How about this. If you do not care to argue against "capitalism" you still need to argue against policies and structures proposed by orthodox economics that being the defining aspect of the current ideological choice in modern capitalist governance if you wish to propose an alternative to the defining aspect of the current ideological choice in modern capitalist governance.
And if you don't think that my definition got you "capitalism" it sure as shit did give you a basic construction of orthodox economics which is the defining aspect of the current ideological choice in modern capitalist governance.
Is it because i placed less of an emphasis on capital markets than i could have?
Goum maybe when at least three or four different people across nearly 20 pages of thread tell you that you are incorrect about what defines Capitalism, and further go on to suggest your definition is overly broad to the point of encompassing all human commerce, maybe that means your definition is not correct.
Your definition is beginning to sound less like economic theory and more as an article of faith. Like back among the Christians I’d grow up with who’d argue Christianity wasn’t a religion, it was a relationship
Listen, let's be clear about something, many more people disagree with you, it's just Goum has the patience of a saint to keep engaging with your non-replies and now he's getting dogpiled as mostly communists are bothering to reply.
The sheer hypocrisy of claiming his position is dogmatic compared to yours is just so ridiculous.
"Is this a bit" ?
I can understand that reaction when Goum looks at something that flatly contradicts what he's saying, and then goes "Oh, so you agree with me." But, it's dinner time. Best I can do is lead a horse to water, I can't make him think.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
The only value in defending specific definitions of isms is so that we're not talking past each other. There's already enough arguing with phantoms going on, so being on the same page about something would be extremely helpful.
From what I've seen, none of us really have the same definition for any of these words once we start going beyond single-sentence generalizations. It's a bunch of sports teams nonsense and highly unproductive. None of these things are singular, comprehensive concepts.
All that's really being said is "When I think of X, I think of these traits" maybe with a touch of "because these people I hate/like think of those same traits".
I can understand that reaction when Goum looks at something that flatly contradicts what he's saying, and then goes "Oh, so you agree with me." But, it's dinner time. Best I can do is lead a horse to water, I can't make him think.
Did you think those disagreed with me? The heterodox market review and the archeology review? The Archeology review is... not really about that i guess is a good way to say it. And the heterodox market review is... kinda by definition, heterodox. And complaining that the market modeling is not always very precise (which is a reasonably critique in many situations) does not remove the fact that its an entire book talking about how heterodox economics attempts to critique modern capitalist market theory in disparate ways. Like. Valuable as an attempt to unify a critique but also... not challenging the fact that markets are a defining feature of capitalism... edit: the book relies on the fact that markets are a defining aspect of capitalism that is why its examining ways in which to challenge that aspect
The Standord Encyclopedia is pretty close. I did not say markets cannot exist in other structures i said that markets were a, if not the, defining feature of capitalism as a current worldview. And it fucking is.
capitalists leverage capital (the means of production) to steal from the fruits of laborers
It's this definition which is absurd. If capital is required to produce something then it is not stealing for the person providing that capital to be compensated for it.
how'd they get the capital? 🤔
because my great grandfathers are a light skinned black man that escaped a lynching and had to start over across the country 50 years after emancipation, and a kentucky hillbilly
really feels like there was a lot of historical violence and oppression that lead to the current capital holders holding their capital, just comparing my family's intergenerational wealth to less disadvantaged white people
This part is so frequently ignored by capitalists. "Well it's not just the laborers that create the product, they need the machine, and that guy who owns the machine provides it!"
Yeah ok, who built the machine though? Who came up with its idea? What previous machines and ideas did it build off of? What scientific advancements were necessary for it to be engineered? How were the engineers educated in their trade - who taught them, and at whose expense?
The machine is the common heritage of humanity.
Yeah, no, another guy built it with another machine, all the way down to the extraction of the ore. It's the twenty-first century. Everything, and I do mean everything, is produced via capital investment first and labor second.
i can see why capitalists want to frame it this way when their accrued capital was mostly extracted via genocidal white supremacist policy, but that doesn't make the capital any less derived from slave labor
"Getting a bank loan" is not exactly something a reasonable person is going to accept as "extraction via genocidal white supremacist policy," Giggles.
Off the top of my head, there are damn few places on Earth where mineral rights on a plot of land were sold by the first residents on an open and free market, or one where the first residents took a bank loan of their own free will to obtain extraction machinery so they could then sell that ore on an open and free market.
The entirety of North America is off the table, given that any mineral rights we're talking about are on land taken from Natives. Most of South America as well, except those few places where people have actively (and often violently) resisted colonization.
Perhaps aluminum mining in Iceland, maybe. Arguably. Some of the tiny mining operations in Japan, perhaps.
This whole line of argument(besides seeming pretty irrelevant) has a pretty shakily level of congruence with communism.
As a communist revolution wouldn't actually return any of these things to them, as the concept of them being theirs at all is fundamentally incompatible with the lack of private property.
The Government seizing first peoples land(along with everyone elses) and making it federal land is one of the first steps of communist.
Also, loans are an interesting example because we just make up money now. A loan is not a transfer of capital anymore, it's 90% creation of capital. My wife started a side business with our COVID checks. That didn't come from someone else's capital, and it didn't come from someone's labor either. It was created by fiat.
I'm not a communist, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I'm not a communist, partly, for a reason congruent to your criticism here. I don't think we can get from point A (private ownership of capital) to point B (collectivization of capital) without atrocities. More accurately, eventually somebody gets tired of waiting for the machinery of history to put late-stage capitalism out of its misery and tries to hurry it along, and whoops you just made state capitalism.
I might be wrong about that. It could be a fruitful line of argument.
However, that's not going to stop me from criticizing the political and economic system in which we live. Alexander Rustow once said something like (paraphrased), "We agree with Marxists and socialists in their conviction that capitalism is untenable and needs to be overcome. However, we reject the errors which Marx has adopted in his predictions." (This is not an exact quote, nor is it an unqualified endorsement of Rustow's ideas.) Or Martin Luther King, "Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both."
(I now need to go put a quarter in my "white guys shouldn't quote MLK" jar.)
I'm mostly interested in fixing the issues we face right now, in the year 2022 and in the immediate foreseeable future. Ecological collapse, climate change, economic inequality, shitty health-eroding workplaces, exploitation of indigenous peoples, anti-Black racism in the US. Far from being "irrelevant" as you say (a bizarre criticism, to be blunt), these problems are products of, or at least deeply intertwined with, our global economic system. We need to dramatically alter our economic system, and we need to do it yesterday.
I see that you sympathize with the concept of communism but cannot stomach the organized atrocities of the state or its subordination of the will of the individual, do you have a moment to talk about anarcho-communism today?
(More seriously, I've found that despite what fires have driven me at various points in time, overwhelmingly leftist revolutionary rhetoric is wildly optimistic if not an explicit outright lie for propaganda's sake, and becoming inured to my own helplessness to direct the course of human history away from the ledges it's running towards I'm more of the philosophy that the best you can do is to try to reduce what harm you can around you while trying to build something that will survive through to the future. I haven't the slightest clue whether capitalism will collapse "on its own" or not, I've been certain it will before but it's proven to me time and again it's perfectly capable of standing on air, but it seems self-evident that the direction of the past decades is unsustainable. At the moment, I feel like educating people to the alternatives is enough, such that when the opening finally comes there will be an opportunity to establish something different. Though, it leaves me staring at a necessarily bleak future for myself.)
No definition is useful if the people in a discussion are not using the same one.
Yeah, this seems to be at the heart of it.
It looks to me like the core of the discussion around co-ops is basically around what people think a co-op is and what they associate it with. Whether it's merely an organizational structure or a group that adheres to specific structure based on an ideology they are then trying to live by.
Marx, of course, may have no input on anything. Nor, seemingly, a century’s worth of academics following Marx.
But Adam Smith?
Adam Smith, he is eternal.
I've read recently that Adam Smith was actually far more aware and critical of the unequal power balance between capitalists and wage earners than modern economists portray him. It seems like he's either misquoted or deeply misunderstood in a lot of cases.
No definition is useful if the people in a discussion are not using the same one.
Yeah, this seems to be at the heart of it.
It looks to me like the core of the discussion around co-ops is basically around what people think a co-op is and what they associate it with. Whether it's merely an organizational structure or a group that adheres to specific structure based on an ideology they are then trying to live by.
Also the important part is not the idea that businesses should be organized as a worker cooperative, it's the part where private ownership of capital in any other way would be illegal.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Goum maybe when at least three or four different people across nearly 20 pages of thread tell you that you are incorrect about what defines Capitalism, and further go on to suggest your definition is overly broad to the point of encompassing all human commerce, maybe that means your definition is not correct.
Your definition is beginning to sound less like economic theory and more as an article of faith. Like back among the Christians I’d grow up with who’d argue Christianity wasn’t a religion, it was a relationship
Having seen Goum on these boards across nearly 20 years of discussions, I say with confidence that I’d take his opinion on economics over every other user who’s thus far posted in this thread.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Markets are a feature of a number of strains of anarcho-socialist thought, most notably Mutualism. The wikipedia article is actually pretty good:
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and economic theory that advocates a socialist society based on free markets and usufructs, i.e. occupation and use property norms.[1] One implementation of this system involves the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration.[2] Mutualism is based on a version of the labor theory of value which it uses as its basis for determining economic value. According to mutualist theory, when a worker sells the product of their labor, they ought to receive money, goods, or services in exchange that are equal in economic value, embodying "the amount of labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility".[3] The product of the worker's labor also factors the amount of mental and physical labor into the price of their product.[4]
While mutualism was popularized by the writings of anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and is mainly associated as an anarchist school of thought and with libertarian socialism, its origins as a type of socialism goes back to the 18th-century labor movement in Britain first, then France and finally to the working-class Chartist movement.[5] Mutualists are opposed to individuals receiving income through loans, investments and rent under capitalist social relations. Although personally opposed to this type of income, Proudhon expressed that he had never intended "to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose."[6] As long as they ensure the worker's right to the full product of their labor, mutualists support markets and property in the product of labor, differentiating between capitalist private property (productive property) and personal property (private property).[7][8] Mutualists argue for conditional titles to land, whose ownership is legitimate only so long as it remains in use or occupation (which Proudhon called possession), a type of private property with strong abandonment criteria.[9] This contrasts with capitalist non-proviso labor theory of property, where an owner maintains a property title more or less until one decides to give or sell it.[10]
As libertarian socialists, mutualists distinguish their market socialism from state socialism and do not advocate state ownership over the means of production. Instead, each person possesses a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market.[1] Benjamin Tucker wrote of Proudhon that "though opposed to socializing the ownership of capital, he aimed nevertheless to socialize its effects by making its use beneficial to all instead of a means of impoverishing the many to enrich the few ... by subjecting capital to the natural law of competition, thus bringing the price of its own use down to cost".[11] Although similar to the economic doctrines of the 19th-century American individualist anarchists, mutualism is in favor of large industries.[12] Mutualism has been retrospectively characterized sometimes as being a form of individualist anarchism[13] and as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism as well.[14] Proudhon himself described the liberty he pursued as "the synthesis of communism and property".[15] Some consider mutualism to be part of free-market anarchism, individualist anarchism[16][17][18] and market-oriented left-libertarianism[19] while others regard it to be part of social anarchism.[20][21]
I would say the defining aspect of what most socialist critiques of capitalism (insofar as it is a thing they want to get rid of) boil down to are (1) private property as opposed to personal property, which is to say property that you own simply on paper (enforced by violence) and do not use directly or perform labor upon and yet still use to extract rent or interest from others, and (2) the notion that the provider of capital is entitled to the surplus value of labor. These two things necessarily lead to spiraling inequality, because it's a relationship that is always extractive to the benefit of the owner of capital.
Other forms of anarcho-socialism would criticize Mutualism on the grounds that it doesn't do enough to ensure that everyone is cared for and equality is maintained and individuals being entitled to the product of their own labor as opposed to being entitled to the fulfillment of their needs leaves a number of people as disenfranchised as they would be under capitalism, as well as leaves holes for coercive market relationships to form.
Marx, of course, may have no input on anything. Nor, seemingly, a century’s worth of academics following Marx.
But Adam Smith?
Adam Smith, he is eternal.
I've read recently that Adam Smith was actually far more aware and critical of the unequal power balance between capitalists and wage earners than modern economists portray him. It seems like he's either misquoted or deeply misunderstood in a lot of cases.
I didn't read the book itself, but as I understand it Smith himself identified that inequality would increase as a necessary consequence of the relationship between the owner of capital and labor.
Goum maybe when at least three or four different people across nearly 20 pages of thread tell you that you are incorrect about what defines Capitalism, and further go on to suggest your definition is overly broad to the point of encompassing all human commerce, maybe that means your definition is not correct.
Your definition is beginning to sound less like economic theory and more as an article of faith. Like back among the Christians I’d grow up with who’d argue Christianity wasn’t a religion, it was a relationship
Having seen Goum on these boards across nearly 20 years of discussions, I say with confidence that I’d take his opinion on economics over every other user who’s thus far posted in this thread.
Now I’m not trying to meta mod you, I say this as another poster interested in lively and robust discussion.
When you post dumb shit like this, it really kills any desire I have to continue to pour time and energy into this intro to socialism we’ve been running here
One of the advantages of posting on a forum is that you have time to cool down before you post
Can we please not be shitty to people because we disagree with them or are frustrated with them? I like reading threads like these but it's hard when people give in to the urge to read in bad faith
When someone like Goum is being dogpiled, sometimes we must make peace with the fact that they will not respond to the exact post you want to see a response to, because like, damn, there were 40 posts, ain't no one got time for that, most people on this forum at this point either have kids or other commitments, or in my case my partner is like "stop arguing on the internet" and I have to find a room where I can, obviously, keep doing it but she can't see me making faces at my phone, or whatever
Anyway I would agree that markets are necessary but not sufficient for capitalism, since systems that are by definition not capitalism (especially its antecedents!) had markets. Other aspects of capitalism are also important, especially models of ownership and arguably certain individual liberties.
Goum maybe when at least three or four different people across nearly 20 pages of thread tell you that you are incorrect about what defines Capitalism, and further go on to suggest your definition is overly broad to the point of encompassing all human commerce, maybe that means your definition is not correct.
Your definition is beginning to sound less like economic theory and more as an article of faith. Like back among the Christians I’d grow up with who’d argue Christianity wasn’t a religion, it was a relationship
Having seen Goum on these boards across nearly 20 years of discussions, I say with confidence that I’d take his opinion on economics over every other user who’s thus far posted in this thread.
Now I’m not trying to meta mod you, I say this as another poster interested in lively and robust discussion.
When you post dumb shit like this, it really kills any desire I have to continue to pour time and energy into this intro to socialism we’ve been running here
Goum, to my knowledge, has done his postgraduate studies in economics, and works in the field professionally. I think this is more deferring to experience, see also deferring to Tynic on robotics or ElJeffe on statistics or Pooro on writing.
The concept of “capitalism” includes a reference to markets, but as a socio-economic system, it is broader; its defining feature is the private ownership of capital (see e.g., Scott 2011). This typically leads to pressures to find profitable investment opportunities and to asymmetries between owners and non-owners of capital. Markets are a core element of capitalism, but in principle they can also exist in societies in which the ownership of capital is organized differently (see e.g., Carens 1981 for a proposal that builds on “moral incentives”; for the debate about “market socialism” in general see e.g., Bardhan/Roemer 1993).
So i don't regularly peruse this but its socialism article is interesting (no capitalism article as far as i can tell) at the least for this bit at the beginning. And frankly it seems a good construction as things go. edit: and you know. It also agrees with me so there is that. And its the socialism article even!
Capitalism displays the following constitutive features:
(i) The bulk of the means of production is privately owned and controlled.
(ii) People legally own their labor power. (Here capitalism differs from slavery and feudalism, under which systems some individuals are entitled to control, whether completely or partially, the labor power of others).
(iii) Markets are the main mechanism allocating inputs and outputs of production and determining how societies’ productive surplus is used, including whether and how it is consumed or invested.
One and three are obvious and what we've discussed. Though i lean more on 3 since the application of the mechanism is far more important to the modern practice than the weighting of the private ownership. 2 is true in modern times but i am not sure its appropriate. Modern orthodox capitalism certainly holds it but i would not be willing to say that all branches of capitalism would hold that if they had the chance to reverse it. That is, i think we shouldn't do it because its wrong. Not because its not suddenly not capitalism. Its ok to think that there are aspects of capitalism or socialism that we should not do, without denying that they are that thing. Either way its not terribly relevant to either of our definitions, i think, except that we both believe it (i hope).
An additional feature that is typically present wherever (i)–(iii) hold, is that:
(iv) There is a class division between capitalists and workers, involving specific relations (e.g., whether of bargaining, conflict, or subordination) between those classes, and shaping the labor market, the firm, and the broader political process.
I separated this out (despite it coming right afterwards)* because i would ask would it still be capitalism if it were just 1 to 3 but no 4? I would argue yes.
One of the problems. As i see it. Is that 4 is not a necessary condition of 1 through 3. At least. In a... negative connotation. Bargaining/conflict/etc will always shape labor markets, firms and the broader political process but these do not necessarily need to be along the lines of class and they do not necessarily need to be resolved in the way that socialism implies. Suppose that the proletariat won those bargaining/conflicts and subordinations but 1, 2 and 3 still held. Would it still be capitalism? I think so. As a result i feel like 4 implies a result to those and that that result implied is neither necessary nor defining.
Additionally I feel there are very few capitalists which would agree with 4 in the typical marxist connotation as a necessary or functional condition of capitalism. This may be a point of contention on applicability in the same way i would argue that anarchocommunism simply begets anarchocapitalism. But it would be, at the least, unfair to accept the socialist interpretation that things will work out for their system without at least recognizing that capitalists believe things will work out in theirs too.
Stanford also includes a relatively broad definition of socialism I.E. definitely not 1 (generally yes on 2 with similar caveats to capitalism**, and generally no but caveats on 3)
*there is another other conditions they list but they're even less useful to the discussion than this one not the least of which because they're kind of nonsensical on a standard definition of the words they use so its hard to interact with them.
**that is. taxation and taxation equivalents is fine.
Goum maybe when at least three or four different people across nearly 20 pages of thread tell you that you are incorrect about what defines Capitalism, and further go on to suggest your definition is overly broad to the point of encompassing all human commerce, maybe that means your definition is not correct.
Your definition is beginning to sound less like economic theory and more as an article of faith. Like back among the Christians I’d grow up with who’d argue Christianity wasn’t a religion, it was a relationship
Having seen Goum on these boards across nearly 20 years of discussions, I say with confidence that I’d take his opinion on economics over every other user who’s thus far posted in this thread.
Now I’m not trying to meta mod you, I say this as another poster interested in lively and robust discussion.
When you post dumb shit like this, it really kills any desire I have to continue to pour time and energy into this intro to socialism we’ve been running here
Goum, to my knowledge, has done his postgraduate studies in economics, and works in the field professionally. I think this is more deferring to experience, see also deferring to Tynic on robotics or ElJeffe on statistics or Pooro on writing.
An education in bourgeois economics does not an authority in Marxist economics make. That’s beside the point, I’m not trying to argue one way or another on goum’s bonafides. I’m saying that a nasty, facile post like the one in question is a slap in the face to those engaged in one of the most robust debates we’ve had on this sub forum in a while
Goum maybe when at least three or four different people across nearly 20 pages of thread tell you that you are incorrect about what defines Capitalism, and further go on to suggest your definition is overly broad to the point of encompassing all human commerce, maybe that means your definition is not correct.
Your definition is beginning to sound less like economic theory and more as an article of faith. Like back among the Christians I’d grow up with who’d argue Christianity wasn’t a religion, it was a relationship
Having seen Goum on these boards across nearly 20 years of discussions, I say with confidence that I’d take his opinion on economics over every other user who’s thus far posted in this thread.
Now I’m not trying to meta mod you, I say this as another poster interested in lively and robust discussion.
When you post dumb shit like this, it really kills any desire I have to continue to pour time and energy into this intro to socialism we’ve been running here
Goum, to my knowledge, has done his postgraduate studies in economics, and works in the field professionally. I think this is more deferring to experience, see also deferring to Tynic on robotics or ElJeffe on statistics or Pooro on writing.
An education in bourgeois economics does not an authority in Marxist economics make. That’s beside the point, I’m not trying to argue one way or another on goum’s bonafides. I’m saying that a nasty, facile post like the one in question is a slap in the face to those engaged in one of the most robust debates we’ve had on this sub forum in a while
But we weren't talking about Marxism. If you'd been following the discussion (or read the quote tree), you would have seen that Lanz trying to claim his definition (edit) of capitalism was wrong because three or four people disagree with him. It's basically Dunning-Kruger in action.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Are we now saying that the definition of capitalism is now exclusively the domain of Marxist economics, with no other possible schools of thought permitted to be discussed or considered?
Or someone's experience in "bourgeois economics" does not enable them to speak somewhat authoritatively on "bourgeois economics"?
I mean, I quite literally said that was all beside the point. If I misunderstood the post of discussion (I thought we were still hung up on co-ops being socialist or capitalist) that’s on me; but that’s not the shitty part of the dude’s post, mantis
I mean, I quite literally said that was all beside the point. If I misunderstood the post of discussion (I thought we were still hung up on co-ops being socialist or capitalist) that’s on me; but that’s not the shitty part of the dude’s post, mantis
If Pooro made a post about Native American experiences and people were telling him no Pooro, you're turbo-wrong about the definition of Native American, I would ABSOLUTELY say the same damn thing in support of him, because he knows his shit.
It isn't shitty. It's acknowledging, as you put it, his bona fides.
The concept of “capitalism” includes a reference to markets, but as a socio-economic system, it is broader; its defining feature is the private ownership of capital (see e.g., Scott 2011). This typically leads to pressures to find profitable investment opportunities and to asymmetries between owners and non-owners of capital. Markets are a core element of capitalism, but in principle they can also exist in societies in which the ownership of capital is organized differently (see e.g., Carens 1981 for a proposal that builds on “moral incentives”; for the debate about “market socialism” in general see e.g., Bardhan/Roemer 1993).
So i don't regularly peruse this but its socialism article is interesting (no capitalism article as far as i can tell) at the least for this bit at the beginning. And frankly it seems a good construction as things go. edit: and you know. It also agrees with me so there is that. And its the socialism article even!
Capitalism displays the following constitutive features:
(i) The bulk of the means of production is privately owned and controlled.
(ii) People legally own their labor power. (Here capitalism differs from slavery and feudalism, under which systems some individuals are entitled to control, whether completely or partially, the labor power of others).
(iii) Markets are the main mechanism allocating inputs and outputs of production and determining how societies’ productive surplus is used, including whether and how it is consumed or invested.
One and three are obvious and what we've discussed. Though i lean more on 3 since the application of the mechanism is far more important to the modern practice than the weighting of the private ownership. 2 is true in modern times but i am not sure its appropriate. Modern orthodox capitalism certainly holds it but i would not be willing to say that all branches of capitalism would hold that if they had the chance to reverse it. That is, i think we shouldn't do it because its wrong. Not because its not suddenly not capitalism. Its ok to think that there are aspects of capitalism or socialism that we should not do, without denying that they are that thing. Either way its not terribly relevant to either of our definitions, i think, except that we both believe it (i hope).
An additional feature that is typically present wherever (i)–(iii) hold, is that:
(iv) There is a class division between capitalists and workers, involving specific relations (e.g., whether of bargaining, conflict, or subordination) between those classes, and shaping the labor market, the firm, and the broader political process.
I separated this out (despite it coming right afterwards)* because i would ask would it still be capitalism if it were just 1 to 3 but no 4? I would argue yes.
One of the problems. As i see it. Is that 4 is not a necessary condition of 1 through 3. At least. In a... negative connotation. Bargaining/conflict/etc will always shape labor markets, firms and the broader political process but these do not necessarily need to be along the lines of class and they do not necessarily need to be resolved in the way that socialism implies. Suppose that the proletariat won those bargaining/conflicts and subordinations but 1, 2 and 3 still held. Would it still be capitalism? I think so. As a result i feel like 4 implies a result to those and that that result implied is neither necessary nor defining.
Additionally I feel there are very few capitalists which would agree with 4 in the typical marxist connotation as a necessary or functional condition of capitalism. This may be a point of contention on applicability in the same way i would argue that anarchocommunism simply begets anarchocapitalism. But it would be, at the least, unfair to accept the socialist interpretation that things will work out for their system without at least recognizing that capitalists believe things will work out in theirs too.
Stanford also includes a relatively broad definition of socialism I.E. definitely not 1 (generally yes on 2 with similar caveats to capitalism**, and generally no but caveats on 3)
*there is another other conditions they list but they're even less useful to the discussion than this one not the least of which because they're kind of nonsensical on a standard definition of the words they use so its hard to interact with them.
**that is. taxation and taxation equivalents is fine.
I would argue the opposite, anarcho-capitalism could never possibly exist because it would instantly become fuedalism. In fact, the entire concept of capital ownership must be artificially enforced or else it's unsustainable. The state does and always has put an incredible amount of effort into maintaining property rights through violence and propaganda. It has to in order to maintain inequality, because otherwise why would labor ever agree to the terms of capital that benefit capital over themselves?
The reason private property works like it does is because modern capitalism is a historical evolution of feudalism and land claims that were won in war. Historically farming communes would form organically in the absence of major state pressures and form informal group decision-making processes with mutual aid, and much in the development of socialism was derived from this model. It's only when you have large lords fielding armies and subjugating others that you begin to develop into something that can even sustain significant inequality, and being the servant of a lord is only ever an attractive proposition when you have other lessers that you can conquer/oppress.
The problem is that inherent in the concept of the owner of capital receiving the surplus value of labor is a relationship of inequality between the owner of capital and the laborer that can only ever get more unequal, and as it becomes more unequal the owner of capital can continue to coerce a more and more disadvantageous position from the laborer, so long as the laborer respects the owner's right to capital.
And there's the rub, why should you ever respect the right to the ownership of capital? Surely, I can respect the ownership of something that someone actively uses or works upon, that's part of the basic way human communities function. But why should I respect someone's right to something that they simply claim to own but do not actually use?
Are we now saying that the definition of capitalism is now exclusively the domain of Marxist economics, with no other possible schools of thought permitted to be discussed or considered?
Or someone's experience in "bourgeois economics" does not enable them to speak somewhat authoritatively on "bourgeois economics"?
If we are talking about Marxist critiques of capitalism then, yes, the Marxist definition of capitalism is exclusively what matters. Because another definition of capitalism is very explicitly not what Marxist were critiquing. If you were to assume it were a different definition, you would fail to understand what they were trying to say.
If you wanted to say that capitalism is good, actually, but you used a different definition of capitalism, you would not be arguing against the Marxist critique, you would just be talking past them.
I mean, I quite literally said that was all beside the point. If I misunderstood the post of discussion (I thought we were still hung up on co-ops being socialist or capitalist) that’s on me; but that’s not the shitty part of the dude’s post, mantis
If Pooro made a post about Native American experiences and people were telling him no Pooro, you're turbo-wrong about the definition of Native American, I would ABSOLUTELY say the same damn thing in support of him, because he knows his shit.
It isn't shitty. It's acknowledging, as you put it, his bona fides.
I'm sure Goum is highly knowledgeable in his field, but it's like expecting a particle physicist to know everything about astronomy. While I'm sure that his background gives him significant benefit in approaching the topic, the field is wide enough that you can have expertise within it and not be familiar with some other part of it, particularly one from a perspective that is counter to the one you were trained in (and while within defined spheres economics can be a pure science, a lot of economics is highly opinionated).
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ShivahnUnaware of her barrel shifter privilegeWestern coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderatormod
It seems likely that a lot of people in this thread need some time to cool off. The mods also need to take a look at a lot of what has been going on recently, since based on the reports, everything in here is on fire. So, I'm locking it for now, because most of us are sleeping or are going to be soon, which isn't super conducive to looking at forum threads.
I woke up and hey a dozen reports about people being shitty to each other. We'll talk about reopening it in the mod forum but honestly it feels like the thread was just done having a discussion and had now moved on to the expected and inevitable climax where people who disagreed with you even after you explained your superior position are categorised as dumb shitheads and the insulting and eye-rolling about how stupid those people are could begin.
Y'all had a nice thread and then you just couldn't resist taking a big ol' dump in it.
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How about this. If you do not care to argue against "capitalism" you still need to argue against policies and structures proposed by orthodox economics that being the defining aspect of the current ideological choice in modern capitalist governance if you wish to propose an alternative to the defining aspect of the current ideological choice in modern capitalist governance.
And if you don't think that my definition got you "capitalism" it sure as shit did give you a basic construction of orthodox economics which is the defining aspect of the current ideological choice in modern capitalist governance.
Is it because i placed less of an emphasis on capital markets than i could have?
I can understand that reaction when Goum looks at something that flatly contradicts what he's saying, and then goes "Oh, so you agree with me." But, it's dinner time. Best I can do is lead a horse to water, I can't make him think.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
See also, Galileo, Church, Heliocentrism.
From what I've seen, none of us really have the same definition for any of these words once we start going beyond single-sentence generalizations. It's a bunch of sports teams nonsense and highly unproductive. None of these things are singular, comprehensive concepts.
All that's really being said is "When I think of X, I think of these traits" maybe with a touch of "because these people I hate/like think of those same traits".
Did you think those disagreed with me? The heterodox market review and the archeology review? The Archeology review is... not really about that i guess is a good way to say it. And the heterodox market review is... kinda by definition, heterodox. And complaining that the market modeling is not always very precise (which is a reasonably critique in many situations) does not remove the fact that its an entire book talking about how heterodox economics attempts to critique modern capitalist market theory in disparate ways. Like. Valuable as an attempt to unify a critique but also... not challenging the fact that markets are a defining feature of capitalism... edit: the book relies on the fact that markets are a defining aspect of capitalism that is why its examining ways in which to challenge that aspect
The Standord Encyclopedia is pretty close. I did not say markets cannot exist in other structures i said that markets were a, if not the, defining feature of capitalism as a current worldview. And it fucking is.
I see that you sympathize with the concept of communism but cannot stomach the organized atrocities of the state or its subordination of the will of the individual, do you have a moment to talk about anarcho-communism today?
(More seriously, I've found that despite what fires have driven me at various points in time, overwhelmingly leftist revolutionary rhetoric is wildly optimistic if not an explicit outright lie for propaganda's sake, and becoming inured to my own helplessness to direct the course of human history away from the ledges it's running towards I'm more of the philosophy that the best you can do is to try to reduce what harm you can around you while trying to build something that will survive through to the future. I haven't the slightest clue whether capitalism will collapse "on its own" or not, I've been certain it will before but it's proven to me time and again it's perfectly capable of standing on air, but it seems self-evident that the direction of the past decades is unsustainable. At the moment, I feel like educating people to the alternatives is enough, such that when the opening finally comes there will be an opportunity to establish something different. Though, it leaves me staring at a necessarily bleak future for myself.)
Yeah, this seems to be at the heart of it.
It looks to me like the core of the discussion around co-ops is basically around what people think a co-op is and what they associate it with. Whether it's merely an organizational structure or a group that adheres to specific structure based on an ideology they are then trying to live by.
I've read recently that Adam Smith was actually far more aware and critical of the unequal power balance between capitalists and wage earners than modern economists portray him. It seems like he's either misquoted or deeply misunderstood in a lot of cases.
Also the important part is not the idea that businesses should be organized as a worker cooperative, it's the part where private ownership of capital in any other way would be illegal.
Having seen Goum on these boards across nearly 20 years of discussions, I say with confidence that I’d take his opinion on economics over every other user who’s thus far posted in this thread.
- John Stuart Mill
I would say the defining aspect of what most socialist critiques of capitalism (insofar as it is a thing they want to get rid of) boil down to are (1) private property as opposed to personal property, which is to say property that you own simply on paper (enforced by violence) and do not use directly or perform labor upon and yet still use to extract rent or interest from others, and (2) the notion that the provider of capital is entitled to the surplus value of labor. These two things necessarily lead to spiraling inequality, because it's a relationship that is always extractive to the benefit of the owner of capital.
Other forms of anarcho-socialism would criticize Mutualism on the grounds that it doesn't do enough to ensure that everyone is cared for and equality is maintained and individuals being entitled to the product of their own labor as opposed to being entitled to the fulfillment of their needs leaves a number of people as disenfranchised as they would be under capitalism, as well as leaves holes for coercive market relationships to form.
I didn't read the book itself, but as I understand it Smith himself identified that inequality would increase as a necessary consequence of the relationship between the owner of capital and labor.
Now I’m not trying to meta mod you, I say this as another poster interested in lively and robust discussion.
When you post dumb shit like this, it really kills any desire I have to continue to pour time and energy into this intro to socialism we’ve been running here
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
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Can we please not be shitty to people because we disagree with them or are frustrated with them? I like reading threads like these but it's hard when people give in to the urge to read in bad faith
When someone like Goum is being dogpiled, sometimes we must make peace with the fact that they will not respond to the exact post you want to see a response to, because like, damn, there were 40 posts, ain't no one got time for that, most people on this forum at this point either have kids or other commitments, or in my case my partner is like "stop arguing on the internet" and I have to find a room where I can, obviously, keep doing it but she can't see me making faces at my phone, or whatever
Anyway I would agree that markets are necessary but not sufficient for capitalism, since systems that are by definition not capitalism (especially its antecedents!) had markets. Other aspects of capitalism are also important, especially models of ownership and arguably certain individual liberties.
Goum, to my knowledge, has done his postgraduate studies in economics, and works in the field professionally. I think this is more deferring to experience, see also deferring to Tynic on robotics or ElJeffe on statistics or Pooro on writing.
So i don't regularly peruse this but its socialism article is interesting (no capitalism article as far as i can tell) at the least for this bit at the beginning. And frankly it seems a good construction as things go. edit: and you know. It also agrees with me so there is that. And its the socialism article even!
One and three are obvious and what we've discussed. Though i lean more on 3 since the application of the mechanism is far more important to the modern practice than the weighting of the private ownership. 2 is true in modern times but i am not sure its appropriate. Modern orthodox capitalism certainly holds it but i would not be willing to say that all branches of capitalism would hold that if they had the chance to reverse it. That is, i think we shouldn't do it because its wrong. Not because its not suddenly not capitalism. Its ok to think that there are aspects of capitalism or socialism that we should not do, without denying that they are that thing. Either way its not terribly relevant to either of our definitions, i think, except that we both believe it (i hope).
I separated this out (despite it coming right afterwards)* because i would ask would it still be capitalism if it were just 1 to 3 but no 4? I would argue yes.
One of the problems. As i see it. Is that 4 is not a necessary condition of 1 through 3. At least. In a... negative connotation. Bargaining/conflict/etc will always shape labor markets, firms and the broader political process but these do not necessarily need to be along the lines of class and they do not necessarily need to be resolved in the way that socialism implies. Suppose that the proletariat won those bargaining/conflicts and subordinations but 1, 2 and 3 still held. Would it still be capitalism? I think so. As a result i feel like 4 implies a result to those and that that result implied is neither necessary nor defining.
Additionally I feel there are very few capitalists which would agree with 4 in the typical marxist connotation as a necessary or functional condition of capitalism. This may be a point of contention on applicability in the same way i would argue that anarchocommunism simply begets anarchocapitalism. But it would be, at the least, unfair to accept the socialist interpretation that things will work out for their system without at least recognizing that capitalists believe things will work out in theirs too.
Stanford also includes a relatively broad definition of socialism I.E. definitely not 1 (generally yes on 2 with similar caveats to capitalism**, and generally no but caveats on 3)
*there is another other conditions they list but they're even less useful to the discussion than this one not the least of which because they're kind of nonsensical on a standard definition of the words they use so its hard to interact with them.
**that is. taxation and taxation equivalents is fine.
An education in bourgeois economics does not an authority in Marxist economics make. That’s beside the point, I’m not trying to argue one way or another on goum’s bonafides. I’m saying that a nasty, facile post like the one in question is a slap in the face to those engaged in one of the most robust debates we’ve had on this sub forum in a while
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
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But we weren't talking about Marxism. If you'd been following the discussion (or read the quote tree), you would have seen that Lanz trying to claim his definition (edit) of capitalism was wrong because three or four people disagree with him. It's basically Dunning-Kruger in action.
- John Stuart Mill
Or someone's experience in "bourgeois economics" does not enable them to speak somewhat authoritatively on "bourgeois economics"?
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
If Pooro made a post about Native American experiences and people were telling him no Pooro, you're turbo-wrong about the definition of Native American, I would ABSOLUTELY say the same damn thing in support of him, because he knows his shit.
It isn't shitty. It's acknowledging, as you put it, his bona fides.
I would argue the opposite, anarcho-capitalism could never possibly exist because it would instantly become fuedalism. In fact, the entire concept of capital ownership must be artificially enforced or else it's unsustainable. The state does and always has put an incredible amount of effort into maintaining property rights through violence and propaganda. It has to in order to maintain inequality, because otherwise why would labor ever agree to the terms of capital that benefit capital over themselves?
The reason private property works like it does is because modern capitalism is a historical evolution of feudalism and land claims that were won in war. Historically farming communes would form organically in the absence of major state pressures and form informal group decision-making processes with mutual aid, and much in the development of socialism was derived from this model. It's only when you have large lords fielding armies and subjugating others that you begin to develop into something that can even sustain significant inequality, and being the servant of a lord is only ever an attractive proposition when you have other lessers that you can conquer/oppress.
The problem is that inherent in the concept of the owner of capital receiving the surplus value of labor is a relationship of inequality between the owner of capital and the laborer that can only ever get more unequal, and as it becomes more unequal the owner of capital can continue to coerce a more and more disadvantageous position from the laborer, so long as the laborer respects the owner's right to capital.
And there's the rub, why should you ever respect the right to the ownership of capital? Surely, I can respect the ownership of something that someone actively uses or works upon, that's part of the basic way human communities function. But why should I respect someone's right to something that they simply claim to own but do not actually use?
If we are talking about Marxist critiques of capitalism then, yes, the Marxist definition of capitalism is exclusively what matters. Because another definition of capitalism is very explicitly not what Marxist were critiquing. If you were to assume it were a different definition, you would fail to understand what they were trying to say.
If you wanted to say that capitalism is good, actually, but you used a different definition of capitalism, you would not be arguing against the Marxist critique, you would just be talking past them.
I'm sure Goum is highly knowledgeable in his field, but it's like expecting a particle physicist to know everything about astronomy. While I'm sure that his background gives him significant benefit in approaching the topic, the field is wide enough that you can have expertise within it and not be familiar with some other part of it, particularly one from a perspective that is counter to the one you were trained in (and while within defined spheres economics can be a pure science, a lot of economics is highly opinionated).
Y'all had a nice thread and then you just couldn't resist taking a big ol' dump in it.
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