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Feudalism involves using force to take and hoard finite resources such as land from others without recompense. I’m describing a society where everyone is free t

Feudalism involves using force to take and hoard finite resources such as land from others without recompense. I’m describing a society where everyone is free to create wealth from their labor and is also free to have their descendants inherit and benefit from the wealth they created from their labor.

js8 5y ago
> create wealth from their labor I am not sure what you mean by lasting wealth created by labor. Can you give some example? You mean "intellectual property"? You want society broadly based on that?
- unishark 5y ago
  IP rules restrict others' production or ownership. Wealth is owning of the products themselves. You don't become less wealthy in that sense if another person makes a copy of something you own.
  - js8 5y ago
    Not all of them, copyright doesn't. In any case, aside from something like a Minecraft world, I don't really see how you can "create wealth" without taking from someone else first. Can you provide a positive example?
    - unishark 5y ago
      What is included in "taking from someone"? Am I allowed to purchase or gather cheap resources and make much more valuable products after applying skilled labor?
      - js8 5y ago
        Yes. But I am not sure how you transfer the fruits of this labor to your descendants, so they would benefit from it. Every property needs maintenance, and "being rich" (as OP said), or even middle-class, means to have enough property that you need to hire somebody (at least ocassionally) to maintain it. Also OP talked about building an institution, which presumably means that there are other people involved. Unless he meant something like building a worker cooperative, I feel like in the arrangement he envisioned for his descendants, it will be other people working for them, providing them with their labor. I don't see that much different from feudal arrangements.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  I can think of a bunch of examples not based directly on intellectual property (I assume you mean "royalties" and similar, such as from songs / books / etc). If I found a prosperous business, say Walmart, and my kinds inherit it, this looks to me pretty much based on labor and not on taxing the use of some "intellectual property". Same for an industrial enterprise, like an automaker that is privately owned. Of course, the kids would have to find a way to continue managing it well in order to reap the benefits, it wouldn't exactly be "forever free money with no work", though they could get close to that for themselves by selling the company. I guess some could question whether being a CEO of such a company is actually "labor", especially when considering the kids (when the "building" phase is over) but I'd say that's a whole different debate.
  - chii 5y ago
    if that child inheriting a business is not actually very good at managing, they should not try, but instead hire a good manager. There's nothing wrong with living off the profits of the business, and do no labour at all.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    It's not a different debate at all. Because these arguments are really about living off the value of other people's labour. Sometimes managerial/organisational ability is productive and creative, but in reality it's often piratical and exploitative. It's much easier to get rich by limiting worker freedom and opportunity and herding workers towards a precarious existence than it is by creating genuine opportunities for enhanced collective wealth. Do you want wealth to be a narcissistic signifier of being better than other people - and therefore wholly deserving of extra special treatment - or do you want to be an organiser and inventor who creates systems which give everyone (not just a small in-group) a helping hand up and makes the culture more creative, inventive, and interesting?
  - js8 5y ago
    Honestly, I don't see, conceptually, a big distinction between building a corporation (like Walmart) and a nation. In both cases, there is a person which organizes other people and makes sure that collectively, they fight with other neighboring organization over resources, for mutual benefit within the group, and win. And then, like in feudalism, the descendants of the organizer himself inherit the organization, and the right to control it, and tell people what to do. Yes, technically the leader's job is still qualified labor (although in case of being just a shareholder, there is no labor involved, if you are CEO or in a board, you are actually paid extra aside from the dividends). But that's not the main point, the main point is, just like in feudalism, the founder of the institution has the indefinite, and hereditary, power to make decisions concerning the institution, in other words, he owns it. The other people involved in building it (and their descendants) do not have such powers. And that is deeply problematic, which is why today we reject feudalism in favor of e.g. democracy. For similar reasons, I believe, we should reject hereditary ownership of corporations in favor of, say, worker coops.
- usrusr 5y ago
  Can you give an example for a case where someone has created significant wealth from their labor that isn't based on a laughably broad definition of the term "labor"?
anoncake 5y ago
Serfs were often descended from freemen who had to sell their freedom. The lords did hoard land, but they did not necessarily take it by force. Usually they inherited it, or they bought it.

js8 5y ago

> create wealth from their labor I am not sure what you mean by lasting wealth created by labor. Can you give some example? You mean "intellectual property"? You want society broadly based on that?

unishark 5y ago
IP rules restrict others' production or ownership. Wealth is owning of the products themselves. You don't become less wealthy in that sense if another person makes a copy of something you own.
- js8 5y ago
  Not all of them, copyright doesn't. In any case, aside from something like a Minecraft world, I don't really see how you can "create wealth" without taking from someone else first. Can you provide a positive example?
  - unishark 5y ago
    What is included in "taking from someone"? Am I allowed to purchase or gather cheap resources and make much more valuable products after applying skilled labor?
    - js8 5y ago
      Yes. But I am not sure how you transfer the fruits of this labor to your descendants, so they would benefit from it. Every property needs maintenance, and "being rich" (as OP said), or even middle-class, means to have enough property that you need to hire somebody (at least ocassionally) to maintain it. Also OP talked about building an institution, which presumably means that there are other people involved. Unless he meant something like building a worker cooperative, I feel like in the arrangement he envisioned for his descendants, it will be other people working for them, providing them with their labor. I don't see that much different from feudal arrangements.
vladvasiliu 5y ago
I can think of a bunch of examples not based directly on intellectual property (I assume you mean "royalties" and similar, such as from songs / books / etc). If I found a prosperous business, say Walmart, and my kinds inherit it, this looks to me pretty much based on labor and not on taxing the use of some "intellectual property". Same for an industrial enterprise, like an automaker that is privately owned. Of course, the kids would have to find a way to continue managing it well in order to reap the benefits, it wouldn't exactly be "forever free money with no work", though they could get close to that for themselves by selling the company. I guess some could question whether being a CEO of such a company is actually "labor", especially when considering the kids (when the "building" phase is over) but I'd say that's a whole different debate.
- chii 5y ago
  if that child inheriting a business is not actually very good at managing, they should not try, but instead hire a good manager. There's nothing wrong with living off the profits of the business, and do no labour at all.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  It's not a different debate at all. Because these arguments are really about living off the value of other people's labour. Sometimes managerial/organisational ability is productive and creative, but in reality it's often piratical and exploitative. It's much easier to get rich by limiting worker freedom and opportunity and herding workers towards a precarious existence than it is by creating genuine opportunities for enhanced collective wealth. Do you want wealth to be a narcissistic signifier of being better than other people - and therefore wholly deserving of extra special treatment - or do you want to be an organiser and inventor who creates systems which give everyone (not just a small in-group) a helping hand up and makes the culture more creative, inventive, and interesting?
- js8 5y ago
  Honestly, I don't see, conceptually, a big distinction between building a corporation (like Walmart) and a nation. In both cases, there is a person which organizes other people and makes sure that collectively, they fight with other neighboring organization over resources, for mutual benefit within the group, and win. And then, like in feudalism, the descendants of the organizer himself inherit the organization, and the right to control it, and tell people what to do. Yes, technically the leader's job is still qualified labor (although in case of being just a shareholder, there is no labor involved, if you are CEO or in a board, you are actually paid extra aside from the dividends). But that's not the main point, the main point is, just like in feudalism, the founder of the institution has the indefinite, and hereditary, power to make decisions concerning the institution, in other words, he owns it. The other people involved in building it (and their descendants) do not have such powers. And that is deeply problematic, which is why today we reject feudalism in favor of e.g. democracy. For similar reasons, I believe, we should reject hereditary ownership of corporations in favor of, say, worker coops.
usrusr 5y ago
Can you give an example for a case where someone has created significant wealth from their labor that isn't based on a laughably broad definition of the term "labor"?

anoncake 5y ago

Serfs were often descended from freemen who had to sell their freedom. The lords did hoard land, but they did not necessarily take it by force. Usually they inherited it, or they bought it.