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Under capitalism
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this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Antiwork
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A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
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Those were both feudalism, where the king owns all economic output and does what he wants with it, much like communism in practice.
Baby doll you just described capitalism.
Really? Capitalism is a system in which the king controls all economic resources and output?
Yeth
What do you think communism is? Cause it's not at all like feudalism - you're thinking of late stage capitalism that's like feudalism.
I think communism is an economic system where resource distribution (including labor) is centrally controlled by the state. That's a lot like feudalism, except you don't call the supreme leader who became supreme by killing his rivals "king".
What you think about communism is completely wrong.
Ok well enlighten me then, because I was pretty certain communism is an economic system where resource distribution is centrally planned by the state. I wonder where I got that idea, tell me, what is communism?
No, Communism is a political ideology that focuses on giving the means of production to the people doing the labor.
What you just said is the right-wing capitalist propaganda definition of communism.
In the context of this conversation it is about removing the Capitalist from business. Making it so everyone earns their fair share of the profits instead of one person at the top (like a King/feudalism) gets all the profits, while also making all the decisions. Instead the laborors gets a stake in the business - giving more incentive to help the business do well while giving the worker more power and take home money.
So in such a system, distribution of resources wouldn't be centrally planned? Resources would be distributed in a free market? A farm owner for example who worked their own farm would be free to sell his produce how he sees fit?
Yes.
So what if, suppose, that farm owner had some neighbors that weren't fortunate enough to own a farm for whatever reason, let's say they were migrants from a less plentiful place, and decided it would be good for them and himself if he paid them so they wouldn't starve to help him out on his farm. An open market for labor you might say. Would he still be able to sell that produce how he sees fit?
Yes. A person should make the value from their labor.
But he's making value from someone else's labor, that they traded freely to him in voluntarily in a market for labor.
No. If he's still working beside them (like you said in your example), then his labor is making the value. He is entitled to that value.
It's impossible to "make" value from someone else's labor. The person doing the labor created the value.
Your example also isn't them voluntarily working for him. You said in your example that it was either work for him or starve.
If he's not and he's sitting doing nothing - creating no value - then he gets nothing.
Every single living thing on earth labors under threat of starvation. That's not a shortcoming of any particular economic system, that's a shortcoming of nature, if you can even call it a shortcoming.
He profits from the labor of others. Does he deserve what he gets for it? It's mutually beneficial mind you.
There are 100% people that live under capitalism and don't work, but don't ever have to worry about starving.
There are people who get unfairly given more profit than they work for.
There are people who unfairly get less of the profits than they deserve.
I'm saying it should be fairly distributed by the workers. You're pretending it isn't an issue.
I'm explicitly saying he should not profit from the others labor. I'm explicitly saying they should be fairly compensated for their labor.
See now you're just avoiding continuing with this line of reasoning because you see where it's headed and it's not good for your ideology. I'm doing a thought experiment here, demonstrating that free markets are in fact incompatible with communist ideas, fundamentally because people cannot be free to sell their own labor on their own terms.
What the hell are you talking about? I went along with your "thought experiment." I answered your question.
I didn't avoid a single thing. Did I miss something you asked? Ask again if I did.
England has explicitly had a non-autocratic king since 1215, the idea that the King of England "owned everything" is ahistorical.
Do some research on the British East India Company before you're so sure about how things worked in India. It was the first multinational, and it ran India as a profit center.
One thing I find interesting about your comments is that you're using a very Marxist framework to talk about pre-capitalist modes of organization (which is reductionist and partly why he is not taken seriously as a sociologist in most settings).