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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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They took more than was fair, so it wouldn't be fair.
Group ownership of a resource isn't in conflict with controlling the resource, or having laws and practices to determine how it's used.
Kinda like how we all own Yellowstone park, but no one is free to bottle and carry off all the water from old faithful.
So do you think it's fair for a group of people to raid a farm and pick what they haven't contributed to growing as long as they take just enough to feed themselves, piggybacking off the work of the farmer? Why should the farmer agree to this?
Edit: rewrote the question to satisfy people who think asking questions about is somehow combative.
The capitalism is strong with this one...
Do you have anything to contribute? I'm trying to have an actual discussion about policy.
I think the profit incentive is important in maximising yield, do you have anything to add to this as to why I may be wrong? Or are you just going to signal me as an other so that others just switch off and get defensive.
I think it's kind of ironic that some claim to want the world to see things from their point of view but then immediately attack those who question their views or try to understand. This just suggests to me you're more about signalling to your in group than growth in ideas and discussion.
What's to discuss? We live in a society that you're describing and it's awful for most people. You defeated yourself.
There is a lot to discuss. I'm discussing about why I think communal style living/economics don't scale well. You think it does, there are reasons we both have our opinions and maybe we could actually learn from each other rather than you viewing me as someone to be defeated.
You're wrong though. You're saying the way it isn't can't work while living the way you're describing and it not working. No discussion is needed.
You need to define what you mean by not working.
Of course discussion is needed. How else do you expand your mind and thoughts without discussing things? I don't take your views as being inherently true in much the same way you don't take mine, that's healthy and normal.
Inequality, poverty, starvation, suffering, war... C'mon, man. These are issues that don't need to exist, but do so in order to keep certain people in power. It's all part of the machine.
You don't need to discuss whether the sky appears blue because we know how sunlight interacts with our atmosphere. The same is true for this issue.
I would argue the primary cause of all of these problems is that we live in a world of finite resources. I think all of those things would still be problems under any political system we tried to implement. If there was plenty of resources for everyone we would just multiply until that wasn't the case any more.
I reject the notion that we could rid the world of these things, the entirety of human history provides empirical evidence that backs me up on this. I think it's fantastical to think we could rid the world of these things, all we can do is try to reduce the impact as best we can in the limited ways that we can as individuals and as a society.
We produce more than enough food to feed everyone. Even if you say something like logistics is an issue, we could still feed everyone in the developed nations at least, but we don't. That's a choice.
Climate change is much more of a practical issue than starvation and poverty. We already have solutions for starvation as I said.
We don't have solutions for starvation at all on a global scale and we do try to feed everyone in developed nations that's why countries have welfare. I agree the welfare safety net should be stronger generally, but I don't think people starving to death is a widespread issue in developed nations. The homeless are much more likely to die due to lack of shelter or drug issues.
We have enough food and we have a global shipping industry that is very efficient. So why can't we feed everyone again?
It's clearly because we haven't had a socialist revolution. That would sort all logistical and societal problems out forever.
That's what I am trying to tell you. There are no logistical problems we don't have the capacity to solve, it's simply not profitable to do so. Feeding the poor who can't pay you isn't profitable so it doesn't get done.
There is thinking there are no logistics problems we can't solve and then there is actually solving them taking into account real geopolitics.
So you admit then that the problems are political, not practical in nature?
Geopolitical, as in a combination of political, cultural and geographical.
I don't think noting the problem is partially political is enough to say it's easily solveable.
I think we're coming at this from a different philosophy, you see politics as something that is easily changeable, I see it as a product of environmental and cultural positions. Changing the entire world's politics is a nigh on impossible task.
You see geopolitics as a variable, I see it as a constraint on the actual variables.
What's finite about seeds?
Yeah a lot of your responses are basically "I'm going to disregard this because it doesn't fit my view."
Yes because seeds are the only resource people fight over...
How old are you?
You're arguing with a child, or maybe they're an adult with a childlike intellect.
"raid" implies non-consent, so no, that's not fair.
It's also not fair for a farmer to find some prime farmland, build a fence around it and say no one else can touch it, and then keep everything it produces to himself, and then call everyone who wasn't able to claim good land but still wants to eat a thief.
Why does he get rights to the land just because he said it's his? That leads to feudalism.
"Civilization" is about finding balance to what's fair.
It's unfair for people to want something for nothing.
That extends to people wanting food, and also to the farmer claiming land.
Some arrangement where the farmer gets to keep his crops, but can't exclude people from also working the land, with some sort of communal oversight to make sure the land is being worked well seems fair.
I agree the word raid was the wrong word to use there
They don't just find land and build a fence around it though in the modern era, that's extremely reductionist. They pay for the privilege to work the land. Society as a whole agree the land is his because of this.
How do you parse how much belongs to the farmer and how much belongs to the community? I would argue we already have an arrangement like that. Who oversees this and what do they get out of if?
Most importantly where is the incentive to maximise yield if people are just growing personal crops? What if you want to eat but don't want to work the land?
You're moving your goalposts at this point. The original point was literally about people claiming land in a primitive extraction system.
In the modern era people also don't just walk up and demand bushels of barely from farmers, so ignoring the entirety of a comment to reply with how changing the context makes it irrelevant is just a bad faith discussion tactic.
Yes, a modern economic system is hard to develop inside of a single comment. I hope we can at least agree that feudalism is bad, despite it respecting the Lord's property rights, and also that no one is okay with letting the Saxon horde take all our grain.
And, to jump straight to your questions about the modern day: I would propose a system where the vast majority of the engines of production would be worker owned, allowing them to select their own management as primary shareholders.
By merit of existing in society people would be entitled to food, shelter, medicine, a means to better themselves, and the basic dignites of modern life (clothing, the ability to have children, the ability to do more than sit in the floor and stare at the wall).
Beyond what's needed to provide these basics, the excess value produced would be given to those that produced it in the form of "currency", which can be exchanged for "goods" and "services".
I'm aware that's not how the modern world works,but evidently there are many in this thread who thinks that's how it should work. I don't think I'm engaging in bad faith whatsoever, I'm trying to actively address your points.
Why should workers own the means of production? What is incentivising them to even create the means of production without profit motive?
If workers own the means of production, what would stop them from deciding they'd rather sell said means to a capitalist for a profit?
Does every worker have an equal ownership? Does someone who has been working there for 10 years have the same rights as someone who is new? How do you decide this and who is overseeing this? What mechanisms exist to stop the primary shareholders from just assuming control and deciding to pay wages to people instead?
Who said anything about getting rid of profits? I directly mentioned that they would go to the workers. That's what would give them incentive to do more than just live.
People go to work, people get paid, people spend their money on luxury goods like they do today. People are also entitled to the basics of life if they fall on hard times.
The capitalist can't buy the means of production, because that's not how ownership would work. He could get a job there, pay everyone to quit, and then as the only worker he would be entitled to everything that he made. Or he could convince the shareholders that he would be the best person to run the place, and become a worker that way.
Why should the Lord get to tell the serfs what to do, and take all their excess food just because he stabbed the old lord? Aren't you in favor of the farmers getting to keep the food that they grew, without having to share with freeloaders?
I have no idea how the specifics of compensation would work. There are different models taken by different worker owned businesses, so there's no single answer. Like with any business, the shareholders tend to elect a board to make most high level decisions, which includes ultimate responsibility for deciding compensation structure, which ownership levels for new workers would fall under.
This isn't talking Soviet communism. This is basic democratic socialism with a hint of a spite towards the investor class who makes their living taking excess value from people who actually do stuff.
But the crucial thing is, people are already allowed to form co-operatives, there is nothing stopping you doing it for example. But outside of a select few niche industries they are generally less efficient and get outcompeted by traditional top down companies.
Being less efficient and being outcompeted are not synonymous.
We live in a system that overtly rewards and encourages people to organize things such that they're rewarded for extracting excess value from workers and syphoning it to themselves and their investors.
Of course companies that do that are rewarded, because it's designed that way.
That doesn't make it more efficient, and it certainly doesn't make it right.
Also, you're failing to consider state owned enterprises, which is particularly popular in socialist democracies.
You've also entirely failed to explain why contributing money to an enterprise should entitle you to live off others work indefinitely.
Why does investment entitle people to live off said thing? That's because there are agreements between the parties involved. If I want to start a business and need seed money I willingly enter a contract with investors just as they willingly risk their investment capital.
Of course they are more efficient, nobody sets up co operatives. If they were a more efficient way of running a business more people would do it.
You have an ideological disagreement with private ownership is how im interpretting your stance unless im misunderstanding. However. The idea of these communal structures society wide has died long ago because it simply can't work inside the framework of how human beings are biologically wired. We are tribal primates, feudal hierarchical structures continue to be proven as inevitable despite all of our best efforts. Even with communism some of the earliest writings out of Russia one of the immediate concerns brought about by Russian revolutionaries was the concern that the class hierarchy in communism begins with the inception of the revolutionary class (those who are organizing and leading the revolution) and without fail thats what happened in every communist state. The revolutionaries took over and the first thing to happen is establishment of class hierarchy just like what happens in capitalist society. Collective agriculture in Russia and in China and in central america and in north korea lead to millions starved to death.
capitalism is a fucked up system. Rife with exploitation and amorality. But its also the system that has lifted the most people globally out of abject poverty than anything else in human history. It has raised life expectancies higher than ever before seen. It has lowered infant mortality by ridiculous levels. The number of people dying in war is lower than ever.
You have a government that in its constitution says right in the headline is "to provide for the general welfare" of its citizens. If you want to talk about more fair levels of distribution of essential resources then you utilize your government to negotiate buying food from the farmer and instituting a distribution mechanism for the people. Same reason why in my opinion I believe medicare needs to beable to negotiate with drug companies over prices. There needs to be a middle ground.
Yes, you have misinterpreted my position. I'm not opposed to private property. I love having stuff. Stuff is some of my favorite things to have, truth be told.
I'm opposed to hoarding, and I'm opposed to exploitation.
If the farmer wants to farm the land and sell the food, I'm all for that. If the land owner wants to have the farmer farm the land, then take all the money from the farmer selling it, keep most of it and pay the farmer just enough to get by, I think that instead the farmer should get that money.
When your contribution to the process is "I have stuff, so you should give me more", then I question why you're needed for the system to function.
Sounds like you're purposely twisting the person you're responding to's words to make them sound bad. It just ends up making you sound combative and doesnt further your arguement
Not really, I'm just trying to understand their position. It's not combative to ask pertinent questions.
Its not pertinent questions if you invent a scenario that the person you have questioned have not said they support. Do you think its fair to blame someone for something they did if a person put a loaded gun to their head and told them to do it? (See? My question has NOTHING to do with anything you've stated previously)
I invented a hypothetical scenario for a thought experiment yes. I don't think it's implausible as a scenario in a communal situation. If there is no private farmland property there is nothing to stop people just straight up taking things and abusing the goodwill of the farmer.
Except raiders by their VERY NATURE will raid regardless of whether the property is owned or not. Dude keeps up bringing up fairness as a key point to what he's saying, and you keep inventing INHERENTLY UNFAIR scenarios that dont apply to what the person you are responding to is saying. Fairness = those who contribute more get more, those who contribute less get less
I've already admitted the word raid was the incorrect one. I was just questioning the idea that farmers should produce food for no compensation and that anybody should be free to work their land.
Sounds like you aren't intelligent enough to understand this. This is why fascists attack schools first, they need people like you.
Instead of an ad hominem attack you could try and explain it better.
stealing food so you can survive is always justified