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Top-level
@Radical_EgoCom We *could* ensure equal shares of the means of consumption, but that would also eliminate the ability of the market to allocate scarce forms of labor! :D I leave it to you to propose an alternative method, but I'm okay with stipulating "a magic fairy does it" for the purposes of this thought experiment. Investors *might* have a disproportionate influence at a single firm, if they decide to put all of eggs in one basket. But since everybody has equal wealth... 14 comments
@DrDanMarshall 1. **Equal shares of the means of consumption**: Ensuring equal access to resources doesn't necessarily mean distributing them equally; it means making them collectively owned and managed. 2. **Market allocation of labor**: Markets, as I see it, perpetuate inequalities and exploitation. Instead, I propose decentralized planning and/or participatory democracy to organize production and distribution based on need rather than profit. @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom On point three, if a mutual aid society invests in a cooperative workshop, what say, if any, should that give the mutual aid society in the internal decision of the workshop? I'm basing the 60/40 split on what Piketty says about how the share of national income gets split between capital and labor, btw. Ain't no reason capitalists should get 100% of the say, but it is their resources, so... @Radical_EgoCom I was basing unequal shares of the means of consumption on something Marx said in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. Was testing to see if you would *also* be okay with it, guess not :D How exactly to allocate scarce forms of labor, even within a single household, seems like a Non-Trivial Problem which I really don't want to go into right now. Is it okay if I chalk it up to magical fairies for the time being? @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom It seems to me that if a form of labor is scarce, then there's a reason for it. Can you give examples of some scarce forms of labor that would potentially be underserved? @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom When I look it up, it sounds like you're possibly describing certain forms of skilled labor, so are we worried about not incentivizing enough people to occupy those roles? If so, then I think you may be overestimating the size of demand in a non-capitalist framework, which is understandable given how we currently treat skilled labor. @nonehitwonder @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom @Oddel @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom I suspect that if a large enough number of people want to organize a festival, that there will be people willing to do the work to make it successful, including the task you just described. If not, then maybe there shouldn't be a festival. We clean up our messes; isn't that a basic value we teach to children? I think a lot of these scenarios are still taking place in a hypothetical world still running at a scale driven by profit motive. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom Let's back up a bit and talk theory before we get to concrete cases. Are you familiar with the labor theory of value, the marginal utility theory of value, the differences between them? @DrDanMarshall @Radical_EgoCom I am. Please continue with an example of some scarce forms of labor that would potentially be underserved in an Anarcho-Communist system as you currently understand it. @nonehitwonder @Radical_EgoCom Now that questions of religion and insults have been addressed... I do not claim to understand anarcho-communism, despite being a ways into the *second* volume of An Anarchist FAQ . So I cannot do what you ask. What I can do is construct a list of desiderata that it would be good for *any* replacement for capitalism to fulfill, and you two could tell me if you think your proposal would do that. Do you want me to do that? |
Gregory's Server
@Radical_EgoCom the investors would have the same power over society as a whole as the workers themselves. (And the investors would also *be* workers, either at the same firm or a different one.)