If you do not want to do it, then you do not have to. If I do not want you to do the job, I do not have to ask you to do it.

[ktttn]

*Deep breath*
A factory takeover is always a peaceful, organized process if the profiteer being deposed has the good sense to gtfo, and doesn't call in the riot cops, instead opting to let the rightful owners, the workers, take over.
It is shameful ignorance to say riot cops show up in response to violence. As a rule, with negligible exceptions, the police instigate the violence. Can't have a riot without riot cops. Can't have capitalism either. Ive been arrested twice, both times in NYC parks during riots that started after the storm troopers marched in.
Rothbard, if I run into it in one of my republican (token cheap shot at "ancaps") buddies' houses, I swear to you personally I will read. I mean this
Until then, we make our own points. Yes?
Also, Bakunin>Marx. I raise you a Kropotkin and half a deCleyre.
You're a CEO? Cool. Seriously, cool. Fortune 500,000,000 I presume? Less than 1000 wagesla- er
..employees?
Not the same thing or even the same order of thing as the examples I mentioned. To claim the state does not facilitate capitalism is due to a misindoctrination.
The Capitalist invented the wage slave, darlin.'

[ktttn]

Capital is accumulated wealth.

If you cut my grass and I promise you a meal that weekend as a thank you for a good job, you have just accumulated wealth.

Food is not wealth. Food, water- resources like this exist on a more basic Heirarchy of needs.
 I consider one of my most strongly held ethics to be destroying the complex structutes that set people up to starve in a world where actual global food scarcity is misrepresented by the manipulative industries that deal with production and distrobution of food.
 I consider it unethical to pay for food. This is freeganism and is the point of departure for me on following this reasoning.
We're talking about coersion, the threat of violence if I dont buy food.
Wouldnt you agree that consent is now thrown out of the window? I suppose opting out is an option, but within the structure, capitalist assumptions about consent are materially unfounded.
I understand that I am not addressing a number of your points directly. The premise needs rethinking.

[alkuluku]

Capital is accumulated wealth.

If you cut my grass and I promise you a meal that weekend as a thank you for a good job, you have just accumulated wealth.

Food is not wealth. Food, water- resources like this exist on a more basic Heirarchy of needs.

I think a meal is not wealth because you can't invest it. IIRC Marx said something that the money becomes capital only when it's invested to gain interest.

If instead of the promise of a meal, I give you money that is the equivalent of a meal which you then hold onto until you are hungry, you have just accumulated wealth. It is the same thing. The voluntary exchange of goods and services.

With money I can choose to eat something cheaper (or not to eat at all) and save/invest the rest. Then I have accumulated a tiny bit of wealth.

[mmeijeri]

*Deep breath*
A factory takeover is always a peaceful, organized process if the profiteer being deposed has the good sense to gtfo, and doesn't call in the riot cops, instead opting to let the rightful owners, the workers, take over.

The rightful owner would be the shareholders, unless the factory is owned by a workers co-op. Possible, but rare. A takeover is by definition not a peaceful process, it is coercion backed up by the threat of violence by union thugs.

[myrkul]

*Deep breath*
A factory takeover is always a peaceful, organized process if the profiteer being deposed has the good sense to gtfo, and doesn't call in the riot cops, instead opting to let the rightful owners, the workers, take over.

All right, we'll start with the easy one.

What makes them the "rightful" owners? There are only two ways to legitimately acquire property:
Original appropriation (homesteading), or voluntary purchase.

Secondary appropriation, or "squatting" is only valid on abandoned property. Certainly you're not claiming that the factory owner (or shareholders) abandoned the factory?

[myrkul]

Wherever useful work is done to build/design/organise/etc., that's the "original appropriation".

If I come into your workshop (the workshop where you work, not necessarily the one you own) and steal the piece of marble you were going to make into a pillar, or a bunch of countertops, and take it back to my workshop, and make a statue instead, Does that make the finished piece of marble mine?

[myrkul]

Wherever useful work is done to build/design/organise/etc., that's the "original appropriation".

If I come into your workshop (the workshop where you work, not necessarily the one you own) and steal the piece of marble you were going to make into a pillar, or a bunch of countertops, and take it back to my workshop, and make a statue instead, Does that make the finished piece of marble mine?

Did you have an agreement with the previous appropriator to do the work?

But you said that "Wherever useful work is done to build/design/organise/etc" is the original appropriation. How can something have a previous appropriator and then experience original appropriation?

[myrkul]

Wherever useful work is done to build/design/organise/etc., that's the "original appropriation".

If I come into your workshop (the workshop where you work, not necessarily the one you own) and steal the piece of marble you were going to make into a pillar, or a bunch of countertops, and take it back to my workshop, and make a statue instead, Does that make the finished piece of marble mine?

Did you have an agreement with the previous appropriator to do the work?

But you said that "Wherever useful work is done to build/design/organise/etc" is the original appropriation. How can something have a previous appropriator and then experience original appropriation?

*yawn* So it's usually appropriation from the previous owner.

You mean, theft? Or did they pay that previous owner for the property?

[myrkul]

*yawn* So it's usually appropriation from the previous owner.

You mean, theft? Or did they pay that previous owner for the property?

[myrkul]

*yawn* So it's usually appropriation from the previous owner.

You mean, theft? Or did they pay that previous owner for the property?

*double yawn* Some exchange is made and the new person somehow gets the materials from the previous person.

Yes, that's the way capitalism works. A voluntary exchange of value for value is made, and the new owner gets the materials from the old owner.

[myrkul]

*yawn* So it's usually appropriation from the previous owner.

You mean, theft? Or did they pay that previous owner for the property?

*double yawn* Some exchange is made and the new person somehow gets the materials from the previous person.

Yes, that's the way capitalism works. A voluntary exchange of value for value is made, and the new owner gets the materials from the old owner.

You mean that would be how your simplified theory of Capitalism might work if it weren't for all that confusing "real world" stuff that keeps getting in the way.

Like?

[FinShaggy]

Food is not wealth. Food, water- resources like this exist on a more basic Heirarchy of needs.

The whole reason war started is because 1 tribe wanted the other tribes food, water and women. Which was the first "wealth". Before you just got what you needed and used it. Now, we stockpile. That is the definition of wealth, period. Having enough resources to not have to hunt, farm, etc. for a day, week, month, year, etc.

[myrkul]

Disgruntled sovereign individuals getting together and forming things called 'communities' and organisational bodies called 'governments', which sometimes collectively decide to do things for the "greater good" (never thought I'd have to use that horrible term, but there you have it) even though some individuals may suffer a personal loss....

Oh, such a shame... You had me right up until "greater good." People can group. People can collectively decide things. But if they force their decision on even one dissenter, that's tyranny.

It all seems so strange considering that Capitalism is supposedly more efficient and all-round superior to 'coercion'. If societies with 'coercive' governments were less efficient than capitalist societies, surely they would have died out long ago due to evolution? How come they haven't?

AnCap was only first put together as a full philosophy about a hundred years or so ago. Look how long democracy took to get going. You're seeing the first stages of the out-competition right now. And you're resisting it. How does it feel to be the dude telling the man in an automobile to get a horse?

[myrkul]

Disgruntled sovereign individuals getting together and forming things called 'communities' and organisational bodies called 'governments', which sometimes collectively decide to do things for the "greater good" (never thought I'd have to use that horrible term, but there you have it) even though some individuals may suffer a personal loss....

Oh, such a shame... You had me right up until "greater good." People can group. People can collectively decide things. But if they force their decision on even one dissenter, that's tyranny.

You and your "objective morality" again...

When the majority wants something but Myrkul opposes and wants something different, that's tyranny... Sure, why not. But who's the tyrant?

They're welcome to do whatever they want. Among themselves.

It all seems so strange considering that Capitalism is supposedly more efficient and all-round superior to 'coercion'. If societies with 'coercive' governments were less efficient than capitalist societies, surely they would have died out long ago due to evolution? How come they haven't?

AnCap was only first put together as a full philosophy about a hundred years or so ago. Look how long democracy took to get going. You're seeing the first stages of the out-competition right now. And you're resisting it. How does it feel to be the dude telling the man in an automobile to get a horse?

You got me. How does it feel to be telling "the Man" to get a horse?

Actually, I'm the one in the car. You can keep your horse.

[ktttn]

*Deep breath*
A factory takeover is always a peaceful, organized process if the profiteer being deposed has the good sense to gtfo, and doesn't call in the riot cops, instead opting to let the rightful owners, the workers, take over.

All right, we'll start with the easy one.

What makes them the "rightful" owners? There are only two ways to legitimately acquire property:
Original appropriation (homesteading), or voluntary purchase.

Secondary appropriation, or "squatting" is only valid on abandoned property. Certainly you're not claiming that the factory owner (or shareholders) abandoned the factory?

Use determines utility. Who uses the factory? Workers? They own it.
The attempt to buy those people is unethical.
A manager is a worker, an owner is not.

[myrkul]

Disgruntled sovereign individuals getting together and forming things called 'communities' and organisational bodies called 'governments', which sometimes collectively decide to do things for the "greater good" (never thought I'd have to use that horrible term, but there you have it) even though some individuals may suffer a personal loss....

Oh, such a shame... You had me right up until "greater good." People can group. People can collectively decide things. But if they force their decision on even one dissenter, that's tyranny.

You and your "objective morality" again...

When the majority wants something but Myrkul opposes and wants something different, that's tyranny... Sure, why not. But who's the tyrant?

They're welcome to do whatever they want. Among themselves.

Remind me to quote that when you go on another rant accusing others of being aggressive if they oppose your N.A.P.. Hypocrite... is what you are.

If you oppose the NON AGGRESSION principle, that makes you aggressive pretty much by definition, doesn't it?

[myrkul]

*Deep breath*
A factory takeover is always a peaceful, organized process if the profiteer being deposed has the good sense to gtfo, and doesn't call in the riot cops, instead opting to let the rightful owners, the workers, take over.

All right, we'll start with the easy one.

What makes them the "rightful" owners? There are only two ways to legitimately acquire property:
Original appropriation (homesteading), or voluntary purchase.

Secondary appropriation, or "squatting" is only valid on abandoned property. Certainly you're not claiming that the factory owner (or shareholders) abandoned the factory?

Use determines utility. Who uses the factory? Workers? They own it.

utility 

The state of being useful, profit-able, or beneficial.

ownership 

the relation of an owner to the thing possessed; possession with the right to transfer possession to others.

Those definitions don't match.

[ktttn]

Wherever useful work is done to build/design/organise/etc., that's the "original appropriation".

If I come into your workshop (the workshop where you work, not necessarily the one you own) and steal the piece of marble you were going to make into a pillar, or a bunch of countertops, and take it back to my workshop, and make a statue instead, Does that make the finished piece of marble mine?

Yes. And if it's stolen back and recarved, everyone cheers, depending on who has the groovier sculpture.

[myrkul]

Wherever useful work is done to build/design/organise/etc., that's the "original appropriation".

If I come into your workshop (the workshop where you work, not necessarily the one you own) and steal the piece of marble you were going to make into a pillar, or a bunch of countertops, and take it back to my workshop, and make a statue instead, Does that make the finished piece of marble mine?

Yes.

My god, is everybody insane, today?