com/cap/com debate - laboring under delusions

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Capcom

This joke is staler than Reagan's underwear.

[Agathon]

How long will it take this thread to become the mess that the last two were. Might I suggest less posts that are longer and more substantive.

This means that some people who might want to contribute might not get put off by having to wade through six pages of posts each time they check up on it.

Here's my two rupees.

Speaking about some people as "motivated" and others as not ignores the reality of the situation. People from higher socio-economic backgrounds tend to be more motivated because people of their class can afford to engage in economic risk taking. They can always fall back on their parents should disaster strike. Poorer people simply do not have such options, and are thus more economically conservative.

Moreover, wealthier kids tend to have a sense of self confidence drilled into them that kids who go to crappy schools don't. This has led to hordes of highly motivated doofuses crowding out Agathon's office hours demanding better grades for their poor work, and being constitutionally incapable of taking no for an answer.

You merely need to read books like Bridget Jones' Diary to see what I mean. These people live in a different world from most of us, and yet we have to put up with their paternalistic and smarmy evaluations of the moral character of poor people.

[Kuciwalker]

Aggie:

Yes, but the owner creates none. It wouldn't matter if he didn't own it, the value would still be the same.

1) the owner is the one applying the capital. And most often now, capital is not land.

2) in theory, the owner of the capital - in the form of land, a factory, whatever - got that capital either as a direct result of his labor (building a machine) or equivalently trading the direct result of his labor for the capital. (Of course, because we haven't always been capitalist things like land often were inherited from other systems, but to try and redistribute all that stuff would be like asking the Egyptians to pay reparations to the Jews for their years of slavery.) In effect, the capitalist has created the value by applying the product of his labor.

All I claimed is that the value of things like land is not created by human beings.

Land is a special case. Most capital is created directly from human labor, capital such as machines. Since land has the same effect as this capital, we class it with that.

[Kuciwalker]

More in response to Aggie:

Why can't I think up a new song, or a new joke. Those have value, yet I have not applied my labour to anything, since these are immaterial goods.

You certainly have created something of value. Since these are such intangible goods, and it would in most cases be idiotic to protect the rights to property such as a joke, we only have laws protecting certain intellectual material.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


This joke is staler than Reagan's underwear.

You just don't appreciate my comedic genious.

[Kuciwalker]

To che:

Most communists don't understand their own theory and are communists for moral reasons. A reading of Marx should dispell comrades of this notion, since the value labor, like any other commodity, depends on the amount of socially-necessary labor which goes in to making it. In other words, the value of a doctor's labor (at least in his function as a doctor) is more valuable than the labor of a ditch-digger. The labor of faster and or more skilled workers are more valuable, and should be so compensated. The eventual goal of communism is to create a society so productive that economic compensation isn't an issue and that we all live in a world of plenty.

I thought capitalism was supposed to do that, and once we hit infinite productivity, communism would kick in

[Kuciwalker]

To che:

3. The bases for the pay differential will be determined by a democratic socialist government which will weigh social needs, the cost of producing and reproducing the laborer, and also supply and demand.

Because of course democratically elected governments (hell, ANY sort of government) have shown great wisdom in this task.

You think that capital will be allocated more intelligently under communism. That's absurd. Case in point: Bush's ABM system All communism would do in America is vastly increase government pork.

[Kuciwalker]

Finally:

No, I have a different justification for overthrowing our current rulers, which is that they misrule. If they were capable of providing a stable economy and a decent standard of living for all without the periodic crises to which capitalism is subject, there would be no point in overthrowing them. This is the fundimental core of Marxism. It is not the capitalism is unfair, it is that capitalism is insane.

I'd say that we've come a VERY long way towards a stable economy since the 30's. And I doubt that most of it is due to "communist" reforms - it's due to things like the Fed.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Motivated people will take the initiative and look at long-term prospects for employment and not go down a dead end. If they find themselves in a job that looks to be on the chopping block, they've probably seen the writing on the wall and made alternative arrangements. They may not always do what they want or live where they want, but they'll suck it up with a long term plan and make things happen for themselves, and not ***** about how the system is screwing them over.

This is what you will find in a zillion self-help books (very popular with USians) but reality is not like that.

How could a person look at long-term prospects if he cannot even meet the short-team goals (e.g. paying rent, buying food)? How could a person see anything -- let alone writings on the wall -- if that person keeps his head down to do 12 hours of manual labour a day? How is it possible to make alternate arrangements if the means are not available?

You're just talking about some capitalist dreamland.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


There are several problems with this.

First of all, motivation directly ties with interest. IOW, if somebody is interested in doing something, he will be much more motivated doing it. Hunger and death never serve as good motivators - sure, people will work to avoid these, but productivity will never get high.

Do you have your dream job right now? I sure don't. But I know what I want to do and I'm building my way there, swallowing some crap along the way because it's likely to get me where I want. And part of that is busting my but doing some things I don't like, including living somewhere I don't want to live. My motivation doesn't come from doing something I'm interested in doing, it comes from knowing that I'm getting closer to doing something I'm interested in doing.

Secondly, claiming that "people alot dumber than you now have better jobs than you do" is unfair. As it was pointed out before, luck is an important if not overarching factor. Are you dumber than GWB? Why is he the President of the United States and you aren't?

What would you do if you got fired - sit on the curb and cry until someone handed you a job, or do something to get yourself a new one? Fate throws you some curves from time to time, it's how you handle them that matters. Oh, and about GWB? I'd like to think I'm smarter than him. But I'm not president because A) I'm not American B) I'm not old enough C) I have no interest in getting into politics D) Largely because of C), I haven't built any political networks or made any career moves that would lead me in that direction and E) I wouldn't want the job if someone handed it to me on a silver platter. Why aren't you President of the United States? Bad luck?

Thirdly, how do you define "better jobs?" Higher pay? More social recognition? Large number of perks? What?

That's rather subjective, isn't it? I would assume that Kid would find that there are dumber people in what he would define as a better job. Same goes for me, and I'm sure for you too.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


This is what you will find in a zillion self-help books (very popular with USians) but reality is not like that.

How could a person look at long-term prospects if he cannot even meet the short-team goals (e.g. paying rent, buying food)? How could a person see anything -- let alone writings on the wall -- if that person keeps his head down to do 12 hours of manual labour a day? How is it possible to make alternate arrangements if the means are not available?

You're just talking about some capitalist dreamland.

The funny thing is, we live in that capitalist dreamland because what I've described happens every day. I'm not saying it's necessarily easy or that success is guaranteed, but you can certainly do things to better your chances. And in the meantime, like Flubber, I'm all for having a social safety net that provides a basic minimum income and tries to equal out social opportunities like education and health care.

But please, enlighten us on that communist reality where everyone has a job they love that's provided by the state, everyone gets along and looks out for each other's best interest, and everyone is so hyper-productive that salaries are meaningless.

[Agathon]

2) in theory, the owner of the capital - in the form of land, a factory, whatever - got that capital either as a direct result of his labor (building a machine) or equivalently trading the direct result of his labor for the capital.

Then, according to you, labour is what matters and Kidicious is right.

You certainly have created something of value. Since these are such intangible goods, and it would in most cases be idiotic to protect the rights to property such as a joke, we only have laws protecting certain intellectual material.

OK - so you were wrong before then??

[Agathon]

I wonder if focusing on labour is simply looking at it from the wrong side. Things have value because they serve human needs, that is why people apply labour to creating them.

It's not a question of value in my book, but of who does the work. This doesn't change the fact that people who live off of rents are lazy scum. IIRC Marx complained that capital was the sort of property that resulted in exploitation because it (in theory, and substantially in practice) permitted people to profit without working.

I don't see what the complaint from the capitalist side is here. It simply isn't true that capitalism is set up to reward hard-work, it is set up to reward the accumulation of capital by whatever voluntary means it is acquired.

When Marx was writing, there were whole classes of people who lived well off of rents and investments, without ever doing a stroke of work. You would think that people committed to the Protestant work ethic would find such an existence repugnant.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kontiki
The funny thing is, we live in that capitalist dreamland because what I've described happens every day.

What you are saying is exceptions do occur, and I agree with that. There are those who win lotteries, and there are those who live long lives dispite heavy smoking and drinking. Heck, somebody's car was hit by a meteorite just a few months ago. Speaking of exceptions do not have any force countering a general argument.

Originally posted by Kontiki
But please, enlighten us on that communist reality where everyone has a job they love that's provided by the state, everyone gets along and looks out for each other's best interest, and everyone is so hyper-productive that salaries are meaningless.

Let me show you a glimpse, a microcosm perhaps. You have heard of Free Software (sometimes known as Open Source Software -- I am ignoring the philosophical differences here), right? Here we have people writing software for free, some programs are of very good quality (e.g. Firefox, mySQL). Free Software evolves faster, have bugs fixed quicker, and is free.

Any questions?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

so what will the communist do about those who dont want to join their system?