4 ms·

>would by and large prefer to sell their labor for a wage rather than be legally held as a kind of property. I very much agree and I do not contest this. There

by ue_ 10y ago

>would by and large prefer to sell their labor for a wage rather than be legally held as a kind of property. I very much agree and I do not contest this. There are also feudal serfs who would love to live like workers today. However there are workers now who would love to live like truly free men who are not forced to sell their time to survive. I think that those slaves 4000 years ago would like that too. Probably more than the feudal or even capitalist mode of production. Yes, comparing the horrors of slavery to the current situation is hyperbolic - but the same format of exploitation is still happpening. That is, the format of selling labour-time to others in order to be afforded the luxury of life within the system. I think that Engels missed out that there is greater mobility nowadays. Even though it is very unlikely, a proletarian who has amassed enough capital can become a capitalist himself. But this does not do away with the exploitation of others.

mc32 10y ago
The base state is not that we do nothing (I don't think). The base state is that people (pre-agriculturally, pre-societally) have to scavenge, forage, hunt. If they did not put their bodies to work, or someone else didn't offer to lend them work, people would have to toil and "work". The hunter-gatherers, of say, South Africa, I don't think, is a lifestyle most people engaged in wage-for labor economies would prefer to go back to. We just have to visit rural China where people opt away from subsistence living to work in these factories. Same for your Oaksakan indigenous who migrates to MDF.
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  The fact that modern capitalist society is extraordinarily good at getting people to participate in it isn't good evidence that it makes people better off. It's merely evidence that it has a highly effective police, military, and individual economic incentives. Like, if thousands of settlers shoot all the buffalo and forcibly move the native hunter-gatherers into marginal lands, and the natives later decide to migrate to a city and engage in menial labor, that doesn't mean that they're now better off. It just means that nation-states are really good at controlling territories and people. see also: http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html
  - mc32 10y ago
    Even in Soviet times, people, if they could would migrate to the city, internal passport withstanding. People may despise the tedium of modern work, but the toil of pre-agriculture and subsistence living is somewhat worse --it does not provide marginal benefit. It's subsistence. Weather, plagues and general unpredictability is not usually sought, if you have alternatives.
    - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      The Soviet example is the state making lives on farms significantly worse, rather than city life better. Like, they're notorious for forcibly reorganizing peasant life in a way that made them easier to control and tax and incidentally more susceptible to famine. Plus, not a hunter-gatherer example. Better would be interactions in America between settlers and natives. Kidnapped settlers would refuse later repatriation, or escape from being "rescued" back to the community that abducted them.
- ue_ 10y ago
  I am not proposing a hunter-gatherer society; rather, I am proposing that the automation and materials needed to make socially necessary goods be collectively owned. This way, automation can be used in favour of the people, not for profit. Automation is used to massively reduce the required number of hours of work. Those who work receive the product of their labour. Democratic voluntary institutions are set up in which the workers collectively decide what to do with surplus product - whether to give it to those who are unwilling or unable to work, for example. I'm no anarcho-primitivist. Abolishing the class system does not revert us to primitive times; rather it moves us beyond the need for profit and into the need of uses for products. We make things to be used, not exchanged. Abolishing the class of people who hold capital does not revert us to a base state of survival, at least not in my judgement. Sorry if you weren't making that point.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
However there are workers now who would love to live like truly free men who are not forced to sell their time to survive. There are workers now who would love to have others provide for their needs, but not have to do anything in return? How is this different from a desire to be a slaveowner?
- chongli 10y ago
  No different, if you conflate taxes with slavery. That's preposterous though, for obvious reasons. If you don't like paying taxes, you can always quit your job: no income, no taxes. If you're a slave, on the other hand, quitting means torture and/or death. So yeah, the desire to have others provide for your needs through tax dollars is worlds away from the desire to own slaves.
- ue_ 10y ago
  >There are workers now who would love to have others provide for their needs, but not have to do anything in return? Where did I talk about others providing for your needs? My point was that you work for yourself, you don't have to sell your time to someone else. It may be decided, as a form of charity, to give to those who do not wish to work or especially those who are unable to. But it is by far not what I am advocating for; I advocate that each worker receives the full value of their labour. I can't really see a way around being forced to work for oneself. I wish there were a way which would mean that work is not unevenly distributed, but there isn't in my knowledge. So in my opinion the best move is to work to massively reduce with automation the number of hours required to work, and to reward people with the products they make rather than wages. How this applies to service jobs, I'm not so sure.
nradov 10y ago
Most Americans could if they chose scrape together enough money to purchase land in a rural area and set up a subsistence farm, thus living as "truly free men". But that lifestyle sucks and very few people want it. "Exploited" workers have a better quality of life.
- ue_ 10y ago
  >"Exploited" workers have a better quality of life. Why does that mean that it's the best quality of life that could be had? I do not disagree that capitalism is better than the feudalism and slavery that preceeded it.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by ue_ 10y ago

mc32 10y ago

The base state is not that we do nothing (I don't think). The base state is that people (pre-agriculturally, pre-societally) have to scavenge, forage, hunt. If they did not put their bodies to work, or someone else didn't offer to lend them work, people would have to toil and "work". The hunter-gatherers, of say, South Africa, I don't think, is a lifestyle most people engaged in wage-for labor economies would prefer to go back to. We just have to visit rural China where people opt away from subsistence living to work in these factories. Same for your Oaksakan indigenous who migrates to MDF.

ThrustVectoring 10y ago
The fact that modern capitalist society is extraordinarily good at getting people to participate in it isn't good evidence that it makes people better off. It's merely evidence that it has a highly effective police, military, and individual economic incentives. Like, if thousands of settlers shoot all the buffalo and forcibly move the native hunter-gatherers into marginal lands, and the natives later decide to migrate to a city and engage in menial labor, that doesn't mean that they're now better off. It just means that nation-states are really good at controlling territories and people. see also: http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html
- mc32 10y ago
  Even in Soviet times, people, if they could would migrate to the city, internal passport withstanding. People may despise the tedium of modern work, but the toil of pre-agriculture and subsistence living is somewhat worse --it does not provide marginal benefit. It's subsistence. Weather, plagues and general unpredictability is not usually sought, if you have alternatives.
  - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
    The Soviet example is the state making lives on farms significantly worse, rather than city life better. Like, they're notorious for forcibly reorganizing peasant life in a way that made them easier to control and tax and incidentally more susceptible to famine. Plus, not a hunter-gatherer example. Better would be interactions in America between settlers and natives. Kidnapped settlers would refuse later repatriation, or escape from being "rescued" back to the community that abducted them.
ue_ 10y ago
I am not proposing a hunter-gatherer society; rather, I am proposing that the automation and materials needed to make socially necessary goods be collectively owned. This way, automation can be used in favour of the people, not for profit. Automation is used to massively reduce the required number of hours of work. Those who work receive the product of their labour. Democratic voluntary institutions are set up in which the workers collectively decide what to do with surplus product - whether to give it to those who are unwilling or unable to work, for example. I'm no anarcho-primitivist. Abolishing the class system does not revert us to primitive times; rather it moves us beyond the need for profit and into the need of uses for products. We make things to be used, not exchanged. Abolishing the class of people who hold capital does not revert us to a base state of survival, at least not in my judgement. Sorry if you weren't making that point.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

However there are workers now who would love to live like truly free men who are not forced to sell their time to survive. There are workers now who would love to have others provide for their needs, but not have to do anything in return? How is this different from a desire to be a slaveowner?

chongli 10y ago
No different, if you conflate taxes with slavery. That's preposterous though, for obvious reasons. If you don't like paying taxes, you can always quit your job: no income, no taxes. If you're a slave, on the other hand, quitting means torture and/or death. So yeah, the desire to have others provide for your needs through tax dollars is worlds away from the desire to own slaves.
ue_ 10y ago
>There are workers now who would love to have others provide for their needs, but not have to do anything in return? Where did I talk about others providing for your needs? My point was that you work for yourself, you don't have to sell your time to someone else. It may be decided, as a form of charity, to give to those who do not wish to work or especially those who are unable to. But it is by far not what I am advocating for; I advocate that each worker receives the full value of their labour. I can't really see a way around being forced to work for oneself. I wish there were a way which would mean that work is not unevenly distributed, but there isn't in my knowledge. So in my opinion the best move is to work to massively reduce with automation the number of hours required to work, and to reward people with the products they make rather than wages. How this applies to service jobs, I'm not so sure.

nradov 10y ago

Most Americans could if they chose scrape together enough money to purchase land in a rural area and set up a subsistence farm, thus living as "truly free men". But that lifestyle sucks and very few people want it. "Exploited" workers have a better quality of life.

ue_ 10y ago
>"Exploited" workers have a better quality of life. Why does that mean that it's the best quality of life that could be had? I do not disagree that capitalism is better than the feudalism and slavery that preceeded it.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]