I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you. In my rudimentary understanding of economics, I came to understand that given the incentive-driven nature of humans, people will always take the path of least resistance and max profit. With a collective economy, the system turns society into parasites, and corruption is institutionalized, but in a free-market economy, the incentive is to create wealth, but the onus is on government to enforce the laws of free and fair exchange, and corporatism is the mirror image of institutionalized corruption on the capitalist side.
Sasha - I suspect that Marx easily could have looked to the French revolution and the free market practices, and the black markets that arose after they were enacted, to get a sense of what he wanted. The governments on again, off again flirtation with free markets, poverty, price controls, free markets, price controls, etc would have given him a wealth of ability to draw upon from what it did to the price of bread.
As far as Capitalism and it's definition - my working definition is one that I'm fairly certain both capitalists and Marxists would agree upon.
The owner of the property gets to do whatever he wants with it, and is entitled to the main portion of the profits derived therefrom, due to his ownership.
Now, I find this simple, workable, and barbaric. It's taking of the excess wealth from the labor, as we're seeing today in our modern history. As far as I can tell, the moral wage owed to the laborer is the value of the work done, minus the cost of the capital, minus a small amount for the ownership of the capital.
But, back to the ownership of capital being able to do whatever they want, morally. This is also breaking with all history of common law. You see this in the current rage against squatter rights, which I find absurd. Houses are made to be lived in - if someone is so negligent as to not be able to keep someone from living in their property for years, yes, they should lose their property. Now, we should properly enforce the trespass laws, unlike the Marxist way they're being done currently to tear apart society and encourage a proletariat uprising. But, it is purely a Capitalist idea that someone can do whatever they want with their property and not have any consequences - we just haven't gotten around to changing to old common law hold over from pre-capitalist eras yet.
But, I would hold, if you apply this thinking to any property owned or contract written, that's a capitalist mindset.
Socialism is indeed a product of the French Revolution. Karl Marx himself not only studied the writings of the French revolutionaries and married their economic theory to Hegelian philosophy, but he personally met Pierre Joseph Proudhon, who had some interesting things to say about the concept of property. The thing is that Proudhon's saying that "property is theft" gets taken out of context a lot, since feudalism and chattel slavery both still existed in his day, and this is where the concepts of "self-ownership" and "ownership of one's labour" need to enter the conversation. Per the STV, if the worker owns his labour, then he can withhold it from a potential employer who doesn't value that labour as much as he does. If enough businesses exist, then they each have an incentive to offer higher wages to workers as well as lower prices to clients, otherwise their business fails. Monopolies, on the other hand, have no such incentive.
As far as "doing whatever you want with your property," I would make the case that no, even in a truly free market, you can't do just anything. I'll get into this in my next article, but the gist is that universal ethics such as the NAP can constrain "total economic freedom" to prevent abuses such as slavery or pollution. Capitalism, according to its socialist definition, is a system that maximises profit for the owner of capital, ethics be damned. A free market, whether you call it capitalism or not, shouldn't do that for the reasons I just mentioned. As far as squatter's rights are concerned, I agree with everything you said, there is simply the question of how we determine whether or not a property has actually been abandoned. Common law might actually have a solution there, so I wouldn't throw it out just yet.
The part that people forget about with holding labor though, is that if a worker with holds labor he doesn't get paid. Thus, he goes hungry, doesn't pay bills, and his family is destitute. Also, free market theory takes as a given the ability of workers to move to jobs, as well as capitalists to export jobs. While there are historically some protectionist policies that get put in place, these go against the free market theories themselves, and always are temporary. Thus, while you can claim that "f enough businesses exist, then they each have an incentive to offer higher wages to workers as well as lower prices to clients, otherwise their business fails" - only the second part ever holds true. And, as we saw with Covid, the second falls by the wayside any time the populace has inflation expectations and businesses think they can get away with price raising, and keeping it there.
So, I'm not convinced that free markets serve anyone other than the capitalists - those that hold capital and can get the main part of the profits there from.
And again, as far as common law, a study of the history of common law will show a subversion of it and destruction of it ever since Capitalism, as per my definition above where the common man believes that someone can do with their property whatever they want. The populace simply had unprincipled moral objections to specific things due to traditions and customs, which have changed over time, and we see them changing now - squatters rights being the current example.
> But, back to the ownership of capital being able to do whatever they want, morally. This is also breaking with all history of common law. You see this in the current rage against squatter rights, which I find absurd. Houses are made to be lived in - if someone is so negligent as to not be able to keep someone from living in their property for years, yes, they should lose their property.
See "The Usufruct Concept" (May 08, 2021) by Martin Goldberg
> In the course of compiling a section of the new socialism book focused on “conservative realism,” I came across a term which was uncharacteristically unique: usufruct. My initial reaction upon seeing it could be summed up as skeptical; I actually figured it was nothing more than a typo, albeit without the friendly red lines of MS Word’s liberal dictatorship. Closer investigation revealed that it refers to a very special idea: the relative status of private property.
> A lack of appreciation for different models does not mean they magically cease to exist
Yes. His understanding, as laid out there, is the barebones of what I'm getting at. The idea that things should be managed and used for their ends by people of virtue is a alien idea in the US, and the Powers the Be do all they can to poison our minds against it being any other way. They literally do everything they can to push us into mindsets where we wouldn't have it any other way
Very good explanation. Production is how we prosper and are able to pursue our happiness. Capital (savings) is how we are able create the tools to enable production and thus all the things that make our lives easier. I think Capitalism is amoral, it can be practiced for good or ill. I like free-enterprise. And it works best in a virtuous society.
Free markets are definitely superior to centrally-planned economies. Even as flawed as the current neoliberal mixed market may be, I'll take that over a command economy any day. However, the whole point of this article wasn't to say which system is better, but to point out the key flaws of that tired old mantra "capitalism has failed."
I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you. In my rudimentary understanding of economics, I came to understand that given the incentive-driven nature of humans, people will always take the path of least resistance and max profit. With a collective economy, the system turns society into parasites, and corruption is institutionalized, but in a free-market economy, the incentive is to create wealth, but the onus is on government to enforce the laws of free and fair exchange, and corporatism is the mirror image of institutionalized corruption on the capitalist side.
Sasha - I suspect that Marx easily could have looked to the French revolution and the free market practices, and the black markets that arose after they were enacted, to get a sense of what he wanted. The governments on again, off again flirtation with free markets, poverty, price controls, free markets, price controls, etc would have given him a wealth of ability to draw upon from what it did to the price of bread.
As far as Capitalism and it's definition - my working definition is one that I'm fairly certain both capitalists and Marxists would agree upon.
The owner of the property gets to do whatever he wants with it, and is entitled to the main portion of the profits derived therefrom, due to his ownership.
Now, I find this simple, workable, and barbaric. It's taking of the excess wealth from the labor, as we're seeing today in our modern history. As far as I can tell, the moral wage owed to the laborer is the value of the work done, minus the cost of the capital, minus a small amount for the ownership of the capital.
But, back to the ownership of capital being able to do whatever they want, morally. This is also breaking with all history of common law. You see this in the current rage against squatter rights, which I find absurd. Houses are made to be lived in - if someone is so negligent as to not be able to keep someone from living in their property for years, yes, they should lose their property. Now, we should properly enforce the trespass laws, unlike the Marxist way they're being done currently to tear apart society and encourage a proletariat uprising. But, it is purely a Capitalist idea that someone can do whatever they want with their property and not have any consequences - we just haven't gotten around to changing to old common law hold over from pre-capitalist eras yet.
But, I would hold, if you apply this thinking to any property owned or contract written, that's a capitalist mindset.
Thoughts?
Socialism is indeed a product of the French Revolution. Karl Marx himself not only studied the writings of the French revolutionaries and married their economic theory to Hegelian philosophy, but he personally met Pierre Joseph Proudhon, who had some interesting things to say about the concept of property. The thing is that Proudhon's saying that "property is theft" gets taken out of context a lot, since feudalism and chattel slavery both still existed in his day, and this is where the concepts of "self-ownership" and "ownership of one's labour" need to enter the conversation. Per the STV, if the worker owns his labour, then he can withhold it from a potential employer who doesn't value that labour as much as he does. If enough businesses exist, then they each have an incentive to offer higher wages to workers as well as lower prices to clients, otherwise their business fails. Monopolies, on the other hand, have no such incentive.
As far as "doing whatever you want with your property," I would make the case that no, even in a truly free market, you can't do just anything. I'll get into this in my next article, but the gist is that universal ethics such as the NAP can constrain "total economic freedom" to prevent abuses such as slavery or pollution. Capitalism, according to its socialist definition, is a system that maximises profit for the owner of capital, ethics be damned. A free market, whether you call it capitalism or not, shouldn't do that for the reasons I just mentioned. As far as squatter's rights are concerned, I agree with everything you said, there is simply the question of how we determine whether or not a property has actually been abandoned. Common law might actually have a solution there, so I wouldn't throw it out just yet.
Sasha,
The part that people forget about with holding labor though, is that if a worker with holds labor he doesn't get paid. Thus, he goes hungry, doesn't pay bills, and his family is destitute. Also, free market theory takes as a given the ability of workers to move to jobs, as well as capitalists to export jobs. While there are historically some protectionist policies that get put in place, these go against the free market theories themselves, and always are temporary. Thus, while you can claim that "f enough businesses exist, then they each have an incentive to offer higher wages to workers as well as lower prices to clients, otherwise their business fails" - only the second part ever holds true. And, as we saw with Covid, the second falls by the wayside any time the populace has inflation expectations and businesses think they can get away with price raising, and keeping it there.
So, I'm not convinced that free markets serve anyone other than the capitalists - those that hold capital and can get the main part of the profits there from.
And again, as far as common law, a study of the history of common law will show a subversion of it and destruction of it ever since Capitalism, as per my definition above where the common man believes that someone can do with their property whatever they want. The populace simply had unprincipled moral objections to specific things due to traditions and customs, which have changed over time, and we see them changing now - squatters rights being the current example.
> But, back to the ownership of capital being able to do whatever they want, morally. This is also breaking with all history of common law. You see this in the current rage against squatter rights, which I find absurd. Houses are made to be lived in - if someone is so negligent as to not be able to keep someone from living in their property for years, yes, they should lose their property.
See "The Usufruct Concept" (May 08, 2021) by Martin Goldberg
@ https://martingoldberg.net/2021/05/08/the-usufruct-concept/
> In the course of compiling a section of the new socialism book focused on “conservative realism,” I came across a term which was uncharacteristically unique: usufruct. My initial reaction upon seeing it could be summed up as skeptical; I actually figured it was nothing more than a typo, albeit without the friendly red lines of MS Word’s liberal dictatorship. Closer investigation revealed that it refers to a very special idea: the relative status of private property.
> A lack of appreciation for different models does not mean they magically cease to exist
The whole thing is only 6 paragraphs long.
Yes. His understanding, as laid out there, is the barebones of what I'm getting at. The idea that things should be managed and used for their ends by people of virtue is a alien idea in the US, and the Powers the Be do all they can to poison our minds against it being any other way. They literally do everything they can to push us into mindsets where we wouldn't have it any other way
Sasha,
Very good explanation. Production is how we prosper and are able to pursue our happiness. Capital (savings) is how we are able create the tools to enable production and thus all the things that make our lives easier. I think Capitalism is amoral, it can be practiced for good or ill. I like free-enterprise. And it works best in a virtuous society.
Free markets are definitely superior to centrally-planned economies. Even as flawed as the current neoliberal mixed market may be, I'll take that over a command economy any day. However, the whole point of this article wasn't to say which system is better, but to point out the key flaws of that tired old mantra "capitalism has failed."
Oh, The Powers That Be ™ have definitely poisoned our minds vis-à-vis property ownership.
Just not in a way beneficial to individual property owners.
For example, see
• https://homeowners.substack.com/p/boundaries-of-hoa-authority
and
• https://ironycurtain.substack.com/p/forbidden-curtains