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

[MoonShadow]

A state - free Capitalist loses his stockpile.

Says the one without capital, or knowledge of what it is.  By what logic do make this claim?  Are you going to come and take it?  With what, exactly?

Do Capitalists not attempt to centralize resources limitlessly?

No, they don't.  Limitless accumulation of resources is a self defeating enterprise.  It you even knew what capital was, you'd already know that, but you're not willing to learn something new.

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[MoonShadow]

"Original" as in the definition that has been used for the last century or two, and is still being used by economists, as opposed to the weird revision you are using. Specifically this "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market."

I've bolded the keywords. In laymen's terms, recognition of property, voluntary trade, and uninhibited competition with other traders.

Is this beyond criticism? Is it wrong to criticize the way it has been put into use? To point out the obvious flaws?

Of course not. As long as you point out the flaws in the system itself, not point to unrelated things and claim that they are the system. I.e. saying "Capitalism is bad because it fails to address this crime" is ok. Saying "Capitalism is bad because this crime is capitalism" is not ok.

Can't have crime without the state.

Murder is not a crime, in your opinion?  Rape?  You require a state to define your mores for you?

Are you saying that all economists think alike- or just ignoring all nonclassical economists?

I am saying economists try to establish an agreed-upon definition of terms before they start deriving economic theories and debating each other. It's hard to set up a Supply/Demand graph when some people decide that "Supply" means the supply of need instead of supply of products, for example.

I'm not the one attempting to redefine capitalism.

You most certainly are.  The earliest mention of the term 'capitalism' was in the Communist Mannesfesto by Karl Marx.  How do you think he defined it?

"Capital, according to Marx, is created with the purchase of commodities for the purpose of creating new commodities with an exchange value higher than the sum of the original purchases. For Marx, the use of labor power had itself become a commodity under capitalism; the exchange value of labor power, as reflected in the wage, is less than the value it produces for the capitalist."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Marxist_political_economy

Do you need me to translate that?  Private entities aquire commodities to be used as resource inputs for the production of other commodities.  In it's simpliest form, that would be "private ownership and control of the means of production".  Marx's complaint with this system was that it generally treated human labor as a commodity itself, which he regarded as inhumane.  Many avowed capitalists did then, and do now, hold a similar view as to the special nature of the "human capital".  Ultimately that's a moral, and not a feature of capitalism per se, and capitalism can and often does work within the constraints of such a social moral.  That seems to be your complaint as well, but like Marx, you confuse a common stage of a industrial economy with a fundamental feature of capitalism.  For example, Britain & the US both had child labor and "sweatshops" a century ago, but as our societies grew more affluent across all classes both societies grew to regard children as precious, and also to regard minimum working conditions as a moral case, ultimately reflected in child labor laws and such.  Every single industrial society on Earth that has followed us on that path has also progressed through those stages.  Does anyone here not remember the cases of 12 to 14 year old girls working in unheated or un-air-conditioned shoe factories in China during the 90's, electronics factories Taiwan during the 80's, or fields in Mexico pretty much anytime in the last century?  The reasons you don't hear about such things anymore is because those societies grew too affluent to put up with such conditions anymore.  Not because of a few high profile activists & actors whining about it in front of American Wal-Marts.

When you say "recognition of property" who on earth are you talking about?

Me, you, everyone. We all recognize that we own the things we have, almost from birth. Moreso, we recognize that we own then in spite of laws that may say otherwise. It's why people get upset when government comes in and "legally" seizes their property, such as in imminent domain cases to use for building malls, or in nationalization cases.

Can we not inherit stolen land and goods? You know, like in the case of the Americas?

Naturally no.  In practice, it depends.  Using your example, prove that any such land was stolen.  Bear in mind, I've personally got as much claim to be a 'native' American, or at least the heirs of same, that anyone does.  While the tribal traditions of the Eastern 'longhouse' tribes most certainly did recognize real estate and personal property, it was very much a 'homesteading' type of culture.  If it was wild and uncultivated, no one owned it, until they killed it or cut it down.  So the idea that white men were willing to come into their region and then offer them low value gifts in exchange for the tribes to 'sell' the white men their untamed stretches of land was laughable.  For the most part, the stories of selling off land for nearly worthless beads was a myth, as the recipients largely knew the gifts were of little value.  They didn't complain because their cultural traditions didn't grant them any kind of exclusive claim on the untamed wilds, only on the areas that they had already invested their labors into cultivating.  The wild animals belonged to no one until the hunter killed it, and the fruits of the pawpaw tree belonged to no one, until someone picked it.  It was rudimentary, but it was certainly an example of a belief in the right of private property.  The cases that probably did exist of land disputes between natives and white settlers must have been relatively rare, and likely less common than land disputes between white settlers claiming the same stretches of untamed forest as their own.  The real problem for the natives was that the whites vastly outnumbered them, and were just as free to homestead around them as anyone; and ultimately that many of those same homesteaders were also racists, sometimes violently so.  If you dispute this perspective, then prove it.  If you can prove that any such land was actually stolen, it's not theirs, and the heirs of the wronged are entitled to compensation from the estates of the wrongdoers, but not from their heirs if those heirs didn't profit from those estates.  If those estates no longer exist, sadly, there is no one to sue; for those who are at fault are long dead, and the grandchild cannot be rightly held to the debts of his forefathers.

Is it not the supposed job of the violent state to do this?

Violent state can help enforce it, just as violent individuals and violent private security firms can help enforce it, but that's all they do - enforce. They don't actually create the concept of property; the concept of "I own this because I made it myself using my own stuff."

Again, without violent coersion, "property" reverts back into its natural state.

And what do you claim is it's natural state?

[Zarathustra]

Can't have crime without the state.

Murder is not a crime, in your opinion?  Rape?  You require a state to define your mores for you?

Murder was rare in anarchic paleolithic, pre-patriarchic, pre-state communities. War and organised violence was non-existent. The expression of violence against conspecifics is non-existent on paleolithic art (rock and cave paintings); in post-neololithic, patriarchic, collectivist (socialist, feudalist, capitalist) environment it is the norm. Socialist, feudalist and capitalist collectivists are determined to ignore history. They spread Science Fiction, Religion and an oxymoronic, orwellian vocabulary ("anarcho-capitalism, "communism") instead. They don't understand the difference between archic and anarchic.

Again, without violent coersion, "property" reverts back into its natural state.

And what do you claim is it's natural state?

How many times do we have to explain to the collectivised Capitalists, what a natural state of human being is?

[Zarathustra]

Moonshadow said matriarchies.
Again.

Yes, unfortunately, he doesn't listen. And he even can't spell the word matriarchy. He doesn't learn. And he says:

"Families are communal by definition, and by nature."

He doesn't know that by nature, there are no such things as families and fathers. Famulus = house slave. A familiy (monogamous pairing familiy / harem familiy) is an unnatural, perverted construct, created by the church and state mafia by destroying the community about 10'000 years ago, for the purpose of producing surpluses to be confiscated by the masters and rulers (church and state). Selfsufficient communities don't produce growing surpluses. They produce about the same quantity as 500'000 years ago. Capitalist collectivists are producing the hundredfold quantity of the amount produced 100 years ago. So difficult to see the fundamental difference?


"Capitalism may appear harsh from a certain perspecitive, but it's both sustainable and scalable."

Where? In Fantasy-Land?


"The assertion that it requires some degree of slavery or government force to function is false, and provablely so.  The sad fact is that, yes, slavery has historicly been found coincincidntal to capitalsim. It's also been found coincidental to just about every other known form of governance, including those matriachies that certain posters seem so fond of."

Again: The absence of Patriarchy is matrilineal anarchy. A matriarchy is a feminist fantasy. As matrilineal anarchy has been transformed into patriarchy, the matrilineal organisation disappeared only slowly. So, the first violent principalities under chieftains were still organised matrilineal. It took a long time until that changed and patrilineal monogamy/polygyny (imbecility) was achieved. But it is not sustainable. You can't fool all the people all the time....

[ktttn]

"Original" as in the definition that has been used for the last century or two, and is still being used by economists, as opposed to the weird revision you are using. Specifically this "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market."

I've bolded the keywords. In laymen's terms, recognition of property, voluntary trade, and uninhibited competition with other traders.

Is this beyond criticism? Is it wrong to criticize the way it has been put into use? To point out the obvious flaws?

Of course not. As long as you point out the flaws in the system itself, not point to unrelated things and claim that they are the system. I.e. saying "Capitalism is bad because it fails to address this crime" is ok. Saying "Capitalism is bad because this crime is capitalism" is not ok.

Can't have crime without the state.

Murder is not a crime, in your opinion?  Rape?  You require a state to define your mores for you?

Are you saying that all economists think alike- or just ignoring all nonclassical economists?

I am saying economists try to establish an agreed-upon definition of terms before they start deriving economic theories and debating each other. It's hard to set up a Supply/Demand graph when some people decide that "Supply" means the supply of need instead of supply of products, for example.

I'm not the one attempting to redefine capitalism.

You most certainly are.  The earliest mention of the term 'capitalism' was in the Communist Mannesfesto by Karl Marx.  How do you think he defined it?

"Capital, according to Marx, is created with the purchase of commodities for the purpose of creating new commodities with an exchange value higher than the sum of the original purchases. For Marx, the use of labor power had itself become a commodity under capitalism; the exchange value of labor power, as reflected in the wage, is less than the value it produces for the capitalist."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Marxist_political_economy

Do you need me to translate that?  Private entities aquire commodities to be used as resource inputs for the production of other commodities.  In it's simpliest form, that would be "private ownership and control of the means of production".  Marx's complaint with this system was that it generally treated human labor as a commodity itself, which he regarded as inhumane.  Many avowed capitalists did then, and do now, hold a similar view as to the special nature of the "human capital".  Ultimately that's a moral, and not a feature of capitalism per se, and capitalism can and often does work within the constraints of such a social moral.  That seems to be your complaint as well, but like Marx, you confuse a common stage of a industrial economy with a fundamental feature of capitalism.  For example, Britain & the US both had child labor and "sweatshops" a century ago, but as our societies grew more affluent across all classes both societies grew to regard children as precious, and also to regard minimum working conditions as a moral case, ultimately reflected in child labor laws and such.  Every single industrial society on Earth that has followed us on that path has also progressed through those stages.  Does anyone here not remember the cases of 12 to 14 year old girls working in unheated or un-air-conditioned shoe factories in China during the 90's, electronics factories Taiwan during the 80's, or fields in Mexico pretty much anytime in the last century?  The reasons you don't hear about such things anymore is because those societies grew too affluent to put up with such conditions anymore.  Not because of a few high profile activists & actors whining about it in front of American Wal-Marts.

When you say "recognition of property" who on earth are you talking about?

Me, you, everyone. We all recognize that we own the things we have, almost from birth. Moreso, we recognize that we own then in spite of laws that may say otherwise. It's why people get upset when government comes in and "legally" seizes their property, such as in imminent domain cases to use for building malls, or in nationalization cases.

Can we not inherit stolen land and goods? You know, like in the case of the Americas?

Naturally no.  In practice, it depends.  Using your example, prove that any such land was stolen.  Bear in mind, I've personally got as much claim to be a 'native' American, or at least the heirs of same, that anyone does.  While the tribal traditions of the Eastern 'longhouse' tribes most certainly did recognize real estate and personal property, it was very much a 'homesteading' type of culture.  If it was wild and uncultivated, no one owned it, until they killed it or cut it down.  So the idea that white men were willing to come into their region and then offer them low value gifts in exchange for the tribes to 'sell' the white men their untamed stretches of land was laughable.  For the most part, the stories of selling off land for nearly worthless beads was a myth, as the recipients largely knew the gifts were of little value.  They didn't complain because their cultural traditions didn't grant them any kind of exclusive claim on the untamed wilds, only on the areas that they had already invested their labors into cultivating.  The wild animals belonged to no one until the hunter killed it, and the fruits of the pawpaw tree belonged to no one, until someone picked it.  It was rudimentary, but it was certainly an example of a belief in the right of private property.  The cases that probably did exist of land disputes between natives and white settlers must have been relatively rare, and likely less common than land disputes between white settlers claiming the same stretches of untamed forest as their own.  The real problem for the natives was that the whites vastly outnumbered them, and were just as free to homestead around them as anyone; and ultimately that many of those same homesteaders were also racists, sometimes violently so.  If you dispute this perspective, then prove it.  If you can prove that any such land was actually stolen, it's not theirs, and the heirs of the wronged are entitled to compensation from the estates of the wrongdoers, but not from their heirs if those heirs didn't profit from those estates.  If those estates no longer exist, sadly, there is no one to sue; for those who are at fault are long dead, and the grandchild cannot be rightly held to the debts of his forefathers.

Is it not the supposed job of the violent state to do this?

Violent state can help enforce it, just as violent individuals and violent private security firms can help enforce it, but that's all they do - enforce. They don't actually create the concept of property; the concept of "I own this because I made it myself using my own stuff."

Again, without violent coersion, "property" reverts back into its natural state.

And what do you claim is it's natural state?

Only read children tribes and violent. Itellya... Currently sure that if I say more than read the follwing link:
http://revolutionaryanarchist.wordpress.com/2012/05/30/bakunin-vs-marx/
Youll say something like matriarchy or:

A state - free Capitalist loses his stockpile.

Says the one without capital, or knowledge of what it is.  By what logic do make this claim?  Are you going to come and take it?  With what, exactly?

Do Capitalists not attempt to centralize resources limitlessly?

No, they don't.  Limitless accumulation of resources is a self defeating enterprise.  It you even knew what capital was, you'd already know that, but you're not willing to learn something new.

[ktttn]

Can't have crime without the state.

Murder is not a crime, in your opinion?  Rape?  You require a state to define your mores for you?

Murder was rare anachronistically unheard of in anarchic paleolithic, pre-patriarchic, pre-state communaties living organisms. War and organised violence was non-existent. The expression of violence against conspecifics http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/conspecific is non-existent on paleolithic art (rock and cave paintings); in post-neololithic, patriarchic, collectivist (socialist, feudalist, capitalist, imperialist) environment it is the norm. Socialist, feudalist and capitalist collectivists are have always been determined to ignore history. everything except the history that is written to approve of them. They spread Racism, Sexism, Science Fiction, Religion and an oxymoronic, orwellian vocabulary ("anarcho-capitalism, "communism") instead. They don't understand the difference between archic and anarchic.

Again, without violent coersion, "property" reverts back into its natural state.

And what do you claim is it's natural state?

How many times do we have to explain to the collectivised Capitalists, what a natural state of human being is?

FTFY

For as long as I have thumbs and a wifi signal.
So bitcoin is this new protocol designed around the gift economy to provide an fallback for when capitalism gest taken off life support.
The Fed's capital and Wall St's.means of production is gonna be up for grabs in a starving free for all if you ask me!

[ktttn]

The State

Specializing in:

Rape, the explicit support of Capitalism and Murder

Contact Info: Don't worry, We'll find you!

[ktttn]

The wild animals belonged to no one until the hunter killed it, and the fruits of the pawpaw tree belonged to no one, until someone picked it. It was rudimentary, but it was certainly an example of a belief in the right of private PERSONAL property.

FTFY
How about inheritance?
The idea that it was not theirs to sell.
Not anyone's to sell..

[crumbs]

Derp!

Nonsense trolling has been deleted.

Have a nice day! 

[NewLiberty]

The State

Specializing in:

Rape, the explicit support of Capitalism and Murder

Contact Info: Don't worry, We'll find you!

Bias is in the eyes of the beholder.
To the anarchocapitalist, the state seems socialist/communist.
To the anarchocommunist, the state seems capitalist.
Even if both are anarchs, the division conquers them.

Truthfully neither know what a free society would look like today (even if they can imagine what it looked like in forests or long ago).  It is just so much theory and hubris to plan this battle at the theoretical end.

[Zarathustra]

......

FTFY

Thanks, am grateful for that since English is not my language.

[ktttn]

......

FTFY

Thanks, am grateful for that since English is not my language.

Had hoped so.
Knowing more than one language must be enormously helpful in communicating in both.

The State

Specializing in:

Rape, the explicit support of Capitalism and Murder

Contact Info: Don't worry, We'll find you!

Bias is in the eyes of the beholder.
To the anarchocapitalist, the state seems socialist/communist.
To the anarchocommunist, the state seems capitalist.
Even if both are anarchs, the division conquers them.

Truthfully neither know what a free society would look like today (even if they can imagine what it looked like in forests or long ago).  It is just so much theory and hubris to plan this battle at the theoretical end.

Anarcho communism is actually almost as redundant as anarchocapitalism is oxymoronic.
Even anarchoprimitivism does not even seek to "undo" time.

[Zarathustra]

The State

Specializing in:

Rape, the explicit support of Capitalism and Murder

Contact Info: Don't worry, We'll find you!

Bias is in the eyes of the beholder.
To the anarchocapitalist, the state seems socialist/communist.
To the anarchocommunist, the state seems capitalist.
Even if both are anarchs, the division conquers them.

Truthfully neither know what a free society would look like today (even if they can imagine what it looked like in forests or long ago).  It is just so much theory and hubris to plan this battle at the theoretical end.

To me, as a consanguineal anarchocommunist, the state can be feudalist, socialist or capitalist.
And again: a 'free society' is an oxymoron. In a society, where selfsufficiency is destroyed and non-existent, you are dependent on savings, pensions and the interaction with strangers.

[crumbs]

[...]
Can't have crime without the state.

Murder is not a crime, in your opinion?  Rape?  You require a state to define your mores for you?

That depends on how you define "crime."  Murder and Ayn Rand are both, arguably, crimes.  Murder, with a few notable exceptions, is currently prohibited by the US law.  US is a state.  If i'm murdering in US, i run afoul of US law.  Ayn Rand is a different story -- totally unregulated in US.  I can walk down any US street, flaunting a copy of Atlas Shrugged with nothing graver than a few stifled giggles & pointed fingers as consequences.  That's the kind of liberty we have in US.  Watch us, the rest of the world, and envy.

Our government doesn't codify all mores into law, just a select few -- the acts that will be punished: crimes, violations, infractions.  So, strictly speaking, unless you consider violating municipal bylaws to be crime, crime is defined by the state.  Crimes against nature, God & "OMG that blouse is a crime" don't count.

[NewLiberty]

The State

Specializing in:

Rape, the explicit support of Capitalism and Murder

Contact Info: Don't worry, We'll find you!

Bias is in the eyes of the beholder.
To the anarchocapitalist, the state seems socialist/communist.
To the anarchocommunist, the state seems capitalist.
Even if both are anarchs, the division conquers them.

Truthfully neither know what a free society would look like today (even if they can imagine what it looked like in forests or long ago).  It is just so much theory and hubris to plan this battle at the theoretical end.

To me, as a consanguineal anarchocommunist, the state can be feudalist, socialist or capitalist.
And again: a 'free society' is an oxymoron. In a society, where selfsufficiency is destroyed and non-existent, you are dependent on savings, pensions and the interaction with strangers.

Sure, but selfsufficiency is an oxymoron for common definitions of self and sufficiency, if you want to be absolutist and not ouroboros.

[crumbs]

Statism, statism.  I think i found a paradise for you guys: Somalia!

[Zarathustra]

Sure, but selfsufficiency is an oxymoron for common definitions of self and sufficiency, if you want to be absolutist and not ouroboros.

No oxymoron. A community beyond the society (rain forest/arctic tundra) is selfsufficient and not economically dependent on other communities.

[NewLiberty]

Sure, but selfsufficiency is an oxymoron for common definitions of self and sufficiency, if you want to be absolutist and not ouroboros.

No oxymoron. A community beyond the society (rain forest/arctic tundra) is selfsufficient and not economically dependent on other communities.

No it isn't.
The humans eat things which are not their own self.
If it were self sufficient, it would not need a forest or tundra.  It could live in vacuum.
Forest and tundra (and air and water) may be shared resources, and so there is interdependent economy with the others that may cohabitate.
Since you are absolutist with others, you should be with yourself as well.

[Zarathustra]

No it isn't.
The humans eat things which are not their own self.
If it were self sufficient, it would not need a forest or tundra.  It could live in vacuum.
Forest and tundra (and air and water) may be shared resources, and so there is interdependent economy with the others that may cohabitate.
Since you are absolutist with others, you should be with yourself as well.

To be economically self-sufficient means here nothing more than to be self-sufficient from economic interaction with other economic operators. I cannot remember of a discussion here to be independent from anything. That's the case in nirvana and nowhere else.

[NewLiberty]

No it isn't.
The humans eat things which are not their own self.
If it were self sufficient, it would not need a forest or tundra.  It could live in vacuum.
Forest and tundra (and air and water) may be shared resources, and so there is interdependent economy with the others that may cohabit.
Since you are absolutist with others, you should be with yourself as well.

To be economically self-sufficient means here nothing more than to be self-sufficient from economic interaction with other economic operators. I cannot remember of a discussion here to be independent from anything. That's the case in nirvana and nowhere else.

I admit to being baffled by this.  You have strongly stated that to be self sufficient is to be not dependent, but now you do not remember a discussion to be independent from anything. 

So it does seem that what you are proposing is nirvana-like.  It seems so unreal and hard to even imagine. I need some help to imagine it.
What are the other economic operators from which you will be self sufficient?  (people, animals, plants, communities, or societies)?
How will you avoid sharing air, water, land, weather, earth with these other economic operators without a pure isolation?
How will this isolation/sharing be maintained without inter-dependency?


Truly, it seems like ouroboros, if you can achieve it, congratulations.  Many will likely try to follow that example once it exists, most folks in our simplicity adhere to the notion of ex nihilo nihil fit and do not consider such an amazing future.

I am still far to young to have a philosophy, but I remain always eager to learn from those that have come to interesting conclusions.