Do you like profit?

[kiba]

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

[Ricochet]

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

[kiba]

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

Somebody voted no.

[Anonymous]

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

[kiba]

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

Somebody hated the idea of profit enough to vote no.

[Anonymous]

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

[BitterTea]

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.

[nelisky]

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.

[左]

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."

[Drifter]

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

Somebody hated the idea of profit enough to vote no.

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?

[Anonymous]

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.

Thats probably a good point nelisky.

[FatherMcGruder]

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.

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

[BitterTea]

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.

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?

[FatherMcGruder]

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 (I'll have to check my dead tree version when I get home), provides a good definition:

1) A "monopoly of violence" in a given territorial area;
2) This violence having a "professional," institutional nature; and
3) A hierarchical nature, centralisation of power and initiative into the hands of a few.

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.

[左]

edit.

[Anonymous]

I'm probably very similar politically to you. But I'm not sure I agree with the definition of the state being quite so broad.

----

Anyway, doesn't anyone want to discuss cost the limit of price with me?

"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".

[kiba]

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.

[FatherMcGruder]

I'm probably very similar politically to you. But I'm not sure I agree with the definition of the state being quite so broad.

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.

Anyway, doesn't anyone want to discuss cost the limit of price with me?

I rather liked that quote from Warren about the priest. I also like this one supposedly from Noam Chomsky:

The idea of "free contract" between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.

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.

[左]

["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".

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.)

[kiba]

Is this immoral?

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