News Stability of Anarchy: Let's Continue Here, Smurf

[oldunion]

I agree wholeheartedly with this analysis... only, it seems to me that the president of the USA is becoming a too powerful person, no ? In fact it is one of the reasons why I do have great hopes for the EU: they are an assembly of rather weak states, and no central power is in the making. I hope we keep it that way.

I have read that Britain is launching a campaign to make citizenry more accepting to a nationalized id.


Capitalism is flawed by definition. It assumes that there are an endless supply of resources and the market will grow to infinity, allowing everyone to amass great fortunes. When a nation runs out of resources to exploit, they must go to war to secure their place in the future.

A meritocracy is based on putting people with talent above others without, which would not be a bad thing if it was in the sense of ability to function in a society of equal compensation. However, people who cannot succeed in this system because of say...intelligence, are doomed to be oppressed. Capitalism has the rich who control the means of production, and then the workers who work and are not compensated in full for their work.

But what you see happening now is that the middle class is disappearing, giving way to more upper class and more lower class. This is a pretty dangerous situation and if you were to extrapolate the results, you would find that government would become increasingly oppressive in an effort to gain more funds, but there would be none.

Its simple, i could explain it to a 5 year old. If you had ten pieces of chocolate, you could distribute them to ten workers who put in the work needed to obtain the ten pieces. OR, you could have 2 of these 8 workers who were bosses and thereby demanded 4 pieces of chocolate from the work they managed. Therefore, the 8 workers are now getting 6 pieces. Do work for ten weeks and the capitalists would have 400 pieces, the workers 600. This is just an example though, and in reality the proportions are much more absurd.

There are indications that anarchism was the unbeknownst choice of pre-civilization societies. But the things i said may have existed pre-capitalism, but they have been amplified in the current system, and given our intellectual and reasoning capacities, they shouldn't exist.

Someone has to lose in capitalism, because exploitation is essential to its function.

I find these discussions directly pertinent to talk of anarchism. Anarchism is like the way humans would act without bounds, and government is that bound. It is completely unncecessary. All you need is industry. There isn't an absence of organization or even authority, there is an absence of exploitative authority.

Here is a challenge. Explain to me how a market, graded on how much it benefits all citizens, compares between capitalism and anarchism.

 

[Smurf]

Capitalism is flawed by definition. It assumes that there are an endless supply of resources and the market will grow to infinity, allowing everyone to amass great fortunes. When a nation runs out of resources to exploit, they must go to war to secure their place in the future.

Market economics assumes that resources are scarce and that competition is necessary to determine where, what and when to use.

 

[Smurf]

I find these discussions directly pertinent to talk of anarchism. Anarchism is like the way humans would act without bounds, and government is that bound. It is completely unncecessary. All you need is industry. There isn't an absence of organization or even authority, there is an absence of exploitative authority.

I don't really see government as of creating limits, but I suppose that's true. My general view is that the government, or more specifically, the state creates a hierarchial structure that is, by it's nature, destructive. Or, more accurately, that the state creates destructive forces, usually by way of stratification in hierarchy.

Here is a challenge. Explain to me how a market, graded on how much it benefits all citizens, compares between capitalism and anarchism.

That's a pretty vague question. Can you re-state it? A few things that I don't understand are: What does market economy have to do with anarchism? and how would one grade it?

 

[oldunion]

Market economics assumes that resources are scarce and that competition is necessary to determine where, what and when to use.

In defined market economics, there is no government, just private industry. The tendency for private industry, as you said, is to compete over resources. However, there is no provision that states the next course of action after the resources are gone, so essentially capitalism would self-destruct in a simple example of say one industry making a product that uses gold; when the gold is gone, the industry would be dead in the water (assuming in this example that there is only the gold and the industry in this universe) In anarchsim, the gold would still run out someday, but in contrast this time frame would be drawn out much much longer as the goal of this production was not profit but need.

I don't really see government as of creating limits, but I suppose that's true. My general view is that the government, or more specifically, the state creates a hierarchial structure that is, by it's nature, destructive. Or, more accurately, that the state creates destructive forces, usually by way of stratification in hierarchy.

I agree. The natural tendency is to prioritize the needs of the few in power, which becomes destructive when they don't match the needs of the populous.

 

[Smurf]

In defined market economics, there is no government, just private industry.

No, Market economic theory has a very precise role for government.

 

[Yonoz]

In defined market economics, there is no government, just private industry. The tendency for private industry, as you said, is to compete over resources. However, there is no provision that states the next course of action after the resources are gone, so essentially capitalism would self-destruct in a simple example of say one industry making a product that uses gold; when the gold is gone, the industry would be dead in the water (assuming in this example that there is only the gold and the industry in this universe) In anarchsim, the gold would still run out someday, but in contrast this time frame would be drawn out much much longer as the goal of this production was not profit but need.

 

[oldunion]

Free Market
A market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control. A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sells are allowed to transact freely (i.e. buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies or regulation.

In financial markets, free market stocks are securities that are widely traded and whose prices are not affected by availability.

Call it laissez-faire if you want to be overly technical

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Its simple, i could explain it to a 5 year old. If you had ten pieces of chocolate, you could distribute them to ten workers who put in the work needed to obtain the ten pieces. OR, you could have 2 of these 8 workers who were bosses and thereby demanded 4 pieces of chocolate from the work they managed. Therefore, the 8 workers are now getting 6 pieces. Do work for ten weeks and the capitalists would have 400 pieces, the workers 600. This is just an example though, and in reality the proportions are much more absurd.

You make your explination too simple is the problem. You leave out certain facets of the scenario.
You have five people. They get together, pool their resources, and are able to produce ten pieces of chocolate. They all contribute more or less equally in resources and labour. At the end they divide the product equally each receiving two pieces of chocolate.
New scenario...
You have five people. One person, a chocolate maker, gathers together enough of his own resources in his own kitchen to produce twenty pieces of chocolate. He has invited the four others to assist him in producing the chocolate. All five work together to produce this chocolate. When the project is complete the person who provided the resources, the work area, and the know how gives each of the four others two pieces of the chocolate for having assisted him in his endevour. Perhaps he even gives one of the four an extra piece of chocolate because he came up with a particularly ingenious method of solving a problem that was encountered. Is this unfair? The "Boss" so to speak now has given nine of twenty pieces of chocolate to his "workers" and has kept eleven for himself. Isn't this a bit closer to how work and wage goes in capitalism? The one "Boss" wasn't simply given the title for no specified reason, as in your analogy, he was the "Boss" because of what extra he contributed to the project and because it was his endevour in the first place.

What I think you have a problem with is not capitalism but corpratism. I can see that capitalism can easily lead to corporatism but that isn't necessary to capitalism. There are many people who advocate capitalism but denounce corporatism.

 

[Yonoz]

Free Market
A market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control. A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sells are allowed to transact freely (i.e. buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies or regulation.

In financial markets, free market stocks are securities that are widely traded and whose prices are not affected by availability.

Call it laissez-faire if you want to be overly technical

I know what a free market economy is. Your post simply lacked common sense.

The tendency for private industry, as you said, is to compete over resources. However, there is no provision that states the next course of action after the resources are gone, so essentially capitalism would self-destruct in a simple example of say one industry making a product that uses gold; when the gold is gone, the industry would be dead in the water (assuming in this example that there is only the gold and the industry in this universe) In anarchsim, the gold would still run out someday, but in contrast this time frame would be drawn out much much longer as the goal of this production was not profit but need.

The tendency for private industry is to compete over profit, not resources. It's the exact opposite of what you describe, as when a resource becomes scarce it begins to be financially justifiable to increase the efficiency of its use and to use alternatives. You're assuming that in other sorts of markets industry would have the same incentives to be as efficient as it is in capitalism, while IMHO the opposite case is true. The soil around steel manufacturing plants in the former USSR is so polluted with metals from the wasteful production methods they used, it actually makes financial sense to mine it.
I'm not saying capitalism is much better, I just think you're miscalculating the origins of the problems you're attempting to mend. If too few people care about the environment it doesn't matter what form of government or market society has. However, IMO under capitalism the industry has other incentives to seek more efficient production and alternative resources. These should be complemented by industry regulation legislation, which is much more attainable in a democracy than any other form of government.
Perhaps you should not give up on democracy so easily, and instead focus your efforts on using democracy's mechanisms to advance the matters you care about. I understand your preference for problem solving in the lowest common denominator but IMO that is unattainable. I too would like to wake up some day in a utopia...

 

[Yonoz]

What I think you have a problem with is not capitalism but corpratism. I can see that capitalism can easily lead to corporatism but that isn't necessary to capitalism. There are many people who advocate capitalism but denounce corporatism.

Thanks for clearing that up TSA. I was wondering about that myself.

 

[oldunion]

the statutory ape: firstly i think we can both agree that example was very simple. I agree that it is acceptable for the person who financed the operation to get more than tht workers, but only so uch that he gets the same wage they did + the wage required to recoup his initial capital. He does not need to make money just because he is the boss time and time again. Once the industry is set up to make chocolate, all workers can contribute to the operation equally.

Anarchism is not utopia, not by ideaology or practice. What it is is democracy in its truest form with the impedements inherent in bureaucracy, over meticulated method, and excessive regulation.

I didnt know what corporatism was, but after having researched it just now, i can no that's not what i am referring to. yes it is a problem in this country but it was inevitable. Without more and more legislation and loss of freedom, capitalism has to yield to corporatism. The laws against monopoly don't take into account that two industries could become powerful enough to make the laws pointless, there are world markets, and arbitrary consumer prices.

Rather than maximizing profit on a resource while it is feasible to do so and doing this until it no longer is economical, industry should regulate production such that need was put above profit. Capitalism is illogical

 

[Yonoz]

I agree that it is acceptable for the person who financed the operation to get more than tht workers, but only so uch that he gets the same wage they did + the wage required to recoup his initial capital. He does not need to make money just because he is the boss time and time again. Once the industry is set up to make chocolate, all workers can contribute to the operation equally.

What incentive would he have to start producing then? Where would he get the initial capital from? If everyone earned the same wages, no one could get any workers - there's no way one single person could employ others without risking losing all their money... and no one would risk their money if they can't make any profit!

Anarchism is not utopia, not by ideaology or practice. What it is is democracy in its truest form with the impedements inherent in bureaucracy, over meticulated method, and excessive regulation.

In other words: utopia, in the sense that it is an impractical dream. Call it what you like, it's impossible to implement.

Without more and more legislation and loss of freedom, capitalism has to yield to corporatism.

Which is why regulatory legislation is the way to deal with corporatism. The only problem is deciding where the red line is - when legislation needs to be made to avoid too much power to be collected by one entity or group.

The laws against monopoly don't take into account that two industries could become powerful enough to make the laws pointless, there are world markets, and arbitrary consumer prices.

It is much more feasible to revise these laws than to discard of capitalism altogether.

Rather than maximizing profit on a resource while it is feasible to do so and doing this until it no longer is economical, industry should regulate production such that need was put above profit.

So, should we produce enough chocolate so that everyone gets a whole box weekly or research into alternative, non-fattening nutritional chocolate and have just enough for one tablet each?
This question does not have a right answer - someone has to make a decision, for good or bad. In this example it is chocolate - but what happens when you have to decide on medical services? For the price of a single MRI scanner you can build an entire hospital wing. Do you think anarchy has better mechanisms of making these choices than a capitalist democracy?

Capitalism is illogical

Human behaviour is illogical - that's why capitalism works so well. While you dream up hopeless plans to destroy greed and poverty, capitalism channels them into progress. It's not perfect, but it's quite effective. Could that Pentium chip you want to buy for $40 have been designed and produced in an anarchy?

What we should do is become more involved in our society's legislation. But that's too boring.

 

[oldunion]

What incentive would he have to start producing then? Where would he get the initial capital from? If everyone earned the same wages, no one could get any workers - there's no way one single person could employ others without risking losing all their money... and no one would risk their money if they can't make any profit!

who says it has to be one person. when argentina was in revolution, everyone was starving. an entire group of people went to the factory and started running it, they paid off the debt and split profits evenly, without bosses.

In other words: utopia, in the sense that it is an impractical dream. Call it what you like, it's impossible to implement.

why

Which is why regulatory legislation is the way to deal with corporatism. The only problem is deciding where the red line is - when legislation needs to be made to avoid too much power to be collected by one entity or group.
It is much more feasible to revise these laws than to discard of capitalism altogether.

not really, the laws don't fix anything. reformism is like putting band-aids on broken leg, and then saying "go back out and get em sport."

So, should we produce enough chocolate so that everyone gets a whole box weekly or research into alternative, non-fattening nutritional chocolate and have just enough for one tablet each?
This question does not have a right answer - someone has to make a decision, for good or bad. In this example it is chocolate - but what happens when you have to decide on medical services? For the price of a single MRI scanner you can build an entire hospital wing. Do you think anarchy has better mechanisms of making these choices than a capitalist democracy?

Yes i do. there is an abundance of wealth in the current market, which is why it is ideal to go from capitalism to anarchism/socialism/communism...because industry is already established. In anarchism there would be so much wealth still, but it would be in the peoples hands and not in the pockets of the elite who make the big decisions on what they will and will not research. There could be industry for mri machines, cancer institutes, universities, agriculture, everything that anyone wanted. And people wouldn't be frugle with money, there would be no point to horde money.

Human behaviour is illogical

Yes it is, that's why we shouldn't try to make laws and build a society around the predictability of humans, because there is no such predictability. Order out of chaos.

Could that Pentium chip you want to buy for $40 have been designed and produced in an anarchy?

yes. it wouldn't take a money grubbing company to make quality chips. Anarchism would speed up advancement so much, if focus was diverted from profit, then all there would be is advancement. Technology would improve to improve lifestyle, all of this does not depend on having a rich supporter.

What we should do is become more involved in our society's legislation. But that's too boring.

have fun wasting your time.

 

[Smurf]

In other words: utopia, in the sense that it is an impractical dream. Call it what you like, it's impossible to implement.

You realize that we've been discussing that for like 4 pages now. You're going to come up with something a lot more influencial than an empty statement.

 

[Smurf]

Yes i do. there is an abundance of wealth in the current market, which is why it is ideal to go from capitalism to anarchism/socialism/communism...because industry is already established. In anarchism there would be so much wealth still, but it would be in the peoples hands and not in the pockets of the elite who make the big decisions on what they will and will not research. There could be industry for mri machines, cancer institutes, universities, agriculture, everything that anyone wanted. And people wouldn't be frugle with money, there would be no point to horde money.

That's more of a marxist viewpoint than an anarchist. Marx said that communism would arise out of capitalism in an industrialised state. Anarchism does not make any prediction what it arises (as a dominant ideology) from or that it would come in the form of 'revolution'.

 

[vanesch]

Anarchism would speed up advancement so much, if focus was diverted from profit, then all there would be is advancement.

Explain me how that's going to happen in an anarchy. There's a lot of stuff you need to do in order to make a complicated chip, you know. So we go back to the 50ies and the transistor was just invented, and we switched to anarchy. How did the pentium get here ?

 

[Burnsys]

Explain me how that's going to happen in an anarchy. There's a lot of stuff you need to do in order to make a complicated chip, you know. So we go back to the 50ies and the transistor was just invented, and we switched to anarchy. How did the pentium get here ?

Don't know how anarchy would have developed the pentium. but for example, i have an video card ati 9500, which result to be an ati 9700 with a bios update that make it a 9500, so ati update the bios of a product so they can degrade it performance and sell it at a lower price... that is nonsense to me.. what's the point? they cost the same. i know that wouldn't happen in a no profit oriented economy, if tomorrow intel develops p4 a 4.0 ghz, there is no point the keep making p4 at 3.0.
I don't know if capitalism would improve technological advance... but i know capitalism is a barrier to technology advancement..

 

[vanesch]

I don't know if capitalism would improve technological advance... but i know capitalism is a barrier to technology advancement..

I'm not defending capitalism. I "believe" in capitalism as the default system that *gets* there by itself when we do not do anything else. So it is in a way better than doing some STUPID things. But I don't believe in the capitalist ideology that says that capitalism should be "nurtured" and that everything should be free market. Capitalism (the one you get automatically) is a self-organizing "law of nature" when certain boundary conditions are present (free initiative and property rights), and it leads to good things and to bad things. The example you cite is such a bad thing. In fact, I see most intellectual property rights (and the limitations that follow from it) as a kind of aberration that results from wanting the market to solve problems for which it is not fit. Of course the overall productivity of the entire world and the overall satisfaction of the world would be higher if there were no limits put in place by intellectual property rights (if all software were freely available etc...). The problem that one cannot solve in a "market" way is then to remunerate the creator of the software, the music, the film etc... This means to me that the market is not the right way of handling this kind of situations for instance. This is a typical example where pure capitalism does not succeed in properly remunerating someone who has created something that is for the greater good of all (like a nice song or a great software packet). So the trick is to create artificial scarcity of the good by PREVENTING you to have your copy, so that a market can be instored, because the only way capitalists know how to remunerate someone is by him lifting partly a scarce ressource. But there is no real scarcity of copies of knowledge !

I also believe that the advancement of pure, fundamental science can only be done by public initiative, or things that look like it, like a rich mecenas. Of course most applied research can be done within a capitalist vision, because it will lead,within a few years, to a return on investment.

Nevertheless, it has to be acknowledged too that practical capitalism DOES WORK WELL for many things, too, like toasters, mobile phones, cars and computers.

 

[Yonoz]

who says it has to be one person. when argentina was in revolution, everyone was starving. an entire group of people went to the factory and started running it, they paid off the debt and split profits evenly, without bosses.

That's really nice, but those people were starving. That's a very strong incentive, that doesn't exist when all is well. What happened to that factory afterwards? Did they grow? How did they select the extra workers - there must have been quite a few people wanting to work there? Or did the original workers just become the bosses?

In other words: utopia, in the sense that it is an impractical dream. Call it what you like, it's impossible to implement.

why

Because men always want more power, more wealth. With the lack of a strong central government there will be power struggles and those who emerge with more power will take control.

not really, the laws don't fix anything. reformism is like putting band-aids on broken leg, and then saying "go back out and get em sport."

I guess we've made it so far with a lot of broken legs then.

Yes i do. there is an abundance of wealth in the current market, which is why it is ideal to go from capitalism to anarchism/socialism/communism...

So because there's an abundance of wealth the system should be changed?

because industry is already established.

So you grant this industry has been established under capitalism.

In anarchism there would be so much wealth still, but it would be in the peoples hands and not in the pockets of the elite who make the big decisions on what they will and will not research.

There are stupid and smart people. People join into tribes. People obey charismatic leaders who make promises. That wealth will soon find its way into new centres of power, only there will be no central government to regulate them.

There could be industry for mri machines, cancer institutes, universities, agriculture, everything that anyone wanted.

Everything that anyone wanted? What if I want to research the use of water as an alternative fuel, and my friend wants to research ultra-healing band-aids? Would we both get the same budget? What if I want to conduct an experiment into which chocolate tastes best? Would I be getting the same funds as my friend?

And people wouldn't be frugle with money, there would be no point to horde money.

What makes you think people would be that way in anarchy? Money still buys chocolate in anarchy, doesn't it? I want lots of chocolate!

Yes it is, that's why we shouldn't try to make laws and build a society around the predictability of humans, because there is no such predictability. Order out of chaos.

No laws? We'd all be wondering around naked trying to gain power and spread our seed.
Humans are predictable to an extent. We all seek the same things - shelter, food, company...

yes. it wouldn't take a money grubbing company to make quality chips. Anarchism would speed up advancement so much, if focus was diverted from profit, then all there would be is advancement. Technology would improve to improve lifestyle, all of this does not depend on having a rich supporter.

How would such a chip be created? How would you organise so many people into researching and producing this chip, without a strong leadership, without development and production stalling due to different ideas? How do you keep the rapid rate of advance in chip performance in such a non-competitive society?

What we should do is become more involved in our society's legislation. But that's too boring.

have fun wasting your time.

I know, it's not as fun as talking about absurdities but someone has to do the dirty work so that the critics can have their Pentiums and web servers.

 

[Yonoz]

You realize that we've been discussing that for like 4 pages now. You're going to come up with something a lot more influencial than an empty statement.

Right, sorry.
My impression is that oldunion is expecting humans in an anarchy to be motivated only to make a better society for all. I don't think I need to explain why this is absurd. Even if that were the case, by some magnificent act of re-education or brainwashing, how would they organise? Try getting a team of people with no leader to work together for a week, and watch them fall into silly arguments about the least important details. Suppose they get along well and can work things out by discussing them. Even then there would be so much time spent discussing and voting, work would occupy a small share of the time - and they would be working according to some sort of compromise that everyone has agreed to - which is usually the most wasteful way of achieving something.

 

[Yonoz]

Don't know how anarchy would have developed the pentium. but for example, i have an video card ati 9500, which result to be an ati 9700 with a bios update that make it a 9500, so ati update the bios of a product so they can degrade it performance and sell it at a lower price... that is nonsense to me.. what's the point? they cost the same.

This way they can produce the 9700 and 9500 for less, and you can buy your 9500 for a lower cost.

i know that wouldn't happen in a no profit oriented economy, if tomorrow intel develops p4 a 4.0 ghz, there is no point the keep making p4 at 3.0.

In a non-profit oriented economy, there would probably be no personal computers as we know them today - they are a luxury. They do not directly contribute to society. Even if their educational and communicative values were recognised to justify development, production and distribution there would certainly be no graphic acceleration cards - those are good only for games.

I don't know if capitalism would improve technological advance... but i know capitalism is a barrier to technology advancement..

So is any other way of selecting one goal over another. Capitalist or not, society will always have to chose where to invest its resources.

 

[alexandra]

Evolution brought us here and it can take us past it as well. It will be a long slow process and that to me would indicate that reformism would work best. Revolution is the anarchist/socialist band-aid for lack of patience.

On the other hand, evolution takes a lot of time. And if the scientists (the *real* scientists - ie. not those who claim to be scientists but are in fact apologists for those in power) are correct, it is not guaranteed that we have time: the environment is being destroyed right now. As for anarchism/socialism being a 'band-aid' - how so? It is more of a blood transfusion, I'd say

 

[alexandra]

There is no *a priori* reason why capitalism should bring about exploitation of the worker, greed and useless consumption.

I disagree, vanesch. By definition, capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of workers by capitalists. That is how surplus value is extracted and how profits are made. By definition, for some to be rich others must be poor. Also, useless consumption is the mainstay of capitalism (that's why advertising, and that's why colonialism and imperialism - to secure new markets).

So it must be that most of the rich and powerful (who are, let us not forget, also often those who have been educated in the most ideal ways) do not behave so nicely after all. Then there's no reason to expect that the average person will. Some will. Others won't.

Those who care about the common good in today's society are (perhaps miraculously, given the extreme propaganda to worry only about oneself) more evolved, IMO. The rich may be 'well educated', but in what? In management and economics? In how to increase their profit margins? How many of the rich would study social science units like Sociology, Political Science, etc, do you think? After all, such disciplines are 'worthless' - they can't teach you how to make your money grow...

 

[alexandra]

You make your explination too simple is the problem. You leave out certain facets of the scenario.
You have five people. They get together, pool their resources, and are able to produce ten pieces of chocolate. They all contribute more or less equally in resources and labour. At the end they divide the product equally each receiving two pieces of chocolate.
New scenario...
You have five people. One person, a chocolate maker, gathers together enough of his own resources in his own kitchen to produce twenty pieces of chocolate. He has invited the four others to assist him in producing the chocolate. All five work together to produce this chocolate. When the project is complete the person who provided the resources, the work area, and the know how gives each of the four others two pieces of the chocolate for having assisted him in his endevour. Perhaps he even gives one of the four an extra piece of chocolate because he came up with a particularly ingenious method of solving a problem that was encountered. Is this unfair? The "Boss" so to speak now has given nine of twenty pieces of chocolate to his "workers" and has kept eleven for himself. Isn't this a bit closer to how work and wage goes in capitalism? The one "Boss" wasn't simply given the title for no specified reason, as in your analogy, he was the "Boss" because of what extra he contributed to the project and because it was his endevour in the first place.

And again, you make it too simple too. The reason the four helpers can't make their own chocolate in the first place is because the state (the bourgoies or capitalist state, to use the technical political term) has forcibly deprived the four of the means of making their own chocolate, thus facilitating the primitive accumulation of capital by the lucky owner of the means of production (the one who owns the work area and the other resources). This actually happened historically - for example, in England, with the enclosures acts:

Landlords knew that the peasants would not give up their land voluntarily, so they appealed by petition to Parliament, a difficult and costly adventure at best. The first enclosure act was passed in 1710 but was not enforced until the 1750s. In the ten years between 1750 and 1760, more than 150 acts were passed and between 1800 and 1810, Parliament passed more than 900 acts of enclosure. While enclosure ultimately contributed to an increased agricultural surplus, necessary to feed a population that would double in the 18th century, it also brought disaster to the countryside. Peasant formers were dispossessed of their land and were now forced to find work in the factories which began springing up in towns and cities. Reference: http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture17a.html

Capitalism is based on theft.

 

[alexandra]

Which is why regulatory legislation is the way to deal with corporatism. The only problem is deciding where the red line is - when legislation needs to be made to avoid too much power to be collected by one entity or group. It is much more feasible to revise these laws than to discard of capitalism altogether.

One question, Yonoz: who are the actual lawmakers? Aren't they the wealthy? Why on Earth would they pass legislation limiting their own ability to increase their profits? In reality, it is easy to prove that the opposite is the case: the lawmakers are the rich and represent the rich, and the laws they pass (and all laws they are ever likely to pass) benefit them and their masters. There's no way to reform a system such as capitalism, which is inherently corrupt.

While you dream up hopeless plans to destroy greed and poverty, capitalism channels them into progress. It's not perfect, but it's quite effective. Could that Pentium chip you want to buy for $40 have been designed and produced in an anarchy?

I wonder if you've ever heard of the Linux community? You know, that worldwide internet community that works together (for no monetary reward) to create software which is distributed freely, with its source code, and which is better (eg. more stable, more secure) than Microsoft's software. I wonder why they do it? Is it perhaps because they are motivated by interest? You can get more information about Linux here: http://www.linux.org/

 

[Smurf]

I wonder if you've ever heard of the Linux community? You know, that worldwide internet community that works together (for no monetary reward) to create software which is distributed freely, with its source code, and which is better (eg. more stable, more secure) than Microsoft's software. I wonder why they do it? Is it perhaps because they are motivated by interest? You can get more information about Linux here: http://www.linux.org/

Yes, the communication revolution has allowed the most amazing examples of gift economics to spring up. Linux is competeing quite easily with Windows and is also usually regarded as being far superior to windows (just as dduardo) as well. Open Office, designed to compete directly with Microsoft office, is totally free and open source. It's also removed all the bugs that microsoft intentionally puts in it's products to force people to buy the newest versions. The wiki, blog and independant media revolutions have massively reduced the usefullness of large corporate news networks. The war blogs from Iraq are often far more vivid than anything news networks would ever put on TV, as they've established a precedent of "Video-game-izing" war and don't want real graphic stuff any more. They're also obsessed with "Live" coverage, and often completely fail to follow through with many stories, which independant media and war blogs do not.

 

[Smurf]

How many of the rich would study social science units like Sociology, Political Science, etc, do you think? After all, such disciplines are 'worthless' - they can't teach you how to make your money grow...

Political Science would actually be a fairly common I would imagine. I mean, when was the last time you saw a poor politician get any position of real importance and/or power?

 

[Smurf]

So vanesch. I still don't see how you can see such instability in Anarchy. You say that somebody could come along and start a state like structure and then conquer everybody. But to me that's like saying somebody can just come along in a Democracy and proclaim himself king. It just doesn't happen that often.

 

[vanesch]

I disagree, vanesch. By definition, capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of workers by capitalists. That is how surplus value is extracted and how profits are made.

My point was: if we are allowed to think that people want the best for society as a whole, and think first of the interest of all, and only then about their own interest (something that would make communism work very well), then we should take that stance also for the rich in a capitalist society. After all, there's no reason to assume they are "worse" than exactly those same people would be in the hierarchy of a communist society. So if they were going to be nice guys in a communist society (and let's assume for a moment that the SAME people who are rich in a capitalist society, are also those that will be high up in the hierarchical ladder of a communist society), why aren't they the same nice guys in capitalist society ? Why don't they ignore surplus value beyond what's their fair share and do not care about extra profits ?

By definition, for some to be rich others must be poor. Also, useless consumption is the mainstay of capitalism (that's why advertising, and that's why colonialism and imperialism - to secure new markets).Those who care about the common good in today's society are (perhaps miraculously, given the extreme propaganda to worry only about oneself) more evolved, IMO. The rich may be 'well educated', but in what? In management and economics? In how to increase their profit margins? How many of the rich would study social science units like Sociology, Political Science, etc, do you think?

I'd think, many of them. If you're born in a rich family, you can do whatever pleases you. You could maybe first get a degree in management and economics, but nothing stops you to spend a few extra years at university studying other stuff, the time it takes to take over the company from daddy or mommy. I'd think that more rich people than poor people have many degrees.

After all, such disciplines are 'worthless' - they can't teach you how to make your money grow...

Yes, but you're polarized against "the rich". But let us now assume that these are exactly the same, nice people that would be high up in the communist hierarchy. So 1) or they are evil and greedy all the same, and corrupt the communist system (as happened historically) or 2) they are nice people thinking of the wellbeing of society, and then they would act the same in a capitalist as in a communist system ; in the same way then they'd care about the good of society and not so much about their wealth.

 

[Smurf]

My point was: if we are allowed to think that people want the best for society as a whole, and think first of the interest of all, and only then about their own interest (something that would make communism work very well), then we should take that stance also for the rich in a capitalist society. After all, there's no reason to assume they are "worse" than exactly those same people would be in the hierarchy of a communist society. So if they were going to be nice guys in a communist society (and let's assume for a moment that the SAME people who are rich in a capitalist society, are also those that will be high up in the hierarchical ladder of a communist society), why aren't they the same nice guys in capitalist society ? Why don't they ignore surplus value beyond what's their fair share and do not care about extra profits ?

In a communist society 90% of everything is collectively owned (as opposed to privately). So the difference between a "rich" person and a "poor" person would be massively tiny by comparison to today. Communism puts equality as one of the top priorities.