anticlimacus wrote:Most people can't go to their boss and say, I'm going to work four hours a day instead of eight.
No. But most if not all people can choose a job or career which is conducive to part-time employment. I did when I was a student. My children do today, as do millions and millions of others. Health benefits as part of employment is a peculiar distortion of the American system, nothing inherent in the capitalist system.
As capitalism creates the need for constant consumption (since capital accumulation is the telos of the system) this necessity is hyper-inflated.
Where did you get that idea? The "system" has no telos. Only individuals acting within it do. Their telos is typically maximising their subjective wellbeing, often through maximising (within boundaries) their monetary wealth.
I'm not sure what you mean by "constant consumption". Aren't people consuming (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) constantly under any system?
Society could work less, be more productive in needed goods, have more leisure, and have less overproduction for the sake of creating profits.
And it already does. People work many fewer hours per week than they did 100 years or more ago. We are already working less. How do you know how much work is right?
So would you suggest that, in the history of capitalism, the bargaining power of labor has been equally problematic or more problematic than unemployment? Or, put differently, that the history of capitalism has more so been employers struggling to find workers willing to work, as opposed to workers finding employment? I mean I honestly don't see the equivalence that you seem to easily find.
The dominant situation is actually fairly equal. At market-clearing wages, there is an equilibrium between employers looking for employees and employees looking for employers. The normal, long-term unemployment rate is in low single digits. I'm not sure at all it is higher than the comparable statistics of the number of vacancies awaiting filling.
As for "bargaining power", I have no idea how you define or quantify it.
Labor is seeking to earn a living wage, i.e. subsistence. This is different than seeking to gain a profit off of capital.
We have long ago passed the stage of economic development in which labour is merely seeking subsistence. Even the lowest-paid of Western workers (and the majority of developing countries as well) earn far more than "subsistence wages" (thanks to capitalism). Labour is seeking to earn more so as to facilitating consumption of luxuries, from colour TVs to foreign vacations, from cars to game machines.
Business owners are also trying to earn a living. Their mode of doing so involves risking their savings, working very hard, and providing jobs to others. That their reward is labelled "profit" rather than "wage" is completely beside the point.
Like I said communities would be federated. So there would probably, of necessity, be some things shared in common--like access to healthcare, education, adequate shelter and food, transportation, etc. So funds would need to be shifted for this to occur. But yes it would have to occur under agreement. However, I don't necessarily see this as fundamentally problematic, particularly if all stand to benefit: We give to a common pool for common goods from which we would all benefit.
Here is what puzzles me. You stipulate a world in which communities will voluntarily cooperate without a central authority, and in which stronger communities will transfer funds (either directly or indirectly) to support weaker communities, right?
Why then couldn't you contemplate a world in which the same holds at the individual level?
I don't think, by and large, that people generally find work to be a pleasant experience under capitalism.
You are absolutely right. What I always say is "work is so bad, they have to
pay me to do it". But then, I don't think people generally find work to be a pleasant experience under any other system. Members of a syndicate and self-employed farmers work because they have to, not because it is a "pleasant experience". However, in the competition between employers, it pays to try and make the working experience as pleasant as reasonably possible. That is why so many employers add so many "features" to their work places.
What I do think is accurate is that work, under capitalism, is predicated under the threat of unemployment. One needs permission to work by those who control capital.
This is a totally distorted way of looking at things. Employment is a form of
cooperation. In any voluntary cooperation, the agreement of both sides is required. When forming a family, I need the "permission" of the woman I court. When I buy food, I need the "permission" of the supermarket. When I join a club, I need the "permission" of its current members. When, as an employer, I am looking for workers, I need the "permission" of each worker to work for me.
Work, as established above, is often unpleasant. Under any economic system, people have to work to produce essential and desired products. If you don't provide people with incentives, most would rather be idle, or pursue their (not necessarily productive) interests. So any system predicates work under some "threat".
In addition, you wrongly present a distinction between workers and those who "control capital". In fact, no such distinction exists since almost any piece of property can become "capital", and since obtaining financing for the purpose of purchasing machines is easily available to all.
Most people in society have to work to earn a living. Any society. In a free system, people can choose between various production modes, including self-employment, employing others, joining others in a collective/syndicate/co-op, or seeking employment as wage-earners. In general, all options are open to any person. The fact that most people choose the latter is merely an indication that wage labour is a fairly efficient way of organising production.
Compare to the production of food. Every society needs to produce food. We could (and used to) grow our own food. However, in modern society, efficiency is served by having one class of people ("farmers") produce food for the rest of us. And since we all need to eat, we are at the mercy of this group. We need the permission of the farmer class who control food production. We are at their mercy. We have to pay whatever they charge us under threat of starvation. Right?
You have to work in order to subsist. But only certain people have the means to allow work to happen.
You have to eat in order to live. But only certain people ("farmers") have the means to allow you to eat. Makes just as much sense.
First, there are many different employers who compete with each other to buy your labour. Second, you can become self-employed, or start a business with a bunch of your "exploited" friends. No person, no group has a monopoly over productive capital. Anybody can produce, buy or hire it. Third, employers need employees just as much as employees need employers. Have a look at the "wanted" ads to find hundreds and thousands of employers desperately looking for employees.
The conflict that I have been describing as so fundamental (and problematic) to capitalism between capital and labor does not exist.
Potential conflicts occur whenever people cooperate. From divorces to business disputes. The labour/employer relationship isn't any more conflictual than any other voluntary relationship in our society.
When I worked at Starbucks, I had the option to own some stock in the company. Granted it was a fraction of a fraction and I still could make no decisions about the company, but I could own some stock. I treated that as part of my income for subsistence.
How is your inability to make decisions any different from that of a single syndicate member? If you are one in a thousand members of the syndicate, aren't you just as helpless making decisions?
And what about entrepreneurs who manage companies funded with a bank loan? The private bank is what gives the permission to of the use of capital for its own private advantage. That is capitalism!
Indeed. Every transaction is voluntary, which means that it is for the advantage of
both sides. So yes, the private bank gives "permission" to use the capital for its own private advantage. At the same time, the borrower gives "permission" to be charged interest, and takes the loan for its own private advantage.
An employer offers jobs to people for its own private advantage, even while workers accept that offer for their own private advantage. And, as if led by an invisible hand, all those actions, each of which is done by somebody for his own private advantage, end up creating the complex and highly productive (and generally peaceful) economy we see around us.
Capital did not just give labor better working conditions because they asked for it. It had to be fought for. And, as we also see, these conditions are often taken away and are sought to be rolled back!
Actually, the vast majority of improvements have not had to be fought for. Rather, they have emerged as employers competed for each other. For example, I now work in an air-conditioned office. I think many people in the west benefit from air-conditioned offices. Yet they aren't unionised. No government regulation requires air-conditioning. And air-conditioning costs money.
I get more vacation than required be law. So do most permanent employees. There is no need for "fighting" to improve working conditions, any more than supermarket customers need to "fight" for the supermarket to adopt air-conditioning.
The bottom line is that your vision can be realised within my ideal society. Workers can come together, pull their resources, fund community banks and, in turn, form syndicates and federated communities. This project only requires that workers want it. Nothing that capitalists can do (in a free market) can stop your project. If, that is, you are right about the priorities of the very workers whose wellbeing concerns you.
Free men are not equal and equal men are not free.
Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.
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