5 ms·

You take the master that is willing to take you, primarily to put food in your mouth and roof over your head. edit: for the down voter(s). Take the time to arg

You take the master that is willing to take you, primarily to put food in your mouth and roof over your head. edit: for the down voter(s). Take the time to argue how this is different (feel free to downvote me still) I don't really care about internet points but would rather engage in conversation about this topic.

svedlin 12y ago
"Those sent to work in town often had some input in their choice of master and some, like Frederick Douglass, were allowed to live on their own upon surrender of satisfactory wages." [1] That was probably far from the norm in the 1830's. Frederick Douglass was no less in bondage though. Later in life, Mr. Douglass said: "[E]xperience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other". [2] "Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement[.]" [3] (upvoted you) [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=jI4euhKoEaEC&pg=PA65 http://books.google.com/books?id=jI4euhKoEaEC&pg=PA65 [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&pg=PA676 http://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&pg=PA676 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass
jvm 12y ago
In anarchism, you take the egalitarian society that is willing to take you, primarily to put food in your mouth and roof over your head. All of this argumentation is primarily emotional. It makes a lot more sense to talk about what you actually want (utility?) and what social changes would be an improvement, than to try to argue that some social institution is intrinsically bad.
logicchains 12y ago
A slave owner makes you worse off than if they didn't exist, by chaining you, beating you, and threatening to kill you if you try to run away. An employer doesn't necessarily make you any worse off than if they didn't exist; if you'd be starving without food/payment from them, then their actions aren't the root cause of your starving, nature is, as if they didn't exist then you'd still be starving.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  The slaveowner relies on social institutions which enforce slavery. If you escape, a man with a stick will enforce the slaveowner's property relations over you. Capitalism also relies on the man with a stick. (To bizarre extremes: even if you're just innovative in a way which is supposedly someone's "intellectual property", or fileshare bytes representing a movie, then a man with a stick is supposed to come after you if you try to ignore their threats.) Capitalists control a society which causes people to starve and be homeless if they can't rent themselves out to one of them. Only in an Orwellian society could economics be considered separate from politics. (In more decent societies, those who try to act like slaveowners — and capitalists for that matter — would merely be considered psychotic criminals. You couldn't be a slaveowner, because taking people as property is kidnapping. You couldn't be a capitalist, because "owning" scarce means of production is theft; witholding food/shelter to force people to obey is assault.)
  - logicchains 12y ago
    Again, it's not society which "causes people to starve and be homeless". Hunting and gathering cannot support seven billion people; it is the accumulation of capital in forms such as advanced agriculture that allows the food production that currently sustains the world population. If all capitalists and corporations ceased to exist, a huge proportion of the world population would starve due to the collapse in the global structure of production. The means of production have to be produced by someone. How is it theft for capitalists to own the means of production when they produced it? And if you say well the workers produced it, the workers only agreed to work for pay, not for a stake in it (else they'd be investors/partners, not just workers). Here's the thing: even with just two people interacting without any society around them whatsoever, it's possible for one to agree to work for the other for payment of some sort but without claiming an ownership stake in whatever's produced (i.e. common employment contract). To make such a thing illegal, you must necessarily introduce violence into the system, to prevent these two people from carrying out a mutually agreeable exchange.
    - jahaja 12y ago

svedlin 12y ago

"Those sent to work in town often had some input in their choice of master and some, like Frederick Douglass, were allowed to live on their own upon surrender of satisfactory wages." [1] That was probably far from the norm in the 1830's. Frederick Douglass was no less in bondage though. Later in life, Mr. Douglass said: "[E]xperience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other". [2] "Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement[.]" [3] (upvoted you) [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=jI4euhKoEaEC&pg=PA65 http://books.google.com/books?id=jI4euhKoEaEC&pg=PA65 [2] http://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&pg=PA676 http://books.google.com/books?id=nOt7au3N8FUC&pg=PA676 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

jvm 12y ago

In anarchism, you take the egalitarian society that is willing to take you, primarily to put food in your mouth and roof over your head. All of this argumentation is primarily emotional. It makes a lot more sense to talk about what you actually want (utility?) and what social changes would be an improvement, than to try to argue that some social institution is intrinsically bad.

logicchains 12y ago

A slave owner makes you worse off than if they didn't exist, by chaining you, beating you, and threatening to kill you if you try to run away. An employer doesn't necessarily make you any worse off than if they didn't exist; if you'd be starving without food/payment from them, then their actions aren't the root cause of your starving, nature is, as if they didn't exist then you'd still be starving.

calibraxis 12y ago
The slaveowner relies on social institutions which enforce slavery. If you escape, a man with a stick will enforce the slaveowner's property relations over you. Capitalism also relies on the man with a stick. (To bizarre extremes: even if you're just innovative in a way which is supposedly someone's "intellectual property", or fileshare bytes representing a movie, then a man with a stick is supposed to come after you if you try to ignore their threats.) Capitalists control a society which causes people to starve and be homeless if they can't rent themselves out to one of them. Only in an Orwellian society could economics be considered separate from politics. (In more decent societies, those who try to act like slaveowners — and capitalists for that matter — would merely be considered psychotic criminals. You couldn't be a slaveowner, because taking people as property is kidnapping. You couldn't be a capitalist, because "owning" scarce means of production is theft; witholding food/shelter to force people to obey is assault.)
- logicchains 12y ago
  Again, it's not society which "causes people to starve and be homeless". Hunting and gathering cannot support seven billion people; it is the accumulation of capital in forms such as advanced agriculture that allows the food production that currently sustains the world population. If all capitalists and corporations ceased to exist, a huge proportion of the world population would starve due to the collapse in the global structure of production. The means of production have to be produced by someone. How is it theft for capitalists to own the means of production when they produced it? And if you say well the workers produced it, the workers only agreed to work for pay, not for a stake in it (else they'd be investors/partners, not just workers). Here's the thing: even with just two people interacting without any society around them whatsoever, it's possible for one to agree to work for the other for payment of some sort but without claiming an ownership stake in whatever's produced (i.e. common employment contract). To make such a thing illegal, you must necessarily introduce violence into the system, to prevent these two people from carrying out a mutually agreeable exchange.
  - jahaja 12y ago