- 11 Jul 2022 07:51
#15237999
But he was wrong about how that exploitation occurs.
And it is enabled by the forcible removal of workers' rights to liberty, and the conversion of their rights into the private property of the privileged, especially landowners. It is that removal of liberty rights that makes capitalist exploitation possible. Even Marx understood that without the Enclosures, workers could not have been stripped of their options and thus their bargaining power, and forced to seek factory employment in the towns or starve to death.
Because the privileged, especially landowners, have removed our rights to liberty and thus our bargaining power.
That is not exploitation, any more than buying a loaf of bread from a bakery is exploitation. It is a voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is not the factory owner's fault that we have been forcibly stripped of our options and thus our bargaining power by landowners.
Consider an analogous situation: you want to buy a loaf of bread. Unbeknownst to you, a protection racketeer has given the baker until 3 o'clock to come up with the protection money. As a result, the baker is selling everything at half price. If you get a loaf at half price, are you "exploiting" the baker? If so, are you to blame?
As are you. So what?
No it isn't. Factories are sweatshops because the workers' bargaining power has been legally removed by the privileged, especially landowners.
That's clearly false. You will search in vain for sweatshops in places like Norway, Luxembourg, and Switzerland.
That is a sentence fragment, so I still don't know what you mean by the capitalist element.
No, it could not be a landowner, because unlike the factory owner who contributes the factory and the worker who contributes the labor, the landowner does not contribute anything to wealth production: all he does is give his legally required permission for the factory owner and worker to use what would otherwise have been perfectly available for them to use. The landowner qua landowner is therefore always a pure parasite, a pure thief, pure evil.
It is an economic system that recognizes the fact people have property rights in the fruits of their labor, but there can be no valid property right in what no one's labor ever produced: the earth ("geo").
It has worked beautifully in Hong Kong for over 170 years, and has created the economic "miracle" in China, the greatest the world has ever seen.
How could that be relevant? The same could be -- and was -- said of slaves. When an "argument" would justify slavery, it is already known in advance to be fallacious, disingenuous and evil, with no further argumentation needed.
It is most definitely and indisputably something for nothing, as the land would be there, perfectly ready to use, if the landowner had never existed. The fact that he has bought a legal privilege of demanding to be paid for his permission to use it does not mean he is making any sort of contribution to production. It just means he paid some previous thief for the legal right to steal.
I.e., they own it in exactly the same sense that slave owners owned slaves. See above for the epistemological and moral status of that "argument."
No. That is OBJECTIVELY FALSE. When someone buys land or a slave as a long-term investment, they are merely paying the previous thief for a legal entitlement to steal. They are not making any contribution to production. By contrast, when someone buys a factory, they are paying the factory's creator (or someone who paid the creator, etc.) for making that contribution to production.
And unlike the landowner or slave owner, the people who fund it are thereby making a contribution to production, which a later buyer is paying them for making.
See above re "arguments" that would justify slavery. You have merely decided not to know the fact that the land is just as capable of contributing to production without its owner as the slave is capable of laboring without his owner -- but unlike the land or the slave, the factory would not exist without its initial owner, who built it. You have to refuse to know that fact because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.
See above re "arguments" that would also justify slavery.
Or a slave girl you want to roam around in....
I.e., to legally steal.
Sure. Just as owning slaves was -- until people understood that it was evil.
They are indisputably free riding. That is why you cannot answer The Question:
"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay him for what government, the community and nature provide?"
And no one else can answer it, either.
<yawn> Slaves. Remember? Buying land is nothing but rent seeking behavior, which does not contribute to production and therefore rightly earns no share of production.
As with slaves. Try to remember, OK?
The administrators have some system of measuring people's output -- as many firms do under capitalism -- and paying better workers more money. It won't be as good as the market, but it will be better than nothing.
It is not as easy to extend the performance measurement system to the factory administrators; but it can be done, as capitalist firms manage to do it.
That doesn't happen in small-scale socialist enterprises like Mondragon and the Israeli kibbutzim. It's just a question of putting appropriate systems in place.
That is a function of how honest and intelligent the administrators are (I realize the framework of socialism doesn't reward the honest and intelligent with commensurate responsibilities very well).
That's public sector unions for you....
Garrett Hardin, the author of "The Tragedy of the Commons" later said that he wished he had called it, "The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons" because actual commons were managed, and suffered no such tragedy. Much as actual bathrooms do get cleaned.
Politics_Observer wrote:Marx was right in that factory owners exploit the workers for a profit.
But he was wrong about how that exploitation occurs.
Exploitation is a fundamental part of capitalism.
And it is enabled by the forcible removal of workers' rights to liberty, and the conversion of their rights into the private property of the privileged, especially landowners. It is that removal of liberty rights that makes capitalist exploitation possible. Even Marx understood that without the Enclosures, workers could not have been stripped of their options and thus their bargaining power, and forced to seek factory employment in the towns or starve to death.
We are all exploited by our employers when we go to work.
Because the privileged, especially landowners, have removed our rights to liberty and thus our bargaining power.
We have to be able to cover our labor cost to the employer AND generate additional revenue for the employer. Otherwise, why would he hire us?
That is not exploitation, any more than buying a loaf of bread from a bakery is exploitation. It is a voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is not the factory owner's fault that we have been forcibly stripped of our options and thus our bargaining power by landowners.
Consider an analogous situation: you want to buy a loaf of bread. Unbeknownst to you, a protection racketeer has given the baker until 3 o'clock to come up with the protection money. As a result, the baker is selling everything at half price. If you get a loaf at half price, are you "exploiting" the baker? If so, are you to blame?
That's when you are selling your labor, you talk about how you benefit the bottom line of the employer because he is there to make money.
As are you. So what?
It's why factories are sweatshops.
No it isn't. Factories are sweatshops because the workers' bargaining power has been legally removed by the privileged, especially landowners.
Sweatshops exist everywhere, including in the United States though the wider public might not be aware of them and they are perfectly legal precisely because the public is not aware of them. But you will never be able to get rid of sweatshops.
That's clearly false. You will search in vain for sweatshops in places like Norway, Luxembourg, and Switzerland.
Those who produce profit, and wealth, and pay a portion of their profit, and wealth into taxes from their productivity in generating that wealth.
That is a sentence fragment, so I still don't know what you mean by the capitalist element.
This could be a factory owner or landowner or employee working for a factory owner.
No, it could not be a landowner, because unlike the factory owner who contributes the factory and the worker who contributes the labor, the landowner does not contribute anything to wealth production: all he does is give his legally required permission for the factory owner and worker to use what would otherwise have been perfectly available for them to use. The landowner qua landowner is therefore always a pure parasite, a pure thief, pure evil.
I am not so sure what this "geoism" is that you are referring to
It is an economic system that recognizes the fact people have property rights in the fruits of their labor, but there can be no valid property right in what no one's labor ever produced: the earth ("geo").
but whatever it is I have serious doubts about its viability as an economic system.
It has worked beautifully in Hong Kong for over 170 years, and has created the economic "miracle" in China, the greatest the world has ever seen.
Somebody, somewhere, traded the fruits of their labor over a period of years for a piece of land.
How could that be relevant? The same could be -- and was -- said of slaves. When an "argument" would justify slavery, it is already known in advance to be fallacious, disingenuous and evil, with no further argumentation needed.
So, it's not "something for nothing."
It is most definitely and indisputably something for nothing, as the land would be there, perfectly ready to use, if the landowner had never existed. The fact that he has bought a legal privilege of demanding to be paid for his permission to use it does not mean he is making any sort of contribution to production. It just means he paid some previous thief for the legal right to steal.
They legitimately own that land
I.e., they own it in exactly the same sense that slave owners owned slaves. See above for the epistemological and moral status of that "argument."
and many people buy land as a long-term investment much like many people buy ownership in a factory as a long-term investment.
No. That is OBJECTIVELY FALSE. When someone buys land or a slave as a long-term investment, they are merely paying the previous thief for a legal entitlement to steal. They are not making any contribution to production. By contrast, when someone buys a factory, they are paying the factory's creator (or someone who paid the creator, etc.) for making that contribution to production.
Every factory requires startup capital and a decent plan to have a chance to be profitable.
And unlike the landowner or slave owner, the people who fund it are thereby making a contribution to production, which a later buyer is paying them for making.
They are taking the fruits of their labor and using that fruit to go to work for them.
See above re "arguments" that would justify slavery. You have merely decided not to know the fact that the land is just as capable of contributing to production without its owner as the slave is capable of laboring without his owner -- but unlike the land or the slave, the factory would not exist without its initial owner, who built it. You have to refuse to know that fact because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.
You don't trade the fruits of labor for ownership in a factory or a piece of land just for the sake of it. You do it because you want something in return.
See above re "arguments" that would also justify slavery.
That could be just land you want to roam around in.
Or a slave girl you want to roam around in....
It could be you want to lease that land to others for a profit.
I.e., to legally steal.
It's all legit.
Sure. Just as owning slaves was -- until people understood that it was evil.
The landowners are not necessarily "free-riding" so to speak.
They are indisputably free riding. That is why you cannot answer The Question:
"How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay him for what government, the community and nature provide?"
And no one else can answer it, either.
The trade-off is they don't get to spend their money on other things they would otherwise spend their money on.
<yawn> Slaves. Remember? Buying land is nothing but rent seeking behavior, which does not contribute to production and therefore rightly earns no share of production.
So with ownership comes tradeoffs. It's just like an engineering solution to a problem. Every solution has tradeoffs the engineer has to make when giving his client or employer what he or she wants in a solution to the problem.
As with slaves. Try to remember, OK?
How is that when everything is state-owned?
The administrators have some system of measuring people's output -- as many firms do under capitalism -- and paying better workers more money. It won't be as good as the market, but it will be better than nothing.
People don't have an incentive to make an efficient factory because it's state-owned.
It is not as easy to extend the performance measurement system to the factory administrators; but it can be done, as capitalist firms manage to do it.
Workers in state-owned factories inevitably end up not working because the free-rider workers are not punished.
That doesn't happen in small-scale socialist enterprises like Mondragon and the Israeli kibbutzim. It's just a question of putting appropriate systems in place.
Therefore, many will not work because they don't want to be taken advantage of by those free riders. There is no incentive to punish the free riders under such a system and there is no incentive to work because the free riders will take advantage of those who would otherwise work.
That is a function of how honest and intelligent the administrators are (I realize the framework of socialism doesn't reward the honest and intelligent with commensurate responsibilities very well).
You see tons of "free riders" in civil service government positions. It might not be politically popular to call them that, but many government workers are indeed "free riders" precisely because of the lack of incentive to work and a lack of punishment for free riding.
That's public sector unions for you....
It's like the classic problem of everybody likes clean bathrooms but nobody wants to clean the bathroom. That means if somebody gives in and cleans the bathroom, they will always be taken advantage of by everybody else who will just let him or her clean the bathroom while never doing it themselves. Inevitably, nobody cleans the bathroom so the bathroom gets dirtier and nastier over time. Nothing gets done. There is no incentive to clean the bathroom and no punishment for those who free-ride off those who do clean the bathroom.
Garrett Hardin, the author of "The Tragedy of the Commons" later said that he wished he had called it, "The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons" because actual commons were managed, and suffered no such tragedy. Much as actual bathrooms do get cleaned.
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