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

[molecular]

When an owner doesnt use a thing, the thing is defacto abandoned.

I see. So, if I'm not in my car, it's abandoned? If I've gone off to work for the day, my house is abandoned? If I let you borrow my car for the week, it's abandoned? If you house-sit for me for the weekend, it's abandoned?

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

lol
According to yer zany capitalist revisionist rhetoric nonsense grasping fer straws reasoning, whatever.
Try nonviolence.

Works just fine if everyone is nonviolent. But if you refuse to defend yourself, you're just handing your life over to the aggressor.

I see a problem here: "defense" can be interpreted pretty broadly (e.g. "preventive strike", "we had to disable their capabilities to attack us"). Is this instruction only meant for the individual or does it extend to some group the inidividual might be part of?

I enjoyed your earlier discussion with blablabla, btw.

[molecular]

What is a fee, if not a tax?

voluntary

[molecular]

A few questions.

Whose tree was that? If it belonged to the man in the red shirt (as the first panel implies), then the stereotype in the tophat actually owes him money, for altering his property without his permission. If it belongs to the stereotype, what is red-shirt doing on his land?

And clearly, the red-shirted man appreciated the stereotype's labor, or else he wouldn't have paid him. Or are you implying that there was some sort of extortion going on?

I think the implication is that some sort of marketing was going on.

marketing != capitalism

[myrkul]

I see a problem here: "defense" can be interpreted pretty broadly (e.g. "preventive strike", "we had to disable their capabilities to attack us"). Is this instruction only meant for the individual or does it extend to some group the inidividual might be part of?

I enjoyed your earlier discussion with blablabla, btw.

It's intended primarily as an individual guideline, but when you accept that grouping together doesn't grant the group any rights that the individuals comprising it don't have, you see that it works just fine for groups, too.

As for a "preventative strike," a provocation is needed, an actual threat. (No, building a nuke power plant is not provocation) Since groups have no more rights than individuals, we can make an analogy, starting with an interpersonal interaction, and expanding it to interaction among groups.

A man with a pistol on his hip is not threatening anyone. Pulling that pistol out and pointing it at someone, however, is a clear threat. Since no person has the right to initiate the threat of force, it is acceptable to respond to that threat with a preventative strike, to keep him from acting on that threat. Of course, it's prudent to respond to a threat with a threat of your own, proportional force, to prevent any unnecessary violence. If he's informed of the consequences of making good on that threat, he may back down.

To expand that to groups, a group that has weapons, or builds the things they need to make weapons, isn't threatening anyone. If they mobilize those weapons, or place them in such a way as to threaten another group, then they are making a threat. And since no person has the right to initiate the threat of force, neither does a group. Of course, given the greater potential for loss of life should the confrontation get out of hand, proportional force becomes even more important. The resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis is a good example (even if the events leading up to it are horrible examples). Everyone put their guns away, and the world heaved a sigh of relief.

[ktttn]

A few questions.

Whose tree was that? If it belonged to the man in the red shirt (as the first panel implies), then the stereotype in the tophat actually owes him money, for altering his property without his permission. If it belongs to the stereotype, what is red-shirt doing on his land?

And clearly, the red-shirted man appreciated the stereotype's labor, or else he wouldn't have paid him. Or are you implying that there was some sort of extortion going on?

I think the implication is that some sort of marketing was going on.

marketing != capitalism

...'owning trees'... lol

Fuck injuns, amirite? I has paper receipt of ownership now! bang bang!

The marketing happened when the price tag got slapped on there.

Edit: Just realized this comic is way off base, Moneybags would never have done the labor himself, he would have outsourced it to local Mexican daylaborers.

[MoonShadow]

A few questions.

Whose tree was that? If it belonged to the man in the red shirt (as the first panel implies), then the stereotype in the tophat actually owes him money, for altering his property without his permission. If it belongs to the stereotype, what is red-shirt doing on his land?

And clearly, the red-shirted man appreciated the stereotype's labor, or else he wouldn't have paid him. Or are you implying that there was some sort of extortion going on?

I think the implication is that some sort of marketing was going on.

marketing != capitalism

...'owning trees'... lol

Fuck injuns, amirite? I has paper receipt of ownership now! bang bang!

The marketing happened when the price tag got slapped on there.

Edit: Just realized this comic is way off base, Moneybags would never have done the labor himself, he would have outsourced it to local Mexican daylaborers.

Racist bastard.  My grandfather was full blooded Cherokee.  He was also Southern Baptist.  Leave your hollywood stereotypes at the door.  They didn't live in teepees either.  They owned farms well before any of them had seen a white man, and they most certainly did own trees. 

[ktttn]

In jobs that can teach you something, you might as well be an intern.
The civil agreement put forth by employers is the only option for toilers unless you can figure out how to thrive outside of it (which we should).
I don't consider the fishermen slaves. That's a fantastic example of how mutual aid works. Captaining a ship with a crew is a-ok by me, yo.

Every job I've had has taught me something.
The learning is the responsibility of the learner.
The aware awaken, the sleepers slumber.

The point being, when we lose the difference between the aware and the sleepers, society loses.
That difference, often, is pay.

Payment is a signal.  It is information.  When we lose information we lose something of value.  a society that willfully destroys that, is not going to be at an advantage to one that retains it unless there is something of greater worth to replace it.  Present that counterbalancing social benefit and I will convert.

You could imagine jobs that teach you nothing. We can call that toil. Payment for toil makes folks resist automation. Those jobs require automation, not human toil.

[ktttn]

A few questions.

Whose tree was that? If it belonged to the man in the red shirt (as the first panel implies), then the stereotype in the tophat actually owes him money, for altering his property without his permission. If it belongs to the stereotype, what is red-shirt doing on his land?

And clearly, the red-shirted man appreciated the stereotype's labor, or else he wouldn't have paid him. Or are you implying that there was some sort of extortion going on?

I think the implication is that some sort of marketing was going on.

marketing != capitalism

...'owning trees'... lol

Fuck injuns, amirite? I has paper receipt of ownership now! bang bang!

The marketing happened when the price tag got slapped on there.

Edit: Just realized this comic is way off base, Moneybags would never have done the labor himself, he would have outsourced it to local Mexican daylaborers.

Racist bastard.  My grandfather was full blooded Cherokee.  He was also Southern Baptist.  Leave your hollywood stereotypes at the door.  They didn't live in teepees either.  They owned farms well before any of them had seen a white man, and they most certainly did own trees.  

>I prefer bitch. Check yo privelige.
>Mine was Cherokee too, my great grampa was Blackfoot as well.
>Spent a year as a DJ / engineer at a southern baptist Gospel AM radio station.
>My ancestors certainly didn't live in buildings. EDIT:('building' referring to modern mansions, non-pueblo/anasazi/hopi apartment complexes and suburbian ranch homes with lawns)
>Spain brought over horses, smallpox, glass beads, fake money, and the concept of moneybags "owning" land and trees. Get your imperialist history fixed.

[Zarathustra]

If Capitalism can work, how come there are no historical records of it working?
Will respond in my related thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210802.msg2416291#msg2416291
I move to not derail this thread. If anyone wants to continue, Ill post responses there.

Hey ktttn, I see, nobody is able to answer your question, neither in that thread nor in this one.
Ancap is as utopian as communism has been. A nice Utopia, but never realised in reality, because the homines sapientes are neither communists nor capitalists beyond Dunbar's Number. Within Dunbar's Number, you are a member of a self-sufficient blood-community, nothing less and nothing more, because self-sufficiency means self-suffuciency; which is the opposite of the communist/capitalist dependency and paternalism (division of labor). Beyond Dunbar's Number, in the entire history the former homines sapientes have always been (transformed) suicidal warriors against the planet, against each other and against themselves: The Sixth Great Extinction (Pyrocene).

[ktttn]

If Capitalism can work, how come there are no historical records of it working?
Will respond in my related thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210802.msg2416291#msg2416291
I move to not derail this thread. If anyone wants to continue, Ill post responses there.

Hey ktttn, I see, nobody is able to answer your question, neither in that thread nor in this one.
Ancap is as utopian as communism has been. A nice Utopia, but never realised in reality, because the homines sapientes are neither communists nor capitalists beyond Dunbar's Number. Within Dunbar's Number, you are a member of a self-sufficient blood-community, nothing less and nothing more, because self-sufficiency means self-suffuciency; which is the opposite of communist/capitalist dependency and paternalism.

How is it so difficult for capitalists to understand that a violent state is a prerequisite for capitalism and communism?
Without the state, the coercive mechanism sustaining them both- providing them with the mandatory toil or alternative of criminality that results in profit, falls apart.
The history of paternal lineage and corresponding property inheritence is one that makes up so much "history," its sickening.

[mprep]

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.

I agree. Wealth is anything that another party considers as useful. So food and water is probably the most important thing thus making it the kost expensive in a time of crysis.

[Zarathustra]

If Capitalism can work, how come there are no historical records of it working?
Will respond in my related thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210802.msg2416291#msg2416291
I move to not derail this thread. If anyone wants to continue, Ill post responses there.

Hey ktttn, I see, nobody is able to answer your question, neither in that thread nor in this one.
Ancap is as utopian as communism has been. A nice Utopia, but never realised in reality, because the homines sapientes are neither communists nor capitalists beyond Dunbar's Number. Within Dunbar's Number, you are a member of a self-sufficient blood-community, nothing less and nothing more, because self-sufficiency means self-suffuciency; which is the opposite of communist/capitalist dependency and paternalism.

How is it so difficult for capitalists to understand that a violent state is a prerequisite for capitalism and communism?
Without the state, the coercive mechanism sustaining them both- providing them with the mandatory toil or alternative of criminality that results in profit, falls apart.
The history of paternal lineage and corresponding property inheritence is one that makes up so much "history," its sickening.

Because they don't know the history of Paternalism/Patriarchy/Society/Citizenship, which replaced matrilinear Anarchy. Mater semper certa est / pater semper incertus est; that's the reason why patriarchy/patrilinearity needs organised violence (church and state) to come in place.
They don't know about it, because the universities are brainwashing the brains with paternalistic BS. Rousseau seems to be the first and only Philosopher who knew the difference between society and community. Smith/Hobbes/Keynes/Lenin/the Austrians et al. didn't, and with them their readers. They don't realise, that these 'different' schools of economics represent the same: economics, which is always state based violence. Without this organised violence, a growing economy is absent. Neverthless: they call trees and animals (living creatures) as Capital. That's a joke, but a sordid one, which has its roots in christian collectivism: „subdue the Earth“ = destroy nature, torture the animals.

[ktttn]

If Capitalism can work, how come there are no historical records of it working?
Will respond in my related thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210802.msg2416291#msg2416291
I move to not derail this thread. If anyone wants to continue, Ill post responses there.

Hey ktttn, I see, nobody is able to answer your question, neither in that thread nor in this one.
Ancap is as utopian as communism has been. A nice Utopia, but never realised in reality, because the homines sapientes are neither communists nor capitalists beyond Dunbar's Number. Within Dunbar's Number, you are a member of a self-sufficient blood-community, nothing less and nothing more, because self-sufficiency means self-suffuciency; which is the opposite of communist/capitalist dependency and paternalism.

How is it so difficult for capitalists to understand that a violent state is a prerequisite for capitalism and communism?
Without the state, the coercive mechanism sustaining them both- providing them with the mandatory toil or alternative of criminality that results in profit, falls apart.
The history of paternal lineage and corresponding property inheritence is one that makes up so much "history," its sickening.

Because they don't know the history of Paternalism/Patriarchy/Society/Citizenship, which replaced matrilinear Anarchy. Mater semper certa est / pater semper incertus est; that's the reason why patriarchy/patrilinearity needs organised violence (church and state) to come in place.
They don't know about it, because the universities are brainwashing the brains with paternalistic BS. Rousseau seems to be the first and only Philosopher who knew the difference between society and community. Smith/Hobbes/Keynes/Lenin/the Austrians et al. didn't, and with them their readers. They don't realise, that these 'different' schools of economics represent the same: economics, which is always state based violence. Without this organised violence, a growing economy is absent. Neverthless: they call trees and animals (living creatures) as Capital. That's a joke, but a sordid one, which has its roots in christian collectivism: „subdue the Earth“ = destroy nature, torture the animals.

The specific ways Patriarchy replaced Anarchy are very interesting. From what Ive read, exclusive responsibility of childbearing itself put hunter/gatherer women at the disadvantage we see remnants of today. My articulation of this theory is, I trust, lacking. Please continue I would like to learn more.

[MoonShadow]

and the concept of moneybags "owning" land and trees. Get your imperialist history fixed.

The Spanish did not introduce the concept of ownership to the Americas.  Get your real history straight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Civilized_Tribes

These were some of those 'Matriarchal' societies that you favor, and they most certainly had a concept of land ownership, particularly of homesteading.  They were often referred to 'the people of the longhouse' because they built long multi-family dormitories

EDIT:  BTW, just because you're another American mutt, doesn't mean that you're not a racist.  It's your beliefs that make you racist, not your bloodline.

[Zarathustra]

and the concept of moneybags "owning" land and trees. Get your imperialist history fixed.

The Spanish did not introduce the concept of ownership to the Americas.  Get your real history straight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Civilized_Tribes

These were some of those 'Matriarchal' societies that you favor, and they most certainly had a concept of land ownership, particularly of homesteading.  They were often referred to 'the people of the longhouse' because they built long multi-family dormitories

Pre-patriarchal communities were matrilineal/anarchal. There is no such thing as a matriarchy.

5. It is important to understand (and draw conclusions) that Paleolithic communities were egalitarian; there was no hierarchy (which is translated as „holy reign“), no domination, no rulers, no chiefs and no warfare violence, as archeology revealed and social science explains. Therefore the Paleolithic division of labour according to gender, i.e. between the female gatherers and the male hunters of a given cooperative, was a collective division of labour and not individual: A woman was not gathering for „her husband“ , and a man was not hunting for „his wife“ as is frequently misunderstood. The collective of women is gathering nutrition for the whole cooperative; her work is public work, not privatized, not domesticated or domesticised Likewise the collective of males hunt for the cooperative as a whole which is composed of the female and the male collectives. „Food- sharing“.

http://gerhardbott.de/das-buch/summary-in-english.html

[NewLiberty]

Nothing is voluntary with a gun to your head. There are factors at play, the omnipresent state, that youre ignoring. Capitalism in a stateless world is like Serfdom in a landless world.
By the way, Im pro monarchy.

This suggests that you would not oppose those AnCap fellows, if only you believed it were possible.
But you believe instead that Capitalism requires a state so there can never be such a thing as an Anarcho Capitalist geography?

[NewLiberty]

You could imagine jobs that teach you nothing. We can call that toil. Payment for toil makes folks resist automation. Those jobs require automation, not human toil.

The labor union might resist, but why would the toilers resist getting a better tool?
Those tools tend to make fewer people more productive with less toil, often followed by increased payment in competitive markets.

Payment for toil is a signal to the market regarding which jobs require automation.  It is both an easier to measure and more accurate signal, than whether the worker is learning something, to determine automation priorities.

Why progress in the dark?

[blablahblah]

In practice, what you describe is the exception to the rule within a state capitalist framework. Dependency on employers prevents many from ever coming far enough out of debt to do what they want.
I have a hard time with equating pay to exoneration or choice because reliance on any paycheck does not let you all the way out of the state or capitalist's control.

Pay is to coercion as exoneration is to execution.  This does not in any way suggest that pay is equal to exoneration.
Pay is merely a civil agreement to perform for compensation so no it does not let you all the way out of state control, this is not its promises.
However it very well may put you all the way out of any particular capitalist's control, if by control you really mean enticement.

In jobs that can teach you something, you might as well be an intern.

Interns generally don't even get the fish for a day, the daily pay of the unskilled cabin boy is a better deal for the cabin boy.  Your priorities are screwed.

The civil agreement put forth by employers is the only option for toilers unless you can figure out how to thrive outside of it (which we should).

I know how, and my children will know also; but subsistance farming isn't a preferable lifestyle to most.  Specialization is for insects, but free trade always improves the lifestyles of those who freely engage in it.  And yes, I can prove that.

http://desertislandgame.com/

I don't consider the fishermen slaves. That's a fantastic example of how mutual aid works. Captaining a ship with a crew is a-ok by me, yo.

Capitalist pig!

Hmm. Without access to other people's economic calculations re: internships, you have no basis for accusing them of having screwed priorities. As someone who has actually been an intern, in my case the incentives were right for both sides of the trade. I got to work at a 'cool' place, had tutoring, room to experiment and make mistakes, and that made up for the low wage. In return, the employer got their easier/menial tasks done for a lower price, giving their full-time employees time to do more advanced stuff. Win win.

That desert island game seems like childish propaganda -- the only incentive that exists is a contrived need to eat an equal yet maximal amount of fish and coconuts. What about personal growth? Boredom? Self-sufficiency/safety/redundancy? Maslow's hierarchy of needs?? In trying to make a point about trading, the game dehumanises the characters -- they're just drones, and you're the controller trying to maximise factory output.

Market price for labor is how slavery works.
There is no such thing as a fair price, because the human slave trade determines the market price from the most abject slavery to the mcdonalds employee to the middle management and way on up to the CEO. A one way "market" is not a market. I cannot buy back my labor.

Great point. There seemed to be some uncomfortable squirming in the follow-up posts. I wonder why? Life largely consists of a fight for survival -- do whatever it takes to "not die" and then progressively fulfil all those other Maslowian needs. Being stuck, life-long in just one body (and you don't even get to choose which one) is not exactly a great start for voluntarism. It seems that most of life is involuntary -- people live out their genetic programming, and maybe, occasionally make conscious decisions. Even so, people seem divided on whether free will exists at all -- maybe our conscious 'I' is just a helpless observer and even the feeling of making a voluntary decision is just an illusion, another quale to add to the collection?

There's the issue of death. It's an "unknown unknown". We usually don't know when it'll happen, but we also don't know what happens. Do we get re-incarnated? Do we die forever? We don't even have first-hand proof if it happens! We only have the evidence of the 'Matrix' senses telling us that lots of other people die every day. Thus, we can't make accurate economic calculations on how to spend our time. This is where capitalism breaks down -- the economic calculations just don't work when we have no freaking idea what proportion of our life we are exchanging for the temporary enjoyment of some material item.

Similar points can be made about healthcare but I've had that discussion before.

[ktttn]

and the concept of moneybags "owning" land and trees. Get your imperialist history fixed.

The Spanish did not introduce the concept of ownership to the Americas.  Get your real history straight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Civilized_Tribes

These were some of those 'Matriarchal' societies that you favor, and they most certainly had a concept of land ownership, particularly of homesteading.  They were often referred to 'the people of the longhouse' because they built long multi-family dormitories

EDIT:  BTW, just because you're another American mutt, doesn't mean that you're not a racist.  It's your beliefs that make you racist, not your bloodline.

Calling me a mutt isn't racist, but me calling what whites mistakenly called "Indians" an appropriate misspelling implying a lampoon of inherent white racism is?
I did not say "the concept of ownership."
I said "the concept of moneybags "owning" land and trees"
Individual ownership of land and trees.
You me like ten apologies.

[ktttn]

Nothing is voluntary with a gun to your head. There are factors at play, the omnipresent state, that youre ignoring. Capitalism in a stateless world is like Serfdom in a landless world.
By the way, Im pro monarchy.

This suggests that you would not oppose those AnCap fellows, if only you believed it were possible.
But you believe instead that Capitalism requires a state so there can never be such a thing as an Anarcho Capitalist geography?

I oppose it because I believe it is impossible.
Capitalism analyzed ignoring state power (which requires analytical gymnastics) still results in oppression and coersion.