From: John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Date: Sat Jan 04 1997 - 20:45:24 MST
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Jamal Hannah jamal@bronze.lcs.mit.edu On Fri, 3 Jan 1997 Wrote:
>Consider the situation one might have between two capitalist
>businessmen who make a deal (both see themselves as "winning"
>this is considered the capitalistic "win-win" situation...
>of course it is a win-lose situation when one capitalist is
>forcing people at gun point in a slave-labor shop in South
>Korea, or El Salvador.
Although they deny it. the evidence is fairly good that China has some pretty
big slave labor camps and that the labor they supply is not a trivial factor
in their export economy. They're not exactly slaves in that they're not bought
and sold, but they are political prisoners forced to work in deplorable
conditions. I have not heard about things like that going on at that scale in
South Korea or El Salvador, but I'm nit picking. I'm sure nobody on this list
approves of slavery, even if it is done to people far away that we don't know,
the question is, how far are you willing to go to stop it? Would you pay
100$ to stop it? Would you be willing to take a 10% drop in your standard of
living to stop it? How about 40%? How about 90% ? Would you be willing to
die to stop it?
These are not easy questions, everybody must answer them for themselves.
It will be hard enough to convince myself that I made the correct decisions,
I certainly am not qualified to answer them for you, and that is the essence
of Libertarian capitalism.
>In the case of a socialistic win-win situation, you have
>cases where two people agree to work on building a house.
You used the word "agree" so it can't be socialistic. Socialism is when I
say "Build a house for me or give me money to do so, if you don't then men
carrying automatic weapons will knock down your door and drag you away".
As for libertarian socialism, it's a contradiction in terms.
>their agreement is not based on the exchange of capital, but
>the fact that they both need each others labor.
That's just barter, you fix my car and I'll fix your roof, pure capitalism.
True, it's a little more common today to see, "if you fix my car I'll give
you this picture of a dead president printed on processed wood pulp", but the
principle is exactly the same.
>One could try to sucker the other individual into doing most
>of the work, and then you would have a win-lose situation.
As you described by you it sound like breach of contract, the other party
would probably describe it differently, better decide on an arbiter to sort
it out.
>A capitalism without the state would not do away with state
>regulations of private property, because the new private
>state put up to protect private property would prevent people
>from utilizing vast areas of property.
But you're assuming that only a state can make laws, even today that's not
entirely true. You and I can sign a contract independent of the state and
that's a sort of law, a law that only you and I must obey. We can even state
in the contract that if there is a disagreement over interpretation we will
not bring the matter to the public courts but to a private arbitrator.
Big corporations often do that sort of thing right now, nobody want to get
caught up in the court system, it's so slow and expensive that even if you
win you lose, but what else can you expect, government runs the courts,
arbitrators make a profit.
Everybody benefits from a good law, it's a public good, that's why good laws
are so rare when government makes them. Just like everything else, if you want
high quality then make law a commodity and sell it in the open market.
>the capitalist meme is forever at war against any altruist
>meme.
Well that's certainly not true, many great capitalists have also been great
philanthropists, in fact most have. The only thing Anarcho- Capitalism is at
war against is me deciding what is altruistic and what is not and then making
you spend your money on my brainstorm. You may have very different ideas
about the best way to be altruistic.
>libertarian socialism, is based on working class
>individualists putting their own self-interests first and
>_abandoning_ the system of private property that exploits
>them.
I strongly disagree that capitalism exploits people, and if you take the word
"libertarian" seriously you will let me keep my opinion, unless you think the
word means only the right to hold the exact same views you do. If you and
your friends want to start a socialist society I have not the slightest
objection, just don't make me join, I want to stay with capitalism. Let's
fight it out in the marketplace of ideas, may the best meme win.
>there is ALWAYS a win-lose side to capitalism in how workers
>are treated.
Why? If I'm rude to my workers I'll have to pay them more to compensate,
otherwise they'll quit and join the competition.
>Libertarian Socialism/ anarcho-syndicalism encourages people
>to work and be paid a fair wage (WIN-WIN) when they are
>employed.
Why? If I work hard or sleep on the job it doesn't matter, I get paid the
same. No point in me looking for a brilliant technological method to increase
production, this is Socialism and we all get paid the same regardless, let
somebody else work on it, I want to take a nap.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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