@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
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
Well, Marx made the term popular, and that's (basically) what he meant by it, fwiw... :)
@Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
"Private ownership of the means of production does not imply transfer of value, with or without coercion."
If the "owner" of the means of production isn't the worker who produces the value, then the profits of the "owner" definitely implies transfer of value, and that transfer, in practice, pretty much always involves coercion.
@Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
I think the crux is this:
To me (and I would argue, to most people), the person (or organisation) that saved money for years and then bought a plot of land, a building or a machine, and then assumes the risk of lending it to someone else to use it, and maintains it in good working condition — that person or group of people is absolutely “producing value”.
Delaying gratification, being frugal, so that investments can be made, so that skilled workers in need of land or buildings or machines or vehicles can indeed work is “producing value” for society. It enriches all parts involved (the one who saves to buy the machine, the one who rents the machine, and the consumer or client at the end of the line).
/cc @Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
There are other ways to plan for the future and delay gratification than the way we do it in capitalism. The way we do it in capitalism, both in theory and in practice, leads to massive concentration of resources, wealth inequality, regulatory capture, corruption, and all the rest. So maybe we should try a different method. :)
@Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
Where exactly in the theories behind #capitalism lies the inexorable march towards "massive concentration of resources, wealth inequality, regulatory capture, corruption"? And "massive", compared to what, exactly?
If we granted that capitalism increases wealth inequality and concentration of resources, for the sake of the argument, shouldn't we also accept that the absence of capitalism decreases competitiveness and material progress?
Are you "trying the different method" that @Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social is outlining? If not, why not? What other method are you trying personally, if I may ask?
These are all honest questions. As I said, I'm terribly interested in the results of empirical tests. I read a lot of radical thought, but very little practice.
Books could be written on how capitalism leads to concentration and inequality, but basically if someone can make money simply by owning capital, they can use that money to obtain more capital, and the effect spirals, especially if wealth is inherited.
(Whereas if income is based for instance on labor, there's only a certain range of value that a single person can produce. Or if individual wealth is essentially an equal share of community wealth, inequality is minimal.)
And if someone has ten thousand times as much wealth as they need to live, they can (and do) use the excess to bribe the govt (directly and indirectly) to make sure the system doesn't change in ways that would reduce their wealth, does change in ways that advantage them over others, etc.
I'm not sure exactly what radical thought you've been reading, but it seems to have left out some very basic stuff. :) Maybe you've been reading political material that takes the economic background as given? Or just neglects it tragically. Marx has a bad rep still, and he was certainly wrong about some things, but you might be interested in modern Marxist economic analysis. A lot of it is highly technical and jargon filled (just like the non-Marxist kind!) but just for example here's a brief and pretty readable article on the subject we're discussing here:
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/06/how-capitalism-concentrates-power
/Cc @Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
"And “massive”, compared to what, exactly?"
Compared to anything remotely fair or sane, to start with.
Honest question: were you not aware of this? Does it not seem rather obviously "massive" inequality, by any measure?
/Cc @Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
"If we granted that capitalism increases wealth inequality and concentration of resources, for the sake of the argument,"
I'm not proposing granting it "for the sake of the argument ", I'm pointing out that it's true.
"shouldn’t we also accept that the absence of capitalism decreases competitiveness and material progress?"
Only if there were sufficient evidence that it was true!
@Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
"What other method are you trying personally, if I may ask?"
An individual can't really "try" alternatives to worldwide capitalism. :) But assuming you mean something like "working toward"...
I am blessed or cursed with certain skills that the current system rewards highly, and by the time I realized what was actually going on (I was a libertarian in my youth), there were people depending on me for a significant income. I have (not proudly) structured my life to prioritize benefiting them (and, admittedly, myself) over trying to improve the justice in the world.
That said, I do contribute to anti-capitalist causes, encourage the growth of unions in the field I work in and others, belong to the DSA, and so on. I wish I saw a path toward a more just world that was quicker and surer than a slow steady push toward reigning in the worst abuses of capitalism and increasing worker awareness and control of resources, but right now I don't.
@Radical_EgoCom@kolektiva.social
@tripu
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