@Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
> _“Anarcho-Communists don't support the human rights violations and oppression that occur in state socialist and Marxist-Leninist countries because we prioritize individual freedom and autonomy”_
Yet you are against the “individual freedom and autonomy” of a person to ask for something of value to them in return for their work, for their creations, or for their ideas.
You are against the “individual freedom and autonomy” of a group of people to decide to pool their work, their creations, or their ideas to do something with them; like keep them for themselves, or ask for something specific in return.
Someone turns a useless rock into a tool, and they can't sell it. Someone writes the best novel ever, and they can't expect to be rewarded more than an illiterate amateur. (What incentive do I have to plow this little plot of land any harder than you work on yours, if your crop is not yours anyway but a shared resource?)
I see a lot of “human rights violations and oppression” there…
"Yet you are against the “individual freedom and autonomy” of a person to ask for something of value to them in return for their work, for their creations, or for their ideas."
Just want to note here that that is not what capitalism is. Capitalism is a system that enforces, generally with coercion, the transfer of value produced by people from those who produce it, to those who are registered with the state as the "owner" of the means required to produce the value.
Being against capitalism does not mean being against any and all exchange.
@Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
> _"Capitalism is a system that enforces, generally with coercion, the transfer of value produced by people from those who produce it, to those who are registered with the state as the 'owner' of the means required to produce the value."_
I disagree. Merriam-Webster, Britannica and Wikipedia also disagree.
Private ownership of the means of production does not imply transfer of value, with or without coercion.
Someone who owns the means to produce something, the means required to produce value, of course that person will (and should) receive some value in return. It's almost a tautology.
/cc @Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
The word has been extremely watered down over the years; but the "capital" in "capitalism" refers to the means of production, and the essential feature of capitalism is that value is taken from workers in favor of the state-registered "owners" of the means of production.
That is what I think virtually all people who call themselves anti-capitalists are against. The means of production should be controlled by the workers, not by someone living in a mansion in California whose name is on some form.
Exactly how worker control of the means of production should work differentiates various kinds of anti-capitalist, but this is what makes them all anti-capitalists, at least in my view.
But I should shut up and let the AnarKitty talk. :)
/cc @Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
Well, Marx made the term popular, and that's (basically) what he meant by it, fwiw... :)
@Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
@ceoln
I'm still sceptical of that definition. (Perhaps that's the definition in the mind of those _against_ #capitalism, and those of us _in favour of_ capitalism have a different working definition…)
In any case, I want to stress that there are at least two big leaps from “in favour of worker-owned enterprises” to “abolition of private property”.
To reiterate: worker-owned enterprises _are compatible with capitalism_. They do exist. They are legal. They're usually called cooperatives. There is no need to reform (let alone overthrow) capitalism to have cooperatives.
And then, there's a huge leap from “the workers of this company collectively own its assets” to “all people (workers of this company or not) collectively own all assets that exist”.
/cc @Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social