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> Because it is closer to owning the means of production and capturing the excess value of labor by those who are, well, laboring I would call this distributed

> Because it is closer to owning the means of production and capturing the excess value of labor by those who are, well, laboring I would call this distributed capitalism. The farm owners can still run the farm however they like, keep the entire profit of the farm, invest in capital machinery over a long term that they have exclusive ownership of, etc. The outcome is indeed closer to socialism in that it's likely the owners will also be workers, and profits are spread around throughout society. I'd say the key difference is that distributed capital divides power bottom-up, whereas socialism is more of a reaction to the lack of it or the failings of it. What we're suffering today is centralized capitalism, where that ownership has been concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. I look at the federal government giving many trillions of dollars to centralized Wall Street in the form of low interest loans over the past few decades, and can't help but think that is a significant cause of the centralization - especially in light of the waste that centralized management seems to create (otherwise you'd expect larger business structures to be outcompeted in many areas). These subsidies are also the cause of beancounter-centric monocultures, because in order to direct those loans (leverage) into specific concrete endeavors the financial outcome must be made extremely predictable.

jmyeet 4y ago
This can best be framed (as Marx did) in terms of feudalism. Feudalism as an economic system captured the surplus value of labor right up to the monarch. This was done through a number of layers, what you'd call vassal lords. In some places these structures exist today (eg the various duchies in the UK that still derive an income from their holdings to whatever royal or aristocrat is appointed to benefit from them). One might be tempted to call this distributed feudalism because of the existence of intermediate lords but it's one of those distinctions without a difference. The monarch will ultimately seek to extract as much value from his or her vassal lords as is possible. At times this was an explicit goal (eg Louis XIV keeping the nobility poor through Versailles). "Distributed capitalism" is likewise a distinction without a difference. You can have smaller farms. These will be gobbled up Cargill or whoever, often coercively through predatory pricing of key products. The forces at work always seek to capture that surplus value of labor into a smaller and smaller group at the top. You see the effects of this everywhere: massive consolidation in every sector. All of the food in the US is produced by like 6 conglomerates.
- mindslight 4y ago
  > You can have smaller farms. These will be gobbled up Cargill or whoever, often coercively through predatory pricing of key products. The forces at work always seek to capture that surplus value of labor into a smaller and smaller group at the top. You completely ignored the last bit of my comment where I pointed out a likely cause of much of the consolidation, that isn't just "capitalism". A privileged class of people getting a cheat code of easy money to buy up ever more of the productive economy is not what I'd call a level playing field. I see many dynamics that should discourage concentrations of wealth, like the utility value of money goes down as you have more (rich people overpay for stuff), and centralization often creates extra waste to help uniformity. I'm not going to assert that the overall dynamic is definitely this way (and then just-world-fallacy the way things currently are), rather I'm just pointing out that distributed capitalism is most certainly not the experiment we're running. And to head off the common retort that these subsidies are inevitable as capital captures the government - if this is true then there's really no point in analyzing any -isms as it means we'll always be stuck in this type of "capitalism".

jmyeet 4y ago

This can best be framed (as Marx did) in terms of feudalism. Feudalism as an economic system captured the surplus value of labor right up to the monarch. This was done through a number of layers, what you'd call vassal lords. In some places these structures exist today (eg the various duchies in the UK that still derive an income from their holdings to whatever royal or aristocrat is appointed to benefit from them). One might be tempted to call this distributed feudalism because of the existence of intermediate lords but it's one of those distinctions without a difference. The monarch will ultimately seek to extract as much value from his or her vassal lords as is possible. At times this was an explicit goal (eg Louis XIV keeping the nobility poor through Versailles). "Distributed capitalism" is likewise a distinction without a difference. You can have smaller farms. These will be gobbled up Cargill or whoever, often coercively through predatory pricing of key products. The forces at work always seek to capture that surplus value of labor into a smaller and smaller group at the top. You see the effects of this everywhere: massive consolidation in every sector. All of the food in the US is produced by like 6 conglomerates.

mindslight 4y ago
> You can have smaller farms. These will be gobbled up Cargill or whoever, often coercively through predatory pricing of key products. The forces at work always seek to capture that surplus value of labor into a smaller and smaller group at the top. You completely ignored the last bit of my comment where I pointed out a likely cause of much of the consolidation, that isn't just "capitalism". A privileged class of people getting a cheat code of easy money to buy up ever more of the productive economy is not what I'd call a level playing field. I see many dynamics that should discourage concentrations of wealth, like the utility value of money goes down as you have more (rich people overpay for stuff), and centralization often creates extra waste to help uniformity. I'm not going to assert that the overall dynamic is definitely this way (and then just-world-fallacy the way things currently are), rather I'm just pointing out that distributed capitalism is most certainly not the experiment we're running. And to head off the common retort that these subsidies are inevitable as capital captures the government - if this is true then there's really no point in analyzing any -isms as it means we'll always be stuck in this type of "capitalism".