How does capitalism work?

Capitalism - the desire for personal gain.

I see plenty of reasons to save third world countries. They are, after all potential markets. The choice to make such investments would be taken by few, but that's the way it goes. Personal loss in the short term would be immense, but that is not to say that saving a country would be something that the person did not want.

You seem rather hypocritical is asserting that anarchists would not exploit a gift market system, while capitalists would immediately exploit workers at the first opportunity.

I do not consider the UK market to be either free or a success, and I do not believe that businesses are dependent on the state. I hold the idea of governments taking from some and giving to others to be abhorrent in the most part. It may, however, depend on law to maintain it.

You might be intereted to know that during the (largely anarchist) Spanish Revolution of 1936, peasants that didn't want to join collectives were given a plot of land and wished good luck - anarchism is diverse enough to include such 'individualist' sentiments.

The libertarian communist argument is that there is no 'work for yourself' except for isolated peasant farming without a division of labour or hunter-gathering. All production where there is a division of labour is social because it is premised upon (a) a society and (b) irreducible [/i]interdependence[/i] - for all illusions of 'individualism' we are dependent on others and thats no bad thing. Humans are social beings whatever its easy to believe living under a coercive antisocial system.

On this point, and this one;

it is worth reading some Marx if you're not convinced, either vol I of Capital, Value Price and Profit or Harry Cleaver's Reading Capital Politically

Thats the spirit, see you at the barricades then

EDIT:

so is your capitalism an article of faith or are you going to provide some evidential or theoretical dismissal of my argument that Capital needs the State?

yeah but this is gift exchange. if we expropriated him by force, put him to work in the bowels of libcom and forced his descendents to buy our arguments, then they'd be worth processing

I take on many viewpoints, but please bear with me because I do not understand. It's hard to understand what appears to be the assumption that anyone who runs a business has acquired it via the state, does not work and exploits others. I don't believe that, even though almost every business today is like that. I don't believe that I'd exploit workers, or that I'd want to come by a means of income via unfair means. If people with more liberal views were in business, then I believe that many of my opinions could hold.

I'm also finding hard to understand why the existence of any capitalist groups places pressure on people to join up. Is there not enough room for both systems, separated?

revol68, learn to punctuate.

I understand its all a lot to take in - its getting a bit like a chatroom in here

*keyboard smokes from overuse*

Competition kills liberal opinions. Nice guys finish last.

Theres also the issue of terminology, communists (of all persuasions) use 'exploitation' to mean the profits of property/stock, i.e. value is produced by labour but a portion of it is witheld from the labourer (surplus value) - its not important whether the boss is friendly, understanding and gives good pay and bonuses or a complete tyrant - the 'exploitation' is in the nature of the relationship, not the personality of the employer.

EDIT:

not in a General Suharto 'give a company to your mate' crony capitalism way, but historically speaking in terms of the birth of private property and its contemporary maintenence - state force (or the threat thereof) is needed to maintain the authority of owners which is otherwise based on nothing but a piece of paper saying 'its mine'. I think you're talking about entrepreneur capitalists who are a but different because they are workers of sorts as well as capitalists - they produce value and profit by expropriating the surplus value of their employees - which seems 'natural' insofar as the State enforces private property. The authority of bosses is backed by the violence of the State, as seen in strikes throughout history

he he you tell him!

If an argument has market value, then surely it's worth buying.

I concede that we are quite interdependent. The mere thought of this makes me cringe.

"You might be intereted to know that during the (largely anarchist) Spanish Revolution of 1936, peasants that didn't want to join collectives were given a plot of land and wished good luck - anarchism is diverse enough to include such 'individualist' sentiments."

I don't believe the peasants who had their own little plots of land depended on the state. I wonder how successful they were.

Anyway, in answer to the quoted comment... YES. This is exactly what I would like. Equal opportunity for people, the freedom to join together or to operate alone, the freedom to develop new ideas free of control, to have only what you create, or share with someone who shares equally.

Sadly, due to the natural degree of dependency between people they probably all died, but who knows. Cooperation and joint enterprise are different to the idea of giving things away, if only in attitude, since there is the possibility of trade.

Would you oppose wages if everyone in a company was paid equally?

Edit - Call me a grammar obsessive, but I'm less inclined to read, let alone respond to a post that is very difficult to read.

and i'm very uninclined to be nice to cretinous lil fuckers.

well they got betrayed by Stalinists and crushed by Fascists, but thats another story ...

Its on this point that libertarian commies/anarchists embrace mutual aid solidarity and co-operation - society exists, we depend on it for more than a meagre 'independent' existence, so we should make that society as free as possible - which embraces collective and individual freedom simultaneously.

again, libertarian communism (gift economy) vs mutualism (trade)

"And I'm very uninclined to be nice to cretinous little fuckers."

that wouldn't neccessarily be just - people contribute differently, have different needs etc. As Revol68 said earlier, its almost ludicrous to try and put a price on something as heterogeneous as human labour. And what about other firms - are their wages equal? If everybody is paid the same its still overlooks different needs, e.g. someones ill and needs expensive treatment.

A gift economy provides for (self-determined) needs, although I know you feel sick at the thought of interdependency

EDIT: Revol,

behave, damn it i'm a newbie too i shouldn't have to tell you off

While I feel more inclined to support mutualism, at a glance it seems as if 'market value', influenced by supply and demand, and 'personal value', which I use to describe how much someone needs the commodity, will still affect how much you get for what you have to give. This doesn't seem to escape capitalism, even if it might be considered a better alternative.

My concern over dependence doesn't lend me to a gift market, simply because I do not trust people to work as hard as me, and I couldn't honestly promise that I'd be able to work just as hard as some others. Givers have to set limits, because takers rarely do.

There's also the added factor that my standard of living won't necessarily get better before anyone else's in the world, no matter how hard I work.

Do you leave the taps on because you can and its virtually free? Do you go to the hospital when you don't need to because its free? If anything, marginalism (a capitalist theory of value) tells us people don't endlessly consume, we meet our needs and then do other things. The (potential) problem of demand exceeding supply is the main objection to a gift economy, possible solutions are:

> a (high) 'maximum consumption' allowance, preferable to a wage and raisable with community consent, to prevent someone taking so much everyone else goes without.

> negotiated plans via workers/consumers councils (a bit like Parecon or Anarcho-Syndicalism)

> It isn't actually a problem. Studies in game theory (Henrich et al) show that in 'dictator games' played with real cash, people from diverse cultures give away a big chunk to a stranger even with anonymity. People are social animals, Darwin therorised it, Kropotkin developed it and modern science appears to be confirming it (i'm enough of a scientist to know nothing's proven )

Again, different solutions could be tried in different communes and might suceed or fail differently due to different circumstances, resulting in a diverse choice of anarchisms not competing but coexistent.

Not neccessarily, theres all sorts of formal and informal ways to reward effort - i won't list them here there's already a bombardment of stuff to take in

Hi

If capitalism is so bad, why don’t people vote it out? Correct me if I’m wrong, but with their proposal-based democracy, couldn’t the Swiss do so if the fancy took them.

And no cranking the “socialism in one country” handle either.

Love

LR

I think this answers your first question - http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8702

Greed is inescapable, but the possible solutions are good. I'll be looking up some possible theories on heirachies in anarchist society though - after all, it seems that to have even a council takes you out of anarchism and into communism, and the dividing line isn't clear.

If those potential rewards are big, shiny, pointless medals or a load of kind words then I don't want them. I want an extra loaf of bread for my kids, or something along those lines. Either way, I can't help but ask for the direct link between effort and material reward, which a capitalist system could give.

Lazy Riser, if each decision is voted on by every person it's a democracy. Instead politicians are elected, so it's a republic, and those who depend on public opinion for their money (i.e. politicians) are unlikely to endanger their jobs by proposing such a risky idea.

thats why people just take what they want with license. Libertarian Communism means that distribution is controlled by assemblies and communes, where people put forward their needs and were obviously people can reject others people ludricous desires if they infringe upon others.

But your point about that artist prick is null, because any proper society wouldn't let someone get away with that, and infact companies like Coca Cola have done exactly the same as that prick on a much bigger scale, actually using all the water of a town in india.

The example of the artist was to show that people will do the seemingly unbelievable.

The ethical implications of living in a society where you are encouraged to take from your neighbour could be catastrophic. Whether you give today depends on sympathy and empathy for the recipient, but tomorrow, if you have to give and choose to take, then you may become concerned only with personal gain. What starts off as a noble idea might quickly descend into a free-for-all.

I had him in mind - wondered if you'd read that thread . the fact he's newsworthy and a one off proves my point. if someone wants to 'persuade' him to stop pissing water away during a drought I'd find it hard to complain.

if there's mandated recallable delegates its still anarchism, even anarcho-communism concepts do overlap and words badly symbolise that which we try to express - do you like house music? techno? tech house? funky house? funky techno? funky tech house? etc

slavery provides a direct link - you work, you get fed.

wage slavery provides a direct link, you work, you get fed and some fancy gadgets (in the '1st world').

anarchist communism provides a direct link, you participate in society and get to meet your needs.

A whole other debate, care to start a thread? Although I have a feeling it has something to do with sexual repression and the widespread belief that its capitalism or Stalinism. Did you see my (semi-serious) post here?

you like this theme observed human behaviour doesn't suggest this at all - mutual aid and co-operation flourish wherever coercion is displaced - have a look at the game theory stuff i cited and perhaps read the conclusion to Kropotkin's Mutual Aid (not a whole library!). Even if it did become a 'free for all', we could simply (a) boycott leachers, (b) on some kind of consumption credit/quota distinct from a wage, (c) on something like Parecon, (d) on mutualism, and still have improved things whilst forging new ideas in struggle and leaving lessons for future revolutionaries.

What if I want to do more than meet my needs. Learning of that which I do not depend on to live is doing more than meeting my needs. While this may be a 'hobby', with what may I acquire what I need to pursue my hobby? Should anyone be expected to create something to fulfill my desire, if I am too busy meeting the needs of other men to do it myself?

I suppose that the answer I'm waiting for is that I'm stuck until we all have enough time to do what we like. That would be fair enough. But if this is the case, then what about that which we already have? If I make something, then do I have to share it with everyone who wants to borrow it? Or am I just expected to spend all my time making copies of it for others, if they do not have the skill to do it themselves?

Joseph, is society today not an example of human nature? There are no shortage of people with convictions for theft, fraud and similar offenses. Hell, such people are even allowed to run countries.

There is a problem with the word 'needs' because it often has connotations of 'basic needs' - I use it in the Maslows Hierarchy sense for the whole lot through to 'self actualization'. Perhaps desire is a better word.

If you possess it and you made it yourself, I certainly don't see why its not yours - thats usufruct in action. You wouldn't be forced to make more for others (though you might enjoy doing so - crafts are fun - after all you made one for yourself). You could always share the design/expertise (make it open source so to speak), thus not needing to work for others in order for them to have what they want whilst enriching society and practicing mutual aid - what goes around comes around.

Hi

I doubt this is the problem under the Swiss propositional model.

Not so fast…

Democracy and questions of supply and demand are inextricably linked. Aren’t you making self-management and communism synonymous here?

Authoritarian conditioning and the irrational in politics. The time for a solid current to carry forward Brinton’s and Castoriadis’ work is long overdue.

Love

LR

Does the system not demand that I share all that I create, and that I may receive whatever I need that has been created by others?

And who defines what work is? What if I enjoy baking bread, and do it all day long? Do the people take whatever they think they need, in which case they may take all of it? Do I have to meet a quota, which others may set as high as they like?

True, rational people may stop that from happening, but who is to say there will be rational people in my commune? I won't be able to refuse them the bread myself, because they might evict me from the commune, and then I might die of thirst, and if I don't produce as much bread as their quota demands then I might suffer. I might pack up my flour and leave, but who is to say another commune would be better, or that they might want to take on a potential burden?

I'd say 'human nature' is largely socially constructed, i.e. a response to circumstances. What does seem the 'natural' base is that we've evolved a social instinct (Darwin), a propensity for mutual aid (Kropotkin) and even under today's atomising system that compels us to compete we still exhibit voluntary social behaviour (Henrich et al). If you've got a password for the Science (Journal) site or a nearby library the references at the bottom of this blog post are worth checking out too (I've sen a couple of them, the others look interesting).

On the matter of criminal antisocial behaviour, even the Met police basically agree with Marx and say capitalism (the one we have ) created crime:

reference

I think 'human nature's got a lot more potential than the behaviour we see in an atomised authoritarian society, and I'm being scientific and backing up my theory with journal references

Aloowed to run countries? It's a prerequisite.

the simple fact is that considering the brutal economic model we live in, of dog eat dog it's amazing just how nice people are to each other.

And sure wasn't the invasion of Iraq not just another gang stealing another crews turf?

Well lib communiists would say you freely give what you don't want rather than having to starve while people eat the produce of your labour. Lib communism is highly organised but horizontally, such behaviour would be in no-ones interest.

Irrationality can strike in any society ... stock market bubble/crashes anyone? At least it wouldn't be institutionalised. You might get laid off in a capitalist economy and die of thirst. I'd wager that happens more often than commune evictions, especially without another commune to take you in.

The key lies in finding organisational structures that promote solidarity and mutual aid, in much the same way bittorent p2p networks promote sharing (do you use these, i know you don't like breaching copyright?) - the more you upload the faster you download - but the sharing is social and unmediated, a gift economy. Directly democratic workers' councils, consumers' councils, neighbourhood assemblies are means of doing this, means which spring up spontaneously in struggles around the globe throughout history.

Whoah, hold on there - capitalism created all crime? That's not what the source says. It implies that crime reached a point where a police force was needed, that crime had escalated. 'Thou shalt not steal' preceded capitalism, in the form that is presently understood, by a long way. If there was cause for such a commandment then, there must have been crime. It's my opinion that theft is a product evolution rather than society. It's conceivable that one who may acquire something that is needed with less danger (excluding getting caught), less effort and in a shorter period of time, may be better adapted to survival. Risk taking is an instinct, because when the chips are down a risk can pay off.

no i didn't mean that, but the mass phenomenon we know today which you cited as evidence of human nature. 'thou shalt not steal' does precede capitalism but so do despotic tyrannies and alienation.

I'm no utopian, but nonetheless the replacement of capitalism with a social system based on mutual aid, co-operation and solidarity would drastically reduce it.

My broader points on human nature though are the references to Darwin, Kropotkin, Henrich et al and the journal articles. Theres growing volumes of evidence to support Darwin's 'social instinct', which undermines this machiavellian/utilitarian instinct you suggest:

Read the Henrich et al book, or at least the introduction/precis. The model of human behaviour of rational self-interest and cost-benefit analysis is not supported, and is in fact contradicted by volumes of experimental evidence. You have a passion for science, look at the experimental evidence and see if it supports your hypothesis. I think it supports mine.

What conclusions are drawn about those who do steal?