com/cap/com debate - laboring under delusions

[Flubber]

Originally posted by GePap
So perhaps true communism only works on the commune level and not the state level.

You forget communism =/ marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, or Maoism. All those other -isms are subsects of the older communist notions.

I don't forget. Like capitalism there are many different beliefs and many continuing arguments. I don't expect the communists (meant generally) to agree any more than you should expect me to agree with all the capitalists.

I think if communism requires a general population to see their interest as being the same as the state, you have more difficulty as the state gets bigger and bigger.

I've read a little about the early Israeli kibbutz (far from enough to be truly knowledgeable) and they strike me as a situation where communism worked. United by religion, fear, recent oppression and existing hatred and looming attacks, people had a common interest in survival. The accounts I read were of people toiling hard for the common good in the early days of Israel. I confess that I am woefully uininformed as to the status of these entities today

[Kuciwalker]

Its very simple: why should a human being, to survive and feed himself, have to work in a relationship where they are only partly compensated for their own labor?

They don't. In fact, you are compensated entirely for your labor. It's just that your labor, once put through the machine (capital), becomes much more valuable. But it's my labor when it goes in, because I already bought it from you.

If I had a machine that made billions of dollars worth of stuff just by pressing a button, and I hired you to press the button, do you deserve billions of dollars?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Capital is always rewarded. It's practically a law of nature, and wholly independent of the economic structure at hand. If you need a factory to produce the widgets, then you need capital. It doesn't matter where it comes from - communism simply shifts the source from a private owner or investment consortium to the workers (the state, in principle, but the since in communism the workers = the state, it's the same thing). At the end of the day, the capital is as integral in creating value as the labour is. If the worker owns part of the capital, he gets part of the capital's reward.

That is pretty much it.
There are specifics one could argue about, but it is my general idea: the rewards of the capital should generally go to those who work on this capital, for the general moral reason that hard work should be rewarded, and that people shouldn't be stripped of what they earned through hard work.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Flubber
I confess that I am woefully uininformed as to the status of these entities today

They still exist, but they often have trouble competing against capitalist companies for whatever they produce that is to be sold outside of the Kibbutz. Also, the young, who are born there, leave very often.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
If I had a machine that made billions of dollars worth of stuff just by pressing a button, and I hired you to press the button, do you deserve billions of dollars?

More than you do. At least, I made the effort to push the button

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

They don't. In fact, you are compensated entirely for your labor. It's just that your labor, once put through the machine (capital), becomes much more valuable. But it's my labor when it goes in, because I already bought it from you.

And why should I have to sell my labor to survive?

If I had a machine that made billions of dollars worth of stuff just by pressing a button, and I hired you to press the button, do you deserve billions of dollars?

Why shouldn't you? After all, with all the inflation, a bilion won't be worth much for long.

[Kuciwalker]

And why should I have to sell my labor to survive?

1) We have social safety nets.

2) Why should you be able to just lounge around and demand that we feed you?

Why shouldn't you? After all, with all the inflation, a bilion won't be worth much for long.

It's a billion dollars worth of goods, not a billion pieces of green paper. But your point would hold - in fact, it's what would happen under capitalism - if lots of people had this machine. However, since only I do, and the system is rather large, my machine won't seriously affect supply and demand.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

1) We have social safety nets.

a socialist invention

2) Why should you be able to just lounge around and demand that we feed you?

No one ever said this.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Spiffor

That is pretty much it.
There are specifics one could argue about, but it is my general idea: the rewards of the capital should generally go to those who work on this capital, for the general moral reason that hard work should be rewarded, and that people shouldn't be stripped of what they earned through hard work.

Then you've opened up a huge flaw in your reasoning. Say you work in a labour-owned widget factory and make 400 unpainted widgets a year. Someone else in the same factory paints the widgets, and you make X number of dollars through your hard work. But now, the people in the paint factory have drastically improved their productivity, so paint becomes cheaper. Your factory buys the cheaper paint, and your factory makes more money without you increasing the amount or changing the type of work you do. You have now profitted from doing nothing. How does this jive with your morality?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Flubber


yup-- obviously there is value in the work he did getting the widget contract and selling. The widget maker can make more widgets as he doesn't have to market or transport them

You know I mean should he get compensated above that.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Jumping ahead, because this is getting somewhat tedious, here's where I'm going:

Capital is always rewarded. It's practically a law of nature, and wholly independent of the economic structure at hand. If you need a factory to produce the widgets, then you need capital. It doesn't matter where it comes from - communism simply shifts the source from a private owner or investment consortium to the workers (the state, in principle, but the since in communism the workers = the state, it's the same thing). At the end of the day, the capital is as integral in creating value as the labour is. If the worker owns part of the capital, he gets part of the capital's reward.

Duh

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
a socialist invention

Not precisely, but whatever. Full-blown communism, or anything near it, is unnecessary.

2) Why should you be able to just lounge around and demand that we feed you?

No one ever said this. [/q]

You asked "And why should I have to sell my labor to survive?", which generally implies that you don't think that you should. If you do think that you should have to sell your labor to survive, then what was the point of the question?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

You asked "And why should I have to sell my labor to survive?", which generally implies that you don't think that you should. If you do think that you should have to sell your labor to survive, then what was the point of the question?

A subsistance farmer does not sell his labor to survive.

I thought that is an obvious question. I guess I was wrong.

[Kuciwalker]

A subsistance farmer does not sell his labor to survive.

I thought that is an obvious question. I guess I was wrong.

If you really want to be a subsistance farmer, you can.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Its very simple: why should a human being, to survive and feed himself, have to work in a relationship where they are only partly compensated for their own labor?

They don't. In fact, you are compensated entirely for your labor. It's just that your labor, once put through the machine (capital), becomes much more valuable. But it's my labor when it goes in, because I already bought it from you.

If I had a machine that made billions of dollars worth of stuff just by pressing a button, and I hired you to press the button, do you deserve billions of dollars?

Kuci,

If a capitalist buys a machine he intends to get a return on his investment. Why don't you think that the capitalist intends to get a return on his investment when he hires a worker? Do you think that he intends to give the worker exactly what he worked for?