4 ms·

>or are you comfortable with enslaving a portion of the population to ensure these needs are taken care of I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism.

by ue_ 10y ago

>or are you comfortable with enslaving a portion of the population to ensure these needs are taken care of I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery. The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Within the capitalist mode of production, human labour-time is like any other quantity; the spinning loom, the silk, etc. Sugar is bought by the kilogram, human labour-time by the hour. Human labour-time is another commodity within capitalism, and like every other commodity in Capitalism, it is maximised for exchange-value over use-value. Market interactions, at least within Capitalism, have the quality of being fetishised, so that rather than seeing the obscured web of interactions between people, we merely see prices and figures. If anything is dehumanising, I'd say that working to make things you don't want (usually causing alienation) is the most dehumanising of them all.

marknutter 10y ago
> I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery. Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. > The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Capitalism helps us quantify human productivity. That's about it. Humans have transcendent value. Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force. There are no other systems that can make that claim.
- ionised 10y ago
  > Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. You can't, a billionaire already bought that land.
  - marknutter 10y ago
    Is that billionaire the US Government? Because if so, I'm with you on that point. But seriously, nothing is stopping you from entering into the vast wilderness and surviving on your own.
- ue_ 10y ago
  >Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. My struggle is not my own, it is of the whole working class and those who are exploited and left in destitution by the capitalist system. Effectively saying 'move somewhere else' rarely works and is a very crude way of saying 'fuck off' to someone who raises legitimate problems in the world in which most people live. For any semblance of a life to benefit from the past work of humanity, going and living in a forest is not sufficient, unless you are fine with living like an ascetic, barely having your needs met. Most people would find this disagreeable, and many people cannot afford to do it. The land is owned by the state (operating via bourgeois democracy) and if not private property owners. I see these as one and the same organ of proprietorship, staking claim based in false premises and contradicting with the principles of justice and equality (Proudhon's 'What is Property?' is interesting on this topic, as well as Kropotkin's 'The Conquest of Bread' and many of Marx and Engels' works.) >Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force. This is laughably false. What is so degrading about slavery is not the fact that there is no pay, but that one is forced to perform a particular task at risk of destitution or starvation. In the same way, one class oppresses another, the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. It is no defence of any right at all to be forced in such a way. If there is no government, there is still the unjustified authority of one class over another, which is problematic in my opinion. It's also worth noting that because labour-time is a commodity, the owner of the business will pay for that commodity for what it costs at minimum, in order to get the best deal, that is, enough to sustain firstly continued availability of labour-time and secondly to sustain the replenishing of the source of labour-time (i.e a family). Just as the slave owner would house his slaves, your boss in capitalism gives you some freedom to choose where you work and how to spend some of your time. It's said that one of the most damaging aspects of capitalism is not the time on the clock for the boss, but rather the 'maintenance' (just as a machine is maintained) of the worker in his leisure time, eating time and sleeping time. It is always on the clock, in different forms. Your life is merely a running cost for the boss, no more. >There are no other systems that can make that claim. Social anarchism can, unlike "anarcho"-capitalism, which perpetuates a system of unjustified authority. Why should the boss be paid so much for labour he didn't perform? For taking a 'risk'? How is that quantified? For giving the employees the wonderful privilege of being exploited? There is no justification for it. Capitalism does not quantify human productivity, if by that you mean that those who work the hardest are rewarded the most. This is clearly false, and can be seen in sweatshops; you have no reason to believe it is any different in a cushy office job in SV or London. Socially Necessary Labour Time can make some kind of approximation of the relative amount of productivity within a market, but as to why that should be ascribed as a measure of human worth, I don't think it ought to be. Why is it that libertarians take such pride in 'No God, no masters' but openly defend the 'right' of a boss to exploit his workers and encourage the damaging psychological phenomenon of alienation? I say: down with the state and down with private property.

by ue_ 10y ago

marknutter 10y ago

> I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery. Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. > The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Capitalism helps us quantify human productivity. That's about it. Humans have transcendent value. Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force. There are no other systems that can make that claim.

ionised 10y ago
> Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. You can't, a billionaire already bought that land.
- marknutter 10y ago
  Is that billionaire the US Government? Because if so, I'm with you on that point. But seriously, nothing is stopping you from entering into the vast wilderness and surviving on your own.
ue_ 10y ago
>Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. My struggle is not my own, it is of the whole working class and those who are exploited and left in destitution by the capitalist system. Effectively saying 'move somewhere else' rarely works and is a very crude way of saying 'fuck off' to someone who raises legitimate problems in the world in which most people live. For any semblance of a life to benefit from the past work of humanity, going and living in a forest is not sufficient, unless you are fine with living like an ascetic, barely having your needs met. Most people would find this disagreeable, and many people cannot afford to do it. The land is owned by the state (operating via bourgeois democracy) and if not private property owners. I see these as one and the same organ of proprietorship, staking claim based in false premises and contradicting with the principles of justice and equality (Proudhon's 'What is Property?' is interesting on this topic, as well as Kropotkin's 'The Conquest of Bread' and many of Marx and Engels' works.) >Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force. This is laughably false. What is so degrading about slavery is not the fact that there is no pay, but that one is forced to perform a particular task at risk of destitution or starvation. In the same way, one class oppresses another, the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. It is no defence of any right at all to be forced in such a way. If there is no government, there is still the unjustified authority of one class over another, which is problematic in my opinion. It's also worth noting that because labour-time is a commodity, the owner of the business will pay for that commodity for what it costs at minimum, in order to get the best deal, that is, enough to sustain firstly continued availability of labour-time and secondly to sustain the replenishing of the source of labour-time (i.e a family). Just as the slave owner would house his slaves, your boss in capitalism gives you some freedom to choose where you work and how to spend some of your time. It's said that one of the most damaging aspects of capitalism is not the time on the clock for the boss, but rather the 'maintenance' (just as a machine is maintained) of the worker in his leisure time, eating time and sleeping time. It is always on the clock, in different forms. Your life is merely a running cost for the boss, no more. >There are no other systems that can make that claim. Social anarchism can, unlike "anarcho"-capitalism, which perpetuates a system of unjustified authority. Why should the boss be paid so much for labour he didn't perform? For taking a 'risk'? How is that quantified? For giving the employees the wonderful privilege of being exploited? There is no justification for it. Capitalism does not quantify human productivity, if by that you mean that those who work the hardest are rewarded the most. This is clearly false, and can be seen in sweatshops; you have no reason to believe it is any different in a cushy office job in SV or London. Socially Necessary Labour Time can make some kind of approximation of the relative amount of productivity within a market, but as to why that should be ascribed as a measure of human worth, I don't think it ought to be. Why is it that libertarians take such pride in 'No God, no masters' but openly defend the 'right' of a boss to exploit his workers and encourage the damaging psychological phenomenon of alienation? I say: down with the state and down with private property.