How best to manage the means of production - Page 5 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14611623
Truth To Power wrote:No, you are both wrong, because you refuse to distinguish between land and capital, and thus do not understand how ownership of the means of production might or might not make one rich depending on WHICH means of production one owns.

AFAIK wrote:[It's pretty rare for an investor/ capitalist to own one "means of production" outright and nothing else. S/he's more likely to own 5% of 20 different ventures, which s/he can abandon at the click of a button. That's why investment firms will boast of outperforming the stockmarket as a whole.

Of course. The market is pretty efficient, so if privileges of parasitism outperformed productive investment, their prices would just rise to the point where the returns were comparable. The exact same would be true if government had issued licenses to steal: their prices would just move to reflect the amount one could expect to extract from the victims.
Truth To Power wrote:Even Marx realized in the end (but buried it in Vol. 3 of "Capital") that the landowner takes all the profit he incorrectly ascribed to the capitalist class in Vols 1 and 2). Learn it, or continue to talk nonsense on the subject permanently.

I haven't read Marx but surely rent controls and other property regulations limit landlords' ability to maximise returns.

Not as much as you think, as proved by the fact that they get so rich so quickly, in return for so little contribution. In any case, even to the extent that their returns are reduced (as, for example, by rent control, which in NYC has resulted in tenants pocketing multi-million dollar extortion payments to move), prices just move to reflect that. The reduction of return doesn't make the landowner any more productive, any more than reducing the amount one could steal with a license would make the thefts any less theft.

--

mikema63 wrote:All of those things are means of production, I care very little which means of production allow you to accumulate other means of production more easily.

So, you don't care if someone gets a share of production in return for making a contribution to production, or just by being privileged to take a share of production in return for no contribution? IOW, you do not consider justice to be more desirable than injustice, or good to be more desirable than evil?

Thought so.
If the factory owners end up getting disposesed of their factories by the land owners, then the land owners own the factories and capital accumulates just the same.

No, it does not. The greater the share of production that goes to rentiers in return for nothing, the less is available to reward the productive for actual contributions. That is the whole problem with rent-seeking behavior (which you could Google to advantage): resources are diverted into wasteful competition for rents rather than supporting labor and investments in capital goods that increase production.
The results remain the same no matter who "wins."

No, they most certainly do not, as explained above. You could with equal "logic" claim that it doesn't matter if a portion of production is stolen by thieves, the producers will still produce just as much even though they get to keep less.

Your claims are just examples of the absurdities designed to rationalize, justify, and excuse atrocities -- it's merely that in this case, they are socialist atrocities rather than capitalist ones.

---

Truth To Power wrote:Even Marx realized in the end (but buried it in Vol. 3 of "Capital") that the landowner takes all the profit he incorrectly ascribed to the capitalist class in Vols 1 and 2). Learn it, or continue to talk nonsense on the subject permanently.

quetzalcoatl wrote:You're a bit off base.

No, I am objectively correct.
Other than resource extraction and building/housing rents, land doesn't pay a big part in the accumulation of wealth.

It is land rent, not building rent, as proved by the astronomical cost of vacant building lots. The very existence of astronomical land values in all advanced industrialized countries (and many poor, undeveloped capitalist countries) PROVES you are INDISPUTABLY wrong.
It is the rent on money rather than the rent on land that powers late capitalism.

Oh, really? Have you checked out interest rates lately, vs the cost of a vacant building lot?
Reforms in land ownership, attractive as they might be, would not address the financialization of the economy.

What do the financializers create debt money for, hmmmmm?

About 2/3 of all debt is mortgage debt, and 2/3 of all mortgage debt is for land. The banksters are totally focused on getting their hands on land rent.

The facts just flat-out prove me right and you wrong.

Post in one fashion as I've edited it, not in many different posts. It keeps the board tidy this way -TIG
#14611724
Truth To Power wrote:About 2/3 of all debt is mortgage debt, and 2/3 of all mortgage debt is for land. The banksters are totally focused on getting their hands on land rent.
The facts just flat-out prove me right and you wrong.


Well. I don't want to get too dogmatic. Debt on land is important, but not as important as you think.

Category Amount Percentage
Treasury $11,854.4 29.72%
Corporate Debt $9,766.4 24.49%
Mortgage Related $8,718.8 21.86%
Municipal $3,671.2 9.21%
Money Markets $2,536.1 6.36%
Agency Securities $2,058.3 5.16%
Asset-Backed $1,277.5 3.20%
Total $39,882.8 100%

Banksters are not at all focused on getting their hands on land rent itself. Land is illiquid and its returns unpredictable. When they do acquire it, it is only through bad judgement - i.e., when they make loans to unqualified buyers. They waste little time getting rid of radioactive real estate holdings. What they ARE interested in low-risk rentier income. Financing the land or building purchases of others gives them access to a predictable income with less risk than ownership of the land itself.

The real profit for banksters is the creation of "innovative" financial products, which are typically derivatives or derivatives of derivatives. These products are of illusory provenance and a form of legalized Ponzi operations - it is the originators who make the big bucks. Another fabulous scheme is borrowing at the Fed window to purchase treasuries - the spread provides a guaranteed income at zero risk...literally a license to print money.
#14611726
So, you don't care if someone gets a share of production in return for making a contribution to production, or just by being privileged to take a share of production in return for no contribution? IOW, you do not consider justice to be more desirable than injustice, or good to be more desirable than evil?

Thought so.


The problem I presented, capitalisms tendency to accumulate capital to unsustainable levels, has nothing to do with moral concepts. Capital will accumulate, income inequality will become unsustainable, and the system will collapse. what you are pushing is akin to saying we should ignore gravity because it's unjust that some people fall off cliffs.

No, it does not. The greater the share of production that goes to rentiers in return for nothing, the less is available to reward the productive for actual contributions. That is the whole problem with rent-seeking behavior (which you could Google to advantage): resources are diverted into wasteful competition for rents rather than supporting labor and investments in capital goods that increase production.


So your either saying that landowners wont end up buying out the factories, or that landowner speculation is unsustainable. In which case the people with money will end up buying up the land. In either case less and less people end up owning more and more. How that happens isn't important, that it happens is.

No, they most certainly do not, as explained above. You could with equal "logic" claim that it doesn't matter if a portion of production is stolen by thieves, the producers will still produce just as much even though they get to keep less.


If the actual process of capital accumulation ends in the collapse of the entire economy outright, then no it doesn't matter if there are thieves in the mix.

Your claims are just examples of the absurdities designed to rational, justify, and excuse atrocities -- it's merely that in this case, they are socialist atrocities rather than capitalist ones.


I've simply made observations about the nature of capitalism, this doesn't in and of itself justify any particular action. In fact I've not attempted to, or even brought up any attrocities. You are the one trying to drag it in so that you can try to distract from the actual argument. You cannot refute a point by claiming it's truth would lead to negative outcomes. The outcomes of a point of fact have no bearing on the truth of that point of fact.

You cannot refute gravity by citing the negative outcome of falling of a cliff.
#14611760
Truth To Power wrote:About 2/3 of all debt is mortgage debt, and 2/3 of all mortgage debt is for land. The banksters are totally focused on getting their hands on land rent.
The facts just flat-out prove me right and you wrong.

quetzalcoatl wrote:Well. I don't want to get too dogmatic. Debt on land is important, but not as important as you think.

It is totally central to modern finance capitalism and its problems. Debt on land caused the Japanese bubble of the 80s (at that time the biggest asset bubble in the history of the world) and decades-long stagnation since then. Debt on land led to the sub-prime bubble, thus to the GFC, and the current persistent global economic malaise.
Category Amount Percentage
Treasury $11,854.4 29.72%
Corporate Debt $9,766.4 24.49%
Mortgage Related $8,718.8 21.86%
Municipal $3,671.2 9.21%
Money Markets $2,536.1 6.36%
Agency Securities $2,058.3 5.16%
Asset-Backed $1,277.5 3.20%
Total $39,882.8 100%

What is this supposed to represent? Source? Who owns this debt?

Remember, the bulk of treasury debt is owned by other agencies and levels of government, not private banksters.
Corporate debt is also largely for land, whether direct real estate purchases or acquisitions of companies whose value is largely in real estate.
Banksters are not at all focused on getting their hands on land rent itself.

Yes, they most certainly are. It is the safest source of income.
Land is illiquid and its returns unpredictable.

They don't care that it is illiquid, because they don't own it and don't want to sell it: they are already collecting the rent in the form of mortgage interest. That's why low interest rates increase land values.
When they do acquire it, it is only through bad judgement - i.e., when they make loans to unqualified buyers.

Like I said: they don't want and have no use for the land itself, because they are already collecting the rent in the form of mortgage interest.
They waste little time getting rid of radioactive real estate holdings.

But make sure they issue the mortgage to the buyer...
What they ARE interested in low-risk rentier income.

Land rent.
Financing the land or building purchases of others gives them access to a predictable income with less risk than ownership of the land itself.

That's what I said: they want the rent. They have no use for the land.
The real profit for banksters is the creation of "innovative" financial products, which are typically derivatives or derivatives of derivatives.

Nonsense. Those are mostly negative-sum gambling media. The most profitable innovative products are related to mortgages and getting hold of land rent. What they really want to do is create debt money in order to charge interest on it, and the most reliable source for that interest is land rent.
These products are of illusory provenance and a form of legalized Ponzi operations - it is the originators who make the big bucks.

It is more accurate to think of them as a gambling system: as long as you can avoid an adverse run, you have a nice income. But the adverse run is mathematically inevitable, and it wipes out all previous gains. The key is to pocket the gains while the run is good, and then stick the taxpayer with the bill when the adverse run comes along. We've seen them do this over and over again.
Another fabulous scheme is borrowing at the Fed window to purchase treasuries - the spread provides a guaranteed income at zero risk...literally a license to print money.

Correct. That's what they do: create money every time they lend.

So, you don't care if someone gets a share of production in return for making a contribution to production, or just by being privileged to take a share of production in return for no contribution? IOW, you do not consider justice to be more desirable than injustice, or good to be more desirable than evil?

Thought so.

mikema63 wrote:The problem I presented, capitalisms tendency to accumulate capital to unsustainable levels,

There is no such tendency, as I already explained. It is privilege that is unsustainable, not capital accumulation.
has nothing to do with moral concepts.

Yes, it does. You can't accumulate capital without property rights.
Capital will accumulate, income inequality will become unsustainable, and the system will collapse.

Accumulation of capital does not create income inequality. Rentier privilege does, and accumulation of capital increases the rents of privilege.

You could learn a lot by reading "Progress and Poverty" by Henry George. It's available online.
what you are pushing is akin to saying we should ignore gravity because it's unjust that some people fall off cliffs.

Nonsense. Rather, it is you who are saying gravity is unsustainable because fat people gain weight.
No, it does not. The greater the share of production that goes to rentiers in return for nothing, the less is available to reward the productive for actual contributions. That is the whole problem with rent-seeking behavior (which you could Google to advantage): resources are diverted into wasteful competition for rents rather than supporting labor and investments in capital goods that increase production.

So your either saying that landowners wont end up buying out the factories,

Why would they want to buy out the factories? The factory owners (on average) have to give all their profits to landowners anyway. It is only natural statistical variation that creates the illusion that any profits go to factory owners. Most of them go broke, because the land rent they have to pay is based on the most productive prospective user's bid. You see a few factory owners earning a few millions through exceptional contributions to production, and that enables you to remove from your mind both the rest of the factory owners, who either just broke even or lost millions, and the landowners, who pocketed BILLIONS in return for doing and contributing NOTHING.
or that landowner speculation is unsustainable.

More accurately, the welfare subsidy to landowners is unsustainable.
In which case the people with money will end up buying up the land.

Other than banksters, landowners (and other privilege owners) are the only ones left who have any money. Look around! Haven't you figured that out yet? How much higher does the value of an ordinary vacant building lot have to go before you will find a willingness to know the fact that the capitalist system is shoveling money into landowners' pockets at a fantastic rate? $1M? $10M? $100M?
In either case less and less people end up owning more and more.

Wrong. If you remove privilege, especially landowner privilege, there is no mechanism by which fewer and fewer people can end up owning more and more. The returns to capital are already competed away, so if the return to land is taxed away and the returns to bankster money creation and IP monopoly privilege are legislated away, how could fewer and fewer end up with more and more?
How that happens isn't important, that it happens is.

Now you are in effect saying, "Whether a country's birth rate declines below replacement or it is bombed, in either case the population declines. How that happens isn't important, that it happens is." Really? There's no important difference between a voluntary reduction in births and being bombed? There's no important difference between earning wealth by commensurate contributions to wealth production and taking wealth by dint of privilege, in return for no contribution to wealth production?
No, they most certainly do not, as explained above. You could with equal "logic" claim that it doesn't matter if a portion of production is stolen by thieves, the producers will still produce just as much even though they get to keep less.

If the actual process of capital accumulation ends in the collapse of the entire economy outright, then no it doesn't matter if there are thieves in the mix.

IT DOESN'T. It is the THIEVING that is CAUSING the collapse, not the capital accumulation.
Your claims are just examples of the absurdities designed to rational, justify, and excuse atrocities -- it's merely that in this case, they are socialist atrocities rather than capitalist ones.

I've simply made observations about the nature of capitalism,

Incorrect and confused ones. Marx would be proud of you.
this doesn't in and of itself justify any particular action.

Pull the other one.
In fact I've not attempted to, or even brought up any attrocities.

Indeed. You have to evade them.
You are the one trying to drag it in so that you can try to distract from the actual argument.

No, I am pointing out what the actual argument is.
You cannot refute a point by claiming it's truth would lead to negative outcomes.

I haven't claimed that. But I have proved it isn't true, regardless of the outcomes.
The outcomes of a point of fact have no bearing on the truth of that point of fact.

But as I have shown, your "point of fact" is factually false.
You cannot refute gravity by citing the negative outcome of falling of a cliff.

But I can refute the claim that when you get drunk, put on a blindfold, and dance the samba on the edge of a cliff, it is gravity that is responsible for the negative outcome.
Last edited by The Immortal Goon on 09 Nov 2015 08:44, edited 1 time in total. Reason: You are to post in this format, not to double post. Do not do so again -TIG
#14612691
Truth To Power wrote:But I can refute the claim that when you get drunk, put on a blindfold, and dance the samba on the edge of a cliff, it is gravity that is responsible for the negative outcome.


You actually can't, at a fundamental level. In the absence of gravity, the reckless drunk could not have and would not have accelerated to terminal velocity and crash-landed in their early grave.

In practical terms we'd blame the drunk's recklessness because the drunk couldn't possibly hope to abolish gravity. But here's where your analogy falls flat on its face like your imaginally drunkard: Unlike gravity, socioeconomic systems are man-made and can be redrawn by people to better suit their interests.
#14614022
Truth To Power wrote:But I can refute the claim that when you get drunk, put on a blindfold, and dance the samba on the edge of a cliff, it is gravity that is responsible for the negative outcome.

KlassWar wrote:You actually can't, at a fundamental level.

Of course I can. Watch:
In the absence of gravity, the reckless drunk could not have and would not have accelerated to terminal velocity and crash-landed in their early grave.

Silliness. In the absence of gravity, the drunk and the cliff could never have existed.

See?
In practical terms we'd blame the drunk's recklessness because the drunk couldn't possibly hope to abolish gravity.

No, it's because gravity is a condition of the situation.
But here's where your analogy falls flat on its face like your imaginally drunkard: Unlike gravity, socioeconomic systems are man-made and can be redrawn by people to better suit their interests.

Nope. Wrong AGAIN. Unfortunately, what Marxism tries to do is what you are doing: assuming the cliff and the drunkard could have existed in the first place without gravity.
#14617421
quetzalcoatl wrote:Efficiency, after you cut through the euphemisms, is simply the measure of the number of jobs you eliminate. The reductio ad absurdum of efficiency would be to reduce labor costs to zero. Although that is not quite a practical reality, it is the ultimate end to which market efficiency tends.

Efficiency, unless it can be paired with a hardwired participation of workers in the gains of productivity, does not decrease poverty.


Efficiency is in itself desirable. It reduces costs and creates more wealth. I generally agree with both sentences above.

Society's goal, through technology, should be for automation and reduction in labour costs. The trick is that the masses need to own the means of production. If they do, this automated means of production will make everyone money and wealth while they need to work less, and have more time for leisure and participation in culture/arts while still having their needs and even many wants met.

Right now, the fat cats are benefiting far more from increases in efficiency. Workers are seeing some drop in prices of manufactured goods, but they're losing their jobs to overseas, working longer hours, have less benefits etc. and see little if any rise in income. Workers in developing countries are seeing some advantages of getting off subsistence farming, but they're still part of the rat-race.
#14617434
Unthinking Majority wrote:
Efficiency is in itself desirable. It reduces costs and creates more wealth. I generally agree with both sentences above.

Society's goal, through technology, should be for automation and reduction in labour costs. The trick is that the masses need to own the means of production. If they do, this automated means of production will make everyone money and wealth while they need to work less, and have more time for leisure and participation in culture/arts while still having their needs and even many wants met.

Right now, the fat cats are benefiting far more from increases in efficiency. Workers are seeing some drop in prices of manufactured goods, but they're losing their jobs to overseas, working longer hours, have less benefits etc. and see little if any rise in income. Workers in developing countries are seeing some advantages of getting off subsistence farming, but they're still part of the rat-race.

So you think the workers should buy shares?
#14617727
Truth to Power wrote:As long as you are devoted to such absurdities, your philosophy is just a way of rationalizing and justifying atrocities.

"If the direct producers, the workers, are not divorced from the means of production, and if consequently neither these means nor labour power function as commodities, then no survivals of ’bourgeois right’, nor any amount of other inequities and injustices, can allow of such a society being properly termed capitalist.

Inversely, if the direct producers have been separated from the means of production, and consequently both labour power and means of production are exchanged as commodites, then no amount of social welfare benefits, no nationalizations, no statutory curbs on excess profiteering, no ameliorative measures whatever can conceal or modify the capitalist character of such a society."


Nicolaus M. Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR,
#14617770
Unthinking Majority wrote:Society's goal, through technology, should be for automation and reduction in labour costs.

There's no reason reduction of labor costs should be a societal goal. Indeed, a good working definition of "prosperity" is when wages are high relative to prices.
The trick is that the masses need to own the means of production.

No, NO, NO!

The real trick is to find a willingness to know the fact that "the means of production" consists of two fundamentally different classes of things -- capital and land -- the first of which can only rightly be owned by those (whether public or private) who bring it into existence, and the second of which can never rightly be owned at all, neither by "the masses" nor by private interests, and whose possession and use must rightly be administered in trust for all, to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.
If they do, this automated means of production will make everyone money and wealth while they need to work less, and have more time for leisure and participation in culture/arts while still having their needs and even many wants met.

But that necessarily means taking the rightful returns from those who bring the capital into existence, reducing the incentive to do so, and thus impoverishing society. Unfortunately, socialists are so full of hatred and envy for those who use their purchasing power for production rather than consumption, and reap the rightful reward for doing so, that they will not even consider the real solution to the problem they incorrectly blame on the owners of capital: just compensation paid by those who exclude others from natural resources and opportunities, and to those who are thus excluded.
Right now, the fat cats are benefiting far more from increases in efficiency.

Only the privileged benefit, especially landowners. Capital providers get almost nothing, while providing the crucial factor that enables increased efficiency. Banksters have found a sneaky way to muscle in on the landowning racket, taking land rent as mortgage interest, and IP monopolists take most of what would have remained to the provider of capital.
Workers are seeing some drop in prices of manufactured goods, but they're losing their jobs to overseas, working longer hours, have less benefits etc. and see little if any rise in income. Workers in developing countries are seeing some advantages of getting off subsistence farming, but they're still part of the rat-race.

And socialists refuse to understand how it is being done to them, preferring to stick to Marx's wrong-headed and misleading "blame the capitalists" narrative.
mikema63 wrote:Employee owned companies.

The privileged, especially landowners, will still take everything above subsistence. It's economic law.
taxizen wrote:So you think the workers should buy shares?

Should slaves have bought back their rights to liberty???

Truth to Power wrote:As long as you are devoted to such absurdities, your philosophy is just a way of rationalizing and justifying atrocities.

ingliz wrote:"If the direct producers, the workers, are not divorced from the means of production, and if consequently neither these means nor labour power function as commodities, then no survivals of ’bourgeois right’, nor any amount of other inequities and injustices, can allow of such a society being properly termed capitalist.

Inversely, if the direct producers have been separated from the means of production, and consequently both labour power and means of production are exchanged as commodites, then no amount of social welfare benefits, no nationalizations, no statutory curbs on excess profiteering, no ameliorative measures whatever can conceal or modify the capitalist character of such a society."


Nicolaus M. Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR,

You might as well quote from the Bible. It has just as much evidence going for it, and makes about as much economic sense.
Last edited by Cartertonian on 26 Nov 2015 14:13, edited 1 time in total. Reason: Back to back posts merged
#14617790
taxizen wrote:So you think the workers should buy shares?

Truth To Power wrote:Should slaves have bought back their rights to liberty???

Tactically speaking that depends on the particularities of the situation. If that is an option, freedom is something desired but fighting or escape is hopeless then yes. Otherwise maybe not. Is that even the same thing though as buying shares in a company?
#14618065
Truth To Power wrote:Should slaves have bought back their rights to liberty???

taxizen wrote:Tactically speaking that depends on the particularities of the situation. If that is an option, freedom is something desired but fighting or escape is hopeless then yes. Otherwise maybe not.

You don't seem to be clear on what "should" means.
Is that even the same thing though as buying shares in a company? :?:

It's not the same, but it's morally analogous to what you propose as a remedy.
#14618076
Truth To Power wrote:You don't seem to be clear on what "should" means.
In general the word "should" can be used to indicate imperatives other than moral ones and indeed morals are fluid behavioural parameters which vary exceedingly from person to person, time to time. You meant that question, I guess, as a rhetorical one pre-loaded with an unspecified moral paradigm but see what if a particular slave's moral paradigm was that one should look after one's own interests and maximise one's own happiness by the most efficient means and if it was thus then it could very well be that he should buy his freedom rather than fight the hopeless fight or run and be hunted. It might even suggest remaining a slave would be the best thing he should do. Imagine the slave of a roman proconsul, the proconsul is more often than not away risking getting hacked to pieces subjugating barbarians leaving the slave in the comfort and security of his plush town house in Rome eating his food and with not much else to do but a bit of cleaning and mending. Leaving his master's service, however it happened, would at best see him have to rough it with the plebs, scrounging for mouldy bread and sleeping in the gutter with the rats. Hmmm.. What should he do? By the sketch of a moral paradigm I presented above, the moral thing to do would be to stay a slave in that situation.

Is that even the same thing though as buying shares in a company? :?:

Truth To Power wrote:It's not the same, but it's morally analogous to what you propose as a remedy.

That depends on your moral paradigm I suppose.
#14618814
Truth To Power wrote:You don't seem to be clear on what "should" means.

taxizen wrote:In general the word "should" can be used to indicate imperatives other than moral ones and indeed morals are fluid behavioural parameters which vary exceedingly from person to person, time to time.

I said, "should slaves," which indicates a general rule for all of them.
You meant that question, I guess, as a rhetorical one pre-loaded with an unspecified moral paradigm

Yes, the paradigm that a slave's right to liberty is never rightly the property of his putative owner.
but see what if a particular slave's moral paradigm was that one should look after one's own interests and maximise one's own happiness by the most efficient means and if it was thus then it could very well be that he should buy his freedom rather than fight the hopeless fight or run and be hunted.

That's not the issue, as you no doubt know very well. The question is, should slaves have been required to buy their rights to liberty from those who claimed to own them, or should those rights have been recognized as theirs by right, with no need to pay off any greedy parasites?
It might even suggest remaining a slave would be the best thing he should do.

We are not talking about any given slave's choices, but society's choices.
Imagine the slave of a roman proconsul, the proconsul is more often than not away risking getting hacked to pieces subjugating barbarians leaving the slave in the comfort and security of his plush town house in Rome eating his food and with not much else to do but a bit of cleaning and mending.

That is an absurd concept of slavery.
Leaving his master's service, however it happened, would at best see him have to rough it with the plebs, scrounging for mouldy bread and sleeping in the gutter with the rats.

What nonsense.
Hmmm.. What should he do? By the sketch of a moral paradigm I presented above, the moral thing to do would be to stay a slave in that situation.

Because it is self-evidently absurd.
Is that even the same thing though as buying shares in a company? :?:

Truth To Power wrote:It's not the same, but it's morally analogous to what you propose as a remedy.

That depends on your moral paradigm I suppose.

Right: if your paradigm says someone's right to liberty can rightly be owned by someone else, then buying it from them is the legitimate way to get it back. If your paradigm says one's right to liberty can't rightly be owned by someone else, then you can rightly exercise it without having to pay off a greedy parasite.
#14663473
taxizen wrote: So you think the workers should buy shares?

If you mean in this existing economic structure, no. That would do no good for anyone but the corporate insiders. They (CEO, officers, Board of Trusteed, etc.) remain in control and own the majority or controlling shares of the stock. What's needed is a new economic structure.

Keep in mind that while there have been attempts to establish socialism or socialist countries beginning with the USSR, Mao's China, and the European "socialist" countries, there has been no country that has successfully implemented full socialism (government, economy, culture, etc.). So we can say that socialism remains a system that has yet to be worked out and experimentation with it continues as it did when capitalism first came upon the scene. Hence, full, satisfactory answers may not be possible for all questions. We can discuss actual experience, the goals, and theory. But the situation is not so different in the case of capitalism which is taught as theory, much of which is not reality either.

With that said, the goal is working class control of the means of production. That means the employer-employee relationship must lend itself to that description. If it doesn't, it is not socialism in the terms of the "fathers" of socialism.

A good description and discussion of these points can be found here: http://rdwolff.com/content/socialism-me ... -employees
#14663698
taxizen wrote: So you think the workers should buy shares?

Davea8 wrote:If you mean in this existing economic structure, no. That would do no good for anyone but the corporate insiders. They (CEO, officers, Board of Trusteed, etc.) remain in control and own the majority or controlling shares of the stock. What's needed is a new economic structure.

You are correct that exhorting the underprivileged to buy the very privileges that oppress them is not only not a solution to the problem, but a despicably dishonest form of blaming the victim -- much like exhorting slaves to just work harder, save their money, and buy their liberty from their owners.
With that said, the goal is working class control of the means of production.

Why is that the goal, any more than student control of universities, or private soldier control of the military?

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