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> capitalists, who want a large labour supply... Even Friedman argued for the NIT, noting it was less paternalistic than food stamps or other benefits to simpl

> capitalists, who want a large labour supply... Even Friedman argued for the NIT, noting it was less paternalistic than food stamps or other benefits to simply let the poor allocate their money however they see fit (and simple transfers would likely lead to lower administrative costs). But this implicit line that there's a secret cabal of "capitalists" all persuaded by some idea that they never publicly proselytize, but all coordinate action in order to pursue... it sounds a bit conspiratorial. Cribbing lines from marxist economic theory, it's going to alienate half your audience or more, and immediately make the argument deeply partisan, when it needn't be. I mean, believe that line or not, but I think the argument is stronger without falling down the rabbit hole of pretending to know what "the capitalists" are up to.

yk 13y ago
> But this implicit line that there's a secret cabal of "capitalists" all persuaded by some idea that they never publicly proselytize, [...] The way the Marxist argument for class interest works, is that there does not need to be a secret cabal. To discuss this in the context of basic income (BI): Some capitalists, that is some owners of capital, depend on cheap unskilled labor. Each of them concludes independently, that a BI is against his own interests, since it would reduce the incentive to take unpleasant jobs and force them to pay their workers more. Or more generally, some people have similar interests, not because they conspire, but because they are in a similar socio-economic situation. And this socio-economic situation generates class interests. ( Marx then goes on to argue, that the capitalist class can more easily leverage its interests, and therefore the workers need class conscious to counter this leverage.)
- derleth 13y ago
  > Marx then goes on to argue, that the capitalist class can more easily leverage its interests, and therefore the workers need class conscious to counter this leverage. And anyone who disagrees with Marx on hearing his ideas is suffering from False Consciousness and needs to be Re-Educated, perhaps in a Camp somewhere.
  - straight_talk 13y ago
    > Marx then goes on to argue, that the capitalist class can more easily leverage its interests, and therefore the workers need class conscious to counter this leverage. Do you have any objective arguments against this statement?
    - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
      I can take a crack at this one. Class lines are not well-defined. A CEO may share certain interests with shareholders but their interests are not all identical. By using the frame of class you create a situation in which those without power pit themselves against those with power, and encourage those with power to reciprocate. That is a horrifically bad position for those without power to be in because you're de facto creating two teams where one of them has an insurmountable initial advantage. The better strategy is to break the "classes" apart so that you can pit the different powerful interests against each other rather than uniting them against you. There is a subset of the wealthy who benefit from a basic income. The masses would do better to ally with that subset and combine their money with your votes to achieve the common goal, than to keep painting them as the enemy for long enough that they start fighting you too.
      - yk 13y ago
        Class lines are not very defined, and never were, but at least for political analysis the exact boundaries do not matter much. What matters is the difference in influence between the main bodies of the classes. And while thinking about Marx one needs to keep in mind, that Marx did analyse the mid 19th century economy. Your example of a CEO is actually a quite good one, since a CEO is controlling capital which he does not own, a arrangement that essentially did not exist in the middle of the 19th century. And I think that this split between capital control and ownership of capital is one of the most important theoretical difficulties in applying Marxist analysis to 21st century finance capitalism. The other problem is, that in the 19th century Labor movement the workers had a nuclear option: If the workers just refuse to work, they will be as broke and unemployed as the capitalist they refuse to work for.
  - 13y ago
- woah 13y ago
  Thanks for the clear explanation. It annoys me when people assume that any observation of aligned interests is an allegation of conspiracy.
Daishiman 13y ago
There's no necessity for a conspiracy; it's in all self-interested capitalists (the majority of them) to have a large supply of labor. Collusion towards those interests is quite implicit, especially if you have political parties that stand for those values quite openly.
calibraxis 13y ago
Adam Smith got away with it in Wealth of Nations: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." And in his Lectures on Jurisprudence: "Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor." It's not a secret cabal of capitalists. It's capitalists acting as they're incentivized (or perhaps fail and be replaced by those who will). Wouldn't we naturally observe institutional forces in feudalism, the former USSR, chattel slavery, etc; and be astonished by people living in those societies not seeing the obvious?
- wavefunction 13y ago
  There are plenty of folks who like to say they love Adam Smith but have either never read his works or seem to conveniently gloss over his very real problems with privilege and inequalities. I really love him and Hume though, what amazing thinkers and especially ahead of their times!
icebraining 13y ago
Don't confuse capitalists (those who control the capital) with supporters of capitalism like Friedman. Capitalists do lots of things that go against what Friedman et all defended. Lobbying for governmental privileges and self-serving regulation is a common example.
- praxeologist 13y ago
  That lobbying is corporatism, not capitalism. It's frustrating to attempt to talk to leftists because they conflate the two constantly. As an anarcho-capitalist libertarian I don't advocate a guaranteed minimum income however I think it would be preferable, given whatever amount of government intervention in the economy, to have one since it would somewhat insulate the poor from the rest of the intervention.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Yes, the lobbying is advocating for corporatism, and it's done by capitalists. I'm not conflating the two; I'm saying that it's in the self-interest of an established capitalist to replace a free-market capitalist system by a corporatist one. This is hardly a new or leftist idea; it's actually an obvious result of the incentives at play, and it's a fact that anarcho-capitalists have used as an argument for the elimination of the state (in order to eliminate lobbying).
    - praxeologist 13y ago
      You've given the textbook definition of corporatism, then say it is done by "the capitalists", therefore—I guess—corporatism = capitalism. Isn't there something fundamentally different which is also called capitalism? Without any reference to who owns the means of production, where mutually voluntaristic exchange occurs in an unhampered market scenario we call this process capitalism as well. Saying "the capitalists" is a lot like the us vs. them tactic of left vs. right or republicans vs. democrats. What is "an established capitalist"? Is that somehow different than a run of the mill capitalist? If you buy into the outmoded doctrine of profit seeking automatons as "capitalists", then your argument works. Competing theories of the firm have discovered the tendency toward revenue-maximization versus pure, blind monetary profit maximization. Just because you recognize that utilizing a state's ability to assign perks to business is properly called corporatism as well doesn't mean that you aren't conflating this process of exploitation with genuine free-market capitalism.
nickik 13y ago
I agree. I am a very strong pretty strongly free market and I think the Basic Income is generally a good concept, atm its not a politicly viable option to have no social wellfair system so it might be that the basic income is the best. Also note that Friedman wanted the NIT as a transition system and then throw it away.
rokhayakebe 13y ago
Let me rearrange it for you. there's secret cabal of "capitalists" all persuaded by some idea that they never publicly proselytize, but all coordinate action in order to pursue... it is not conspiratorial, but it is implicit. Indeed, this is a code, similarly to how you don't have to tell your best friend not to hit on your ex, yet. You know it, s/he knows it. Just because it isn't said, does not mean, it is not well understood.

yk 13y ago

> But this implicit line that there's a secret cabal of "capitalists" all persuaded by some idea that they never publicly proselytize, [...] The way the Marxist argument for class interest works, is that there does not need to be a secret cabal. To discuss this in the context of basic income (BI): Some capitalists, that is some owners of capital, depend on cheap unskilled labor. Each of them concludes independently, that a BI is against his own interests, since it would reduce the incentive to take unpleasant jobs and force them to pay their workers more. Or more generally, some people have similar interests, not because they conspire, but because they are in a similar socio-economic situation. And this socio-economic situation generates class interests. ( Marx then goes on to argue, that the capitalist class can more easily leverage its interests, and therefore the workers need class conscious to counter this leverage.)

derleth 13y ago
> Marx then goes on to argue, that the capitalist class can more easily leverage its interests, and therefore the workers need class conscious to counter this leverage. And anyone who disagrees with Marx on hearing his ideas is suffering from False Consciousness and needs to be Re-Educated, perhaps in a Camp somewhere.
- straight_talk 13y ago
  > Marx then goes on to argue, that the capitalist class can more easily leverage its interests, and therefore the workers need class conscious to counter this leverage. Do you have any objective arguments against this statement?
  - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
    I can take a crack at this one. Class lines are not well-defined. A CEO may share certain interests with shareholders but their interests are not all identical. By using the frame of class you create a situation in which those without power pit themselves against those with power, and encourage those with power to reciprocate. That is a horrifically bad position for those without power to be in because you're de facto creating two teams where one of them has an insurmountable initial advantage. The better strategy is to break the "classes" apart so that you can pit the different powerful interests against each other rather than uniting them against you. There is a subset of the wealthy who benefit from a basic income. The masses would do better to ally with that subset and combine their money with your votes to achieve the common goal, than to keep painting them as the enemy for long enough that they start fighting you too.
    - yk 13y ago
      Class lines are not very defined, and never were, but at least for political analysis the exact boundaries do not matter much. What matters is the difference in influence between the main bodies of the classes. And while thinking about Marx one needs to keep in mind, that Marx did analyse the mid 19th century economy. Your example of a CEO is actually a quite good one, since a CEO is controlling capital which he does not own, a arrangement that essentially did not exist in the middle of the 19th century. And I think that this split between capital control and ownership of capital is one of the most important theoretical difficulties in applying Marxist analysis to 21st century finance capitalism. The other problem is, that in the 19th century Labor movement the workers had a nuclear option: If the workers just refuse to work, they will be as broke and unemployed as the capitalist they refuse to work for.
- 13y ago
woah 13y ago
Thanks for the clear explanation. It annoys me when people assume that any observation of aligned interests is an allegation of conspiracy.

Daishiman 13y ago

There's no necessity for a conspiracy; it's in all self-interested capitalists (the majority of them) to have a large supply of labor. Collusion towards those interests is quite implicit, especially if you have political parties that stand for those values quite openly.

calibraxis 13y ago

Adam Smith got away with it in Wealth of Nations: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." And in his Lectures on Jurisprudence: "Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor." It's not a secret cabal of capitalists. It's capitalists acting as they're incentivized (or perhaps fail and be replaced by those who will). Wouldn't we naturally observe institutional forces in feudalism, the former USSR, chattel slavery, etc; and be astonished by people living in those societies not seeing the obvious?

wavefunction 13y ago
There are plenty of folks who like to say they love Adam Smith but have either never read his works or seem to conveniently gloss over his very real problems with privilege and inequalities. I really love him and Hume though, what amazing thinkers and especially ahead of their times!

icebraining 13y ago

Don't confuse capitalists (those who control the capital) with supporters of capitalism like Friedman. Capitalists do lots of things that go against what Friedman et all defended. Lobbying for governmental privileges and self-serving regulation is a common example.

praxeologist 13y ago
That lobbying is corporatism, not capitalism. It's frustrating to attempt to talk to leftists because they conflate the two constantly. As an anarcho-capitalist libertarian I don't advocate a guaranteed minimum income however I think it would be preferable, given whatever amount of government intervention in the economy, to have one since it would somewhat insulate the poor from the rest of the intervention.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Yes, the lobbying is advocating for corporatism, and it's done by capitalists. I'm not conflating the two; I'm saying that it's in the self-interest of an established capitalist to replace a free-market capitalist system by a corporatist one. This is hardly a new or leftist idea; it's actually an obvious result of the incentives at play, and it's a fact that anarcho-capitalists have used as an argument for the elimination of the state (in order to eliminate lobbying).
  - praxeologist 13y ago
    You've given the textbook definition of corporatism, then say it is done by "the capitalists", therefore—I guess—corporatism = capitalism. Isn't there something fundamentally different which is also called capitalism? Without any reference to who owns the means of production, where mutually voluntaristic exchange occurs in an unhampered market scenario we call this process capitalism as well. Saying "the capitalists" is a lot like the us vs. them tactic of left vs. right or republicans vs. democrats. What is "an established capitalist"? Is that somehow different than a run of the mill capitalist? If you buy into the outmoded doctrine of profit seeking automatons as "capitalists", then your argument works. Competing theories of the firm have discovered the tendency toward revenue-maximization versus pure, blind monetary profit maximization. Just because you recognize that utilizing a state's ability to assign perks to business is properly called corporatism as well doesn't mean that you aren't conflating this process of exploitation with genuine free-market capitalism.

nickik 13y ago

I agree. I am a very strong pretty strongly free market and I think the Basic Income is generally a good concept, atm its not a politicly viable option to have no social wellfair system so it might be that the basic income is the best. Also note that Friedman wanted the NIT as a transition system and then throw it away.

rokhayakebe 13y ago

Let me rearrange it for you. there's secret cabal of "capitalists" all persuaded by some idea that they never publicly proselytize, but all coordinate action in order to pursue... it is not conspiratorial, but it is implicit. Indeed, this is a code, similarly to how you don't have to tell your best friend not to hit on your ex, yet. You know it, s/he knows it. Just because it isn't said, does not mean, it is not well understood.