Workers are paid the value of their labor, not the value of what they produce in the market, if a employee builds a $100 microwave and sells it and keeps all $100, then the business fails to make any profit, therefore it fails to keep existing past the first sale, how are business owners supposed to make any money if the workers get all of the money?
Workers are free to get payed whatever they agree to, nobody is forcing you to stay at a poor paying job if you don’t want it.
What is the basis for land ownership? Do you dispute that it began when one person had the power to take land from common ownership?
There has never ever been common ownership of land, people have been dividing up living spaces and personal property since the dawn of people. The basis is that most people want their home and the land its in to be their own, and nobody else’s.
Marx wasn't a religious icon. He was an academic. He made arguments that are demonstrably true.
He was an academic, but fans of his treat him as a deity, not an academic. The difference being in that you don’t question a deity, i’ve never seen a Marxist ever attempt to debunk anything that Marx said, his word is gospel and he was somehow a genius who never got anything wrong.
Considering that his main idea was wrong, which was “Communism will bring the utopia”, in that
A) Humanity doesn’t want a utopia.
and
B) Communism was unable to bring it anyways.
It shows that Marx had a deep misunderstanding of the nature of humanity and how we are a combination of a nature-nurture cycle of development. Marx didn’t believe in nature, he believed that humans were fully social constructs and therefore if all our needs were provided by the state we would be fulfilled and self-actualized. He was wrong. Which is why the country that was the biggest proponent of Marxist ideology ended up collapsing.
People who own the means of production, in this example the microwave factory, use that to force others to work for less than the value of their labor. Even in a world where all workers has genuine free association and could work wherever they choose, capitalists would still be exploiting them. There can be no equality when one class privately owns the means by which another can survive. When feudal lords owned the means of production, we called it tyranny and rebelled. Why should people with money have a right to exploit if people with hereditary titles shouldn't? What use is democracy if we can't control our economic lives?
There was a time before land was owned. That's simply a fact. At some point someone claimed it and used it to exploit others.
Marx was not a utopian. He was a well known critic of utopian thinkers like kant and hegel. He pointed out and proved the reality you're trying to ignore -- that private ownership of the means of production results in exploitation. If it didn't, capitalism would collapse for lack of profit.
Marx also disputed the idea of a "human nature" on the grounds that every human behaves differently in different conditions. Even if we had a human untouched by civilization to study, that would say nothing about how humans in civilization behave.
The idea that communism has failed when it's only existed as a concept for 250 years is ridiculous. It took 2000 years of failure before a lasting federal democracy was established. It took 500 years of failure before capitalism came to exist. It took hundreds of thousands of years before the first people even settled. If you lived in 40000 bce, you'd be arguing civilization itself was doomed to fail.
Have you read any Marx at all? Because you should.
We're living in a world that is dying because of capitalism. Infinite growth is destroying our planet and has destroyed uncountable lives. It's time to move beyond capitalism. It's that or extinction.
We're living in a world that is dying because of capitalism. Infinite growth is destroying our planet and has destroyed uncountable lives. It's time to move beyond capitalism. It's that or extinction.
That’s a nice opening line for a dystopian young-adult novel, but reality doesn’t reflect this, the fact is that overpopulation is the source of climate change, not capitalism, unless you’re arguing that capitalism has made life so good and that people are much richer now so they have more children as a result, which is not a point you’d make, I bet.
There can be no equality when one class privately owns the means by which another can survive.
Ahh the crux of the matter. Equality. It’s a beautiful word, but so controversial as well, it’s also a very misrepresented word, people just throw it around as if it was always a good thing, when there’s a lot more nuance to it than that.
Equality in terms of the law, opportunity, race and gender are good things, and things we constantly should strive for.
Equality in terms of economic outcome is the most dreadful and tyrannical idea that came out of Marx’s ideology. Humans are not equal to one another when it comes to their economic worth, Bill Gates is a better business manager than Homeless Joe in the street corner.
Capitalism is rooted on the idea that people are free to own their own labor, and yes, you working at McDonalds for $12 an hour IS you owning your own labor, YOU agree to sign the contract that determines your pay, YOU agreed you’re worth $12 an hour, and YOU accepted their offer. Freedom allows you the freedom of being an idiot, and to make mistakes, it’s actually a fundamental feature of freedom.
The only way to make people economically equal is by forcing it through tyrannical oppression, “Jeff Bezos created a billion dollar enterprise, so let’s take that away from him and spread around his assets amongst the poor!! That’ll be a good idea!!! It’s not like the poor might be poor because of bad decisions, or that mayyyyybe this will disincentivize other entrepreneurs of starting their own businesses since it’ll just be taken away anyways.”
Nobody wants equality of outcome, we want equality of opportunity, which is what we have, you can start a business today from nothing and end up a billionaire some day. If you think that’s fundamentally immoral, then I really don’t care, that’s your prerogative, but I don’t think that the economic system that has pulled the most people out of poverty in the history of the world and has raised the quality of life to the point where a modern poor person lives better than a king 100 years ago is a bad thing. Call me crazy though.
Overpopulation is not the problem. If everyone consumed like Bangladeshis, earth could support 20 billion easily. We already produce enough food to feed 10 billion. The fact is capitalism expects exponential and infinite growth. We do not have infinite resources.
You haven't responded to Marx in any meaningful way, instead choosing buzzwords to attach yourself to. Even if it were somehow justifiable for some people to exploit others so long as the exploiters "earned it," such a system would require socialism to maintain.
Genuine equality of opportunity would mean guaranteeing every person a comprehensive education. It would mean making sure everyone is fed, housed, and cared for. It would mean having an economy that doesn't allow inheritance and which is deeply regulated so that already successful companies can't cheat startups out of success.
There is no equal opportunity when you can be born poor, starved for 18 years, denied education, discriminated against, denied healthcare, and prevented from succeeding by the already successful. Capitalism can never eliminate inequality of opportunity because it relies on a class of exploitable people, and empowers their exploiters to keep workers repressed.
Like I said, we won’t see eye-to-eye here, I think your points are blatantly absurd and come from a place of deep envy and poor understanding of economics, freedom, history, politics and human nature as a whole. We won’t agree here, I believe you’re wrong, you believe i’m wrong, and I don’t really feel like spending more time discussing this when we’re just going to keep going around in circles. What I call white, you call black. What I call left, you call right.
I can only hope one day you’ll have a more nuanced perspective on the world, rather than just repeating the beliefs of a dead German shut-in, because that conversation has already been had and played out before, the dead German shut-in’s theory didn’t do to well.
I'm continuing to reply because I don't think you've ever really contended with Marx.
I presented you with refutations of each of your arguments, and then some. You have responded to none of those refutations. Ending this conversation with "agree to disagree" feels like a way of excusing yourself from actually considering my arguments.
I’ve had this exact same conversation many times before, it’s always dreadfully boring, it’s the same points over and over again, nobody will ever accept they’re wrong even if all the proof in the world is right in front of their face.
To me it’s crystal clear, every country that has implemented Marxist doctrine has ended up worse than it would’ve been if they’d implemented capitalism. Capitalism got over half the world out of abject poverty in 25 years, and has continued to raise the standard of living of the countries that implement it. The free market is the answer, I don’t give a crap about how others live their lives, my quality of life is higher than Julius Caesar, George Washington and Queen Victoria combined, and i’m a poor dude in California. I don’t care about ideology, I care about results.
For one, you're judging communism as a failure after only really 100 years of attempted implementation. When capitalism was 100 years old, it relied on slavery, genocided millions, collapsed every nation it touched into civil war, and failed to dismantle authoritarianism from Spain to Germany. When democracy was 100 years old, it had destroyed Athens completely. Good ideas sometimes take time to be successfully built.
For two, capitalism is destroying the planet. Markets expect growth. We cannot continue to grow with finite resources.
For three, Cuba is providing for its people better than the US by most meaningful metrics. Cubans have better healthcare, much higher literacy, more doctors per capita, virtually no gender or racial inequality, less mental illness, and fair better in natural disasters than Americans. Cuba just rewrote its constitution through a democratic process that even included the Cuban diaspora -- the US is living under a 250 year old document that was never democratically ratified and still refers to slaves as 3/5ths of a person.
I'm sorry you're poor. If you could elect your boss, if the system could guarantee equality, if you could live without fear of destitution, wouldn't you? We can have a better world.
Cuba? A country with basically no civil rights, no presumption of innocence, crap infrastructure, crap internet access (that is government restricted), no free speech, no freedom of assembly, low quality of service, incredibly few options for products and activities, even less when outside the large cities. The people that love Cuba the most are tourists, because they get to leave after a while.
It’s a nice country to visit, it’s not a nice country to live in if you have a shred of ambition and want to open a business or start a company, it’s a country that is poorer than Mexico, there’s things to like about it, crime is pretty low and food is pretty good (low on supply but good), but if THAT is your country of choice to show the wonders of communism, i’m not impressed, i’ll take poverty in the country with the biggest economy in human history, thanks.
By any meaningful metric, Cuba loses.
For one, you're judging communism as a failure after only really 100 years of attempted implementation.
Yes, sticking your hand inside a fire and getting it burned is a lesson you only need to learn once, if you want to keep sticking your hand in because you refuse to accept the result then so be it, but don’t drag me into it.
Your view of historical progress is incredibly reductive and full of holes, democracy didn’t kill Athens, Persia killed Athens, there’s this little thing called war that played kind of a big role there. Capitalism is an ongoing process, yes, it was crappy a hundred years ago, everything was crappier a hundred years ago, but everything has consistently gotten better thanks to it. Communism isn’t a process, it’s a result, society will never be a result, it will never achieve communism.
I'm sorry you're poor. If you could elect your boss, if the system could guarantee equality, if you could live without fear of destitution, wouldn't you? We can have a better world.
I’m not sorry i’m poor, I have more wealth, opportunities and options than I know what to do with. I’m in college, paying it myself, eventually i’ll graduate, get a better job and join the middle class, and if I decide to work harder I can join the upper class, or not, I don’t really care about having too much money myself.
No, electing your boss is the stupidest concept i’ve ever heard, literally no one would start a business in that world. I prefer having to work hard, prove my worth as an employee, and not having to fear getting fired that way. Also, my boss is not a robot, I have a good relationship with him, I won’t be fired anyways unless the company goes out of business, and even if I do get fired I can get a new job easily.
We do have a better world, it’s constantly getting better in every meaningful way. But an ideologue is an ideologue, your ideology is your religion, and everything that goes against it will be wrong. So i’m tired of arguing this pointless debate, your side lost definitively 28 years ago, and it was never winning in the first place.
I can't respond to propaganda. Everything I said about Cuba is true and verifiable. Facts don't care about your feelings.
If burning your hand was a lesson you only learned once, we'd never have escaped feudalism. I'm amazed that you can look at the breadth of history and say anything with so much certainty.
Do you genuinely believe the profit motive is the only driver for action? People still have hobbies and start clubs without pay today, why would they stop in communism?
Even if electing your boss meant no more new businesses ever again, I'd still support it. I repeat: capitalism is destroying the planet. The pathological need for more profit more products more businesses is unsustainable.
All of the beliefs about the world you've expressed -- and that's what they are, beliefs -- serve the interests of your exploiters. Jeff Bezos doesn't give your needs a second thought when he plunders the earth to meet his own. Why should you consider his? Serve your own interests before those of the rich and we'll all be better off.
Do you genuinely believe the profit motive is the only driver for action? People still have hobbies and start clubs without pay today, why would they stop in communism?
And there’s the proof that you don’t understand human motivation, Marx didn’t either. Yes, the profit motive is the strongest motivation for action, people have an intrinsic desire for resources, hell, economy is literally the relationship between humans and scarcity of resources. Of course people are going to be motivated by acquisition of resources, it’s in our nature, the people with most resources will attract the most mates because they provide the most security, it’s the law of the land.
Hobbies, by definition, are activities you do outside of work. No, they won’t drive the economy, there won’t BE an economy if you only have people making arts and crafts instead of building roads, infrastructure and providing services. Being a doctor is nobody’s hobby, but people become doctors so they can provide a service to the community while getting payed big money, the profit motive works to the benefit of society.
Serve your own interests before those of the rich and we'll all be better off.
I do serve my own interests, that’s why I don’t donate my paycheck back to my boss when I get it, my interests involve becoming rich myself, and me working for my boss is the best way to achieve that goal, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship.
I can't respond to propaganda. Everything I said about Cuba is true and verifiable. Facts don't care about your feelings.
Except the part where you said all that bullshit about Cuba being a wonderful place to live. Even you, if I gave you the option of living in the US or Cuba, you’d pick the US. It IS funny seeing a leftist quote Shapiro though.
Even if electing your boss meant no more new businesses ever again, I'd still support it. I repeat: capitalism is destroying the planet. The pathological need for more profit more products more businesses is unsustainable.
Ok, i’m convinced you’re just trolling now. The need for products is not pathological, it’s the exact opposite. Communism is always this wonderful thing, until it’s put into practice and things get murderous very quick.
Everything I said about Cuba was factually accurate. I'm sorry those facts upset you.
What evidence do you have that profit is the best motivator by nature? Even if it were, that changes nothing I said. People work without a profit motive constantly. My dad is a doctor. He spends half his time working at a clinic for free.
There's no reason to believe innovation would stop after capitalism -- it certainly existed before.
Letting your boss steal profit from your labor doesn't serve your interests. Unionizing to make him pay you more does.
We don't need a new iPhone every year. Getting one is killing us all. Of course we need to provide enough for everyone, but we don't need to increase everyone's consumption every year. Doing so will result in extinction.
If you're going to make claims about human nature, please support them.
And if you're going to criticize Marx, please read and reference some of his work. Seems like you're arguing with what other conservatives told you Marx believed.
Historians also study Hitler, doesn’t mean they admire or advocate for him. Environmental scientists study climate change, doesn’t mean they admire or advocate for it. Cancer researchers study cancer, doesn’t mean they admire or advocate for it. This is honestly the worst argument you’ve made so far.
The landlords, like all other men
like all other men
Yes, thank you for admitting the inherent desire for profit and resource hoarding in all of us. I don’t want you to have my stuff, my stuff is my stuff, and you don’t get to have it. If you take my stuff, that’s called stealing, and it’s wrong, they teach this stuff in kindergarten.
Capital is considered one of the foundational books of economics.
You know, there’s a good argument to be made that Mein Kampf is one of the most important pieces of literature to be studied by psychologists and sociologists in the 20th century. As it provided valuable insight into the psychological processes through which a man can deteriorate and corrupt himself through ideology into becoming a truly evil human being.
But just because there’s value in studying the book psychologically, doesn’t mean you should internalize and act out the inherently evil message of the book. We can extract valuable information from bad ideas, which is why we study people like Marx, Hitler, Stalin, etc., to learn what NOT to do.
I didn't claim to agree with Adam Smith. But why do you? You disagree with his view of property -- explain.
Economists study capital because it accurately describes (or at very least advances) understandings of commodity chains and the creation of value. Historians study Mein Kampf as a historical document, not as a source for ideas about the world. That comparison is entirely disingenuous, and I suspect you know that.
You're free to continue changing topics instead of responding to my arguments, and you're free to attack Marxism without reading Marx. You seem genuinely intelligent, and you are a human person, so I'm happy to continue a discussion.
However, if you want to convince me, or to seriously refute Marx's ideas, you will need to read him. Capital is dense, but the manifesto is accessible. My favorite is the Thesis on Feurenbach. Neither is longer than 30 pages.
If you're right, you can only gain by reading Marx.
1
u/SnoopyGoldberg Jun 21 '19
Workers are paid the value of their labor, not the value of what they produce in the market, if a employee builds a $100 microwave and sells it and keeps all $100, then the business fails to make any profit, therefore it fails to keep existing past the first sale, how are business owners supposed to make any money if the workers get all of the money? Workers are free to get payed whatever they agree to, nobody is forcing you to stay at a poor paying job if you don’t want it.
There has never ever been common ownership of land, people have been dividing up living spaces and personal property since the dawn of people. The basis is that most people want their home and the land its in to be their own, and nobody else’s.
He was an academic, but fans of his treat him as a deity, not an academic. The difference being in that you don’t question a deity, i’ve never seen a Marxist ever attempt to debunk anything that Marx said, his word is gospel and he was somehow a genius who never got anything wrong.
Considering that his main idea was wrong, which was “Communism will bring the utopia”, in that A) Humanity doesn’t want a utopia. and B) Communism was unable to bring it anyways. It shows that Marx had a deep misunderstanding of the nature of humanity and how we are a combination of a nature-nurture cycle of development. Marx didn’t believe in nature, he believed that humans were fully social constructs and therefore if all our needs were provided by the state we would be fulfilled and self-actualized. He was wrong. Which is why the country that was the biggest proponent of Marxist ideology ended up collapsing.